Nothing. It sounds like you are all responding rather well. You have each developed a plan and appear to be coping. This will give you all something to grow about and grown about, both now and in the future. Relax.

That both sets of parents are involved with your children is an asset worth any of the bumps along the way. Your parents are giving you and your children a gift that is priceless, even if his parents do a better job than yours.

Forgiving you is an act of healthy self-love.

It is not about you, which I know you will find surprising.

I value myself and therefore I have decided to live without resentment, bitterness, sarcasm, or self-loathing.

Consequently, I am free of you and your careless ways. I am free even of the understandable urge to resent you.

I forgive you because it is my only healthy option. 

Forgiving you is not permission to hurt me again although I admit I have no control over your choices.

I do have control over my own choices – and it is my choice to leave this hurtful relationship.

Your violent voice is yours, how you use it is up to you. You hurtful hands are yours, how you choose to use them is up to you.

But I will use my voice and my hands, in fact all my faculties, to get out of your way.

I will use my voice and hands, in fact all my abilities, and as agents of encouraging and enriching others.

I will listen to myself; obey my inner being. I hold onto my integrity, and, despite your cruel, harsh, and irrational behavior, I will be a blessing to all whom I meet.

Every minute spent waiting was unfortunately wasted. The waiting, the watching, held you back from the many adventures the day potentially held for you.

I’d suggest you do not afford your apparently careless sons such power in the future – the power to put your day on hold. You are offering them far more power than they can apparently handle.

I use the word “apparently” simply because their side of the story is unavailable to me. If your sons ignored Mothers Day because you have been a violent abusive drunk, or you have been an overly manipulative mother, I’d better understand their “oversight”.

I suggest you send your sons (all three) individual cards reflecting on your memories of each son and on the joys of motherhood. Do not refer to their omission or manipulate with guilt – simply thank them for being your sons and for giving you the opportunity to be a mother. This too, is what Mothers Day is all about. It is never too late to let them know how much motherhood has transformed and enriched you.

Your individual growth must become your focus. You cannot grow your wife up. You cannot make her let go of her parents. You cannot make her parents let her go. But you can grow yourself up. Increase your tolerance for all their pain, forge ahead with healthy challenges, and invite your wife to join you in becoming an adult.

Yes. Perhaps. Some do. Some don’t. While both of you are still breathing there is hope.

Fundamental rephrasing must occur. Face the fact that you were not unfaithful because your spouse was. You were unfaithful because you lacked maturity, lacked integrity, and were probably acting out of deep anger and hurt. Your actions were understandable – but not his fault.

Your husband’s unfaithfulness is his issue. Yours is yours. You can connect them if you want, but they are not connected.

Retaliatory unfaithfulness serves no useful purpose. Besides, trying to “get your husband back” requires yet another victim. You apparently used another person, not for love or comfort, but as part of your weaponry. Sex is not a weapon, sex was never intended as an escape, its primary function is to build and to solidify a healthy, committed, monogamous relationship between married adults.

Your marriage is more likely to survive if you both sever all contact with your respective victims, if you work on yourself and not primarily on your marriage, and if you consistently talk to a safe professional who will lead you to greater understanding and help you to grow from your individual and cumulative anger.

1. The guilty party takes full responsibility for his of her actions without regarding the attitude of taking responsibility as a guarantee of anything.
2. The guilty party is willing to surrender all contact with any so-called lover – this is ALL contact, physical and emotional.
3. Both persons in the relationship focus on personal maturity (growing up) rather than focus on “re-building the relationship” – this is counter-intuitive. Affairs are about immaturity, not intimacy, or love, or passion. The man or woman who has an affair is expressing his or immaturity, and if he or she fails to “grow up” in the aftermath it will only be a matter of time before unfaithfulness occurs again.
4. The offended party understands that he or she did not cause or promote the infidelity in any manner – no one is powerful enough to “make” another cheat – and resists any and all attempts of the cheater to pass it off onto him or her. While the cheater blames, he or she is not ready to let go or grow.

I am delighted to be part of your daily routine. It is unlikely this routine will have to end given that you will still be waking up together. This is not the end. It is the beginning of something far more exciting than you have known to date. I’d suggest you get behind your wife’s ambitions in every manner possible.

If you have built a marriage and a business together, you will certainly be able to embrace these shifts in focus and routine.

A clear sign of the health in your relationship is that your wife is “breaking out” in the manner she is doing.

You will be overseas three weeks and the same problems will hit you both in the face – and you will have further disrupted the children and be far from any support you now have. Don’t do it. If he wants to mend anything, do it on your turf, not his.