JUST BRENDA: My husband is a serial cheater but a great provider, help!

Hi Brenda,

I’ve been married for slightly over ten years and when we started out, my husband had nothing to his name. Things improved financially over the years and he provides for me and our four children to the point of spoiling us but he is also a serial cheater. I have evidence for some of his trysts and some evidence is just intuitional. As a woman, you always know when something is not right. His friends have also seen him with different women but he has never admitted to it. I have now taken to avoiding friends who know his cheating ways. I have a job and could move out but it would mean a lower standard of life for my children. I have been thinking on just leaving then dropping by once in a while to check on them. Help me think this through, please.

I'm so sorry for this idiot you have to put up with. That being said, it doesn't sound like cheating is what is going to end your marriage, seeing as you've known about it for this long and are even willing to cut off your friends – your support system – to continue in this quagmire of potential STDs.

Your friends are the ones who would help you pay your rent if you ever did leave, and yet, here you are, burning the bridges.

Listen, either you leave and start out life on your own with your kids, in which case you will need to file for alimony so you can maintain the kids in a manner they're accustomed to, in which case you need to find proof of his infidelity for the court so that you're not the one paying for his transgressions, yes?

Or, stay, and button down as you gradually become more and more unhappy with the knowledge of what he's doing and you snap, setting the house on fire with him inside and no plan.

Either way, you need a plan to leave or a plan to find sanity before you kill someone.

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