| I am a new poster here to the forums and I wanted to record my story for a few reasons; I have been lurking around this forum and others regarding infidelity for about ten months and finally felt strong enough to tell my story and let others learn from my experiences and divorce. I just wanted to get this out. If this needs moved to another category, I apologize and understand. Sometimes I start to emotionally trigger when I am reading these forums so I am going to try to write this in several parts over a few weeks. I may not get all of the abbreviations correct and I'm sure this will be a very long post so I hope those reading it will give me some help and advice on how to deal with these very personal issues. I guess the moral of my story to those reading it who may feel that their spouse is betraying them is to really take the information that is here in these forums to heart and use it correctly. Trust your gut above everything else. I think this is more for me though and trying to maintain my sanity and move on. I never thought my wife would cheat on me and our marriage would end, but that is exactly what has happened. If I had just slowed down and controlled my emotions and actions, I think my divorce and current life would be much different. I wish I had just gathered evidence and gotten my ducks into a row but I didn't, and this has been a difficult situation to correct. I may have been able to save us...I am not sure. I have relatively few other regrets though and I am learning to live this new life I have been given, even though it is something I never asked for or wanted. I really have gained a lot of insight and help just from reading the stories that are written here. It has been a long time since d-day#1 and d-day#2 and I still cannot believe that I have experienced these series of events in my life. I still sometimes wonder what my life will be like two, three or ten years down the road. I wanted to have a place to put all of this crap down and leave it…if that makes any sense. I have been carrying it around mentally for so long. I hope to sort of use this as a form of therapy and maybe get some advice from the people who have dealt with infidelity and came out the other side a better, more confident and happy person. I want to move on. I still love and think about my ex-wife daily, although I know our relationship is over and she has become unlovable to me. I am learning how to cope with what has happened. To first describe myself, I am a firefighter and paramedic. I have been on the job for over a decade. I love my job and have always taken pride in my career choice and being able to provide for my family. I have always wanted to be promoted up the ranks and eventually see myself as a fire chief and have worked hard to achieve that goal. I have completed several college degrees over the past 20 years and was trying to finish graduate school when my life fell apart. This divorce has effected my career negatively and I hope to keep a positive attitude and become the type of fireman and leader I have always hoped to be. I have always worked 2 or 3 side jobs through the marriage to support and provide for my family. I met my ex-wife in 1988, a few weeks after high school, began dating and we married in 1991. We were married for 21 years, I thought happily, but in retrospect we had a lot of problems that neither of us ever addressed or worked on. She was a victim of attempted sexual abuse at the hands of her father as a child and then had a second sexual assault incident occur with a couple of boys while she was in junior high school. I knew about the problems with her Dad but never knew about the second incident until our marriage was ending. We also had an unplanned pregnancy when we were teenagers which ended when my ex got an abortion prior to us getting married. My ex never spoke of her father or received any type of IC for either of these other problems. I think a lot resentment grew as a result of these unspoken-about issues. She was a stay-at-home mom for about 11 years at the beginning of our marriage and went back to work fulltime in an office environment when our youngest son started elementary school. We have 4 children together (a 22 year old daughter, and three sons, 19, 16 and 14 years old.) This was the first marriage for both of us. To look back now, I see that there were problems with communication, honesty and lies of omission on both of our parts. To be completely honest, I drank often and I regret and wish I hadn't done that. I am not sure why I did, but it must have hurt her very much to see me drunk and for her to have to baby-sit a drunk for as long as she did, maybe that is why she looked outside of our marriage. I NEVER physically abused her, got arrested, lost a job, got a DUI or wrecked a car, but my drinking contributed to a bad marriage. I said plenty of stupid and hurtful things over our marriage while I was drunk. That doesn't excuse what she did but I just need to be honest. I was a drunk and she cheated, so that is what caused our marriage to get so bad. I thought we had a normal life and lived as most people do; I worried about the bills, credit scores and finances. I provided for the family financially and her role was usually surrounded by the children. I thought that these roles were what she wanted and didn't view any of our problems as unfixable. I did notice on several occasions that my ex-wife would lie about money, bouncing checks and then hiding bank notices and the mail from me, but I didn't see that as a big problem. In hindsight, that was a huge issue I wish I would have addressed. A huge lack of communication on both of our parts. She felt very comfortable lying to me and doing whatever she felt necessary to get her way. Not really a partnership, we were just roommates or co-parents who would occasionally have sex. I was a pleaser who just wanted to keep her happy, she was completely adverse to any type of confrontation...this was a horrible mix. The problems I first started to really notice were with my ex-wife's lack of boundaries when it came to my co-workers, friends and our kids. In 2006 my wife was asked to be a bridesmaid in a wedding and used that occasion to get into shape and become healthy. She said that she didn't want to be the typical "fat mommy bridesmaid." For 6 months prior to the wedding she worked out very hard and went on a strict diet and began to tan. At the wedding, she was a knock-out, by far the most beautiful woman in attendance. I wanted to dance with her and talk to her and tell her how beautiful she looked, but she seemed to want to spend the time flirting and partying with other men and women. This was the first time in our relationship that I noticed how much she liked the attention of others. I felt horrible and began to sulk in a corner and drink. I felt alone and abandoned. As I watched her dance with others I became sadder and sadder and finally left the wedding feeling horrible. The next day, I had to work at the firehouse and I ended up emailing her telling her how beautiful she was but that I felt that she was pulling away from me; I apologized for drinking so much. We never spoke about that incident ever again. From that point on, whenever we would attend parties or functions at work, go to sporting events or any kind of school event I would notice little verbal jabs she would throw my way, mean and hurtful things about our marriage and sexual relationship or lack thereof. I would notice her flirt and touch others, men and women, and always have to hug when saying goodbye, even a new acquaintance, and this would get me angry and sad. Once she even kissed a family friend on the lips in front of me, when I confronted her and asked her if she thought that was an appropriate way to greet a friend she took great offense. Her response was that she was "outgoing" and a "people person" and I was an "introvert" with "very little personality." This made me feel angry and disrespected and I would drink even more. Things continued in this manner for several years. In May, 2012, I noticed that our 16 year old son was suffering from depression. I wasn't sure why but I noticed and asked my ex-wife about it. She said that our son was being bullied at school and that he had told her that he wanted to commit suicide. She kind of said this in a matter-of-fact kind of way which I thought was odd and a poor response to a severe problem. I thought this was a very serious issue and it needed handled immediately. I made sure all of the guns and knives where out of the house and got my son into IC. It was then I noticed that my wife had developed a friendship with the dad of my 16 year old son's best friend. This guy was a police officer with a local agency and I would occasionally run into him at emergency scenes. I met him once and he seemed to me to be a dork, kind of a gun nut, a ****y "cop" type but not anyone I would be concerned with my wife finding attractive. I was dead wrong. Whenever we went to a school function she always seemed to notice him or bring him up in conversation. We took all the boys to a concert and I noticed that my wife had the dad's cell phone number but not the mom's. When I was at work, my son and his friend would hang out and the dad would come by and pick up his son after. I think now that my son wasn't being bullied at school, he was sad because he was suspicious that his mom was having an affair. I have since found out the my ex-wife and the dad would sit outside of my house for long hours and talk and flirt with each other. At first they talked about my son but quickly the talking turned sexual; I think my wife started to begin to have feelings and emotions for this guy at this point and it turned into a physical affair. My daughter began to notice and told my wife that this guy was a creep and asked my wife why this guy was spending so much time at our house when I wasn't around. I didn't know it at the time, but my wife told my daughter to "shut up" and not say anything to me. My daughter told my wife that she was going to tell me that this guy was at my house whenever I wasn't around and my ex-wife told my daughter not to be "such a *****." I didn't know any of this stuff was going on because I was at the firehouse or in graduate school. Shortly there after, I noticed boundary issues with all of my children when it came to their mother. My wife started to text my 19 DS's ex-girlfriend. She started getting into body modification and took my youngest son to a tattoo parlor so she could get a tattoo. She also got her tongue pierced. She then took $7K and got breast augmentation. I found out that she would take my daughter to a local adult book store to shop. She almost became toxic friends with my daughter, sharing secrets about sex and other topics. When I found out about all of these issues I again confronted my wife and told her that she was treating the kids like they were her friends and not like a parent should. My wife told me that I was trying to control and possess her, and that she felt like I was treating her like a child. I also noticed a lot of selfish and childish behavior from my wife when it came to spending and bouncing checks. It seemed like she always had to had a new handbag, heels, her nails done, Victoria's Secret clothes or some other expensive tattoo. When I asked her about it she said, "when I want something, I want it now and when I want something now, I get it." I told her that this was the selfish side of her that I had never seen. I started to notice little changes in my wife's behavior in May 2012 and in hindsight the changes were glaring. As many other members have posted in these forums, I think subconsciously I knew that she was cheating on me but I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. I just felt it but I was confused. After the boundary issues began to surface with our children, I began to notice that she was emotionally distant while at the same time becoming more sexually adventurous with me. Every conversation seemed to turn to sex or ended with us eventually having sex. She would text me at work and tell me that she wanted me to come right home and have sex with me whenever I got done at work. These texts were unusual but exciting at the same time. I really was enjoying this new found sex drive that my wife seemed to be experiencing. Little did I know it was because she was being turned on by another man. During our marriage previously, I had always been the one to initiate sex and the sex was vanilla and had become routine. On several occasions during our marriage when our kids were younger she had completely avoided sex with me and refused to become more adventurous or change things up in any way. She had totally minimized and rejected me sexually in the past. I can remember on several occasions when the kids were younger, she refused to have sex with me and would allow the kids to sleep in bed with her sort of like protection so I wouldn't be able to have sex with her. She also would discuss our sex life and her lack of sex drive with our friends in front of me and I thought that was very insensitive and cruel. Nevertheless, I still loved her and tried to make the best out of a bad situation, always hoping that our sex life would improve. After she started talking to this police officer, her sexual appetite had been aroused and I noticed but wasn't aware of all the bad things she was doing. She started to call me and want to visit me while I was at the firehouse, but when she got there the conversation was short and really not that significant. I know now what she was doing was just finding out what firehouse I was stationed at for the day and to find out if I knew what was going on. With all of these changes occurring, I really felt like something odd was going on, that she was pulling away and kind of like trying to ask me for permission to leave but she was afraid to go. She had become the classic cake eater, I just didn't know it at the time. What finally and undeniably got my attention happened over a 2 week period in June 2012. I was at work and I received 2 text messages from her which were very raw and exotic. I called her kind of in a joking way and asked her what was going on. She said that she was very horny and needed sex right then. I told her I was working and couldn't leave. She said that I didn't understand and that she "needed to feel the real thing" right then. By this time, I realized that if I wasn't there and she needed to feel the "real thing" something bad was going on. Over the next few days, every conversation was odd and seemed to be centered around her sex drive. She also made comments about how she could **** another man in a heartbeat if I let her and how she would like to experience sex with another woman. This was coming from a woman who only a few months before wouldn't watch pornography or seemed even slightly interested in sex. By this time I came out and accused her of having a PA and she denied it. I told her in no uncertain circumstances was I willing to share my wife and marriage with other people and if she had these feelings that she should just be honest so I could go find someone else too. She said that she was only trying to spice up the marriage and that if I wasn't into this type of thing that was ok, she just didn't want me to get bored with her. By this time my head was spinning and I found this forum. I began to read what others had posted here and decided to take a look at her cell phone usage and to my surprise I found that she had been calling, texting, emailing and sending pictures to a phone number and address which I didn't recognize. What I should have done was slow down, contact an attorney, place a GPS and VAR, even contact a private investigator but I didn't. This is my biggest regret. I was at work when I first saw the cell phone records and I just exploded...I really wish I had handled D-day#1 better. After I found the evidence of all of the cell phone calls I immediately exploded. I was at the firehouse and she was at her office and she just happened to text me and asked how my day was. I responded by asking her who's phone number had she been calling and texting so much. She said that she didn't know what I was talking about and then I told her that I had a copy of the cell phone records and she had better think how she wanted the rest of her life to be from this point on. She then admitted that she had been texting my 16 DS's best friend's dad. I told her that the marriage was over and that I wanted a divorce. My ex quickly left her office and drove to the firehouse and wanted to speak to me. At first she admitted that she had been speaking with this OM but that they were only friends. I told her that I thought that was bull**** because they had texted over 1000 times in the last few days, she finally admitted that they were talking about our marriage and finally that they were sexting but that they had never been physical with one another. I told her that I believed that this was also complete bull**** and that I had been suspicious that she was having an EA and PA for a few weeks prior due to her odd behavior. She denied this and said that I was just trying to get her to admit something that never happened and that she hadn't done anything wrong as this was just "fantasy talk" with another person and she had never and would never act on it. I told her that this was cheating and infidelity. This argument went on for a few minutes until she finally left the firehouse. I was in no shape to work so I was relieved from duty and told to go home. I didn't have a way home since my ex and myself carpooled, so I had to call my Dad to get a ride home. When my Dad got to the firehouse, I told him what was going on. He told me that he had something to tell me. My dad said that he had been on his way to a golf outing in the same town as where my wife's office was several months earlier and he had seen my wife meeting with another man at a restaurant. My dad had told my mom and they together decided that it was probably not my wife who he saw and decided not to say anything to me about it. He apologized, but said that he thought he was doing the right thing by not saying anything. I felt like I had just been hit by a truck, I couldn't believe what was happening. I finally found my way home and called my wife and told her that if she was willing to talk, I was willing to listen. I believe now that she had gone to the OM's apartment to tell him that I was aware that they were having a PA and he should prepare himself. My wife then drove to my daughter's apartment and confided in my DD that she had been having an EA and PA with this police officer. My DD was shocked and didn't know what to say to her mother other than to listen. My wife came back home and for a couple of hours we argued about what had happened. I tried to listen but she was completely defensive and argumentative. She refused to take any responsibility for what had happened and continued to say mean things to me like she had only gone outside of the marriage to find what I wasn't giving her and that the OM had just showed her attention and talked with her and seemed to care and I didn't. She accused me of being a drunk and an absent father, that she had felt like a single parent for a long time and hated it. She just wanted me to take all of the blame for what she had done and refused to take ownership of any of the damage she had caused and said we had just "grown apart." My wife said that she didn't want a divorce but that she also hadn't done anything wrong. This argument went on for hours and she just seemed to be talking in circles and refused to be truthful about what the messages were about, only that she hadn't had sex with this OM. I told her if she wanted to stay in the marriage that she had to change her cell phone# and that she must have NC with this OM and that our sons were not allowed to play together ever again. I also said that we immediately had to start MC to try to save the marriage. I called the OM, he refused to pick up the call, so I left a voicemail telling him that he and his son were to stay away from my family and never to call my wife again. My wife immediately got mad that I did this and said that she didn't think it was right that our DS should lose a friend over her actions. I told her that I didn't care that these were my terms. She grudgingly agreed and we started MC a few days later. The distance in our relationship grew even further and I should have seen that the marriage was well beyond saving but I didn't want to lose her because I loved her. In retrospect, I should have just filed for divorce and never looked back. We started MC a few days later and the councilor mainly focused on my drinking and not on my wife's infidelity. I had decided that I would completely stop drinking as a way to show how much I wanted to work on our marriage and vowed to never drink again. My wife agreed to NC with the police officer. During the MC whenever the subject of the text messages came up or what had my wife and the OM had texted each other came up my wife's answers were vague and defensive. The MC said that I was over analyzing the situation and that I needed to focus on rebuilding trust and finally start to communicate with my wife. My wife insisted that she never had a PA with this police officer. I sincerely bought into the MC at first but something just didn't seem right. I had noticed that on D-Day#1 that the OM had texted my wife 2 times and then the messages seemed to just completely stop. I wanted to know what the subject of those texts were. My wife said that she didn't know or that she didn't remember. I thought this just seemed like nonsense. How could you just not remember the last thing you ever said to someone? I asked if she had really ended the relationship or had he decided to end it? My wife said that she didn't know and couldn't control if the OM texted or called again or not. This seemed like a very harsh answer. The counselor seemed to begin to attack me saying that my questions regarding the texts messages was just a sign of my withdrawal from alcohol and that I needed to let it go, that I needed to just needed to get over it because the deeds had already been done. Between my wife and the marriage counselor, I began to believe that no sex had ever occurred despite of what my senses and intuition were telling me. I literally thought I was going crazy. I had been completely gas-lighted for so long that I began to doubt myself and my own beliefs. The MC went on for about a month and I tried to reconnect and reinvest in the relationship. My wife and I started to date again, going out to movies, dinners, baseball games and taking walks at the park and talking. I could tell my wife was not mentally present during any of these "dates" and several times she told me that she missed talking to her "friend" and that the NC was just my way of trying to control her. Several times she would leave the house whenever I tried to discuss our relationship or how we could save the marriage and our family. Oddly, we also began to have the hysterical bonding and became very intimate again. The sex was incredible...I could tell she had learned different positions and had become even more sexually aggressive. This was something I clearly noticed. Occasionally, I would start thinking about our marital problems during the times we were having sex and I couldn't get an erection. My wife would start to cry and say that she didn't want her sex life to be boring like this and she wanted to be with someone who could perform. I told her that I was frustrated and consumed with the fact that she had been in an EA with another man and that my heart was broken and that is why I couldn't get a hard-on. I really tried over the next few weeks to sexually satisfy her but in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong. Finally I began to notice that she was "protecting" her purse and that is where I later found a secret cell phone that she had asked my DD to buy for her. A few weeks after we started MC, I saw the OM briefly at work. I was not able to confront him but it was clear that he was a coward, was hiding from me and was afraid to look me in the eyes. He quickly got into his vehicle and left the area before any confrontation happened. The next day, I told my wife that I had ran into the OM while working; she seemed to be very concerned with this incident and asked if I had talked to him. I asked her what did it matter what happened if she had done nothing wrong and their texting had just been "fantasy talk" like she said...my wife then said that if I ever started a confrontation with the OM that she would be there to stand between us to stop it. My wife said that I was stupid to be willing to confront him at work and that we were both going to end up getting fired or make the news for a firefighter vs. cop fight. I asked my wife why she cared if he got fired and she came unglued. She said that he had kids and an ex-wife to support and she didn't want to him to suffer because of our drama. Clearly, the OM had not yet told my wife that he had seen me at work. I discussed this in MC and was again attacked by both the counselor and my wife for making the situation worse. By now, it was clear that my wife had fallen in love with the OM and didn't care what happened to me. My wife's voice audibly changed when she said his name, her voice got softer...it was obvious that she wanted to be with him and not me. I simultaneously noticed that WW started to carry her purse with her everywhere she went. She would take it to the bathroom, move it from room to room when the family was all at home together and then finally started to take it bed with her. I noticed and asked why she was taking her purse to bed with her. My wife said that she was afraid that my 16 DS would try to take her car keys while she was sleeping. This seemed like absolute nonsense; why won't you just take the keys to bed with you instead? I kept this to myself and resolved myself that I was going to have to get into her purse because there was clearly something in there that she was hiding. A week later, D-Day#2 happened when I finally had an opportunity to get access to her purse while we were carpooling to work without my wife seeing me. You guessed it, I found a secret cell hidden in the side pocket of her purse. The key pad on the cell phone was locked. My wife then saw that I had taken the phone out of her purse and started to squirm. I asked her whose phone it was and she responded that it was our DD's phone. I then called my DD's phone and the secret phone didn't ring but my DD answered. I told my DD that her mom had her cell phone and that I needed her pin to unlock the keypad. My DD was surprised and confused. My DD said, "I don't know what you are talking about Dad." I ended the call and again asked my wife who's cell phone this was. My wife had a complete breakdown...screaming, trying to grab the phone, attempting to get physical with me to get the phone back. It was actually funny to see her so desperate and I started to laugh just out of the pure exhaustion that I had been suffering for the past few weeks. I had been right the whole time, I finally realized that the police officer had came to my house while I was on duty and flirted with my wife which turned into an EA and finally a PA. I wasn't going crazy, I had been right...I was right. I found a parking spot at a local park and finally told my wife that I would not give the phone back until she gave me the pin to unlock the keypad and let me read the messages on the phone. She finally caved and gave me the pin and I read the text messages. A word of advice here for those in similar situations...really make sure you want to read the texts prior to doing it. I didn't prepare myself...The texts were horrible, far worse than I ever could have expected. My wife had an intense physical and emotional affair with this police officer for a year prior to me even becoming suspicious, they had planned several sexual liaisons around our family functions, had very indepth discussions regarding my marriage and kids. They also were attempting to set up a Female-Male-Female 3-way with the police officer's current girlfriend. Many of the texts were the police officer asking my wife why she was so attracted to him and she said mostly it was because she knew it drove me crazy, that she enjoyed torturing me. My wife also said horrible things about our children, that she often dreamed that the kids weren't there and her life could just be her and the police officer. My wife admitted that she had performed BJ's on him, that she allowed and wanted him to cum in her mouth, had done anal with him often and had realized that anal made her reach orgasm almost instantly and often. She clearly had enjoyed her sexual relationship with police officer far more than sex with me. My wife finally admitted that she had been lying about her relationship with the police officer for months, lying in MC and begged me to please now give her a second chance. I was destroyed. Later on D-Day #2, I went running and then returned home and started to go to bed in the guest bedroom that I had been sleeping in off and on since D-Day #1. I decided that since she had been the one to cheat, she should be the one to sleep in the guest bedroom from now on. I also decided to myself and told her that the only way I was ever leaving my house was with a court order so she had just better leave quietly. She refused and said she wasn't going to throw away a 20+ year marriage over a fling, and that she wanted me to say I would work it out. In my frustration and exhaustion that day, I had somehow given her back the secret phone after I sent the police officer a text on it telling him that I had found the phone and requested that he call me. I should have just destroyed the secret phone. He never did call, text or make any contact with me but continued to contact my wife to have sex with her for the next few months. Her continued use of the secret phone is what finally gave me the strength to push for a separation and finally a dissolution. My wife wanted me at the time to just say that I would work on our marriage...she begged and cried that I just tell her I was willing to work on it, she said that that was all she wanted. I told her that I didn't know what I wanted but that I was strongly considering a divorce; that I was also willing to go to one more MC session to get the truth out and into the open finally. D-Day #2 was on a Thursday and the earliest we could be seen at MC was on the following Tuesday but our counselor did speak to my wife on the phone and told her that she needed to leave our house since the situation could eventually become dangerous. My wife agreed to begin to pack and finally left on Saturday to stay at my MIL's house until the MC began on Tuesday. I was completely stunned by the events of the past few days and had to attend a final class on that Saturday to finish the semester in grad school. During class, I began to cry and had to leave school as many started to see me weeping. It was odd and unusual for many of my classmates to see a grown man having a job like mine, a firefighter, crying in public. I was very embarrassed but didn't care, my life was ruined. We attended the Tuesday MC session and it began as the previous sessions had, the counselor asked if had I been drinking since we last met and I said "no." The counselor asked my wife had she had contact with the police officer since we last met and my wife said "yes." The counselor asked my wife if she had an EA or PA with the police officer and my wife said "yes, both." The counselor asked my wife if she was willing to have NC with this police officer to save the marriage and begin MC again truthfully. My wife thought for a moment and then said "no." The counselor asked again are you willing to have NC with the police officer and my wife again said "no." At this point the counselor said that the MC had failed and there really wasn't much more to talk about since WW wasn't willing to have NC with the police officer. Something had changed in my wife for the worse from the time I last saw her on D-Day #2 up until the last MC session began. I was pretty much resigned from this point on that divorce was the only option and our marriage was over. I later realized that D-Day#1 and the MC had only driven the PA deeper underground and my wife would never leave the OM; he would eventually and finally reject her. I cant and haven't to this day been able to recognize the person that my wife has become, this serial cheater and apparently, sex addicted woman as the same person that I married and who bore our four beautiful children. She is just lost, a kind of new photograph of her old self that is out of focus. She kind of looks the same but the stress and lines on her face are much deeper and her new haircut, which she loves, makes her look much older. On this day, I finally understood that my wife, best friend and soul mate were gone forever and had been for some time. We left the MC office and stopped on the way home at a coffee shop to try to regroup and figure out what we were going to tell the kids about our marriage and pending break up. WW began crying and I tried to get her to open up about what had happened and how things had gotten so messed up. She refused to admit that she loved the OM but said that she knew there was never going to be a future with the police officer. I asked her to just tell me what had happened and after some pauses, she finally told me how he had at first pursued her and eventually wore her down. Eventually she began to pursue him and use him for sex, that the police officer did things to her that I wouldn't or couldn't do. She said that I was either always at work, at school or drunk, and that he made her feel special. She told me in a very calm way that she had decided that she was a submissive and she liked to be dominated and controlled in bed, something I had never done to her. I asked her why she had done this then, why she hadn't told me this was what she wanted? Why hadn't she ever shown any deep remorse or even shown the slightest bit of empathy for the pain I was enduring? Why had she continued this? She said it was just because she was so alone and the police officer made her feel safe and good. After they had sex at his apartment, they would cuddle and talk for hours, that she liked the connection and conversation and often didn't want to leave but knew she had to. WW just cried and remained quiet, she said she knew it was wrong but that she wouldn't stop. She also said she didn't want the house, alimony or my pension, only that she was miserable and wanted out. She began to admit that she had told my DD that she was cheating on me immediately after D-day #1 and that she had asked DD to add her onto her cell phone account so I wouldn't be able to track her cell phone usage and so she could stay in contact with the police officer. DD agreed to do this for my WW. WW also told me that she had told my MIL the week before that she was cheating on me and had planned to end our marriage but couldn't find the way to do it. The police officer didn't want to deal with the drama of a married woman with 4 kids. For her to say such horrible things with so little regard for my feelings made me feel even worse. We agreed to meet the following morning and attempt to reach some agreement on a dissolution that would be as easy on the kids as possible. The next day my wife showed up at my house wearing clothes that I had bought her that she knew I liked. I thought that she was dressed to kill just to try to torture me even further but I tried not to let it bother me or at least let her know that I noticed. I am sure I failed because she looked amazing and she could tell I noticed. We agreed to shared parenting, no child support or alimony, that I would split my pension and all the household debts 50/50. I agreed to take the house since we were upside down and she would move out and get an apartment. She also told me that I should expect an explanation of benefits from my health insurance company because she had decided to go back on birth control. This hurt very much, I told her that I also may decide to have my vasectomy reversed if I found a younger woman who wanted to have children. We ended the meeting and agreed to tell the kids in a few days after emotions had settled down a bit. Since I am a firefighter and work an odd schedule, we initially agreed to try to communicate when it came to the schedule for the younger two kids, but that quickly fell apart. Over the next few weeks whenever we saw one another, I would get hurt at the sight of her and she would make little comments about how great her new life was and how much fun she was having going out with new friends. I just hurt and I realized that I needed to take the advise of many of the people here on SI and begin to maintain NC. NC = no new pain, and for a while that worked. The DS-16 began to notice that there was something going on and I told WW not to say anything until we could tell all of the kids at the same time together. Little by little over the next few days the kids began to figure out that mom and dad were splitting up. DS-16 was very upset and began to think that it was his fault that his mom had had sex with his friends' dad. He told me that he wanted to kill the OM. I told him that it wasn't his fault, that we both loved him very much and that I would handle this. He began to suffer depression and was eventually hospitalized for suicidal ideation a few months later. Things were really getting off track and WW soon realized that she couldn't get an apartment or refinance her mini-van as easily as she thought she was going to be able to. She was finally able to find an apartment with DD-22 as her roommate and moved into her new apartment about a month later. Something I was very apprehensive about; I knew that my WW would have other men around my DD-22, and with the previous boundary issues, sexual problems were sure to come up. I warned my DD-22 not to move in with her mother, but DD-22 said she wanted to help her mother get through this. About a week later we sat all of the kids down and told them that mom and dad were getting divorced, WW said at first that it was "her fault" and I stopped her and told the kids that, no, it was both of our faults, but that we would never be married again. I have never in my life felt so hurt, alone, abandoned and unsure as I did immediately after WW left our home. Everything was quiet and the kids were unsure of how to act with mom being gone. Since I had stopped drinking and began to workout a lot more I quickly lost about 50 pounds. My WW noticed. From the end of July until the boys started back to school in August was surreal. The WW was staying at the MIL house and I was staying at our home. Because of my odd firefighter schedule, we tried at first for one of us to always be with the kids. She would come over and stay for the 24 hour period I was on duty and then leave as I got home. This never really worked because I would see her and act hurt and then she would say some smart remark and start an argument. I tried to start the 180 but it didn't seem to work. It was odd having her here doing the normal household stuff when we both knew that she wanted to be with the police officer. I started to do the household stuff that needed to get done but it was very hard and I would have emotional breakdowns over the stupidest things. I started crying at the gym, at walmart, even when I was mowing the grass because these were the things that we used to do together as a couple. I hurt so bad and it seemed like she didn't care. It was a very confusing and painful time. As I began to lose more and more weight, she began to notice and the Hysterical Bonding began again and I really tried to win her back sexually. I'm sure at the time she thought of it as nothing more than getting off, but I thought that we were making some progress towards reconciling. After a few weeks I started to go over to the MIL house when we were alone and continue to have sex with the WW and I told her that I loved her and wanted her back. She said that she loved me too, that she wanted to be a part of my life but that we needed to work on our own individual issues, begin IC and MC again, start dating and then reconnect. I agreed and we started to text more and more when we weren't around each other and I though we were making real progress. It was another lie. The power went out in the MIL's house and for a few days I allowed the WW to stay in the guest bedroom in our home. One night I couldn't sleep and I got up and noticed through the ajar guest bedroom door a small light on. I walked in and noticed that she was charging the secret cell phone. She awoke as I bent over to pick it up and wanted to know what I was doing and she quickly grabbed the phone. I asked her why she was charging the phone and she gave me some lame excuse that she was using the email account to get internet coupons. I told her this sounded like complete crap and asked her had she been in contact with the police officer. She said that she had not been in contact with him, that I was being unreasonable and controlling. I asked her to let me see the phone and read the text messages on it. She refused and said that she would never let me read the messages again and that I needed to trust her. She said that she had saved all the messages on the phone but that they made her sound weak, needy, and desperate. She said she was going to delete all of the messages on the phone once and for all and that she had not had any contact with the police officer. I told her that we were at an impasse then because I believed that she had been talking to the police officer and she needed to prove that she hadn't. She wouldn't budge and refused to give up the phone. She said that she had always been someone's daughter, someone's wife or someone's mother and this phone made her feel good; that if I didn't let her have this one thing in her life that it just proved I was controlling and didn't treat her like an equal. I was exhausted with this argument and just went to bed. I let her keep the phone. The next morning, she came to me again and began having sex. After we were done, she made a comment that it felt like all she was good for was sex and that I treated her exactly like the police officer did; using her as a sex object to ejaculate in and then send on her way. She began crying, I told her that I loved her, I wanted to be her man and husband, that I valued her and appreciated her and to never compare me to that POS again if she wanted to stay in my life. I never wanted this situation to happen and would have given anything to keep her. I asked her to please give me the phone back, to take the battery out or give me the sim card just to prove she was willing to work on our marriage and keep NC in place. She refused. She began crying harder and left our home. From that point on, things were never the same in our relationship. She clearly wanted to be with the police officer more than with me and I couldn't stand being her second choice any longer. A few days later she was able to find an apartment and began to move out of the MIL house and took most of the household items from our home that she wanted. A few days later we spoke on the phone and again went over everything that had happened, the EA and the PA, why it had happened and how we could fix things. Her resolve had solidified and she now was completely argumentative, hostile and angry. She again began defending what she had done and said that this was my fault, that she would never grovel, beg, or give up her individuality again. I decided to stop playing nice with her, I finally contacted a PI, called the police department internal affairs office to report the OM, called the OM's ex-wife and attempted to contact the OM's girlfriend to tell her that they were trying to set her up for a 3-way. I hoped to blow this thing apart and thought that maybe my WW would see that I was willing to fight for my family and marriage. This was not how she viewed my actions and my children began to suffer. DS-16 started to have more suicidal thoughts and his IC started to get more and more concerned. This whole situation was completely off the rails. The next few weeks were pretty rough. We officially separated on August 20th and it was weird not having her around. I missed her voice and companionship so much it was killing me. I spoke to a friend and after talking to him decided that only I could decide what I was willing to put up with and under what circumstances I could forgive her, so I decided to attempt to talk to her and see if she was willing to try to reconcile. I must have seemed so pathetic and needy to her so in retrospect it was a huge miscalculation on my part. I called and asked if I could speak to her and she agreed and we spoke in person again for hours about our relationship and what she saw in the OM. Basically, everything about me was bad and everything that the OM did was perfect. He was confident, a great lover, funny, articulate and fun to be around. I was a serious but depressing drunk, always concerned with the bills and serious topics and could never just let go and live life. It was very hurtful to hear. She said that he would call her by her name when they had sex and she loved that; she could just be herself around him, she always had to be a wife or mom around me. Whenever we were out in public together, she said that when she said something that I didn't like I would roll my eyes or shoot her a disapproving look and that made her feel bad about herself. She said I made her feel stupid and the OM made her feel smart, they had long talks about music, films, and books and I never seemed interested in hearing her opinions. I didn't know I ever did those things or made her feel that way. It really hurt. She was clearly in the fog but wouldn't listen to anything I said. She said that she "loved me but wasn't in love with me" that things had changed and she clearly had "got something out of her relationship" with the police officer. She said that she would rather be his ***** than my wife, she would rather be treated like a piece of meat by him than like a princess by me. She also said that she knew that I was trying to contact his girlfriend to tell her about the PA and she said that she would appreciate it if I did that. She thought that if she could break them up that she would be able to get closer to the OM and try to form a stronger relationship with him. She told me that some of the sexual things that we had been doing during HB she had first done with the police officer, she was just re-enacting them. I told her that I had contacted the police officer's internal affairs division and she then became irate. I had never seen her so mad in the 24 years we had been together. She said that she would never forgive me. I was angry and said that i hadn't done anything that I needed forgiven for and that I was leaving. I left that day knowing that divorce was the only option. The next day I received the notice from the health insurance company that she had bought birth control. I began having a lot of dark thoughts and contemplated suicide but knew that wasn't right. I stared IC and went on AD meds. That helped a little and I started to heal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |||
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