I would hire a PI and have him selectively follow him.

I'm trying to find a good PI, but that's proving difficult on the weekend.

This new affair and OW is going to be so much easier to expose, because she's local. I have her list of Facebook friends already, her parents' and sister's addresses and phone numbers. She's divorced and I have the name, address and phone number of her ex-husband. I already have the draft of an exposure letter for his and my friends and family. I'm starting a letter to her friends and family. I'm also starting a letter to their workplace (government agency, has a code of ethics, so I'm curious to see how this pans out). I'm also still exposing his previous affair, the one 2,000 miles away (although he seems to have dropped her).

I'm obviously not exposing until I get the legal evidence I need first, because once he knows I know who she is, it will be harder to find them. What are some tips for things to say in the exposure letters?

Should I call OW at some point? If so, what should I say? My therapist thinks calling OW could possibly make her hang on harder, make her think he must be a prize, if I'm fighting for him so hard that he must be worth it. I don't think she has any illusions that I'm not still part of the picture, based on the message for her that he mistakenly sent me the other night after I gave him the PBL ("All the sh-t just hit the fan.") So I don't think a call from me will make her back off; I think she doesn't care that he's still married.

I also have the name of a good attorney to call on Monday, recommended by my friend who is an out-of-state lawyer (so she unfortunately can't represent me. She doesn't do domestic law anyway.)

Hyacinth, sorry that you have found this out, although now you know what you are fighting and WHO the enemy is. Can you sit on this until you can get the evidence from a PI?

I know this is hard, and it is going to take a lot of strength but DO NOT contact them. You are in Plan B. Don't ruin it because of this OW. I would say that you need to expose, but after that, let them stew in their own juices. Get yourself behind the strong dark Plan B curtain and start to heal yourself.

You don't need to make any decisions right now about it you are going to work on your marriage or not, just do what is best for you right now.

Also, after this, any time ANYONE tells you about your WH, you need to tell them that you are trying to protect yourself and you don't want to know anything about him.

Yes, I am definitely sitting on this until I have evidence from a PI. I found the PI to hire (good recommendation and reputable), I just have to get in touch. Difficult on a weekend.

Once I have all the evidence I need, I'm going to do a NUCLEAR exposure and then just go back to my own life. I feel sort of badly for our friends and family, though, because this is really going to polarize those groups. Everyone is going to be forced now to make choices and choose sides. (Because the first OW was so far away and seemingly "out of the picture" - although I knew better - this didn't really happen before.)

For our families, the choice is obvious (blood is thicker), but our friends -- the extended group of them -- are going to end up deciding who they are willing to associate with, because the core of our group comes from my husband's workplace. So, even though this woman isn't in our social group, she is known by everyone and is friends with a couple of the more peripheral members of our group. It will be interesting to find out who my true friends are.

By the way, my best friend drove by the OW's house again twice today and he is STILL out there. Never left. I am nauseated by this, which I'm sure everyone can relate to. It would be better, I think, if I hadn't already known so well what a trashy wh-re she is. That he knows it too is really hard to stomach.

Yes, hire the PI and get evidence and then do nuclear exposure.

You have a good plan set out, great job on that. Your Plan B is helping to protect you for now, that is a good thing.

Can't wait to hear what the PI finds!

I am sorry you are dealing with this. I know it sucks.

The PI that was recommended to me won't take the case because of what my husband and this woman do for a living. (I mentioned before, he works for a government agency.) So now I am back to square one. We live in a very distant suburb of the closest city and I haven't been able to find anyone else around here who is reputable. So I've made no progress with getting good evidence. I want to get that part over with so I can stop thinking about it!

I do have an appointment to meet with an attorney next Friday. Very good firm (in that somewhat distant city) recommended to me by a lawyer friend (who lives out-of-state and doesn't do family law anyway). When I meet with her, I'm going to see if it is even worth pursuing evidence. I can file for divorce with fault in this state, but I don't think it gets me much. I am hoping if I do that, it can at least force him to pay my legal costs. But I don't think it has any effect on child custody or child support or spousal support. I guess I'll find out. If it is worth it to file with fault, I'm hoping the law firm has a PI either on retainer or one they can recommend.

All this has done is stir everything back up for me. Not to mention that this new affair seems much more deliberate, which feels like a worse betrayal. I can't believe that just as I was starting to find some peace, it was ripped away from me. I saw OW at Target yesterday and almost puked. One of my consolations of Plan B was that he can't stand to be alone and I enjoyed the thought of him sitting in his apartment alone, living with the consequences of his choices. But now he isn't living with any consequences at all. He's having fun and enjoying his "single" life. I feel worse than I did five months ago when all this misery started.

Think back to your 20's when you'd see 40-something year old men sitting in bars chatting up young single women. A buck gets you twenty that he's not as happy as you'd think. Reality can be a real bisch sometimes.

But, then, you're not supposed to be concerned about that, right

But that's the thing... he's NOT out trolling bars. This new OW is 31, divorced and has a nice little house of her own. He's over there every single night playing house with her. So, no... I don't believe that right now he's not blissfully happy. In fact, I believe the only thing he misses are his kids. Other than time with his kids, she is completely able to meet every one of his ENs.


I know I'm not, but this new OW has set me back to the starting point. Remember how D-Day feels? I'm right back there. I'm still processing this new development. My state of mind going into Plan B was totally based on everything that had happened prior to him being involved with her. She's only been in the picture three weeks. I wasn't even 100% sure she existed until I gave him the PBL and he goofed and sent me the text meant for her (I thought he might have gotten the out-of-town OW a local cell phone because something similar to that happened before). I can barely wrap my mind around all of this. Plus, it's going on right here at home, in my town, as opposed to his previous OW who lives 2,000 miles away. I'm freaking about the possibility of him doing something crazy like trying to take my kids to her house when he has them next weekend. Or having her over to his apartment while they're there.

And now I feel like this spells the absolute, immediate end for our marriage, instead of being able to spend a nice long Plan B adjusting to that thought. I'm not coping well; I'm not able to stop thinking about it.

Go ahead and expose this new OW like you mentioned in your 4/16/2011 post above. Then go from there as the fallout is probably going to change how she and your husband interact.

Do it sooner rather than later. No need for them to play house any longer without having their little world crash down on them. Do it BEFORE his next weekend with the kids.

You have info on OW's parents and family, right?

I haven't exposed them yet because I don't have the evidence I need to file for divorce with-fault. I won't meet with my attorney until next Friday (to discuss divorce/with-fault/evidence/private investigator) and next Friday is his first weekend with the kids. Once I expose, it will be too late to get evidence because I know they'll go underground. The only reason why they haven't yet is because they think nobody -- me included -- knows about them. Her house is secluded and they are never in public together. He is going to be shocked that I figured it out because I'm sure he thinks they're being very careful. I'm just a lot smarter than him.

But, let me say I an DYING to expose them so I can stop thinking about this. It seems like every time I want or need to do something to start healing, there's some obstacle in the way that delays it.

(((Hyacinth)))

So sorry about the new d-day. Your H is a serial cheater.

Could there be other affairs in the past as well?

(((Hyacinth)))

Are you able to get a fried to take pics if you can't get a PI to do it? Make sure you ask your lawyer what type of evidence you will need. The sooner you get this A exposed, the better.

I KNOW what it feels like to have my WH living with OW and my children being exposed to her. I take solace in them being old enough to KNOW about OW and what she represents to their family. It SUCKS, but when you are in Plan B, you are able to heal. All of this thinking about getting this newly discovered A exposed is keeping you stuck. Once you can get this out of the way, you will feel so much better.

Well, it's been a while since I last updated because I've been trying to Plan B to the point that I don't think about him at all. This whole situation has me actually physically ill when I do think about it and I've already lost too much weight. But an update is in order. Yesterday is a month since I started Plan B.

As for whether I think there are other affairs in the past, I know it sounds naive, but I truly don't believe there have been. I've known WH since we were 10 & 11, been together since 16 & 17 (that's 24 years). When he came back from that Vegas trip after the first affair, he was 100% changed; an alien. And he's been different ever since. Everyone in our lives have commented on it and in the last six months he's dropped all his old friends, stopped communicating with his family and just completely become a different person. His transformation was so sudden and so shocking.

I met with a very good (and very expensive) lawyer and got lots of advice about how to proceed. Basically, filing with fault won't get me much. And right now he is being very cooperative regarding finances and our house/property, so she said it is in my best interest not to antagonize him if possible, because our finances are so tenuous right now that if I proceed and file for D, we will have to then go ahead with child support and alimony which will be less than the 100% of his income that I have at my disposal now. I know this sounds cold, but the household we have established takes both of our incomes to maintain. If he reduces the amount he contributes, our house will be foreclosed on and we will lose all our equity, which will be devastating to me when it comes to buy a new house for me and our kids. There's a lot more to this, but I don't know if anyone here is interested (let me know if you are and I will give details). Basically, since we aren't able to sell our house right now (long story) and I can't afford to leave it anyway, and the rest of our finances are such a mess, I am better off letting things just be an extended separation as long as he is financially cooperative until we can sell our house, which will be the beginning of sorting out our finances. So I wait...

I have exposed to our friends, my family and his mother. I have asked people to confront him. I don't think anyone has.

His mother is so passive, I am sick of listening to her say she is going to say something to him and then not doing it. The last time she said she was going to confront him, I asked her if she was going to call him or do it in person and she said she was going to email him! Could she be more pitiful? And she still hasn't done it as of last night. She keeps wanting ME to confront him again, keeps wanting me to open a more direct channel of communication with him again, even though I told her four months of that got me nothing but hurt further. She's useless.

He is avoiding our friends and even though I have asked them to say something, they basically have just cut him off and have closed ranks around me to protect me. I appreciate the support, but I don't know how I can keep asking them to confront him when they just aren't doing it. Most of the men just want to "stay out of it" because they say it's not their business (the women tell me this). He avoids them anyway, so I don't even know how they would confront him because they they don't have access to him. I don't know what to do.

Wow....awful. Too bad there are so many "too-polite" wimps out there. Makes me think yet again of that quote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Waywards really need people to get in their faces and tell them strongly that they are about to lose something very important. After the fog lifts, the wayward may even be thankful.

Could you ask a few of your most staunch and strong allies to PLEASE make a personal call or visit to your WS?

The "going dark" part of Plan B is going fairly well. My intermediary is pretty good, although sometimes I think she lets things through from his emails that is too much, be then she and I talk about that. We are still working on establishing a visitation routine because his work travel schedule is not a set thing and so we periodically have to make adjustments. I am trying to not have to communicate any more than once a week, longer if possible. Last week he sent an email that I didn't think required an immediate response and yesterday he emailed my IM complaining that he hadn't heard back from me. She said he is very frustrated that he doesn't have access to me. He frequently expresses that he doesn't "get" communicating through an IM. In the last email I sent to him, I told him this:

I sympathize that you don't understand why I need to communicate through [our IMs], but I'm not sure what to say beyond what I already have to help you understand. Simplest put, it's to provide me with an emotional buffer between the two of us. It is absolutely not meant to hurt or punish you. I'm allowing you to live your life and giving you the space to make your own choices and all I'm asking for is the same. If you would rather I email you directly, I am willing to do that, but I still need emails from you to come through [IM]. She filters out everything I do not need to read or know and gives me only the basic information, in third person, without any emotion or personality. That emotional detachment is very helpful to me. I don't understand what you want or expect from me, but if you would give me some specifics or clarification I can try to address it. If you need more clarification from me on this let me know and I will try.

I know this is too much communication, but I need it to sink in and for him to LEAVE ME ALONE.

He's behaving in a very weird, unpredictable pattern of hostility and cooperation. Is this normal for Plan B? I'm guessing it probably is. I've asked him to do some things for me that I thought he would refuse to do because it would be an inconvenience for him or just something that would involve him doing me a favor that he didn't need to bother to do (I admit I did it as kind of a test to see how cooperative he was being, testing the waters as we head toward divorce court) and he has done them willingly. But, then he removed me as his wife on Facebook. My IM thinks he did that (and a few other offenses) to try to push my buttons and then he gets agitated when I don't react at all. Also, his behavior with the local OW is getting more and more obnoxious. I think he is basically "dating" her openly now, based on what some people have told me before I could tell them not to tell me anything. Last week he had to register our son for Kindergarten because after my surgery I don't have any leave left for the remainder of the school year so I couldn't do it. He sent my IM a 2 page email with a long, detailed story about registration, telling funny stories about what our son said and did, how smart he is and how impressed the school was. She told me before she sent it that she knew it shouldn't come through, but that she also knew I would want all those details about my son. She edited it as best she could, but after I read it she and I talked and we agreed he must be lonely (regardless of the OW) for both his kids and someone he can talk to about them. However, he made his choice.

He keeps making suggestions about doing maintenance and repairs around our house - which are going to need to be done at some point -- but I obviously haven't taken him up on any of it. At some point I will have to let him do some work so we can sell the house, but I'm hoping for at least 6 months of peace before that has to happen. My IM's husband and a few other friend's husbands have been awesome, stepping in and helping me with things that I can't do alone or else don't know how to do.

I am going to have to do this. AGAIN. But I still don't know that I will get anywhere. Part of it is that there is not one single person that thinks I shouldn't just completely be done with him at this point. Everyone has been telling me how strong I have been and how I put up with this for a lot longer than they would have and how they're glad I'm finally moving on.

I love updates.

Now for my critical judgements (hopefully not disrespectful ones). To help you tweak your plan B a bit. To make it even stronger.

No more sending actual messages to each other through IM. It hurts your spirit more than help it.
Pertinent facts only.

Find alternative ways for the home to be fixed for sale or sale as is.

You must continue to protect yourself. Even against yourself.

If he ever chooses to rebuild with you, you will need to know you do not need him for anything. Not cute kid stories. Not handyman skills.

That will be your power.