SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm and old timer here.
Things tend to happen over and over.
When I read your first post the first thing I thought was this poor gent thinks she has been faithful umtil.asking for a D. Dig deeper i..willing to bet my lunch for a week that she was intimate with him pior to asking for a D. Women tend not to leave an M unless they have an emotional attachment. For that dance to occur the male has trade some level of attachment which usually only occurs with sex.

See an attorney NOW.
You need to know the financial settlement is fair and can't be renegotiate when the mood strikes. Yes it may not cost anything now but it will be later. Get a legal document on place so she isn't going to abuse your pain and willingness to protect your child.in the future.

She is not your wife. She is not your friend. She will do whatever she can to get what she wants. She is not a good mother. You need to be the safe sane strong parent.

Hey OP. Just wanted to chime in and give you my support. It's a tough hit to the self esteem, I know. But, you will getvthrough this and you will get stronger. When I wasxin thecthick of it, that advice made me pretty angry. But here I am, years later and doing okay. My ex, not so much.

There have been volumes written on the differences of male and female behaviour, and although yhere is some overlap, I think what you are seeing is classic monkey branching. She tested out the potential of the new guy while dehumanizing and vilifying you. She did the to make you the bad guy, or at the very least, deserving of you own mistreatment. She has to be either the hero or the victim in her own narrative. She cannot be the villain.

You should fully prepare for her affair to go south sometime in the future, even soon, as the fantasy bubble bursts. When it does she will come to you with boiler play excuses: it was a mistake, I never loved him, I was going through x,y,z, itcwas just sex, we only did I once, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Or she will blameshit: you never paid attention to me, you were always gone, you were always here, you worked too much, too lille, justcenough but that made me feel not special...

The point is, there will be no end to the bullshit that comes out of her mouth. Funnybthing, we've all heard it before. It's likexwatching a movie with the sound off. We've memorized all the dialogue.

The bestway to navigate what is ahead of you is to try and temper your emotional responses. Give yourself time to truly consider your moves. Do the logical stuff that people are saying, finances, lawyer, ensure there is a paperctrail of all immunization, assume she will play dirty to get her way, so record everything. But after that, seek good counsel and heed it.

And be cautious of taking advice from those who haven't been betrayed. For them, their only experience is through Hollywood, where infidelity is oh-so-romantic. But also be cautious from taking advice from those who have been betrayed (like me) as we can protect our own experiences onto your situation.

In the end, we are here for you. You will get through ths. And be strong...

You realize the cheater has to justify the affair by making the betrayed spouse the bad guy.

It’s the only way they can live with themselves.

As others have posted, there are some very typical behavioral patterns we see from cheaters. Sometimes it’s so predictable it’s funny or scary how accurate the betrayeds here at SI can be.

You are only a "bad guy" in the eyes of the cheater. Now is the time to get your support team together— lawyer, family you can trust, a few good friends you can trust etc. and consider a professional counselor to support you as well.

You will survive this. We all do.

It was his partner who contacted me first to say that they were kissing at work, once she found out I was talking to her she decided to tell me that they had slept together. It’s been three weeks now and I’ve been very up and down. I’ve been able to manage work okay but some days I feel like my life is over. I went round to see my daughter last night and she was acting like the happiest woman on earth. She said that they were no longer talking and she is just focusing on our daughter and starting a new life.

I feel robbed of the chance to actually work on our marriage before throwing it away, I feel hurt that she wouldn’t even talk to me about the way that she was feeling before throwing it away and I feel so sad for my daughter who now has a part time dad and will most likely be downgrading her standard of living.

Blindsided

Sometimes the best solution is to give them what they ask for.
This often turns out to be something other than they want.
She’s demanding a divorce. She probably has some vision on how that will take place. At best (and extremely rarely) that vision will be based on reality. More common is some fantasy where basically you leave, taking maybe the plastic picnic cutlery and the microwave and you two still remain great friends, with you coming over on Saturdays to fix her car and having a coffee with the new man wearing the old bathrobe you had to leave behind.
It's extremely unlikely she will change her mind, and even if she does so NOW it will be with you as the beggar and her from a position of power. (I won’t divorce you if a) you NEVER mention OM or prevent me from meeting him and b) you fix perceived problems a to z...)

With divorce: Realize that with a marriage and a child there is a legal process that should ensure both your rights. Makes the divorce as "fair" as it could be. That "fair" is a strange enigma because in successful divorce neither of you will feel it is "fair". But it is.
I encourage you in the strongest terms possible to have a professional handle your divorce. At the very least you combine over one solicitor whose role it is to follow the law and ensure a complete and fair divorce that does not favor one more than the other.

If this is the typical affair, then odds are high that once she realizes OM isn’t leaving his partner and that she won’t be keeping the house or both vehicles or whatever THEN she might start talking about reconciliation. But even if that interested you at that time, at least it won’t allow her the negotiation status of power she has now.

Finally – Two points:
Remember that now is now. Whatever needs your daughter has NOW will not be the same in 3 years, or 6 or 10. Don’t base your future purely on present needs.
You are firing her from the role of "wife". If she slags you and presents you as a monster, it wont have any impact on you whatsoever long-term.