[Livvie]

Your pain is so palpable in your last post. Again, I'm sorry.

Trust me when I tell you that you WILL get through this. Life will be so much better on the other side. Won't be today, won't be tomorrow. But it will come.

I second this. It's got to be really tough right now, but you will definitely come out the other side and someday the pain will have faded. You will be okay.

 

[Kamstel]

Just wanted to wish you well today.

I promise that it only gets better from here

Stay strong, and continue to lean on friends

 

[bandit.45]

You know this thing she has going on with her lover won't last, right? I give them two years max before one or the other (or both) cheat again and it's off to greener pastures.

This may or may not happen. Whether it is fair or not, some affairs do end up turning into lifelong, happy marriages. Don't get his hopes up for karma to hit her down the road. It may reward her.

 

[bandit.45]

Like ABHale said, have an e-mail/text saved and ready to send to all the recipients. When you do send it out, keep the news isolated to family and closest friends.

The message should be business-like and unemotional. You could say something to the affect : "To my family and close friends. It pains me to have to tell all of you that I have decided to divorce (wife's name), as I have discovered that she has been cheating on me with another man for several weeks now. As you receive this message, she is concurrently being served with a divorce petition. I would ask you all to please pray for (wife's name) and myself during this painful and trying time as we navigate our way towards a hopefully peaceful and amicable end to our marriage."

And then immediately instigate the 180. Keep calm and business-like when she comes home in a rage. If she tries to pick a fight, leave the house. As a cop, you more than anyone knows how dangerous a false DV charge can affect your life. So don't let her bait you.

She may beg you not to divorce her, or she may be defiant and flippant and throw her affair in your face. There are 100 different ways it could go down. Just keep calm. Don't engage her in an argument. Tell her the time for talk and arguments is in the past. Make sure you keep a VAR on you at all times.

 

[Lila]

You know this thing she has going on with her lover won't last, right? I give them two years max before one or the other (or both) cheat again and it's off to greener pastures.

This may or may not happen. Whether it is fair or not, some affairs do end up turning into lifelong, happy marriages. Don't get his hopes up for karma to hit her down the road. It may reward her.

^^This. My ex had an exit affair. It's been a year and he is still seeing her. As far as I know, they are happy. It's not a matter of wishing karma to hit him hard. It's a matter of wishing karma rewards me with better.

 

[bandit.45]

Doing the 180 will keep you emotionally disengaged from your WW. Give it a try.

So many on here are at a loss at what to do with a WS who is
fence sitting, cake-eating, ignoring boundaries, still seeing and/or contacting the other person, etc...

Many BS's are urged to go No Contact with their WS after ALL ELSE has failed.


This 180 list may help.
--------------------------


For those that are interested in Michelle Weiner Davis's divorce busting 180 degree list, here it is:

1. Do not pursue, reason, chase, beg, plead or
implore.
2. No frequent phone calls.
3. Do not point out good points in marriage.
4. Do not follow him/her around the house.
5. Do not encourage talk about the future.
6. Do not ask for help from family members.
7. Do not ask for reassurances.
8. Do not buy gifts.
9. Do not schedule dates together.
10. Do not spy on spouse.
11. Do not say "I Love You".
12. Act as if you are moving on with your life.
13. Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and attractive.
14. Don't sit around waiting on your spouse - get busy, do things, go to church, go out with friends, etc.
15. When home with your spouse, (if you usually start the conversation) be scarce or short on words.
16. If you are in the habit of asking your spouse her whereabouts, ASK NOTHING.
17. You need to make your partner think that you have had an awakening and, as far as you are concerned, you are going to move on with your life, with or without your spouse.
18. Do not be nasty, angry or even cold - just pull back and wait to see if spouse notices and, more important, realize what she will be missing
19. No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment. Show him/her someone he/she would want to be around.
20. All questions about marriage should be put on
hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may be a while).
21. Never lose your cool.
22. Don't be overly enthusiastic.
23. Do not argue about how they feel (it only makes their feelings stronger).
24. Be patient
25. Listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you.
26. Learn to back off, shut up and possibly walk away.
27. Take care of yourself (exercise, sleep, laugh & focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil).
28. Be strong and confident.
29. Know that if you can do 180, your smallest
CONSISTENT actions will be noticed much more than any words you can say or write.
30. Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting more than ever and are desperate and needy.
31. Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse.
32. Do not believe any of what you hear and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives because they are hurting and scared.
33. Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel.
34. Do not backslide from your hardearned changes.


2 things to think about if you do this:

1) You have to do the 180 list NOT to be manipulative but because it's the right thing to do for you. You have to heal from this experience. You have to back off for your own sanity now. You have to have a plan and know that you will be a better person with or without them after all is said and done -- that you will live and learn and move on no matter what. So you have to be geniune when you follow these ideas, rather than faking it and being insincere because your only goal is to get them back. That's not what you want to do. Having a certain person as our spouse is not a need, it's a want. When I wrote down a list of all the definite needs in my life, I realized that almost everything beyond food, clothing and shelter is a want. 10 seconds after I looked at the list, I stopped making decisions based on emotion. That's when I realized that my wanting to have her was causing me to beg and plead for her to come back. That was driving her away more so I stopped doing it immediately. In doing my own version of the 180 list I could tell nearly an immediate change in her behavior.

2) Realize that when your spouse sees your new attitude they are very likely to be a little jealous or at least have some curiosity about what's going on in your life to cause this change. However, they very well may react the same way towards you for some time (especially if they read books or go to message boards also). REALIZE that this tactic can also work simultaneously on you if the spouse begins to likewise. Be aware of it and plan to have your own feelings of jealousy and curiosity in advance. However, like with #1 above, if you're doing the 180 list to better yourself and everyone involved, then it will matter less what they are doing.

 

[TAMAT]

BS,

You wrote

"when my wife comes down in a short, tight dress with tall heels. I looked at her and almost exploded, but I didn't. I asked her if her dress was appropriate for the movies. She stated that she just wanted to "look pretty" "

Kinda funny how that's the uniform for cheating wives.

I once saw one of my W's friends a woman who was anti-sexism, pro-equalitarian a humanitarian of great sincerity and the last person on earth almost I would expect to see dressed like that. Was in an EA with some dude yep dressed like that. I really suspect she went out and bought those shoes new just for that day.

 

[skerzoid]

bellyscratch

Was she served tonight?

 

[Bellyscratch]

Wow! I was wondering what make and model of the VAR for future recommendation since it seemed so sensitive. Now, it was simply a matter of a wife being so secure in her deception that she actually had the audacity to put her lover on speaker phone while her husband was in the house.

You can't make this **** up.

The VAR is not some government special spy stuff and she never spoke to the POS butcher while I was around. It was usually her family, work or girlfriends. However, since I was gone, apparently she did have to hid anything. The VAR did not pick up on everything, there were some conversation where she talked on her phone and other times she was in a room where the VAR could only pick up little bits and pieces. However, I was able to hear enough to know she was mesmerised by all the attention.

 

[ABHale]

How are you doing Scratch?

 

[ABHale]

2 am here, I am heading to bed. Hope this ends soon for you bro.

 

[skerzoid]

bellyscratch

Was she served at the restaurant tonight?

 

[Bellyscratch]

The paperwork has been filed and I had her served tonight. I just have to add that I looked over our bills and saw nothing that jumped out at me. However, when reviewing my American Express card, I saw that she was spending my money on this a$$hat. And this has been going on for over 5 months. I have always let her use it in emergency cases, but now she uses it to carry on her affair. She has always taken care of our finances and we always go over the bills before she pays them. However, she never brings up the AMX card and must pay it every month. I never thought about the card because I hardly ever use it. So this put me into a extremely hateful, volatile mood. Now being in law enforcement, you are trained to deal with difficult people and how the keep cool and use verbal judo (LE term when trying to calm irate citizens). so I went for a long run and ran till I puked. Sounds gross but it really calmed me down for what was going to happen later on that day.

This is how the service went down. I was just going to have my partner serve her at work, but after what I found out in the morning, there was no way in He!! I was going to this. So I took a chance to see if she and "roger ramjet" would keep their Friday date night. I know she was going out because I called her when she got home and stated that she was still going out with her girlfriends for shopping and dinner. So we waited. We had several cars parked around the parking lot chock points so we would not miss them. Around 7:30p she shows up to the restaurant driving my sports car. WTF. I wanted this car since I was 10 and kept this dream alive till I was lucky enough to buy it. Seeing her drive it to meet her affair partner was too much to handle. I wanted to run and tell her what a ***** she is, but my partner grabbed me by the arm and told me to settle down. He reminded me why we are there and her days are numbered. Good friend. So about 15 minutes later, the POS arrives in a really nice Audi, so it appears he can afford a nice car but can't pay his commitments to his kid. Anyway, after about 10 minutes, one of the guys my wife doesn't know goes in and sits in the bar. He texts that they are together and at a table overlooking the water. How romantic. He waits to text until their bill arrives at their table, and that is when her life starts to change forever.

I go in with my partner who is going to serve her and we approach their table. The restaurant has a very dark atmosphere so walking to their table unnoticed was not very hard. We arrive at the table and I sit down next to my wife and my partner next to the butcher. If you have ever seen anyone truly shocked, you need to up it 10 fold. My wife just stares at me in disbelief until clarity finally seeped into her brain. Like the water spit takes they do in the movies, this was done with a mouthful of vanilla ice cream with fudge sauce. The conversation went like this:

Her "What are you doing here"
Me "Are you going to finish your ice cream", which I took off her plate and started eating (I was starving)
Her " " actually she was so shocked she just moved her lips like a fish with no words coming out
Me "So I have been following your cheating with this d*** and I am here to tell you it is over"
Her "I will break it off, it didn't mean anything"
Me turning to the butcher "So...how does that make you feel. I bet she said she loved you (she did) and wanted to spend the rest of her life with you. And now she is throwing you under the bus"
Butcher "Look, can't we talk about this man to man?"
Me looking him straight into his eyes " I would but you are no man. A man would not go poaching after married women and break up families. You are nothing to me so keep your mouth shut"

Now my wife seeing her demise looks at my partner as he hands her the divorce paperwork. She asks what it is and I say DIVORCE papers. But then she did something surprising to me. She composed herself and started to support the OM. Hitting me again with not supporting her and paying her enough attention. I stayed focused and i laid into her. Mentioning how much I have done for her ect, ect. She stated that she is confused and doesn't know what to do. I said, well, that is something you have to choose. She throws out that she can't do anything now until her head is clear. I said, no problem, but there are things you need to send to the court in a couple of weeks. So where is meathead, he shot out of his seat and headed towards the door. I said, well your ride is leaving so she got up to leave. I mentioned to her that she forgot to pay for his dinner, then said to forget about it since I have been paying for their dinners here for several months. She stammered a bit but was still getting up to leave. So I left her a parting shot of "...you know, I am only a ATM for you anyway (a direct quote from the last time their conversation was recorded). She could not have looked more surprised than if she had the winning powerball ticket. So she leaves and we follow knowing they are not going anywhere fast. We arrive at where he parked and somehow a car broke down right behind his car, blocking him in. The butcher was in his car sulking down in his seat while my wife was trying to get him to unlock the car so she can squirm in. Before she could close the door, I caught it and held it open to talk to her. I leaned in and told her that she needs to leave the house and go stay with this POS or at the Y or in an alley, I didn't care, but she was not staying at my house. She just looked at me and grunted "fine" in one of those I lost the argument but I am going to get the last word kind of "fine". She yelled at me that she would come by and get her things, and I told her that all her stuff was in the garage. I am sure she felt some vindication my telling me to FO. Nice, but they still could not leave. Given I had her full attention, I also mentioned that he has 2 kids by other women and he is really late on child support for one of his kids. She just stared at me knowing I was telling the truth but she was pissed and would not give me the satisfaction of showing I had something on him. I went over to the drivers side and told the butcher that I will be watching his every move, and he will never no when I may appear in his life again. He actually said "Yes Sir" to me. I looked at my wife and she gave me another FO. Nice.

So I asked the guy whose car blocked the butchers car and asked him if he ever tried using a key to start the car. In a feign expression, my team mate stated that he was a fool, got in his car started it up and drove away. As the butcher put his car in gear, I looked at him and mentioned "you never know when your life will change". And off they drove. The only positive was that I was able to drive my sports car home.

So I have not heard from my wife, and I don't know if or when I will. What has got me contemplating is what is she going to do next. So I am asking those who have been through this, what am I going to face and how to prepare for the unexpected.

Thanks for reading and helping me.

 

[skerzoid]

So I have not heard from my wife, and I don't know if or when I will. What has got me contemplating is what is she going to do next. So I am asking those who have been through this, what am I going to face and how to prepare for the unexpected.

Thanks for reading and helping me.

1. Keep a VAR on you at all times. Or your camera thingie that police wear.

2. Go by what your lawyer tells you.

3. Did you inform everyone as to what you were doing? Let them know.

4. Keep your temper.

5. Change the locks.

6. Stay strong.

 

[Decorum]

.

 

[Tatsuhiko]

Well done, friend. Expect her to get really nasty and desperate. Keep away from her as best you can, and record every interaction or have witnesses present.

 

[Livvie]

Well done. That's a perfect way to have served her. Well you be able to keep her out of the house while you are going through the divorce? It massively sucks to try to live together during the divorce process.

 

[Taxman]

Well, I have seen that reaction. Shock and anger. Wait til this really sinks in. Life as she knows it is over, and all of the wonderful things you provided are now gone unless she gives over a pot full of dough to a lawyer. Given that your buddy has already set the plays, she is late to the game.

Prediction; Meatboy already threw her under the bus. I suggest a nuisance lawsuit, that threatens his livelihood. Worst case scenario, he can defend a suit, in the meantime, to save his skin, he will eviscerate your XWW. She will now try to worm her way back. The "temporary insanity" plea if you will. Use that, if it arises, to get more in the divorce.

You are going to see a complete spectrum of behaviors over the next 48 to 72 hours. Record it all.

 

[OutofRetirement]

Meathead has been through it twice. He'll ooach her through it.

She will have buyer's remorse. Most people have that with big purchases. I expect in a couple of days she'll contact you to see if you are willing to take some blame and let her come back just in case. She will miss the validation you've given her. She'll want to know that you still want her, at least sexually. She kind of admits she wants the attention. She'll also want to be able to choose between you and Meathead. That's what she had been doing, and she didn't want to end it. So I'd expect her to try to manipulate it to go back there again. She likes the options. Going to live with him was not her first choice. Her first choice was to live in your house, and just see him in between. Just because you found out and confronted her, I don't see why she would initially think any differently about him or you. That will take a few days, weeks.

I think she's too proud and too full of herself to come back without you accepting at least part blame for her cheating. After a while with the Meathead, living with him, seeing how he doesn't want to support his kids, but is willing to spend time and money on an affair, and likely his character comes through, I think she will be more apologetic after a few weeks or month.

Get her off all of your accounts.

Almost never do cheaters falsely accuse and file reports. But when it happens, it can be devastating to the betrayed. So carry a recorder for any conversations you have with her.

 

[lucy999]

Bravo, sir. Make sure you give the am ex lover boy expenses to Jerry (if they are of significant amount-or not, up to you) to include in the division of marital assets. She needs to pay for those.

Expect the whole gambit of emotions from her: anger, sadness, pride, blameshifting (like she did at the restauraunt) faux love, attempted sex. You name it she'll show it. When the full gravity of the situation hits her, watch out.

Do NOT talk to her alone. Do NOT talk to her at all if you can help it. She will call you "wanting to talk." Don't do it. She'll want "time to decide what to do." Nope. Don't do the pick-me dance. You will not sit by waiting for her to make a decision. You are not plan B. She's made her choice by spreading her legs for a man other than her husband.

I would wait until you talk to Jerry re: changing the locks. That's her marital home. Don't think you can do that. But I'm not a lawyer.

I feel like we should have a mantra for you-instead of "Better Call Saul" (the spinoff show from Breaking Bad) it'll be "Better call Jerry."

Thank goodness for your partner.