I posted here the other day after reading the info on what the steps were to work to potentially resolve the present situation between myself and my wife. Unfortunately when I read the information, I felt as if my wife left me and the five kids because I alone did not give her the emotional needs she needed. I do understand what was missing, and believe that I as her had a responsibilty to work hard to find what we were missing. One of my bigest mistakes was to place so much emphasis on the children, and to not give her more attention. Now I understand that I needed to give her the attention that a spouse for a lifetime requires, while the children are only with you for 18 years. Unfortunately I knew that with our current family size, and myself being fairly new in a demanding job, that we needed to make changes to get back the romance and fun we previously experienced in our relationship. In my opinion I was willing to work on this, and make changes. I had started to make changes, but unfortunately this was not fast enough for her. Ultimately I have to accept that she walked out on all of us to satisfy her own needs, and as a result left us all to suffer the pain of her choices. Tonight my five year old son told me he missed his mommy and wanted to know why she was not at home anymore. He had tears rolling down his face, and once again I was forced to deal with the fallout of her selfishness. I told him his mommy was sick, and needed to spend sometime away to get better, then found a candy store and let him shop. Amazing how fast kids forget at that age when they have candy in their mouth. No where in any of the posting on here or in the marriage builders articles have I seen any ideas about how some individuals can become so self centered with their own emotional needs, and completely toss their family apart. The pain my family will be forced to deal with as a result of her actions is most unfair to say the least. I do know we will get over it, and I am presently doing everything in my power to communicate to my wife that she needs to immediately cease the relationship she is in. I tried plan A for about one week with no reaction. As I felt the pain, and saw what it is doing to the kids I made the decision to go to plan B in very short order. In the letter to my wife I was as compassionate as possible, as honest as possible, and as loving as I have could be. I had one lady tell me that my wife is where she wants to be. For this I have committed to myself to give her two weeks to cutoff all relations with this man and find a place where she can stay to get her head straight, in which I will begin communications again and financial support. If she commits to go to counselling for herself to work on the question's I have "How could you do this to your family, and what part of yourself do you need to work on to ensure this would never happen again?" I am presently already going to counselling to work on issues I know I need to work on if there is a second chance in our relationship, or for myself for my future without her. Whoever may read this please don't loose focus that the person that walks out of a marriage into another persons arms has serious issue's they need to resolve. I do not believe everyone is wired for affairs, as morals that people are raised with are the way people choose to live their life. In most cases where a spouse is not abusive which causes the other spouse to leave, I do believe that the remaining spouse has very deep morals, and most often will put their family before themselves. They have no choice because that is the moral they were raised with. As for the children, I will not say anything bad about their mother to them now or ever, for twelve years she was a excellent mother, a beautiful wife, my lover, and my best friend. Nothing hurts more then when you loose all of these in such a short time.

Hi and welcome to MB. <p>Your concerns are valid. When little ones are involved the pain is emphasized and runs deep. My son was 6 when we found out. I did not keep him in the dark but kept the info at an honest but gentle level. He saw me cry. He cried. I made his dad tell him and then was there to pick up the pieces. <p>You know what I learned? I learned that my child has resillency. That little boy composed a 4 sentence letter to his father. He did more in those 4 self composed setences (2 questions and 2 statements) than I did in all my letters and e-mails. Hit the WS right between the eyes. With such truth and honesty where was the wS to hide? <p>Your children don't deserve the pain and neither do they deserve being lied to. My son handled his pain in short spurts. Eventually the talk came out and we spoke at least twice a week about his feelings. My son saw a counselor once. My cousin and her son helped out as well as SIL's family. I spoke with his teacher and daycare. I let them know that he may need to speak about his feelings and they were all very supportive. <p>I hope this helps.
L.

When my first marriage ended after 16 years, there was no infidelity involved. My daughters were 3 & 7. I was the one who ended the marriage, and moved out of the family home. Ex-husband did not work so the girls stayed with him during the week, and me on weekends. I talked to each girl separately, explained how much Dad & I loved them, and how we were just not making a happy home for them together. The youngest doesn't remember the conversation; the oldest still lists it as the worst moment of her life.<p>So, I feel like I *abandoned* my family. I left because I was unhappy and did not like my ex-husband, and couldn't stand to be around him. I left afraid I was destroying my daughters' lives, and knowing that it was my own sanity at stake if I stayed. I know my ex and the girls felt abandoned then, and I can guarantee you that now they understand what happened and don't hold it against me.<p>I don't think this helps you at all, other than to reassure you that this part of the pain does get better. Not knowing your WS, I don't know how she feels, but I agonized over every day and almost every hour that I did not live with my children, and that part never changed! (They have now lived with me for the last 5 years).

Wow, my heart really goes out to you and your children. I have a couple of thoughts after reading your post.<p>First, I marvel that your wife could have left you and the children. This says a few things to me, and I think I can understand her a bit as the BS and mother of six. She had a tremendous job to do as the mother of five children. Things must have been pretty tough for her to have left the children. I am only here today because of my children, to be truthful. The allurement of the A must have been strong indeed, so my point is to be sure and give your W time. Time for the A to die and yourself time before you react too drastically.<p>You wrote that you Plan A'ed for only about one week. You have to give it more time than that, I think!<p>As for the children, my biggest concern of all, remember that a trip to the candy store is only a momentary remedy. The hurt from being abandoned by mom is going to last a lifetime. Please be sure you listen and talk as much as possible with the kids. Try to not overwhelm them with details. It sounds like you are doing a good job of that, and I know you are hurting, too, so it is a tall order. I do hope your wife will come to her senses and come home to you and your children. I am so sorry to see a family hurt like this.<p>Good luck and God bless.

Lost in space, Take it from someone who knows. This happened to me the day after Christmas 2001. Right now giving ultimatums to your WS is not going to solve anything. I know that you have probably heard this before, but right now, your WS is in a fog. She doesn't know what she wants. This is how I handled my situtation. I realized that by filing for custody would just put a nail in the coffin for our marriage. I arranged a meeting with my WS in a public place. This way neither of us could be to emotional. The meeting was to talk about the children and only the children. Discuss when she will see them, how she will see them, and where she will see them. Be firm with what you want. (I refused to allow my children to stay over night as long as my WS was living with another person.) Talk about child support. If your wife works, she owes you money for taking the care of the kids. I have to believe that she wants to see her children.<p>After you have worked out the logistic, you arrange time with each child each night or every other night as a snuggle time or talk time. You need to ask questions of how do you feel? Do you missing mommy? What would make you feel better? Let them know this has nothing to do with them. It is between mommy and you. Be honest with them. Let them know that mommy has some problems she needs to work out and will live elsewhere for a while. She will be back to see you on X time. Other than that you (daddy) will be there for them. Tell them you will not leave them. (This was the hardest thing I ever said because I felt that if I was to die then my children would think I lied to them.) However, your young children need this message right now. Meltdowns with young children will be apart of your future. Everytime, my husband leaves, my youngest and I sit down and cry. This may sound silly but it helps him express himself. Things will get better. Arrange a calender with the days that mommy will be there to see them and let them mark off the days in between. <p>Things will get better for your children and then they will get worse and then better. Be on the look out for children that don't talk. Make sure school teachers and daycare workers know what is going on so they can look for a change in behavior. If you have family close, let them help. You will also need a break from your children. If they are within driving distance, see if they will take the kids for a weekend. <p>It has been 5 months and counting for me. On Monday of this week, my WS told me he was getting his own apartment. He is moving in today (Friday). He won't come out and say that there is trouble in paradise but I know something is happening. You don't just move in 4 days time without something major going wrong. I don't know whether you are a christian or not. If you are, learn to pray alot. God answered many of my prayers for strenghth, courage, wisdom and most of all, patience. Please keep posting.

Thnaks for the advise SCHURT, the little children seem to be starting to realize something is seriously wrong, and are starting to show alot more emotion. I know the days will get better, and I am trying to talk to them at different times, and ensure I can be there for them when things get really tough. The ladies at daycare know, and tod me the five year old boy had a very tough day the other day, they said they each took turns holding him, and indicated every one of them had tears in their eyes in seeing his pain. For doing this to the children, and having little to no interest in seeing them, or having anything to do with the children at present "I hate what my wife has done at present." Also I know as time goes on and the children adjust, the chances I will want to reconcile will continue to diminish, unless she did some serious sole searching, I would not let her do this to us ever again. As you can tell I still have alot of anger, and seem to have to keep it inside because it is not a good thing to direct it at my wife, and I will not let the children see that anger. As far as giving her a ultimatum, I am trying to look at the best interest of the children and myself, and I do not beleive it is a good thing to put the children and my life in a state of limbo while she continues in her little love nest lifestyle. Every conversation previously held a bit of hope she would take some time away from both me and him to think about what her family and I met to her. But every conversation was also filled with a lie. I wished things would have worked out better, but at present I see my future with my kids, and her at a distance. Consequences of actions we make in life. I will continue to be civil, support her seeing the kids, but will be filing for separation within two weeks.

Hey, Lost In Space, I've been checking every night to see how you were doing. I am sorry it seems to be such a hopeless situtation to you. Somehow I still want to believe that she loves her children and wants to be around them. I am not going to make excuses for her. She does need to seek counseling both for herself, the children and your marriage. However, she has to be the one to do this. Keep talking to your counselor. Discuss your children. They may even need to see someone. I found a lot of good books in the library to read about what is going on. At first I was very embarassed about checking them out and I said what the heck, its my life the more I read the better prepared I am. What else do I have to do late at night. I will be praying for you and your children every night. It is alway bleakest before the storm, but after the storm, things are clear and fresh. Keep up the hope and the faith. If possible, take some time for your self. Don't get burned out. Keep posting and letting me know how you are doing and how the babies are doing. I will get you the list of books that I have found helpful. I will post them and then you can choose if you want to.

I agree that she does still love the kids, but has placed herself in a bad situation that she cannot easily get out of. Over the weekend the little children seemed to be doing Ok. Tonight the 17 year old girl was very upset. I tried to talk to her, but she is a hard one to get to open up easily. She only let me know she was very hurt by what her mother had done. I tried to let her know her mother still loved her very much and made some choices that did hurt everyone that was left. I told her she needs to talk to her mother and let her know what she is feeling, and how she feels by what her mother has chose to do. The mother wanted the two youngest kids to come live with her 600 miles from where they are living presently with me. A part of me said you took away a big part of my life, your not going to take away all that I have left. None of the older three kids want to move away from where we are presently. I have let them all know they can stay with or go, based on their age (13,14,17). With the gap to the two youngest children (3,5), I do not want her to have guardianship based on the choices she has recently made not indicating a stable mother, and not knowing anything about the other guy. I believe it is in my best interest to keep them with me, and the older children all want to stay with me presently. This is something she will be forced to deal with someday. The bad thing about this is her mother did the same thing to her and her six siblings three times, and out of the seven children her mother had, five have all done the same things to their spouses. Someone please tell me if this is learned behaviour or genetics? Presently I also have a slight dislike for her mother!