1 month since dday

Hi everyone,

Sorry that you are all part of this garbage club, but I am grateful for any commiseration or insights you'd be willing to share.

My WH (32M) and I (37F) returned from a family vacation with our 2 kids (aged 4 and 6) on August 22 of this year. He informed me on Aug 28 that he had "fallen in love" with his female employee in the time since we'd gotten back from vacation. He spent the following weekend trying to have us both, until she issued an ultimatum, and he left the family home on September 6th. He has since moved himself and the OW into a home about 45 minutes away.

I'd had misgivings about this woman before (including a very vivid dream where he left us for her, while on vacation) and had asked about these intuitions previously, only to be aggressively gaslighted ("it's really fucked up that you'd accuse me of something like this"). This woman came to my house, ate the food I prepared, played with my children, hugged me on the way out, and accepted the offer to borrow my vehicle to go to an out of town concert when hers broke down (and got a speeding ticket while she was out there, ofc, because her entitlement and selfishness to that point wasn't sufficient).

To be blunt, the good man and husband that I've known for the last 10 years has lost his fucking mind. He's rented a home that is well beyond what he can afford, on a year lease, which is 45 minutes from his kids. He blames me for "keeping him from his children" because I don't want to split custody 2 weeks on 2 weeks off with he and his girlfriend of a month -- the kids' school/dayhome are near my home, and he works long hours outside the house, and I work from home so I've traditionally done almost all of the childcare/logistics.

His solution is that he will let his employee/girlfriend work part-time the weeks that he has the kids so that she can spend the 2 extra hours a day in the car to get them to and from school/dayhome. He's also suggested that I should move away from my support system to facilitate his access to the kids. I am disinclined to do him this solid, shockingly.

I've retained a lawyer, and we have a counseling appointment booked for this Wednesday so that a professional can tell him that turning over his kids essentially full-time to a woman who contributed to blowing up their family is not what's in their best interest.

He's apologetic and apparently(?) remorseful (though not enough to cut off the OW), says he still loves me, and also says that I shouldn't get my hopes up for R because he and his gf are "all-in" and "this is forever".

This is the mindfuck of a lifetime, friends. I don't know which way is up. I wanted to hang in there and try to R, but the farther removed I get from dday, the more I feel like this might be irreparable. I'm pretty sure they've given me an STI (getting tested tomorrow) and he threw some random bullshit into conversation last week about how she had to get antibiotics for a "jaw infection", and I'm wondering if they knew and were priming me for more lies and bullshit.

So, uh... fml?

14 comments posted: Tuesday, October 4th, 2022