Happy Easter Zen.

Yep, Happy Easter Zen!

Thinking of you ZW, and also of Coho and your children.

I so hope that Coho can get it. She can't be that bad a person if you love her so much. She has just let her selfish part take over. If she gets help who knows what may happen to you both.

Allow her to help herself and see what happens.

It will all work out for the best, this much I know.

Thanks everyone. Going to her parents for Easter. Weird but nice. I hate this idea of the family splitting. I just hate it. I think this is the part I will never forgive her for. Taking her children's parents from them. Taking their stability from them. It's just horrid. I'll do everything in my power to make this less damaging for them.

Yeah, she's a good person just acting very very badly. I won't let her hurt me anymore.

I'll give some more details as I get a little further down the road.

Zen, I am going bold on this, because it is critical. My bro and I were 5 and 6 when my mom cheated and married the POSOM. YOU MUST KEEP THE KIDS AWAY FROM THE POSOM, YOUR WIFE MUST NOT INTRODUCE THEM AS HER FRIEND, THEY WILL SEE HOW THEY ACT WITH EACH OTHER AND IT WILL SCREW THEM UP ROYALLY. YOU MUST PROTECT THEM FROM THIS.

ZW. You are the stability. You are the one who can provide what your children need. They need you.

DO NOT let your WW take your children anywhere. Please listen to this. Your children will forever be affected by your decisions now. They need you to step up.

This is not about appeasing your WW, this is about doing what is right for your children, they depend on you. Please stay in the family home and keep the children with you. Let your WW work her way back to you all.

oops

{{{ericacea}}}best of luck. You and your kids deserve it.

Experiencing a strange sense of release. Moments of utter, horrible sadness, then just calm numbness. Taking control of my life again feels good.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone. I'm sorry this didn't end the way I hoped. Everything has gone horrifically wrong. Coho has decided to head further down the black hole that has become her life. I hope she finds her way out as I have loved her deeply. I will always care about her, and I hope she can fix this horrible behavior. I hope she can avoid spreading this to our children.

Signing off for now.

Doesn't sound good Zen. Please update us...

I've reached the end of my very long and painful rope. I'm divorcing. It's done.

Did you get anything in writing about property and custody?? If not she probably will not honor anything she agreed to earlier just like she won't agree to not seeing the OM even if you divorce like she said.

Zen: I'm so sorry and happy for you at the same time.

You fought the brave fight my friend. You hung in there when others would have given up hope. You tried and tried and tried to make this work. And now you know that the end is here.

Good for you. Protect yourself and your children. Take care my friend...better days are in front of you. D.

Ditto what DNU1 said. Remember, you can't fix her--she's terribly broken. Now you have to hunker down and protect yourself and your kids. Don't let her madness trickle down to the next generation.

Zen--how are you doing?

Yea Zen, what's up...

Hi DNU1,

Yesterday was an interesting day. I had a consultation with an attorney. I won't go into any details, but I think this will go as well as it could, despite the horrible fact that I'm splitting my family. I'm approaching all my decisions based on what is best for my son and daughter, but I'm trying to keep my own health in mind as well. I have a good idea of what I will do.

I threw away all the lingerie I bought her or that she bought for us. She was upset about it earlier in the day, but didn't say anything later. Not sure why someone would want the lingerie from their previous marriage.

When I got home from the meeting, Coho was doing laundry and had cleaned up a bit. She was probing me a little but I didn't say anything. I was just flying between feelings of resolve and sorrow. She was packing her things and leaving, supposedly to stay at her Mom's. I don't believe it for a second, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. I'm glad she decided to leave because it would have been miserable to be so alienated in the same house. Last week we were telling each other that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Tragic.

I learned from the OM's best friend's wife that the OM is still involved with a former GF. In the secret email account, my wife had expressed concern about this to him. She mentioned to me that she didn't really trust him and that he was very secretive about his phone. She even mentioned this other woman to me. I texted Coho that they were still together. It served two purposes: An immature parting shot to make me feel better, but also a way to help her wake up and see the extraordinarily unhealthy nature of her relationship to a liar. I guess liars deserve liars.

I still care about her very much. I wish she would learn from this and overcome her behavior patterns for good. I hope she will one day be the mom that she was in our marriage. I still cannot believe she let it come to this. It's out of my hands. My life is in my hands now and it feels good.

Zen, it sounds as though you are holding up very well, all things considered.

It's ok to still care for Coho--let yourself care for her--. That's independent of your decision to not let the toxic stuff into your life and your marriage and your kids' lives.

She will always be your kids' Mom. How she decides to handle that/what she will do is entirely up to her. It sounds like you want custody--which makes sense to me but I'm not a lawyer. So I hope you get it. And it sounds like you will not step in the way of Coho being a mother to her children.

Your kids and Coho are going to have to find their own relationship. You can be the safe harbor and stability for them to know they can lean on whenever they need it.

ETA: I wonder if the fact that OM isn't completely faithful himself, is part of the attraction for Coho? She seems to want what she can't have.

Oh I think she can have him quite easily. She has quite the hold on him.

I called her stepdad to see if they could watch the kids a couple days this week. He said she had not stayed out there. Like I guessed, she's still lying to me. Why does she even try anymore? It's all out of the bag at this point? I'll just assume everything she says to me is a lie.

Yes it DOES!