"My fiance's ex-wife who has done everything in her power to destroy me personally and our relationship"

Please consider that because she was still his wife when you began your adultery with him, from her perspective, YOU have did everything in your power to destroy her personally and her relationship with her husband.

IMHO her purpose for givign the gift basked can be one of two things;

She is being the bigger person, has forgiven you for committing adultery with her husband.

Or she still loves her X-husband and still hopes to reconcile with him once his adultery with you is over, so she is demonstrating positive behavior similar to a Plan A.

Statistically one of two things will most likely happen in your situation:

He will not marry you (adulteries rarely result in marriages - 'affairages'). MOST adulteries are over within two years.

He will marry you but will file for divorce and start dating another woman before the divorce is final. (BTW his reason for leaving you will be something he deems unacceptable about you - nobody's perfect.) Even in the rare cases when adulterers get married to each other, very few of those marriages last. What you have learned about him is that he is the sort of guy who will dump his wife if she has a problem. EVERYONE has problems. ALL marriages have problems. You may be thinking that since the problems you have are not the exact same problem his wife has, and/or that your problems are not as severe as hers are, that he will not leave you... That's a pretty big assumption to make. Again, what you do know about him is that he runs away for problems and won't stand by a wife who needs him.

How long was he married?

When did he first realize that his wife had a problem? Does he pretend he didn't see any problem at all before he married her? It is highly unlikely he had no clue whatsoever about his wife's problem before he made a committment to her unless he also is the type to rush into relationships before learning much about the other person first... And since he did get involved with you before he was divorced from her, that is probably one of HIS PROBLEMS. It is not a good sign that he failed to wait until the divorce was final AND until he had spent some times alone to sort out his own part in the failure of his marriage, before getting involved with you. It could be he rushes into relationships, then starts to notice his mates flaws (meremortalness), then after some limited gestures of trying to help his mate with her problems he's off to the next relationship?

BTW, how well did he know you before he got involved with you? Has he noticed your flaws yet? Has he started making any comments about your imperfections? Has he already been trying to 'help' or change you in any way?

Please consider very carefully what Mrs N posted to you, especially the following part:

"he claimed he took her to therapists, doctors, counseling. anything he could do to make his marriage work."

My WXH told everyone that I was 'crazy' too; that is such a common thing for WH's to do that it's pretty darn difficult to find a WH who HASN'T claimed his wife had some sort of severe mental or emotional problem!

It's also not uncommon for a WH to claim that he already tried all he could to get help for his 'crazy' wife. In your case he claims he took her to all sorts of counseling and such for help, right? Do you have any proof of that? What specific help did she get and over what length of time before he decided he'd done enough to rationalize divorcing her?

I was diagnosed with severe hypertension right about the same time my WH started his midlife crisis. I had scheduled an appointment for a check-up because we had gone without health insurance for a while. I didn't have any health problems (or emotional/mental problems either BTW). I just wanted to get a mammogram and a general physical. I was very surprised to find out I had severe hypertension.

I had no clue (they say it is a silent killer because a lot of people have hypertension but don't know it). I was not more than 5-10 pounds overwieght (and actually my doctor said I didn't need ot lose any weight). I was very physically active! I had been teaching a 2 hour long Irish step dance class once a week for the past 3 years. I was in a water aerobix class once or twice per week for the past several years. I had been takin ballroom dance lessons for a few years. I'd been figure skating for several years and had also started ice dancing. I took lots of leisurely walks around the neighborhood to look at the lovely gardens... It just didn't make sense. Plus in the past every time I had my blood pessure checked it was low - sometimes so low that there would be a comment about it being "SO low".

Well as soon as I told my husband about it he posted a message on his family's webpage that he had told me to make a doctor appointment because he had noticed that I was "out of sorts"! Then he told them I was diagnosed with severe hypertension and his family proceeded to shower him with praise for supposedly saving my life... At the time I thought his doing that was majorly el bizarro! I couldn't figure out why he did that, it was so wierd and out of the blue. Plus it seemed to me that maybe he was trying to get his fmaily to believe that I had somehow been behaving strangely having emotional problems, the way he worded it "out of sorts".

Well I eventually found out what he was up to... He apparently had developed a crush on a female coworker and was trying to come up with some excuse to dump me for her, while protecting his reputation of course... why look like a bad guy if he can somehow twist the truth to pretend he tried to 'help' me with my problems but alas the situation was too bad...

He made three major changes the last year he lived with me and our daughters:

1) He suddenly took an interest in his appearance, crash dieting, then exercising (and as soon as he moved out he cut his hair for the first time in over a decade and bought himself tons of new clothes).

2) He stopped spending time with us (me and our daughters), refused to go places with us, went places by himself more often, napped when we were awake and got up a lot in the middle of the night. Eventually he started 'moving out' but then would come home after a day or two.

3) He developed a severe rage problem. EVERYTHING majorly pizzed him off! He tried REALLY hard to start arguments and then when that failed started getting physically violent by punching, kicking and throwing objects. When even that failed to get me to behave back in an irrational manner he started hitting me.

I got a restraining order, he moved out (and was not able to come back home in a few days this time). He lied to his family and told them I had been trying to choke him and that he only head butted me and threatened to kill me in self-defense. The truth was he had asked me to go out to dinner and a movie, then changed his mind and wanted to go get his hair cut instead. I said something (calmly - I was not angry) about maybe rescheduling the date then an he was instantly enraged, stayed enraged for several hours, had been giving me the silent treatment, and then attceked me when he was screaming at me to get out of his car in our driveway! I had never seen him act this crazy before!

His family believed his lie no questions asked and showered him with sympathy for being put through that and chastised me for getting a restraining order. I found out he had been telling his family for some time that I supposedly had all sorts of behavior and emotional problems and that we "fought all the time"! Apparently he had been painting a picture of me being 'crazy' for soem time behind my back.

AND he exploited my hypertension diagnosis to help him convince others that I was crazy. According to him, I developed hypertension because I was so messed up and crazy/angry/whatever. Nothing could have been further form the truth. I resisted taking his bait to fight for so long, remaining calm and trying to reason with him. I was the one who always suggested counseling, and then went by myself mostly because he refused to go. But the tale he'd spun painted himself as the sane one tryig to help me and trying to work on the marriage.

Unfortunately, because of learning that he was involved with an OW, and finally catching on that's what was going on, the reason behind HIS bizarre behavior, there were some times that I did lose my cool (yelling and cussing - not attacking him physically). And also, he strung me along for some time, promising he and the OW were breaking up and that he wanted to save our marriage. He was lying and put me and our daughters through several cruel fake recoveries. At times I reacted to those betrayals in a less-than-ladyliek fashoion. I even called the OW a few times to try to tell her the truth (and yes - to tell her off). Of course that just made it easier for her to believe my WH's lies about how crazy and mean I was...

OK, sorry this was so long, but I wanted you to see another real-life example of what is usually behind a WH's claim that his wife has mental/emotional problems.

Mrs. N is trying to warn you that the way he treated his X-wife may very well be how he will treat you someday. And even IF his wife's problems were as he claimed, it was not honorable for him to dump her instead of standing by her until she found effective help. It often takes years to find the right help. AND it is very common for the person suffering with the problem to resist getting help for some time. That really wasn't a very good excuse for him to leave his wife either. There IS help for her (IF her problem even exists) and it was his responsibility to continue to stand by her until she got effective help.

BTW, if she truly is in need of help, his dumping her and getting involved with an OW is probably the worst thing possible he could do! That certainly would not have a healing effect on her! And even if she were perfectly sane before and he lied about her having a problem, it could easily explain any irrational behavior you've seen from her as supposed evidence of her condition. Adulterers are crazy-makers. It's very typical for them to point to the problems their adultery caused as the excuse for why they cheated in the firt place... it's called 'circular logic'.

what ever you do don't eat that stuff. when I was in high scool a friend married anx girl friend of mine - nothing serious- & I sent him a get well card. just as a joke
THIS might just be a joke , BUT,
but DON"T EAT THAT STUFF!!