I’d invite her to coffee at a local shop. Just the two of us. I’d have my hair and clothes and makeup flawless. I’d be gracious. Anyone that eager to have an audience with you deserves one!
Give her her money’s worth, darlin!
Bring a long paper on the care and feeding of your husband. Type it out and think it out beforehand. She’ll want to know just how picky he is about you getting the lint off his socks. How he wants to sleep till noon on Saturday and you better keep the kids quiet.
And you’ll need to give the blow by blow of what she must never do to get him angry.
And how to tell if he’s cheating. Outline to her all the signs he used when he was sneaking around with her thinking he was so clever.
And let it be known that YOU will be the one to tell the children if they get engaged. That they aren’t ready for such a shock. Be definitive that YOUR primary interest in all of this is the psychological welfare of your children and that you seem to have to be watching out for that alone because their father is AWOL.
Seriously. She may be a very smart woman who wants to hear from you whether her judgment of your husband is on target. My ex MIL always said if you want to know what a man is really like, have lunch with his secretary and his ex wife.
So she could be sharp as a tack. And bold as brass.
Don’t worry about your children. They know who their mother is. She is trying to be nice to them. You prefer he dates someone who hates them? My kids have a ton of very expensive gifts from long-defunct ex-fiancees.
Saved me the money buying them.
They still have the gifts. Fiancees have moved on.
The key to all of this is to be a little too cheerful and a little too eager to shuffle off the old jerk to the unsuspecting naif. Really… do you REALLY want him anymore? Right now you’re hurting. But even if he came back to you, you’d never trust that he was really working late again. Plus, you will want to meet with her just to make him scared what you’re going to say.
And if you are nice on the surface, when the kids hate her, they won’t be able to say you poisoned them against her. You will come out smelling like a rose.
It’s all how you play it. Right now you have no intention of meeting her. But if you did, you might find out that she’s a confused fool. Or a complete witch (in which case, that’s FANTASTIC! He’ll have fun with that one!) or a lost soul. Or something in between. And it might give you something you don’t have right now… peace and a little bit of understanding. Because this woman has fallen for your husband’s line and lies just like you did. You really have more in common than you think. You share the same taste in men. You may walk out laughing thinking “They deserve each other.”
And maybe she won’t like what she hears about him. And maybe meeting you and seeing your graciousness and seeing your tears over the death of your dream may awaken a conscience in her. That you are a real person, not the bugaboo or the “my wife doesn’t understand me” that he has based his affair on.
She may walk away from him. She may become confused over the difference between his descriptions of you and the reality. Do you really think he told her “My wife is great. That’s why I’m leaving her for you.”
Yes, she has a lot of nerve. Anyone who would cross God Himself by committing adultery has a screw loose. But you can take advantage of the situation and play it smart and come out ahead. You’ll eventually have to meet her. The smart thing to do is make it a time and place of YOUR choosing, with YOU ready and with makeup on and emotionally prepared and prayerfully gathered. Do it on YOUR terms where there isn’t an audience. Not when she shows up to pick up your kids with him and you’ve been cleaning out under the bathroom sink and she’s wearing a new linen dress and perfect hair and you’re in jeans and you have sweat pouring down your face.
Choose the battlefield and go show her you’re a force to be reckoned with. Smile till your face hurts. You don’t know it now, but someday she may come to identify with your pain more than you know. He’ll do it to her too.
Your kids know you don’t approve. Meeting with her won’t make them think you approve. She may be the one feeding them breakfast someday. She may be the one calling you about their illnesses. You may need to have a cordial working relationship with her someday. If you don’t meet her, you validate every nasty thing he said about you to her. (Oh, yes he did!) Call into doubt his veracity by not being what she expects. Show them both how strong you are.
Now go mess with her head. Good luck.
You’ve got some good sound advice loaded in here. I know she and I will have to sit down to talk eventually. Just like was said, I want to be prepared. You gave me the script. They don’t teach you this is RCIA, school, or anywhere. This is one of those life lessons you have to learn along the way. Your advice is something that most of my good hearted friends and family would not be able to muster up. Mainly because when I hurt they hurt - they don’t want me an any way to approach her but I know I have to. I know that there must be someone to act mature in this situation. I like that I should write it out first. This will help me stay focused and not turn into a blithering idiot, or an emotional reck. I don’t plan to meet tomorrow. But, I will take my time to prepare myself for the meeting. This is why I solicited advice like I did today. I just want to say WOW! Thank you for the advice. If my mother were alive she would probably advise in the same manner.
Be careful. Protect yourself. If she keeps it up, I’d get the restraining order. Your husband has to make a choice. Can’t have it both ways…can’t be married, and date other women. You have been more than patient, and I will be praying for you. *