To feel repulsed by DH sometimes..

[Fedups]

Feeling so down about this today..and DH has just stormed off refusing to speak, as he always does. I honestly need some perspective on this, so thank you for reading if you do.
DH has always had a problem with initiative, probably due to growing up with an overbearing controlling mother. He can be sweet & kind and loving, but often lacks such basic drive, it’s been like living with a child sometimes. 3 years ago, I discovered he had been having an affair with a young girl at work, and had been lying to me for 18 months. It tore our family apart, but I managed to keep things together, and for the sake of our young family, gave it another chance. For a time things were great, he seemed interested and motivated by us. And being with us. However, since then, his motivation for anything..has simply disappeared. He takes no interest in himself, has developed a huge paunch. Can’t stand up easily, or bend down to pick things up, because he has got that big.
He eats everything & anything, including tubs of clotted cream..’because he can’..and if I comment, he just eats more.
His dental hygiene has become appalling..which really hurts, as he always had a fresh bottle of lusterine on the go, when he was seeing this girl. His breath is sometimes so repulsive, I can smell it from feet away. But he says he doesn’t care.
As well as this, he has taken to not bothering to shower on the weekends..which I just don’t understand. He really cannot be bothered..and seemingly can’t be bothered about me, or what I think. This morning at breakfast, I could smell BO, and he claims he was simply too busy to shower yesterday. At home all day in the garden, on the hottest day of the year..but he was just too busy to shower.
I’ve finally snapped, and commented that he used to shower twice a day for this girl. In fact he used to make more of an effort with everything. Does he not see how it might seem to me? I look after myself. I am 50, and am slim and still considered young & pretty for my age. I feel like I am wasted on this man sometimes. I can’t feel anything towards somebody who has so much apathy towards themselves, or me!
I’ve tried not saying anything for months, to trying to talk about it gently and openly...but he never responds. He just makes some derogatory ‘yes dear’ comment..and walks away. I honestly don’t know what to do. But it is making me feel so lost & low.
Am I being unreasonable in wishing he would look after himself more? Or am I right to think that a man who truly cared what his partner thought, would take some pride in with his hygiene and his appearance.
I know this all might seem ridiculously over sensitive and inane, but thank you for reading

I'm really sorry to read your last post, OP. It sounds as if you spent a lot of time composing it to be a bit amusing... but it isn't.

I'm sorry for you, that this is what you think is all that you are able to have. This won't be the last time because you've set your bar a little lower now.

Good luck, you'll need it. Please at least start protecting your assets now for if and when you have to leave.

he doesn't clean his teeth or wash. Bella chuck him. If he can't do that, then that's grounds for divorce. You do deserve more. What a rotter.

What is that phrase used a lot in Mumsnet Relationships threads?

‘If somebody tells you who they are, listen.’

Not ‘If somebody tells you who they are, keep making excuses and only blame others.’

Obviously it is easier to type this advice from behind a keyboard than to actually be the one who has to do something about it. But it is frequently quoted for a reason.

OP, until your latest update, I had all the sympathy in the world for having to put up with Stinkerbelle. But I fecking loathe it when women paint the OW as the man-eating Salome and minimise their own husbands’ involvement or in your case, paint him like a blithering feeble idiot with zero backbone. Maybe you do keep his balls in a jar somewhere.

You do need to think on what people have said. It really isn't just the OW's fault, the man is more culpable because he's the one who's made his commitment to his wife and children.

Do think about it. You deserve more and better, really you do.

Too preoccupied with your children? You mean doing the exact right thing and looking after the children you both should have been besotted with, while he was out getting his end away. Sorry I mean being seduced by the evil temptress

I know that hastily written on the train post must have seemed quite delusional, I’m sorry, it wasn’t intended to come across like that, and I certainly hadn’t tried to make it amusing either.
Of course I know he is more than equally to blame in all this, but I also know a lot about this woman, from people who had also worked with her, and it is fair to say she really didn’t hold back with her pursuit. Of course that made me feel anger towards her, but that certainly doesn’t mean I didn’t feel anger towards him too! And still do..when I allow myself to dwell on it. But anger is such a futile emotion, so I tried to park that as early in the process as I could. Sad and pathetic as it must seem to some, I couldn’t bear to have our family broken. It’s as simple as that. That’s why I carried on. And that’s why I still looked for reasons to somehow ‘accept’ what happened. Sadly, that seems to have become all the more impossible. I do know that, I know what so many of you are saying is right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to do.

You only hear what you want to hear

You only see what you want to see

You only believe what you want to believe

These are the facts of life

Op, your last post is an absolute masterclass in shifting blame everywhere except where it really lies

As always AF nails it.

Fedups... This woman could have shimmied her way towards him, naked, sat on his lap with her arms flung around his neck - and if he were faithful, it would have had no effect on him, He would have pushed her off and that would have been that.

He didn't say no because he didn't want to. He wanted this woman so he had her.

If you don't change your way of thinking, he will do this to you again, and so will the next one and the next... because for you, the pain of break-up is something you don't want to go through. Don't kid yourself that you're doing it 'for the kids', please. You're doing it for you, you want him, in spite of everything.

Start being honest with yourself at least then you can stop 'presenting' the story that you think other people want to hear. Do that for you.

Nag - constant repetition of an unpleasant truth

A definition I'm content with!

Don’t you ever feel tempted to move on so you can meet someone else? I promise you that once you get him out and have some time to recover, you’ll never look back. Don’t waste any more of your relatively young years on this man. It was his fault, not yours and not all the OW.

anger is such a futile emotion

Sometimes it is. And being a slave to anger can make us do very stupid things. But sometimes it is useful, driving us to defend ourselves and what is important to us, or to make changes when situations become intolerable.

Fast forward a few months, and this young lady marches into DH’s life, and not being a man to ever take initiative, every other person in the organisation, knew of her intentions for him, before he even had a clue himself. Low cut tops, short skirts...and a flirtatious floor show, were the order of his working day. So having engineered a trip away with his team, the inevitable happened. And then he couldn’t say no. In fact he can never say no. He has only ever been conditioned to say yes. Which in itself is a bugbear, as he ends up letting people down, by saying yes to things he really can’t deliver. So he plodded along keeping the nymphette sweet...and lets just say her bedroom demands, were more than he’d ever imagine were womanly possible.

Jesus. I'm assuming from this post that these passages are the exact same stories you've told yourself over and over again to explain and justify how you are still with this man.

He fucked her because he found her attractive and wanted to and didn't believe his marriage to you should stand in his way.

Women, even young and beautiful women, aren't magicians. We simply aren't capable of forcing someone to have an affair, relationship, or sex with us unless they agree to it too.

He can't say no, conditioned to always say yes... unless it's to his wife. Making a very simple demand she'd make of a lodger, let alone a husband, to be basically hygienic. Why are you the only person in his life he can manage to say no to? Either that or he actually can say no to whatever he wants to, and chooses not to.

I am sad for you OP. I find it hard to believe a young attractive woman in her twenties found your overweight, dirty, unhygienic husband and father so irresistible that on her first day in a new job she clocked him and made it her goal to pursue and ensnare him. Your husband had a massive part in this. He could have stopped it at any time.

for your own sanity you need to leave. Whether it's now or after another miserable few years recoiling from his foul breath and gagging at his unwashed body odour. It's up to you.

It saddens me as I know so, so many wonderful men who I knew and worked with all throughout my late teens and the whole of my twenties, who were absolute gentlemen and clearly adored their wives. Who never once flirted or treated me as anything other than a colleague. Two or three became friends through work and then outside of work and led to lasting friendships involving partners and spouses on both sides. And I used to think, when I get older and meet someone seriously, that's exactly the type of guy I want to be with. One who sees young women around him as equals, not receptacles for his fantasies. Who could have a naive teenager at hand to manipulate into a sordid affair if they wanted to, but just wouldn't dream of debasing themselves like that.

Threads like this always make me think back fondly of all of those people who taught me about men and work relationships and friendships growing up (as well as just as many women!).

It's sad that so many posters advocate LTB, rather than suggest couples therapy/ counselling. There's been betrayal, loss of child and friends, all traumatic yet no one seems to recognise that all this needs working through. The end result may well be that they do split, but at least the traumas will have been dealt with and OP can move on with a clearer mind, to start again.

anger is such a futile emotion, so I tried to park that as early in the process as I could.

I'm with Tangerine on this one. Prolonged anger can be futile and destructive, yes. But don't deny your anger. Hold it. Examine it. Ask it where it came from and what its purpose is. As women we're so often told that anger and aggression aren't suitable emotions for us, that they're not really who we are.

But you know what? Sometimes anger is fucking appropriate, and it is us. Would a man in that situation be thinking that anger was a futile emotion? Heck, he probably wouldn't even label it as anger but just as assertiveness.

Next time you're angry OP, use it. I don't mean be violent. But for goodness sake use the energy you get from being angry. Use it to bolster your self esteem. Your anger is telling you you're worth more than this, and its right.

I'm not going to say LTB. I'm not going to say he's completely useless. But I will say listen more to your instincts and use your anger to stop being quite so afraid of what might happen without him.

leggere I'm assuming that you haven't read the OP's posts because there is clear evidence in there - from her - that this man wouldn't engage in counselling. 'Clams up' being a useful indicator of that.

Counselling is only possible when the people attending commit to it. He wouldn't even go to a hygienist appointment for this wife's sake.

Your family is already broken as you have a non functioning part to it - your husband. Initiating divorce would be fixing it - think of it as removing a stinky smelly lying growth from your life.

The thing is I reckon that once he has to support himself he will be a more competent parent and co-parent than at the moment where now he is just a leech. To fix your broken family you'll need to seize the initiative and see where you stand divorce wise.

and lets just say her bedroom demands, were more than he’d ever imagine were womanly possible

How do you know this??

LyingWitch, can't see anywhere where dh has refused counselling, just reluctant to talk to op, storms off, etc? As I said, therapy can also assist op in breaking up (even if attending alone). But hey ho, LTB, and take all the old baggage into a new life, new relationships (as so many people do, hence the bitterness on this thread)

The only baggage, leggere would be the OP's husband and, if she did LTB she'd hardly be carting him/it into a new relationship.

Still, if you would be comfortable with your tolerance bar being so low as to put up with this yourself, crack on. I wouldn't.

My first ever ltb

I don't think I'm explaining very well LyingWitch. By baggage (for want of a better word), l mean the hurt from the affair, the trauma of child loss and loss of close friends, the way he's acting now, etc. It may be better to deal with the feelings from all that whilst breaking up or moving on? It helped me to break from ex and start afresh when I was at that stage of "should I go or should I stay?"

WalkingOnAFlashlightBeam what a lovely post re: the older men you worked with - sadly that was only a tiny tiny proportion of my experience and I so wish I'd seen more of it as a young woman - it would help me so much now as I try to negotiate new relationships and realise I don't really know what good ones look like very much. I think that kind of experience you're describing is really valuable.