Caught wife having multiple affairs ... divorcing ... how should I feel?

[Dispare]

Wife and I have been together a decade, married over half, two young children. We're on our second home, bought predominantly with my parents money. I supported her through her countless career choices (4+), staying in an awful job that destroyed my mental health to keep the bills paid until she finally settled and started a successful business she's now only really used to enrich herself (new car, cosmetic surgery, clothing, holidays £60k+ spent in one year).

Then I stumble upon social media messages from a guy, she was desperate to meet up after a girls night, there was even planning to meet for a getaway during a work trip.

I confront, devastated. I finally get her to admit to she saw him on a trip to London and she claims she just made out. We argue, she wants to separate. I stupidly convince her to stay. We lay out new rules, we address my issues, At this time I didn't recognize I was severely depressed/bipolar. She finds my bad episodes an affront to her and so I try my best to remain good.

5 months of me trying my best, and even acknowledged my her how good I am. I stumble upon more social media messages to another man, sharing photos, flirting, I confront her immediately and she deletes before I can read any more. All just before Christmas. Queue confrontation, and finally she doesn't agree to amend and we initiate a trial separation. I beg her to focus on herself and our future, she agrees to cut contact with his man for the trial (lasts a week), things degrade post Christmas, she then acknowledges she's meeting this guy. I ask for ground rules, she insists with disgust on her face that there will be no sex. I find out when she said that too my face she was already sleeping with him. She only admits this when irrefutable evidence exposed her straight face lies. Her lie was so convincing, until she couldn't hide it. It made me realize everything she has ever told me could be a lie.

My love, life and world is firmly destroyed. I put the formal divorce application in and contact a solicitor. She tried to move out into a rental, but screwed up by over asking, now she's secured a house purchase near by but remains in the family home spare room.

She insists she never cheated. After pointing out the plain facts, she then insists I drove her to cheat (but it's not cheating) for been a horrible husband. I point out I have never abused her, I have never hit her, I have never cheated, I never scream at her, we share house chores (yet I do all the garden work, DIY, maintenance, manage all the bills which she never acknowledges), we look after the kids equally, I've been a great father.

What made me a horrible husband was something would trigger an argument, and rather than try to talk it out, she would berate me, blame me and turn it into a fight, I would shutdown. She called it the silent treatment. Looking back this was my depression taking hold and just shutting me down. I didn't know this was happening, I just wanted to not be blamed for everything and not argue.

This was formal abuse in her mind and made it justified for sleeping around, lying to my face for years and then leaving me, taking a significant part of my pension, a large chunk of my parents gifted deposit and half my kids lives from me.

I now hang onto my sanity by a literal thread. Suicide hasn't crossed my mind, but the reasons against it have evaporated. Disappearing, leaving the country and just running away is damn enticing. I'm trying therapy, I've tried anti-depressants. But I look at my future, my children's broken home and just despair. How can I trust anyone ever again. Every time I see my children and I feel like I failed them and now I will lose them. When I sit with them I see them as a permanent connection to the person that has commit the most heinous evil act against me. A person who I bent over backwards for, erased my own identify for, supported and built an incredible life with ... just burnt to the ground because I tortured her once every 3-6 months with ... silent treatment? I know my communication wasn't brilliant, I know I made mistakes, but she can never point to a single thing that was truly heinous.

How do you move on from this? How should I feel? Am I really the bad person here? She is convinced I am. But my whole world is shattered and I don't know up from down anymore.

"What made me a horrible husband was something would trigger an argument, and rather than try to talk it out, she would berate me, blame me and turn it into a fight, I would shutdown. She called it the silent treatment. Looking back this was my depression taking hold and just shutting me down. I didn't know this was happening, I just wanted to not be blamed for everything and not argue."

Your wife has employed a classic narcissistic technique namely saying your at fault rather than your argument. Same with the depression. By any chance did she tell you this or persuade you? Red flags galore.

I hope you are okay. Her blame is to make her the good guy. It’s a boring yet predictable narrative.
I recommend you go onto the surviving infidelity website and spend a good few hours reading and watching the videos. I know you are not looking at getting back together but the material will help you make sense of something that will never truely make sense.

Use this time, when you feel terrible to work on yourself. Write a journal. Write letters and burn rather than send to them. Work out how you can improve your communication style for you.

I wish you all the best.

Your world isn't ruined. You will feel better (eventually) without this chaos in your life.

Are you still living with her? You need to move out and make a plan. Get proactive.

There's no reason you won't see your kids, 50/50 is a good starting point. See a solicitor, find out what's possible. Maybe start looking into mediation.

You aren't a horrible person just because your wife fell out of love with you. Stop looking for reasons why, it's happened. Maybe look into counselling to deal with everything turning over in your head.

And stop focusing on money. Noone comes out of a divorce better off, she will have her grounds for feeling hard done by too I'm sure. Focusing on that will make you feel even more bitter and no good can come of it.

Also google PISD - it’s a bit like PTSD.

If you have had undiagnosed and untreated Bipolar disorder then I severely doubt that you have been as easy and wonderful as you suggest to live with, severely depressed people are not easy to be around even if it is entirely not their fault. These 'bad episodes' - just how long did you ignore her and refuse to engage? Are we talking 10 minutes or 3 days? Ignoring someone is a form of emotional abuse. I can't imagine she's losing the plot because you go quiet for a little bit in an argument and I can't imagine this is the only difficult/unreasonable behaviour if you've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and severe depression. What led to you being diagnosed?

It sounds like you never liked her very much from your first paragraph and just felt like she was taking advantage of you - and why would you erase your own identity for anyone? that doesn't sound normal at all. She clearly equally doesn't like you anymore if she's sleeping with other people. There's no point spending your time trying to work out exactly who's to blame - where is that going to get you? Concentrate on getting yourself into a healthy, positive place, make sure your bipolar disorder is well managed with meds and therapy- are you on mood stabilisers? concentrate on your kids futures and don't worry about whether you'll ever trust anyone else.

I would also read up on covert Narcistic Personality Disorder, the way you talk doesn't sound like someone severely depressed to me. Severely depressed people don't tend to say what a fantastic parent they are or say they'd built an incredible life with/for someone (but maybe that's because your depression is under control right now). You do however sound one hell of a lot like my DH who ticks every box for covert NPD. The erasing your personality for her particularly rings a bell as people with NPD are complete chameleons trying to be what they think people want and not really knowing who they are.

Well she's a classic narcissist isn't she? Behaves awfully then somehow finds a way to make it your fault and absolve herself of all guilt.
Tells elaborate lies and loses it when called out.

Were I you I would get legal advice very quickly and get the financial and child Arrangements agreed and made iron clad as fast as possible.

The more time you give her to start using the kids as weapons/collateral, which she will very likely do next, (probably accusing you of being abusive somewhere along the line to get what she wants) then the worse it will be for you.

I've seen this with Dh's ex wife and its still ongoing years later. With my two step children getting stuck in the middle of all her behaviours and in turn getting royally screwed up.

I know you will still be deeply hurt and low and it's the last thing you feel like doing but I wouldn't hang about and give her time to mess you up any further.

Don't engage with her more than is necessary. Ignore all her nastiness. There is no winning an argument with these people so don't even waste your energy.

Good luck

Sorry to hear. I think you will feel much better when she moves out.
Have you had any counselling? It can help you process and reframe everything so it doesn't hurt so much. I would recommend

Relieved

There’s a fair few responses from arm chair psychologists and psychiatrists so far.
ignore them, some may be right but since we only have one version of events perceived through the eyes of another person , no one can be sure.

Your marriage has unfortunately broken down. It is highly unlikely to be all the fault of just one partner- the law change to divorce introduced last year recognises this by don’t away with the whole concept of blame . You can now only divorce for the permanent break down of your marriage - and blame has no part in the agreements you make and court seals with respect to finances or children ( children in exceptional circumstances, then yes). In other words, who did what, where and why has no part to play whatsoever on the divorce proceedings. That only looks at the future outcomes.

To get through the divorce id strongly advise you to try to park your emotions out of any interactions now. I know that is hard, I divorced under unreasonable behaviour blame due to my ex behaviour in 2021, it was incredibly hard not to be angry at him, but you need to understand that all that will do is prolong the divorce proceedings, leading to elongated stress for you, and run up more solicitor bills. Solicitors cost £200 plus per hour,so every minute they’re even thinking about your situation, or responding to your vents, questions etc you be charged over £3. If you can , do it as amicably as possible.

part of that is accepting you’ll be worse off. Everyone is in divorce. Use the ADVICE NOW links in the header of divorce board by mumsnet and download relevant guides. They’ll explain the process, how finance settlements are made, the rules concerning “ fair settlement “, what you should use solicitor for, what you might, and what you don’t need solicitor for. Yep, they cost about £20 each, but that’s like 7 mins of a solicitor time!

with respect to how you feel, my personal experience was that looking at the “ grief pathway” was very helpful. You will be grieving of sorts for the loss of your marriage. Understanding how the steps in that process can relate to how you are feeling could help you gain some insight - hat you’re feeling is normal and entirely expected. It is how you get through the situation, and how you manage those emotions that is the issue.

I also personally found, that the sooner I started to be able to understand what my financial situation would be, figure out where I’d be living, picture in my head the life I’d have post divorce, with clarity and realism, the sooner I was able to accept the massive change facing me. Change on this scale is difficult, stressful and scary. You can help eliminate the fear by eliminating the unknown .

You can only control what you do now. Not what you wife does or does not do. Once you can start to take action on the things you can control, you’ll start to be able to move forwards

with your mental illness, I’d also advise talking to your crisis team to give them heads up, and at your next psychologist review or CPN review, discuss the situation with them. Ask for some specific help / therapy to help you. Stress will not help your symptoms and it’s important that you ask your mental health team for support. I know there’s a massive limit on resources - so do be a bit demanding and pushy here…but I know in practice that no therapy may be forthcoming . If you are thinking about suicide, or have ideation of self harm, you must contact your crisis team urgently or 111. If you are actively planning either of these call 999 and go to A&E immediately.

If your wife had an intimate affair with one other man and decided to leave you, then you might feel awful because it might actually say something negative about you as a spouse. I felt awful when I learned about my ex-wife's first affair.

That she's cheated more than once though should make you feel a lot better. See, the breakdown of your marriage is not your fault in the slightest. The heart of the issue is that your wife is a pitiful skank who sleeps around for kicks and doesn't care who she hurts, including her own children.

You can tell from the backstory that she is a complete disaster of a human being. I'm not a psychologist so I can't define what it is, but something really isn't right about her. She's had multiple careers and not stuck at any of them. She goes on uncontrollable spending sprees. She chats to blokes on social media and probably meets them for sex (she denies it, but so did my ex-wife, even when I caught her pants down in the car with one!)

Then, when they've completely and utterly screwed up their life, they start reflecting their failures onto their spouse. Mate, I think the odds of you having bi-polar are close to zero. You would not have held down a stressful job with bi-polar. You would be self medicating by now, going through what you are. Bi-polar is a very serious and at times debilitating mental illness that includes psychotic episodes. People with the condition can seldom function for long without powerful medication, let alone hold down a well paid job. What you have is stress from living with whatever your wife is and the effects of being gas lit and belittled by this awful, awful and abusive woman.

That she can do all these horrid things to you and then point out the silent treatment is classic abuser behaviour. She's gone and looked up how she can blame you for the abuse despite the extremely long charge sheet against herself. She is both an emotionally and financially abusive bully.

Whilst it will be hard right now, you are going to be a lot happier when this woman is kept at arms length. Keep a diary (password protected) of what happens at home in case she makes false accusations against you (which abusers are prone to do); get a financial order and a child arrangements order agreed as soon as possible (do not do anything on trust with this utterly untrustworthy person) and make sure you get as much of the assets as possible. Under no circumstances pay this person spousal maintenance (even if the court orders it, be prepared to quit your job), because she will use it to carry on controlling your life and using you. The only way you will be truly shot of this person is to become useless to them so they move on to the next poor sap.

What has happened to you sounds similar to my DB and now ex SIL about 10 years ago. It was awful at the time. He was devastated. They had 3 kids who have coped well. Both now remarried, DB’s new wife is lovely and very different from the narcissistic selfish first wife. He’s never slagged her off to the kids, but they see her for who she is.

It's very difficult, but if you can manage to get through this divorce sensibly and amicably, that would be the best thing. Then it's time to really work on your mental health, not because you are a bad person but because you have just as much right to be stable, settled and happy as anyone else.

You're better off not getting into another relationship until you've done the work to become the person you would want to be.

What the fork @Choconut are we reading the same OP??

To be fair to @Choconut, if the OP believes in what he's been gaslit to believe, then it's reasonable for others to draw the same conclusions based on what he tells them.

Those of us on the other hand who have had similar experiences know the methods of the serial cheat to deflect blame and to gaslight and can see straight through what the OP has said.

The idea that the OP is bipolar but getting on with life sounds utterly ridiculous to me and I would refuse to believe he had any kind of mental illness unless he got a diagnosis. Instead, I think he's been abused by his wife to the point that he's thinking these things.