Forgive my long post, but this is a huge crisis for me. What a day for it to blow over! Merry Christmas to me.
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I’ve been with my husband for 23 years, 21 of those married. We were happy together until recently when he started to change. Red flags of an affair started popping up, but I didn’t want to act rashly just in case.

Yesterday I was in his office looking for some batteries when I found a briefcase with a brand new iPod Touch, a Teddy bear, and an expensive watch (at least $400). We are not rich. Our kids don’t even have this much.

I’d been suspecting the affair for awhile now, and my daughter had previously found the facebook account of some woman named “Diana” she claimed was his mistress. It was credible, but again, wasn’t much concrete. Even when I confronted him, he denied the claims.

Christmas came and it didn’t take long to find out those extravagant presents weren’t for me or our kids. After he went to sleep, my daughter, being curious as she is, went into his room to look for them (I’d told her I’d found them). She came out awhile later with bills & the perfect paper trail to his infidelity, plus the itouch. She took out the itouch and we saw an engraved message on the back, for the Diana woman my daughter had found on facebook, with “lots of love” from my hubby.

I pretty much cracked then and confronted him about it well at 4am in the morning. I smashed the iPod (wish I hadn’t) & ripped up the Teddy bear (unfortunately I didn’t get to watch on time, which I could have kept & sold).

He ended up leaving and hasn’t come back since (he didn’t deny the affair). This is obviously the end of our marriage. I’ve had to put up with so much of his sh*t over the years (his alcoholism, dug abuse, and couldn’t keep a job longer than a year), but this is something I can not and will not forgive. He would be nowhere without me. Absolutely nowhere.

Yet, even after all I’ve done for him, he can’t afford to even give me a Christmas card. Even at least as the mother of his kids.

I’ve invested so many years for him and this is the biggest slap in the face he could ever give me. I’ve been through him during stages where any sensible person would have left him.

I don’t know what I can do to continue living. I have 3 kids to maintain, and I don’t earn close to enough solo to maintain them all. Even with child support, it would not be enough.

If I have to take court action, I will. I have countless of bills that prove to his infidelity (plus condoms i’ve found in his bag, and I had a hysterectomy more than a decade ago).

What should I do next? What about his mistress (who is probably some gold digging slut)? What do I have to do NOW? Eventually I’ll have to sell our house, as neither of us can pay it by ourselves.

I will never forgive this but all I hope is that in the future he will come to regret this moment. His regret is all I want, because there is no other woman out there who will do for him what I have.

Even when we were dating, he never gave me even HALF as much as he intended to give this woman.