I woke up at 4am, after a bad wolf/vampire dream?(and I don't read those books/see those movies) I was shaken and went downstairs and popped in a movie. Sat there bawling realizing that my husband is with someone else, in spirit, in his mind, in his heart. I don't think I want this guy. He mentioned a new Mexican restaurant for lunch(said six people went did not say who I did not press). He went to some other Mexican restaurant 10 days ago. Is changing his lunch patterns at work. I realize that he wants to see "her" more and more. I can't fight this one. I have five kids and I don't think I have it in me to do this. I also know that myhusband will NEVER leave his high-powered job for ME and will never fully disclose. He's not that guy. I also know that I now have Biblical grounds to end this marriage. So how do I wrap all of these feelings up and tell him to leave?
ps still going forward with pi on Monday.

Best to sit back and act calm. When the lights are turned off the roaches are easier to catch. Let the PI do his job.

Then before you make a move you can come back here first so the vet's can guide you through the exposure steps.

Mom,

I am sure more experienced vets will come along soon with some more helpful posts. In the meantime, here is my take on what you should be doing.

If you want your M, you will need to take action. You will not be able to talk your H our of his A and certainly he will not voluntarily disclose anything. Why would he?

Gather your evidence and expose to everyone. Have you found out who OW is and her role at work? Is she married?

Have you read the carrot and stick of plan A? Can you execute that plan? If you feel you have done a decent plan A, it may be time to get ready for plan B. I think you need your information about the A first.

I am sorry this is happening to you and your family. The majority of folks on this forum have been where you are. It is certainly the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in life, complete with the weight loss, not sleeping, nightmares, etc.

AM

mom, you've been on here for 17 days. In those 17 days, what have you done to save your M?

thanks for your input everyone. well, for the last 17 days, i have spent every evening with my husband, watching tv, on a dinner date, talking, talking talking, going for walks, going to church together, leaving my younger two in the care of my oldest(when she's available), dressing nicely and made up every day, thanking husband for any help he gives, i think there is more, but i believe i am trying to meet his emotional needs?
it is that wall of disbelief and his generally callous attitude toward me(you hurt me so deeply, i deserve happiness, i am working on ME and my self-esteem) that is killing me as well as the thought of this other person.
i do believe i know who she is. she is married. i will be really surprised if it's not this woman, who is a direct report to my husband.
he did text me and tell me at dinner out last night that he would go to a marriage counselor. he did see a therapist last week, but gave him a laundry list of what a bad wife i am(i found it). he has a very dysfunctional upbringing, along with other issues and is putting all of his pain in MY basket. it is so unfair. i am seeing a therapist next wed.
thank you to all for your input. i am trying my best to follow the plan. i wish i was a non-emotional type, would be much much easier

You sound like you are doing good at trying to meet his emotional needs. Yes, he will not seem to appreciate them, but on a deep level, unshown to you....he does. It is good.
Your own needs will not be met much during this phase of the situation.
Try to get him to agree to talking with a MarriageBuilder coach versus a traditional Marriage Counselor. Insurance doesn't cover it, but they will not allow him to blameshift and get distracted from the state of the marriage. They are amazing at talking with waywards and betrayed to define things for each. Money well spent.
Maybe you can convey to your H that calling in to a Marriage Builder coach is in his best interest for future happiness. For getting going on what is best for him.That traditional councelors spend a lot of time and therefore money on things that don't get anywhere anytime fast.

Well, the sh*t hit the fan today and WS moved out tonite....
We went to church together today. I lB'ed there. Then I decided I needed to get away and took my four kids to eat and a corn maze. On the way home my 22yr old daughter kind of reprimanded my younger daughter 5yr old in the car, I told my older dd subtly that she had better watch how she behaves with the younger two(my husband and she have had a volatile emotional relationship). She started ranting and crying saying "I can't stand living this fake life anymore" and other things. I pulled off the road and said, "dd, you cannot do tihs. I have to think of the future custody of these young ones. If you can't handle this stress then maybe you should go somehwere else(we are new to our area and know noone, no family, so that would be a real hardship). then my teenager son started saying, i hate this, i hate him, i wish he was dead(the one who struggles with depression and was hospitalized till sept 10-hubby dropped bomb on me oct 6, how sensitive of him)
so anyway, i dropped wee ones off at a friends, son went to see girlfriend for a little, hubby went to get a salad, my dd took me to restaurant, hubby was in car, we talked. i asked hiim to stay away for one night as the older kids were really upset and i did not want to see an altercation occur between him and our son. then our dd got into hubby's truck, i drove home to get little one's pj.s
so, hubby comes home with daughter, walks by me, starts packing, grabs two pairs of pants, i said "can we talk?" he said, "why bother, what else is there to say?" I say, you will be back tomorrow. he said, "I don't know". i stood there for a bit, then he says coldly, "there, you got what you want, i am outta here. you win". i said, 'no i didn't win anything. all i wanted is a healthy, loving family with you." then i basically left. he said before i walked out he'd be back for the rest of his stuff. (we don't have the money for endless hotel stay-i gave him money from my dd's stash)
so, then later kids and i go to get a bite to eat. i am calm. he texts me that i am ruining the relationship he has with his kids, that i am getting in the middle blah blah
then he sends me an email with "incidents" listed of this "Plan" of mine to kick him out today. um, isn't he the one who keeps saying daily " i don't think i want to be married to you. if you make me decided today, i want a divorce. " okay
his email has UNTRUTHS in it("you told me two of my kids hate me and the other one wants to hurt me"(these are the older 3 not the two little ones)
so, has he gone off his rocker or what? do i respond to his email?
my husband is NOT father of the year. he's been a workaholic who has watched me do the vast majority of the parenting. he also is talking about our older kids and two of them are grown, so there's no custody issue there.
i would talk to him tomorrow if he wanted, doesn't he realize that "now i am sitting in a hotel in stead of at home with my family" is EXACTLY what he keeps saying he wants? i don't understand.
thanks for reading. i am as calm as i have been. he hasn't been a great hubby so maybe my feelings are starting to change. if he had been wonderful, would be worth fighting for. now, i just don't know. the emotional cruelty i am taking in plan a may not be worth it for me

He also told me that he WOULD go to marriage counseling(this was in our post-church discussion at home) but only for a "very short time". I said, "like one visit". he said, "yes". I said, "why bother?"

mom, do not let him talk you into going to MC. What he's doing is laying the foundation: "Oh, I tried to save my M. I went to marriage counselling and it just didn't work."

Again, when he brings it up, thank him and tell him you're looking into finding a good counsellor. If he finds one, make sure your schedule doesn't work with his for making an appt.

Your WH's behavior is very typical. He's the bad guy and he knows it, so he's casting about, looking for ways to make YOU the bad guy. He'll lie and believe it right now. It's what waywards do.

He's in a hotel, right? Then you can pretty much bet the OW is married. Make sure the PI knows that.

Why do you feel you need to go to counselling on Wed?

Only you can decide what you want to do, mom. If you want to keep your M you're going to have to suit up, here. It's going to require some work and steely determination. It's not for wussies, for sure. If you feel you need to toss in the towel, okay. But I would certainly consider your kids' long-term lives as well. You're okay with sending them to your WH and his girlfriend's house for split holidays and summer vacation? Calling him to argue because the child support isn't enough to make ends meet? Sitting in different parts of the auditorium at graduation and making them decide who to take pictures with first? Is this what you want for them?

thank you maritalbliss for your insight and honesty,
he emailed me this morning(after i finally emailed him last night-i responded to a disparaging email he sent me telling me that i was DESTROYING his relationship with his children) so i wrote back that i am not a human punching bag and i have tried to show him my commitment the last two weeks, but to no avaiol.
i said that i loved him and that i had hope for our marriage.
so this a.m. he emails me saying he wants to see the two older kids alone this evening(he did tell dd several times last night during their talk that he has been FAITHFUL to me in our marriage, she said it was overkill).
he also mentioned counseling again. and no, i don't want to share my children, especially the younger two angels. but i am a more emotional person than many of you and don't know if i can pull this off. i also strongly believe in my heart my husband would NEVER leave this high powered job for our marriage , or move away. he just would not. he also has never been transparent, so why would he start after all of this? i don't think i can ever trust him again?
so when he comes this evening, do i ask him to stay here? i assume he went to hotel but i truly have no idea, and yes the OW i am thinking it is is married.
thank you-i actually feel very calm. why shouldn't i go to counseling on wed?

he also said in his morning email that if i think i am a "human punching bag-please explain. i haven't raised my voice once to you during this", then may be we should not speak at all

he just sent me this email,

A couple of other things

1) You asked me for one night of peace..I don't understand, can you explain what you mean by that. There has been no yelling at all in the house unless its been you yelling. the conversations we have had have been mostly 1x1 in our bed room where no one can hear us. So when you ask for a night of peace what are you asking for specifically?

2) You tell me the older kids are all suffering of the idea of their parents not being married. Frankly this isn't their business, not at this point, you are the one dragging them thru this. They don't need to be and they shouldn't be in the middle of this...I haven't been to a lawyer, I haven't filed papers and haven't done anything but talk to you and to my Dr. . If you want to know who is hurting the kids right now you might want to take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself why your doing it.

3) I have finally taken a stand of the years of abuse I have taken...and I am not going to take any more of the guilt bombs, the constant accusations, constant attacks on my integrity and character undermining my relationships with my children and the complete destruction of my self esteem. Your upset because I have finally had enough and I am fianlly setting some boundries..we are either going to have a great marriage or we are done...the abusive mess we called a marriage is over...I am not going to take it any more. So far you have said alot of the right things, however your actions send a completely different message. I get that this isn't easy but I also know I am very hurt and I don't trust you right now and everything you do to hurt me just pushes me further and further away. Turning my kids agaisnt me and kicking me out of the house last night was a very big deal and it hurt me way more than you will ever know.

so tell me specifically what do i say to this? by the way, i rarely hear this much from my husband while he's at work!

I have been in therapy before, but yes, WS has been convincing me that this is all my fault(his unhappiness, his low self-esteem).

thanks for your candor. apparently my skin is going to get much thicker through this process

meeting with pi at 9am....

thanks for being here.

This is all pretty much hogwash. The question you should ask him is "Do you think your affair has anything to do with any of this? Do you believe your affair is not causing any of these problems?"

Do not allow your WH to bully you into believing his A is your fault. I would suggest that you not attend counselling, for a few reasons. First, it will bolster your WH's claim that you are in some way to blame for the A. The fact that you choose to attend counselling will send the message that you agree there is something wrong with you. That is not true. You may have contributed to the conditions that weakened your M, but your WH made a conscious decision to have an A. He could have just as easily made a conscious decision to work on his M, and he chose not to do that. His A is all about his choices, not yours.

This is called blame-shifting. Again, your WH chose to have an A.

Interesting side story: When my FWH was starting his A with the office secretary, he took her to lunch. She spent a lot of that lunch trashing her H and her M. My H told her that our M was "a pretty good marriage." That was in September.

By January, her BH was really putting the pressure on both of them to end the A, but he was doing it anonymously, and OW was suggesting that I was the one sending threatening emails to them. My H responded in a note "MaritalBliss knows nothing about what's going on. If she did, it would be over - it being our marriage, which is basically over anyway."

Funny, how we went from having a 'pretty good marriage' in September, to having a marriage that was 'basically over' in January. The only difference in our marriage during those months was that my H chose to have an adulterous affair.

Quiet, soul-killing comments and actions are worse than any loud voices.