To stop a contempt charge for losing the house and refusal to answer discovery she has been given a chance to settle with me!

She offered my court costs, $10,000 and a letter of apology stating she was responsible for the dissolution of our marriage through her adultery.

I don't know where she is going to get the money, but I don't care.

The nightmare is about to be over.

WOW!!!!

I know you've been hurt through this and have felt that the system wasn't just, and that she just kept getting rewarded for her bad behavior.

Can you finally take a sigh of relief now?

(I know the house is gone now but it will be over and you will be able to move on with your life).

Congratulations, Pariah. It looks like you're turning the corner.

Are you going to frame the letter?

Oh yeah, I'm going to frame it.

I don't consider it a victory, merely a clear view of where I got hit from.

The OM got off scott free and I lost everything.

The only thing I can fight back with now is being successful and happy.

WOO HOO!!!! Congratulations Pariah! It may not be a "victory" in the sense that you won some sort of prize. But there is now a light at the end of the tunnel that you can reach and get on with your life.

Wishing you all the best in becoming successful and happy - you are already on the right path!

Justification! Validation!

Yeah, and the $10,000? She may never be able to pay it, but I would feel a lot better if my H admitted what he did in writing than for having received a buyout on the house.

Good news Pariah.

I was raised that if I did something to destroy my marriage, just give everything up for compensation and admit guilt.

She has fought me on every little detail, maintaining her innocence when I have solid unrefutable proof.

She has loudly claimed that I fabricated the evidence, since I'm "so smart with computers and such", but yet I have her on tape saying just how stupid I was.

Go figure.

I know her "apology" and "admission of guilt" will be her usual blaming me for what she did, but I won't press it, I know the truth and she has convinced herself otherwise for her own guilty conscience.

Yep - it sucks that the law doesn't necessarily uphold what is the right thing to do. I'm still rather bitter that WH can have an A, leave me for a married OW, move in with her and they still BOTH retain rights to 1/2 their respective marital assets, not to mention that it doesn't affect her child custody case in any way, shape or form whatsoever. One would think there would be some penalty to the person who broke their vows. The only thing a BS gets around here is the opportunity to file for D on the basis of adultery and even then it can be contested and turn into a long, expensive drawn-out battle. Considering D is automatic after 1 year, it's not worth the trouble.

Will we ever be able to let go of our bitterness?

When the divorce is contested and fault can be proven, the it's no longer 50/50.

My wife found that out the hard way.

When you figure out how, please share it with us all.

I have a workbook on forgiveness, I just haven't started it yet. Even though I know, forgiveness is for me.

This may be the case where you live. In my jurisdiction it is 50/50 regardless of who does what. This also applies to cases of extreme abuse - i.e. someone can beat the crap out of his wife to within an inch of her life and still walk away with half the assets from jail. The only way to change that is for both former spouses to agree to something else on their own. Around here, you only contest a divorce if you are acused of abuse/adultery and don't want to be. Having abuse or adultery on an official document in public record has no bearing on anything for the rest of your life anyway so I'm not even sure why anybody would bother to contest it - except perhaps pride.

Pariah, I'm very happy and encouraged with your news.

In my state it doesn't matter who did what. The only thing the courts care about is child welfare. I went through my marriage dumbfounded that no one cares about adultery. And adultery was only one of the crimes my ex committed against me. I kept saying "I can't believe no one cares." The whole thing made me so sick and even now I rely completely on God alone to set things right. I don't have a clue how that will happen. But, I do know that hearing your news and reading the supportive posts here mean so much to me.

I used to pray that God would use me and my family for his will, for his good. I hardly understand why this all happened, except that I think God's been after my ex for quite some time and I kept getting in His way. (My ex abandoned his first two children, one of them autistic, five years into our marriage - I think that was when I lost respect for him. He drove his ex-wife and children homeless and onto welfare. I used to feel so 'icky' and ashamed. This behavior from an ex-cop. You would expect more integrity and compassion, wouldn't you? He was long divorced when I met him, BTW) I look at the black hole my ex's choices have made and I see God coming along behind and healing things. It encourages me. Even the people who bought my house... the first couple I turned down their offer, because it just didn't feel right. They were too cutthroat. So, I waited another two months and the people who bought my house are Christian and really good people. I prayed for people just like them. The whole transaction went perfectly in a real difficult market. I felt like I'd known these people my whole life. I feel like I left my neighborhood intact and it made it easier to move on. I guess what I'm saying is I've had to look long and hard for the littlest of blessings and you are so blessed to have things be judged quickly and documented so well.

I don't know if you have children, but my adopted father's first wife left him for his best friend in the sixties (just after my dad recovered from a near fatal car accident) and by the seventies his two children were condemning him for leaving her. He lost his car, his house, his children, everything. He said is lowest point was eating beans from a can in a friend's garage where he was staying, because he had no money and nowhere to go. The courts didn't care that his best friend was living in his house with his wife and children. All he had to prove to his kids was the divorce paperwork showing her as petitioning the divorce. She actually had allowed their children to believe everything was his fault on top of it all.

BTW, the ex-best-friend-adulterer (he was married with three children of his own) lost his 18 year old son in a tragic drowning in floodwater - the son wanted to 'ride the rapids', against better judgment, and was killed. A few years later, at the age of 52, the man died of a sudden aneurism. He went to bed with a headache and rolled over dead onto his wife. She has been alone ever since. I sometimes feel bad for her, because she has to grow old alone. But, then I imagine my 'good' father, stripped of everything by the courts that are supposed to be there to protect us and do right by us, eating beans out of a can in the garage and it makes me wonder just how things 'come around'.

Be blessed.

Believe me, this divorce nightmare has been the least of my worries.

I got shot back in November and almost died, had to have three surgeries and have come out it almost unscathed, except for the huge scars and holes.

Wow, what were the circumstances of the shooting? Is this related to your divorce?

Freak accident, long story.

The week after D-day I went to the WMA range to practice with my grandfather's old colt cowboy revolver. It had a badly worn part in it that I didn't know about and it went off when it caught my beltloop when I was placing it back in the holster.

The 250grain bullet entered bening my knee and exited my ankle. It ran the length of my leg.

The police took the gun and had it inspected and found the internal damage and reproduced the accident repeatedly.


Funny, when I stood there stunned, there was no panic. I merely dropped the pistol and belt, took off my belt and wrapped my thigh. By then the blood was literally pouring out and made my way back to my BIL's car to call my "wife" to say goodbye.

I honestly thought it was over. At this point I was losing so much blood I was getting dizzy and she didn't believe me until a paramedic who happened to be at the range was shouting they had to get the bleeding under control and tossed my phone into the car.

Well, I just found out that my supposed best friend brother in law suppled my stbxw with an attorney that owed him a favor.

He was going to stay out of it, but I guess her sister (his wife) pressured him into it.


Now he is no longer my friend.

I sent him an email stating that stbxw's attorney has a big mouth and to lose any contact information he has on me.

This was the man that saved my life when I got shot, now he stabs me in the back.

Pariah,
It shows that blood is thicker than water. And didnt' you come out OK anyway? So it really didn't help her, did it?

Breathe,
Living well is the best revenge.