...to want to smash up a toy from woman DH had affair with?

[scarecrow22]

I met DH in 2000 and we married in 2004. In 2006 I was signed off work with depression, a problem I’d coped with for many years.

In 2007 DH woke me up one night to say he couldn’t sleep because he felt so guilty he had had an affair with a colleague - and somebody I thought I’d shown friendship to. Let’s call her G. DH said he’d felt very lonely living with somebody who was depressed and always stressed and upset about work (where I was being bullied), and that G had been a really good friend, had been a listening ear and somebody he could share his stresses with. But it went too far. He told me he had told her he loved her and was going to leave me for her. I agreed to “forgive” him, but he kept trying to see her (platonically, so to speak), using greater and greater subterfuge.

The following year we had a child, DD (now just ten!) and things calmed down. G gave DD a gift of a small Playmobil racing car with driver, she got another boyfriend, had a son, then moved away.

I’m just clearing out DS’s toys and he too has grown out of the car, so it should be in the charity bag. But a couple of years ago, for work, DH went to the city where G lives, and saw her two nights in a row. He told me he wouldn’t and he hadn’t, but it cropped up in an email by accident. One evening was a social, another he visited her and her son, alone in their home.

Now I just want DC to go back to school, to put the car and blameless driver on the back patio, get a mallet from the shed, and smash them to smitherines. And then smash the smitherines.

I can see how this is really anger with my marriage, but AIBU or childish?

Your H is the problem here. I cannot believe how he has behaved over the years.

Hope it's not his child over with the Other Woman OP 😬

@LEELULUMPKIN

Donate it to charity OP. I get how you feel but make a good thing happen from a shitty situation.

This

How will smashing up a car help?

Sounds very cathartic. I highly recommend smashing up things from toxic relationships as a way to release emotion.

I also recommend you talk to a good therapist/ counsellor about your situation, to try and work through some of those horrible experiences you have had (and are still having) with your husband.

This really is one of the few threads where I would say LTB

You sound like really hard work. His cheating was in the past. Of course he lied. Cheats ususllh do. But all this angst over a toy car. I don't get it.

Is that all you want to do?

He's still seeing his affair partner.

He's still lying to you.

He doesn't care about his dishonesty.

So I think it's more than the car you need to break up.

Smash your husband. With the car. 10 years ago.

You really need to leave him for the sake of your mental health.

I’m guessing he’s controlling and gaslighting in other areas?

@AnyFucker

He went to visit this woman and her son for 2 days ?

Is the child his ?

I was thinking the same....

I can’t believe he met up with her. He’s so disrespectful to you.
Smash up the car in front of your h and put it in the bin, along with him. Pair of cunts!

I'm almost willing to bet my house that he has had subsequent affairs, and that he slept with her when he met up with her alone.

Why would you stay with him, and then have kids with him. You get one life and you've chosen to spend it with this man? Ok.

A kid’s toy is the least of your problems, but as that’s what you’ve asked about just sling it in the bin.
Do it now and then start a new thread asking how to deal with your ‘DH’.
We’re lining up with advice.

@AnyFucker

He went to visit this woman and her son for 2 days ?

Is the child his ?

My first thought too. Sorry op but he has done a number on you and the car is the least if your problems. Give it away to charity then decide how you challenge him.

I'm confused.

Why did you keep the toy?
Why are you with him still?
Why is he still with you?

I think your mental health would improve massively if he wasn’t around. Is the child his? He’s still seeing her isn’t he.

Your OP tells a fairly straightforward, if sad and disappointing story. Your subsequent posts offer glimpses into some quite disturbing depths.

When I was younger and people talked of couples staying together for the children, I assumed they meant to protect the children. That is clearly a colossal factor.

Really interesting. I don't think I'm that sheltered and naive but I had always assumed it meant 'to present a united front and provide a sense of 'normal family life' for the children.' It is only after spending some time reading the relationships board here, that I've understood that some women stay with an abusive man in order to protect the DC from having to spend time with them alone.

That you should start with the idea of protection seems telling - of what, your childhood? Of his behaviour earlier in your relationship and ongoing?

Then: I had a breakdown in 2016 and was in various psychiatric hospitals for six months, in no small part due to some horrors of living with him.

Is 'horrors' a dramatic turn of phrase, or an expression of the hideousness of living with a liar, as already described? Taken at face value, you're telling us that he is abusive towards you and that this caused you to have a breakdown.

Please give the car to charity. I will leave others to comment on the main matter.

What is with all the "give it to charity"? Charities don't need a shitty little decade old toy car. The very abused OP feels a need to smash it. Her need trumps...giving unwanted trash to a charity.

If you need to smash it OP, smash it.

Yes, the sanctimonious 'give it to charity' posts can stop right there. It's a crappy old toy car holding only symbolic value and only to OP.

@Frouby

I'd smash the car up while it was tethered to your dhs bollocks tbh.

I’ll second this.

@scarecrow22 I’m sorry you’ve had such rough time. Take care of yourself
Your husband has treated you appallingly that cannot be undone. You must prioritise yourself and your son
I wish you well

The toy would have been (discreetly) been got rid of a long time ago. Feel free to smash it up.

Fuck sake, we only get one chance at life. You really want to spend it with this lying, cheating piece of shit?!

This thread has not only angered me, but made me feel insanely sad for what you’ve put up with for over a decade.

Take your H out back and give him the sledgehammer treatment.

The toy isn't the problem.

You may find that your MH issues improve if you can get past the worry about missing the DC every other weekend, though this exercise is incredibly stressful in itself.

I would suspect the child is his and that he and the OW have carried on for years, hence the horror he put you through. It's so much easier to silence your conscience and carry on an affair when you create a narrative in which your wife stars as an adversary and therefore deserves the shitty treatment you mete out to her.