Ok...here it goes

My wife and I have been married since April '07 and have been together since Oct '05. She has a daughter(8) from a previous relationship and we have a son(2) together. Around the beginning of April of this year, she had started hanging around with the OM and she had told me that they were no more than friends. I had a gut feeling that something was going to happen and sure enough on 5/20/11 she packed up a bunch of her stuff and left me for him. It all started supposedly that I wasn't meeting her EN's and that he had been there to vent about the things that I hadn't been doing for her. I will be the first to admit that I wasn't meeting all of her needs so when she went to stay with a female family friend(which has been confirmed) for a few days to help her with her husband and 2 weeks prior to her leaving me, the areas that I was lacking in I started doing a 180 in and she seemed happy with my turn around.

After she left me I began to find out disturbing things about the OM that had me very concerned. I found out that he was heavily into pills and that he was an alcoholic. I also discovered that he is abusive as he had beaten his own mother. My wife and I really didn't talk until around 7/4 when she flipped because she wasn't allowed to take the children because I didn't feel that being around the OM was a safe decision. She soon moved in with our family friend and stayed with her for about 2 weeks. When she moved in is when the verbal abuse had started and she was called a whore, slut, etc. by the OM. After the 2 weeks she had moved back in with the OM. We had very little contact with one another up until 9/5 when her father was put in the hospital because of some bad medical conditions that he was dying from. He soon passed away on 9/11. The night that he had passed I was with her to console her and the OM was blowing up her phone and being down right rude to her not even 15 minutes after her dad passed. She said that she was done with him and couldn't handle the verbal abuse anymore.

She left him on 9/12 and stayed with another family friend for a few days until 9/17 when she came home to be with her family as the children had made her realize what she was losing. She stayed home for 1 night then went to stay with her grandmother until she could get her self-esteem somewhat back because of all the emotional damage she had gotten from him. She slipped up on 9/19 and took the OM to his bowling league and then had taken him home. After she got him in the house(because he was very intoxicated) she said that she was going home and he flipped on her, grabbing her around the throat, banging her head into the wall and grabbing her by the face causing her to bite the insides of her cheeks. I took her to the police dept the following day after I had found out and she filed an assault charge. She told everyone that they were done for good.

On 9/24 my bestfriend(which is also her bestfriend) had started to talk to the OM and he said that he wanted to hear it from her that they were over with. She overheard my convo with our BF and decided last night to go over to his home and tell him that they were done. He told her that the reason why he flipped and assaulted her was medical from a really bad infection that if wouldn't have been treated when it was, would've killed him. She got proof from the medical papers. She has lied to me about what is going on for the last few days and she was supposed to be going to fill in some applications and I tried to call her as she was supposed to come to my house tonight so we could have dinner and she could see the kids. She hung up on me. Once again, my gut took over and I drove to his house to see if she was there, and sure enough...I called our BF who is fed up with what she is doing to me and our kids and she went there and talked to the OM and my WW separately. She's trying to get this taken care of to help me, the OM wants to meet with me so we can discuss what's going on but my stipulation is that my BF has to bring him and that my BF will be there to keep the peace.

I love my wife and I've already suffered through 2 months of depression from D-day 1 and now I feel like I'm going through it all over again. She says that she still wants to be friends with the OM and I told her that our marriage will not recover if she continues to see/speak with him. I purchased and read "Surviving the Affair" twice and my wife refuses to read it. I've tried to follow all the steps in the book, but haven't gotten to Plan B as of yet. Is there any way that I can get her to stop the lies and get her out of the fog and away from the abuse once and for all so we can finally start our recovery.

some of the pros will be along soon to give you advice please listen to them it may not be what you want to hear but they are the experts and can guide you on how best to kill the affair and then to try and recover your marriage.

welcome to MB sorry to see you here

Thank you, I have read a lot of posts on this site and gladly welcome the advice.

DG23, I would file for divorce/separation TOMORROW and get primary custody with your wife having only supervised visits. Have your attorney take the OM's criminal record and make it mandatory that your children never be around the OM. Make sure she can never take them out of your sight during visits.

The reason I say this is because your wife is dangerous. She has absolutely no good judgement when it comes to her own life and can't be trusted to protect those kids. Many women, when they are this destructive, will use the law maliciously against a betrayed husband. And by that I mean, getting you kicked out of your home and having a restraining order slapped against you. She can easily do that if she thinks of it. But if you have full custody and have it on record that she is having an affair with a violent alcoholic, you and your kids will have some protection.

That is the FIRST THING you have to do. Your first priority has to be to protect those kids.

I would also DEMAND that your wife end all contact with this man for life or this will end in divorce.

Your best friend is a woman?

CWMI,
I know, it sounds bad, she is also my wife's best friend and I am also very good friends with her boyfriend and have known him for many years. They were the only people who had faith in our marriage while I dealt with all the depression. They both side with me on the whole situation.

Melody,
I already have a divorce lawyer on speed dial and have already paid for a retainer for my lawyer, who happens to be the best in the area. I spoke with her shortly after I made my initial post and she is telling me that she wants to work on us and that she had just stopped by to check on him because he had surgery today and no one else is around to check on him. She says that she doesn't want to be with someone who has anger issues among other mental issues. I told her that I am not going to compete with the OM for her and that I could care less about how he feels about her. She told me I don't have to compete because she wants to be with me. I have an ex-parte order issued for custody of our son which was filed back in July. I will continue to pressure her for NC with OM. She has already agreed to be transparent with me as I with her, but she also doesn't know that I put a keylogger on the computer and SpySMS on her phone.

Gotcha. I would continue to demand she end contact. The fact that she has agreed to be transparent misses the point though. If she has any contact it makes recovery impossible.


I would let her know that can only happen if she ends all contact with the OM. Recovery is impossible this way.

I would also strongly consider going into Plan B at this point since you are already depressed. Your wife is so abusive and so destructive that it is affecting your mental health. I suspect she believes you will do nothing to stop her and will always be available no matter what.

Is she an alcoholic?

I am not in a state of depression anymore, I got through that back in July just one day had an eye opener and decided that I didn't like the person I was becoming, so I did a 180 on myself for me and for my children. I was no use to them in a depressed state.

She isn't an alcoholic, she can barely drink 1 drink without being drunk off her butt or getting sick.

I will be having my meeting with OM in 2 days and I already forewarned my BF that I will have my B.S. detector up and running. I've worked collections for the last 6 years so I can smell B.S. a mile away.

For boundary reasons (and appearances) have your friend's boyfriend there as well.

cv

I had planned on it because he is ex military and is a very big guy who is not to be messed with. The OM supposedly told my wife that he's done with her, but she is at his house trying to get him to still be friends with her and she hasn't answered my phone calls. Getting pretty ticked off right now

Most OM's are cowards. my wife's OM was bigger than me and shaking in his boots. Still though.. I was thinking in case you lost it on him, or just to avoid looking like you had an OW there. It's weird how accusations like that pop up outta nowhere.

He likes to talk a big game, but doesn't intimidate me, he's a scrawny guy, and I'm a pretty well built guy myself. My friend is really only going to be there to restrain me and his G/F because she's a scrapper and will go at it without thinking twice about it.


Now my wife is saying that she needs to be friends with him, which went into a small book about everything from my feelings to who she's hurting and reasoning, I know that it probably will not work, but I'm hoping it will make her think a little bit.

Dude, you have to break contact with OM cold. Tell her there is no possible way they can be friends and work on the marriage.

CV

I keep pushing her to go NC, but the only thing that worries me is that she is so deep in the fog, that I'm afraid that if I give her an ultimatum, she'll choose the wrong option. Is there any way to lift the fog around her so she can see the 180 I have done since she originally left?

100% full exposure is the first and biggest weapon. It is perhaps the nuke of killing affairs. The second is having clear lines drawn in the sand. Certain behaviors are unacceptable and must remain that way.

In other words, what are you actually telling your wife when you *don't* say anything?

In fact, remember that line from Say Anything? Corey is talking and says:

"You're not a guy. The world is full of guys. Be a man. Dont just be a guy."

What you are saying by not saying anything is "go ahead and boink some other guy, I won't make too many waves"

What she needs to hear is "I love you, what you are doing is dangerous to me, you and everyone we know and love. I cannot and will not stand by and let you do this as long as we are married"

Now, what i would suggest is not giving her the option (others may object). I would tell her that there is only the marriage with no contact, or there is no marriage at all.

CV

I've tried exposing it to everyone that I know of that she knows with the exception of a few people that I have no way of getting in contact with because I don't know their phone numbers or can't find them on facebook.

There are a lot of what if's in not giving her an option, like what if she says fine? I do not want to go through the rest of my life without her, I can but don't want to. What if she says fine and then goes back to hiding from me and doing it anyway? I guess that it's a risk I may have to take though.

Should I explain all that happened to my stepdaugther? She knows that mom left and wants to know why but I don't know if I should tell her why or that her mom was beaten not even a week and a half ago by this same guy.

DG,

You will probably have to expose to your Stepdaughter in an age appropriate way. How old are your boys?

Also, she is already gone. She's with another man and won't stop. right now you are in denial. You're holding on to the illusion of her. She's not there, she checked out when she engaged in an affair.

You do realize if you don't out a stop to it, she will probably eventually leave anyway. It will only prolong the pain. the best way to stop it is push NC for life. Contact this guy's chain of command and report him. make it uncomfortable for him. make him downright miserable. Is there a police report from him beating her? use that as well!

CV

I am going to try to speak with his mother this weekend and let her know, I am supposed to see my wife tonight so I'm going put NC out there the way you said. She did file a police report, I was the one who took her to the police departmentafter it happened. I will use it against her to ensure the kids safety.

My son is 2, almost 3. He asks me from time to time where's mommy it kills me to hear it every time I don't know what to say other than I don't know.

Good deal. threaten to expose this guy to his command too. With the police report.

CV

The guy doesn't have a real job. He does tattoos from his home, do unfortunately no chain of command there, I'm almost to the point of messagingall 556 friends on Facebook and exposing it to all of them, it would probably only take me 10-15 minutes of I use all 3 of my computers at once.