HUSBAND LEFT AFTER AN AFFAIR III - 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.

Perfect - that is a great post as is all the excellent advice posted today.

solo - I think I said this before to you, but way back down the thread. When my exH left for a friend when my children were young the first thing I did was sort finances, what he was going to give me, until when etc and then started divorce proceedings paid for by him, once you get the decree nisi, you dont have to go for the decree absolute until you are ready, you can make him wait as long as you wish. I think that would shock him and he actually deserves to have a shock. I dont think it is fair to keep you in this limbo indefinitely until he decides the next move.

Yes, perfectstorm has said what I tried to say and wanted to say in a much more thorough, well thought out and nicely worded manner. :) Read her post several times, solost.

Hi everyone,

Of course I'm not scared off - just a bit disappointed in you Pete - thought I was your one and only

Thank you as always for your posts. Hard reading today. Perfect Storm I have re-read your post and thanks for your kind words, they didn't hurt - honestly!

I think what reading all your comments have made me realise is that I kind of am hoping he will realise he has made a mistake at some point - who wouldnt! Obviously I am far more of a catch than BB - I suppose I just want H to realise that one day .

BUT please all be reassured I do know I can do this alone and maybe part of me is holding out some hope but I am moving on, I do feel this within myself - although I know it doesnt come across very well here! Its a very slow journey, but I am getting on with my life, it is not on hold anymore - again, probably not coming across like that but on a day to day basis I plan for myself and DCs and don't consider H part of our plans at all. I have renewed the DC's passports and we have spent this evening planning our holiday (finances permitting), the house is being re-decorated with no input or thought to H and the legal stuff is all ready to go.

I feel I am so much further along than I was even a month ago and all you ladies have helped with that so much.

Thanks again for your posts, I am truely touched that you still are all taking time to post even though most of the time it feels as if you are banging your heads against the preverbial brick wall. I would have given up on me ages ago! I do appreciate it.

Just keep moving forward, S

Just make sure the pace is your OWN, not his

solo - I live in hope that one day H will also regret what he has given up on! I really hope he does and I also hope that his relationship with the OW 27 years younger doesnt work, but only time will tell and I am now getting to feel that maybe they were made for each other two deceitful and selfish people, they will have to work very hard to make each other happy. But I know that I really do deserve better as do you solo.

Thanks Pete, wasn't expecting such a 'gentle' reply from you .

Romney You DO deserve better and so do I. And I also know that your H (as well as mine) will realise what he gave up on. I think that they has probably have already realised this, and that is the reason WHY they have to work so hard their 'new' relationships.

With my H, it is the way he is with the DCs which shows this most clearly. When he first left, I was so scared that he would gradually stop seeing them and in fact he did try to leave them early (if BB had 'something' on! etc) duck out of his 'Saturdays' - (they had some little weekends away planned). But over the last couple of months there has been a complete U turn. Now he can't see enough of them, in fact he said the other day he would see them every day but for the fact it costs him £15 in petrol for every trip! He is interested in their activities (probably more than he was when he lived here - he admitted this). I suppose you never realise what you had - until its gone?

How are you doing Romney? Are things getting any easier for you?

I sense what is holding you back is reluctance to commit to ideas which seem alien to you because you wouldn't have thought of them yourself (re-analysis of H's and his mistress's words and actions, which you would not have thought of, legal advice for siuations you never thought would apply to you, etc.): perhaps you are afraid that these are other people's ideas and therefore to follow them is not being "true to yourself".

However, even if other voices on this thread "don't sound like you", that doesn't mean they aren't true to you and your interests. "Being true to yourself" does mean being discriminating about advice given, yes, but these external voices can echo in your head without drowning out your own voice (and that's important, as no-one wants to oppress you like that )!

Solo - I have to disagree with one part of Perfect's post.

Your H probably does still love you - but not enough. He loves himself far more, which is why he is being so utterly fucking selfish over this whole scenario. And the reason your friend can see this "care and love" for you is because it is HABIT for him. Oh so easy to slip back into the habit of 27y when you are doing co-parenting things - you haven't done anything to upset him, so why would he hate you?? He is still working very hard to keep one foot in both camps so that at some point he can make a final decision... but the chances are it WON'T be you, and when he does finally bother his arse to decide, he should NOT have the easy walk-back-in option.

The reason she can see you being like a couple is because YOU, the INJURED PARTY, are responding to him like a wife still. Because you aren't demonstrating coldness and disdain/dislike for him, but being normal and also falling back into the habit of 27y; and probably also wishing it were true.

To stop this "coupley" behaviour YOU will have to change your attitude around him. Be cool. Be distant. Stop any form of marital familiarity - you DON'T KNOW THIS MAN like you thought you did - he is not the facade that you were married to for 27y.

I have to agree that you must set the legal wheels in motion - even if just for formal separation and financial purposes.

I have to run now but I'm sure there was more I wanted to post!

Thumbwitch I absolutely agree he loves her. I just don't think it's in an adult way, which is to want the loved one to be happy at least as much (if not more, in many ways) as you do yourself. He loves like a toddler does - it's all about him.

I agree with your post completely, though.

Solost the fact you are as strong and together as you are, after this past year, is a miracle. This is your real life, not a soap, and you've actually done amazingly in coming as far, as fast, as you have done. Nobody is banging heads against brick walls. I think people are just worried that you are too damn nice for your own good, and the fool you were married to knows it. You are very brave and very together - just, perhaps (forgive me) a little too inclined to fall back on the patterns, as thumbwitch has said, of the past 27 years, when thinking of and interacting with your DH. But those years are past and the now is a very different landscape. He isn't who you believed him to be.

Every single person you know, online and off from the sounds of it, knows he's made a mistake. You wouldn't be human if you didn't want him to be one of them, but if he were capable of thinking that sensibly then he'd not be in this mess, would he? I think you have near-unanimity already!

I do appreciate that he's more generous financially than he'd have to be, and that that holds you back from a settlement and decree nisi. But if you went to mediation and sold it to him "as a way to avoid wasting money on lawyers on both our parts" then you might even be able to get that settlement set in a court order by consent, without his ever knowing you saw a lawyer at all. No? And then you would have some boundaries set out. At least you could get the formal separation agreement in place, with children's arrangements and finances. And he would be under no further illusions that he's calling all the shots, then, either.

He's too comfortable at the moment. It's making you all drift with the status qho. If you don't shift it, he sure as hell isn't likely to.

Same old from me again. It is interesting that your H has started to need/want to see more of the DCS at precisely the point that he may have been aware you were starting to disengage. I am sure he got a real fright back when he realised that you had made arrangements to go to London without him, and suddenly was able to go despite the BB. Incidently if he doesn't want to take her calls/texts he could switch his phone off. Most folk would at a concert. Unless of course, he is wanting you to know...

He may well want to see DCS everyday, and of course he could BUT he chose to leave and he chooses to stay away. I absolutely accept he loves them and misses them but he is all about manipulation. Unfortunately he he not beyond using his relationship with DCS to his own advantage.

Parents who live apart from their children have to accept that they cannot necessarily see them everyday. As I have said before it cannot be in anyway helpful to your DCS that he is around so much at the moment. It may not be what they even want.

When I was first separated from my XH we sat apart at these type of things, easier for all of us and helped reinforce the change to our DCS. All these years on of course, things have moved on and we can go and sit together if we want to.

Good Luck on your journey, but keeep thinking about about all that has been said on the thread.

"Obviously I am far more of a catch than BB - I suppose I just want H to realise that one day"

Honey, He realised not only that, but that you are TOO good for him, which is why he's using all these tricks to keep you hooked somehow.

Am very cynical about the DC involvement too, it's another way of keeping tabs on you, which is why I say for you to get the finances sorted asap, as a matter of urgency THEN detach immediately and go via email/solicitor only. Arrange the dates and times for access, no more. Get BUSINESS-LIKE ON HIS ARSE!

Sorry, not letting me post more than a paragraph

Is MN running a STFU LMHF program?

He could see the DC everyday. All he needs to do is leave BB and prioritise them. Move closer into a flat on his own. But no, he chooses to stay with BB.

Even worse he keeps making it seem and you believe that his hands are tied and he has no way out of BB.

LMHF, a paragraph of your condensed wisdom is worth at least a page of anyone else's. (With certain honourable exceptions of course.)

Ha ha Annie, and who said you can't see sarcasm in black and white

Thanks love!

Solo, My 'H' is now gone (thank GOD!) I am really clear that the death of our relaationship was his abusive treatment of me.

I disengaged and that in itself became something for him to hang his Blaming Hat on.

If my 'H' finds a way to blame me for the abuse he meted out, then your STBX will easily be able to shift some of the blame and guilt for the affair and the state of play onto you...BUT ONLY IF YOU LET HIM.

Stay sharp, be on your guard and tuned into all attempts for him to bring out the violins and whine about the petrol it costs to go to and fro to see the DC.. Boo hoo

Oh I wish I was there for them, I'm worried about you... All that is bollocks, designed to blame shift so that he feels better.

Sorry to be crass, but if he really meant any of it, he wouldn't have got his dick out then would he, and nor would he CONTINUE TO DO SO?

Tell him that the next time he tries to evoke sympathy.

Call him out, every single time, don't let him off a single hook. Only when he knows that every time he opens that useless flap of skin where a mouth ought to be to say a pile of shite, he may finally stop and think.

years ago 'H' used to torture me about stuff, for hours, days, for weeks. Ex BF, friends, and life before him. I used to apologise for it all and he used to ask What Bank can I cash your Sorry's in?

Imagine my pleasure in managing to regurgitate pretty much all the shitty snipes he used against me, years later, back to him.. The difference was, I had done nothing to him to have to apologise for, he really DID hit me, abuse me, swear at me, gaslight me, hurt me, betray me, belittle and humiliate me.

In the end I could stop him talking bollocks after about 3 or 4 words.. all of it using the stuff he used to control, manipulate and abuse me with all those years.

LMHF - sooooo glad for you that he's finally gone... Hope you're getting used to your new freedom :)

seconded

Thanks chaps!

Feeling good today! Boy will have to talk to him at the weekend though... but I'll cross that bridge...

How old is your dc LMHF?

5yo StarExpat

Sorry, I'm just nosey

Hi solo. Any nice plans for a wet February weekend?

wet ?

'tis bright and breezy here

spring is coming !