[Solved] great resource!

Welcome to the Forum Faither

Thank you for your kind words ... I’m really happy that you have found support from all the stories on here... there is light at the end of the tunnel, but some tunnels are longer, with more twist and turns!

If you’d like to tell us a little more about what’s happening, perhaps we may be able to help. If you don’t want to share it in public, you can always use the private messaging, which is located at the top right of the page.

All the best

Hi again Faither

I’ve sent you a PM

Welcome to the Forum Faither

Thank you for your kind words ... I’m really happy that you have found support from all the stories on here... there is light at the end of the tunnel, but some tunnels are longer, with more twist and turns!

If you’d like to tell us a little more about what’s happening, perhaps we may be able to help. If you don’t want to share it in public, you can always use the private messaging, which is located at the top right of the page.

All the best

thanks for the warm welcome!! 🙂

I've had a go at writing this post a few times.. and each time i write it.. it reads even more unbelievable than the draft before.. but unfortunately - it's my reality at the minute.. I guess the best way will be in chronological order and i'll highlight the key events.. here goes:

A BIT BACKGROUND/CONTEXT:
In February this year my wife felt a lump in her breast - so we contact the GP and then got referred to hospital. I took the time off my work and went with her for the test and again took time off with her to go in for the results. All the time trying to be positive and upbeat. Unfortunately, when we got the tests back - it confirmed our worst fears - she had breast cancer. People describe this moment as literally like the rug being pulled from under their feet and for what felt like good few minutes there was just stunned silence. I reassured my wife that it was going to be OK and that we would get through it - the consultant was very positive and confident of a good/succesful outcome. I even bought her a pink Apple iWatch as a 'pick me up' to both cheer her up and to symbolise the pink ribbon for breast cancer! Over the next few weeks there were some additional tests which I again accompanied my wife to - these were to confirm the extent of the cancer and to determine options for treatment. I'm fortunate that I work for a very supportive and understanding company who allowed me the flexibility to attend these appointments and to support my wife and I was literally doing all I could in this regard. I was staying up until sometimes 1 or 2 in the morning to research cancers and treatments and side effects etc so i could be in the best possible/informed position to help and offer support and guidance,

THE TRUTH:
So this was life for us now - it seemed like a never ending merry go round of appointments and referrals and other than this - life continued relatively the same as it had before her diagnosis. She generally went out with her 'friends' :dry: - movies/meal etc once a week and I never really had cause to question or doubt this. She's my wife after all and I trusted her implicitly - (without trust you don't really have anything do you!?). Speeding the story up a bit now -we get to the end of March when we had just came back from a family meal and i noticed a bit damage on her car (the headlight had been scuffed). I was conscious that this was the day after she had been with her 'friends' and remember telling her not to take her car as it's not the best part of town.. so as we walked back to the house, I suddenly remembered that I had bought us both dash cameras for our cars.. so suggested that I go back and get the memory card to review the footage. She declined abruptly at this... told me "just to leave it". This immediately raised my suspicions as it's a brand new A Class - it's not like some old banger! so i initially did as she suggested. However, when I was sat in the house - the urge to get the memory card and see what was on it was slowly winning the battle until I told her I was going to the car to get it. When I got back - she was raging and physically grabbed the memory card from me and said I was invading her privacy!! ;;) so I let her have the memory card - but this immediately raised a massive red flag for me. So as the night wore on I played the 'slowly slowly catch a monkey' routine with her and put our 7 year old son to bed and let her trot off to bed with the excuse I was catching up on something on Netflix.

THE INVESTIGATION:
So as soon as she was fast asleep - I logged into her profile on the iMac and started interrogting it for clues/rationale to try and explain her recent behaviour and mannerisms.. Unfortunately, my works fears were confirmed shortly afterwards as It didn't take long to discover concrete evidence that she had been having an affair with a guy from her work and this is clearly what she had been fearful of I would find on her dashcam. There was basically a treasure trove of evidence of the affair - iMesssages, pictures and full transcripts from WhatsApp. The affair had been going on for MONTHS - since at least late January/early February and was continuing on behind my back. So it started well before her diagnosis, continued all the way through and is apparantly still ongoing (although seems to now be wilting a bit! - that's another story though). One of the things that hurt the most was reading that she had wished he was with her for 'moral support' at the hospital - when I was literally 2 feet away from her!!! Anyway, as many of you will know - when you discover your wife/partners infidelity - it's a bit of a hammer blow which rocks you sideways. I've never felt so much conflicted emotion at one time - it was literally overwhelming and I must have sat for a solid 10 minutes wondering what i should do and what my next move should be. In the end - I couldn't see past seperation/divorce - the relationship couldn't be reconciled even if she came round and said the affair was over (which she did when I confronted her) -the trust for me is gone and whilst I can forgive (in the long run) - I would never forget and to me that doesn't provide a good enough reason to progress with. My biggest issue is that I wanted my son to be as impacted by this as little as possible.

CURRENT POSITION:
This all came out on 30th March - so I engaged with a Solicitor as soon as I could. To minimise the disruption to my son - I moved out the marital home (which we jointly own) - and back to my mothers and we currently co-parent. My son resides permanently in the marital home and attends the same school and clubs as he has always done and depending on whose week it is - they stay in the home with him. This has worked reasonably well over the last 2 months or so, but obviously isn't a long term sustainable solution. With regards to the every day/joint finances (inculding mortgage) - I'm currently paying 70% of these whilst my wife pays 30%. I want to sell the marital home, pay off our debts and use the split equity to start over - my wife is rather dragging her heels over this and I'm getting a lot of resistence from her solicitor in this regard - saying that she's nto well enough to discuss these matters etc and basically playing the sympathy card - although, she is well enough to manage to go on holidays (Milan last week with her mum and Brussels this week with the new boyfriend) as well as basically project managing a flat conversion for a flat her parents own!! So at the minute I'm currently a bit in limbo and feel like my life is on hold at the minute - currently waiting on a letter from her solicitors to come in (which going by his previous letters) I'm expecting to contain a lot of completely unagreeable terms i.e. selling the house at a discounted rate etc because her parents gave us a small discount originally on the house (they had owned the house prior to us buying it - although we had paid them rent to live there).

Anyway, hopefully you're still awake - any questions or clarity needed - just ask or advice anyone can offer - feel free to reply... I'll continue to read through the information on here to look for suggestions and support!

Hi Faither,

wow shocking story. sounds like a TV drama, especially the part about the memory card. If solicitors are messing around, is there no way to force this to court, or you want to avoid divorce court? heard can cost thousands.

Hi there

I’m not surprised that her solicitor is being resistant, he will probably be advising her to go for the jugular. As you have a child, she could apply to remain in the family home until your child is 18, she may be considering spousal maintenance... and because of her illness, she will illicit sympathy, holidays may be considered as recuperative.

Does she want to buy you out of the property? Is that why there’s discussion of a discounted rate? To be honest, it may work out cheaper to accept a smaller percentage of the equity, as solicitors fees to fight it out, could end up costing more that what she’s asking for.

Divorce isn’t my area of knowledge, but I think it would be very wise to take the advice of a solicitor.

All the best

Hi there

I’m not surprised that her solicitor is being resistant, he will probably be advising her to go for the jugular. As you have a child, she could apply to remain in the family home until your child is 18, she may be considering spousal maintenance... and because of her illness, she will illicit sympathy, holidays may be considered as recuperative.

Does she want to buy you out of the property? Is that why there’s discussion of a discounted rate? To be honest, it may work out cheaper to accept a smaller percentage of the equity, as solicitors fees to fight it out, could end up costing more that what she’s asking for.

Divorce isn’t my area of knowledge, but I think it would be very wise to take the advice of a solicitor.

All the best

You're starting to get me worried.. now.. I should have mentioned that this is in Scotland (if that makes any difference) - I've also appointed a solicitor - I did this the next day after finding out (as it was at the weekend) and she also has a solicitor...

I've never heard of anyone applying to stay in the family home until my son is 18??? or spousal maintenance? - we co-parent 50/50 - so from what I understand, she won't even be entitled to any child maintenance.. and how can spousal maintenance even be awarded when she had an affair and it was her behaviour the caused the breakdown of the marriage?..

think i probably need to do some more reading up on the subject.... 🙁 - the whole ethos of divorce law in Scotland centres around the 'clean break' principle from what I understand...??? - could really do with someone confirming with more knowledge though...

I think there are differences between family law in Scotland, including divorce.

You can get a DIY divorce in Scotland now, here’s some info about that.

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/rules-and-practice/guidance-notes/gn---simplified-divorce-and-simplified-dissolution-of-civil-partnership/simplified-divorce-and-dissolution-of-civil-partnership-guidance-notes.doc?sfvrsn=12

I didn’t mean to worry you, divorce isn’t my area of knowledge, even more so Scottish law, but we have had members in England that have had the problems I mentioned, I would check with your solicitor though and get some proper advice.

You could also check out a good website called Wikivorce, I’m pretty sure their info pages cover Scottish law.

All the best