bizzarre behaviour from DH, mid life crisis??

[dizzy36]

last November my husband declared that he had had enough, he felt he had to leave, hes felt like this for a long time, we are incompatible, he can't relate to me?? I wont do anything, he doesnt want to waste anymore years, he wants the opportunity to find someone whos going to love and take care of him? the list goes on.

After basically sulking through november, December and most of Jan he walked out on me and my 2 children (11 and 2). He continued to come to see them almost every day and saw my older child on a sunday. He even talked about taking the time as a break and that he would be home again soon, he went from loving me to hating me from one week to the next, it was exhausting but i hung in there. He came home in Mid march, 'tried' for about 2 weeks then the mood swings came...he didnt love me anymore, i'm not the one, he doesnt see any future for us blah blah

surprise surprise I found out at the begginng of June that he had been seeing a young girl at work, an employee, shes 25, hes 40 this year. The strange thing was it seems to have been an emotional fling rather than a physical one and it wasnt going on for very long yet he said he thought he was in love with her! a few days after he confessed we decided to try again...he said he loved me, he wished he could turn the clock back, so glad he hadnt lost me etc. Then on saturday he walked out!

I have found out lots of things since, things he said like the fact that he only came home in march because i was making it 'awkward' for him to see the kids, that he was begging this girl to take him back in May when he was still at home. I am pretty disgusted with what i have heard.

The one thing he kept on saying was he wished he had clarity, clear thinking. I have no idea what that means so couldnt help him. dont we all have clarity, the ability to think clearly, know the difference between right and wrong?

My oldest starts secondary school in sept and my daughter nursery, I practically begged him not to leave until they have settled in school, he refused and i am now telling him he must leave them alone until then. The last time he left i could see my son felt an awful lot of pressure to please his dad i.e. make sure to go and see him, which he doesnt need right now. My other half is not happy to do this which is understandable but he needs to understand that he chose this situation and its time to put the childen first as its all been about him for the last 8 months. He even chose a rock climbing outing to tell my son he was going!

I firmly beleive he is having some kind of mid life crisis because he acted exactly the same the year he turned 30. I just cant beleive i'm still willing to work things out. Sadly, when he does come to his senses it will be too late and he will have lost the 3 most important people in his life.

sorry for the 'going on' it has been a very long and harrowing 8 months.

i

I can think of someone who would agree that this OP's H is 'ill' and should be allowed special dispensation for cheating, lying, manipulating, abusing, stealing and threatening his family.

My XH. He's most definitely 'ill' then.

You are not the most important people in his life......he is!

did he not learn his lesson 10 yrs ago?.

Im sorry you are having to go through this, but he cant be allowed to kep bouncing back and forth.

mousey, this is AF, btw

good advice, anothermum

Thought it was FS!

Knew it was you AF - I mean FS - and grabs a large glass off Mousy and slumps back on sofa X

I'm pogged on cheese and ham toasties.

sorry, pardon moi.

dizzy - are you still around? Sorry that we are all hijacking your thread.

Not hostility Snowdrop but disbelief at your very insensitive post. When a man has an affair the first thing you think is "is she better than me, prettier, funnier etc" but actually you need a friend to say " no, you deserve better, your a strong independent woman, who deserves respect, love and loyalty" let him crawl back and beg for forgiveness. That's what she deserves!!

Btw pour me a pinot or sauvignon blanc, I'm not fussy ;-)

Debs - my kinda girl

I have Hardy's red

it's yummy

goes well with my Convenience Food dinner

dizzy, are you ok ?

my god he sounds like my stxh..last sept I got the "Im not in love with you " line

several weeks ensued of me trying desperately to be Mrs Perfect wife until I found out the feckwit was texting his 52 work colleague, deleted texts etc..it all started to add up, he left then came back, then we coasted along, then I threw him out, I am divorcing him..our dcs are only 14 mths, 6, 10 and 17 and I wasnt letting him mess with their heads anymore, during his "emotional affair".he worked out, lost weight, started finding fault with everything I did, changed his taste in music..latest news he has moved in with her and they are in love..bleurrgghh pass the sick bucket..me..Ive lost two stone and feeling better than I have done for a while now

I'm really sorry that you're in this situation, it sounds like your DH is a liar and a cheat.

But please don't use your children as a weapon against him, set up some regular contact for them and stick to it, your seperation isn't anything to do with them, and they will need regular contact with their dad (assuming he isn't harming them in any way).

When my h had his last affair he was nearly 40, he started wearing hilarious clothes, so young and trendy. I took great delight in cutting them to shreds, and putting the ridiculous ankle boots in the local charity shop, where they sat in the window for ages, cos no other twat would wear them!!

ankle boots ?

< splits sides >

did i mention that the young girl was an employee of his small business and when i told him she should go, he was very reluctant....cant sack her for having a relationship with the boss he said.....think that says it all doesnt it. He clearly wanted to keep that door well and truly open.

The one thing i did do is have a word with the girl (she was all tears and apologies) and tell her exactly what my DH was like as a husband and a father...and also that he was clearly using her as he was me (she wasnt aware of his constant visits home when he left the first time and that he continually promised to come home)

If she does go there again she will end up just like me, people like them with the same principles and family values (i.e none) probably should be together.

In a way cant really blame him for enjoying the attention...he is average looking, overweight and thinning on top.....why do men like that still manage to pull 25 year olds. I think the prospect of 'being looked after' financially was a lure for her.

It just goes to show you never really know someone. The bare faced lies and minipulation has been a huge shock. He even put a fake name on his phone so i wouldnt know when she text! I've never even checked his phone.

I try not to judge people as i always beleive what goes around comes around and he will end up on arse at some point in the future, he'll either meet someone who will bleed him dry or he'l be alone.

i have spoken to my DS and he understands that i dont want him to be hurt again by his dad but says that he would still like to visit him. I will probably talk to my dh next week to arrange. I am going to make it very clear that my son wants it to be just him and his dad, that he must not put any ideas into his head about regular visits as my son is likely to just say what his dad wants to hear. It should be entirely up to my DS when he sees his dad so i intend to ask him each week what he would like to do. He should feel no pressure about it

With regards my dd, she is fine and doesnt mention her dad at all so he can wait to see her and concentrate on the damage control he needs to do with my son. I am sure he will have something to say about all of this but if he does then i will have to point out that if he does want to go down the legal route then i have a very good case against him and his abilities as a father. I dont beleive there is a court in the country that would give him the access he thinks he should have bearing in mind his track record with his kids not to mention his failings as a husband....verbally/emotionally abusive, excessive drinking, workaholic, lazy........why on earth have i stayed with this man!!

You sound strong, and you sound resolute

You have to be, my love

This man is weak, and you are worth a million of him

Yes ankle twating boots!! Joins you in laughing cos he really acted like a prick!

It is amazing what we put up with, but your better than this. He has shown his true colours and will make her life miserable too.

Oh Dizzy, I'm so sorry. I have read your post and there are horrible parallels there. My H was sulking all the time he was supposedly trying to repair our marriage. In fact I now know he was texting and e-mailing OW and I think that the sulking must be a symptom of these lying, cheating bastards continuing to lie and cheat while they sulk with the "punishment" of being where they don't want to be to give lip-service to doing the right thing. My H did that whole bouncing back and forth crap and he uttered the holy words about clarity, clear thinking, oh and wanting "space" away from me and OW. Whenever he got space it was only ever from me. Not for one moment do I think that during his time with OW did he sulk or get brain-fuddled and need clarity and clear thinking - he just filled his selfish little boots with whatever pleased him.

I am sorry to say this but due to everything you have said about his behaviour I cannot believe that this was just an EA but a physical one. If you have not done so I would recommend that you get yourself checked out at a clinic. I know this is a really hard thought to bear, but better safe than sorry because he was probably not thinking of safe sex, just the sex bit. Forgive my brutality but I feel passionately about the risk these men expose us to, often with ignorance but always with selfishness.

Dizzy when you think about it the workplace is a potential breeding ground for affairs, we spend so much of our time with colleagues that it's easy for 'in-jokes' about the boss etc to become small huddles and then lunch out.....

My XH's first one was like that. I know now that she wasn't a potential life partner though, she doesn't have kids and she travels alot so he wouldn't have felt secure enough.

The second one does have all the responsibilities of a house, kids (a young one too) and therefore she is a safe bet in terms of needing to be in one place - just like I was when I first met him. When I pointed that out to him once, he went red with rage - bullseye.

What mine will have done is present himself as a 'safe' pair of hands as a partner and father-figure. It will slip under the radar that he has left behind a whole family, that reality doesn't fit the picture so it gets airbrushed out. Nothing can be done about that but accept it and take some comfort from knowing that and turning away as best as possible.

this is to those ladies who have similar experience to mine. My dh has always been a weak needy kind of man. Its not a coincidence that each time he has behaved like this i had a baby/toddler...the first time my son was 1 and this time my daughter was 2. He did express a feeling of jealousy towards the attention i gave the kids but i never thought he was serious. He used to complain that the fridge was full of stuff for the kids and their clothes got ironed first. He complained that he would always have to practically force me to go on holiday abroad....we didnt go abroad for about 3 years then the year of our last hol abroad (!997) i got pregnant and i have to admit i told him i wouldnt go abroad until she was 3 as she was a bit of a handful and he was never much help when on hols (i'd always come back from hols even more exhausted). He went to barcelona for a weekend 2 years ago and i jokingly told him to take some condoms just in case he got lucky! (really bad joke) when he got back i just passed out that night instead of letting him 'throw me round the bedroom' like he wanted to.

So in a way i have to take some responsibility for the deterioration of our marriage, I knew what kind of man he was and what he needed. I supposed i got into the danger zone of taking him for granted which i said i would never do. but it still doesnt excuse his behaviour I know. Once this bit of skirt appeared we had no chance as a couple. In his eyes she was everything I'm not...emotionally supportive, they have more in common (music, gardening!!). Oh but apparently i'm still a very attractive woman which is why he kept switching it on when the mood took him, making me think he wanted to make it work, I am disgusted by that most of all.

Talking to this girl, i dont think she has such little self esteem that she would entertain him again, I basically put a spanner in the works big time so she now knows him for the lying minipulative man he really is. She told me she is in a bad relationship already and does not need another weak man. Apparently she even told my dh (after the first chat i had with her) that he was a very lucky man. I did tell her that i would wipe the floor with the pair of them if she went there again if we were together or not. Am pretty sure she does not want to brought up in child custody or divorce proceedings.

What were your husbands like strong or weak like mine. is that a classic sign that a dh will bail when when he is unhappy

Weak, self-absorbed, immature, lazy, irresponsible, selfish.

Dizzy..what are you going to do (this time) when he comes crawling back with his tail between his legs ? (he will)

You can't keep "seeing off" all these "bits of skirt" he keeps picking up, you know

That would be grim beyond belief