Backstory since I delete posts a lot: I'm a stay-at-home dad to a 4YO, my STBXW is a mentally ill workaholic whom put me in a dead bedroom ostensibly because of her medical issues, I thought we had a loving relationship in spite of that but I was wrong. She tried to dog walk me into an open marriage that would lead to me finding someone else so then she could say "well we might as well just divorce now" when the truth (which took me a while to uncover) was that she had started cheating on me with her co-worker either as my mom was dying of cancer or right after she died (I just know the affair started the month my mom died) and then got a secret apartment. She gave up on dog walking me to the divorce when I figured out her Affair Partner's name and started snooping on him which he discovered thanks to LinkedIn (forgot to sock up on that one). He's a married man with two young kids of his own. I agreed to hold off on filing until we sold the house (I was still gathering information about everything that had been going on this year) but I got a lawyer on retainer. When I discovered she introduced her Affair Partner to my son I lost my shit and threatened to make the divorce extremely ugly. Rookie mistake. Thankfully it didn't amount to anything because despite how scared she claimed she was of me, the STBXW allowed things to de-escalate and went back to the status quo we established. But I decided I needed to file ASAP so I got my lawyer working on that.

That should get you all up to speed. I've been documenting everything I discuss here so need for anyone to comment on that. I'm a meticulous documentarian. And as my state is a one-party consent state, I record all of my phone calls and personal conversations with her.

Due to the incident of me losing my shit, she actually got a lawyer and gave up on her idea that she was going to basically try and trick me in the divorce. The day she's supposed to talk to her lawyer, she calls me because our son had a doctor's appointment and she wanted to see how he was doing. She then pivoted to talking about what she wanted to talk to the lawyer about. Specifically, she wanted to avoid going to any trial. I didn't want to commit to anything to her, but she was on the verge of tears begging me not to take this to trial because "we" (read: she) couldn't afford it. When things had been more amicable, before I found out the extent of all the lies, we had discussed the general agreement for what the divorce would be so this was nothing new but the first time we had discussed such things after the incident and I had some new stipulations. I got her to agree to give me the following:

  • Joint Legal Custody with our son living with me, 70/30 split on parenting time in my favor

  • Child support (obviously)

  • Spousal support (wasn't married long enough for actual alimony)

  • The majority of profits of the house sale after our joint tax bill is paid off

  • Her Affair Partner can't have contact with our son for six months past the finalization of the divorce

We met up the day after at an extracurricular as she had parenting time with him after and we started talking about the divorce. Earlier that day the filing was done but I asked my lawyer to hold off on the serving as I wanted to gauge where she was at and what her lawyer had said, because for some reason she wanted to blab to me about her visit with her lawyer. So we had a conversation where she reaffirmed her commitment to the agreement I wanted, though I chose not to follow up on the clause about the Affair Partner because I have a suspicion she agreed to that to placate me and that she will try to renege on it. I'm not going to subject myself to her weaselly manipulation when that's just going to get hammered out by the lawyers. Our lawyers know each other and have a good working relationship, I also found out. She was happy that things were going amicably so I decided to tell her that I filed. She was a bit taken aback that I had started the process, but was very accepting of it. I fully expected emotional manipulations, but maybe her lawyer told her that she's been instigating things with me for months now with the way she's been acting in this process while I hold all the cards?

The funniest thing is that she appeared to not understand the difference between joint legal custody and joint physical custody. She kept talking as though we had joint physical and that she just needs to get a bigger apartment and then our son can stay with her. I had to tell her twice that this is joint legal, not joint physical, and legally our son cannot sleepover with her. And I wasn't budging on that. She then meekly said "but when im working less and I have a new place we'll do joint physical". I told her we would renegotiate when she fixes her living situation.

I'm not going to. As she linked her phone browser to our home computer browser I monitor her browser history and she's looking up how to take your kid to Canada when you are divorced (her Affair Partner is Canadian) so she's never going to get a joint physical agreement from me. It's also why I expect she's going to try and renege on the romantic partner clause which I will not be budging on.

The other funny thing is that because her ego is the most important thing in this she kept saying she was going to do things she was going to have to do as though she were doing me a favor. 'I'm not going to leave you in the lurch, im going to support you and our son". Yeah, no shit. You're legally required to and thats why I have a lawyer. You're the one who broke up the family for shits and giggles, you're going to pay and you're going to take care of us. You wanted me to be a stay at home dad and you're the one who wanted to cheat and divorce. Yes, you are going to take care of us.

I was hoping my son would handle this well as she's never been much a part of his life but he tells me daily now he misses his mommy and wants her to come home. So the damage she created continues to grow.

Having it all filed now and having the lawyers take care of it now does give me some peace though. It's out of my hands. All I have to do is keep documenting as I have all the cards. Going through this and seeing how similar my story is to other men, all I can say is you're not special and neither is she. Don't be a paranoid lunatic but do document everything and take nothing for granted to protect yourselves. When I tell my divorce story in the future I will be the envy of many because I did everything to make sure I won when she tried to pull a fast one on me. No one is coming to your aid. If you're smart enough to wear a condom as protection then be smart enough to protect yourself legally and socially