Bibliotherapy

In addition to seeing an attorney and a counselor, I also did a lot of reading on the subject of divorce. I knew absolutely nothing about divorce since I never planned on getting one.  I had to do all my reading either online or at the bookstore. I couldn't risk bringing any books on divorce into the house because several months went by between discovering my husband was gay and unfaithful and confronting him with what I knew. I could not risk having him find out I was on to him.

One of the most valuable books I read was Infidelity Sleuth by Julia Hartley Moore. Here are the notes I took as I read the book and nursed a latte.

If you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.

Infidelity = lack of respect for the wife

Reasons not to act are all based on fear. Take back the power and make a stand. Stop making excuses. He just wants someone to look after him.

Stop being a martyr. You can only change YOU.

Believe in yourself. Know your self-worth. Put yourself first and respect yourself.

Share the problem with someone else. This helps you stop accepting the lies.

Don’t spill the beans until you have a plan of action.

Don’t hold back information from a private investigator or your attorney.

Do not buy into your unfaithful spouse’s remorse or accept their behavior.

Don’t accept any blame. Always bring the subject back to his indiscretion and give him NO sympathy.

Marriage = a contract. An affair is a breach of that contract.

The best barometer for the future is the past. If he’s cheated before, he will cheat again.

Grief is part of the process. Go with it and get over it so you can heal. Participate in a grief recovery program.

Find a good counselor. He/she must have the same belief system as you for the therapy to work.

There are four requirements for a relationship: respect, trust, love and commitment. None of these are negotiable.

The line she repeated throughout the book was this: If you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.

Let me repeat it:

If you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.

The other bit of advice that I cannot emphasize enough is this:  Don’t spill the beans until you have a plan of action.

Too many women learn their husband is gay and cheating and engage in a verbal assault on him.  Once he knows that you know, the warfare begins and can include everything from locking you out of the checking accounts to pillaging retirement money and covering his tracks.  You definitely want to get all the information on his gay activities that you can, so you may have to spend a while pretending life is "normal" while you  play sleuth and document his behavior for your attorney.  Believe me, if you can do it yourself, it's lots cheaper than hiring a private investigator.

I'll share some sleuthing tips in a later post.