You have to keep reminding yourself you're doing what is in the best interest of DSS12.

Your WW is an addict and acting like an addict and is not healthy for your DSS12 to be around.

You're being a good father and putting his needs first.

WS now calling home every day - she didn't used to. She keeps claiming she's not comfortable DSS12 living with me -- and I keep telling her I don't get it: while she was alley-catting without my cast-iron knowledge, she was fine to leave both DSS12 and DD7 with me and go galivanting. Now she tells me "Don't keep telling me how it used to be. I'm just not comfortable with it.." I tell her she's in a minority of one: Biodad and DSS12 are most comfortable with it.

Regrettably -- I'm unable to avoid getting sucked in -- WS and I have got into one or two heated arguments on the 'phone. At the very least I understand the account of events to which she is resolutely sticking. It dates back to her ILYBINILWY of 2009.

That was the culmination of a dark three-year period in which WS assaulted me (on different occasions spat in my face, grabbed me by the b*lls, punched me in the b*lls, stabbed me in the arm, threw a glazed picture at my head). In the end, after eight such incidents, I snapped and hit her back. Her attacks stopped for a while, but months later, around May 2009, in another characteristic fury, she started hurling objects at me from the trunk (boot) of the car, and to stop her I pushed/tripped her over. She fell to the driveway, sustained a cut to the back of her head, the police got involved, the public prosecutor brought an ABH case and only after 12-15months dropped it for lack of evidence and dismissal of a not-credible witness (neighbour).

Things did seem to return to normal(?) thereafter, and although she always refused counselling (which I wanted and so had to take alone) we made up and apologised to each other and still had trips away with kids etc. But her goings-out had been increasing before AND through all this time, and it seems her affair with OM started 16 months later, around Nov 2010.

Now WS tells me that when she declared ILYBINILWY, she'd said I could do whatever I wanted with anyone else I wanted -- and retrospectively implies likewise for herself. In which case, I ask her now, why did she lie to me for so long, when I'd been seeing dribbles of circumstantial evidence? After all, if she had so declared, she shouldn't have had any compunction coming clean -- especially when I stumbled upon an exchange of txt messages between WS and OM "I love you and only you baby!"; "I love only you, too!" etc. But she lied and tried to keep up the pretext...

So there you have it. It's all my fault. Her responses to her friends/Exposure audience have been to recount back to the drive-way incident -- but (of course?) not go further back to her stabbing/spitting/etc.

WS is therefore, almost by definition, not in a conciliatory mood*, and this scenario does not look to me like an MB Plan B candidate. Apart from the deep rancour, and her declaration to me three weeks ago that she is "completely in love" with OM, all three weekends since I asked WS to leave, she has come home to pick up more of her belongings -- and "to see my children". So the no-contact rule hasn't applied (although it soon may, as she said she can't take any more stuff until she gets a place of her own...). Even so, I wonder now whether there is any point.

Thanks in advance for expressions of the collective wisdom here. Heaven knows I've merited a prize for the most unwise -- at the least for reacting wrongly against wrong.

*OK, she has said "sorry" a couple of times, for "hurting" me and lying to me...

I struck all the stuff that is immaterial, foggy wayward-speak. Ignore all that.

I think your WW is in conflict, which is very good. She needs to be conflicted about her choice to be with OM.

I think this is a prime scenario for Plan B.

Hmm... OK...

I can't help feeling I should be comporting myself in quiet, hurt dignity -- and I'm acutely aware I'm failing miserably. I keep losing my cool and joining WS in mutual recrimination. I keep having flashbacks, in intricate detail, to what was said and done in the period of deception/ignorance. I am distressed about all this and stressed at work (and am having to make effort to shield these from the kids). The background therefore doesn't make for as dignified an encounter with WS as I would want each time. Is that perhaps why an IM is recommended..?

I think this is a prime scenario for Plan B.

However, as a human courtesy (of course!), you should compassionately let everyone know of the multiple assaults (a stabbing?) you endured.

And by everyone, I include POSOM!!!!!

Thanx, @NG. I'm intrigued (and encouraged?) that you and @MB suppose that this is still in Plan B territory...

On the point of "Exposing" the assaults, I think it's too late, because I already Exposed the affair, in response to which WS has given out the limited background that SUPPOSEDLY led to her starting an affair. She didn't cc: me on that (i.e. on her rejoinders to Exposure audience), so it seems to me that anything I write/say further will now look like (any/all of):
1) tit-for-tat, especially as I started the round of exposures, or
2) unnecessary airing of dirty linen i.e. "too much information", or
3) in people's eyes, every good reason for the marriage to have ended -- in which case, what am I fighting to salvage, and why?

Man, this is going to sound cruel........I HOPE!

I think it's too late...it seems to me

Your condition may improve if you stop THINKING, and start LISTENING, and ACTING!

@NG, I hear you. But I'm confused - perhaps by analysis-paralysis as you suggest. Maybe I need to express my need in a different way: how do I NOW do Exposure of WS's previous attacks?

E-mail original Exposure audience saying: "Oh, btw, did WS tell you how many times she stabbed me or broke a glass picture on my face?", kind of out of the blue?

Or "It's been 3wks since you last heard from me, in which time I understand WS has been telling self-serving tales of when I pushed her over, neglecting to mention the years of physical abuse she meted out to me..."?

Do you see? Even to my eyes these questions of practicality can seem sarcastic or sardonic, hence my reluctance to post them here so explicitly. I AM listening. I also want to act practically and pragmatically. Thanks again...

I wouldn't get into a back-and-forth argument about 'years of abuse' or about Person A hitting Person B with a picture, etc. None of that. No one wants to be an on-going spectator of your marital squabbles. And that's how they'll look at it. I think it will also take some of the punch out of your exposure.

Every wayward has a treasure trove of tall tales that they weave for anyone who will listen, in order to bolster their position. "See?? He was so mean to me that I just HAD to run out and have an affair!" The point remains that she had an affair. That won't be lost on anyone, although you might certainly distract people from that if you engage in a volley of "he said/she said" with everyone.

I would stand tall and let your actions speak for you. If anyone asks, answer them honestly. But don't spearhead a campaign to prove that your WW was meaner or more abusive than you.

You've been here since 12 May 2012. Prior to that you endured felonious assault and her drug-dependency, as well as how-many episodes of her infidelities and treatment of you and your marriage like so much used toilet paper. And your biggest concern is what FONT to use in writing, "My wife is an abusive, drug-using, child-abandoning, lying skank and slut and has been for years! Proof furnished upon request!" ?????

Sorry dude, I have no advice for you in that line. In 24 hours I had convinced my WW that without immediate action on her part, I was willing to destroy every vestige of her comfortable living in concert with her professional, familial, and religious reputation, and terrified the very life (as it ultimately turned out) from POSOM by demonstrating the possibly irrational lengths I was willing to go to to exact revenge on him.

Proper etiquette or literary construction never quite made the threshold of my concern.

Thanks: my exact problem is that I see this from both NeverGuessed's and maritalbliss' perspectives. @NG: the boiling rage within me and my thirst for revenge scare ME. I would LOVE for it to scare THEM -- WW and OM -- in the way you'd fear a fire for the heat it gives through a ten-foot block of insulation. @mb: You reiterate my point about tit-for-tat.

While I balance on the horns of that dilemma, WS pops back today Sat to get more belongings (even takes cutlery, crockery, and a few pieces of decoration that she'd bought for the house), and see the kids (takes them out to shopping centre for 2-3hrs). She even asked if I would sign over to her my car insurance no-claims status ("Nope") and if I could pay the first instalment of her now-exorbitant, returning-drink-driver car insurance ("Nope"): we call it brass neck. She tried briefly to talk me round, then abruptly left my face and went to complete the transaction by herself.

She said nothing much further to me after that, but at one point I was upstairs and she and DSS12 were downstairs talking when I heard her raise her voice and shout at him: "YOU HAVE NO HOME, DSS12! <INAUDIBLE>... YOU ARE LUCKY, BUT I.. <INAUDIBLE>.." I am very concerned at WS's manipulation of DSS12 -- and of DD7, who is by nature a very out-going and happy-go-lucky sort (and whose "Mummy! Mummy!!" adulation frankly annoys me).

@NG: I do like your one-liner (even if I think it'll make little impression on most of the friends on her Exposure list). What typeface says it best? :-)

igiiroko, remind me: do the kids know that their mother is laying with another man and abandoning them regularly to do so? Have you exposed the affair to them?

Dude, the similarities between your story and that of LookingForHelp (among others) all initiate from modern man's conflict between what he feels in his "gut" he should do, and the deeply instilled "convention" that giving in to base animal drives somehow lowers his moral essence to that of, well, animals. This gets compounded by the confusion about the "rights" of a WW to unilaterally and arbitrarily destroy a contracted relationship. I made the point on his thread that if POSOM were stealing his classic automobile, he'd likely have no conflict with fighting (in whatever mode) to get it back. But POSOM stealing his wife somehow entangles the issue.

It has appeared on the stories here that the BHs with less investment in, and commitment to, "proper behavior" fare better.

@NG: I do like your one-liner (even if I think it'll make little impression on most of the friends on her Exposure list). What typeface says it best? :-)

Impact11 is pretty good!

Of course, properly motivated, NG might sign POSOM's copy in his own blood, as a totem of his resolve!

@NG, as ever you make a valid point. The analogy of the classic auto falls down in the face of us "modern" men not seeing our womenfolk as chattels or possessions. But THAT again harks to your main point about "modern man", doesn't it?

The other thing is, complicit though POSOM is, WS willingly joined up with him. She became friends with him, deepened their friendship inappropriately, and open her loins to his. (I can't get out of my mind my wonder at the PRECISE MOMENT WS decided to DO THAT, and actually DID it. It's a claw in the eye for my heart and soul, given how we started together...)

ii
(a.k.a "tied-in-knots")

Okay, but have you exposed the affair to the kids?

@MB, I have Exposed WS to DSS12 and DD7, in that I challenged her in front of them. DSS12 is extremely disapproving of his mother (see earlier), but WS has started a charm offensive (very appropriate term, given her mixture of snarling and bribery as twin approaches) on DSS12. DD7 is bright but naive (or too young), so takes at face value her mother's "mummy doesn't love daddy any more" line...

Draft revisit:
"Dear FOWW,
It's been a month since I approached you for help in ridding my family of the cancer of adultery. To those who have responded, thanks for your responses in the past weeks. In that time I have come to understand how WW has been defending her conduct. I want to focus on her adultery, but it also needs to be very clear that WW has for long been abusive towards me, used drugs, abandoned and disappointed the children, and lied and Lied and LIED. I can provide proof if you feel it would help, but again, my focus is on ending the adulterous relationship that is treating me, our children, and the very cherished notion of marriage as a disposable, dispensable rag worthy of nothing but flagrant disrespect. In keeping my focus, I am setting aside a lot of FEELING."

What do you think? Thanks for all viewpoints -- from hawks (e.g. @NG) as well as doves...

Now tear it up and throw it away. And be thankful that you ran this past us before sending it out, so we could stop you in time. Many posters blew that opportunity, to their dismay.

Can you expand, @MB? (For me, for other newbies, and indeed for posterity..?) Thanx...

What's wrong with the template from the exposure thread?