Can't have baby, waited until he got divorced.

[Icelandic]

Have been with dp for over 5 yrs. When I met him he had separated for his wife for a year. He has been more or less living at mine since then. I made absolutely, anally clear that I needed to know that he was absolutely sure about the end of his marriage. During our courtship I urged him to go back to his wife and to have a long hard think that he was absolutely sure. He assured me he was sure. I really covered my back.

He was/is keen to have a family but wanted to wait until he was divorced because he is very proper about things like that.

His wife (knowing his feelings?) has refused to get divorced and they are still not divorced even now. (?)

I have been to see a gynae and have found out that I have started the menopause, my ovaries are no longer working, and I cannot have any more children (have dd, 13)

I am feeling fairly pissed off about this, to put it extremely mildly. We saw Toy Story 3 yesterday and I felt myself crying in a constant niagra falls fashion. I still feel washed out. We are planning to stay together forever etc, but I can't imagine not having a family with him. I had gone to stupid lengths about finding a childminder, keeping keen eye on local primary schools, not throwing out baggy, maternity suitable clothes.

Be kind, I know I have dd, but I met him when I was 36 and a half and never imagined we would not have a baby. The gynae reckoned the menopause started at 38.

Hmm. If all the assets are in her name, maybe there is also some complicated money stuff involved too? Hence his 'financial settlement' excuse for not divorcing. Maybe he feels it would all get too difficult and unpleasant to confront this and get his money back?

So, sex and money and 'keeping up appearances'. All sounds very f*** up to me. Do you two have difficulty arguing? Does he like to be a 'nice' guy and keep everything 'reasonable' and 'pleasant'? Do emotions threaten him?

I really hope you can disentangle yourself. Though it will not be without pain and grief obviously. Horrible situation, horrible.

So, he wanted to avoid his LLoyds debts by putting his assets in his wife's name? Surely she will have him over a barrel, as if he now wants to say they were really his all along, he many have been guilty of fraud.

Lots of what you say doesn't make sense. How many wives don't have sex with their DH for 8 years, he then walks our for a day and she says, OK, lets have sex once a month, I'll lie back and think of England.

If I were a betting woman I would say when he sorts out the finances he will divorce his wife and marry someone else (not you) within 6 - 12 months. You might actually find he is seeing someone else at the moment (another good reason for not appearing as a couple with you).

Ringing you during the day isn't always a good sign either, he then knows where you are / what you're doing e.g. so you won't bump into him while he is at lunch with someone else etc.

The more I hear of this man, the more I hate him

I think he has a very large, dirty secret, probably financial all mixed up with his assets being put in the wife's name, possibly fraud

she still has some hold over him, possibly a threat to expose him and/or keep all those assets to herself because the paper trail of it may incriminate him

I think he is a coward, a liar and of limited emotional intelligence. He may be a Christian but he has not acted in a Christian manner

his story of what happened in the last few years of his marriage does not ring true. Even if it were, I could not have any respect for a man (or woman) who would live like that

I don't believe for one minute that he hasn't slept with her in the last 6 years

he will deny, deny, deny this, but I think he is very guilty of the sin of pride and vanity....

He is no prize, that is to be sure

I think you should think very carefully about whether any motive you have for hanging on to him is to try and negate what a waste of the last 6 years he has manipulated you into

harsh, very harsh words and not the only ones on this thread

I hope you are OK, and I sincerely hope the scales are finally falling from your eyes

< quick hijack >

Mr Meanor, I would like to take you up on something. I will start a thread in chat.

< as you were >

hey Icelandic

It still sounds a bit dodgy tbh.
I know that businesses were failingthen but seriously - you can't rock up as a name at lloyds without serious assets.
So for his business to fail and a syndicate to have serious losses in the same year ( after three yearly accounting) and his wife then react but withdrawaing sex...
It all sounds a bit like convenient ways to make him seem a victim.

I wonder if he got indication of Lloyds losses, wound up business to dry up assets and then chucked the rest in her name so as to avoid his liability. I bet she thinks she is sticking by her DH and protecting the family assets and he is playing away and lying about her

He doesn't want to speak to you AF! You've obviously frightened him witless, or you are just toooooo horrid.

Go on, MrM, she's a pussycat really.

He likes Icelandic though.

I read a letter last week from his solicitor. What he is trying to do is to give his wife the first £200 000 of his inheritance (ie, the whole thing) when his parents die. No mystery there. His solicitor was advising him against it, saying that the point of a divorce was a clean break. I only know that through reading, not through him telling me. I don't usually read his stuff, he keeps it at his house anyway, but that letter arrived here.

I should have posted this in aibu years ago. I seriously toyed with writing to Graham Norton (one of the few reasons to read the Saturday Telegraph) but I gave up because some of it (eg no sex after losing the money, leaving for one day, having inert sex one night a month) does sound unlikely, not to mention salacious.

Whoever mentioned enormous guilt that his marriage didn't work, have 2 house points.

This is so cathartic. I really wish I had put it in aibu. He keeps saying that I don't understand and portraying me as someone who wants to attack his wife (who I have never met) and therefore I am effectively silenced. I rang the priest fgs.
Thanks all.

Graham Norton would love this. Let's tell him.

Sorry Icelandic, I'm turning this into a joke now.

Hold out your hand.

Really, I don't know who else you are that I chat to, but you don't deserve this crap. You sound so nice and decent.

Icelandic, I am so sorry. You have been hugely patient and generous and this man has just taken advantage of you. Whatever his motives/secrets/hangups, a decent person would have understood that about himself years ago and set you free.

It does sound like there's something not right about the finances and his wife's involvement in those.
Why would he leave her a massive amount of his inheritance? That is ODD.

He's so thoroughly entangled still with his wife in so many ways that I can't see how you can have a relationship with him that has any integrity underpinning it.

about the gynae report, though as others have said, you could still conceive - not impossible, but under the present circumstances I wouldn't want to try, tbh.

The fertility issue doesn't give you much time though to wait for him to decide to make himself properly available to you (divorce).

But looking at the evidence, do you honestly think he has the motivation or courage to be free of her?

I think he has spun a reality for himself that is massively self-deluded and your better nature has colluded with it under the false belief that it was right to try to protect his wife in all this.

Time to cut your losses, methinks.

That was me with the housepoints (I was beginning to get a complex that my posts were being ignored )

I wonder if he's still kind of in love with her. Or maybe not. I just don't understand why else he would be so so unable to let go.

Anyway that is beside the point really. I hope you can sort yourself out and be happier/loved by someone properly.

he is a narcissist

it is no way anything to do with his wife...this is all about him

He wants to give her the money in the future because he hasn't got any right now. He is not in love with her but he feels awful about his marriage not working. He told me that he used to sort of look down on people who got divorced and he never dreamt that he would be one. If I had a baby I imagine he would have treated it very very well, the way he has treated his children. He keeps calling me his wife and saying how much he wants to be married to me but we need to talk about the last 5 long years in detail first.

I read a book called, 'The Second Wife', by Elizabeth Buchan. At the end she describes some of her research. I cut out that page and I will read you the bit that resonated with me.

'I was lucky enough to talk to several second wives who were generous with their funny/sad anecdotes about occupying the lowest rung in a family's pecking order. They had experienced the icy chill of the back row in the Church during the Christening of the grandchild belonging to the first wife. They had been pointedly excluded from the group photograph. They had endured abuse from the children of the first family, and also financial hardship. Some of the material makes for robust social comedy although I am sure it is not so funny if you are on the receiving end of it...'

It would make more sense if I was the cause of the breakdown of their marriage, which I was not, see op. That is exactly how I have been treated.

and will continue to be so....?

Have a massive bottle glass of wine tonight and get onto MatesDates or whatever it's called. Write your own profile and pretend you are your own friend and say how lovely you are. Go on. I dare you.

Actually, seriously, there's nothing worse than people telling you to dump someone when your are not ready, or sure it's what you want, and I appreciate that in many ways you may be quite happy together, but there will always be so much simmering resentment that I can't see how this can end happily unless he accepts that he needs to take action of some sort.

If you are adamant that you want to stay with him, and you are sure that he loves you and is committed for life (even though he has a weird way of showing it) how would you feel about asking for some compromise?

You'll live with the status quo (ie. no divorce) but you want commitment to try for a baby (with fertility treatment if necessary)

You want him to acknowledge you as his partner (and live together, if that's what you want)

He must publicly acknowledge you at church and in all his social/work circles as his partner, and make it clear to everyone that he is no longer married.

Would you go for that? I think you would.

If he doesn't go for any of it then you need to leave him.

If he goes for all of it except the baby then you need to ask yourself if he has mislead you and tricked you and wasted your time, or whether you just hoped he'd want a child with you?

And then perhaps, leave him.

Perhaps I should dig out the letter I wrote but did not send to Graham, for the comedy. I am logging off mumsnet until tonight. Thank you all. This started because I read about someone who couldn't have a second child and I was going to post in sympathy (she was only 34) and suddenly decided to start my own thread about infertility and it just led on from there when Viv Cliquot described her friend in a similar place.

But Ice
who has been treating you like that. Except him.
I am not sure if I have missed something but you haven't been shunned have you? People haven't had the chance to interact with you in the context of him because he has lied about it. And you have supported him in concealing it

Genuine apologies if I have missed something

By his family, Pag, because it was too upsetting for his daughters to see me.

So I couldn't go to family events attended by his daughters. See, it would make sense if I had broken up the marriage. I think that he feels so guilty that he has to pretend that it wasn't him, his fault, so, in some way I don't get, I am very much the guilty party, and a bitch for protesting, and oh, I have protested. I was never a crockery thrower until I met him.

that's interesting. So this is a recognised pattern of behaviour from some divorced men. Not much comfort to you though, except perhaps to reaffirm that your view is not mad and you are not 'ranting'.

He cannot bear to accept the view of himself as a divorced man with a second wife.

Ok. Thanks for explaining.

icelandic - If it helps, I've taken a lot of the advice on board too and will definitely use it when I next speak to my friend. Whether or not it will do any good, I don't know but I can't sit back and do nothing.

I actually think your relationship with this man is beyond repair - even if he relented and did a complete volte-face, surely your respect for him is long gone? Both you and your daughter deserve much better.

This man is basically spineless and selfish. He simply doesn;t want the boat rocked, he doesn't want anyone to be able to criticize him, because everything in his life is about him. He will tell you (and his XW) whatever you want to hear, so that you shut up moaning and carry on trying to please him.