I do understand that.

I appreciate the suggestion, but unless you've got an extra $100,000 lying around to hand me, it's not feasible. I'm not exaggerating when I say I will have to declare bankruptcy and move my children to the ghetto. Our finances aren't technically bad, just very complicated and were not set up to be dissolved at this point in time.

I don't see us rebuilding. He's completely out of control and getting worse.

He doesn't know the cute kid story made it through. And I have been totally ignoring his "pleas" to help around the house, but I will tell my IM to not let them through at all anymore. I do think it is driving him nuts that I don't need him for anything (other than "testing" him that first week to gauge what his level of cooperation was going to be, I haven't asked). The problem is that I DO need his help with stuff. We don't have any family nearby, no extra money and I am worried I am burning out my friends by leaning too heavily on them. How does everyone else do this?

Hyacinth, reading is right, you need to find some other way to fix up your house or not do it at all. That would be a disaster. Plan B is supposed to emulate divorce and when you are divorced, your XH doesn't get to come to your home and make repairs.

There is way too much information going back and forth between you two and you know way too much information about him. I would stop looking at his facebook and keeping track of what he does. That defeats the purpose of Plan B.

They rely on friends, family or hire handymen. What they don't do is allow their WS to come on the property because that just defeats the purpose of Plan B. Hyacinth, your H may never come back. The point of Plan B is to prepare you for that eventuality. You have to learn to find other methods.

Ha! Wrong message board~! I am losing my mind!

I didn't look at his Facebook. I don't. That was something a friend called to tell me and I told her to stop telling me stuff about him. This was back in the very beginning of Plan B, too. when people kept trying to tell me things about him and I had to keep telling them not to.

However, as the house thing goes, then in all honesty at some point I am just going to fail at Plan B. It won't be for 6 months or a year, but I cannot afford to not let him have access to the house at some point so we can sell it without a huge loss. We can't afford to take a loss. I am doing everything I can by myself or with friends right now, but we were in the middle of a huge do-it-yourself renovation when this happened. I'm not talking about a simple house and yard, our home and property are more complicated than that. At some point, I am going to cap out on what I can do, what friends can do and I have ZERO free funds to hire anyone. Not kidding. Since WH started this craziness, we've been digging a hole deeper and deeper financially, because it used to take both our incomes for our house, daycare ($13,000+ a year!) and other expenses. Now every month we are more and more in the red. (This would have eased up and even improved over the next few years. We had a long-term plan in place but it got shot to h-ll obviously.) Is everyone here independently wealthy? I don't get it. This is about providing my kids with the best possible future. I would never have bought this house if it wasn't for him. In my next home, I WON'T need him because I will not have the unique set of circumstances that are involved with this house and property. Once we sell this house, I can walk away and not look back, but the way things are right now, like I said, does anyone have a spare $100,000 (or possibly more) lying around? Because I don't.

But like I said, this won't happen for six months or a year. There's too much other stuff going on that keeps him at bay. And even if I was willing to let him do all the work now (which I'm not), it wouldn't matter. because it would take him too long to complete it and -- long story, but we can't put this house on the market at just any time of the year, either. Like I said, it's complicated. So I can put this off for a long while, but not forever.

What am I missing here? I do understand that Plan B is supposed to emulate being divorced.

However, I am not willing to turn him into an arch-enemy forever, especially once we are divorced. We ARE headed for divorce, I have no doubt of that. (I mean, do any of you really believe this is repairable? Because I don't.) But I will never be able to heal myself if at some point I don't forgive him. I need to move on and if he and I are at odds for the rest of our lives, that will be toxic to not only the two of us, but to our kids. On the other hand, I am NOT saying that at some point we're going to be friends and "hang out" either. (And what IS IT with sitcoms these days selling that scenario?!) But to me, the idea of keeping that animosity going means perpetuating the hurt and keeping the situation alive and ongoing. I just want to detach, put it to rest, and move on. And at that point, who cares what he does?

Plan B is not animosity.
Far from it.

It prevents the otherwise huge amount of animosity.

It is Plan B 'in love but not participating in being abused'.

Okay. Then other than when he tries to break through or do something to otherwise "get to" me, I think it's going okay for the first month, especially since we have two very small children and have been forced to deal with issues surrounding them. Most times I can go days and days without having to think about the situation. I'm putting my bad feelings to rest. I'm starting to craft my OWN future, independent of him.

However, now there's another new issue... (SEE NEXT POST)

Here is the most awful development. Last night he had a dinner visit with our boys, who are 3 and 5. Who he hadn't seen in over a week. His visit was only three and a half hours long. And he TOOK THEM TO DINNER WITH THE OW. Who he has only been "involved with" for only a month, when he picked her up in a bar, back when he was still pretending to reconcile with me. I have been sick to my stomach since my 5 year old told me about this.

I talked to everyone I could think of to get support and everyone agreed that this is WRONG WRONG WRONG (including his mother, but who again wants ME to be the one to address it with him). We do not have any kind of custody or parenting agreement yet, other than just a verbal agreement of one evening a week and every other weekend. He is supposed to have them for a weekend visit in two days. Today I was going to send him an email that includes the following:

(It starts with discussing a carseat decision he made without my agreement regarding with my 5 year old (to move him to a booster and seatbelt rather than the carseat he still fits in) and didn't consult me on, just told me what he was going to do (saying a booster costs $20 and then he can move our younger son to the carseat, rather than spending $150 on a new carseat for our 3YO). This is not what we had always agreed on before.)

We had previously agreed to keep 5YO and 3YO in carseats as long as possible, regardless of their ability to use a booster seat and seat belt, because carseats with five-point harnesses are safer, especially as they don't have airbags. I don't think that $150 is too much to spend for 5YO's safety.

Several recent incidents and issues have me concerned that we are not in agreement on parenting decisions regarding the health, safety and well-being of [5 year old son] and [3 year old son]. To this point, I am starting to see some of the behaviors that my therapist said to watch out for (sleep disturbances, accidents, acting out, etc). I know you said that you did not observe anything of concern when they visited you last, however, when they are with you they are not in their regular environment and therefore I don't think you're going to see typical behavior from them. In addition to the observed behaviors, [5 year old son] especially has said some strange things to me, like recently telling me several times that he wants me to get a new husband, which is inappropriate and disturbing. He seems confused and upset much of the time. We need to write a temporary custody agreement settling things before we continue with more visitation. Although I still don't believe it is in my best interest to have any direct contact with you, the health and well-being of [5 year old] and [3YO] are more pressing needs at this point than my own health and well-being. Since you have a visit with the boys scheduled for this weekend, I don't think we have time to do this through email. Therefore, if you want, I am willing to meet with you tonight or tomorrow before visitation to create an agreement. If this isn't convenient for you, we can postpone your visit until after you return from your trip and can write an agreement. I understand that you are probably going to be upset that I am saying this, however, this is in the best interest of [5YO] and [3YO]. I think it will benefit all four of us if you and I can come to agreement on these issues. Also, preliminarily settling these issues between ourselves will save us a great deal of money, time and inconvenience. I believe that we do agree on most things, but we need to have a plan in place so that when issues arise we either already are in agreement or else have a system in place to make those decisions. Of course, any agreement we create will only be in effect until it is either superseded by a new agreement which we both agree to or until a permanent custody agreement is put in place by the courts.

Some issues that we need to consider include:

Visitation schedule (Holidays, birthdays, vacations, friends' parties, extracurricular activities, etc) -- we have already agreed on some, but not all, of this
Special circumstances (sick days, snow days)
Adjustments for your travel
Transportation
Location of visitation
Transitions
Communication issues (between parents and also between children and non-custodial parent)
Parenting decisions
Medical/dental care/mental health (decisions, appointments)
Insurance - medical insurance, life insurance
Babysitters
Daycare/school/homework/extra-curricular activities
Safety
Flexibility/canceling/right of first refusal/time frames/consequences
Discipline
Allowance/savings
Kids' "stuff"
Financial issues

There are more issues, I'm sure, but those are some I can think of off the top of my head that need addressed immediately. Please consider these topics and have some proposals ready. If there are any other issues which you can think of that need addressed at this time, I would like to hear them. Sending me an email about them before we meet will save us time. I have a book on drafting custody/parenting agreements that has worksheets in it and seems very detailed which I will bring when we meet.

I do not want to see him, I know I am supposed to be completely dark, but I don't know what else to do. We haven't filed for divorce yet, don't have lawyers or a custody agreement. If I try to just keep the kids from him this weekend, he can use that against me. But I am seriously worried about my kids, especially as he should know this is not a good idea. He seems to be getting more and more unstable. My IM has agreed to be with me when I meet with him. When he and I don't agree, he will initially grandstand and yell and stuff, but as long as I am calm and hold my ground he usually backs down. I think I can get him to back down and work out a reasonable arrangement. He doesn't know his mother knows anything, so the fact that she told me to tell him not to have the boys around OW is something I can use to try to convince him that he is unreasonable, out of control, inappropriate and that he needs to stop. He needs to know that no one supports him on this. He and I are still married, our kids are very young and he has only technically been out for one month.

I also don't really want to sandbag him on the mistress issue and just spring it on him when we meet (because I think he will flip out and stop being reasonable), but I couldn't figure out how to add that to the list -- "morality" or "dating while still married to their mom" or "not screwing your kids' heads up" -- without antagonizing him and putting him on the defensive more than he already is going to be.

Or am I supposed to just ignore this and let him expose them to this inappropriate behavior? I know I can get him to stop/back off for now if I confront him. Last night my 3YO woke up screaming twice in the night and yesterday my 5YO pooped his pants at daycare/preschool (which he hasn't done in 3 years) I know because he was wound up over having a visit with his dad. Every visitation, they have a terrible time with transitions and it makes me so sad for them. WH refuses to do anything to help them adjust, like discuss this with them, even though I've asked in the past. One of my close friends is a social worker/counselor who works with children and is one of the people most adamant that something needs done asap for the kids' sake.

So, I know having contact with him is bad, but time is a factor here and we need to come to an arrangement now. What should I do?

Why oh WHY is it that whenever things calm down and I am doing well, something like this always seems to happen? Why can't anything go according to plan? Why won't it stop? Why does he seem determined to torture me? Why can't I just have some peace?

This is the stuff that sucks all the life out of me and I don't know what to do, so I lose all my momentum. It makes me feel so exhausted I just want to lie down and give up.

Hyacinth,

I guaran-damn-tee you he won't be accommodating at all to anything you said in your email. His eyes will glass over and you'll get in an argument.

Face it, he flat out DOES NOT CARE how his children are being affected. And you're not the only one on this forum with similar concerns.

My advice is to file for a legal separation with a concrete visitation plan and a clause that states that he cannot have overnight visitors of the opposite sex (save family) when he has visitation. You could go ahead and put in OW's name specifically, and that the children shall not be in contact with her, but (legally) there's little you can do.

That's what I'd do. Forget trying to reason with him or appeal to any paternal concern...there isn't any. Sorry you're going through this, but I'd hate to see you trying to go down this road with the assumption that he'll see the light with regards to his children.

Too, I'd make an appointment with a child psychologist to discuss your concerns for two reasons. One, you/they can get advice on how to work with this and two, it documents that your children are under mental stress as a direct result of your husband's actions.

In other words, don't send him that email.

I don't understand why you even stay in Plan B if all you are going to do is find new reasons to break it? Why even bother? Just today alone, you have drummed up numerous "reasons" why you can't stay dark.

And if you believe that Plan B causes this "toxic" environment, rather than his affair, then why bother? Look, I am not trying to be callous here, but it appears to me that we take this much more seriously than you do. Instead of finding of ways to stay dark, you seem to be looking for ways to not stay dark.

Why bother? I ask this seriously..

Hyacinth --

I think your situation is extremely hopeful. I have absolutely no doubt that your husband will come back.

But not if you sabotage your own plan.

Stop visitation. Through your IM send him the message that your precious children are not to be exposed to his affair-partners.

Good idea. What's he going to do? Go to court and wine that you won't let your kids around his adultery partner?

Even if he does, no loss on your part.

I want to clarify that I DON'T mean that Plan B is toxic, I think it is and has been very healthy for me (possibly not so much for him, but that's neither here or there ). What I meant was that my children are 3 and 5 and let's face it, it's not going to be possible to remain absolutely dark for the rest of my life, as much as I might wish I could. At some point, years down the road, he and I are going to have to come to terms with all of this and leave it behind. That's all I meant; we will not be adversarial forever. Or at least, I am not willing to be. But as long as he is adversarial toward me, I will not have contact with him, so who knows... it MAY be forever after all.

There is no legal separation in my state, I thought I had mentioned that before, although we can have a legal custody agreement without filing for divorce because we do not live together. That's apparently what we're going to have to do, but I'm not sure how to go about that, since I DO agree with all of you that I do not want to break Plan B and have contact with him. Also, my lawyer already told me that judges here do not like to rule on people's personal lives and that I have absolutely NO chance of restricting him from exposing them to OW, unless she is a drug addict or something (she's not... just a tramp). That's why I was trying to "bully" him into agreeing to my demands (because I can usually do that). Unless I can get him to go along with it, he can go to court tomorrow, demand 50% visitation and he'll get it until we can hash this out in the courts. And he would probably get 50% even once we hash it out. Infidelity has NO BEARING on custody; you all know that.

So... I just have my IM tell him he can't have the kids until... what? He signs something agreeing to not expose my children to his adulterous affair accomplice?

It COULD potentially be a loss on my part, if the court views me as trying to restrict his access to his children, interfere with visitation, or "turn them against him" in any way. Then, ironically, I could be the one seen as a bad influence.

I have never seen this become a problem. I would have the IM tell him he can't expose the kids to his affair. Many folks here have this in their divorce/separation papers. You are not restricting his access to his children, you are restricting their exposure to his affair, which is an unfit environment for kids. He is trying to teach your kids that wrong is right, and that is very sick and dysfunctional for kids. I take it you have discussed adultery with the older child and why that is wrong?

Well, I don't really think it will be a real a problem with anyone other than him and his family (because he'll spin it and I already explained how passive aggressive they all are.)

No, I haven't discussed adultery with my 5 year old. I did not want to confuse him, put him in the middle or make him feel like he had to choose between his dad and I. Also, as a child of divorce, I know that the parent who bad-mouths the other ends up being the one who loses the child's respect, not matter what the other parent did.

Ugh. I thought I could get to my IM before she got home and checked her email, but I had already sent it to her this afternoon and she already sent it to him by the time I caught her. Darn smartphones. (When I was busy doing my normal afternoon commute/pick up kids/soccer practice.) It's too late.

But I am still prepared NOT to break Plan B and meet him.

Now what should I do? She said she has a response from him and he said he is willing to meet me tomorrow afternoon. She said there's a lot more to his response but didn't tell me what it was because I assume it was venomous.