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Thank you Icy. I've called a bunch of lawyers and have some consultations coming up... they can't come soon enough, given how quickly WW is trying to move.

I still would like this to be amicable. And quick. So I'm trying to be very careful with lawyers--for starters I would just like some legal advice to help navigate. I am afraid the second I hire one on retainer, it will trigger a magnificent cascade of awfulness where WW also needs one, and it gets *very* ugly. It's a possibility, given how unpredictable she has been. It frankly scares me. However, I'm starting to wonder if I need to push for more than a 50/50 split... and numerous people, including her family, are suggesting that. I'm not even sure if WA state allows 50/50 since someone may need to be a custodial parent to make decisions. Considering all her unhappiness comes from wanting to uproot her kids and move to CA, that she's planning to run off with a guy she's been talking with for 2 weeks, that she had an affair when pregnant, and I was often staying home while she went out to play live shows, it might be reasonable. But that would certainly get ugly.

If I do want it to be amicable, the only hope also hinges on me keeping my emotions in check. I keep finding out more about this A and it upsets me, so I am trying to disconnect and remember how to 180. And she's trying to hide the fact she's having an affair from everyone, and then people ask me if she's seeing someone else... and I don't want to lie. I can't lie for her. But now she's on a "who knows what" crusade to figure out who is spilling the beans. It's ridiculous, and her own actions driving people to develop opinions and take sides, but I feel like I'm just in the crossfire looking for support. Either way--this ends with people finding out, most people (including her entire family) supporting me. They've even said they'd go to court to defend me getting full custody. That was a wake up call to me for how poor her decisions and behavior are right now.

Gotta brush up on that 180...

people ask me if she's seeing someone else... and I don't want to lie.

So don’t lie. Just tell people that you’re trying to keep things amicable so you don’t want to talk about it. It’s yes without saying yes. If stbxww asks you can tell her you haven’t been talking about it.

I talked to a lawyer friend of mine who lives across the country and doesn’t know WW. He said it’s very likely I could get more than 50/50 custody. Everyone I talk to, including her family, says they’d support me getting the kids.

This should probably tell me something, right? That’s what everyone’s impression is of her, me, and how we operated as a family unit. That I’d be the better parent.

But… this has all happened so fast. Suddenly, a few days after being a family, I’m debating on taking the kids away from their mother. She IS Mom. We have worked together as a family for years. She’s not on drugs. She’s not a criminal. But… talk of moving to LA to pursue music, multiple affairs (but in a no-fault state), job hopping for our whole marriage. Her current small business is a boudoir studio (not exactly kid friendly). Often playing shows one or two nights a week, or more if you include practices and other artsy things she’s trying to get involved in. Is that enough? Is that seriously enough to take the kids away from her and let them live with me?

I never thought I’d be here. The kids love their mom. They say they miss her when she’s out. The last 6 months she’s been short tempered and emotionally absent, but she still loves them, and they love her. She’ll play with them and cuddle and tuck them in at night, just like me. I can’t believe I’m thinking about doing this, and I don’t know if it’s the right solution. It’s all happening so fast.

I feel like many situations it’s obvious—Mom is horribly unfit, dad immediately knows he NEEDS those kids, gets a bulldog lawyer and the movie has a happy ending. Me… I am not seeing some of these problems until now. I’m not realizing how selfish her choices were, and are, until now. Being a single dad is not something I had considered until days ago. Do I really do this?

Do you have to do this?

It doesn't sound like the kids are in any danger. They do need their mother.

Are you considering it because she plans to move far away? I'm not a lawyer but I've heard of divorce stipulations that one cannot move and/or take the children without the others consent.

If the only real concern is her potentially taking the kids, I think that can be eliminated in a divorce settlement versus you taking sole custody and distancing your kids from their mom.

Or i'm not understanding what you are doing?

I don't have to do this. I just don't know right now. I am trying to think of what is best for my 2 kids and I just don't know.

If I could keep the house, and the kids--they'd have stability. But it's uncertain whether I can keep the house, due to complications with refinancing and whether we have quite enough savings to buy the other partner out. WW realizes now it's probably impossible for her to keep it.

So then the alternative is they, ages 5 and 6, spend 1 week with me (either at home or in a strange new house) and then 1 week with Mom at a strange new house. Back and forth, every week. How is that a good, stable life for them?

I am just considering all options. I guess my last post was musing aloud. It is striking to me that everyone around me is saying they'd support me taking custody. I can include stipulations she doesn't move far away. She may end up choosing to do that and give up her custody anyway, to be honest. It's just that *every single decision* she is making now is "me first." And I'm not just saying that because of her actions, she is verbally and in comms saying "I am thinking about me. I am making the best decisions for me, for once." Repeatedly. How is that good for the children? If we do 50/50 and she still needs babysitting for them two nights a week, isn't that saying something as well?

I just have so much to think about.

I'm not a lawyer but I've heard of divorce stipulations that one cannot move and/or take the children without the others consent.

this was my impression as well. If anything I would make sure she can't move far enough to where you would barely see them and do the 50/50.

I have never been in your situation, so I cannot advise you whether to seek more than 50/50 custody of your children. I put my whole life into parenting when my kids were at home, but I often jokingly threatened my husband that if he left me I would give him full custody, because the prospect of that terrified him. Parenting well is hard. Especially when kids become teenagers.

I think you should listen to your gut which is telling you to be very wary about fighting to pull your kids away from their mother. What does she want? Is she still talking about moving to California? It may very well be that a 70/30 split or something else is best for everyone in your unique situation.

Regardless, I would avoid a custody battle. It might cause more harm than good. If your STBXWW seriously wants a 50/50 split and is willing to not move away I don't think I would fight it.

If she stays in the area and doesn’t go off the rails 50/50 will probably be best for everyone.

If we do 50/50 and she still needs babysitting for them two nights a week, isn't that saying something as well?

You can have right of first refusal as a stipulation of the custody agreement. Any time she needs someone to look after the kids she would have to check and see if you could take them.

It is striking to me that everyone around me is saying they'd support me taking custody.

As far as her family goes right now they’re with whoever is keeping the kids closest to them. They’ll support custody for you as long as she’s making noises about moving hundreds of miles away. If she decides to stay in the area expect their support to moderate. Blood is blood.

I talked to a lawyer friend of mine who lives across the country and doesn’t know WW. He said it’s very likely I could get more than 50/50 custody.

Wait until you’ve consulted with local attorneys before making any decisions. They’ll know state law and also be familiar with the biases of the family court judges in your area.

If I could keep the house, and the kids--they'd have stability. But it's uncertain whether I can keep the house,

Take a hard look at your finances. You won’t be doing anyone any favors if the margin for keeping the house means you have zero room for error or emergencies.

Last night I felt strong. WW is moving out and into a friend’s vacant rental home. We’re talking today about the details, but I get the sense she is going to want to move in immediately, leaving the kids with me for now.

That is painful in so many ways because it forces me to accept we’re over, in a very clear way, where even now I’ll sometimes have these temporary delusions where I think this might be salvageable… but this all just happened so fast and I’ve been trying to do so much I haven’t been able to really absorb it.

I slept 5 hours, and just woke up sobbing after dreaming about the two of them having sex. And now I’m a wreck, I can’t get back to sleep. I need to make this not matter to me. I need to make it not matter. I’ve been dealing with all the practical, logistic items that need doing but the emotions are still there, barely contained. How do I accept this and not care she’s with someone else???

Also side question, and I realize this may sound crazy or codependent. She’s going to take some furniture and home item/ from our house to our new rental and really doesn’t have many supporters to help her. Am I an asshole if I say "I am trying to keep this amicable but I’m not going to help you move out" when she needs help moving??

I don’t support this, obviously. It seems absurd for me to help her take this step to rip our family apart.

I need to make this not matter to me.

Get as low contact with her as possible. Just text and email and only about the kids and divorce. Outside of those topics "yes", "no", and "I’m sorry you feel that way" should cover the majority of your conversation with her.

She’s going to take some furniture and home item/ from our house to our new rental and really doesn’t have many supporters to help her.

Her problems are her problems now.

Twice

Divorce is basically the BUISNESS part of dissolving a marriage. Keep that in mind. When either of you has decided to divorce the marriage really has no future. Even if she wanted to divorce and not you – it would still end in divorce.
Since it’s the business-part then use a business comparison: Imagine you fire a worker for constantly being late and missing deadlines. Like repeatedly and you have given him every opportunity to improve. Once you fired him… you wouldn’t be calling him to chastise about how he can’t wake up in the morning or phone him a week later to scream how him missing a deadline cost you money. The guy’s been fired, he’s no longer on the payroll and all you need to do is make certain he’s been paid the wages, hours, compensation or whatever he is owed.

It's comparable to your soon-to-be ex-wife. She’s been fired or she’s turned in her notice. You two don’t have to argue on emotional aspects or dig into how your obsession with mowing the lawn (or whatever she decides to focus on) is the root cause of her decision to seek solace elsewhere or why the marriage is doomed. That is the marital equivalent of teaching that former employee how to use an alarm-clock.

So… Don’t argue. Don’t allow her to feed her emotional need to justify her divorce. If she starts talking about how you don’t talk or how the marriage was doomed or whatever: "I don’t want to go into that because we have decided to divorce. There is nothing to be gained for me to talk about this" and then just walk away.

This will both empower you, and also confuse her A LOT.

People seldom make it through divorce as "friends". If they can handle that, then chances are they could have handled their marital issues that brought them to divorce. Amicable divorce is a lot like the surgery-staff wearing pink and yellow scrubs to make you feel better. Still going to be bloody and messy…
That doesn’t mean you have to make it confrontational and messy. Just do your research and be prepared. Have your financial info water-tight and be totally aware of what is realistic. From what you share she isn’t offering anything spectacular, but basically what you both would be entitled to anyways. You won’t get to keep the home and the cars and all the money and get full custody. It will be some mix, some compromises and some cost. Just be aware of what to legally expect and then try to keep it within that scope or range. Definitely get an attorney to handle your side, even if this is resolved in mediation.

Your STBX is so selfish. You refusing to help her move the furniture is actually a kindness. It’s not helpful to support people in their selfish, entitled actions. She needs to learn to deal with the reality of her choices.

I am sorry you are suffering so much. You have been abandoned and that is going to be painful. I haven’t read it but many people on SI recommend the book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson.

I suggest you try to redirect your thoughts every time you think of her. Maybe wear an elastic band on your wrist and snap it whenever you think of her and then force yourself to think of something else. Have a positive mantra running through your head at all times to keep you from focusing on her.

She sounds like a taker and I think you will eventually feel lighter when she is no longer burdening you with her selfishness.

Please don't help her move out.

Not your monkey, not your circus. She's stepping away, don't get involved. Let her put on her big girl panties and figure out her own life from here on out.

Ok, that was really obvious. Of course I don’t help her move. Thank you. I actually don’t want to be in the house at all… I want to agree on what items she should take, and be elsewhere when she comes to do it.

It is a business now. It makes sense, and it’s what I have to try and focus on. Using that analogy, though—it’s as if we worked together for 17 years, and there were some attendance and performance issues 7 years ago, but everything was going fairly well since then. Then I was fired with no notice and left reeling. The natural reaction is to try and figure out what happened and find the reasons, dig in, etc… but it’s pointless. I know that. Just hard. I loved what we had until recently, and grieving that is real.

She’s staying 2 nights in a hotel, and just handed the kids off to me until Monday. It actually feels pretty nice to be in my house with just them, given all the turmoil. I don’t k ow if I’d say it gives me hope, per se, since the coming weeks are going to be horrendous as I try to get myself situated and sort things out while being emotionally stable. But… it’s nice.

I have a support system growing. Sisters, a few friends, and even some in-law support to help with childcare and transportation. I’m only 40, I’m kind and responsible and fit. I have to tell myself I’ll be ok. I’m trying.

Twicewounded
I am so very sorry for your pain.
It sounds like you have fought a good fight but unfortunately your WW has no clue what commitment and love is.
I know you are hurting like hell. It will get better as time passes. You are in crisis mode right now so everything is going to look exponentially dire and painful. Don’t allow your thoughts and fears take you to the future of your imagination.
Focus on taking care of yourself as hard as it is. Listening to music, going for a walk/fun, reading to your children, do whatever that helps you to feel comforted (no alcohol or drugs though)
I agree with others that you should not help your spouse move out. I am a person of great empathy and compassion so normally i would say yes, help her. But in this case, i think tough love is in order. Let her feel the loneliness of moving. She’s envisioning this wonderful new life without giving a second thought to the devastation she’s causing you. She needs to feel some pain too. And if you are there to help and support her, she will never experience the consequences of her actions.
She is acting very selfish right now so let her live in it.
You need to protect your heart.
I know it’s hard to let go.
Hang in there and keep posting. Letting it out and being heard is a great start to healing.

Thank you Cedar. It is hard to let go. You’re right. I guess some small part of me hopes she’ll have a magical turnaround, where she suddenly realizes how wrong she is and works to make it right… with me, with everyone in my support system who now hates what she has done to our family. But I need to accept that kind of drastic change won’t happen. That’s hard.

Yesterday, I did a lot with the kids. Got donuts, went to church, went to their Grandma’s, visited cousins. Just got out and had a fun day.

WW got VERY upset that I went to church, called my mother in law (her own mom!) screaming because it’s HER family that goes to that church and I’m being manipulative by going there to get sympathy. The truth is, I’d been awake for hours on Sunday morning and didn’t know where else to go. I was tired and knew I could get support there. I politely ended our text conversation when she asked me not to go to "her" church or talk to her family.

It’s true I’ve leaned on her family for support. I’m actually much closer to her mother, father and sister than my own family… they are local, and we’ve been seeing them for 17 years. They were our primary babysitters and helpers. I feel a little guilty and WW is accusing me of stealing her support system. The only people who support her actions are a few friends who she has lied to, and don’t know she’s left me for someone else (and that she’s had multiple affairs already). Her family still supports me and disapproves of her, so which is why it feels like I "stole" them. But in the grand scheme of things I guess it doesn’t matter… all I need to worry about is staying amicable enough we don’t get ugly lawyers involved, not breaking up her fantasy world.

From what my MIL tells me, she is all over the place—thinks I’m being manipulative and just trying to get attention and sympathy, then maybe I AM actually so distraught I shouldn’t even be around the kids, then I was an awful husband the whole marriage, then gets teary about all the good times we had… then gets angry I’m not "fighting for her," then some other mood swing. And again… I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?

After a few days of her being in a hotel, she’s coming back today and will be here until Friday when she moves into her friend’s rental. I am dreading it. It is emotionally awful for me to be in the same house as her while she’s talking to Mr. Guy I’m Not Leaving You For I’m Just Coincidentally Talking To Him 4 Hours a Night. Need to tough up for a few days more. And figure out what to tell the kids.

[This message edited by TwiceWounded at 3:46 PM, Monday, November 6th]

Huge day. WW and I had a long talk last night, which ended with her giving me a hug and saying "thanks for 17 years" and telling me I was free to go do whatever I wanted, with whoever I wanted. Of course this frees herself to do what she wants too, and she’s trying to relieve herself of guilt.

She said some lines about how I rarely touched her in the last year, didn’t compliment her, didn’t seem like I even loved her. Of course this feels like bullshit to me—we weren’t perfect, and she was irritable and aimless and desperately searching for something to make her happy during that time. Not very approachable, and my compliments would just bounce off her because "it was the way that I said them" that wasn’t meaningful. Or whatever.

So, I feel a little gaslit in how she is pushing responsibility onto me and just saying she was unhappy, and we were going to D "with or without AP." She just happens to have found AP now. But I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? What she or anyone else thinks about whose fault it was or whose responsibility? Doesn’t matter which friends agree with me or her, right? And I need to focus on accepting that she’s off boning AP and I’m lonely single dad.

Change of subject, I did my initial consult with my lawyer. D is going to be ridiculously expensive, but this lawyer is good and it feels like it’ll give me a little bit of my power back. WW is still trying to push an uncontested D through a remote county with no waiting period, and I am trying to delay signing anything until after she’s moved out this weekend because it’ll cause a lot of fireworks when I tell her I have a lawyer… and I dread how that will play out. I need to do it though. Have to. And soon she’s going to catch on that I’m not signing her docs because I’m getting a lawyer.

Still can’t eat or sleep well, but I’m trying.

She’s going to take some furniture and home item/ from our house to our new rental and really doesn’t have many supporters to help her. Am I an asshole if I say "I am trying to keep this amicable but I’m not going to help you move out" when she needs help moving??

Her decisions have consequences too. Hell I left my xWS and moved myself out. I had to pay for movers. I wouldn't help her move out let her figure it out she's an adult.

Lawyer talk… one reason I’ve been entertaining the idea of WW filing uncontested is because she isn’t asking for spousal support.

Her income has been extremely variable. As a real estate broker her gross commissions have been over 100k several years, including a 400k year, with many awards won. But this year she did almost nothing, instead opening a photography business 18 months ago.

If I get a lawyer—and she gets a bulldog lawyer in return—they could convince her to try and get spousal support. If they use this year’s income they could try to make me pay an insane amount… like an initial calculator says like $3500+ per month for 12 years. That would cripple me and make me unable to afford the house. I mean genuinely cripple my entire life. Based on her making almost nothing this year.

See my problem? I’ve asked my (not yet retained) lawyer what they think. A lawyer could easily cost me $20k alone, but if the spousal support issue goes south, it could be utterly catastrophic.

Hence… why I’m entertaining an uncontested, clunky divorce. Sigh.