I am glad your parents are coming too.

You are setting an example for your kids that parents should not sit there and take abuse from the other. You are filing for divorce on very legitimate grounds. They can SEE the pain your H's affair is causing you.

You are doing great, hope. I know you are scared to death, but you are moving through it and doing the right thing. When you start doubting yourself, go read Ephesians 5:11 about having nothing to do with the works of darkness. Your H is dark right now and if you are not careful, you will get sucked down into his darkness. When that happens, your kids will have NO ONE.

My SIL who lives in Houston had a nervous breakdown from my brother's affair 12 years ago. She was put in a psychiatric hospital so there was no one, except my brother, to take care of her 10 year old autistic son. My brother moved in with the OW with his SON. It was a horrendous situation. So, when I continually tell you that you are "all they have," this is what I am thinking of. You are all they have, hope.

Won't I be inviting retaliation with all this? He already believes terrible things about me.....like my always threatening divorce in the past. He could say whatever he wanted to scare or hurt me.

How is that different from what he's doing now?

Filing for divorce means that he will still have to provide support, so don't worry so much about the money.

When you go to Plan B, you will no longer have to listen to him scream at your children, and you will be protected from his anger because you won't know what he's doing or saying.

Actually, anger on his part means that he does NOT want a divorce. What he'll be angry about is not being able to have his cake and eat it, too.

Stay strong, H-E! You are fighting FOR your marriage! Appeasing him would NOT be fighting for your marriage.

Your H is already upset/mad/resentful (etc), Hope, so you shouldn't worry yourself so much about "retaliation." Will he be even angrier? Yeah, I'm sure he will be but...so what? Considering where you stand right now, hon, you really have nothing to lose because your H is "already" gone, replaced by the alien he now is. If you don't fight and keep doing what you are doing your H will simply continue to be the alien that he is. You don't want to have to "put up with" an alien forever, do you?

As for your threatening divorce in the past; oh well, maybe at least now he'll know that you are not all talk and that your threats actually mean something. Kind of like threatening a child with punishment when they've done something wrong but never actually following through with the punishment. What does this say to a child? "Mom always threatens to punish me but, when it gets right down to it, she doesn't do squat to follow through so...yay, I can continue doing wrong without having to worry about repercussion(s)."

Are you doing the right thing by showing your WH you are "serious" about following through with your "threats," Hope?

Yes, you bet you are! Keep it up, dear, it may feel like $h*t but you are doing great.

BIG, BIG, BIG HUGS TO YOU!

Thanks for the support. I hate I always threatened to leave in the heat of an argument, but when you get told that you're too big and lazy. I guess that made me mad enough to say mean things back. I hate that I'm here and going through this.

HopeE, you are doing great, even if it doesn't feel like it. Once the temporary hearing takes place and he is ordered out of the home, you will finally feel some relief. That's when you need to go into your Plan B -- it will help you immensely from this daily pain.

Do you have a visitation schedule in mind? Have you worked it out where he won't get to see you AT ALL? This is critical to your Plan B. You're turning out the lights (to borrow BT&L's phrase) to he can't see you, find you, or speak to you. It sounds NUTS but it isn't. He gets to experience life without HopeE and HopeE FINALLY gets some peace from this whole mess.

Your children will respect you for standing up for yourself AND them. They might be mad at first but all you need to tell them is that you're doing this to save the family.

Definitely go for the discovery. Did the attorney say anything about the OW?

We have all done things in the past that looking back on, we were wrong. Reading the info on MB and in the books, absorbing it and changing ourselves into a better person is what matters now. When you get into recovery, you could apologize for those things. Don't blame yourself now. Focus on the tasks at hand and how you are going to get to the next step. You CAN do this. You are doing a FANTASTIC job.

hope, I know he said you don't need to give him your letter but YOU DO.

In your PBL you go into detail about the mistakes you have made in your M AND more importantly, how you are more than willing to change and be the W he needs.

Can you post your PBL so that you can get help with this? You can make it very clear that you are do not hate him and are not trying to punish him...you can tell him you know of his insecurities and how you are willing to build a fantastic marriage WITH him.

This is really important so that you know he KNOWS you still love him and want to have a great M with him.

I'm going to give him another copy of plan b letter and change a few things. I 'll post it here later and see if you think I need some changes. I am doing the discovery.....she said it will keep both of them busy. Also, she said she can sobpena...sp? The other woman, but judge can always say he doesn't need that....it seems iffy to bring her in.

But the point will be is that OW will be subpoenaed and will have to hire an attorney to defend her, even if only to fight the subpoena. You really don't care if the Judge rules for or against (and that won't come up unless someone objects) because just the fact that she is being subpoenaed will cause conflict in their affair. See?

Yes, I see......I just think the wait will be more than I can bare....I'm tired of feeling so helpless. What if he files also? I'm worried about that too. Will it matter who files.....I may want to drag it out, but he nay want to rush it so he can be with ow.

You're filing first so he'll have to "answer" your lawsuit. You're still considered "Petitioner" and he is "Respondent". The only way he could file after you is if he cross-files but that's not very common.

Once you get into Plan B, you'll get some rest from all of this. Just hang on for a little bit longer, okay?

When you get overwhelmed, just close your eyes and imagine all of your MB peeps holding you up, in prayer and otherwise.

ITA

We are all behind you. Who does OW and WH have? Each other? Not only do you have us, but you are on the RIGHT side of marriage. Like I saw on a church board one day, "One on the side of GOD is a majority."

How do I know he didn't file the same time.....he told me Friday that he was filing for joint custody....I don't know what he has accomplished since then, but I know he doesn't have a whole lot of money, but he could probably come up with something. I hope they get those papers to him by tomorrow.

That sounds like empty talk to me. I doubt that he filed at all.

Well, he's gone!!!!

Yesterday was horrible with a capital H. He came home and immediately started asking me questions about filing...whether I was going to serve him the papers or hand them to him. I was wondering about his coming here, but it turned out he has some informant that told him I filed. We both know lots of people in the district and someone i talk to at school has spilled the beans....but he doesn't know everything because he badgered me all night trying to find out.

He went through our whole sex life like it meant nothing....we never had anything...he was never interested, but it's funny we managed to have 4 children. He told me it was over...no matter what. I said, "then it shouldn't matter about my filing." He said, "It matters because I can't believe you want to embarrass me and drag my name through the mudd after 20 years of marriage."

He continued to insist that the OW is not in his life and it never developed into anything....thanks to me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is I told him my parents were coming today and he said, "oh so you're bringing in the calvary?" He then proceded to wander around the house and get his computer bag....he left and then came back. He went and told my two older children that this was it....there's no coming back. So, at 11:15 at night my 14 and 11 year old began to cry uncontrollably...I spent the whole night trying to console them and tell them how sorry I was that it had come to this.

I don't know what else to say other than I'm so tired and scared of everything. H is all worried about what I'm doing and why I'm trying to hurt him and I'm only going to be hurting the children.

He's so convincing about the affair being over...will I be making things worse with the way I'm filing? He was crying when he left and then left me a written note, "YOU win!!! I'm leaving like you asked." He's going to be over here today getting his things...he's taking the day off.

You wouldn't believe how resolute he was last night about us being over.

What if I really stomped the affair in plan A and now he just wants a divorce because we have been so unhappy? Is it really worth all the adultry filing and "discovery". Is this woman really still in the affair after all that I've done?

I guess I won't know...he says that he will be moving; he's not staying in Fort worth. He just wants to be happy before he dies.

((((H_E)))) I am sorry that you had to go through this last night. It must have been really hard. You are doing well. Do you have your new Plan B letter ready? Will you be giving it to him in a couple of days? You are going to go through a lot of feelings over the next few days. It's really going to SUCK. We will be here for you.

(((((HIGGS))))) (you will always be higgs to me )

Hun, these are all the rantings of a man in an affair. He will DENY DENY DENY.

My WH denied anything about an affair, even up to the moment when I said, "I installed a keylogger. You know that, you found it. Think about what you said." Then he simply said, "Yes." He was denying the whole time.

I just caught up on this thread.

((((((((((H_E)))))))))))))))))

Scotty is right.

Your H is spewing fogbabble. He's gone now and you can work on your plan B. It will show him there's a way home and what he needs to do to walk down that path.