As I said, my previous update was written in July. Since then a lot has happened. It will be long again and I’m sure you will think I am making it up but I swear every word is the truth. I am living in a bizarre soap opera where I can’t believe the preposterous script and just want to scream for it to stop.
After he went and broke up with her again on the 16th July, I would probably have not spoken to him again, but for the second year running I had caught him just before we were due to go on holiday together! The kids were really looking forward to it, it was long haul and somewhere I would never be able to go to again, and the way I had booked the tickets using a combination of air miles and 241 vouchers in his name meant he couldn’t be taken off the booking. So I agreed to still go for the sake of the kids, on the basis that I had booked a big apartment so that we could have our own space, and if I couldnt bear to look at him then we could take it in turns to have the kids and I could spend some time alone on a beautiful beach with a book and a Pina colada. Much needed after the terrible year I've had.
Actually the holiday went really well. We didn’t talk about anything upsetting, deliberately because I didn’t want to ruin the holiday, and we actually sat and played cards and listened to music in the evening. It was just like old times, and as long as I put his recent betrayal out of my mind I was able to relax and enjoy myself. There was one evening where he drank too much and turned nasty but other than that it went as well as we ever could have hoped.
Now I realise that you will all be screaming at me, but after we got back after that lovely nostalgic fortnight I stupidly decide there is still a remote chance that I will be able to get over it and tell him that the chances have got lower and he is obviously going to have to work extremely hard for a long time to prove himself since he has massively betrayed me twice. But I say I do want to continue the counselling and that I don’t want to go back to last year when there was a bad atmosphere- I want to maintain the point we have reached where we are getting on well, so that even if we don’t end up together romantically that we can still be friends and properly amicable co-parents. I had also been getting really stressed about the house to the point of thinking of selling as we have a massive overgrown garden and hundred year old house with loads needing doing to it, so I tell him that the kids can sleep at alternate houses as usual but that he can spend the weekends helping me to do DIY/clear garage /garden etc. After all it is his house too officially and he will benefit from doing it up if we do end up divorced, and I have been feeling resentful of him walking away from the commitments he made in terms of buying a big old house, only to swan off to a bachelor pad with no responsibilities! In terms of the second betrayal, I have never got him to admit to anything more than an ill advised friendship with OW and a couple of stupid sex mistakes, which were over back in april/ may. And I have really pushed, and it took a lot of pushing and dripfeedig to get to that point so I assume I have reached he whole truth. He has voluntarily given me a cloned iPad with literally all of his apps and emails and messages on because he wants to be honest. And basically says that he will be completely open and realises it is going to take another year of actually good behaviour before I can even think of letting him move back in, but that he is willing to take those chances however slim. I tell him to explain to his best friends at work who she is and what has happened so they can protect him as they keep inviting OW to things he is going to and he says he has.
But I can’t shake the feeling that he is still seeing her- my Spidey senses keep tingling and I keep checking up on him although I feel it is driving me mad. I find very little- a two minute phone call one night, that he swears was work related and that he didn’t see her. The iPad stops working because his password has been changed so he takes it back to fix it and then forgets to give it back. Last weekend we were due to go to a family fun day for his work and he starts saying it is too far, or the weather is too bad or the games are for older kids. [Hmm] Each time I say we are all still going. He eventually decides not to go himself after i keep insisting. Then one Thursday I have an unshakeable Spidey sense that he is up to no good to the point where I am about to be sick or pass out and I ask him to come over in the evening, where I tell him how certain I am that he is still seeing her that it is making me physically ill, and that the rubbish about the fun day has made me think that either she is going to be there or he doesn’t want it to get back to her that I was there. I cry and say how badly this is affecting me and how certain I am and ask him to just please come clean for my sanity. He swears on everyone’s lives that he hasn’t seen her outside of work and comforts me and gives me a load of vows about how he will never do anything again. I ask why he has not given the cloned iPad back then and he says he will sort it out and bring it over at the weekend.
On Saturday he does bring me the iPad back so I assume all must be well- why would you give someone all area access if you were hiding something? He keeps going on about having an option to go out with two mates that evening even though I have previously told him it’s fine as it’s my turn to have the kids. I go out for a run during which he messages and e goes on and on about this “option” and keeps asking me if I’m sure. I assume he is angling for an invitation and tell him that he can come over mad watch a film/wine/takeaway if he hasn’t committed to go. This is a massive step for me after all that has happened and the first time in months I have invited him. After which he says actually he will go out after all. I tell him I’m pissed off because I thought he was angling for an invitation and thought he would be jumping for joy at getting one, but he says he hasn’t seen them in ages so I say fine but it was a one time offer. After I get back he leaves to get a haircut and I sort the kids out. Once they are in bed I look at find my iPhone to see if he did go. I see him round the North circular, then at IKEA and then his phone goes offline. But I’m not all that worried because there would be no signal in ikea. By midnight when I go to bed it is still offline but has jumped to Finchley. I assume that is one of his mates addresses as I have seen it on Uber receipts and go to bed. Get up early with the kids and it is still there. Take them to church after which it is still there. He rings at 12 and says he will be over in an hour to do DIY, but he didn’t go out after all last night. He went to IKEA instead! [Hmm] I say I know, I saw. He says after that he drove back an hour to where we live and went to sleep in his flat and then... Wait for it.... He drove all the way back to IKEA to exchange something! I say why are you lying? I know where youve been, you gave me find my iPhone and your phone has been in Finchley since midnight and not moved. He says I’m not lying! Why would I lie, I know I gave you Find my iPhone. I say why didn’t you return it to the local IKEA then? Or go to that one in the first place ? And he says he hasn’t thought of that. Naively I assume this is all because he went out with mates and knows I was pissed off with that decision. I just say I know you are lying, there are holes bigger than Swiss cheese in this story and you know I will smell the booze to prove it. He says he isn’t, sticks to his cock and bull story and will be over in an hour. Find my iPhone is currently on the a406 but hasn’t yet reached the Y to get to ours and is still on the Finchley branch and not the IKEA one so I screenshot. I then start digging. The only thing I find is a picture that looks like her in his deleted items. His friend that he supposedly asked to help protect him from OW is in the picture with his arm round this woman who is smiling lovingly at the camera. It is dated ten minutes after the short phone call I found the week before. Evidently she rang to ask where they were in the pub and then went to join him. So then I know that he lied to me about seeing her socially, about the specific evening as I had asked specifically, about the phone call. And about confiding in his friend to avoid this.
I write on a piece of paper three subjects
- Times I have lied to my wife in the last fortnight.
- Times I have seen OW in the last fortnight
- Times I have slept with OW in the last fortnight.
The last one is a long shot as I don’t know if he has but I am calling his bluff. When he gets there I set the children up with something and sit him in front of this piece of paper, telling him that I have found absolute evidence of a number of things and that he needs to write down everything and damn well hope he covers everything i have found otherwise I will have no relationship with him, not even an amicable co-parenting one. He sits there and puts his head on the worktop and mumbles. I say what? And he slumps and says “where do I start?!”
I am outraged although relieved he isn't gaslighting me and say in that case you should probably skip straight to the last question. How many times have you slept with her in the past fortnight? And he says 4 or 5? So I say “and before that?” to which he says "maybe two dozen... Three dozen?" [Shock] So I say the three Drunken mistakes in march/April is a complete work of fiction and he says yes.
I call my MIL and ask her to take the kids and when she comes I put them in her car while he tells her what he has done. Again.
After that I did a lot of ranting. I also held onto his phone and sent a short text to OW saying I’m really sorry I can’t see you anymore, my wife has found out about us again. Once she started ringing and texting he became like a caged animal manhandling me around the room in his desperation to get to the phone and make it all better with her (presumably he saw he had well and truly blown it with me). He insulted me with the same bollocks about how he had never been happy that he had admitted was all affair fog previously. But since he was still having the affair again he had started believing his own lies again. He then seemed to gather his resolve and wailed “But I love her” which I assume is because last year she was upset that he “caved” so easily once caught, and also because this time he apparently promised her he would fight for them! The fighting lasted about five seconds though because I said, “thats fine. You can run off to her then, but you are going to give me the courtesy of an hour or two first. This is the last time you are ever going to see me in person as if you really do that I will be arranging handovers through your parents or the contact centre down the road, so we had better quickly hash out an agreement on children and money because after today I will all be done through lawyers and that will get expensive very quickly”. He then sat there and wailed “ but I love you and I can’t bear the thought of not seeing you ever again”! Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too! I said the only way I would ever speak to him again, even as friends/co-parents was if he rang her and said it was true and he really couldn’t see her anymore. And that I was not letting him sod off into the garden for a tearful prolonged goodbye this time, he could ring right there with me if that was what he chose. He is such a pathological liar that he then told me he was stood there thinking that he could do that and still run off to her and tell her it wasnt true and I had made him do it! Anyway he did choose to ring her, by which point she had got in a cab the 50 minute journey to where we live (because of course she has bene coming to his flat!) and was waiting at his flat and refused to leave unless he came along, with some choice threats about making trouble at work. So I told him to go but by this point it was nearly children’s bathtime and said he would still need to collect them
from MIL soon as I had a big work event in the morning and there was no way I could have them overnight when it was his turn. I sent him a reminder when that time came but didn’t get a reply, so I ran over to his flat (I needed to run regardless as it destresses me and I was ready to explode) only to find his car still there. He asked me to get them instead and I agreed but had to get his keys and take his car as I was out running and he had said he would do it! I fetched the kids and bathed them and got them ready for bed but when bedtime rolled around he still hadn’t been in touch. I told him I was going to bring them over if I didn’t hear from him to scare him into action. He threatened to call the police had she finally agreed to leave and he called her a cab but the kids and I had to wait in the car for ten minutes with them in their PJ’s post bedtime for it to arrive. She left and I put the kids to bed in his flat and demanded some answers. 
I was very proud of myself though- on the two occasions I went to his flat I didn’t go in and talk to her, although I have been fantasising about it for over a year. I didn’t even look at her, despite my curiosity, as she came out to get in the cab, just tried to stay calm and carry on reading with the DCs.
Since then it has been a tumultuous week. She wasn’t satisfied with the two hours + on Sunday and phoned and demanded that he come and meet her in person to answer her questions and prove that we really had been reconciling or she would make him lose his job- she had already spoken to the ethics people- and potentially sue him for sexual harassment. I had warned him he was playing with fire in this respect a year ago as he was her mentor She had a whole laundry list of items she wanted including all my what’s app logs with him, which he had deleted as part of scorched earth, his fertility test results (he had a vasectomy) the divorce papers from January and even my work address! She didn’t believe him that he had given me a cloned iPad, because why on earth would he have done that!? Good question indeed. And she also didn’t believe he had uninstalled and reinstalled what’s app and lost everything ( she obviously doesn’t know him well-he is a pro at covering his tracks especially given the iPad he had placed into my hands. But she thought I should provide them to him to give to her instead .
She was satisfied with the evidence that he provided on Tuesday and is hopefully not going to make trouble. However, she has sent him (to show me) many sets of messages between them that ultimately made it clear that he has been living a complete double life for the last six months. Again.