Help! married 3 young kids, dh emotional ruined me, possible previous affair, might be doing it again!

[cornishgirl1]

Please can anyone help, I will try and keep this short. Married 8 years, 3 young boys under 5.DH has been emotionally horrible to me in the past,a useless husband and when pregnant with my 3rd child I checked his mobile and found that he had been having some sort of relationship with another women as I found a naked picture of her send to him and messages from him to her saying "hi gorgeous, how are you this morning"and night night x" First he totally denied this( as he deleted all this messsages! then said it was a 'mate' probably just winding him up!. anyway evenually he said a text came through on his phone and silly stupid him answered it cos he was lonely and miserable. He can't explain why he did it etc etc. I have never be able to forget/forgive this. I have been trying to leave him for about 2 years but can't as I feel guilty about taking the kids away from him. Plus he says he is trying to change and be a better person and husband ( by which to some extent he is) but can someone really change???? also I checked his phone again yesterday and I found he had received a picture message from T mobile, so i went online to see what it was, it was 2 pictures of total strangers( to me) one of a women provactively dressed in a semi porn position with suspenders and short dress and the other I think was a man lying in a bed tying to look sexy!! Please can anyone help, is there any who knows how these pictures work, would he have to have asked them to be sent to him or could it be a RANDOM AND FLUKE text message. I am at my wits end. I tried ringing the person who sent it, but went through to voicemail. What would you do??? help please.

So sorry Cornishgirl, I have no idea about how those picture messages work but am sure some one else will.. It doesn't sound good.

What, apart from this phone stuff, is the emotional abuse like? It doesn't sound good, atall.

No, it's not a random and fluke text message. He is seeking out people to text chat with, whether it's real people, or people he has met online, or some kind of paid service. You don't just get random soft porn sent to your phone - and he's done it before - if you believe this was random and nothing to do with him then you are very gullible.

I'm sorry to sound harsh but he's made his bed and he needs to lie in it. If he can't stop himself from cheating on you and emotionally abusing you then he forfeits his right to keep his family under his roof while he gets domestically and sexually serviced by you. If you leave or make him leave it will not be down to your actions but his, and his sons deserve a happy mother who is treated with respect in life, not an unhappy mother whose husband cheats on her and lies to her.

thanks perfume and eric for your posts. v. helpfull. the emotional abuse has been more in the past, calling me useless, stupid, no help with kids, no help whilst I was pregnant. when going away I asked him to put my big suitcase in the car for me when i was 7 months pregnant, he wouldn't help me and said "you shouldn't pack a bag bigger than you can carry" !! I know shocking. he blamed me for having affairs( totally unjust, no-way would I) and a couple of times said the children probably weren't his anyway.. I used to criticise me alot, but daren't do it know in fear of me going. Would you call having an contact with girls via text cheating? is this terrible? is it the same as an affair???

If you would call it cheating - I would call it cheating. That's how trust works.

cornishgirl he is an abusive bully, do you realise that? Your life will be immeasurably better if you leave him.

Please leave him.

what a shit father he sounds

there is no reason on earth to stay with this man because of your boys, in fact the opposite is true

leave him, so your boys don't grow up learning that this is how men treat people they are supposed to love

thanks guys for your comments. net mums is proving to be a lifeline xoxo. everytime i tell him i want to leave he keeps saying he loves me/ can't split a family up/the boys will be worse off/ and he wants to try relate. but i say how will relate make me love you. we haven't had a sexual relationship for 16months since my 3rd son was born. and to be honest i don't want, we don't share the same bedroom as i don't want to. he says I will learn to love him again and he trying to put things right. but I don't think he can, plus the to me the damage is already done. I have not confronted him about this recent text YET. hes so hard to leave as when I want to he starts being all nice and helpful and i end up feeling the guilty one for wanting to go.

hope you mean mumsnet and not net mums.....

he is emotionally-blackmailing you

if he was a nice man, he would be a nice man all the time

he gives you a few crumbs of pleasantness and a few tears to reel you back in, and then his normal persona reappears

you do not have to stay with someone like that

you shouldn't be wasting your life wih an abusive man

to me, whether he is cheating or not, is not he question

it's how he treats you that is the key here

Agree with AF, as always!

Very sad to think that you would allow your sons to grow up with that as their role model

squitten, your comment has hit me the hardest" sad to I think that all the mind games dh has played with my head over the years has left my brain like jelly. he is so good and twisting everything round to make me feel the guilty person, guilting for leaving, guiltiy for tearing a family apart, I end up the one who has done wrong. Thanks for everyones comments, I would probably give the same advice to a friend. But how to I go when he makes me feel so bad and wrong for wanting to go. That probably sounds weak, but I am a gentle loving and compassionate person and seeing him hurt if I go will tear me apart. What a mess.

somebody with such an urge to please an abuser is really not in any position to take advice from an internet site

cornish, please will you ring Women's Aid and get some practical RL support

or go see your GP and ask for couselling, without your partner

you really need someone to tell you that trying to please an abuser is a thankless task, and you should be looking out for you and your dc

anyfucker you got me wrong, I do not please dh any more. I am the one who calls the shots at home now if that makes sense! my dh knows how unhappy I am and want to go. but the only thing stopping me is taking the kids away from him. If i go it will about 4and half hours drive so he will only see kids on his holidays. thanks for your help though, i went on womens aid website yesterday for a look.

ps, thats why I feel bad because of the distance.

"seeing him hurt will tear you apart"?

is he torn apart when he hurts you ?

what a mess. my head is so messed up right now. torn between feeling guility and going. a nightmare. im going to contact womens aid for some help. i probably sound really weak but my confidence and drive is gone. i keep telling him i want to go and i don't want to be with him but he keeps saying 'lets go relate, lets gets some help' and 'great i will never get to see my kids grow up,see them a school etc etc' the emotional strain of it all is driving me nuts.

I suspect all this stress will completely disappear when you dump your abusive partner

I don't think you are ready to do that though

so you will stay stressed, uncertain and in limbo while he continues to treat you badly

a lot of women stay in bad relationships for far too long, because of fear of the unknown

although I fail to see how much worse it would have to get before you see the light, tbh

If your DCs only see their dad during holidays that sounds a good arrangement to me.
I wouldn't want a man like him around my DCs at all really.
As for feeling guilty - it's his choice to make your marriage unworkable. You can't be happy in such a relationship - no one would be. So why should you feel so bad about it?
Possible plan of action? Go and stay with parents for a week. Have a rest/recharge your batteries. Plan a date to leave. Go back get everything you need. Leave

thanks again guys for all your comments. gonna take a week out in feb with my mum anyways. will see a councellor friend whilst there too. I think your right saying ' im not ready to go', looking back through everyones messages it all seems so apparent and glaring obvious that I should leave him, and if a friend was in my position I would tell them to leave him. What on earth is wrong with me! thanks for being there

there is nothing wrong with you

it is thinking like that will keep you there for longer than you should be !!

you are not in the wrong !! he is

talk to your mum, and talk to your friend....and tell them the truth not a sanitised version because you feel ashamed

you have no reason to feel ashamed

good luck, and don't stop posting x

Couldn't read more than 3 lines, cos there's no paragraphs (sorry)!

But I can tell you 1 thing, get rid

You can bring up 3 children on your own, my sister did it, and I did 1, all 20-odd years already

These types of men just drag you down!!