Am I crazy !

[Herobump]

I'm going through some weird stuff & I could only ask here for some help and opinions.

DH & I know each other for 6 years, married for 3,& now expecting DC in mar '17.

Off late, he is often very sulky and depressed during late evenings and early mornings. When I pressed on what the matter was, he explained that he feels his youth is being wasted and he's not doing enough to get the best out of life.
To give you a bit of a context, we have travelled extensively as a couple, DH & I both have successful careers, and are away from our families geographically, have a good and enjoyable dance in the bed, plus we were into all sorts of activities... Hiking, meeting people, etc. We have quite similar in our tastes and thoughts, and like to have a simple life with enriching experiences.

So for the first few weeks, I ignored it hoping and thinking it to be a passing phase. This depression and moaning would started and was on and off till about two months ago.

We just got back from two weeks of vacationing overseas, & it was pretty much hell for me for most parts, with day long morning sickness and exaggerated jet lag. But throughout the trip, DH kept whining about being depressed & sulked. Once home, when I confronted and finally got to the bottom of the matter, turns out he feels he has missed out on having sex with other women in his 20s as back then he was thoroughly focused into career/work. Plus he was a shy boy. Then we met, got married, and other than one girl he dated before he hasn't been with anyone else ...other than me.

To be fair & honest, he hasn't cheated on me, and he is very openly discussing the prospects of a short-term one-sided open marriage for the lack of a better term. He has a very charming personality and easily win people over with his smile. He's not at all a Casanova, but genuinely a very nice & caring person.

I have absolutely no interest in being with any other man romantically or sexually. And I have made it very clear to him that he would have to choose either that lifestyle or a life with me. & to that he kept saying that only I am his one true love etc... And the other bits would be just be a short 'experience' for him.

But am I being crazy or controlling ? I feel horrible to see him lose his easy smile around the house, & tbh I don't want to be with someone who is unhappy coz he can't stick it into someone else. Am I being stupid in hoping this to be a passing phase ? I can't really talk about this with any family or friends...

Sorry for the long post, pregnancy hormones aren't helping in reigning in my emotions.

This is a wind up right!? Has to be. No one would even consider this as BU!!??!

What a cock!

Thank you all my lovelies. Each and everyone of your messages have made me reaffirm my beliefs and helped me gain my strength a bit more. You're right in being raged, & if I take a step back and think if I knew this someone else to be in my position and going through this scenario I would be furious.

I will be looking into relate, & see how quickly we can get an appointment and have a conversation with an unbiased voice in the room.

But more than anything, thank you guys. Sending you love and a bump hug

For now, my solace is that I know his daily routine is water tight, and he hasn't had a chance to go looking or dipping anywhere

Where there's a will, there's a way. I hated saying that

It sounds like you are hoping his water-tight routine will keep him faithful, rather than his love for you. That is no way to live.

For now, my solace is that I know his daily routine is water tight, and he hasn't had a chance to go looking or dipping anywhere.

You take that as SOLACE?

Okaaaaayyy ...

Sending you love back, Hero

Glad you've taken strength from the replies here. Never doubt yourself!

You and your child have every right to a faithful husband and father. If your DH has any sense left at all, he'll want to be that man.

my solace is that I know his daily routine is water tight, and he hasn't had a chance to go looking or dipping anywhere.

really? You know for a fact where he is 100% of the time?

I own a business with dh and can't say I know where he is 100%. I know where he should be, but how would I know if he wasn't?

And do you want to live like that? Having to know where he is to prove he hasn't cheated?

OP sounds like he has already begun to check out of your relationship and your pregnancy has brought things to a head. You may well find yourself lone parenting this baby, what a charmer he is.

I can't really talk about this with any family or friends...

Ask him what his mother would think? Ask his mother and father if this is a family tradition?

There's a saying on MN, which I think fits nicely here: when someone tells you who they are, listen.

He's telling you he wants to cheat on you. Assuming he has not already done so. I'd be getting an STI test done asap. I'm with PP who think he has someone specific in mind. So this is not a passing phase or a flight of fancy, he wants to shag someone else. And he respects your welfare and feelings so much that he's going to try to pressure you to agree, by means of the PA sulking, withdrawal of affection etc... So expect the pressure to ramp up.

What an immensely cruel thing to ask you! Selfish, selfish, selfish! This is not the action of someone who loves you, OP. Sorry!

He has a very charming personality

Sending hugs back to you OP. I've been your position (kinda) so I have an idea of what you're feeling right now

Remember: You've done nothing wrong. He's the arsehole who's trying to guilt you into forgetting your marriage vows. At a time when you're carrying his child

Get his selfish backside down to Relate. You say he is normally a kind and caring person? Well he needs to stop being unkind and uncaring right now and talk to someone about this. If he loves you he will.

I really really hope he hasn't already cheated and this is his sneaky way of "testing the water" before coming clean.

YANBU on what he is wanting but, YABVU with the use of physical violence towards him.

I think you both need outside help/counselling.

Really I would just tell him he just needs to grow up or f@@k off now and get a divorce. Hard time to have this happen, but you will be better off on your own if he's going to be like that.

If she tells him to leave for a while, an idiot like this would take it as a green light to shag the nearest passing female. He'd trot out the old, "but we were on a break," excuse.

He needs to get over himself. No, going off and shagging someone else else and leaving his pregnant wife at home is in no way right. What a prick.

Not for a 'break', for good. Maybe I'm old fashioned but if my DH said he wanted to shag someone else I would tell him Fine, go ahead, but don't come back ever.

I will be looking into relate, & see how quickly we can get an appointment

Will you?! Personally i'd be chucking his stuff onto the doorstep.

If HE organised a session of counceling to sort himself out i might agree to come along. But he wouldn't be sleeping under the same roof as me until i was convinced he'd grown up and understood it was 'one strike and you're out' with me.

I'm really sorry but I think you need to be prepared for him to leave. He's basically saying he doesn't want the responsibility. He is a child. You and your child deserve better. He will mess you about and demand your emotional time and be a pita. And then you'll have a baby and realise you don't have any time for him any more and he will leave. Sorry. But he sounds like a dick.

When you have the baby, you will be wrapped up in the experience of caring for a small needy human who needs you to keep him alive. I don't think you'll have anything left to give to someone that just adds extra stress to your order and demands the impossible from you. You might find that you feel you're better off without him. Do you even think you can respect or trust him again when he's let you down so horribly at such a crucial time? I know I couldn't.

I can't believe he's even mentioned this, pregnancy is hard enough without having a thought rattling around your head as to wether he's cheating on you! That thought is going to take over what should be the most enjoyable experience of your life. He's totally selfish in my opinion.... Show the fucker the door and tell him to fill his boots!!!

It does seem symptomatic of a very very selfish man, who may even become abusive emotionally, and once you're on ML financially so too. Please keep an eye out for more red flags.

Do not allow yourself to become financially dependent on him.

One thing that I didn't say yesterday because this made me so angry, but that I can think now with a cooler head.... is that infidelity in a happy marriage is often caused by personal crisis.

I think some men are really afraid of their own mortality... I mean we all are to an extent, but I think it can be worse for men because they are brought up thinking there is so much possibility for them, that they will be astronauts and rocket scientists and famous sportspeople (whilst us lowly women are brought up to expect domestic drudgery and not much else!). So when they realise they have cemented themselves into a more mundane reality, they suddenly lose their minds and panic, because lack of change represents death, in a way. I remember so clearly the scene from that amazing 1976 film Network - the ageing TV exec is having an affair with his much younger colleague, Faye Dunaway, and he says "I'm now closer to the end than I am to the beginning, and it scares the hell out of me" - and it seems such a clear explanation for why a happily married man will risk everything for a transient thrill - to feel "alive" and young again, to forget that his destiny is inevitable. I think some women have affairs for similar reasons too, but it's more common in men.

That doesn't mean I'm letting him off the hook. I still think he's being a snivelling bastard. But I think it means that this is less about dissatisfaction with you and much more about subconscious anxieties and fears on his part. And it might be an angle to look at when you get him to Relate and start to talk about the root of this ridiculous demand.

Hope things work out for you. Oh and don't forget to remind him that people have much shittier lives than him - those living in war torn countries and losing all their family members, suffering degenerative diseases, dying during childhood, being poor and destitute, never finding anyone to marry - I mean boohoo, so he didn't have lots of meaningless empty sexual encounters - he's still done lots of travelling, got a lovely wife, nice career, baby on the way etc - and tell him not to be such an ungrateful spoilt little shit.

I agree with the PPs who have said they'd say fine, do what you NEED to but you won't have a wife to come back to. As someone who has settled down young, with someone the same age, this is something I suppose I could worry about. But I don't. Because we discussed it and I asked if he had any regrets; what about in the future? And he said this: " I wouldn't want anything else; the life we have together is better than I ever imagined having, so no, no regrets.". I think that's what you deserve, not someone who regrets not sleeping with loads of women. With his attitude he's lucky he's got a woman at all!