I am glad you are able to see through her manipulative tactics, for your son's sake, Gale. I wonder if there is a way to get them together that would benefit your son and alleviate her feelings of powerlessless? Such as a suggestion to her the next time you speak to her that she come to your town, pick up your son and spend the afternoon taking him to lunch and to a movie?

I think the more you stick to your guns about him going to the OM's house, will mean the sooner she gets off her [censored] and gets a job and a house. How do you think she is supporting herself?

p.s. does her dad know she is shacking up with an OM?

Her father died in 1982. I'm sure he knows, and if he could possibly communicate with her, I wish he would.

I do intend to stick to my guns, I just pray that the court doesn't step in and force me to do something that I believe is harmful to our son.

She is not supporting herself to the best of my knowledge. It sounds like all she has done is sit around OM's place doing nothing, and feeling sorry for herself. She tells me that she is dead inside, and doesn't know what to do. She doesn't want me telling her what to do, and I don't know what OM tells her. She has told me that she doesn't want to come back to our town, because of people talking about her. I don't know if anything is going to get her up and about. Of course the OM might tire of her just sitting there too. I still don't know what it is that he does for money. For all I know, he has not worked one day since she met him last april. But I am certain that they can get by on their love for each other.

**snort** no doubt! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Somehow I suspect that things are not well in affair land. Not only does OM have this woman, to whom he is in NO WAY committed, mooching off him, but he has to listen to her constant whining about her miserable lot in life and how much she misses her son! Not too romantic, huh?? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I too would like to hope that things are not going so well for the two of them. Some of the texts that she sent me over the last two weeks seem to indicate that she is feeling very lonely down there. This would lead me to believe that OM is not always there for her like she thought he would be.

I think that her fear of giving me another chance is still very strong, and she would rather sit in her familiar he*l than chance going back to what she has been living through with me. I don't know if I can convince her that I have had a true change of heart or not. I know that she doesn't trust me at all, but I have shown her time and again that I do care about her.

Haven't heard from her since she asked to take our son. I'm not sure if that is good or not, but oh well. My mom is very upset with her, and told me that she is going to give WW a call. I thought about it, and decided not to discourage her from this, because she has a right to do as she wishes. I hope that she doesn't make things worse, but I doubt that she can.

Gale, when you say she doesn't trust you, what exactly does that mean? Trust you to do what? Stay sober?

Also, you say that she moved out in the winter but met the OM in the spring. How do you know she met the OM AFTER she moved out and didn't move out BECAUSE OF him? What precipitated her move?

I don't see any issue with your mother calling her. What is she going to say?

Mom changed her mind about calling her. Said she got over her "angries", and decided that nothing would be gained by calling.

As far as trust. She doesn't trust me to stay sober. She doesn't trust me to protect her feelings and not "blow up" at her. She doesn't trust me not to hold a grudge, and make her pay for what she is doing. She doesn't trust that I will be anything other than what I have been these last nine years.

I have determined that there was yet another OM at the time she moved out. A man was coming into the store and talking to her alot. She insists that there was nothing going on, but to me it would qualify as an EA. At least one sided. I believe that this man wouldn't get involved because she was married, and that is why she moved out. Hoping that she could get closer to him. He got back together with his GF in Jan., and my WW was very very upset. I could be wrong though. It could have been this guy. I won't really know unless she decides to tell me. All of this is what I have pieced together. I could be totally wrong.

I just got the call to inform me that because of my selfishness, my WW had a terrible weekend. Since I flat out refused to let her be near our son this weekend, she went through he*l. Even though I never even got a chance to say no to her, it was all my fault that she didn't get to see or be with our son.

Shouldn't even have engaged her in conversation, but I had to tell her that she is pulling things out of her imagination and attributing them to me. She really hates me right now. Oh well, I wouldn't accept the blame.

She thinks I am trying to manipulate her. She says that my not letting our son go to OM's house is my way of trying to control her. I told her that I am trying to protect him from something that I believe is harmful to him. I said that she is teaching him a terrible, nasty lesson about good and bad. She hung up.

She always brings up my drinking. I told her that she is comparing apples and oranges. I said that I never tried to get our son to drink the beer. I never tried to take him out partying. I might have driven with him when I had a beer, but I challenged her to tell me when I had driven him after having anything more than ONE beer. She couldn't tell me, because I couldn't tell you either. I was guilty of drinking a beer one the way home from work while taking my son home from school. I was not drunk. This in no way says that what I did was right, but it isn't the same as trying to involve our child in her affair.

What you said was absolutely perfect. I like what you told her about the terrible lesson she would be teaching your son by taking him around her affair. Your drinking analogy was right on.

But will you do something the next time she throws your drinking up in your face? AGREE WITH HER if it is true. Tell her, you are darn right and I was one sickening individual. I am not that man anymore, but it grieves me that I acted so terribly. Show her some true remorse, Gale. You owe her an apology for your behavior, you really do. And I think it may disarm her and stop her from accusing you at every turn. Just throw your hands up and agree! So much easier than playing defense.

And if you do that, she might follow suit and start taking an honest look at her bad behavior.

What about my suggestion above that she come to town and spend the afternoon with him in town? What did you think of that?

I do believe that I have done this. I have agreed with her that I was in the wrong with my drinking. I just won't take the blame for things I didn't do. I will not let her get away with twisting history the way she wants to. I will agree with her as long as I am not fueling her fantasies. I have told her that I cannot apologize enough for the way I have acted and the things that I have done.

As for her following suit, I don't think she will let me see this for some time. If it helps her to take an honest look at herself though, that would be good.

I like the idea of her visiting for the day, but she doesn't. She wants to take him for the weekend, and she wants to take him there. I see it as her trying to control me, and force me to let our son get involved in her affair. She claims that she has no other options, and she is there because cercumstance has forced her to be there. She refuses to admit that she is there because she wants to be. I think that maybe this is what she believes, so I do my best to tell her I see it. I just keep telling her that it is within her power to do whatever it is that she wants to do. She "chooses" to sit idle, and do nothing. She then blames me, and everyone else for her decision.

I texted her last night after the call. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I felt it was the right thing to do. I said, "I will not own the concequences of your decisions. I will not be a victim of your selfishness. I will protect our son from this affair. I love you."

Well, I must have made her pretty mad the other night. She called me this evening and informed me that since we still do not have a legal agreement, she is going to pick up our son next week and take him wherever she wants to, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I am beside myself right now. I resign myself to just let her go, and she finds some way to come crashing into the forefront again. I just sent a note to my lawyer to see if there is any way we can prevent this, but I must admit that I am not too optomistic at this moment.

I don't know if I can get a court order, or if I can get one soon enough or not. I don't even know if it is possible.

I hung up the phone before I became too angry, because I could feel it boiling down inside. I'm sure that gave her a sense of victory. Hope she feels better now.

Call your lawyer, Gale, and see what you can do to move this along. yikes!

Gale,

Until our temporary court hearing (one she wishes she wouldn't have asked for now) and the Judge's decree excluding the OM from being around our children I had to deal with the same selfish arrogance on behalf of my EX WW. I tell you what I told her prior to the court order (warning this is probably a LB/DJ)" R, you do what you need or want to do in your selfish state, choose not to take our children's best interests to heart and please your own selfish desires but know this "I swear before God in heaven that I will beat you about the head with this in court should you choose to harm the children by having them around the OM". She didn't believe me so I showed her in court and the Judge wasn't all to happy that she saw fit to introduce a married OM to our children and she paid for it (and many other things she did) with losing custody of our 20 mo. old son to me. She now has to live with this forever. In short courts do not look favorably upon introducing new affair partners to children and your lawyer should be able to use her selfish, unstable and irrational behavior against her should you have a custody battle.

I just spoke with my lawyer, and he will send her lawyer a letter reinforcing my disapproval of her having our son around the OM. If she allows this to happen, it will work against her in court. I explained to him that things have changed. She appears to have taken up permanent residence with OM, and her desire is to take our son there as well. He said this will not be so easy for her to achieve with the courts.

I prayed about it alot last night. I asked for guidance and understanding about what to do. I fear for my son, and I don't want him hurt. I don't know why I feel so strongly that he will be hurt, but I do. It is hard for me to let him go into harm's way. I don't want him to think that I am letting him down. I do feel a little more peaceful about it. I feel that God will see to it that he comes to no harm.

I don't fully know what her plan is. Our son has a four day weekend, and I'm not sure if she intends to take him for that entire time or not. I cannot imaging that OM is going to vacate his house for four days. I also had planned on taking him trick or treating next thursday evening in town. I hope she doesn't mess that up. That wouldn't be very nice for him.

Gale, just remember that you are the only one here to protect him. YOU ARE ALL HE HAS! Right now, his mother is not stable and is not a good influence on him. So, unless she can prove to you that she won't drag him into her sleazy affair and take proper care of him, I wouldn't let her take him. Make her wait until the visitation agreement is finalized. If she protests, make HER explain to a judge that she wants to take your boy into her affair den.

So, don't wait to find out what HER plan is, tell her what YOUR PLAN will be. And your plan is to protect your son from her sleazy affair. Hang tough when it comes to your son!

This could be a fun week. I don't even want to call her and tell her that she cannot have him next weekend. I don't want to, because I fear that I will not be able to keep my cool when the verbal assault comes flying my way. I don't want to say anything that I will regret. I would prefer not to say anything to her at all.

I am still pretty angry with her about the funeral, and she just keeps getting deeper and deeper into her mess. She almost becomes violent when I tell her that I am protecting our son from her affair.

She called our son twice tonight. He told me that she was really sad. She needed him to make her feel better. He gave her kisses over the phone.

I might have a talk with the chief of police here in town, to warn him about her desire to come get our son. She has every right to come get him. But I have every right not to let him go. It could lead to a very public confrontation at the school. I don't want this for my son. Do you know if anyone else has had to deal with this? What did they do?

I will probably go ahead and call her about it, but I will wait until monday to do so. I would prefer to text her, but that would be the cowardly way to do this. I will pray for courage. I will pray for a steady tongue too.

Well, what do you know, the power of prayer amazes me. I spoke with WW today, and I kept my cool the whole time. I didn't have to call her, she called me. Obviously my lawyer's letter lead to a call from her lawyer about her plan.

I think her call was intended to beg me to let her have our son, but it never came to that. She was weepy, and tried to get me to "understand" what she is going through. She kept telling me that she did not "abandon" our son. I didnt tell her what I think, as my opinion is just that, my opinion. She doesn't need my opinion right now, she needs to search for the truth. I have also come to believe that when I offer my opinion, it is really just a cleverly disguised love buster. If not to me, it is to her, and besides, I don't want to hurt her feelings. If her feelings are hurting, I want her to know that it is within herself to stop it. I don't want to pose any type of threat whatsoever. My mere existence seems to be threatening enough.

I did have the opportunity to clarify with her some of her misinterpretations of my actions and feelings. She seems to have convinced herself that I didn't care at all about her attempted suicide. I told her that I was greatly concerned about her that day, and I was frustrated at the least when the police wouldn't offer any information to me, yet seemed to be staying in constant contact with OM. I told her that maybe she thinks that nobody else cared, because she wouldn't talk to anyone else that day. I told her, "of course he found you. He is the only person that you would talk to. He is the only one you would tell anything to." I told her that I was driving around here, looking for her too. On the off chance that she never really went too far from home. I expressed how scared for her I was that day, and that I didn't want anything to happen to her. This all seemed to be news to her. But it seemed to change her tone a little bit. She said I never told her any of that, and I told her that she hasn't given me a chance. Today is about the first time we have had a chance to talk without arguing with each other, or without her being so defensive.

She said that today was about the first time that she had been alone since she went down there. She is all upset that she doesn't have any money, but she isn't doing anything to get a job. For some reason she seems to think that getting a job down there will somehow mean that she is giving up her son. I thought to myself, "what the he*l does taking up residence with OM mean?" I asked why OM can't give her some gas money so she can come see her son, and she explained how OM is struggling too. He is still on unemployment, and is now going to school to get a CDL. That will make for a nice future for them. He will go over the road, chasing all the women he wants, while she stays home and watches his kids.(sorry, just being facetious)

Despite all of her pain, she cannot fathom coming back to our town. Not now, after what she did. She cannot face the people in this town now, and she is mad at everyone, because they all turned their backs on her. She doesn't feel like she has any friends here anymore, and cannot bear the thought of coming back here. She will not come back to be with her son. She is more concerned about her own comfort that she is about her son. This doesn't make sense, to me it is proof that she is ill. If you ask me, I think OM gave her the same ultimatum about coming back to town that he gave her about giving our marriage another chance. He told her that if she gave me a chance, he would have nothing to do with her ever again. He was betting that she wouldn't chance losing him to save our marriage. I am convinced that since it worked so well then, he enhanced the threat to include coming back up here.

I am not too optomistic about our conversation, but I am glad that I had the chance to talk to her. I had the opportunity to show her how I am working on myself, and how I am dealing with my problems. She said that talking to me is like talking to a councelor. I said that I am not trying to act differently, but I have been counceling alot, and working my program in AA, so I might talk like it. She wants to believe that I think I am better than her, and I did my best to make sure she knows I do not feel that way.

After it was all done and said, I don't know if she still expects to get our son or not.

She called today and asked if I would let our son go there if OM would stay away. I told her no. She got upset, and hung up. After thinking about it awhile, I called her back. I asked her why she couldn't come up here and spend the day with our son. She said that she wanted to spend the night with him, and cook him breakfast. I told her that I have to work friday night, and I can go to an AA meeting. I would really not be home too much. If she wanted to spend the night, I wouldn't be there until morning. I could then go sleep in the other room, and let them spend time together. She asked me if I would make pizza while she was here, and I agreed. She asked if I would not talk condescendingly to her, and I told her that I didn't realize that I did that because I don't consider myself any better than her, but I agreed not to anyway. She then told me that she would have to lie to OM about it, because he doesn't want her to have anything to do with me.(that's no big suprise) I told her that I don't give a rat's a*s about him so lie all you want to. So now we will have to see if she actually goes through with it. I am not telling my son that she is coming, in case she backs out. I must admit that I look forward to the opportunity to actually planA her a little.

Excellent! Now she can see her son and you have a chance to be around her without lovebusting. And the frosting on the cake is that she is now LYING to the OM. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Pretty soon this house of cards will collapse, you know?

If you make this pleasant enough, she will surely be back for more because if she has to LIE to the OM to see her son at his home, then this affair already has huge problems. She will soon resent having to do this and will come to blame him for seperating her from her son.

Here is the only caution I can see here. Whatever you do, DO NOT criticize the OM right now. Even if you have to bite your tongue bloody. And let me tell you why. She is going to begin to resent him for causing such conflict in order for her to see her son. If you attack him in any way, she will go into DEFENSE MODE instead and will be diverted from her growing resentment.

And when the OM finds out she is staying with you?? SWEET! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I read you loud and clear. I will have to double my efforts to prevent attacking OM. It's funny how I refer to him by all sorts of terms, but never by his name. Most of the time I call him "Mr. Wonderful", this is usually said in a very sarcastic tone. Last week when I was talking to
WW, I called him a SOB, and she immediately defended him. I know that I cannot do this. I usually try not to talk about him at all, as this helps prevent any name calling or attacking I might be tempted to do.

If she actually does come up, I hope to give her as much space as possible. She did say that she would help me clean up the room that I want to turn into a bedroom for our son. I have wanted her help cleaning this house for a long time, since most of the junk in the house is hers. She really did leave me with a mess. She also said she wants to clean the bathtub, because she says I don't know how to do it. Now I'm not sure if I should clean it before she comes or leave it for her, so she will feel like I need her a little.

Another thing that she told me was that she really took me for granted. I am not sure exactly what she meant by that. I would like to take it as a sign that she might feel she's being taken advantage of down there.