Just Found Out My Wife Is Cheating On Me With Multiple People And Telling Them We Are Separated

Location: New Jersey

I (39M) just found out that my (37F) wife is telling several people that we are separated and are in relationships with them at the same time.

Obviously a divorce would be ideal, but we have small kids and she will be ruthless in making sure she gets full custody.

I am the sole income earner, clean, do all the cooking and carting for our children. She contributes absolutely nothing and acts as though nothing our children exempts her from being a parent or adult the rest of her life.

She got a tattoo last night and sent a photo of it at 8pm, she wouldn’t answer any calls or texts until she arrived home at midnight and the tattoo was exactly the same.

To add to the weirdness she got half done last nightmares the other half was to be done today but he is refusing to tattoo her anymore. I saw her texts and she was saying about how he used her and she feels filthy.

She also was gone most of the day and when I texted her asking she was at the tattoo place she said she was out with \[males name\]. She came home drunk and crashed our new Mercedes into the back of another car and somehow didn’t get a DUI.

I was trying to figure out what was going on and looked at her phone while she was passed out (she changed the passcode but she passed out and it was unlocked somehow).

I read through the name she said she was with and while all the texts before today were deleted, the ones from today were very explicit.

I looked in the next text thread with another man. “Me and my husband are separated” to which he heart reacted it, and she short of begged him to see her today.

All the texts from tattoo guy were deleted before this morning, and while there wasn’t really any explicit texts in there anymore, what unfolded this morning that led to them stopping work on her tattoo was strange.

She messaged him asking about the tattoo and he gave a one word answer and she lost it: he said he was just waking up and she went on about how vulnerable she was to him and she feels used and dirty.

There were others as well, the strange pattern across all of them seems to be talking big game, meeting in real life and then things don't work out to which she claims she “is being more vulnerable with them then she ever had”

Some of them were from weeks ago where she still texts them daily and they don't respond.

I would also like to add that she is extremely aggressive, and physically abusive (to me, not our children).

I don't see any ay out that doesn't involve her harming me or me not seeing my kids again. She always says “because I'm the mom, I will get custody of the kids, you will have to pay child support, spouse support and will need to move out while still paying the rent on our house.

I'm not sure what the move is - what is the best way to document everything, esp the division of labor and childcare, cooking, etc? Seems like something where Incan say I do it and then she can say “no way, I do that!”

TLDR: my wife is cheating on me with several people and telling them we are separated. Not sure what to do because she is irrational and aggressive and if I confront her or divorce she will take everything from me (we have small children together) although we don't really have any assets to divide (house is rented, cars financed, etc)

** edit **

What I would be ok with (considering the only asset we own is a car):

- 50/50 custody of the children (at least 50%. I will need to start going into the office 3 days a week soon so it will work out well.)

- She gets the paid off car. I continue to drive the financed car and continue making the payments on it.

- House: we currently rent a house. We would both have to get our own place and pay for the rent ourselves. (ideally I would keep our current lease and keep making the rent payments.

- I continue to provide healthcare for the children through my job

- it sure what reasonable child support is or how it is calculated. I make mid-6 figures and she says that I will need to pay a lot because of this)

What she claims it will be:

- she gets sole or most custody of the kids

- she gets the car we just started financing that I pay the payments on.

- she gets at least half my net pay for child support (we have 2 children)

- she stays in our current leased home and I ck tinue tk pay 3500/mo for it plus the utilities.

- she continues to not work

I've been putting this off because she has gaslit me into thinking the latter is reality.