ValentineBombshell: well it went tits up but thank you

[ValentineBombshell]

Hello to anyone who remembers me from, as my name suggests, way back in February. Am a long time MN regular whose H confessed to kissing a colleague at work/an EA.

original thread here

Had to step away from MN for a bit as everything just imploded. Of course he hadn't just kissed her, it was all far more tawdry than that, she'd been giving him blowjobs in carparks.

And now my life reads like a badly scripted soap. Am about to proceed with divorce, distressingly he is still living in the same house as me and the children and he has reached heights (or should that be lows?) of jaw-dropping awfulness.

But I just wanted to come back and say thank you for the wise words that MNers took the time to post, for the support and the tough love, both of value in equal measure. And hopefully back on MN under my usual name xx

VB so sorry to hear that, I wish you all the best and hope that in time you start to feel stronger and life starts to get back to some sort of normality for you and your DC. Take care.

Hi. Sorry to hear that you've been (and are still going through) such a hard time. That really is gross, she must have been a class act Sending you some support and strength.

Well H is as bad as she is, tbf. Admittedly I don't understand women who target married men with children (has wrecked another marriage involving a child) but H is the one who made the vows to me when we married, he was supposedly my best friend for over 20 years and the one who told me he had the 'dream' - me, the children, lovely life and hone. The adultery continues, apparantly it isn't adultery anymore he tells me although not sure how that computes. Unfortunately he shows no signs of leaving.

I remember your thread, VB. Your posts are so articulate.

He's a peice of work, isn't he?

He must leave! Does his family know what he's been up to?

Could you sell the house? Can he not live with her?

His parents are devastated, hurt and angry in equal measure. They have been fabulously supportive to me. His father wants me to take him for every penny I can! They have also removed him from the will and named instead the children as beneficiaries with me as one of the executors (not sure he is aware of this). They want no contact with him, OW or her children.

I have asked him to move out but he has refused. In fact he told me he was planning on staying and buying the family home that I am currently doing up to sell for him and OW to live in. When could she come round to look at it?

!!!!!

Jesus - he is being an arse of the highest order. i'm really sorry about how things ahave turned out for you VB

I've just been reading your old thread when you were wondering what was going on and trying to understand everything.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I remember your original thread - really thought he would wise up.

Are you still doing up the house to sell?

Thanks SamsGoldilocks. Back then there was still a semblence of the man he once was. He appeared to genuinely want to save our marriage. But it was talk and not matched by deeds. Who he is now, no one recognises. As I said he parents are poleaxed by him. He was incredibly moral, upright and strong. A good man. The fact that so many thought so too means I wasn't blinkered and stupid for 20+ years, which is a sort of comfort.

He has been on medication for depression too following the affairs' discovery, gradually increased and increased by the GP - he spent hours in bed, ignored the children, made suicide threats, which I talked him through. I look back and can't believe the emotional demands he made on me. He now believes after 2-3 months he is over the depression and plans to come off the meds. Have said to him don't do it whilst still living with us!

What a wanker!

Just about finished doing the house - there's a spot of kitchen painting to do, and a bit of garden blitzing but have done most that needed doing.

It is the house that we got married from, all 3 children were bought home from hospital as newborns to here and we have plowed a lot of money into it, but I have no regrets about wanting to sell it. it's too big for me to look after now that I have gone back to work, plus have the 3 children and he's stopped doing anything to help. Why on earth he still wants to live in it, and wants OW to live in it is beyond me. She'd hardly be popular locally either.

But his whole thinking is warped. He came across some body and foot lotion he bought me at Christmas still unused and asked if I still wanted it, if not he would 'regift it' to her.

Pithy but accurate assessment, ScaredofCows

Does the OW really know what she has got
Second hand man
Second hand body & foot lotion
Second hand house

(((hugs)) to you and a kick up the arse to him!

I think I would be inclined to let her do the painting herself

Oh god I'd love her to know she was getting your old body lotion he really doesn't sound er........sane?

I query his sanity a lot too. He told me though gritted teeth and tears that his mental health was fine, after I suggested living in the same house with all the memories attached might not be good for him and really he ought to have a fresh start.

I did also point out, as someone not brilliantly mathematical, myself, to someone who is meant to be a whizz with numbers, that he couldn't afford two mortgages on what will be a reduced income.

Instead he got straight back on his phone to text the OW (even the children complain that he spend too much time on his phone and they're only young) and then he stormed off.

But I need his agreement to sell the house. Had hoped to get the access pattern in place so the children got used to it before the summer holidays and before moving otherwise it's too many changes for them at once. But he isn't thinking of them.

I honestly think he sounds on his way to a complete breakdown.

Onwards and upwards without him for you and the dc.

Good God!! He sounds a real Tosser!!

Just read both threads and am quite speechless.
VB, so very sorry to hear of the place you are in now.
How are you coping?

Your H sounds like a completely different man to the one you knew.
Mid- life crisis?
Breakdown?

Ah no VB, I've too read your original post, I'd so hoped he'd get it together in time - but your last stark post was so sad.

Are you going to leave? It must be a nightmare to be there when you know he's going out to see OW.

I'd be very tempted to just change the locks while he's out one day, ring the police to tell them what you've done and that it's because you fear for your/DCs safety - he sounds seriously deranged and unpredictable.

Not sure I'd have talked him through the suicide threats either, or coming off meds. You need to really step away from your previous commitment to him now to preserve your own sanity and protect yourself.

When I continued to live with my X long after I should have/wanted to go (for various reasons) I used to pretend to myself that I lived with a particularly difficult housemate, sort of like a black version of Robin's Nest (showing my age). It did help to get that necessary disengagement a bit.

Hope you can still find little things in each day that keep you going for now.

Am up early thanks to dc3

CarGirl, I think breakdown too, although he thinks having taken the 'decision' to be with OW that his mental health is better, and maybe it is, but I suspect clinging to staying here in the house is an indication it is not. He fears change yet has instigated behaviour that means change. But he really thinks he can stay here, join family meals, drop into the kids lives when he feels like it whilst conducting his affair (which as I think I said isn't according to him an affair or adultery...think he's put it on some higher plane)

I ought to point out that without any histrionics I called time on us as he'd run out of time with me, but for some reason he feels the need to think it was him who made that decision/we reached it jointly; similarly when I threw him out of the bedroom (found him on our bed texting ow) that it was in his mind all along to do that. With that mindset, I have been trying to convince him that he has been thinking of moving out for a while, but he's not budging!

Tobermory, yes that's it exactly, he IS a completely different person which is why although I can mourn the great life together we had and the man he once was (or I thought he was?) I certainly don't want him back. Exactly the opposite. The OW is welcome to him, gift wrapped with an enormous bow.

Very occasionally there glimpses of the 'old' him with the children, but I feel that's now rather a hearty act or it's part of him he can't sustain.

There are times, rare thankfully, where he is bloody awful with the children, and I have to be watchful. He was massively insulted at the suggestion he's a neglectful father (as his parents said so when they heard he was out all hours with OW) but he is shouty/gritted teeth with the dcs too. My father in law has told me to phone the police if he gets physical with either me or the children, but that's not the danger. He is too quick to over react with them, get verbally aggressive and the reaction is OTT. He then must realise and goes into 'superdad' mode.

When he isn't here it's a blessed relief

Thank you pickgo for sharing with me. Yes, it is bloody hard to think he can, and let's be frank, he is, conducting his affair in front of me. It's not that I want him for myself, it's just the enormous disrespect. It's actually very cruel behaviour which he chooses not to acknowledge.

And there are v few options for me and the children to leave at present. I want to move closer to work to reduce the commute, it has been a juggle as a couple, as a single parent it would be very very tough, certainly not for the long term. Moving would also mean going where I have friends and the schools are good for the children. My/our family are London or in the north and although supportive and would have us, I need to keep my job. which It's high pressure but I enjoy and want to keep the upheaval for the dcs to minimum. Have looked at moving out and renting, but as the person who looks after the money, I know we can't afford to pay the mortgage/bills on this place and also rent another. H, when he's talked about moving, has spoken of moving to share with a colleague (when he isn't talking out of his backside about buying this house and moving the OW in).

Really I just need him to leave. Am not sure I can just change the locks and then phone the police to say I fear for our safety when he hasn't been physically abusive.

COuldn't you get advice from a solicitor re legal ways of getting him to move out?

I got a court order to say the house must be sold, in order to distribute the assets between us. I didn't want to stay there and he couldn't afford to buy me out, but there was enough equity for each of us to get a smaller place with a mortgage. I don't know if this would be appropriate in your circumstances.