My husband and I have been married almost 10 years, and we have 4 boys. Six months ago I gave birth to our 4th child and got a positive HIV test. After initially lying about it, my husband then had to confess he had had 3 affairs, one long term, so that we could get our newborn treatment. At first (about 2 weeks) he was very sorry and willing to do anything to make things right. However, now he is back to his old ways - hiding his phone and emails, staying out late and not telling me where he is, drinking, not helping with the kids, being mean and hateful to everyone. He also has an issue with pornography. He told me this weekend that he is tired of "relationship drama" and wants a divorce. I have tried everything, but he refuses to go to counseling with me or even wear his wedding ring. I feel lost and confused and desperate. I have no idea what to do. I don't want a divorce. I still love him despite everything. And I don't know how I will care for 4 kids and myself with this sickness. Please - any advice is greatly appreciated.

This man gave you and potentially your child a deadly illness and you don't want to divorce him?

Not only would I divorce him, I would press charges on him and throw his @ss in jail for what he did to you. Get away from this abusive monster. He has NO remorse for what he's done to you, and will continue to abuse you. You choose your life mate very poorly. It's time to do yourself and your children a favor by getting away from this EVIL man.

I feel like I know what I need to do but don't have the strength to do it. The situation is miserable, and I feel pathetic. He will not speak to me and only seems to have hatred for everyone at home. I don't understand why he doesn't just leave. He said he ended the affair right after the baby was born, but with his behavior lately, I don't know. I just do not know how I am going to be able to get through a divorce and deal with caring for 4 kids, especially with the baby already experiencing health issues.

ksiril, I'm usually loathe to recommend divorce.

However, IMVHO, the utterly egregious nature of your wayward husband's behavior mandates you get you and your children away from him. If an HIV diagnosis did not shake him out of his wayward nature, I honestly don't know what would. I thought I didn't put anything past a wayward, but this shocks even me.

If you are absolutely unable to decide to divorce him, you may try a brief Plan A, followed by a pitch black Plan B. (Read here.) That way you are protected from his actions against you, your love bank balance for him is safeguarded, and you have a chance to breathe, center yourself, and start to think about what you want your life to look like...with or without your wayward husband.

Please, protect yourself and your children.

ksiril, I am sorry, but I would bet good money that he is still actively in an affair. Please, if you can, spend some time reading here. Knowledge is power. Waywards are pretty much cookie cutter - saying he ended the affair, anger at everyone at home (that ruin his affair fantasy or remind him on some level of what he's doing = destroying his family), etc.

Knowing what you're facing may help calm you, and it may help you formulate a plan.

How do I go about exposing this? I wouldn't want people to know about the HIV and we have children involved. We are both college professors (he is a dept. chair) and my husband is actually very well-known in our small town (where everyone knows everyone). It gets more complicated...my oldest son plays select baseball and the woman he had an affair with is a mom on another team. Exposing this to one person in the baseball community would basically expose it to everyone, which I'm afraid would look badly on my son. Currently, my mother knows, he confessed to his family, and a few of my very close friends know. I have contacted the other woman so she knows that I know, but her husband has no idea.

ksiril, I would strongly suggest you expose the affair everywhere, starting with the OW's husband. The more people who know, the more people to hold him accountable. He is very wayward and keeping his affairs a secret only serves to enable him. If his affair is exposed everywhere, it will likely die.

I would tell your children all about his affairs. If you don't tell them, he will tell them lies and teach them that wrong is right. They desperately need your moral guidance. Kids can deal with the truth, they can't deal with lies. Your H needs to answer some hard questions from your kids about why he would ruin their family for some skanky STD ho. If that doens't wake him up, nothing will.

You have a big mess on your hands and the only hope I see in your situation is a nuclear exposure. Keeping his secret for him only serves to enable him. That will ruin your H's affair and help him learn a lesson when others are watching him.

Start by exposing the affair to the OW's H and any other hubands of women he has had affairs with. From there I would expose to your children. Next will be:

1. family members
2. close friends
3. employer
4. the OW's parents and family members [look on her facebook acct]

Do the exposure without forewarning and ask each of them to use their influence to persuade your H to end his affair. Ask for their advice.

here

Dr. Harley on telling the children:

here



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You need to expose this simply for the fact that people have and are being possibly unknowingly exposed to a deadly illness.

Why would it reflect poorly on your son that his father is running around cheating on his wife? That reflects solely on your husband.

ksriril, here is the main reason you have to expose to everyone. There are probably others out there who have contracted HIV from your H. It would be profoundly immoral to keep his secrets for him. He is a menace to other people in your community and they need to know so they can protect themselves from him.

If you don't stop your H from this destructive behavior you will be just as culpable as him, I am sorry to say.

Does the OW have HIV too?

We told her about the test results and that she should get tested too. He says he got it from her though. She said she would get tested and was so worried about our baby. She kept contacting him about it, so I told her if she didn't stop, I would forward all their sexually explicit emails to her husband. She got mad, threatened to sue me for defamation of character, filed a police report on me, and hasn't contacted me since.

I guess I am just scared about the fallout of exposing it all.

Thats ok. We are all scared before we do it but you will lose if you allow fear to be your driving force instead of tried and true tactics. Exposure is the best thing for your H, the OW, and your community. Mold does not grow well in sunlight. I don't know if your marriage can be saved, but exposure gives you the best shot.

What I am having the hardest time with is how he seemed like he was trying and willing to make an effort, but now he has totally flipped. He won't speak to me at all, just sits in his recliner with a miserable look on his face like he hates the world. He interacts with the older kids minimally, basically just taking them to their sports practices since he coaches, but he will have nothing to do with the baby whatsoever. I don't understand the hatred. I don't get what I did to make him so angry at me. I'm not the one who had multiple affairs and got us infected!

ksiril, you've got a great guide in MelodyLane. Please listen to her advice.

I will second (third, at this point) the fact that exposure is required for the public health reasons alone.

It means that he is still in contact with his OW and in order to justify his affair, he has to demonize you.

Now, are you ready to get to work here?

Jail is too good for him. In jail he can't earn any income to pay his victims (his wife and children) for what he did.

Press charges on OW for exposing you and your husband to HIV. She can't sue you for something that is true, and she can't get the police involved for harassment as long as she is the one contacting your husband. You need to get with a lawyer and find out your rights. You could sue.

And your husband was acting nice because he was doing the bare minimum to keep you around. Once he felt he accompished that, he's back to doing the same thing he did before. You see, he wants access to his children and he doesn't want to lose half his assets and income, so he'll give you just enough to keep you around. He's a manipulator and a horrible human being. I can't even fathom why you would still want to be with this person, why you would want your children around this horrible example. Do you want them to turn out like him. He's a monster. He gives his wife and child a life-threatening disease and he doesn't even show remorse or change his behavior. This man is EVIL. I know you can't see it right now, but you will be much better off without him.

Have you told your family? Do you have a brother? If I found out that some guy did this to my sister, I'd put him in the hospital, and the only reason I would stop there is because I wouldn't want to go to jail for too long. You need to tell your family so that you have a support group to help you leave this awful man.

ksiril

I'm very sorry to hear about this devestating news. I agree with everyone else that you need to divorce but for other reasons in addition to the ones stated. HIV is very difficult for a man to contract if he is engaging in normal vaginal sex, see the CDC website. The primary means of transmission is receiving anal sex or intravenous drug use. In other words he isn't just engaging in a run of the mill affair, he's engaging in other more dangerous behaviours. He's either homosexual or bisexual or shooting dope. Either way you need to run for the hills. Again, I'm very sorry.