Can’t get over being left by DH for a younger woman

[Flowerbombs6]

Last year DH (45) ended our marriage of 20 years. He’d been having an affair with a 25 year old woman and eventually left to be with her, after a year of going behind my back. We have one child together (conceived at 38 after IVF). Throughout our marriage, DH was rarely around due to focussing on his business which required him to work at home until the early hours and go abroad often. Money was tight and I was the one financially supporting us both, along with all of the mental support DH needed to encourage him to keep going with the business through hard times. We didn’t have holidays, no fancy things, rarely any quality time together... but I supported him because I loved him.

DH’s business became very successful and financially lucrative, he’s now taken a back seat from the day to day running of the business and is effectively semi-retired. Since leaving me for his new girlfriend, they’ve been on endless luxury holidays, have a beautiful house, fancy cars and he appears to be spoiling her with high end gifts left right and centre (I know all of this because embarrassingly, I can’t help myself from stalking her public social media pages). I feel as though his new girlfriend is getting to enjoy his best years, whilst I’m left to raise our DC at home with barely enough time exercise or do anything for myself and it really hurts. I’m in my 40s, not in great shape since having DC and lost my looks years ago. Meanwhile DH has shacked up with a stunningly beautiful woman half my age who has everything I don’t and are living a life of luxury.

Today DH dropped off DC after having her for a couple of days. DC told me that Daddy’s girlfriend is beautiful like a princess and asked why I didn’t look like her and whether that was why Daddy left us. It broke my heart and I can’t stop crying. AIBU for feeling sickeningly jealous of DH’s new life and for thinking that I’m never going to get over what’s happened?

Time to find a good lawyer.

You're DH had an affair and left you a year ago and is spending a ton of money and at the same time is telling you the business is doing bad and you haven't hired a lawyer yet?

This can't be real.

It won’t be the first time the court has seen attempts to squirrel away money, they’ll know what’s going on.

I’d take advantage of the extra childcare you can now have by him doing his fair share. Use that time to focus on exercise/hobbies/whatever you like. He’s an utter shit, be glad you’re rid of him.

He is very selfish and what they have is as hollow as an easter egg. You will hopefully get recompense for your input in his success in the divorce, and can concentrate on a meaningful, authentic life.

You’ve forgotten the part where she’s young enough to be his child and he can’t even respect the mother of his child so what respect will he have for her?

The grass isn’t always greener.

Sending you hugs. This is do common some men are evil. My ex left with the ow who was 26 and he was 47 and I was 48. They are still together but now have a baby. He is now 53 and she is 32. My eldest is 17. It is embarrassing especially when he tells me how much his childcare costs are.....stupid git.

@GinDaddy

So many cliches on this thread, so much bitterness

What a fucking nasty comment, get off the thread if it offends you so much.

@GinDaddy

easy for you to say.

Have you had your entire life, from your identity to your official documentation to your address to your community to your tax code - and that isn't even starting on the pain of your children, their sense of the world being a safe place -

completely changed, without your knowledge or your consent? With no chance of negotiation?

If not, shut the fuck up. You have NO idea what you are talking about.

If you have, please tell me the magic elixir to take away the pain. [Heartbreak is physical. I really loved him. I thought he was my friend. I thought we were a team. I thought I meant something. I thought our kids meant something. Yada yada etc]

I will buy a bit of it!

He sounds boring to me. A semi retired mid life crisis victim will be very off putting in a few years for the princess. Be the queen

@ScreamingLadySutch

What you've experienced and your inner pain doesn't give you the right to tell me to shut the fuck up.

It sounds really tough OP. As hard as it is you have to try shut the door on your old life and start a new chapter for yourself.
Forget them as much as possible.
Hire a good solicitor take what you are entitled to. Your DD doesn't know any better try not to feel shit. In fact laugh it is him who will be scrambling to stay young and fit against time, he'll be conscious of the age gap, wait until someone questions him as her Dad. Have a good laugh.

PS @GinDaddy:

nobody ever gets divorced because they want to. They get divorced because they HAVE to. To stop the financial abuse, to stop the humiliation, to stop the disrespect.

Sticking your dick into a smorgasbord of new pussy? [one thing a wife can never be]

• THAT's choice!

What a cockwomble he is. I hope you find a shit hot lawyer and take him for every penny you can. I’m sure your haven’t lost your looks there are tons of fabulous looking women in their mid forties, you can be one of them! Time to focus on you and hope that karma is a bitch (or even better that the 25 year old is & he gets what is coming to him!). Good luck

OP, in addition to my earlier post and having read the subsequent ones, can I add another tip?

Don't make your next steps all about any divorce settlement. Get yourself a lawyer, get it done, but I see too many women make that the focus of their moving on. You don't want to end up like Michelle Young do you?

Build your life, get out there and earn your own money now, protect your mental and physical health, and start living.

@ScreamingLadySutch

Why am I, as a male poster, getting told in rather ribald terms, exactly why people get divorced? Sounds like you need to have that conversation with someone else.

(Or better still that she’s a perfectly lovely woman who realises what a twat he is and leaves him devastated..one or the other!)

A lot of posters rightly saying that at 40 she may well feel differently about the age gap with him, however for her, this age will actually be when he has already displayed a propensity to get a younger model and so she will (if they even last that long) be very aware that she too has an ever diminishing shelf-life (in his mind) and I think it’s equally likely he’ll discard her in the same way.

He’ll probably keep trading in for younger partners when bored (if his funds continue to enable him to do so).

SHL & Forensic Accountant. No out of court settlement. Go “grey rock” and try and take some solace that he’s just a selfish prick who will most likely do the same to her. Take what you legally deserve and enjoy spending it on yourself and your DC.

Good luck OP you can do this

At the risk of derailing this thread, I'll duck out.

Good luck OP.

"doesn't give you the right to tell me to shut the fuck up."

yes it does, IF you have not experienced what you are passing judgement on. If you have no experience of what this is like? Then shut the fuck up. Intellectualising goes right out the window when you live this abuse. Infidelity is domestic violence.

So why don't you tell us.

1. Have you experienced this from the position of 'your spouse making unilateral decisions without your knowledge or consent', yes or no.
2. If you have and you are speaking from a Zen position of grace and acceptance, how about selling us the formula.

OP - of course you feel that way, who wouldn't?
If you cannot resist looking on social media be very deliberate about it, eg - set an alarm for 20 minutes a day.

Time to move QUICKLY. Pull up your big girl knickers and fight for what is yours. You are wasting time now. Get a good legal person, a very accountant, read threads here on how to organize yourself. DO NOT TELL HIM WHAT YOU ARE DOING. But seriously, get a move on. He has told you that he will shaft you - "the business is not doing well" is a statement of intent.

@WhenOneDoorClosesAnotherOpens I wish it wasn’t real but unfortunately it is. I don’t need it pointing out to me that I’ve been stupid and should have sorted things a long time ago. Pathetically I hoped all of this was short term stupidity on DH’s part and that we’d be a happy family again. Of course I was deluded and in denial - I see that now.

I second the take him to the cleaners. Screen shot her social media as evidence of money he has when he tries to claim he's skint. Which he will.

If it goes tits up for them don't take him back.
My friend took her DH back he left again 6 month's later for the same younger woman, she said she knew he was pining for her all the time. It has really hurt her.

"Why am I, as a male poster, getting told in rather ribald terms, exactly why people get divorced? "

because you passed judgement on 'bitter and twisted'. Funny how 'a male poster' doesn't like the actual act of infidelity being described.

Infidelity is an act of aggression and contempt. To minimise and describe the trauma of abused people as 'bitter'? Yes, I will take you on, on that.

@ScreamingLadySutch

My word. I didn't realise we had to directly experience everything in life in order to pass comment on it.

I'll better park my car over a dropped kerb, go and watch Love Actually, and catch up on Madonna's family issues, just so I can comment on other AIBU threads from a place of experience, or else I'd best shut the fuck up.

It's not "intellectualism" to objectively discuss something which one may or may have not experienced. I'm not trivialising "infidelity as domestic abuse" as you so luridly put it.

How awful , like others said, let's put emotions aside and make sure you and your child get a good divorce settlement.

Good luck with the investigation, he does sound like he is playing the game since he left you, he knew this was coming - don't forget his pension, this is not something he can hide, you should have portion of it too.