Well here I am years later and my wife and I have been separated for 10 months. It takes 12 months to get a divorce in the State of South Carolina where we moved to almost 2 years ago away from my wife's second affair partner. To update things have been horrible. I caught my wife having long phone conversations with another man back in October and found a ridiculous amount of text messages as well. I called her out on it and exposed and she denied. I was viewed as falsely accusing her and over exaggerating the situation. In december she changed her passwords as we'd been separated for a few months at that point. However, I was trying to keep things as normal for the kids as possible. So I would head over in the morning take my daughter to school, go to work, come home eat dinner and be with the kids in the evening, help put them to bed then I'd head to the extended. Did that for about 7-8 months and I jsut couldn't do it anymore. So I consulted a lawyer to get some info on my situation. A couple weeks later I found her computer opened to facebook and saw that she was continually messaging and calling this guy through facebook messenger. He was calling her darling, saying I love you and they were sending pictrues back and forth to each other. I just kept quiet but I have exposed it to our church leader and some friends, but at this point I'm keeping things hush hush so I can nab her on adultery charges and save me alimony. I hired a PI a few months ago when I heard through the grapevine that she had gone over to his house for dinner and to watch a movie. Since then he has got video evidence of them making out(inclination) and has also caught them multiple times alone in a car together in a secluded parking lot at night(opportunity). At this point we're heading to mediation next month as she's as eager as can be to end this marriage. THis is now her THIRD affair in the past 5 years. I know it looks ominous, but deep down I still want to save my marriage and family, though at this point I know it won't happen. I'm as far into plan B as I can be. I only text for logistic purposes with the kiddos who are now 7, 3, and 3. I try not to ever call and I make it a point to be as cold as possible when at church with her which is the only time I see her besides exchanges of the kids. I have a feeling that she's going to be humbled next month when the adultery charges come to light and she loses her alimony payments(which are substantial here as she's a SAHM and I'm a high earner). Also, I think their will be church discipline which is a major issue for her as well.

With that said, I just don't know how to let go, how to detach, how to not continually strive to work towards reconciliation. I've spent the past 3 years doing my best to meet her needs and avoid love busters. It has always felt like their was an emotional wall that would not allow me to meet her emotional needs. The harder I tried the more it felt that wall got fortified.

I'm jsut lost and confused and uncertain how to regain a fulness of joy and happiness in my life again. Family is of integral importance to me and I don't want my children to go through the step family ordeal. I don't want them to have to suffer through the emotional strain that divorce creates. But I want to be in a marriage where both parties put the marriage as their top priority. I know I can't force anything on her, but at this point my efforts are dead. I'm fully in plan B at this point I pay her money and I take the kids every other weekend and wednesdays. I'm just waiting in limbo for the divorce to be finalized in a matter of weeks so I can move forward in one way or another.

HH, I'm really sorry to hear it has come to this.

There's a bit of a gap between this story and the events that were happening last time you were here. How did you come to be separated? When did you separate?

If you want to do Plan B, you must do it properly. Plan B is not "I make it a point to be as cold as possible when at church with her which is the only time I see her besides exchanges of the kids". There is no need to go to the same church as her, and you must not see her when you exchange kids. You must not see her or communicate directly with her at all.

You would probably get more responses if you post in Surviving an Affair. I know you seem to accept that your marriage is over, but you'll get better coaching on how to Plan B in that forum.

I remember wondering whether your twins were really yours. What do you think today? She was having an affair while she was pregnant with them.

In your case, I think you are doing the proper course of staying calm while the PI gathers evidence for your attorney.
Hopefully the evidence can be used sufficiently in court to eliminate or reduce the alimony and other payments.

As for your continued contact with her, you can eliminate that in Plan B and by explaining to your kids that it is too painful for you to be around their cheating mother.

We separated last July. She forced the separation. I was trying to continually reconcile. I had a porn relapse that she discovered back in April of last year. We were in-house separated from April until July. Her father(who is pro-marriage and is basically a best friend to me) mediated the request by her to separate. It was suppose to last 2 months and she was to get the individual counseling she needed(she swears I sexually abused her - which is just a smoke screen to her infidelities). I have been porn free for over a year now. I've gone to extensive group session and been able to maintain sobriety for that amount of time now. I was actively working on it for the previous year and half too. I had a handful of relapses over an 8 month period(usually around the time I discovered a phone call or chat session between her and the 2nd OM. I've since discovered that anger is a trigger for relapse). I will definitely look into making arrangements to fortifying plan B completley. THe twins are DEFINITELY mine. One is the splitting image of me, the other looks just like my father in law. The other man was latin american, these boys are as caucasian as I am. Definitely my boys! ;-) They're 3 and half and just loads of fun too. My kids are what is keeping me ticking at this point. We've been through 2 marriage counselors and the third counselor saw us both individually. My wife wouldn't even give her a shot to work with us TOGETHER it was all individual. and yes marriage counseling sucks. The 2nd one was atrocious and a big reason why I think we're where we are at today. Thanks for your input

It's a pity that you did not give up porn use. I don't remember; had it been an issue before in your marriage? So you should have known that you needed to stop?

When do you think her most recent affair started? Do you think it was going on when you were posting here in 2013?

Please tell us more about the atrocious marriage counselling. I think many people don't understand why counsellors are often very bad for marriages, and we need people like you to tell their experiences..

Hi HH, welcome back. I am not surprised to see you here in the divorced section. I knew your wife was never serious about recovery, and you probably did too. She was just biding her time until the next guy came along. For that reason, I am enormously relieved to read that she left and is ending the marriage. That is the biggest gift she can give you. Divorce is the definition of success in your situation, IMO.

My suggestion would be to go into a pitch dark Plan B and get yourself back on track. You have been dealing with a sneaky, cheating wife for YEARS and that has to have had a major effect on you emotionally and perhaps even physically. There is only so much a person can take. So please do go into a dark Plan B.

Your life is FINALLY headed to a much better place. Your future is bright with her out of it!

x 100

I think we could all see where this was heading but you didn't want to see it, HH.

Sorry you are going through this but once you detach from your WW and gain some emotional distance, I think you will feel, as I did, immense relief from the daily ovewhelming stress of living with a serial cheating wayward.

I can relate to this - I can relate to an immense need to want to keep the marriage and family together for your kids. I fought through three years of a false recovery for this very reason.

But this is the thing - you can give your kids at least ONE healthy and whole parent and give them 100% of yourself. That is a true gift. Once I separated and then divorced, I became SUCH A BETTER PARENT.

Why? Because I didn't have to devote SO MUCH emotional energy towards a marriage that was sucking the life out of me and making me a miserable person.

It's been obvious to me for a while that I've been a renter and my wife has been a freeloader. I want to be a buyer and I want to be married to a buyer.

I have an understanding of what Plan B consists of while married. How should one proceed while divorced? I believe firmly that if you're married you're married and when you're divorced, you're divorced. I currently have my younger brother living with me to help me through this difficult time and he's here to assist me in the transition period. I want to be the best parent I can be to my children but I don't want to be consistently reminded of the pain that comes with divorce by having to 're-visit' my soon to be ex.

A dark Plan B is the same as a dark Plan B while separated. You communicate through an IM. You don't see the ExWW at any school.events or mutual events.

You can only uphold your own end of the vows in a situation where abuse has forced you into a Plan B. That means not dating until you are divorced and avoiding opposite sex friendships.

There is absolutely no need to keep on exposing yourself to an abusive situation or person just because you are still legally married.

You have done your utmost.

On the face of it, it wasn't her adultery that caused the separation - it was your porn use.

She appears to have hooked up with someone else after the separation. I know that is still adultery, and it is very much the reason why she will not consider reconciliation - but it isn't wholly true to say that her adultery is the cause of your marital breakdown. Your repeated porn use was the cause of that - and you cannot blame that on her.

This hardly matters since it seems that the divorce will not be stopped - but I think you ought to acknowledge what happened, in your posts here.

Ditto

Are you out of the military now?