Dave, my husband of 12 years, has blindsided me by admitting to years of affairs, and the news that he met someone named Allison in Las Vegas and he wants an immediate divorce.
In the days that follow, as I struggle to make sense of this sudden, shocking news, I get Dave to agree to see a counselor with me.
“While we figure this out, you can’t be in contact with her,” I say.
He nods, “Yes, Allison agrees that we shouldn’t talk for awhile.”
I’m speechless, incensed that the woman he spent 12 hours with a week ago is now calling the shots in our marriage. I’m even more confused when he tells me that Allison’s number has been entered in his phone under the name Ken (his boss.) His nonchalance about sharing every detail with me adds to a surreal sense that I’m disappearing, that the 20 years we’ve been together were somehow in my imagination.
But I’m not imagining anything the next day when I see the name Ken pop up on his cell phone. Dave is dressing in the bedroom. His phone was left on the dining room table. Before stopping to consider what I’m doing, I grab the phone and run into the front office, locking the door behind me.
Her incoming message reads: “You didn’t answer my question. Welcome to reality.”
The familiarity of her message baffles me. This is what rapturous, swept-off-your-feet love looks like? It has the tone of a bicker between two long-married people. I could bicker with Dave this way, if that’s what he wants.
I hit reply but Dave has realized I have his phone. He’s at the door, pounding and telling me to open up. I step into the closet and begin punching at the letters. My hand is shaking so hard I fumble the words and have to figure out how to back up. Dave is yelling now. I nearly drop the phone but finally manage to type my response: “This is Dave’s wife. Are you or are you not going to leave my husband alone? Should I send you a pic of our kids?” There is no emoticon for what I’m feeling so I leave it at that and hit OK. I remain in the closet, waiting until my heart stops racing and Dave gives up and walks away.
There is no reply from the phone in my hand.
I know Dave can’t leave for work without his phone, so I try calming myself before opening the door. One look at him, though, and venom rises in me. I practically hurl the phone at him.
“Be a man!,” I snarl. “Pick her or me and stop jerking me around!”
This time when Dave walks out the door, all I feel is relief.
I end up going to the therapy session alone and the therapist warns me not to give Dave an ultimatum. She says he has to feel safe enough to tell me the truth and I shouldn’t say what I don’t mean. She gives me phrases to use with him like “I’m curious about…” Or “I want to understand…” I do not feel supported, and I do not like this therapist. I shift into divorce, rather than reconciliation, mode. I research information on “wandering spouses” and follow the advice I find to “resign” as wife, which means withdrawing emotional support and communicating only business matters via email.
Soon after, Dave and I are in the dining room. He’s on the computer researching divorce information and he keeps asking me for help. It’s like he wants me to be his secretary. I’d like to type a report called “How to Divorce My Wife without Raising a Fucking Finger” and throw it at him. I question him about Allison. How old is she? Is she pregnant? He won’t answer. He doesn’t think he owes me anything and I see how I’ve been trained by him to accept so little. I feel helpless and want to rage at him. Pure hatred surges in me. I deserve better than this!
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Your story sent me back to the day I found the text on my husband’s phone from his mistress. His married, 12 year younger with a 3 year old son, mistress. My hands were shaking too as I looked down at my hand and read the text. “I miss you so much.” “I wish I was with you.” I wanted to vomit. I quickly took a picture of the text and then sent it to myself. I erased the pic and didn’t respond to her text. I had only mere minutes as he was in the shower. Up until that point he was in full blown denial that he was having an affair. In our state I can file based on adultery. Considering I had discovered the cars at his office a week before at 10 PM (she is his coordinator and they work days), I already knew I just needed proof. I had him against the wall. Especially after a friend of mine “friended” her husband on Facebook and we told him the wonderful news of his wife’s affair. The lawyer I had was in possesion of those texts and a recording her husband made with her admitting to the affair. Then she told me after 8 months of holding that evidence and my husband signing the papers agreeing to the affair, that I didn’t have enough evidence. The recording didn’t mention names, the picture of the cars was blurry, and the text didn’t mention sex. I was so pissed. I am not wealthy so I couldn’t afford to hire a detective to catch him red handed. Even after telling her husband he allowed her to remain working with my husband, I will never figure that whole thing out other than they must have an open marriage or he doesn’t give two shits that thThis all happened in October of 2013 and today I am mere weeks from now the final divorce hearing. I caved and we file no fault so once again he gets off easy. I did get alimony for 4 1/2 years and half his retirement. He also agreed to pay my attorney. At first I was pissed that this state makes you wait a year. Now I am grateful as I see that it has allowed me to heal.
I noticed this past week his mistress is following me on Twitter. I deleted all my prior tweets and now post about cheating and homewreckers. Hope she enjoys them!
You are correct at the end of your story, you do deserve better!
Take care.
My now ex-wife had multiple affairs. I did all of the evidence gathering you did as well. My wife didn’t understand how backups worked. I got everything. Pictures, videos, email history, online dating profile. Once I found that I couldn’t use it to gain an advantage in a divorce, I decided to keep it a secret. I was able to stay a step ahead of her.
When I told my lawyer that I was surprised that a married woman with kids would have an affair, she laughed. She said that in her experience, the rates are about equal, it’s just that men and women on both of the sides(cheater and cheated on) handle it differently.
Hopefully, you’ll find closure and peace after your divorce is final. It does get better. Lots better in fact. One of the things that helped me is kind of counter intuitive. My ex’s affair gave me the ultimate “not my fault’ card, but things for me got a lot better when I explored what I did to get us to that point. These things don’t happen in happy marriages (and one sided happy is not happy). It made it easier to deal with her more compassionately, which is helpful considering our children will tie us together until we are both gone. It also helped me be open to future relationships. I have a pretty good handle on what I could have done differently, which is the only thing that I can control when embarking on new relationships.
Best of luck.
X
Chilling. First, you owe him NOTHING. Feel free to answer texts, phone calls, pick up his phone, and follow him if you want. I’m not saying it’s healthy, but take care of YOU and do what YOU feel you must, and who cares about his “saving face.” From an outsider’s perspective, you should IMMEDIATELY file for divorce NOW. Protect your bank account, your assets. Get copies of all bank accounts, savings accounts, anything financial. And move to have him removed from the home ASAP. THEN you will be on solid ground to be protected and make WISE choices for you (and your children, if you have them). This is not time to be optimistic or allow him to call the shots. Be well. Go. Fight. WIN. Blessings,
Lizzy
One more thought– I started openly blogging and writing about my experience. KEEP A JOURNAL, whether it be a private one of a public one. My (now) ex found my blog and threatened me. I ignored the threats, knew my legal rights, and kept writing away. I didn’t use his or my last name and I did remove all photos where is face is readily apparent. Other than that, truth is an excellent defense and good luck suing me when everything I write is true and I can prove it. Careful disclosing private info publicly (like if he has herpes or was molested) but other than that, do what you feel you must. Take care of you. You owe him NOTHING.
The temptation to react is strong. Better to control what you do rather than react without think it all the way through.
Your story takes me back to some dark days. The wife of a guy that my exwife had an affair with contacted me to fill me in on the details and show me the evidence she had gathered. Given the texts, emails, pictures and videos, there was no doubt about what was going on. I did some serious digging and found that she had been over this guy for quite a while and there were others, including someone who she was still seeing and making plans for the future with. I documented it all (secret email account, online dating profiles and communication history, text and email history, as well as explicit pictures and videos. There would be no denying adultry. Before I confronted her with it all, I went to see a lawyer where I found out that I lived in a “no fault” state and nobody cared about any of that. It couldn’t even be used to deny her alimony. I was also warned that most of it wouldn’t be admissible in court and that I might have violated her privacy and not to let her know I had the information. It’s still my little secret.
We have kids, so I decided that I’d see if I could work things out with her. I was told that affairs are a symptom of a problem and I knew that things were not great for us. The problem was that she had plans with the current guy that involved moving out of state when he got his expected promotion. He he planed to wait and divorce when he got there and she was going to divorce me and move there to meet him. So I decided to only confront her with the evidence of the original guy and not let her know that I had access to everything else.
When I confronted her, she went on the offensive (it was all my fault), but she agreed to counsling, eventually saying that she had made a big mistake, she regretted it, and it was over. We went to counseling, but she never confessed anything else. She kept the current guy on low profile, but still saw him and still had her plan to move with the kids. As you might expect, counseling didn’t work out.
I asked her to move out for a trial separation (or I would start divorce procedings immediatly). To my surprise, she did, but it was just so that it would be easier to see the guy that she didn’t think I knew about. Nothing had changed. After I had all of my ducks in a row, particularly with protecting my parenting position, I filed for divorce.
An ugly divorce/custody fight ensued, she started spinning out of control (two DUI’s including one with the kids in the car), she lost on the major items (I got custody, no alimony, house and business were my premarital assets, she had to pay her own legal bills out our marital settlement, and credit card bills after we separated were hers), and then really spun out of control. When the dust settled, we had funded our respective lawyers kid’s college funds, I had sole custody, she had supervised visitation, the guy reconciled with his wife and they have since moved away.
Things are much better now (at least for me). She’s got her act together now. We’ve finally removed all of the custody restrictions and she has regular visitation with overnights. I’ve dug myself out of the financial hole we made, but she’s basically broke (low paying job, no alimony, she pays child support, medical bills, squandered divorce settlement, continued to live like she had access to my income running up big credit card debts, etc…). We get along well and can go to kid stuff together easily (we did before, but she insisted on including her boyfriend which made things quite uncomfortable). I had her at my house for Thanksgiving this year. At this point, I mostly just feel sorry for her.
I intercepted the text..picked up the phone and called her…gave her my address and told her to pick up my husband 🙂
beet decision I made.
My husband mistress was his supervisor. I found the text messages on his phone. I text her and told her not to text him again or i will go to hr. She refused to stop so I sent the text to hr. They said they interviewed her and found nothing wrong going on. I went further to her boss. My husband to this day continue to deny it. I showed the text to as many coworkers. I filed for a divorce. My husband realized it was cheaper to keep me than have an affair. I hit him where it really hurts his pocket, I bought me a brand new car in his name.
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