Question #47: My wife has been having an affair for many months now. It came out into the open in early December. When that happened, we agreed to try and work on our relationship rather than face the alternative of divorce. During our reconciliation period, she continued to see her lover, and their love has grown stronger. She cut short our reconciliation and said she wanted a divorce. We have 2 boys, aged 8 and 5. She wants to use mediation/arbitration instead of the traditional adversarial divorce route. Continuing to today, se continues to be promiscuous. I have numerous documented occasions where she has dropped off our kids with someone else (a grandparent, a friend, me) in order to get her sexual appetite filled. Recreational drug use is well-documented on paper with her lover, even discussions of using XTC. She is using very poor judgment on a daily basis. She continues to deny her involvement with her lover, saying it is a “friend” and a platonic relationship. I have documentation that shows otherwise. She is also a recovering alcoholic, but never and not currently regularly attending AA meetings. Broken childhood home, and she has been in therapy for 15 yrs. She is now scared of losing the kids to me. I do not want to have my children feel that they are in a position where they have to choose between her or me, so mediation is a promising alternative. But I am hesitant that mediation would be slanted towards granting custody to the mother no matter what. I do not want my children put into a living situation where there are drugs present (pot & who knows what else, as my wife’s lover indulges more frequently than my wife), and I want them to be in a stable environment. In a traditional divorce, I know that it would be rough, but my evidence would prevail. I’m not so sure about mediation though. Comments? Advice?