SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Keep in mind friend, she could file.

100% this. She doesn't need your permission to divorce you... and I think it's safe to say that she wouldn't be in the least bit concerned about destroying you in order to get the best possible outcome for herself. And if you tried to raise the issue of her mental instability, her adultery, and the fact that she put your son in harm's way, she would paint you as the controlling, vindictive ex-husband who is trying to punish her for leaving him. If you filed first and on your terms, you would have the upper hand.

At the moment, I think the fear of what danger your kids might encounter if you got divorced is blinding you to the prolonged psychological damage that they are sustaining while you remain married to your wife. I fully believe that her anger and vitriol isn't reserved for you alone-- I think she probably blames her kids for the fact that she's "wasted the best years of her life" and expresses her resentment toward them in a myriad of subtle and unsubtle ways, probably when you're not around.

If you divorced, they would have at least one home that was peaceful, stable, and safe. They might even feel more empowered to set appropriate personal boundaries, and speak up about their feelings about and experiences with their mother if they had refuge in an environment that she didn't control.

As long as no creeps are in the picture it is what it is. Unfortunately, that means I have to be here because I don’t trust her to not get involved with that kind of man. I think I have justified reasons.

I get that you're trying to be the decent one here. I get that you don't want to hurt your children. It's your job to protect them from anyone and everyone who is dangerous, even the other parent. It sounds to me like she's dangerous.

When I had my first child (not married, before I met my H), I said I wouldn't keep my child from his dad, but I would keep his dad from him if he was a danger. He was addicted to drugs and engaged in dangerous criminal activity. He was not allowed to see my child unsupervised.

If you divorced, they would have at least one home that was peaceful, stable, and safe.

I’m just going to share how my experience has been on this, not trying to pile and and push you towards divorce.

My relationship with my children, particularly my oldest two, has improved beyond my wildest hopes since separating. My daughter confides in me deeply and has opened up in ways she never did growing up. She said it took no longer seeing her mom and me as a single entity, because she knew she didn’t feel emotionally safe with her mom. My oldest son (18yo) have gone from hardly talking to best friends. We work on motorcycles together, are planning matching tattoos, and he talked my ear off late into the night the other day. I had hopes for bettering of relationships with them, but this is all really amazing.

I do understand your great fear for your childrens’ well being given her behavior, it is perfectly well founded. And maybe this is the way to keep them safest. But unless you are willing to push for full custody, the strategy is balanced on a knife edge.

It seems almost secondary, but still really important: do you have plans to keep your wife from financially destroying you? Are there safeguards? With someone so volatile and also so contemptuous of you, who knows what she might do there.

I was going to put this in a PM but I’m posting it here in case there are other people in similar situations that might benefit from some practical advice.

If you want to put yourself in the most favorable position possible, you need to stop thinking of divorce as a single event and start treating it like a process you prepare for.

-I know you had a lawyer previously so I would suggest, if they were good, that you reach out and retain them again. Ideally, your lawyer needs to be experienced with high-conflict custody, military divorces, and mental health issues. Preparation before filing matters more than anything you do after.

-Document everything. Affairs, broken no-contact, manipulation, instability, any self-harm or suicide attempts on her part, and especially the incident where your child was harmed by OM. Courts care about patterns. Keep dates, screenshots, and restraining orders. Stick with the facts.

-Child safety is leverage. A third party assaulting your child while in her care is not something that the court can easily overlook, especially since she continued her relationship with this man after learning about the abuse. It goes directly to judgment and custody. Future partners are a legitimate concern, and courts can impose restrictions.

- Custody drives child support, housing, leverage, and long-term financial exposure. Aim for at least 50/50, with right of first refusal, paramour clauses, and limits on overnight guests. While it’s true that "morality clauses" are notoriously hard to enforce, having them in place in a divorce decree will give you a legal mechanism by which you can establish boundaries for your kids.

-Her being SAHM doesn’t automatically mean you’re doomed to eat nothing but ramen for the rest of your life. Yes, there may be support. But duration, imputed income, custody split, etc, all matter. A good attorney can push for rehabilitative rather than permanent support.

And even if it does cost you a fortune, the amount is known, fixed, and finite. There is literally no limit to what she can cost you while you remain married to her.

-Get yourself stable and boring. Make sure that you’re in IC, present a calm demeanor, and don’t let her bait you into participating in ugly fights with her. Go gray rock with her. Be the parent that is consistent and predictable.

-Stop protecting her from consequences. Minimizing, covering, or "keeping the peace" weakens your case and increases risk to your kids.

Bottom line: staying doesn’t actually protect your children… it just delays consequences and leaves you without enforceable boundaries. Preparation, documentation, and custody-focused strategy are what will keep you from getting destroyed, not hoping things settle down.

It may take a while to get yourself in a place where you can pull the trigger, but you were motivated and resourceful enough to plan your exit before and you can do it again.

They might even feel more empowered to set appropriate personal boundaries, and speak up about their feelings about and experiences with their mother if they had refuge in an environment that she didn't control.

I will vouch for this possible outcome, as it has been the case with my two boys and exWW.

I think that what your kids will see is a person setting a moral standard, and taking steps to advocate for oneself.

If there is any lesson your kids could learn, this should be in the list.

Taking emotional abuse to try to shield someone else hurts you, and doesn’t shield them anyway.

For anyone not familiar with OP’s story, his wife’s AP physically abused their son. The boy eventually spoke up, and OP’s wife defended her POSOM. He has as much reason as anyone in the world to want to physically and emotionally protect his children from their mother. This isn’t a normal case of "give your kids a positive example", IMHO. Not putting anyone down, just a lot of history here.

Praying for you, you really have a horror show on your hands.

InkHulk, to reiterate, while I think OP is rightly concerned about who his wife would bring around if they got divorced, the child's abuse at the hands of the OM happened because OM shacked up with OP's wife while OP was deployed to the other side of the world with no idea what was going on at home (other than what his wife told him) and no ability to come home at the drop of a dime if he needed to.

Perhaps more importantly, it took a long time (years?) for the boy to disclose about the abuse because he didn't want OP to be angry at his mother and to break up the marriage.

If OP divorced, the circumstances would be completely different. He has an RO out against the OM. Even if he didn't live under the same roof as his wife and was splitting custody, he wouldn't be on the other side of the world. He would still have ready access to his children and they would probably feel safer talking to him about what they were experiencing while in their mother's care because they would no longer see OP and his wife as a single parental unit.

At this point, all the worst-case post divorce scenarios OP is imagining are purely hypothetical; the emotional and psychological damage they are sustaining while living in this extremely toxic environment rife with emotional abuse is real.

Personally, I don't think that waiting until the kids are all 18 is feasible for the OP. I think the stress and the abuse he's experiencing will break him down long before then.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 12:52 PM, Saturday, January 24th]

B2B, I know you know all the history, my message was not at all directed at you. There are just new members here since all that went down and want to give some pertinent details. That’s all, not trying to undercut you.

If OP divorced, the circumstances would be completely different. He has an RO out against the OM. Even if he didn't live under the same roof as his wife and was splitting custody, he wouldn't be on the other side of the world. He would still have ready access to his children and they would probably feel safer talking to him about what they were experiencing while in their mother's care because they would no longer see OP and his wife as a single parental unit.

I agree with all of this, but it doesn’t solve the problem that she could simply go find some other POS new boyfriend(s) and give them access to the children. I’ve read that step parents are the biggest risk factor for child abuse, and she’s proven to have horrific judgment and atrocious loyalties, even when it comes to her children. I can see where he is coming from. If, and this is a big if, he can cohabit with her and be with his children full time then they won’t be exposed to this risk. It is an unstable situation, full of hazards and risks, but I see an excellent man who is willing to actually do that for his children.

I hope at least you can wall off your heart from her so she can’t keep hurting you.

Hell, what do you think the chances are that she files for divorce?

[This message edited by InkHulk at 2:29 PM, Saturday, January 24th]

Further to InkHulk’s post:

Google "stepparents risk children". Not good. And unmarried partners even worse.

I’m a proponent of staying together when there are children, if you can be friends.

you can be friends.

That's the thing. It sounds like they can't be friends. Not only can they not be friends, but she is abusing everyone.

There aren't any easy answers. I think it's important to do anything and everything to keep this woman away from those children.

If she files first, then he will have to deal with it. No need to jump the gun on that. In the meantime, given all the circumstances, and I can understand why HINHF feels safer with his children and his WS where he can supervise them. In this case, I think "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" applies pretty well. It's not ideal, but neither is any mess left by infidelity.

Regardless, HINHF, you have my deepest sympathies. You're navigating a very difficult situation. I don't recall how old your kids are now, but once the youngest is in high school, I think you could safely leave your wife. That age is old enough to tell you if there are problems with their mom and also old enough to have a say in custody arrangements.

No one would tell a woman who was being abused and treated cruelly by her husband to suck it up for another decade because it’s better for the kids.

As I said in my last post, the circumstances under which the OM had access to the child are not the circumstances of today.

OP is in law enforcement and/or has law enforcement friends/contacts, which helped with getting the RO a year+ after the fact. That is an advantage that most men don’t have, and it will filter out a lot dirtbags who wouldn’t want to push their luck with an ex-husband like that.

Statistically, which are at higher risk from stepparents and partners… but those types of situations typically occur when there is an absentee father, not one that is still actively involved in his children’s lives.

OP has to make the best decision for himself and his kids, of course, but I refuse to push the belief that the best and only way for him to protect his kids is to continue to sustain abuse.

It will take take time and it will take planning for him to get out, but it’s not impossible.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 1:37 AM, Sunday, January 25th]

No one would tell a woman who was being abused and treated cruelly by her husband to suck it up for another decade because it’s better for the kids.

There is all kinds of things that I want to say in response to this that I think I can’t and stay within the "generalization" guideline. But I do believe there are some very meaningful differences and our friend the OP does not have the luxury of pretending that those differences don’t exist.

I know she was trying to hurt you and probably make the most extreme statement she could whether she meant it or not. I do tend to believe that people say things in anger - and drinking - that they do mean. Not always, but....generally. It's not true of course, but she may feel this way on some level and that's why she cheated. It's probably a big factor. I think she does not respect you. For whatever reasons. That seems like a very disrespectful statement to me. Or maybe it really IS how she feels at some deep level. Maybe she's comparing what she thinks she might have had with what she's achieved with you. I often feel like this about my own husband but in may case....it might be true, LOL. Or maybe I would have ended up the same way or worse, who knows, it is what it is. You can try exploring this with her but if it were me, I'd tell her, let's just end this then. If that's how you feel, what is the point of continuing. It's not like you're some gift of God either. I'd just throw it right back at her. In general, these days I think people take too much shit off everyone, including their spouses when sometimes a blunt answer is the best one. No, it's not gonna stop fighting, but sometimes fighting leads to real honesty. You have to decide what you want....a calm but uneasy truce, or some fighting that leads to greater honesty and understanding. People can't keep hiding their real feelings and expect to have a real relationship. And you also have to be clear about how terribly hurtful this statement was to YOU. If she's gonna throw grenades, she's should expect some collateral damage.