Need advice please

[LH19]

Dink that was a rough read. You are both extremely manipulative and broken and you need time and space from one another. For a really long time. When a woman is done and she is clearly done, it takes a really long time to come around. Years not weeks. If you truly love her then set her free.

I am sorry. Sometimes in life we learn tough lessons.

[BL42]

Dink,

I understand your emotions and what you're going through. I've been there - putting the kid 1yo and 4yo kids to bed while my ExW "worked late" with her coworker; waking up at 3am to sneakily read through their text messages from the previous day. It's awful. Her behaviors are immoral and wrong, and you have every right to be hurt and angry.

The thing is, as difficult as it is, the confrontations and reasonings and the 6am car horn sessions outside OM's house are not going to help. They may feel good in the moment but will leave you empty and worse off in the long run.

You're spinning, and that's understandable. Take a breath, go to counseling, start walking/running/working out. It's extremely difficult but try to put your focus 100% on YOU and not HER. That's the best way to get you feeling better and moving forward.

Hang in there. Keeping engaged here and talking to us with help too.

[Dink]

To top it off yesterday she sent a message to our family group chat (me, her the kids and spouses)
That her 100 year old grandma fell and fractured her hip, and we still haven’t told kids about the divorce. Her grandma is having surgery today and I hope everything goes well and she pulls thru, as this could be a even more awkward time if not

[LH19]

Dink I would wait until one of you are moving out before you tell the kids.

[SteveLW]

Dink, I am going to speak frank here, so if you are not up for some frankness then just skip this post.

You are not DBing. You came to a forum called Divorce Busting, where we gave you advice related to how to handle this kind of thing. Instead you went on pure emotion, instinct and what comes natural to LBSs. I can assure you that emotion, instinct and what comes natural will get you to D faster than anything else.

You sent a short message saying that there was another man and you were done. Then you send a long message about confronting her, following her, and tracking her with your Ring doorbell. (Sorry, I was where you are at one point, but whether an animal tripped it or not, you looked for her vehicle.)

You broke so many DBing rules in how you handled this. First, you had an R talk with her. Then you used her comment about "better to not be here" (a very common statement by WWs by the way) as an excuse to go spend the night with her. Then you tracked her to OM's place, and confronted her. (Another 2x4, sitting out front blowing your horn? Really?) Then you committed the biggest mistake by point out to her all of the changes you made. You realize that when you do that, point to your changes, it immediately makes a WS believe that you are only doing that to manipulate them BACK to the marriage, right? "Look how good I have become!" They hear "I am changing just to get you back, and once you are back I will revert back to the way I was!"

WWs always always always justifiy their actions with the OM by saying "I told you I wanted a D." Or "From my perspective the marriage was/is already over." Or some variation thereof. That is why confronting, begging, pleading, using logic, etc rarely ever works. They fall back to the stance of "the marriage is over, I can do whatever I want". Better to NOT confront, beg, plead, use logic etc. The better tact to have taken would have been to drive by, confirm your suspicions by seeing her car. And going home. Next time she reached out you could say "I know what is really going on."

Then no matter how hard she presses you do not tell her WHAT you know, or HOW you know it. Only that you know. Then you go out and live your best life! GAL like a madman. Continue to cement your changes to the best version of yourself by BEING that person all the time, and getting into IC to hold yourself accountable. And detaching from her emotionally. Reread cadet's/job's first response and learn what that looks like.

You HAVE to change your dynamic with her in order to have any shot at getting her to change her mind. In fact, the best way to get her to change her mind is to fully embrace her desire to D. As the saying goes, you will never look more attractive to her as you will be walking away. Maybe you do not want to reconcile anymore after this? That is up to you. If that is the case, ignore this entire post. But I will say, that the actions you took in your last post sure indicate that you want to fight for her.

Finally, STOP talking. If you take no other advice please consider taking the advice to stop talking to her about all of this. A) you cannot believe a word she says B) the more you talk the more you break DBing rules C) no one has ever talked their way out of what they've acted their way into. Talk is cheap. Take action (preferably the ones I've laid out above) and stop trying to change her mind with words because it is not, and never will, work to convince her that she is in the wrong.

Dink, finally, I know this is tough. I get it. Everyone on this board has been where you have been to some degree or another. But it is always better to THINK about your actions before taking them. If it helps, post here BEFORE acting, and get this feedback first. A card laid is a card played in this game, you cannot undo what you've already done. Better to hear first what to expect rather than learn the hard way.

Oh, and one last thing I just remembered. The other reason confronting the way you did is a bad idea is because WWs have a tendency to make things seem worse than they were. She is already accusing you (false as it may be) of mental abuse. Do not give her the ammo to make even bigger false accusations. This forum has seen WWs that were more than willing to accuse an innocent LBH of physical abuse. Do not dismiss this as impossible, it certainly could get to that point for her to justify her actions. "I went to OM's house because I was scared about what your father might do to me while I was alone!" It becomes a he said-she said proposition at that point. So be careful.

[BL42]

Dink - Do you kids know about the affair and/or potential divorce? They're older (25, 27, & 30) plus a grandkid so not clear if they're living with you and W or moved out?

SteveLW gives great advice. Read his post above a couple times.

[Dink]

The kids no nothing about my long ago affair, or her two in the past 5 years . In response to SteveLW I understand and agree with what you are saying and agree. Now I have this internal turmoil. Because of the way I handle things. I knew I shouldn’t off but anger took me over. As far as the implied ( it would probably better for everyone if I wasn’t here) I was scared. The first time it happened was about 3 years ago. We live in Michigan and her and I took a trip to Nashville to get away. While we were there we argued after a night of drinks when we got back to our hotel. We both had quite a few drink. When we got back to the hotel we were still arguing a little and she went into the bathroom. She was in there quite a while when I finally knocked on door and she said I will be out in a minute. When she came out she set her phone on night stand and lauds down. I said what is going on and she said something like you won’t have to worry it any longer. I said what..what did you do and she wouldn’t say anything. I went it to the bathroom and the was a pill bottle open with pills spilled out on counter. I went back and said did you take a bunch a pills and she said don’t worry about . I was panicking ask her how many she took she would answer. I picked up her phone and she had sent the or four messages to different friends of her saying she loved them and to tell my kids I love them. I freaked and called the front desk and they came up
And I said should we call a ambulance and they said it would probably be quicker to take a Uber to the hospital as it was only a few miles away, so that’s what I did. We made it to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville and she was admitted and they ran test on her and ask her questions, which because she was drunk was a little challenging. To top it off we had a flight the following in back to Michigan.
While they worked working with her, a psychiatric type doctor want to talk with me in a private room and was asking me if she has ever done anything like this before or talk about anything like this before, because they may want to keep,her a few days to make sure everything is ok with her.
I told them I was really wasn’t aware of anything . in the morning after she sobered up, they took us to a room. When we were alone she kept apologizing for what she did and I told her that they have been questioning me about if she had ever tried something like this before which she said no, and I said they may want to keep us here a few more days to just make sure she is in the right mind, and she said she just wanted to go back home. We did have a flight in the morning as well.
I had another person ask to speak with me again, and the a separate person went in with her to talk to her. This second person just basically asked me the same stuff the first person did, which I told the, the same stuff. When I was done they let me go back in with her and they said the would let us know in a few hours whether they were going to release her or not. Well they finally came back and said they were going to allows us to leave but that she had to make sure to contact her counselor when we arrived back home….so you can see a little why I was concerned. With all that being said Steve, everything else you said is correct and I know I definitely screwed up and regret it.

[SteveLW]

Please understand, I didn't post that to berate you, because you can't do anything to change it. I posted it to try to get you to see that you need to change things moving forward. Control your reactions, and try to stick to good DBing principles.

It is your situation, you get to decide. We are hear to get you to think before acting. But that is up to you.

[Dink]

I totally understand where you were coming from Steve, I appreciate your honest feed back and you are totally right. I just was trying to give a little more back ground on the whole situation . I appreciate everyone on these forums.

[BL42]

Dink,

The kids no nothing about my long ago affair, or her two in the past 5 years .

Do they have any idea your marriage is on the rocks, or will it blindside them? I agree w/LH btw...don't go broadcasting it. The truth will come out in time anyway.

Now I have this internal turmoil. Because of the way I handle things. I knew I shouldn’t off but anger took me over.

With all that being said Steve, everything else you said is correct and I know I definitely screwed up and regret it.

Everyone here has made mistakes in the way they handle their sitch. You can't change the past, you can only use it as a learning opportunity and adjust going forward.

I went it to the bathroom and the was a pill bottle open with pills spilled out on counter. I went back and said did you take a bunch a pills and she said don’t worry about . I was panicking ask her how many she took she would answer. I picked up her phone and she had sent the or four messages to different friends of her saying she loved them and to tell my kids I love them. I freaked and called the front desk and they came up

The Nashville story about the pills and hospital sounds extremely serious. That must have been scary. Did you and your W dig into why she tried to kill herself?

Well they finally came back and said they were going to allows us to leave but that she had to make sure to contact her counselor when we arrived back home…

Did she follow up w/a counselor? And, did she continue with one or did it just stop?

Work on yourself and become the best man you can be physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually.

Focus on what LH19 said earlier in the thread. What is your plan for focusing on yourself?