AIBU to think that just leaving is no better than cheating?

[Camille99]

My husband left 2 years ago. He just told me he was leaving with no warning. He said he still loved me but wasn't in love with me. We were married for 7 years and have 2 children. He maintains he is a great guy because he left and didn't cheat. He left because he talked to a woman he liked on a night out. A week later he was with her. He actually thinks he's a nice guy and one of the good ones because he left instead of cheating. Like it doesn't cross his mind that he could have not left and forgotten about her and maintained our great family lives. He has even got a tattoo now of a wolf and below it it says "loyalty". You couldn't make it up.

He didn’t cheat if he didn’t have a relationship with her. Yes he might have realised he’d be happier with someone else and then left his spouse and then told the other person. Thats not cheating. Sometimes people fall in love with someone when they are in a relationship - it happens and it can wake people up to how unhappy they are. If they end their current relationship before starting the new one that isn’t cheating and is surely better than going behind the existing partner’s back.

My exh maintained it was a total surprise when I finally left after some years of us both being unhappy. Anyone else could see it coming a mile off.
Sometimes you can't see what's right in front of your face.

Hope you're in a better place now.

There’s a nuance here though. It depends why someone is giving you the ick - are they thoroughly selfish? Abusive? Not willing to work on the marriage? Then yes, I cannot see any road forward. However, what the op describes is a basically normal, albeit flat, marriage which probably needed some life breathing into it. I don’t mean extremes of 1940s staying together no matter what, but I also don’t believe in todays societal message of “if it ain’t doing it for you anymore, scrap it and move on” otherwise why bother getting married?

I think his tattoo must be ironic. How the fuck did he show any loyalty to his family? Loyalty means sticking together not running off with a random woman at the bar.

How have you managed to contradict yourself within the same shitty post? Jesus Christ. Very definition of delusional there. Seek help.

As you admit - he can decide the relationship isn’t right for him and leave…which he did.

It doesn't matter what you or I mean, does it?

What matters is what the OP said.

"He said he still loved me but wasn't in love with me."

Having to go through a long marriage with someone you're no longer in love with, rarely ends well (as I said in my previous post).

'Staying together for the sake of the children', isn't always the right thing to do.

What matters is the co-parenting relationship from the time of the split.

I think everyone's interpretation of his behaviour is based on their own relationships. For me a lot depends on whether he had 'fallen out of love' BEFORE seeing the other woman or whether meeting someone new caused him to decide that he had fallen out of love.

My XH was happily (as far as we were both concerned, and yes, we talked about it) married to me until he met a woman he decided was more to his tastes and left me. Unfortunately for him, she didn't feel the same way and he ended our marriage not even to move on to a woman he felt he would be happier with, but to live alone.

So my view of OPs post is that it's unlikely her DH met, fell for and decided to be with the OW in the space of a week, but if he did then he has been extremely, almost supernaturally, lucky that she felt the same way...

Yea she didn't. He's single and alone now and telling me he didn't really behave that badly because he left instead of cheating. And now making it as difficult as possible to divorce.

I hate to say it but nobody can ever fully know another person. A person can tell you anything they want at all and not mean a word. Chances are, he was struggling with the relationship for some time but hiding it well. Or he did give some signs he was unhappy but wasn’t explicit enough.

It doesn’t matter, he met someone else and felt like that was his way out. I think people are mostly peeved here (including OP perhaps) because he met someone in a bar and decided to leave. Would it be better if he’d met someone at work, fallen for them over a matter of months, perhaps even had an EA and then left?

I actually think the way he did it would make it easier for most people to handle because he wasn’t deceptive for months or years.

I thought from your OP that he ended up with her! Well, he's now reaping what he has sown isn't he?

Touche. Not sure how you came to the conclusion that I contradicted myself but you carry on in your own little world

Exactly this

This!!