Need to end this - but I'm still having doubts and my mum keeps scaring me!

[ilovehugs]

A while ago I posted on here having discovered that me DP of over 10 years had been having a serious of very sexual and personal online affairs. He exchanged personal information about our family life, our daughters medical problems, our names, photos and in the same 'breath' had online sex with them. He lied about allot of stuff which I KNOW he had done. I then also discovered he had sent a very long, sexual text to my best friend and neighbor to see if 'she thinks I would like it'. Ever since I became a SAHM I gave up my right to help with housework, cooking and cleaning not only in the weeks but at the weekend. I have supported his career by paying for training courses and the mortgage and then when we had kids, doing 100% of the childcare whilst he could choose jobs where there was a commute. He can't control his temper and a heavy smoker who refuses to give up. Ever since this happened, I am seeing events from a new perspective and starting to think he is not the 'nice guy' that I should be grateful to have. The big big problem is that I DO NOT want to have sex with him. We are good at the family stuff, but come bed time we sit downstairs with hardly anything to say to each other. He is very big on computer games and sits there allot of the night playing on his phone. He has tried very hard since I confronted him, but I just don't want him near me! I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. I do feel bad for feeling like this and if I could feel attracted to him and want him sexually, it would fix so many problems.

At night time I sleep as far away from him as possible and then feel bad about the next day as he must feel so rejected.

He is lovely with the children and they adore him. The children and their happiness means everything to me and the thought of of splitting up with him seeing less of them and potentially loosing the house etc, is just awful.

I am setting up as a child minder and looking for temporary work in the mean time, but it will take months.

In the mean time I'm living in a painful limbo.

My mum totally rejected me, as a child to some degree and totally as a teen. She made me homeless and binned my belongings when I was 18. I found the rejection heart breaking and it wasn't soon after that I met DP - who I was attracted too, not because of his appearance or our ability to understand each other - but because he was a kind person who made me feel safe.

She knows what has happened and is telling me to go to counselling because I don't feel attracted to him and I probably need counselling (I don't think I do!), that if DP felt rejected, it's no wonder he would go off and do those things, that being a single parent would be hell, what would I do if he ran off with my friend (the one he sent the text to), and that if I ended things he would have a new girlfriend straight away and I would be alone. She really does say all this!

Where do I go from here?!!!!

[ilovehugs]

I want to add that the most painful thing about his online affairs is that he was up 'doing it' the night before our daughters operation and there were messages from these women asking 'how my nerves were and how was little ***', then moments later how 'wet' he had made them with the sexual story he had sent. Sick. I have to add this because it's something I really can't accept. The night after that operation, he went down the fricking pub, because he needed to calm down. Leaving me with a grumpy 5 year old and a 3 year old who was distressed and in pain.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"I do feel bad for feeling like this and if I could feel attracted to him and want him sexually, it would fix so many problems"

What? You're describing an aggressive, ignorant, anti-social pig of a man who has betrayed your trust at the most fundamental and hurtful level possible, taken your support, your love, your hard work and your cash and spat it all back in your face. There is a queue a mile long of women that wouldn't touch a man like that with a shitty stick. What possible reason would there be for you to casually ignore all the above and screw him? All it would do is say... 'it's OK to carry on treating me like dirt".

He has rejected you and not the other way around. Of course the children love him... they know nothing of the real man and they can be just as fond of him if he lives somewhere else.

Don't listen to your mother because she's clearly of the 'lie back and think of England' variety where women put up and shut up. That's a slow death and you deserve better.

And on single-parenthood. I'm a single parent, it can be challenging at times, but when I read stories like yours I thank whatever deities are looking out for me that I have such a lovely life. Independent, happy, relaxed, not running around trying to keep some arse of a bloke happy....

[ilovehugs]

I need to grow some balls and end it. I would love to just be able to focus on the children and be independent. It's the guilt that cuts me up and all the unknowns that I am scared of.

[OrangeImperialGoldBlether]

You should not suffer the guilt. He is the guilty party. He sounds awful and I don't blame him for not wanting to be intimate with him. You can't trust him an inch - your friend, for god's sake! - and you can't trust him to be there when you really need him. No wonder you don't fancy him.

Children do adapt, they really do.

[queenofthepirates]

From a single parent, it's really not that hard. Organisation is the key but it's very liberating.

Best of luck my lovely xxx

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Unpack that a little.

Guilt.... you mean the guilt of your children not having to live with an abusive man? The guilt of not finding an abusive man sexually attractive? Its not a question of 'finding some balls' it's more about seeing the situation for what it really is - which you're finally doing - and being the most important person in your own life - which you're not doing yet.

Unknowns... the best way to tackle unknowns is to get well-informed. Ignorance is fear. Knowledge is power. What you know for definite is that, if you do nothing, your life is 100% guaranteed to be miserable. Against that terrible fate, a calculated risk has to be the better option

[Doha]

The only thing that you "fix this problem" would be for you to grow a pair of balls and leave this revoltitng man.
How you can even sleep in the same bed as him is beyond me.

Your self esteme must be in your boots if you are prepared to put up with this shite

[badtime]

I agree that some counselling would probably be helpful. It would help you understand that your 'D'P is abusive and doesn't deserve to have you. It would help you work on your self-esteem so you don't put up with so much crap from your partner or your mother.

I doubt it would help you find your partner more attractive, but it might help you understand why finding him repellent is a normal reaction to his behaviour towards you.

[ilovehugs]

Thanks for all your responses. I can't live like this anymore. I need to get a job. Any job now and just face facts.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

A job's a brilliant start. The less time you spend at home with him, the more independent you can make yourself, the better your confidence, the easier it is ultimately to step out and move onto a better life. Without wishing to sound patronising I think, given your personal issues, you're doing incredibly well to be this far along. It is obviously more daunting for you for various reasons, you're being realistic and you understand your own limitations. Take things at your own speed but, as long as you've got your eye firmly on the end destination, make sure you keep plugging away and you'll get there.

[ilovehugs]

Thanks so much for that CogitoErgoSometimes.

[Anniegetyourgun]

Wonderful father, eh? The night before his little daughter has an operation he's using her predicament as an excuse to exchange sexy messages with other women. You can blame it on men's ability to compartmentalise if you like, or his personal way of dealing with tension, but all the decent human beings I know would be too worried about their child to be thinking about online sex. They wouldn't be in that much of a hurry to leave their family to hurry down the pub, either.

He's not really kind at all, he's deeply self-centred.

I dare say from what you've said about your mother you've realised why you were a sucker from a man who can "do" kindness - he appeared to fill that howling vacuum left by a mother who doesn't give much of a shit. At least this guy cares about you and his children more than... well, more than a person who doesn't care at all. By the same token, your mother has proved she doesn't really have your welfare at heart, so you should perhaps take any "advice" from her with a pinch of salt.

[Anniegetyourgun]

a sucker for a man... oh well, you know what I mean.