Why will you lose the children? It sounds to me that you’ve got some legal legs to stand on here. So sorry about what you’re going through.
Thta’s my take, too. I don’t even know what to say about this situation, it’s so far removed from reality. I’m just basically sitting here at my computer shaking my head.
With all due respect - judging by the posts you praised over in the other thread, I have severe doubts about your ability to judge what is and is not valid advice.
No, your not.
A good mom does not risk hurting someone their children love and care deeply about. A good mom does not risk turning her house into a harpy’s nest of accusations. A good mom does not model behavior that is deceitful, does not set up their children for not trusting the opposite sex.
A good mom would have never gotten into this situation to begin with. A celebate marriage for the sake of the kids, yeah, we don’t all stay in lust with our spouse forever.
Be prepared for people to make the case that you are not a good mom. When this comes to divorce, be prepared for your husband’s lawyer to say you are not a good mom. When your kids discover you were fucking their stepdad for three years before you divorced their father, be prepared for your kids to believe you are not a good mom.
It sounds like it would be difficult to care for them with the schedule he works. That schedule would only get worse when he has to support two households. A judge would probably rule in her favor because she is the one that cares for them now and would have the time to continue to do so.
Wowza. That’s a shitty situation, 2gigch1. I wish you the best.
First off, if you only have to register one thing RSSchen, it’s the post by 2gigch1. That’s the reality and the aftermath. I know I feel like I should apologize to him for all the pain he’s going through, not just because of my past, but due to it being one of the most horrible fucking situations you can be in. So I will and say that 2gigch1 I’m sorry. I know that’s worthless, but I learned how despicable it was to put anyone in that place, no matter what the cause. OP, all the way around, and you know that expands pretty far, is agony created by the unfaithful. It wrecks havoc on the soul and you’ll be the one who drains it of life.
If you’d ever like a sensible ‘solution’ to where you are currently, tell your husband you’re miserable and then decide what to do about that from there (therapy/whatever). Tell your lover that you must abstain, I’d say everything, but at the very least sexually, until everything has been resolved. If y’all are truly The Love Of Each Other’s Life, then it’ll wait for the right time. And depending on your husband’s attitude, it may not be as long as you’d think. A separation might be an amicable compromise and then you’d not have to be deceitful to continue on about your business.
As to what would happen if her husband found out… well in my case, all the love and promises and engagement ring ( ! ) and badass talk died immediately. He wouldn’t do that, would he?? :smack: The bravado was replaced by much begging of forgiveness, swearing to whatever she wanted to hear that he considered our affair to be and SWEARING that he’d never forsake her trust again. He’d be an angel, in other words. One who’d already tarnished his halo more than once mind, but all that bullshit was enough for her to sadly buy it and take him back to ruin her family and their life some more.
The courts will usually try to maintain as much stability as possible for the children. That means that if throughout the marriage one spouse was primarily a breadwinner while the other spouse was primarily a homemaker, then following divorce this role will continue. In short, the breadwinner will lose the children but have to continue to pay for the household in which the children reside. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up for debate, but the fact remains that it is the norm in divorce litigation.
You know, I do actually know this. I guess I was naively thinking that he could make a case for her abandoning the family but, as Kalhoun pointed out, that would be difficult with his situation.
And in some way, I’m trying to keep the conversation about the wronged party going in the hope that it will shed some light for RSSchen.
“Toilet-whore?”
Damn, that’s another good one! 
It is very difficult to negotiate a resolution between two parties when they are in a crisis, or when they have bitterly fixed positions.
By avoiding dealing with the issue at this time, when there is no immediate crisis, and when the parties have not yet become entrenched in their positions, RSSchen is making the problem far worse, albeit delaying the effects.
Actually, considering the statement, “I’m planning on having some sex soon that I’d really like to be able to enjoy”, I’m guessing she was referring to this affair.
Well, I wasn’t really interested in chiming in here, but I can’t ignore this one, so here goes.
And who did this to your marriage? You seem to regard your husband as nothing more than your provider, so the situation is pretty equal, isn’t it? If you do not feel that your marriage is more than a business relationship, it’s you who helped put it there through your contempt for him and your lack of willingness to take any action.
As a SAHM myself, with kids the same age, I’m appalled at how you are using your work to justify staying with your husband.
And if you haven’t been in love with your husband for 12 years, why in the world did you have two children with him in the past 6 years?
Like many others here, my opinion is that you are taking the worst possible course of action. Either be honest and live with the consequences, or put all that energy you’ve been feeding into your “secret friendship” for the past 15 years into your marriage. Personally, I don’t think that a relationship founded on a junior-high crush and an affair will ever withstand the realities of life together, and I predict you will find yourself in another bad marriage (if it gets that far, which is unlikely)–but at least you will have freed your husband to find happiness himself, and refrained from teaching your children all the horrible things you are going to teach them by doing this. (Not that you’re going to be doing them any favors by being honest and ending your marriage, but it is at least the lesser of the evils in the choices you have set up for yourself.)
This should be the question than anyone who finds themselves in, or contemplating, this kind of situation, needs to ask themselves. Because it’s given as an excuse (usually) on both sides. If you’re not, or never have been, in love with someone, why do you have children together??
That’s such an excellent point that it should be made repeatedly, in bright bolded red, underlined, all caps and in the absolute largest size font ever made. If you could add bells, whistles and flashing lights, it wouldn’t be too much.
You know it’s loathesome behavior so why expect approval from others? Your rationalization is loathesome too, btw. Don’t sugar coat your actions by claiming your excellent, bitchin’ happiness in adultery is of any benefit to your husband.
Bullshit. Good mothers–good people–don’t play careless games with the bedrock of their childrens’ lives. You’re gaily juggling their family like a ribbon-wrapped hand grenade. It sounds like your marriage has been rather hollow for quite a while but your basic responsiblity, as a parent, wife and fuckin’ adult, is to deal honestly with that marriage.
SMART?! Nothing you’ve done so far is remotely “smart”, so this is just feeble another rationalization: not phoning in your marriage, not your obvious contempt for your husband, not the long-term emotional dishonesty, not the affair and certainly not giddily splashing your mess all over the internet.
Two things really bother me about your mess, RSSchen. Well, many things do, actually, but two stand out. First, you deliberately sought out the affair. Okay, people can be blindsided by attraction, fall to impulse in a weak moment, etc. But you kept contact with your old flame, without your husband’s knowledge, throughout the marriage. You kept the spark banked but when you got bored enough, you purposefully sought out your boy toy to rekindle the blaze. That speaks of a long-standing pattern of cheap dishonesty. It doesn’t sound like your poor husband ever stood a chance–or your children–of a happy family. You always kept a handy escape route for yourself in case things got boring.
Second, your desultory lip service to the contrary, you show remarkably little concern for the very real, lasting damage your behavior will cause to those you supposedly love. Your basic justification is you just want to be HAPPY. Again, hearts can be lured aside, chemistry can blind judgement and all that human frailty happens. BUT I’ve rarely heard anyone so resolutely, stubbornly oblivious to even considering the cost to others of that happiness.
You know what ethical behavior is. You know consequences. Your husband won’t blithely overlook your actions, nor discount their pain because your hazy pink romance.
I can’t imagine what in the world you thought you’d achieve by this.
I’m sorry for your pain.
You lost me with your post, though. You seem to be defining deceit differently from the others. They seem to be talking about the deceit of having the affair behind the husband’s back. You seem to know it’s happening. But you seem to be talking about the financial devastation as deceit. How so?
You don’t seem to be having a problem with the emotional betrayal since you say, “Fine, that’s life.” So how would your spouse stand up and take the appropriate consequences of her actions?
Or are you talking about the OP? If the OP told her husband and they ended up in your situation, is that what you’re recommending?
You really are a piece of shit, aren’t you?
Well, you made me curious.
Reading through some of your history make’s this situation a little more frightening. I’m concerned for you. I think if your not attending meetings, you should seriously consider starting again. Get a sponsor or consider therapy. You have to know that this behavior is really self-destructive in the long run. You can’t keep searching for something to make you happy, you have to do that for yourself. You openly posted about some addiction problems you had in the past. Can’t you see that what your doing is really self destructive in the long run? Your very fortunate that the problems you had with addiction are in the past. Was your husband with you pre-recovery? You have two little kids to think about. Your priorities should be with maintaining your sobriety and raising healthy kids. I think the road that you’re heading down is very dangerous for your sobriety and your kids.
I’m not posting this and bring up your past to make you feel bad. But you know that self-medicating whether it’s pills, alcohol or sex doesn’t work. You need to work on why your unhappy that doesn’t include blaming someone else. Old boyfriends aren’t going to do it. Get a part time job, exercise, attend meetings, whatever. Work on making yourself happy.
I have not read this thread as I am not interested in the pile-on, so I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, and the other thread is locked.
RSSchen, you might be interested in this book.
Interesting. Sounds somewhat Buddhist.
And I just want to add that I’ve enjoyed your posts in general a lot. And if that’s your picture that’s linked to your profile, wow, I’m surprised. Some of your posts seem very wise for how old you look in that picture.
Back on topic, sort of. This is more of a philosophical question than one about this OP.
What if the long term happiness (and it’s hard to know how long you mean) is not negated?
Here’s an example. There was a really stupid show a few years back about affairs. They would show real-life people that had affairs and re-enact them. And then they show the couple’s friends and family and show their reaction to the fall-out. I forgot the title. But for some reason, I watched a few episodes. Anyway, in one of them, this couple had an affair that turned into a long-term relationship. When the couple realized that they were serious, they told everyone and oddly, their friends, family and even the then-ex-husband somehow was pretty understanding about the whole thing and supported the couple. And 6 years later when they filmed it, it seemed that they were all happy.
I’m sure this is probably not the most probable case, but it seems to have happened.
Does this change the ethics? Both the short and long term happiness of the person deciding was lined up, but you couldn’t predict it at the time it happened.
How do you know the ethics in advance?
Good thinking, asshat: 6 and 9 will be a much better age to disrupt the family, you sorry excuse for a penis receptical. What is this, some awful study in social darwinism for your kids? Why not replace yourself with a carpet-covered wire frame a’la Harlow?
As a faithful married man with 5 and 7 year old kids, my only hope is that your husband significantly decreases your comfort level by making his once-a-fortnight shag both unlubricated and anal…
Just so you hear it from someone, you are fucking with more than one life here. When (read: not if) he finds out about all this, along with the detailed the history of it, complete with your shameless holier-than-thou elitist opinons of him, you will be lucky if he allows this mess to end with you still breathing.