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This at least has got her off my back of saying she’ll do whatever it takes

Next you could ask for terms incredibly favorable to YOU in the D, and then SHE must trust you whether you want to try again, with her demoted to GF. I predict no way in hell she agrees to this either, but at least it’s another proof she’s full of crap whether she’d "do anything"….

newbeginnings1985

Your story and wife’s betrayal are truly heart breaking. A beautiful family blown up. I’m so sorry for your loss and pain.

Your concern about the AP being in your daughter's life triggered a concern that I felt led to share with you. Sometimes the advice given on this site is provided by those who have been in your shoes, felt your pain and despise cheaters. As such, this site sometimes appears as an echo chamber repeating limited options to those in pain. In that context, I share the following thoughts.

Until your wife leaves you or initiates the divorce herself, you have significant influence in your daughter’s future. Once that tie is cut, you will be a 50% parent (at most). She will likely have a new stepfather in her future or a parade of new men in her life brought home by mom. You will have little influence on who that person is, their character or how they treat your daughter behind closed doors. Your wife has already exhibited poor judgement and may do it again. A nightmare situation for any dad with a little girl in this world.

Many parents, me included, would not hesitate to trade my life to save one of my children. I’m a man, father, protector of my family. You are hurt, emotional, angry and want out. I understand. However, consider the possibility that you may be moving too fast on D. I’m not saying to not divorce, but instead let things cool off. Remember, with your daughter remaining under your roof you maintain your influence. Meanwhile, work to heal your trauma. Lift weights to exhaustion, run until you punk, beat the hell out of a punching bag to get the anger out. Find some quality IC for yourself. Then, think about the future with a clear head with no emotion. Looking at the present, despite how awful the wife’s behavior, is she redeemable? Is her fake façade now broken with her character laid bare? Is she remorseful and desperate to improve herself and fix this? Is she willing to resign immediately and become a SAHM to remove this poison. Is this truly a lost cause with no hope of a marriage 2.0? Can you forgive again to protect the future?

Consider moving forward with D up until the point of signing. Allow some time to work on yourselves and test her commitment to the marriage. If there’s the slightest chance, I personally would play that hand to the bitter end. I would go down with the ship. The worst that can happen is she disappoints and causes you more pain, again. I can tell you are a strong-willed person who can withstand this in exchange for a chance to save your daughter’s family. I’m not saying to remain in an unloving, abusive marriage. If the wife is unwilling to commit 100% to the marriage and family, then you must D. However, consider slowing down and thoroughly think about the possible unintended consequences of a fast D in a highly emotional state. You both may make choices that you will regret later.

Thanks for that message. I would do anything for my daughter you’re right. My wife’s time on wanting us to restart is so wishy washy and just sounds more like a narcissist’s need for control than it does true remorse. Yesterday she gave me an answer to my question about contacting AP and OBS. She flat out said no as she didn’t want to ruin another family. I just know AP is in her ear coaching her, coming up with phrases to trigger me and my wife is coupling that with her already broken character and it’s a toxic cocktail. She asked again last night to separate and not go so fast with divorce. I hear that as, let me have this house early, have more space to continue my affair and give me more time to arrange things in my favor for the divorce. She still just wants both of her worlds. I also
got upset yesterday because I gave her the tiniest opening to try to do something, telling her literally I’m not saying this will stop divorce, but it’s something to try. She then not only didn’t do it, she just gaslit me saying I’ll give you the divorce you want, I don’t deserve you, I deserve the consequences. The best was when she said she can’t take anymore how I’ve talked to her through this. That’s her favorite gaslight is when she tries to make me feel bad for reciting her actions and says how all I do is say things to make her feel like an awful person.

One thing I am prepared for and scared for is my wife’s ability to try to craft an awful divorce that will be detrimental to me. I don’t know if she has a lawyer behind closed doors. I feel as if the discard phase is coming any moment not. I mean she really only has this sad period for one week now and she’s had more moments of being cold towards me than sad and remorseful. She’s already made claims about how I’ve been physically abusive to her and to my daughter. These claims were just to me and nothing that’s ever been documents officially. These were her also her responses to when I provided proof she continued the affair. She went to lying, to shock, to "well I’ve been scared of you everyday" and don’t feel safe in my home non-sense. The abuse card was always her ace up her sleeve anytime there was evidence given to her. That ace card didn’t show up until a couple of months post DDAY. Something that is absolutely further from the truth. I don’t have much evidence compiled, but I have some that portray my wife as a lunatic. One being home camera footage of he screaming at me and then dumping a large ice water on me while I am
holding my three month old daughter. I have other videos of her losing her shit on me but not hitting. She has hit me dozens of times throughout our marriage and I wish I had it recorded.

She’ll fold and say things like "I’ll give whatever want with this divorce" or "I’ll make it quick and sign it" but shell also say "I’ll take the full 30 days to sign it" and "you need to cool off, you’re the one making this divorce happen" — this is literally a nightmare.

I’ve asked my lawyer if I can and could fight for full custody but I just don’t think it’s something that a judge would realistically side with. That’s my logical side. My other side is scared to death my wife will fight for it and my rationale that it’ll happen is different than my own. My gut that led me here is telling me my wife will turn to the worse once this thing starts to gain momentum and is kicked off legally.

Have you considered hiring a PI to track down the OBS contact information?

However, consider the possibility that you may be moving too fast on D.

Clearly everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I agree having a young daughter in the mix is something to weigh heavily. But OP caught his wife on VAR:

talking to AP (🚩)

talking about having sex together post d-day (🚩🚩)

talking about the unbelievable lies she told and mocking OP for believing her (🚩🚩🚩 🚩🚩🚩🚩)

Just my opinion, but there is not even a fools hope that this woman has hit rock bottom and reformed. If in fact I’m wrong and she has, then she in fact should be willing to do the "whatever it takes" actions OP has requested and she should be daily working to change her character (cause even rock bottom doesn’t do that) and slowly rebuild trust. OP’s descriptions are of a highly manipulative and unstable wife. And this coming from a guy who tried for two years to trust my wildly untrustworthy wife.

If OP said he was going to stay in the marriage to keep DD under his roof 100%, I could respect that. But let’s not dangle false hope of a reformed wife. OP has written nothing that gives even an ounce of reason to hope for that. Sorry, man.

Did you ever tell anyone about her hitting you? Do you have a VAR on your person? If you are worried about false DV accusations, please protect yourself.

She's indicating pretty clearly that she's going to gin up some abuse allegations. It's imperative that you protect yourself. Install more cameras in the home/car, make sure they're on all the time, and stay as far away from her physically as practicality will allow.

Goodmarriage post #22

However, consider the possibility that you may be moving too fast on D. I’m not saying to not divorce, but instead let things cool off.

I am sorry @Goodmarriage but this is HORRIBLE advice. Atrocious. By staying with an unrepentant WW, the OP would only be modelling a very unhealthful relationship for his daughter. **Not to mention, WW could file for D herself.**

I thought the OP was mistaken by even opening the door to R (a post on the end of Page 1 of this very thread) with his WW--and that is what he did. His WW had already agreed to do all this before she had her most recent (?) sexcapade with POSOM, turning on the waterworks. She cannot be trusted.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 6:06 PM, Tuesday, July 2nd]

Goodmarriage, I don't normally bluntly dunk on people's advice, but my goodness... that was bad.

You're basically scaremongering the OP into backing out of the divorce by presenting the absolute worst-case divorce scenario while minimizing the severity, cruelty, and calculated manipulation of her actions.

Yeah, OP's wife could bring a parade of men around their daughter. But nothing is actually stopping her from doing that now. Many cheaters can and do expose their children to APs. Further, she could pull the plug on OP at any time. For goodness sake, she's already threatening him with false DV!

OP has given his wife multiple chances to redeem herself, prove that she's trustworthy, and to put her family ahead of her own selfish desires. Not only has she failed that test, she has reveled in her continued betrayal of him.

There's a lot of uncertainty in divorce, but there's also a lot of uncertainty in marriage to someone who is actively harming you and working against your interests. What happens if OP gets hit by a car tomorrow... and life and death decisions are left in the hands of this woman who actively holds contempt for him?

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:35 PM, Tuesday, July 2nd]

Newbeginings

For what its worth I don‘t think you are jumping any gun or doing anything illogical or irrational.
I think that probably in 9 out of 10 cases where a betrayed spouse initiates divorce it’s not because they WANT to divorce, but more that they don’t want to be in infidelity. There is a difference.
In some ways it can be like if you have a tumor in your foot just below the knee. You have tried every treatment, ranging from rubbing crystals and snake-oil to speaking to specialized doctors, nutritionists, physiotherapists... and the conclusion is that if you don’t amputate you run the risk of an inevitable infection that would eventually kill. Heck... you might have gotten that diagnosis from your very first doctor, before the crystals, eating raw-eggs and the seven second opinions. Even then, you might draw the procedure for as long as you can. If – once you are on the gurney and the anesthesiologist preparing the mask – your doctor tells you of a new miracle non-intrusive treatment, you could call the amputation off.

It's the same with what you are dealing with. Early on you clearly stated you would not remain in infidelity. You gave her every chance of ending it. She didn’t. You might not WANT to divorce, but even less do you want to remain in infidelity.

Now... Divorce is a process. It shouldn’t be entered into easily, just like you don’t just decide to amputate a foot for no good reason. And just like the amputation – you can always postpone or change your mind until the last moment. Like if she were to come to you NOW with some plausible plan for the future you could press pause on whatever process is going on. But... just like you might have placed some trust in eating raw seaweed to cure your foot you also need to be realistic and move on once you see there is insufficient progress AND you are 100% aware that if you delay too long you run the risk of an emotional death.

So carry on with the D process. It’s not instantaneous. It takes time. It progresses in steps. Until the very minute the judge signs off on it you can both agree to back down. However... the further along you go I am fairly certain the more content you are with the decision.

What I do encourage you to understand is the absolute finality of divorce, and that the "formal" part of it – the part listed in the divorce agreement and the part the attorneys hammer out – is 99% financial and at most 1% emotional. Yet there is the big risk that the emotional part can take about 50% of the cost of divorce...
I fear too many misunderstand this. A good POV is to view this as a business transaction: Once you fire someone it’s no longer your concern if he oversleeps or steals stationary from his next employer or does a sloppy job. Once divorced you have very little to no say on your wife, what she does, who she is with and so on.
If she wants the house or not is not your concern per se. If you enter the negotiations (and that’s what d is...) with the predetermined conclusion she get’s the house it empowers her attorney to evaluate it at a lower value, or to use the house as leverage for another factor. It’s best simply to stop using the term "house" and simply use the concept "Asset worth 300k, owe 100k, therefore 200k to the assets pot. I get 100k, she get’s 100k and 100k goes to paying the debt".
If she wants the house, she needs to find 100k to remove your name from any mortgage and the 100k to compensate you for your share.
Keep in mind (and your attorney SHOULD be aware of this) that it’s not enough that you two decide she keeps the house and the mortgage, but even more important is that the owner of the debt accepts that one of you is taken off the loan. Basically a refinance. You do not want YOUR financial future to be impacted by someone that might have a heavy grudge on you.

Also...
Divorce is final. You are absolving your wife of any marital expectations or obligations. If she wants to date OM or any man for that matter, its not YOUR issue.
Your issue would be if you could strongly support the statement that meeting other men as moms "friends" is negatively impacting your children, but frankly that is a very thin argument. Telling a judge that your ex wife should not have OM around your daughter because he’s the cause of the family’s ending would not hold any water. It’s good that you are both clear about the impact on the daughter, and that you both agree to keep other people out of their lives for the next 12 months, but IMHO that would always be an understanding rather than an enforceable clause in a divorce settlement.

+

NB,
Just wanted to check in and see how you've been holding up after the bombshell. Hope you're doing well and are continuing to maintain your clarity.

Your STBXWS sounds so much like him back in the day. This reminded me of him so much...

I also got upset yesterday because I gave her the tiniest opening to try to do something, telling her literally I’m not saying this will stop divorce, but it’s something to try. She then not only didn’t do it, she just gaslit me saying I’ll give you the divorce you want, I don’t deserve you, I deserve the consequences. The best was when she said she can’t take anymore how I’ve talked to her through this. That’s her favorite gaslight is when she tries to make me feel bad for reciting her actions and says how all I do is say things to make her feel like an awful person.

It also made me realize how much therapy has helped him. Gosh I sometimes wish my WH would post on here (he will not - we agreed this "my" space - he can read whatever he wants but no commenting from him on here). I digress....

Staying with this person is not healthy for you nor is it for your child. While it is true that you will not be able to determine who your WS will bring around your child - the fact is that always has been true anyway. Keep in communication with your counsel about your legal rights and financials - they are your best resource. It's clear you know what to do - keep doing it!

newbeginnings1985, how's it going?

Any updates? Has your WW been served divorce papers? How'd she take it?

How's your daughter doing?

Keep strong!

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but what you heard on the VAR is so sociopathic that I don’t think she is capable of redeeming herself. Narcissists are very self centered but she and the AP are worlds past that.
Please see a lawyer tomorrow. If you can get info to the other BS do so. He is as bad as your stbx.

Wow! Just Wow! Such a wretched way for a human being to treat another. Also think about being 100% available to your daughter because she might be a victim as well. Sociopaths think of people as things and your stbx might be willing to give you complete custody if you can figure out how to do it. Please, please lawyer up.

How are you holding up, OP?