Hi Mindshare,

It will be good to see my friend this weekend. She's been a good support and I miss her.

To be honest, I'm getting very fond of her myself. DD11 is mad about her. She had a quiet word with me this evening to ask me not to put Ruby outside when I get cross with her as she might not understand and run away never to return! She is a very affectionate dog but a bit bouncy at times.

Slow to get started because I've had so much going on that I put off starting until next Monday. I made a whole pile of different flavours of muffins this afternoon to get people to sample and I overheard DD8 Braveheart saying to WH on the phone that Mum had made lots of buns for selling.
Hopefully it will start happening next week.

Holyheart and Sugar, thank you for the explanations.
Cajones, you say! A very attractive feature in a man, no matter where they are located!

Hi tully,

I'm glad you reported these conversations with your children and I think you should try and follow Dr Harley's advice about telling them about the affair and its effects on them. Your children, like any children in their situation, have asked and will ask you about why you have chosen to separate from their father and when they will return home. If you try and shield them from the truth about their father's affair, they will not learn the truth about what his infidelity has done to their lives. They will not be told clearly and unequivocally that adultery is wrong. They will undoubtedly ask their father the same questions about when they can return home to live with him, and as you have shown in the above exchanges, he will not tell them the truth about his affair. It is highly likely that he would try to blame you for taking and keeping them away. Rather than saying truthfully that he refuses to end contact with OW, he might say that that you refuse to take the children home where he longs for them to be.

A recent thread discussed whether young children should be told of an affair: Whether, what and when to tell kids. The original poster, AlexEN, had was unhappy with advice he had been given by his IC not to tell his children of his wife's affair:


tully, your eldest is a perceptive young woman to have worked out that her father would not have told his children the truth about the affair.

It is very likely that the children will feel angry at their father for bring the OW into your marriage and breaking up their home, but that is surely as it should be. They should be angry with him for his wrongdoing. If, last week when they asked, you had not told them the truth about why they are unlikely to go back to France soon, they would have become angry with you for keeping them away for no reason.

On this weekend's events:

Haven't we all said to ourselves, and sometimes to our WSs, that this time they have gone too far and that we will divorce them right now, and then gone back on that? I did that many times, and I suspect that your WH is going through that process now. I wouldn't say that it is necessarily right for a BS to reverse a decision to divorce, and neither would I guess that your WH has definitely or permanently changed his mind, but I would not be surprised if he is rethinking what he said last week. Of course, he might change his mind many times, but in Plan B you're not supposed to hear about his thoughts. I'm not sure that I could resist knowing, in your position, but then I'm a disobedient MBer.

The story about the slippers made me laugh!

Of course, faithful husbands, and former wayward husbands, have big ones attached to the correct organ.

How do you say big ones in Spanish? Cajones grandes?

Sugar, I am amazed at how perceptive children are. They often 'get the point' far quicker than adults who complicate things. It has taught me that I shouldn't underestimate them.

Earlobes?! j/k

If the man doesn't have a pair oh well, but at least you know WH is feeling the effects of your exposure. I have all sorts of images in my head of OW's behavior now that all her colleagues know she is a OW.

A weekend visit with your friend may be a good pick me up for you. I'm sure DD11 will be happy to see her friend too. Will be interesting to see what WH has to say for himself.

Don't listen to anyone about what you should do. No one walks in your shoes but you.

Men! Bah!

Send a kid out the door in slippers without noticing?

Pick a kid up in slippers without noticing?

This is why the world is the way it is.

Trying2Live gave an excellent bit of advice on her thread.

She advises getting a brand new spiral notebook (no missing pages- I guess they can count) and using an ink pen with no spaces between entries, record every bit of converstion/interaction between WH and kids. Add nothing about-your emotions or feeling about this- list kids emotions when pertaining to activities: kids upset at missing meeting.

Also record visitation sched. and list every time WS misses a meeting.

Use pen (no erasing) no blank spaces (for later filling in)
her site says it better- she got into the habbit when she was a faoster mom.

This is just good back up for you when going thru any mediation.

In USA, this is court admissable>sp? and has been very helpful to many BS.

She explains it better that I can, and it seems like useful information that you may need to use.

I would like to bring back (paraphrased) something that was said a couple days back that deserves repeating. I think that any time your WH tries to talk to you about what he's done, and tries to justify it, just calmly keep repeating this:

You might even add "That's what you are teaching them to accept."

I can't think of a single thing that could/should hurt him more to the core. At least some day. Maybe not yet. But 5 years from now, when he's alone and the 4th or 5th OW has dumped him and he gets more and more pitiful, sitting in his tiny, empty, filthy, crappy apartment, he'll think back and remember you saying that to him, and realize how you took the high road, and he chose selfishness, and he'll feel the full weight of what he's done and what he's given up.

I agree, cat, but I'm hoping that I won't have to have this kind of conversation with him any more. Either he will crumble and this logic will be self-evident to him or he won't and we'll get a divorce and his mental state will no longer be my problem. My major dread is finding him in the middle ground as this would make a decision harder either way.

I'll make it reeeeeeeeeeal easy for ya, chica. I'll spank you six ways to Sunday if you think about taking him back half-way, LOL!!!

(Those transatlantic whoopins really sting!)

cajones vs. cojones



tl

Learn something new every day.... :MrEEk:

Yes, ma'am!
I'll let you know if I get any feedback from my friend. So far nothing, so my glimmer of hope is fading. I've been imagining some conditions for return but I may not need them.

But you might need them.

It must be so irritating not to know whether he will proceed with divorce or whether your recent exposure has killed the fantasy of the affair. It must also be galling to have to wait for his decision as if he is Prince Charming deciding which fair lady should win the prize - him.

However, it does seem wise to make plans for both outcomes. I think that you need to be on the front foot when he tries to negotiate. You need some security in case of a later breakdown should you agree to return to the marriage, and the best financial and custody arrangements possible should he seek a divorce now.

LOL. Then perhaps one can pull their cojones out of their cajones, dust them off and use them. Your can interpret drawers both ways too.

Yes, you can, but at the time I posted I wasn't feeling clever enough to elaborate on it. Now I must go get my drawers from my drawers and step out to face the day, cojone-less in spite of the fact that I've got cajones to BURN. (They're all wooden.)

tl

Women might be physicially cojone-less but they can still have cojones. Have a good day.

I've been told mine are made of brass but I don't see how anyone could TELL. They're invisible, after all! I mean, it's not like I wear them on my shoulders--that's where I keep my chip!

tl