[relationshipa1]

Three years ago my husband began having an affair with a woman from our childrens school. I initially found out about it from her husband. For that first year I was suspicious all of the time and had his phone tapped and his car tracked. Even though he repeatedly told me he had stopped seeing her all the evidence I received indicated otherwise. When I would confront him with the information he would apologize and say that he would sever the relationship for good. About a year and half ago, this woman contacted me and asked me to tell my husband to leave her alone. I didn’t believe her so she gave me phone records and emails and then proceeded to tell me how many times she had been to my house when I was out of town and other places they met. My husband said she was making this all up. Since then I have trusted him completely, but have continued to receive messages and information, which I believe is all from her, trying to convince me that he was still contacting and seeing her. I have made my husband go to the police many times to report that she is harrassing us.

About 2 months ago the police contacted my husband and told him to stop contacting this woman and then a week later they came to our home to serve him papers saying that she has filed a protective order against him. She is saying that he sent her flowers telling her he loves her and that he constantly calls her at work and texts her. This is all completely ridiculous and we are going to court in a few weeks to fight it. This woman got divorced a year ago and I believe that she just wants to hurt my husband and destroy my family.

I am firmly resolved to save my marriage and family,we have 5 children and I am determined to believe my husband. What do you think I should do?

[April Masini]

I think your husband lied to you and cheated on you, and you only found out about it because this other woman contacted you to tell you. While it’s understandable that you’re angry at this woman, your anger is misplaced, and should be directed towards your husband.

I suggest your husband abide by the restraining order and stay away from this woman as she’s requesting and as the court has ordered. I suggest that you and your husband not litigate against this woman. It doesn’t sound like you have any grounds to win a case against her. Taking this woman to court is just going to keep her in your life, and stir the drama pot.

Decide what to do about your husband.

[valporkc1]

Thanks for the reply.

I do want her out of our lives, but she keeps coming back. i want to prove her to be the liar that she is. Yes he lied and cheated before but don’t you think I have to trust him completely to save my marriage. For a long time he would tell me that he was in love with her and just wanted to be with her but didn’t want to put our children through a divorce. But he has stopped saying all those things and now he keeps telling me she is crazy and making all of this up. It has caused such horrible drama in my family and regardless of the situation I want to remain being married!

MY husband has slept in the basement for the last 2 years, but I think if we can finally get her out of our lives and move foward that everything will be better. We have been on the brink of divorce a few time, but our family atty just keeps telling to fight through this for our children.

Im so confused and angry and just want my life to be back to the way it was before this woman destroyed it!

[April Masini]

My advice to you again is to stop focusing on the other woman. It seems that she is not coming back into your life — she is trying to keep your husband out of her life. That’s why she got the court to issue a restraining order. I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice, but for your personal health, I would advise you not trying to litigate against her in court to prove she’s a liar. You don’t know if she’s lying, and you may lose in court, which would bring you exponential pain. If you win, you still can’t erase the fact that your husband cheated on you — and once this goes to court, it all becomes public record for[i] anyone[/i] to read about, which fuels your emotional problems even more. Besides, I believe that based on what you’ve written, the other woman is going to win this round if it goes to a court of law because I’m not sure what you’re suing her for — or the case will get thrown out first because there’s no legal basis for it.

What is clear is that the court has awarded her a restraining order against your husband. He needs to leave her alone, and so do you. If you stop acting dramatically, and your husband stops acting dramatically, there will be no drama in your family.

The problem is not this other woman. It’s your husband. Don’t get involved in this and become part of the problem yourself.

Since you’ve mentioned you and your husband have a family attorney, I’m not sure why you’ve retained legal counsel. Is this because you want to divorce your husband? And is this attorney YOUR attorney? Or does your husband have his own attorney in case you and he get divorced? I can’t imagine that family court is the place you’d sue this other woman for — I’m not sure what?!

I understand you want to keep your family together and prevent divorce, but your husband has made that very difficult. The fact that he’s sleeping in the basement for 2 years 😯 is not promoting family unity. Nor is the fact that you’ve retained legal counsel in case of a divorce. You can’t straddle both sides of the fence without terrible emotional discord — which is what you have.

I understand that you’re angry about what your husband did, but I don’t know why you’re confused. You were wronged by your husband, and now you have to decide whether or not to stay with him. If you want to get over his infidelity then commit to that and start re-building your relationship with him. If you can’t let go of the anger, then move on with your life and get divorced. Staying in limbo like this, and holding onto all this anger — and acting out on it — isn’t any good for your children.

I’m sorry for your troubles, but you have to find some internal stability and live your life according to it.

Let me know how things go.

[Anonymous]

I guess what I want is to control all of this! I know that he doesn’t love me like he loves her, but keeping a family together is more important than love. I threaten him constantly about what a divorce will do to our children and Im pretty sure that is why he stays. I have told his parents and his family everything and they all side with me that he will permanently damage our children if he leaves.

Our attorney is our family, business, everything attorney. So he would handle all legal issues for us. When my husband started talking about divorce, he wanted us to do it peacefully and just use the same attorney. He backed off of that because of his family.

I just want him to love me again. He has been so depressed and despondant since she filed against him and it makes me so angry and crazy that he cares about her. He belongs to me – NOT HER! She is a monster who has destroyed us!

[April Masini]

It is completely understandable that you’re looking for control — because you’ve lost it. 🙁 However….you may do more damage by trying to control things you have no control over. 😐

I understand that you want to keep your family together, but you can only do that if your husband wants to stay married. You can’t make him want to stay married. And you can’t make him stay married. It’s his choice. In spite of your threats about how the children will be damaged if he leaves. There’s got to be part of him that is wondering if he should leave or not. Brow beating him into staying won’t make him stay forever. It may make him stay now, but if he wants to leave, he will. His infidelity wasn’t about you, your marriage or your family — it was all about him. This isn’t a guy who puts his marriage or family first. He puts himself first, and while he may have made a mistake in the past, and may feel reformed now, there’s a basis for him putting himself first again.

I know that you think your husband “belongs” to you and not the other woman, but he’s proved otherwise. He’s given himself to her without your permission and in spite of it. The only thing that “belongs” to you is [i]you[/i]. The discrepancy between your thinking he belongs to you and the reality of his not belonging to you is what’s making you feel like you want control.

It’s sad when marriage vows are broken or even loyalty and trust within a dating relationship is broken, but your tendency is to try and bend the truth to make it more palatable to you. By making the other woman the cause of your problems, you can pretend that the real problem is not your husband. I would advise you to change your thinking. It’s easier in the long run to accept harsh reality so you can heal better (and faster) and make decisions that are based on reality.

I know that you think that divorce will damage your children, and that may be true — but keep in mind that discord in an “intact” family where there is no divorce can do just as much damage [i]if not more[/i], than a divorce. Your husband sleeping in the basement for 2 years 🙄 sends a message to your children that husbands and wives don’t get along. This sets a bad example for them to take into their own psyches and their own future relationships. So before you jump to the idea that you want to try and make everything the way it was before the affair happened, (which is impossible) think about what’s [b]really[/b] best for your children, if that is who you want to put first.

IF you can heal your relationship with your husband, even to a respectful and peaceful, if not deeply loving status, [i]regardless of what the other woman does[/i], then you have a shot at a healthy family again. If you are going to live a life that is spent REACTING to this other woman, then you’ll never have any peace in your family — or for yourself. I know you want to put the blame on her, but it’s misplaced. Your anger is with your husband. This woman is just a reminder that he cheated on you, and sadly, that you say he loves her more than he loves you now. 🙁 I’m not sure, judging from the tone of your posts, that you can move forward without feeling bitter and resentful. When you write that the other woman is a monster who destroyed your family, that’s not true. Your husband is the one who did this to you. Not her.

If you do divorce it is a terrible idea to share an attorney with your husband. So don’t use this attorney to counsel you on divorce issues if you are truly considering divorce. You will end up not being well represented because your attorney will have an unethical and split loyalty. He cannot represent both of you fairly or well if he’s representing you both at the same time on the issue of divorce. But for now, it sounds like your divorce threats are really more bark than bite. I know you want to DO SOMETHING to make everything feel good again, but before you can act, you’re going to have to get straight in your head what happened, why, what’s salvageable and what’s not, and since there is no clear answer, what you want to do next. Don’t be hasty. Think it through.

Overall, you need to get out of limbo. You can’t have a healthy family with a threat of divorce hanging over your head, and his head. It won’t work. You have to be in or out. Your choice — but you have to make. And then, you have to see what your husband’s choice is, too.

I know this is hard work, but I can tell you’re trying to do the work to make things better. Keep going, and make sure you take care of yourself by eating, sleeping and exercising.

Good luck.

[valporkc1]

So are you saying that it is better to just live our separate lives as civil and peaceful friends who live in the same house with our children? I can’t be the one to leave – I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t want a divorce. Should I just sit and wait until he decides to leave? Will we ever have peace and a normal life or will we just become bitter and resentful of each other?

Right now he is behaving and does what I tell him to do, but like I said before he is depressed and despondant. I am the one forcing him to fight this restraining order – along with his family. There is part of me that honestly likes that he cannot contact her – although the police have been back because she is saying he tried to email her after the order was filed. As ridiculous as it is, he will have committed a felony if she can prove it and our whole family will be publically humiliated. But all I really want it for it proved once and for all that she is lying and he isn’t the one to blame here. Am I deluding myself?

What do I do if this all comes back as absolutely true and find out that he has lied to me over and over and over again. The thought of it is almost too much to think about and it makes me want him dead. How could I ever stay if it comes back true? What kind of person does that make me when I am only sacrificing all of this for my children.

I understand that I can’t do this all by myself and I thought that he was trying, but to be honest my gut instinct is that he has been lying all of this time. I hate myself almost as much as I hate him.

Will someone tell me that it’s okay to get a divorce and move on?

[April Masini]

[i]Noo, noo, noo, noo, noo[/i] — I did [b]not[/b] say or imply that you should just stay with your husband and be civil and live separate lives. No, no. Not me. What I DID say was that you have to make a decision whether you are going to stay or go, and if you do decide to stay, and because you said you want to put the children first, then you have to be civil, and if he doesn’t want you any more, but your decision is to stay in spite of that, and so is his, then you will probably be living separate lives. Regardless of whether you stay in your marriage or divorce, you absolutely have to find civility and manners when you interact with your husband or talk about him or to him in front of your children. So let’s get that clarified first and foremost. The most important thing for you to do is decide YOUR next move.

Next, I want to tell you how empathetic I feel towards you because I can tell you’re working on this and trying to figure out what the best thing to do is. You’re going to end up all right — and even better than all right, but this is a mess right now, and you have to work through it. That I can see and “hear” you doing that is a really good sign. 🙂

What you need to understand is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve done anything wrong or not — and frankly, it doesn’t matter who’s done anything wrong or not. If you can stop blaming people and see the situation for what it is, you’ll be able to make some clear choices, unencumbered by emotions which can cloud your judgment. Hard task, but you are up to it!

I don’t think you should “wait until he decides to leave” as you put it, because that will just make you more of a victim. When you didn’t know about the affair, you didn’t know you had to make choices, but now that you do know about the affair, and your husband’s attempt to ignore a restraining order and contact his ex-mistress in spite of knowing your feelings, hers, and that she’s retained the help of the courts to keep him away, you can’t do nothing any more. You’re now aware and a part of all this. It doesn’t matter whether you chose to be part of it or not. So, given that, you should make a decision whether YOU want to stay or go — given the circumstances. You need to take control of things and understand that your husband is not the team player you once thought he was. Things have changed, and given these changes, what’s YOUR next move? I do believe YOU will have peace and a normal life one day, but I’m not sure you can have it with him. I believe that if you CHOOSE to stay with him you can find a way to not be bitter and resentful of him, if you ACCEPT who he is — for real, right now. I can’t speak for your husband. From where he sits, you’re furious at him right now, and his ex-mistress has rejected him, so he’s got some lousy options in front of him. Will he be bitter and resentful? Depends on his life choices from today forward. Since you can’t control him, it’s important for you to make decisions that will be right for YOU, and to understand that at any moment, life may shift again (it has a funny way of doing that), and you may have to adjust your decisions and your own life. This is normal, and you WILL get through it.

The dynamic you have right now with your husband is not a healthy one, and it does not bode well for the long term. When you say “he is behaving” it sounds like you’re the mother of a son, not the wife to a husband. When you say you are “forcing him” to fight the restraining order, again it sounds like you’re a jail warden and he’s a prisoner. No wonder he’s depressed and despondent. He’s lost his manhood in your home. He’s a son or a prisoner at best and worst. This dynamic will lead to more bad behavior, and probably a break up, if it continues.

Since you wrote last, it appears that your husband has violated his ex-mistress’s restraining order against him by e-mailing her, and the police would not show up at your house if there were no proof of his violation, so you need to stop pulling the wool over your eyes, and accept reality. He’s smitten with his ex-mistress, and he’s not obeying the bounds of marriage or the laws of your state. He’s really just interested in what he wants when he wants it, and I understand why you like that she has a restraining order that prohibits him from contacting her — but that if that’s true, why fight it?? Leave it in place. (And by the way, it is extremely doubtful that he committed a felony if he did not obey the restraining order. More likely it’s a less serious misdemeanor.) She is not lying. There would not be a restraining order, and a subsequent police visit to your home for your husband’s violation if there weren’t proof. You ARE deluding yourself when you think she’s lying. So far, she’s been really honest with you — in fact, she was the one who told you there was an affair between your husband and herself, not him. She is not your enemy. Let her go. Stop bringing frivolous litigation into court because you’re angry at your husband. It is going to backfire on you.

Now, when you finally ask what if it’s all true, and she is telling the truth (which she is)? This is where the real work begins, and this is what you’ve been avoiding.

I know you want to sacrifice and put your children first, but you’re not really thinking this through for the sake of your children. You’re stuck on your own anger and humiliation, and you have to take a higher road. Sometimes husbands fall out of love with their wives, and sometimes they cheat. Sometimes they leave, and sometimes they don’t have the courage to leave, so they stay and disrespect themselves, their wives and their marriages by misbehaving, as your husband has. You are not alone, and you are not the first or last wife this has happened to. Sometimes the wives who are cheated on are drop dead gorgeous and sexy. Sometimes they are young. Sometimes they are near saints for what they do and sacrifice. Sometimes they are skinny and sometimes they are fat. Men who mistreat their wives (and women who mistreat their husbands) are a fact. It happens. So get out of your rut, and understand that your problem is not special. It happens to other women, too.

If you really believe that he has crossed the line in the sand that is your limit in a marriage (and everyone has a different line in the sand of their own marriage), then you have to accept that you will never have safe marriage where there is security for you or your children with this man — especially if you do not believe in your heart he is sorry for his mistake and wants things to change. I, personally, think your husband wants out of the marriage but doesn’t have the gumption to leave. And if that’s the case then it’s your responsibility to move on and get a divorce. Just because you didn’t “do anything,” as you put it, doesn’t mean you don’t have responsibility for your family. If someone gets cancer, you wouldn’t have done to cause the cancer, but you would have to be the one to make sure your family member gets proper treatment and that the family goes through the health crisis together and as in tact as possible. Same here. In this case, your husband has cheated on your marriage, broken the law, and isn’t on a road towards healing the marriage or the family. He shouldn’t be forced to fight a restraining order, and he shouldn’t have to be “behaving”. He should want to make amends for his mistakes and he should, of his own volition, be bending over backwards to make things better and heal your marriage and your family. He’s not. And the question is, is this someone you want to stay with, given that?

If you do decide to divorce, get your OWN attorney, and discuss the details with that attorney. Talk to other women who have been in the same situation, and begin to wonder and paint the first strokes of what a life as a single mom would look like for you and your kids. Try and imagine yourself in six months, six years, and ten years — and what that could look like. I know you’re scared, and your husband is, too. But one of you has to walk through the fear proactively, and move on with life rather than staying in a home with no love, lots of anger, and police visits and legal orders against your husband. He get up and make the move. I think you can.

Sometimes you have to choose between 2 unpleasant choices. That’s what you’ve got — but at least you’ve got 2 choices!! You’re not a victim, and while you’ve had some bad luck, you’re not alone. Go through the proverbial open doors, and don’t give yourself a concussion knocking your head against closed doors.

Think this over, re-read these posts and talk to those you love and those who have gone through similar situations, to research your choices.

You’re going to be fine — but you have to work through this, as I know you will.

Please let me know how things go.

Sincere good luck! 🙂

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