HUSBAND LEFT AFTER AN AFFAIR II - AM MOVING ON WITHOUT HIM

[solost]

My husband left me in mid-August when I found out he was having an affair. My original thread (husband had an affair and I want him back) detailed the fact that I felt he had made a mistake and asked for advice on how to get him to see sense and come back to me and our 3 DCs. Four months on, he still hasn't returned and I am re-buildling my life without him. That thread is now full. This is the continuation. Thanks to all of you for your support.

solost, every time the subject of him ever coming back you say "but he hasn't shown any signs of wanting to come back, anyway"

I have been saying this to you from the beginning

You are still leaving the control about whether he comes back or not in his hands implicitly, as evidenced by his recent texts

You are wholly unprepared for the day that he "decides" he is ready to come back. He will. It will be completely out of the blue and it will totally knock you for six, wreck your fragile self-confidence and have you seriously considering it "for the children"

I see it. It will happen. You haven't been ready for this from the beginning, and you are still not.

You must detach further or you are going to be very, very vulnerable on that day.

the subject comes up

still half asleep...

Anger won't make you bitter if you direct it appropriately, solost. Currently you have justifiable anger - work through it, let it out appropriately and then you won't harbour resentment and bitterness.
The worst thing you can do is suppress it - it will turn inwards and will fester inside.

Show it to your H as necessary. Make sure he understands that he hasn't got away with anything - that he has created this situation single-handedly and he now has to take the responsibility and the consequences of it. And seriously, he DID create it single-handedly - he had a CHOICE whether or not to go with the OW and he chose to do it.

You have every right to be angry; and your DC have the right to know that you are angry too, on their behalf as much as your own. They have to be allowed to feel angry themselves - which the older two almost certainly do - and knowing that you accept it's ok to be angry will validate their feelings. This doesn't mean you have to "bad mouth" your H - just acknowledge that you are angry that he decided to leave you all and break up your family.

He's still using you as his personal counsellor, too; dumping his thoughts and feelings on you, rambling away about himself. He gave up the right to use you as his personal crutch when he went looking for another "soulmate". He should be paying £40 an hour for that kind of service (and a tenner for the kind of service he's getting from BB ).

My spellchecker doesn't like the word "soulmate" btw. How sensible.

Solost - I hope you are OK. I have totally detached now and even though I dont want H back I still feel sadness when he isnt bombarding me with texts. I think the bottom line is we want them to regret it to give us our self confidence back but the only person who can do that is us. Look down on him, they arent worth the shite on our shoes, dont let him control your emotions. I know Im not as good as the ladies on here at giving advice, but I do totally empathise, everything you are feeling, sadness, good days, bad days, guilt for our DC's, I feel it. Im with you every step of the way Solost and you know what.....these posts are keeping me sane - thank you ladies you are worth a million. xxxxx

Ok, I have spent the morning whilst doing the school run and other necessary things composing a message to you in my head (does anyone else do this or is it just me?)

It was insightful, warm, compassionate, supportive and eloquent. And of course now I have come to write it I have forgotten every word and everyone else has beat me to it.

So the gist of it was this, and I am truly sorry if I am wrong, but I think that if he rocked up to your door full of apologies and platitudes that you would take him back. Maybe not the same day but not long after. And I think by holding onto the belief that he is acting out of character and is a mess and all over the place you will be able to explain away his actions as a one off and a blip in his otherwise excellent record as a good husband and father.

Meanwhile everyone else thinks he is a manipulative conniving b*ard who is only letting you see what he wants you to see to keep you waiting dutifully in the wings for if and when HE decides to come swanning back home. I am sure he is not a mess and all over the place whilst carrying out his newly acquired job or when cuddling up to BB each and every evening.

No-one is saying you should never take him back (I think!) What they are saying is that you need to try and see him for what he really is - and so does he - before a reconciliation should take place.

I agree with AF and Cenicienta (waves to fellow lurker) It is YOUR decision on whether or not he comes back and he needs to know this. You are a strong independent woman who is single handedly raising 3 DC's whilst working and running a home and dealing with the biggest shitstorm you have ever had to face. You are more than up to the task of telling this arse wipe that based on his recent behaviour he is not fit to lick your boots never mind share your bed again. This man threatened to never see his DC's again if you didn't do as he wished If in the future he does want to come back and is truly remorseful for all he has done then the fact you have told him you don't want him won't put him off. He should move heaven and earth to be with you because as has been said many times he DOES NOT DESERVE YOU.

< polite cough >

I am saying she should never take him back.

Unfortunately though, it is not my decision.

I am also saying that you should never take him back Solost, and this is partly what I meant on another new affair thread that is running at the moment. The type of affair and the type of person having it, dictates so much about whether relationship repair is possible.

Solost you are always extremely gracious when we get tough, blunt and even angry with you and I admire that in you. But like others have said (and remember, we don't confer like friends would!) we can all see that you are still of the mindset that this was just an aberration and that your H is not himself at the moment.

I had hoped that re-constructing the story of the affair would make you realise that your H didn't sleep walk into it and made active choices throughout, just like every affair.

I know that your biggest barrier is your own disbelief and self-blame that you got his character so wrong for 27 years, hence my long post last week about how as long as his objectives were the same as yours and his will would prevail, he didn't need to manipulate you very much at all. And that the whole point of manipulation is so that the other person is unsighted and wrong-footed. So although I feel sure you would insist on a more egalitarian relationship in the future with someone not as pompous and sexist as your H, you can stop taking the blame for failing to notice the person he really was.

But this really isn't an aberration Solost. He is that man. The final bit of permission you need to give yourself is that you wouldn't want him back even if he begged you.

If you want to emotionally detach from him, you can. But you're going to need to stop hiding behind self-comforters, like being civil for the children and not becoming bitter, are your only aims.

If you separate your lives properly and have little to do with him personally, this will help the children. The current set-up doesn't help them at all, because they are no doubt harbouring hopes that Dad will change his mind and come back, or even fears that you will take him back.....

Please also understand that it is only undischarged anger that leads to bitterness. If you think anger is a negative emotion, I agree with the poster who said that this could be having a harmful effect on the DCs, who have every right to be bloody furious with their father, but might lack an outlet to express it because of your belief that it is somehow unseemly. Give them permission to be angry, as well as yourself.

Please tell me what is stopping you putting this separation onto a more formal footing, whereby he stops coming to the house and having keys?

AF, I'm with you! solost he is clearly just giving you the tiniest morsels, designed to make you think that (a) he misses you and is oh so sorry, and (b) to make sure you keep the cat flap open for him.

The reality is that he has a new life with a new woman, and the only information you have about this life comes from him - for all you know he's exsquisitely happy!

This is how much he cares about you and the DC's:

• he repeatedly ignores your express wishes to refrain from contacting unless it's to do with access arrangements
• he threatens never to see the DC's again unless you do what he says
• he doesn't care how they feel now, and only cares how they WILL feel in the future when it concerns THEM being happy for HIM
• he manipulates arrangements and emotions when it comes to seeing the DC's by constantly throwing the presence of the OW in as a threat
• he uses your home as a second crash pad for naps when he has NO right to even be there

Do you REALLY want to carry on giving him the benefit of the doubt? Do you REALLY think this is all some kind of mad, out of character phase he's going to move out of?

I know you feel that his current behaviour undermines your long, long relationship with him, and it is completely understandable that you'd want to attribute the way he's behaving to something other than his core personality.

But the reality is that he has maintained this "mad/such a mess/all over the place" since OCTOBER 2009 - the second he starting shagging someone else.

He's a liar, and all he is trying to do is make sure that when/if it all goes horribly wrong with OW, he has something else to fall back on. He's COUNTING on you notching up this past year and a bit as one year out of 27, and taking him back on the balance of good behaviour vs bad.

If he comes crawling back, and you take him back, you will be letting yourself into a world of heartache. He labelled you second best when he left you and the DC's, and if he comes back to you after his first choice doesn't work out, that STILL makes you only second best.

By all accounts, and from everything I've read on this thread and the last, you are ANYTHING but second best. You deserve so much more than this nasty creep is prepared to give you.

Anger is not a destructive, embittering and wasteful emotion - it is HEALTHY, as long as you are channelling it into something constructive.

Feeling angry, and then bottling that anger because you don't think it's good to be angry, can be very dangerous indeed - that right there is the path to bitterness...

I'm really sorry if this is overly harsh, and I know it comes out of the blue as I've only posted a couple of times before, but I just think all of us on here feel like we're living this horrible time through you, and none of us want to see you get hurt by this poor excuse for a husband and father.

STAY STRONG!!!

ok was wrong

FWIW I am very black and white on these things. I don't think you should take him back either but I think at this point you are very much hoping that this might be an option in the future. Again apologies if I am wrong but that is certainly what comes across in your posts. I truly hope you can get past this x

I agree on the Not taking him back, in a million billion trillion years, over my dead body etc....

BUT...

Our own self esteem - until we ARE properly detached and no longer care for that person at all - is GOING to want some kind of hook...

Not blaming you Solo, it's perfectly to be expected, but be aware of it and keep an eye on it, work through it and don't let it weaken your responses to his fuckwittery.

Boy, he's such a good manipulator sweetheart, even though you don't realise what he's doing.

I am feeling that old anger back at my DH again because of what he's doing (petty things like not cancelling something I've asked him to do immediately - the only thing still in his name - until a week has gone by knowing full well another months' DD of £55 will go out which I have to pay. . . ). He is still an arrogant son of a bitch!

They have to appease themselves, knowing what they've done and I firmly believe it's all to do with the way they deal with their own guilt.

My DH said a similar thing to my DD about how happy she should be for him - she's 18 this month and therefore has her own views of him (not a bit complimentary) but how dare he even think it, let alone say it to her.

(Blood pressure rising, takes deep breath).

Look, this is so hard to do, but try and realise that your old husband has gone and this new person - whatever it is - is NOT the person you fell in love with and married. That's what I had to do - can't tell you how or when, just one day it clicked that this was not the old (twunt). Every now and then there are teensy glimpses of that old person, but even those don't make me regret he's no longer part of my life. I don't WANT that person being in my life any more - who the heck is he - his girlfriend really is more than welcome to him/whatever he's become.

Focus on yourself more, you really are doing so well. I know how hard it is, but you WILL look back at some point soon and think why on earth did I even think about you so much.

Trust me.

Sorry, have just skimmed the recent posts, but this really stood out to me

"I wouldn't take him back ATM"

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but to me it sounds like you're expecting to take him back in the future. The "ATM" speaks volumes :(

Hi Solo, well done you for not responding to the texts.

It still comes across from your posts that, actually, you are still hanging on for him to realise his mistake and come back - and if we see it over the internet, an arch manipulator like your ex can't possibly miss it, with the benefit of face-to-face conversation. He seems pretty damn sure there is a warm welcome for him back at the ranch whenever he has had enough of OW - or, more likely, wants to go back to stringing both of you along.

It must be utterly devastating to have to take in that your closest, most trusted companion and father of your children deceived you for all that time. He's made me think of a snake, shedding its skin - for 27 years he wore the skin of a caring husband and father. He shed that skin, he can't just wriggle back in to it and slither back to your lives. That skin crumbled into dust a long time ago. And underneath it, he is still a snake. Whereas you ( to stretch the Gruffalo character analogy to its limit!) are the mouse hero of the story - polite yet very smart and independent.

He doesn't want his old life back. He just wants to hold you down in the mire he threw himself into. Every time you look like hauling yourself free, he launches another text lasso round your ankles.

I'm a bit of a lurker rather then poster.

I have to say I don't think Solost has got to the angry stage yet. I think your so set on holding everything together for your DC and him as in his relationship with DC so that they arn't upset you not allowing yourself to move onto the next step, as in getting angry.

FWIW my parents were married for 25yrs (they had been together since 14/15 so knew each other for over 30yrs) before my dad left her for another women. My mum would never have taken him back but she still loved him until he died 2 years ago. she learnt to seperate the man she loved from the selfish selfcentred man he became when he met my evil stepmother if that makes any sense.

I don't think he wants to come back, but I do think he very, very much wants to know that he can. It's something he can hold over BB (that's quite some implicit, veiled threat) and it also means he hasn't really lost anything or burned his boats if it doesn't work out with her. Plus I would imagine it's a nice security blanket, too, not having to let go of the past while grabbing at this new future.

He's having his cake and eating it at everyone else's expense, really, isn't he.

Great post Inertia, I really liked the way you put that.

Solo - how are things with you, thinking of you, hope you are ok.

I read all the helpful advice given to you yesterday, and if you were holding out any hope, which I can understand if you were as I only gave up any hope recently. But I can see that he isnt the man I thought he was and as hard as that is to accept, it is the truth, everyone on the outside can see it, its only us that cant. Even my exH who had an affair, and left for the OW years ago when my children were young, (i am still very good friends with him) said to me that "he isnt who you thought he was and you need to let him sort himself out", I also think about what Nowaynohow said we are not second best now or in the future!

Solo we need to be strong and we need to move on with our lives alone for the time being. Denise Robertson said on this morning, if one partner cant give 100% to a relationship then the best thing is to leave, and she said I promise you one day you will find happiness and it will be better than before. I really hope she is right.

I hope you're doing ok Solost.

Solost you have done so well to get this far but it does seem now you are getting stuck. It's clear that you want him back, you just bargain with yourself on 'when'.

You are also trying to convince yourself that you are trying to keep contact and good relations with him for the sake of the DCs. Don't want to sound harsh but you are deluding yourself. I mean that. You are not doing it for them, you are doing it for yourself because you are still emotionally enmeshed with him.

So many posters have suggested how you can detach from this for your own emotional wellbeing but you are not willing to listen right now. I wonder why that is. I have literally lost count of the posters who are suggesting changes to phone calls/texts etc, to stop engaging, to stop holding out hope - but your responses make clear you are not able to hear that right now.

You've done so well to get here. You seem stuck on the next bit, you're still worrying about him (not wanting to tell him about the solicitors appt for fear of upsetting him - can you hear how that sounds?!)

I hope you find a way to unstick yourself from your current stuckness...

Morning solost - how are you today?

You haven't posted in a while - I know recent posts may have made hard reading for you. I hope they haven't put you off posting. We are all still rooting for you xx

I just posted the thing about cognitive dissonance on Pinkhair's thread but it seems even more relevant here! It's about habits of thought more than anything else. Here is the husband, father of the children, you are used to thinking of him in the most positive light, admiring his good qualities, forgiving his little ways, for the best part of three decades. It takes a mighty long time to change those long-ingrained habits of thought, and when you do, for a while you don't only lose faith in him, you lose faith in yourself. All those things you were telling yourself, the faith you built your life around, like a religion that's suddenly proved to be false, it leaves you feeling completely unsupported for a while. This is perfectly natural. It just needs to be identified and worked on.

The fact is that the man is a liar and a cheat; not once (everyone makes mistakes), but he's still lying and cheating, oh and manipulating too. If there were ever to be hope that he would come back to his family he would have to give up not just the physical being with another woman (who, I may remind you, he is still with despite his little unhappy whimperings, still putting first, still pandering to in all things) but the whole mentality that led him to think lying, cheating and leaving his family was "still the right choice". Sorry doesn't cut it. Seen the light at last doesn't cut it. "Must have been some kind of breakdown", hah! Crawling back to the family home still warm from being in bed with the OW doesn't come near to cutting it. Leaving his cosy love-nest (with or without a few bruises if she really is that much of a BB), moving near his abandoned wife and children, playing no mind games or guilt trips, but genuinely trying to earn his way back into their lives over months of - celibate! - support, meanwhile taking responsibility for his own actions, just might cut it. Eventually.

Well said Annie - solost, hope you're okay. But as Annie rightly says - don't believe his weasel words.

You can't believe a thing that comes out of his mouth as he's in a circle of minimising his own guilt while trying to get back to the time when everything worked for him (ie when he had two women on the go - one making his daily life run smoothly and providing him with support, one massaging his ego furiously).

The only things you can trust at this point are his actions. If he was completely committed to working out what he wanted, needed, and was coming terms with what he'd done, he'd stop messing the both of you about and move to a neutral space to do this. But he hasn't has he?

Please remember, above all, that him coming back would only be the start of it. After that, you have to live with him in your life while you come to terms and learn to live with what he has done. Please sit and seriously consider - can you spend another 30 years with this man, knowing he can do this and say those things to you and your children? No matter how sorry he says he is? THAT is the hardest part - ask anyone who's been through it.

Learning to live with this crap after the adrenaline has gone is pure hell, and he has done far too much for there to be a future, if you ask me.

Solost?

Yes, Solo - where are you sweetie? Hope it's just that you're really busy with the girls and yourself.

Take care x