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.

Do what LMHF saya. Finish his bollocks once and for all. It is like groundhog day with him. He is still there!

Revenge as she said is a dish best served cold. Let them sort it out, send his key back in the post. Let them have their games, don't be his mistress........

Sorry typos on phone, WWIFN said what I thought basically. Groundhog day :(

Solo - do you not feel hugely insulted that he keeps thinking he still has some ownership of you, your life, your home ? Its like when you think back to people you went to school with but haven't seen for 20/30 years - you imagine them the same as they were then, when actually they have also moved on and got older etc etc. I think he imagines you as you were when he lived with you. Are you the same, or have you changed and moved on? If you have, don't you want to ram that fact into his stupid little face?

You said earlier that you had considered putting the house on the market, but that you had changed your mind. FWIW I think it would be a great idea. Psychologically, I wonder if you need something major like a house move to underline to yourself, and to him, that you have moved on and that things are not the same.

As it is, although it is obvious that you are trying to emotionally detach, I think that the fact that you live in your (once) shared house, and that you are heavily reliant on him making his financial contributions, is stopping you really moving forward.

He shouldn't even have the thought enter his head that you might want to see his new workplace, and you shouldn't give going to see it a moments thought, apart from maybe to reflect on how bizarre an idea it is.

On the other hand, I can see why you would want to stay in your home (not move/sell). I can understand that from what you have said.

Divorce papers are a good idea, though.
And I'm not sure you are willing to accept that why he has done / continues to do (despite financially contributing and seeing kids regularly), is horrid. And it is a reflection of him, as a person. What individual, with a moral compass, leaves their family for another woman? He seems to think that he can do this and as long as he pays and makes frequent contact with dc, that it's all ok and his behaviour is justified or the bad stuff is somehow "cancelled out" by his "good qualities". I do think you fall for that a bit :( but you have come a long way and I appreciate that this is so, so difficult.

Take good care of yourself. Do something lovely for you this week :) xx

Thanks all for your comments, harsh reading for a Saturday night but maybe I needed it.

STAREXPAT: In no way do I feel the way he is behaving now cancels out the bad stuff and the way he has treated me. Of course he has treated me and the DC's appallingly. And regarding the house, earlier this week my impulse was to move away and break ties here completely, start afresh somewhere else but on reflection, why the hell should I? I have done nothing wrong, its a lovely house I have done a lot of work on it to get it how I wanted it, the DC's have loads of friends here and H should pay for us as long as we need him to.

H is away next week again so will get some headspace, am having a hair colour etc on Monday and meeting friends for lunch later in the week so looking forward. Thanks x

SCAREDOFCOWS: I don't really feel he has 'ownership' of me, he never did. I am my own person, I do what I want to do, when I want to do it, I answer to no-one. Maybe my reliance on his financial contribution does stop me moving forward but I kind of feel why SHOULD I go get a crappy full time job in a call centre and send my kids to a childminder just because he decided to bugger off. I am considering college to get some qualification (havent got any but not sure what I want to do atm!

Solost just to clarify - I understand that about not wanting to move/sell. It makes perfect sense to me :) that's what I was trying to say before.

Oh and glad to hear that you don't feel that what he does now cancels out his behaviour. Remember though, despite what he says, he does think this...

WWIFN: Sorry you feel I have disappointed you.

Just to clarify a few points you raised.

I DONT and and have no inclination to compete with BB, whatsoever. I am not plotting any trip with him and told him that I had no inclination to see where he worked, that it was not my business anymore and that all I cared about was my bills being paid.

I have not evaded the childcare issues you and other posters have raised, as I have mentioned in previous posts, H sees the DCs on Tuesdays (picking up DD's and taking them dancing) and Thursdays (taking H to football) and Saturdays (doing various activities/taking them for luch/trips out etc). He is barely in the house these days at all. I did broach with PIL about seeing them there but they were obviously uncomfortable with it so what other option do I have?

I also would like to apologise to anyone who feels they have wasted their time posting on here. I would like to assure you all that I read everything and feel your advice and support has been invaluable to me during the last few months.

And finally, I feel I have moved a long way forward since I started posting in November. I wish you could have seen me then and could see the difference now. Obviously its not coming across well on here . Sorry you feel you need to stay off this thread, your advice has always been welcome (even though it has been hard to read at times).

Incidently, if this is the general consensus, please let me know and I will stop posting, I don't want to, but don't want you ladies feeling I am wasting your time. Sorry if I have disappointed you all. x

STAREXPAT: Sorry, that comment should have been addressed to SCAREDOFCOWS

You haven't disappointed anyone, solost. Please don't feel that way. I think you've come a long way. It's not easy.

I hope you stick around and keep posting :)

((((solost))))

Solost - please keep posting. I think you have moved forward but you are still harbouring ideas about your H coming back to you.
We keep saying to you that it is imperative that you realise that anything coming out of your H's mouth, especially re. the BB, is likely to be a lie. You are still not realising this - you are still accepting his version of events, despite the fact that he has lied and viciously to you to get his own way (and, thank God, failed!)

Please understand this - HE IS A LIAR.

You have to accept that otherwise he will continue to mess with your mind, your resolve and everything else, and a year down the line you will still be in the same place as you are now, hanging on, expecting every day that he will decide to leave BB and come back to you, since he's "obviously" not happy with her.

You have NO IDEA what he is like with her. NONE. Because you only have his version of events, and quite frankly it is in his best interests to have you hanging on for him so he will tell you whatever suits him.

You say you are detaching, and your comment about the BB's parents was a good one BUT I actually think you would have done better to say "really?" in an utterly bored, uninterested manner. I can pretty much guarantee that he saw a spark of "ha! little miss perfect isn't so perfect, is she now" coming off you - which is exactly what he needs to know that you are still involved with him. Cultivate an attitude of extreme boredom if he so much as mentions her; remind him every time that you only wish to discuss the children and their needs, his life and all its current accoutrements are of no interest to you.

If he is emailing you his schedule, junk it.

Post the key back to him - not to her, however tempting it might be. To him. At work if necessary.

When you get your hair done, pick a colour that's really quite different from normal, preferably one your H won't like. And definitely nothing like BB's (if you know what hers is like). Look at courses to do - what a great idea! but you can tell your family and friends about it - there is NO NEED to mention it to H, what you do is none of his business except as it relates to the DC of course.

I know it's hard - you have 27 years of habit to break - just remind yourself daily that:
1 - He is a liar
2 - He is still with BB
3 - nothing else is relevant.

Oh and
4 - you can do this without him because you are FAB.

Solost earlier today you posted that you needed closure, that he had suggested he took you to see his workplace and that you had "acted disinterested". You then wondered to us whether you should take him up on it, mused about the chat you would have for 6 hours, adding that you couldn't imagine what the OW would think. You also took delight in the car story and the OW's actions. Other posters praised you for the comment you made to him about OW's Mum's remarks, but I think what you said would have been received by him as critical of the new people in his life and of course he gave you what you needed, slating not only his partner, but her mother too. In a way, you're feeding each other's needs here, but he's the one with the surfeit again.

Of course you're still competing with her.

A detached person would have told him that you'd got no desire to spend time with him and see his workplace. You'd have told his old firm that you couldn't relay messages. You'd have told him it was his problem to deal with the MIL figure's remarks.

You haven't told us that your PILs weren't keen to do the hand-overs there, but you say they are not keen, so what can you do?

We told you that weeks ago. We said you don't have to do anything. Where he sees the children is his problem not yours. But you're just not prepared to enforce boundaries and can imagine you didn't frame that request of the PILs as a heartelt plea that would have helped you. I can see why they are not prepared to help him though.

Instead of telling him he's got to agree set times to see the children and not always at the weekend and never at the house, instead you made idle threats about divorce and moving. He once again gave you what you needed and told you not to do that, as he didn't want to lose you. We can all see that instead of that ridiculously territorial and proprietorial statement enraging you, instead you took comfort from it and backed down instantly.

It's so obvious to me at least what's really going on here. I'm sorry if you can't see it in yourself, but it really isn't helping you and it's certainly not helping the children.

100% agree with all of that ^^^

95% agree with thumbwitch but not sure about the hair colour advice

Those of us that have actually been in the position of being dumped after very long marriages will know that applying clean logic to a situation doesnt work and that it can take a long time to process everything and reach a point where you are emotionally capable of doing what on paper you should have been doing some time ago.

I hope you have a nice day planned Solost

Hi solost, have you seen this thread ?

Can you remember and tell the OP how and what you and H told the children?

Solost, I am only a lurker here normally so I apologise for butting in..! I did write a couple of times before about my own parents and how my dad behaved like your H for so many years, keeping my mum dangling with little comments - literally word for word like your H.

Whenever my mum mentioned divorce (she was alone, my dad was with someone else) he would say 'oh but I don't want to lose you' or 'but I like telling people you're my wife'.

I just want to add here to what people are saying, about how wrong and selfish it is of him to say those things - you are obviously a calm person and want to get on with him - but perhaps anger might be healthy when he comes out with a comment like that. He isn't saying, dont divorce, I want you back - he is trying to stop you moving on, while he has completely moved on himself.

Regarding divorce, I think of it like this - a husband is a conditional status - it's not forever like a child or a parent. He is living with, sleeping with and loving another woman - that is the truth. IN those circumstances - how dare he tell you he doesn't want you to move on?

That is what he is doing - telling you he would like you not to make yourself free, then he goes back to his partner, while you continue to live the role of his wife, mother to his children in the house he wants you to stay in - for sentimental reasons.

People can behave in very complex and selfish ways. I know that people can be very selfish and can think they are doing the right thing. Perhaps he thinks that throwing you these little comments lets you know that he cares- then he gets to walk away guilt free to be with the woman he actually wants to be with.

Perhaps he is just incredibly selfish and it would make him sad to see you with someone else, even though he is happy (because he is, there is no doubt about that, or he wouldn't be with her) but that is then controlling and unkind.

I think divorce is so vital, because otherwise you are really allowing him to have a role as husband that is just nonsensical. He left, he is with her, why should he have the privelige of being your husband?

Its not for me to say how long someone should take to begin to move on after a marriage, that is so personal - and it wasn't even a year ago that you split, so I know these things move a few steps forward then some back- but there are things you say - such as questioning in a recent post whether he is really happy - that show you are still hoping he might come back. I think counselling if you haven't considered it, would be really helpful, to examine why you still don't think his behaviour has crossed a line from which you could not return.

I hope you can begin to look forward and see that while life hands us blows, such as the end of a marriage you had no desire to lose, we can go on to live totally surprising new lives, meeting new people and having new experiences.

You are still living in this man's shadow, I hope you can get some righteous anger burning at his attempt to stop you moving out of it (scientific term: having ones cake and eating it) ...and have a wonderful summer ahead.

The thing is, solo, I think you do want him to come back. And fair play to you, that's your choice. He's sending out lots of signals that at least indicate he wants to keep that option open to him. So what do you do in this interim period? I don't really know. I don't think you can make your children live in a state of mind called 'waiting for daddy to come home'. My great fear for them is that he will come back. And then leave again. And then they really will have no idea which way is up. It's my opinion that they would be better off with two happily divorced parents than this half-way house - but equally would also be better off with two together parents, so if you want him back, I would tell him so and ask him to make a definite, and definitive choice.

In terms of your concern about your dc's future relationships, what I can tell you as a child of parents who divorced when I was 3 and both remarried when I was 6 (on successive Saturdays in fact! Quite odd in retrospect!) - of me and my four full-sibs and step-sibs, all of us are married and none are divorced. Possibly slightly ironically, the only one who is is my other half-sib, whose parents (my dad and step-mum) are still married. In fairness to the person in question, it was a marriage at a very young age that came on to the rocks within months, so not really real.

You're allowed to want him back, you know. Personally I can't see why you would want him back but that's beside the point. But surely there has to be a limit on how long you keep that option open - for your own sanity?

All the experts on the thread... I've had an idea, but I don't know whether it's a good idea or not, so please feel free to tell me to shut up!

Maybe the next time solost's H mentions how unhappy he is with BB, solost should take a stance as the DC's mother (as opposed to H's estranged DW) and tell him that if he genuinely is unhappy in the relationship, perhaps it's time, for the children's sake to move out of her place, find a suitable flat/house of his own that is closer to the DC's and make them priority in his life. Maybe tell him that if he's not happy with her, then he can leave her as solost is SURE he'll someday meet someone else who will make him happier?

I guess I'm thinking that if she calls his bluff about BB without making herself as the other option, it might do one of two things: either get him to stop moaning about her to solost as he'll realise she really doesn't care (this is if it's all smoke and mirrors and he's actually happy with BB); OR (if he's genuinely unhappy with BB) it will let him know that he doesn't have to stay with her just because she was the OW when the marriage broke up, but equally that if he doesn't stay with her, that solost is NOT an alterative - the alternative is being closer to the kids in his own place.

A dumb idea?

Hi solost, I've been following your thread and can see how hard it must be to accept that the life that you had built up and were relying on to continue has changed and especially that this wasn't been your choice. But it has changed - and I think it would be good if you could think now about moving on.

I think WWIFN's posts earlier about the roles in your marriage are very pertinent now. You choose to marry and be a stay-at-home mum - and that made you very happy. You could have had a different life though - you instead have met someone else who encouraged you to develop a career and share care of looking after your children.

To an outsider it looks as if your dh wants to keep you in that traditional role - he is the provider, but now because he gets affection & sex from ow, you just get the mother role. I think that's why he is being so nice to you - he has things exactly as he would like & he would like this situation to continue. He definitely does not want you to find a life for yourself and certainly not find another man.

But how about you? Are you happy with this role? Imagine that he is not coming back - how do you see your life as being?

Maybe instead of thinking about his relationship with bb and whether it will last & whether he will come back, you can spend that time building an independent life for yourself. Going and getting some qualifications, as you said earlier, is exactly something that will help. What are your interests? What were your ambitions at school?

You can probably expect to experience some resistance from him once you start to get a life for yourself, but he has made his choice that he doesn't want your old life and I really think its time to stop waiting for him to come back to it. Maybe your dh will come back one day - but then it would be on very different terms, maybe he never will.

Hi Solost - I posted on this thread in the early days but did not continue as I felt what I said was not getting through. This may come across as harsh but my intention is only to be helpful.

You come across as someone who has an unusually high need to be told she is wonderful/perfect/compares favourably to others. As WWIFN says, you are getting this need for positive affirmation partly met by your husband at the moment, from his continued need to see you, positive comments about you, negative comments about the OW etc. You also live in hope that he will provide you with the ultimate positive affirmation by choosing you back over the OW.

This thread provides another source of positive affirmation. You have also written of how, for example, you 'couldn't resist' eliciting positive affirmation from your children by asking them if you looked younger than another mother.

This need of yours imho renders you very vulnerable to forming relationships with narcissistic men as (a) they are masters at hooking you in, and keeping you hooked, with this sort of affirmation and (b) they are often 'alpha male' types, who you may feel reflect well on you. Relationships with these men can never be healthy. Sadly, I also think that your need for positive affirmation is so strong that it will sometimes supercede the needs of your children (so, for example, you are not setting clear boundaries about access).

For these two reasons I do think it would help you, and ultimately your children, if you were to have some good individual therapy to look at why you have this need and to work on, instead, getting your affirmation from within yourself.

I am not optimistic that any of this will sink in but maybe it will a little.

I follow that logic entirely NoWayNoHow but I don't think Solost should point it out, I think she should create the conditions for it to happen.

In practical terms, the H can't afford to live on his own, because he is paying so much to his family. A fair and reasonable financial agreement that is drawn up as a legal document would ensure that Solost is not financially dependent on this man for any more than she is entitled to, with due cognisance given to the difficulties of Solost working as a primary carer and what will be left after expensive childcare costs have been factored in.

However, allowing him to pay over the odds means that to an extent he is trapped and that he can only live independently from his family if the OW is picking up the bill and supporting him. Failing to live independently of him is keeping him there, in effect. This fact completely transcends whether he wants to be with the OW or not. One of what might be in truth several ties that bind the new couple, is that he is staying there because he can't afford not to.

From his point of view, there has never been enough motivation to leave OW and come back to Solost. Seeing the children has been easy and the first 4 months especially so, because they still believed he was just working away. He's never had to discuss with them, the relationship that caused him to leave. Because anger has perhaps never been acceptable in their family, he has even managed to evade their angry and normal recriminations.

He's never had to be a single parent at all. And all the time, he has been allowed to think that all of them can be saved for a rainy day that might never come.

What motivates most humans is loss. If that is not felt or believed to have happened, there is inertia.

And above all, really loving someone means letting them go. This man doesn't love, he doesn't love at all.

Tremendously insightful post lizza and I entirely agree.

I don't think you should stop posting btw solost it's amazing the thoughts and inputs you get here. In the end real life friends are bound by ties to tell us kind things rather than the truth. It doesn't mean everything said here is right or true but it s useful for sifting and working through your own feelings.

Solost, I don't believe anyone has the right to tell you whether you "should" want him back. People here have generally only expressed what would work for them and I think have pretty universally accepted that it is up to you to decide what works for you. If this was a story where we would get to vote on a happy ending, the majority would want to see you divorce the cheating so-and-so, start enjoying single life and preferably meet someone else who this time put you first; but a substantial minority would be happy to see your H wake up, realise what he'd done, abase himself before you and turn (back?) into a decent loving husband and full-time father. It's a legitimate wish. What we're getting a bit excited about, though, is that you are currently letting yourself get taken for a bit of a mug because of it. The man to whom you are still technically married is feeding you lines that keep you hopeful that Ending 2 is quite on the cards. Realistically, however, there does not seem to be any prospect at present of it happening at all. The things he says and does continue not to add up. He knows you inside out after 27 years, 'course he does; he knows exactly which buttons to press and exactly how hard and how often. Even with a Greek chorus reminding you what's really going on, you still can't help falling for it.

Given that this is real life, not a romantic comedy, I think there are two far more likely endings than the ones a studio would tack on, and they're both rather sad. In one, he announces his engagement to BB and you are devastated (to be honest I'm quite expecting this one, though would be glad to be wrong). In the other, you suddenly look back and realise it's been years since he left, he never did get round to coming back, and now you're quite old and don't have the looks or the energy to replace him. One's the sudden death, the other the creeping death. They are both only possible if you hang on to forlorn hope like, oh I don't know, the French Lieutenant's Woman or someone, looking longingly out to sea for a ship that's never going to sail back. All romantic and tear-jerking but not a very practical way to live in the long term.

The bottom line is, stop believing the fucker is going to come back and start behaving as if you know he isn't. If he ever does, review things then and make your choice. Putting your life on hold indefinitely on the say-so of a man who lied to you and cheated on you, though, is really selling yourself short.