missmyhusband....

I'm going to say that lady_clueless is correct... i'm sorry. My WxH has said those same things to me in the past. All i can say is please listen to the very wise people hear and follow their advice. They do really know what is best. Please do not pick and choose what advice you take...

I am sooo sorry you have the pain to go through with you and your son. It's not right nor is it fair. I am so sorry wish i had more to say.... just know that in time the pain does get better.

well i don't know about better but duller

miss I am sooo sorry. This is obviously an active A. Your WH is blameshifting to the nth degree. If it helps any, the impression I get from that email is one of seeing your WH in the 'honeymoon' stage. I suspect he will miss the drinking (because it wasn't you who caused him to drink, but issues within himself - those issues have not gone away.) He will miss things about your life together. He will miss his son. He isn't going to "heal and live". Read up on Plan A & Plan B.

missmyhusband,
I'm very sorry to hear this. The first thing to accept is that you did NOT cause his drinking. He is responsible for his choices and a healthy adult openly discusses issues with his/her spouse. Heavy drinking is no more a solution to marital problems than is adultery. Like another poster said, you are 50% responsible for the state of your marriage, but you have no blame in his decisions to drink or to cheat. Also, it is obvious that he didn't run to this woman for sanctuary from you. He clearly got involved emotionally and probably physically long before he abandoned you. To justify his actions, he undoubtedly rewrote much of your marital history to make you the bad guy and him the poor victim. Its also possible that he drank to escape his own sense of guilt for cheating. It wouldn't be the first time thats happened. If you have access to his old phone records, you should see how far back the calls to that woman go. It may be longer than you think and it may help you put this all in perspective.

Its probably not what you want to hear now, but you really need to make sure all your finances are secure so that he has no access to any of your money. And I think you would behoove yourself to file for divorce and have him served before he files. You can always cancel divorce proceedings, but this will probably put you in a better position if the marriage cannot be recovered. Definitely save that letter for proof if you live in a "fault" state. The courts will also probably not look kindly on his actions, which almost certainly count as abandonment.

I think he is in a "honeymoon" stage too. He's in fantasy land. I am so heartbroken I am physically sick. I can't sleep because I can't stop visualizing him being with this woman. I have spoken to many friends and they have all said nearly exactly the same things people on this board have said. I know a day will come when the magnitude of what he has done hits him like a ton of bricks though I don't know when. I don't know how I should respond to him when he does. Right now, I'm thinking that I'm not going to answer any of his calls or respond to any emails. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I hope that gives him the opportunity to fret at least a little.

I did not know that it was possible for a human being to hurt this much. I do not know how much more despair I can withstand. I just want and miss my husband still. I feel like I'm completely insane for feeling this way but I take my vows seriously and I really do think he has been clinically depressed. The depression and alcoholism contributed to his making some horrendous decisions.

Lady_Clueless, what benefit is there to notifying his HR department? I'm not unwilling, just unsure how that would be of any help.

I 'think' she works for the same company which means they now work in the same office in Florida. I feel certain that the affair wasn't physical prior to this week because I don't know when he would have had the chance to meet her. He hasn't traveled anywhere without me and I cannot imagine when he would have seen her if she was here. 99% of his time was spent between work, sitting in his little garage area drinking and sleeping.

Because they met working together and having an affair - especially if they couldn't meet - means they spent WORK TIME flirting with each other and solidifying the afffair. That means their company PAID THEM to have an affair. Companies do NOT like that and will often either fire one of them or separate them. When you tell their company, make sure you tell them you are looking into legal aspects of a company allowing this to happen. There's nothing that makes a company scramble faster to act than to avoid a possible lawsuit.

So you ARE going to expose, right? If not, you might as well just sign a divorce paper today.

Do you have all of HER family and friends' contact numbers? If not, hire a PI tomorrow morning. You have to strike fast!

I don't even know what her last name is nor can I imagine how I could produce the money to hire a PI. I don't even have his address in Florida. The HR department must be aware of this transfer though. The HR department must have record of his marital status.

With the things he said in the email, it sounds like his mind is made up. People keep telling me to disregard what he is saying but his words are like a knife in my heart.

You're his wife! Call HR and GET his address! Call the company and get the names and addresses for all the executives so you can expose what he's doing.

It's time for you to take charge of your life. He won't come back with you wishing for it, unfortunately.

Here is a great piece written by another MB poster than I have copied and put in a file to read when I am anxious (I do this with all inspirational MB posts)

I apoligize to the author (didn't cut and paste your name!)

It is one of the concept of FEAR (I bolded my favorite paragraph in it, the one which helps ME most)

Here you go:


It is the fear that paralyzes you, sends blood rushing through your veins, sours your stomach, and interupts your sleep. It is the fear that gives away your power, your hope, and your forgiveness. It is fear that robs you of the active self and traps you in the role of patronizing enabler who will take them back at ANY cost...even if the price is too high. It is fear that keeps you from confronting and exposing. And fear that prevents you from enforcing your boundaries and having compassion for yourself.

Fear of abandonment.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of reaction....yours, theirs.
Fear of future...the unknown.
Fear of destitution and want.
Fear of failure.
Fear of losing.
Fear of loss.
Fear of solitude.
Fear of settling.
Fear of change.
Fear of lack of change.
Fear
Fear

Infidelity creates FEAR....and fear is crippling. Research shows us what we already know in our hearts....when we are fearful....we are unable to fire up the parts of our brains that "process" information on a logical, rational, spirtual level and create solutions that increase the odds for success in crises. When we are fearful....we don't use our neocortex....but instead, it is our limpic system which lights up our MRIs....our animal brains wired for "fight or flight".

There is no HOPE in our animal brains....because our indentity, our souls, our compassion....don't reside there. You are only capable of conflict or escape when you are there....so you must find a quiet place to deal with your fears so that you can confront, expose, do all the things that overcoming infidelity entails....all the things that happiness entails. You must value yourself as well as protect yourself, without fear of losing your WS or enforcing boundaries.....because if you don't....all your fears will be realized anyway.

MB is not designed to trap you in a marriage where your feelings are crushed and disrespected or the vows of marriage are meaningless. It's designed to help you overcome fear and give you hope that marriages CAN recover from infidelity....but you must be brave and be willing to risk losing your WS in order to regain trust, fidelity, security.

You must be willing to see beyond your pain and take logical and systematic steps to undermine the affair and increase the stability and security of your marriage. That takes courage above pain. It takes the peacefulness of knowing you are strong enough to lose a self indulgent and unrepentant spouse or recover with a flawed, but motivated one.

Don't let your fear take back a spouse who isn't ready to do the hard work recovery after infidelity entails. It is an invitation for misery.

If you don't believe you CAN survive without your WS....you cannot do what you must do to ensure success.

Stop being fearful of their threats...they are just excuses to leave or be selfish.

Stop being fearful of their reactions....their reactions arise from their guilt...not your boundaries.

Stop being fearful of taking a stand....it's the only way to gain respect or trust.

Stop being fearful of being alone.....until you can stand on your own and risk losing them, you will NEVER know if they remain with you by choice. And you will never know if you want them or you NEED them.

And if you need them....even if they return....you are in trouble there.

Forget about the affair; forget about exposure. Trying to fix this train wreck will get you nothing but trouble.

Marriages can survive affairs, but why bother trying to fix a drunk? It won't work and will just cause you more pain. Even if he gets help and gets sober, statistically, chances are he'll relapse within 3 years anyway. He did you a favor by leaving. Do you really want your son to model his behavior? Just move on.

Yes, normally the idea is to fix marriages but in the case of either addiction or abuse it usually doesn't work anyway and isn't worth the trouble.

I don't understand why people post about an abusive or alcoholic/addicted spouse and then worry about the affair he's having. A drunk by definition is not worth all the trouble you have to go through to stop an affair and then recover from an affair. If more people would stop coddling drunks (disease my foot - no disease forces you lose control of your hand and pour a drink!) and let them suffer the consequences of their actions, we'd have less drunks in the world.

ooooh, boy. I hear the distant rumblings of the upcoming avalanche, I'm going inside.

The general belief about the disease model is that alcoholism is an compulsion of the mind and an obsession of the body. A.A. neatly encapsulates this buy proclaiming "alcoholics have lost the power over the first drink." In other words, having taken the first drink, an alcoholic does not know when to stop. Hence, A.A.'s program is that of total abstinence.

Having said that, I most certainly agree that alcoholics should not be coddled, enabled, or otherwise protected. They should be held accountable, for it is only by having consequences that alcoholics have any hope of finding recovery.

Well, I called his HR department and they said they absolutely could not give me his address legally. They had me make a report with ethics.