| I've been lurking on these forums for over a year, and want to thank all of you for sharing your stories and experiences. They have been tremendously helpful as I've gone through my own journey after my ex-wife's infidelity. I've decided to share my own story in case others can learn from it, and because I'd appreciate advice on getting closure. It's very long, but if you don't want the backstory you can skip to the scattered last few paragraphs to see where my head is (before that is my variant of the standard WW story). Summary: My WW had an affair with her boss. We separated in 2011 and our divorce was finalized in early 2012. A week after the judge signed the decree, she moved to the UK to live with the OM. We have two young children, ages 5 and 3, who reside with me in the US; she visits them every few months and will have them for over a month in the summer. Life is good, but I have been through the same pains, doubts, and self-questioning that many of you have. It has made me stronger but I still cope with the aftermath and seek closure. Cue backstory. We met in college in 2001, and were each other's first serious relationships. After a few years of dating, we were engaged, and married a year later. Both very successful in our careers at a young age. We decided to start a family and had two wonderful, healthy kids. Life was great … In early 2010, soon after our second child was born, my WW began to behave unusually. She was much less affectionate to our daughter than she had been to our son as a newborn. She became more distant to me at the same time. Whereas we used to speak daily on the phone when I traveled for work, communication shifted to emails about logistics and basic pleasantries. On weekends she preferred I take the kids to soccer games, birthday parties, and the like while she relaxed at home or got a pedicure. I naively believed all of this to be due to work stress, as she had become engrossed in her job around this same time. During her maternity leave, she had been passed up for a promotion; this made her quite insecure and she eagerly sought to prove herself. She threatened to leave the company, and they appeased her by moving her into a role directly under the new CEO. He had founded an online market research company in the UK; my WW's company merged with them late 2009 and he was appointed CEO of the combined entity. She was in effect his "chief of staff" in charge of special projects and communications. At first I thought this was a great opportunity for her to work with the CEO. She often mentioned how he reminded her of me, except a decade older, British, and balding. He was smart, funny, nice, "a good family man" (wife and three kids), etc. I met him myself a few times and he seemed like a standup guy. Little did I know he was targeting my wife, and would become the driving factor in her leaving both me and her children. She began to spend a significant amount of time with the executive team, including travels around the world and late nights out when the CEO and others from the UK came to visit headquarters in TX. Wanting to support her career, and ignorant of the red flags, I allowed her to go out with this group … I trusted her 100% and thought that as a woman trying to break into the "old boys" club, nights out with coworkers were necessary. I was also unaware of the risks that today are obvious after reading this script play out over and over. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the CEO separated from his wife in the UK in 2010 (I didn't learn this until 2011 when I found out about the affair). Around the holidays that year, my wife mentioned "taking a break" which shocked me, but she never followed through and we chalked it up again to holiday and work stress. Rug sweeping to a degree we moved on with our lives throughout 2011, taking care of the kids and going on trips together as a family. We were busy, and probably not giving each other enough attention, but I still never thought that she would be having an affair. In the summer of 2011, my WW called me out of the blue one evening and told me that the CEO was being investigated for "improper favoritism of women" in the office and that she was one of several who were brought into the allegations. She swore that there was nothing going on, but was concerned about damage to her reputation and what her peers would think now that several in the office were being asked about her. I believed her and vowed to support her no matter what. About a month later, the CEO resigned and soon after my WW said she had to leave the company as well because she didn't feel comfortable working there, and wanted to try something new. I was suspicious of this timing, and my suspicions were confirmed a week later when I saw an email from my WW to her former boss lamenting how he had left to return to his home in the UK, and proclaiming her "love" for him. I confronted her but she denied they were anything more than friends, and she attributed the word "love" to being drunk when writing (she was, it was written to him during a night we were on vacation and had drank together by the pool for hours). I wanted to believe her. She wanted space to "figure things out" … so we agreed to go to counseling after she returned from her last work trip to the UK to close things off. You can see where this is heading … Needless to say, she did not call home to talk to me or the kids nor respond to calls the entire week in the UK. I finally sent her a very direct email asking for the truth, and she admitted to being "in love" with her boss and said he was the reason why she couldn't be with me. Upon her return, I gave her the choice to end all communications with him; she refused which was a dealbreaker for me. We began to talk of a "trial separation" and what that would look like. I still wanted to hold our family together, and had many others encouraging me to do the same. Our split was a shock to everyone as my WW had never expressed unhappiness to a single friend or family member. I also learned that she had been lying to him about several things, e.g., telling him we were already separated and that she had moved out of the house and was living independently (while we were still married and living together). So I contacted the OM, exposed her lies, and told him to back off. He did not respond to me, but I later learned that he did ignore my WW for a week or so, until she threatened to expose him to his own wife and to the board of the company they had worked for, and was considering a sexual harassment lawsuit. At this point OM told my WW that the only reason he had stopped calling was because I threatened him. She in turn blamed me for "meddling" with her relationship (!) and we moved from trial separation to filing for divorce. Finalizing the divorce was relatively painless, even though my WW was cold to me and the kids during this time. It became clear that my WW's top priority was moving to London to be with OM (though she told me and others that it was due to her "long-standing" desire to live in a different country). She was willing to give me primary custody of the children to ensure a fast divorce, and since the children were most important to me I accommodated. However, I told her in no uncertain terms that OM should never expect to be friends with me and that I would never accept him as part of our children's lives. She ignored this; her story to me that she was only going to the UK for 2 months to see if she could get a job, and she also told the OM among others that I would eventually "get over it" and might even move to the UK so that the kids could be by their mother. Delusional at best. She left in early 2012 and has been there since (with some hopping around countries to avoid visa limitations). A year later and for the most part, life is great. I've been a great father and have built even stronger bonds with my two awesome children. I've reconnected with many old friends, and have received amazing support from them as well as my family (both mine and my WW's). The dating scene is amazing; I've had more success with women than at any time in my life, even though I am very hesitant to pursue anything serious at the moment. Ask any casual observer in my life and I'm the "poster child" for recovering from a divorce … or so it seems. WW and OM are still living together in the UK. I heard through friends of the trips they have taken: skiing in the Alps, sailing in the Greek Isles, and so forth. For about a year neither of them were working (him due to being wealthy, my ex-WW due to visa issues) so it was truly a "honeymoon" period. That didn't bother me too much as I was enjoying life and new freedoms myself, but seeing how my kids have been hurt by their selfishness has been painful. No children deserve to have their mother abandon them and move across an ocean for someone else. It especially bothers me that POSOM might one day interact with my children if they remain together, or they visit her in the UK. Relations between WW and me are tense. After initially accommodating her infrequent visits back to the US (being flexible around visitation times), I decided at the end of last year to enforce boundaries. The result was her blaming me for "keeping her away from the kids" (she wanted extra time around Christmas but I only gave her what was spelled out in the decree... even though she was able to come to US for a longer time). In my mind, it was a natural consequence - how can she accuse me of blocking her access to the kids when it was her choice to leave them and move across the ocean? But to her, I'm evil and selfish. So yes, as my user name suggests, I've been struggling to a degree with getting closure. It's twofold. The first part is around standing up for myself. Before we divorced, I told OM I would expose his actions to his family and professional colleagues if he did not back off my wife (tactical mistake in giving him the heads up). While I did ultimately inform his wife – she was already moving towards divorce having realized he was making no efforts to her and the kids, and my letter solidified her resolve – I held back on the professional exposure since he had already resigned from the company he founded. And I didn't do cheaterville or any sites like that, despite the temptation. OM now has taken a new CEO job with a small service recommendation company in the UK. I realize that exposure to his colleagues could just make me look vindictive, probably wouldn't solve anything, and could just escalate an already delicate situation. But a small part of me wants to follow through just so I know I did everything I could and said I would, and get the truth out. One could argue that the employees and investors have a right to know about their CEO and his past. It also doesn't help that my WW has told me that she and OM "laughed" at the emails I wrote him and didn't (don't) believe I would do anything. The second part of getting closure is around accepting what I cannot control. Many close to my WW suspect that she may have had postpartum depression (given the ease with which she left kids) or is bipolar (runs in her family). Having read up on these conditions, I can attest that there are indeed symptoms of both. That said, she followed the WW script to a tee and even before the affair, she was always a bit more self-centered than the average individual … the type of person who was "always right" (I loved her despite this). So I'm not sure what to believe, or even how I'd respond if she were found to have a medical issue at the root of this. It could just be WW selfishness and entitlement anyway. And I have lingering doubts about the OM's intentions … from what I saw of their communications when my WW and I were living together (checking phone records, etc) it was very one-sided in terms of her chasing him, threatening him when he didn't respond, etc. I also wrote OM several emails; in one he responded that he "did not believe a mother should live an ocean away from her children" … yet he has sustained a relationship with my ex-WW. She still does not have a job over a year later, and I have wondered if OM is holding out hope that outside factors (e.g., visa challenges) force her to leave the UK so his hands are clean. But then again, they are living together so maybe OM indeed wants her to stay. None of this should matter to me. Like I said, life is good on nearly every dimension. But I cannot rest easily without knowing I did everything for my kids. So I often wonder if going "nuclear" on exposure of OM has any benefit, or if it's too late and would backfire at this point (yes, I should have been more aggressive when it was all going down). Will I feel better afterwards? Fundamentally I believe the kids should have their mother more present – but I can't control that and even if she were around more, in her current condition she isn't prioritizing them. And part of what's driving my lack of closure is knowing that my ex-WW changed so dramatically and so quickly upon getting involved with OM, that it is almost assured at some point she will realize what she lost … in a way, I'm trying to force the issue by exposing him with the hopes it will snap her out of it and save both her and my kids years of lost time, even though I can't imagine reconciling. I know perhaps I should let things take their course and just stay focused on living my own life and taking care of my children ... i.e., I should take the attitude that even though I care about my ex-WW as mother of my children, she's not my problem anymore (regardless of potential root causes or OM's intentions). Ok, I'll stop. I've most likely written your eyes off with this novella. Tell me what I need to hear. | |||
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