Really need advice that I’m doing the right thing

[Jeans45]

a few weeks ago I found out my husband was having an emotional affair. He denies it’s ever been more , which I believe has he’s had ED for over 5 years and kind of all his life! He’s spent the last year treating me so badly, I’ve done nothing but love and support this man and bring up his kids.

I’ve been paranoid for so long, knowing in my gut something was off, be convinced me I was mad and gaslit me. He has been stonewalling me and showing me no love or care for so long. No idea how this happened we were so very happy, I don’t recognise him.

he has been struggling with severe depression, mental health issues in general, but has denied up until now he has any issues. As this has all come out he’s realised how unwell he is and that he’s been on a path of isolation, destruction and nkt bee himself at all.

I am 100% sure I do not want to be with a man who is happy to walk away from his family , says I deserve better and isn’t fighting for me. He told me he’s now realised the problem all along wasn’t our relationship, but him. Blah blah!

im posting as a few friends are asking if I should work on it with him- am I crazy that I don’t want to? I’ve been so unhappy with him and just want to find my peace and happiness. He’s had so much opportunity to choose me and try, but constantly has taken another path.

If your husband had been both honest with himself and you when the issues arose that led to the emotional affair, you could have, at that time, made a commitment to work together to help him, and hence your relationship.

However, he chose to lie and manipulate you, treat you poorly, and betray you through an emotional affair. This is beyond merely mental health issues that you should support him through, even if the mental health issues are one of several root causes for the infidelity.

Trust has to be repaired first before it even makes sense to support him emotionally. You must also think of yourself and your children, who no doubt have been witnessing his poor behavior toward you. The danger is that if you both merely brush his behavior under the rug, you are normalizing that for your children who see this as a normal husband/wife dynamic.

Further, you describe him having an epiphany that he is the problem, and yet, that has not caused him to fight to save the relationship, but rather he is encouraging you to leave. If he had not started an emotional affair with someone else it would be easy to believe that he was just so far down the hole of depression and down on himself that he felt unworthy, but he feels worthy enough to be connecting to someone else, so those actions blow that line of thinking out of the water. It really feels like he stopped investing himself in the relationship awhile ago, and is interested in this other woman, and only now when "the cat is out of the bag" is he acknowledging how horribly he has behaved.

He is very selfish and manipulative, and there is no excuse for him behaving this way . . . even if he is depressed. I would focus on your own mental health, and healing the damage he has caused for you and your children, and I would move on.

Be prepared, however, that when this relationship with the other woman does NOT work out, he will come back to you. Do not get on that rollercoaster ride again, for yourself and your children's sakes.

I cannot thank you enough for this. You’ve basically written out exactly what I’m thinking. He had enough emotional capacity to conduct this affair, and grow feelings, but he didn’t have enough to invest into us. I need to take me dignity and not look back, for me, and for my beautiful girls.

You're welcome, and so sorry that you are having to do through this, but you sound very strong and know what you need to do.

I think I’ve found some sort of crazy inner strength and worth. The worst bit is the EA is with a woman in a diffenrt country! Like literally pointless

Then my prediction will come true most likely and sooner than expected. Most women accept lower standards for a partner than they, themselves, give because of two things: the pressure society imposes that women's value is intrinsically and predominantly linked to their relationship to someone else as a wife, girlfriend, mother . . . AND . . . a fear of loneliness.

In the future, if you want to find a more "worthy" partner, try to avoid falling prey to those very ingrained and hidden inner dialogs.