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?

@Flowerbombs6, you will get over what happened but it will take some time. It's a whole process of accessing and consolidating your feelings which may make you feel like you're losing the plot. Jealousy, anger, disappointment, betrayal, humiliation, sadness will rear up and bite you. It is a form of grief. Are you able to get some counselling to help you?

Taking control and sorting out the divorce may help to distract you when it gets too painful. Also exercise as others have suggested. Start taking care of and being kind to yourself. It's easy to be young like the other woman. We have all had the benefits of youthfulness. It takes courage, resilience and integrity to pick yourself up and move on when you're older.

My ex husband 'bagged' a younger woman when we split up and I can understand the temptation to compare yourself but that way misery lies. I chose distain and ridicule as my weapons of choice.

My ex 'dad dancing' at music festivals dressed like something out of the matrix still makes me chuckle and I am sure he has no concept of how idiotic and cringe he looks. I wouldn't go back there, ever.

Hi op
Be kind to yourself and stop looking at her on social media.
Get a very good solicitor and get everything you can.
Think of what he is doing here,he is a middle aged man desperately trying to hold on to a much younger than him,beautiful(you say) woman who could well be after him for all that he provides.He probably knows if he lost the money she would be gone.....If this is the case,he won't be happy will he?he will be trying to look young and fit ,trying to mix with her friends ....instead of being able to relax and be himself with the fantastic wife he had for so many years.
So let him crack on op,he will get what's coming to him.
In the meantime,start looking after yourself,get your hair done,but new clothes,have a weekend away,join some clubs,concentrate on what you want now.
Enjoy the freedom to do what you want,look at this time as a period of beginning a new life,shut the door on him and her.
for you,nd a hand hold.life will get better.

@GinDaddy, just for you:

"I’d like to take this moment to ask chumps about [the day their worlds fell apart]. Folks, when you discovered you’d been betrayed, and the bottom fell out of your world, your marriage was at an all-time low, and you were nearly paralyzed with depression — was your first response to go fuck another person?

No? But you had EVERY EXCUSE! Clearly your spouse didn’t love you! You were depressed! Your marriage SUCKED!

But you didn’t blow your boss, did you? No, you danced furiously to save your marriage, didn’t you? You booked those shrink appointments and bought 50 infidelity books on Amazon. You asked yourself what you did to be so unlovable and how you could change.

Now then, cheaters — let’s say for the sake of argument — were confronted with the same stressors: depression, lack of love, sucky marriage — so why didn’t THEY dance furiously, book shrink appointments, and ask themselves how they could change?

Character.

This is fucking common sense, therapists! I’ll say it again — we don’t MAKE people hurt us.

You no more made someone cheat on you than you made them shove your head through a plate-glass window. I’m sorry, you were irritating me with your Donald Trump memes… I had to hit you. Look, you might seriously be irritating. You did NOT make that person HIT you. They CHOSE to hit you. That was their crappy response to perceived irritation. Should you stop sending Donald Trump memes? Perhaps you should. BUT THAT WON’T PROTECT YOU FROM BEING HIT. Next it will be the way you cook oatmeal, or part your hair, or parent your children. Until the abuser’s ENTITLEMENT to hit (cheat) is addressed, the “provocations” are moving goal posts.

Here’s an example of this horse shit someone sent me this morning, from “AH Resources.”

"Perhaps one of your greatest challenges in the recovery process will be accepting your own responsibility for the past condition of your marriage. I am in no way suggesting that the affair was your fault. It wasn’t. However, if you hope to enjoy a restored (and, perhaps, improved) intimate connection with your spouse, you will need to recognize your own missteps in the dance of your marriage."

The affair isn’t your fault, except that it is. We only ask people to “accept responsibility” for things that ARE THEIR FAULT. Otherwise, why mention it?
...

[This is a] public service announcement. We Don’t Make People Cheat On Us. It’s on THEM.

• Tracy Schorn

I think you are right, @GinDaddy: "Maybe he knows this already, maybe he's being reckless and just out for what he can get while he can, and doesn't want an ersatz wife or replacement partner."

I honestly think you are correct. But WHAT makes a man trash their families, for so little? This is something that is inexplicable to us!

Maybe, the answer lies in what Lord Byron said: Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
’Tis woman’s whole existence;

What do you think? I think this might be a gender issue because I can't imagine anything more important than family and friends. My brain circuitry just does not exist for anything that might jeopardise that. Maybe, for wives, the family is their main investment, for SAHM their whole investment.

For men, what does family represent? WHY would a man threaten that because he temporarily cannot stand the stresses, the way you allude to? [and I think you are right on]

@Flowerbombs how are you feeling today?

Umm

@ScreamingLadySutch

I think you're spot on with the Byron quote, and that many women value family as the thing itself, the most important thing.

So many men are insecure, and value themselves through the transaction of their ability to attract another woman. They will jeopardise so much for it, without thinking clearly. They may experience regrets once outside the family home, but by then it's too late.

Op, you sound hellish calm for someone in troubled waters.

What Buzz and Woody said

@ScreamingLadySutch excellent post. I am going through something similar - I didn’t realise the huge losses involved, of identity etc. Even wearing jewellery I loved! My wedding rings are confined to a drawer....

@Flowerbombs6 some excellent advice. But I also think some pp saying he will be unhappy and this new relationship is doomed is not helpful. In my case as hurtful as it is the reality is my husband was happier with someone else. Their life together was better than ours for him.
But if that can be true for them, why not you? I think the key is to accept he’s moved on and focus on making sure you create the best possible fulfilled life for you. It might be better than you have ever known? Excellent, kind, caring, advice above on how to do this. And never a better time. What more have you got to lose? Good luck x

@whogoncheckmeBoo post is why I still bother with mumsnet.

I think accepting the reality of it takes as long as it takes. It can't be rushed.

The enormity of it keeps on hitting you over the subsequent years. For example, two-thirds of my name is due to xh - Mrs and my surname. His name obviously didn't change at all. It's all extra heartache (and can make you an even bigger feminist!)

Don't rush it, I'd say. Find people who validate your pain and take your time. Then the bouncing back/re-finding yourself will be built on the sturdiest foundations.

I like Dorothy Parker's take on it:

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?

What a little trollop she is hooking up with a married man and a young daughter. And what a complete pig he is. I hope you take him to the cleaners in the divorce, he deserves it. Like others have said treat yourself to some pampering and a new wardrobe. It'll make you feel better. I very much doubt they will last long so you'll have the last laugh don't worry. I hope 2020 is a better year for you OP xxx

cliches.. AND projection everywhere

How are you op?

It's an old story and at some point she will announce her pregnancy and then the glamour will wear off as he has to pay for 2 children, the latest being v.expensive with divorce costs, decorating, is Andy pram etc