Writer - Also want to add because darkness being a father and not a mother and his WW is a SAHM in California. Add that the SAHM has no skill set for employment and lack of education....

He will most likely pay substantial spousal support and child support and hopefully get 50% custody. Thousands per month for quite some time. Not good.

Thats the way it rolls for the men most of time. His wife has the power to alter his living standard and with 2 decades of continual interaction with custody - more emotional abuse. Dont you think she may even get some coaching from the OM.

But nevertheless - he has get the ball rolling now to prevent further disaster. He needs to detached from this scene quickly. I am not sure he can protect his children - i have doubts that the system will be able to do it.

Usually an OM heads for the hills in this kind of a sitch because he was only looking for some tail - this OM is an emotional mess - Be careful.

My friend - I am in your corner and will pray for a miracle for you.

rwinger: Exactly why I am still hoping and praying that this M can be saved. It is going to get messy and ugly and expensive if this goes to D. CA is a no-fault state. Even if indarkness files first, his chances of coming out of this unscathed are slim. Unless he can prove that his WW is mentally unstable or a danger to her children, the best he can hope for is 50% custody. There will be many years of paying huge sums of CS. That won't change, no matter who files or when they do it.

Writer - that's what I hope by ID getting a psych eval as part of the custody mediation - she IS "off".

A woman has to be completely mentally lost to have sex with a child in the room!

I'm not one to tout out the psych evals, but this is not a marriage recovery until WW gets a mental recovery and a spiritual recovery.

Writer - since you read a lot, have you read "The Worth of Every Soul" - an autobiographical sketch of the slide into waywardness and excommunication and back to God?

I haven't read "The Worth of Every Soul." Besides this site, I don't really delve into the topic of A very much anymore. Honestly, I have to watch how much I come on this site even, because all of the stories and the new people showing up everyday with the same problems can get me down at times. Maybe I will try to read it someday. These days, I'm trying really hard to look toward the future and leave the ugly things of the past in the past.

I think indarkness already brought up the fact that his WW had sex in front of the baby with the OM and the lawyer said that the courts would likely view it as a fairly minor indiscretion. It's unfortunate, but I don't think it will get him very far in a court here in CA. Unless he can prove that she is actually harming the children or putting their lives in danger, abuse would be hard to prove in this case. Unfortunately, merely having bad morals doesn't seem to make a person an unfit parent in the eyes of the law. I'm not saying I agree with any of this. I definitely don't, but this is what indarkness will be up against if he does end up in D. It's terrible, because it's always the kids that get hurt the most in situations like this. If only his WW could take a moment to consider what she's doing to her children. However, I realize that may not happen. She may be too far gone. I hope she isn't, because it's going to be a very messy situation that will affect a lot of people for a long time.

There are two reasons I bring up the book - for you and for ID.

1. The book is about recovery and reconciliation with God and the pathway back to full fellowship in the Church.

2. The personal spiritual protections that were afforded your husband and are also available to ID if he can find that peaceful place in the middle of this chaos his WW has created.

You might benefit from seeing WHY your husband could accept your child as his own and forgive you.

It's a beautiful book and as a betrayed spouse it gave me great comfort, and it also helped me be patient with my husband. For my husband, it gave him a path back to his faith.

ID's wife truly needs to know there is a path back. She's hardened right now. But she's going to hurt some day. God has a way back for his lost lamb.

By the time his WW finds this soft place in her heart, their marriage may have long been over. But she will always be the mother of his children, and at the point her heart becomes softened, if ID has read the book, he may find himself being a missionary and an instrument in the hand of God in restoring a soul to Him.

I'm a divorced father with complete 100% custody. It can be done. His lawyer can give him the best advice but maybe he should encourage her to go spend time with OM in order to establish an abandonment. I'm sure there are a million other techniques that would work better than a full on frontal assault.

lost my original reply -

There are no good choices for darkness. At the same time by filing first he gains some power in the direction of this marriage.

Its really her choice and she has made it for now. Could change but why take a chance. The OM is in fantasy land as well and has given up quite a bit for his takeover attempt.

By taking action - he will make his statement that darkness, in fact, will not just roll over while being abused. It will also protect his interests in the lives of his children.

If she files - then he will be living a nightmare where the OM could potentially be around the kids more then himself and Darkness will have less say in the lives of his children.

Darkness will have to deal with the OM and WW (whether they stay together or not or if there is reconciliation) for many years in the future no matter the path he takes. The OC is his children's half sibling and it sounds like this OM wants to be a part of the OC life.

My main concern is that if she decides to play hard ball and files a abuse claim to get him out of house then his world will get much more complicated and the outcome not so certain.

As for $$ - when it comes down to my kids - i will burn through my last dollar.

I don't remember reading that his lawyer said nothing could be done about the OM exposing himself in front of the child.

He has the proof. Even if his lawyer does not want to take action does not mean action can not be taken. The lawyer's skills can be weak, he does not want hard cases, he's only looking for the easy buck.

This BH needs to do a search for dads's rights in the state he lives in to find a lawyer that knows his stuff, and is willing to fight for him and his COM.

I do want to add one thing about a psych eval. Being diagnosed BP won't automatically mean she loses everything. A person who is BP who is in regular treatment is not automatically considered a hopeless mental case. In fact, if my H left tomorrow, he would be hard-pressed to get the kids based solely on the fact that I have BP because I take my meds and visit the doc and all that. So labeling her "crazy" is not a sure thing. This WW is obviously really unbalanced right now, but BP does not preclude the ability to be a good wife and mother.

This WW is not likely to accept such treatment because she'd deny the diagnosis, which would then play into full custody being awarded to ID on grounds that she's not safe - she's not playing with a full deck.

If she did go through tx, then she might just come to her senses and stop trying to destroy her children and her marriage.

Either way, ID wins.

writer, let's be clear about this: WW and OM did not have sex in front of a baby. A 20-month-old is a toddler. By 20 months, I was having full conversations with my children. That's not an infant.
This woman is SICK and is showing signs of desperation and there's nothing worse than a woman who has no options and no where to turn except the POS-OM.

I am going to repeat my earlier advice except at this point I would probably file for LS since you can change it to D without refiling in CA.

I would strongly encourage her to go. Go be with OM. Try it out. See if things work out -- you and the kids will stay in place. Give her no indication of your plan.

Then once you have her out -- you have the position of strength for custody.

Because ID is in such a precarious legal position -- with OM not only willing but DESIRING to replace him as father -- ID needs to gain as much leverage as possible for custody to protect these poor children from this situation.

That email in which he said your kids would be raised in a loving blah blah blah home was a hidden message to your wife. To let her know he was still "in" and waiting for her.

She isn't even CLOSE to her breaking point yet. Which means that you save yourself and your children first. You cannot try to recover the marriage until you get into a safe place first.

I agree with Lexxxy. Let WW go live with OM ALONE and see if she misses her kids. Could be she's so far gone she'll abandon them. Or, could be, she'll see that things will never be the same with the OM.
ID, what exactly did you tell your 11-year-old when you exposed?

ID,

If you encourage her to go and see how things are with the OM, do not put that in writing. Ask your lawyer, but Lexxy's plan seems like a good one to me. You could even provide her some funds etc.

Then after she is out, document everything, get your relatives to help with the children, etc. If you play nice then you may even get her to agree to grant you temporary 100% custody, which will be very hard for her to undo later.

Thanks for all the responses - I'm feelin' the love.

Talked to the lawyer yesterday. Paperwork will be signed tomorrow and filed on Monday. Barring an act of God my wife will be served with the papers on Tuesday. I plan on taking all of my children to my parents house prior to serving (someone else has to do it but I will be there) so that she won't freak out and try running off with the kids.

The filing gives me several protections but the most important is that it brings the courts into the relationship, for good or otherwise.

This means my wife cannot take the children out of state - that would legally be kidnapping. It also means that if my wife tries to take the kids somewhere within state I could get a court order to get them back to me with 72 hours. This is because my kids are near school, family and friends here. Lawyer says judge would not allow kids to be removed from that situation. Filing also places the venue in Los Angeles County which is advantageous for me.

My plan is to try and get WW out of the house and moved in with OM. OM is living with his parents in Westminster (a dump) and their culture is *completely* different from my WW. That and not being with my DC will perhaps jar her or not. At this point, I don't care, so long as she is out of the house. The alure of being with the OM will hopefully be stronger than the desire to remain with her children, but I don't know. If that plan fails then I will encourage her to stay with her sister who is a recent WW. Either way, she needs to be gone ASAP.

Lawyer said that if I can get her out of the house, then I need to change the locks ASAP. House is a rental but I am in good standing with the landlord so it should be OK.

I have *plenty* of help locally to assist with the kids while I work, so that's not a problem.

WW is off with OM right now. Thankfully I was able to keep 20-month old DS with me. Did my best to stop the hook-up but frankly, at this point I don't really care about those two, just my kids.

So, I'm just done with being trampled. Done with being used. Done with no consequences. Nothing is working. Nothing is happening. There is no desire for change by the WW. Like I said, short of an act of God, I plan on filing first thing Monday morning.

THIS is what women actually WANT from men, someone strong, certain and not a doormat. Good going, ID! Protecting those kiddos is by far more important than protecting your WW from herself.

Thanks for the update ID. We are there for you. Couple of thoughts:
1. You never mentioned that WW's sister is also a WW. That means the sis is probably encouraging the adultery. (Where were these girls when they were teaching this stuff in church!!!?)
2. Good job on protecting your kids.
3. Glad to hear you have a great support network--keep that up and say thanks to everyone A LOT. It will encourage them to continue to support you.
4. Be careful not to spill about the sex in front of the toddler.

What I meant about #4 was that you don't want members of your congregation to confront WW about this--it will diminish your case if she sees it coming. If a friend of mine told me his WW had sex in front of his toddler, it would be hard for me to control myself from going down to her house and trying to slap some sense into her, if you know what I mean