Thanks Melody, I know it, but nice to hear it from someone else

I need some guidance on Parallel Parenting. I sent a message through my IM asking that WH bring the kids back 1 hour earlier tomorrow so they could go to a church christmas program, or in the alternative switch days. Unfortunately, as I was afraid of, this communication caused WH to request an overnight. I'm mad at myself for even making the request, I think if I had not he would not have asked for the overnight but for opening up communication and now again I'm sucked back into the custody dispute. Through IM I said no overnights until 1) I see a copy of his lease, 2) I know when OW adoption is finalized, and 3) I know what his current salary is, and he will have to sign a stipulation about no contact with SOs. I said if i got this info I would give the overnight next week as he requested. I know i can't keep him from overnights, but I know I could spend money through my lawyer to get that info (except the adoption part) before allowing it. I knew this was coming but I thought I would have had more time if I had not initiated the switch.

So what do you do? If an activity falls on day that you dont have the kids do you just assume its not worth the hassle and have the kids do without? I hate that, but i'm thinking it is probably best. My kids at this age dont know what they are missing, only me. But as they got older there will be things they will have to miss. I hate the idea of them missing out on anything they could have had because of his choices. He has already taken so much from them, and from me.

First off, I would avoid changing visitation times at all cost for this very reason. When you do that, it opens him up to ask for endless changes. It is best to stick to strict times.

Secondly, what does the OW's adoption have to do with anything?

The thing is...affairs can happen to anyone anywhere, when people do not exercise boundaries around the opposite sex. People mean well when doling out marriage advice - but they typically have no idea what they are talking about. This is all on your WH - has nothing to do with you and your pregnancy.

It is, unfortunately, very very common for in-laws (even the ones who seem supportive of the BS) to throw the BS under the bus. They do not want the divorce to happen and they definitely don't want a divorce to happen due to their son's infidelity so they will get foggy in their own way.

It doesn't matter if they Plan B'd you - you should Plan B them from your end. If you are friends with them on social media, unfriend them or just close your account and don't read anything else they send you and don't engage in conversation with them.

I would encourage you to tell these people. I think you will be surprised at how much support you will get and how much it will help.

amac, I asked you before what you attorney said about all this...you are mixing other issues in with visitation (financial etc) that don't really make sense to me. During my divorce the financial part was complete separate from the parenting agreement.

Also, your WH doesn't need to meet any of your demands in order to "get" his overnight visitation. He is entitled to it - that's why I suggested to you before that you try to get a voluntary agreement that he will keep the OW away from the kids. Because I'm afraid you are going to piss him off to the point that he isn't going to agree to anything.

Agree x 100.

Right, okay I will set a schedule that will be most accommodating to our life. I think I will say Friday nights, return by 12 on Saturdays. That way I can take them to church on Sundays and most kid birthday parties, etc. are on Saturday afternoons.

The adoption is important in my mind, both affair wise and child custody wise. OW has been able to remain living with her BH under the guise of "staying together for the adoption." When the adoption is done, we will see what she actually does. If she does leave BH, I highly doubt she will be in the one to up and move her kids 50 miles away to live in WH's crappy apartment. I think he will move to be closer to her. I do not want my children to get accustomed to seeing WH and having overnights at his apartment to then have him uproot and move to be near her. I know this is not in my control, but by seeing how long his lease is and knowing the adoption timeframe will give me and idea, and potential arguments in court regarding the lack of stability in WH's current living situation. Its not good for any child, but my kids are really young and it would be very unhealthy for him to keep throwing them into new situations.

Have you asked your attorney about this? I think you have a strong argument for primary for this reason but I don't think you will be able to stop visitation regardless of whether he moves, etc.

As far as I know, family courts/judges will only stop visitation for any kind of safety issue like exposure to drugs etc. Otherwise, they won't care.

I was able to delay overnight visitation during the D for my kids because my exH moved into his OW's house, and the kids' counselor told both of our lawyers that they did not want to go there and that she thought it was too soon - but that only lasted for a few months. And that was voluntary on his part. I don't know that the judge would have backed me had he pushed it to court.

The financial is intertwined with parenting agreement because of child support. Thats really the reason why WH is asking for overnights, because he doesn't want to pay as much. My lawyer agreed that I would not have to give overnights until he gives proof about his new job. I hadn't brought up the other things to him, but the job stuff in the least would cause a delay in overnights. In fact, WH intentionally delayed staring his new job until the day after our scheduled hearing to try to withhold this information.

I know he is entitled to overnights, but in order to force me to give them to him when I am unwilling, he would have to go through the court process. That's not going to happen next week, and if I force the process, it could be a couple months in the least. All but the adoption stuff is things I would be entitled to in the court process. By me telling him he can have overnights next week in exchange for that info I see it as beneficial to both of us. He gets overnights sooner and I get information I'm entitled to anyway.

I'm asking for the agreement to keep the kids away from OW, but it doesn't give me any comfort at all. My kids are young, they only way to know if he has them around her or not would be from my 3 year old who when I asked once who was at daddy's house she said "Juliene" her best friend at school! So no way for me to enforce it anyway.

Yeah she's a dangerous type of ignorance at best. Keep your distance. I'm fairly certain your H was raised with the idea that lying and secrets are super and great. That kind of background is usually the highest risk factor for someone to go wayward.

You don't want to give him the idea you are flexible, friendly coparents. Parallel parenting has a strict schedule.

I agree with this too. Your WH got into an affair because he went into chat rooms and has no boundaries. WSs are typically people who believe they can indulge in needs meeting without it going too far. Or they dont care about it going too far because they intend to keep everything hidden. He wasn't honest with you about his intentions, about the boundary-less content of conversations or his true feelings. He can learn better boundaries but he's never had them in the past.

I highly doubt your pregnancy wove some kind of magic change on his boundaries and morals.

It's not you. It's not how successful you were. It's not that you got pregnant. These things are normal things! Unless your successful pregnant self put a gun to his head and you were part of the affair decision.

And even if it were those factors (unlikely) there was no Radical Honesty from him about how he dislikes pregnant/successful women was there?


It isn't you. You're having a low day on the rollercoaster. Which means you're due a good one.

The routine you have in mind sounds good.



Hmmm. You're making the rookie mistake of assuming that waywards make and keep plans like normal people. They live minute to minute. Your WH is just as likely to break his lease as he is to keep it.

As for the adoption, it gives OW a very convenient excuse for putting the A on hold. She can continue to cake eat and I wouldn't be surprised if she never adopts or if she fails the screening process due to odd behaviour.(is exposure possible to these adoption people? I hate to think of a baby being handed to her!).

Your best plan would take into account of the certain chaos waywards bring.

For instance, it's pretty common for them to fail or disobey a set routine and disrupt the children's expectations at least once. Your plan is to log everything and make each failure known to the court. Make it so unpleasant he doesn't repeat it. If he does, well...

I have to say, I am perplexed as I have never heard of this before, a parent being able to withhold visitations until they get x, y and z documentation from the other parent, documentation that has nothing to do with the safety of the child. I have also never heard of a parent being able to withhold overnight visitation because of the outcome of the CS. That's not how it is done here.

I would just say work closely with your attorney to get the outcome that would be best for your kids. If you really think that that is to withhold visitation until you get this documentation and are not worried about pissing off your WH and getting dragged into court, just to delay the inevitable, then I guess that's what you do...

Re the morality clause - I think your DD will be able to tell you if someone else was sleeping at the apartment. Given your WH's relationship with a married OW, problem with chatrooms and admitted "sex addiction", I would do whatever you can to make sure a morality clause is in the parenting agreement. If you cannot get one voluntarily, then I would fight for it. This is the issue I would be focused on.

haha if only he would have told me he didn't like successful pregnant woman! All of this could have been spared

WH has a problem facing conflict. Hence the total lack fo radical honesty with him. He runs from every situation he cannot lie his way out of. The running from problems i was aware of before the affair, but not the lying. Of course now I look back and question whether everything was a lie.

I dont know what to believe about the adoption, so I guess you are right, the only safe assumption is chaos. What I have been told and knew when I could see her facebook was that this was a child OW & BH have had since birth, and she turned 1 in May. When I spoke to OWBH in july he said the adoption was "months away." Unfortunately, I dont think the affair would disqualify her from being able to adopt, but I think the reason OW and WH got so mad at the exposure is they did not want OWBH to know all the dirty details to the point of where he would no longer go along with the adoption, which I know he threatened at some points, but clearly not strongly enough for her to stop the affair.

So he does know all the dirty details of the affair, right? Or are you helping them hide the affair? I don't understand why this is an issue unless you have made some deal with the devil to hide their affair?

Honestly, this is the most bizarre hypothetical. This is all speculation based on nothing. Who said they are "staying together for the adoption?" Did you tell this to the OWH?

And how do you know that is not the OW's excuse for not leaving her husband? Most married women don't leave their husbands over affairs and she may have used that as an excuse to not leave him. That is the more likely scenario. But hanging so much faith on the words of a dishonest, cheating wayward is utterly insane. That is like putting faith in the words of falling down drunk.

This line of thinking should be completely dropped. The only thing you should be doing with his knowledge is making sure the OWH knows absolutely everything you do and I have a feeling he does not.

They want no change at all. You want all the changes. This is why exposures are so key. We can only rely on the crackheads to sit like lumps, getting high. It is the reactions of normal people which drive change.

Melody has really highlighted something which got past me about BHs reaction.



You made no mention of what YOU told him. Of course OW told him a soft detail like this. It is the perfect hook to motivate him to compete for her. You sounded like you were harsher with her relatives, and sure they passed on stuff to him like the usual plan to extort the BH. But what DETAILS did you give him?

Then we hear about how your plan involves an assumption that OW is not going to leave her marriage, or her adoption plans. Which keeps her away from your husbands apartment and your kids overnights. If I'm reading this right, these are all understandable FEELINGS, but you have to discount your feelings and follow the plans rigidly. Don't try to manage the reactions of others because you're simply halting the inevitable, freezing time and dragging out the unpleasantness.

At the start of your thread, when you were over-managing, I thought "I bet her WH has a long history of being a bit of an emotional baby so she's used to doing all the heavy lifting'. Then when you said his parents were still cooing over their 'lost soul', I thought 'definitely a baby'

So I'm not surprised to hear this:




You need to stand in stark contrast to his own habits. You need to be totally fearless and unapologetic about being truthful to all and sundry and to really scorch the earth with your exposure as a model of what standards he can expect if he returns. Not to mention that OWBH really deserves the unpleasant details. If he is still fogged out on plan hope, it is no kindness to leave him there.

Maybe WH will balk at this much truth and conflict. Maybe he will try to make an affairage in a crappy flat happen. But his choices are not yours to manage. Your one goal is to maintain high standards for yourself and those you allow close to you. Pep's wise words to me were:



So what EXACT details does OWBH have, as in things you have PERSONALLY discussed with him?