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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How on earth do I cope?

32 replies

YouMakeMeWannaLaLa · 18/07/2011 13:32

5 weeks ago my H of 5 months (been together 5 years, no DC) told me he had feelings for another woman. Over the course of the week I found out it'd been going on for about 2 months, just meeting up.

He said he wasn't happy with me, didn't think it'd work if we gave it a go but wasn't sure if he wanted her. I eventually asked him to leave and he is currently living in a caravan in the orchard.

He still hasn't decided what he wants. We've been spending a lot of time together but yesterday I found out he has also been seeing her, and sleeping with her. But is still undecided.

I have thrown him off the premises and told him to go to hers, I phoned her and told her she was welcome to him. She wants him and loves him but he is still unsure.

I have reacted really badly, partly because he is the last last last person you would ever think could do this and partly because it was a complete and utter shock. I have tried to keep my dignity and have not begged him to stay though I made it clear at first I wanted to try. After 2 weeks of dithering I said I didn't want him back, though I honestly don't know how I feel.

I had to go to the doctors as I don't have much RL support (everyones busy and has done what they can but I spend a lot of time alone now) and I was thinking incredibly dark thoughts. I got some sleeping pills and prozac but now the sleeping pills have run out and the prozac isnt doing much. I have constant panic in my chest, feel sick, cannot eat or sleep, work and pets are suffering.

I've told him that if he wants her he has to move off site and mocve his work (he works where we live) but if he doesn't want her, he has to tell her and he can stay in the caravan and work here. I haven't said I'd automatically take him back, but at the moment I might be willing to try if he was.

I honestly don't know how to cope. He says he won't see her until he makes a decision but won't say when he'll decide!!!

I know I have to face the prospect that he will pick her and be out of my life forever and most of my friends think this would be for the best. Maybe it is. But I am still in shock, terrified, panicking. We haven't even got our wedding album back yet.

How to cope?

OP posts:
BeforeAndAfter · 25/07/2011 22:07

I am so very sorry about your ponies. I know it?s the right thing to do but knowing that doesn?t make it any easier so stock up on tissues, have a cry over your ponies and try not to let H take advantage of you while you?re feeling sad. Easier said than done, I know.

As for your H wanting you back, here?s some detail of what happened to me. If it helps you in anyway, even if it means you do something different from me then I wish you well, I truly do. And I?m so sorry if this is me hijacking your thread. It?s the last thing I intend but you know I?m not a woman of few words! xx

My week of true hope was as follows:

We were due to go to our dream holiday/retirement home to spend the two weeks across Easter and the Royal Wedding, over there. This was all booked pre-discovery and we did not change bookings post discovery. H was focussed on this holiday as being the two weeks that would ?revive? his feelings for me. (Makes me feel sick, typing this). Well, in the week before going his behaviour to me was just cruel. He didn?t want to hold hands, hug me, touch me etc. I was persona non-grata but inconveniently in the same home. The plan was that he would drive down to the Med on the Wednesday and then I would fly out on the Thursday. Due to his behaviour I did not go, I rang him when I was meant to be at the airport and told him that I was not going to participate in his disgusting game of ?make me love you and want you more than I want OW?. That?s how it seemed to me.

So he was there and I was here and we both got on with things on the basis that we were separating. He came back early and the night he walked back through the door (I?d made up the spare bed for him) my old H walked through the door. His face, his eyes, his smile, his tone of voice, everything about him was the man I married. Apparently packing up all of my personal effects from the dream home made him think and want me again.

I had already booked time off work and so we stayed together and started to bond again. We talked honestly we had some good sex (essential for these men to bond) and we just enjoyed each other?s company. We went for long walks and I truly thought my H was back. Over Sunday lunch at our favourite country pub I asked him how I could know that he wouldn?t ?flick the switch? and suddenly want OW again and he looked me in the eyes, leant across the table, took my hands and smiled and said: ?she doesn?t stand a chance?. I believed him. I truly believed him and I shall never ever forget those words or that moment as long as I live.

We walked back home across fields and the river on a beautiful sunny day and we were wrapped up in each other with me snuggled under his shoulder. It truly could not have been more perfect and was all very Mills & Boon.

Then a couple of days later I had to stay in London overnight on business, I was at a professional dinner and I just had to be away from him, and then he was away on business for the next two nights. I never saw the man that really was my H again. The man I got back was the liar and the cheat. I shall never ever understand this. When I left him on the Wednesday morning he was mine and when I saw him again on Saturday he was no longer mine.

That Saturday night he finished with OW permanently (allegedly) but he did so with a heavy heart such that I could see and feel it and thereafter he resented being with me. All it took to turn him back to face OW was three nights apart from me, time apart which I could not control, unless I dedicated my life to clinging like a limpet, giving up work, friends etc. I?m not sure why I?m spewing this out on your thread but maybe it will help you formulate questions for your H. Maybe it will help you to draw lines in the sand, to beware, to understand how weak and flawed these H?s are.

I totally understand the thrill of your ?win? over the OW as I too felt that and I have to say I relished in it. I positively bathed in her hurt and lathered myself up with it but it came back to bite me. My theory is that he was still confiding in her, deluded that she was his impartial friend giving him advice. Of course her advice only had one aim and that was for my H to be with her because only she ?could help him? in a way that ?I could not? because she ?really knows him?. He fell for it hook, line and sinker.

You need to be absolutely certain that your H is not in contact with OW by any medium possible. When I kept questioning my H about contact with OW his response was as guilty as hell: ?how do you prove a negative?. When I asked him to show me his phone bills he just said: ?no, I?m not playing that game. You have to trust me?. And when I knew he?d seen her when he?d been out to play some sport (he came back reeking of her perfume) he denied it. This is how bleak it got - I checked his wallet and there was a receipt for coffee for two in the cafe that lunchtime. I left the receipt in his wallet and I asked him if he had had a coffee that lunch time and he said no a million times. Then he shouted at me and became verbally aggressive in his denial. So I lunged at and grabbed his wallet and he threatened to hit my arm where I was gripping his wallet with the big shoe horn we kept in the hall. I let go and he left the house and drove off. He came back five minutes later and threw the wallet at me, claiming he?d changed his mind and I could look. Guess what? The receipt had gone. He was prepared to go to that extreme and when I screeched back at him that I?d seen the receipt he said how desperate and pathetic that made me. He didn?t see the slightest bit of irony here about his behaviour versus mine.

Oh I?m sorry, YouMakeMeWanna, I have hijacked your thread but I just want you to know what can happen and I?m not at the stage where I can describe this in two sentences.

I?m not saying that this will happen to you but whatever you do, whatever you decide at least you know the detail of a bad case scenario. I?m sure there are worse stories out there AND more importantly, there are stories of successful new lives forged alone and successful reconcilations but you see why I?m fucked if this arsehole is going to spoil my life when he totally wrecked five months of it and I?m fucked if I'm going to watch some other wanker blindside another trusting woman who's guilty only of loving and trusting her man. ?scuse language. xx

YouMakeMeWannaLaLa · 25/07/2011 22:36

Oh god, B&A , I'm so sorry about what you've been through. I love, love, love your last sentence and I love the fucking language! You sound strong now and it makes me really angry to think your H could do that to you, makes me feel violent in a way I don't feel towards my H yet!

He sat with my for a bit with the ponies tonight but we didn't talk.

I feel utterly disappointed. I felt like I'd turned a corner, accepted, it was over and I was getting used to treating him with calm coldness as I just knew he was seeing/texting her. Now, (if I believe him) he has ended it, with the end goal of getting me back and rightly or wrongly, I feel under pressure and responsible. I made it clear I am making no promises but I now feel guilty for breaking them up and feel like I have to be 'ultra-ideal' for him grateful that he picked me. I know rationally thats bollocks but it's like a weight that had been lifted has now been plonked back down on me.

That sounds like its clear I don't want him, but I'm not sure. I'm just terrified of a scenario like B&A's where I get used to having him back then lose him again. And I might always be wondering if he is just with me out of guilt/duty or resentlful if he misses OW. I don't want to be checking receipts/ mileage/ phone records but thats what it might do to me.

The sensible thing would be to stay separated and I had got used to that idea but now I know there is an opportunity to save my marriage, can I turn that down and live with myself. Do I risk getting hurt again or risk regretting never trying? Something I'll have to think about.

Thanks B&A and sorry again. I don't know about you but I'm more than a bit cross with myself for marrying a wanker, how the hell do they hide it so well???

OP posts:
Xales · 25/07/2011 23:42

The sensible thing would be to stay separated. Those words are spot on!

There is absolutely nothing to stop him continuing to live in the caravan while he 'proves' that it is you he wants back with actions and time. Lots and lots of time, months in fact.

Do not be rushed into anything.

There is no point in the same old marriage, look what he did to that. The pair of you can to to counselling, break down your relationship, see what problems there were and why he gave himself permission to behave the way he did. You can then start to rebuild not the same old marriage again but a new and strong one if that is what you want.

Or it may help you to separate yourselves.

If he truly wants to be with you he would do anything and work hard to prove this. If he cannot spend a few months in a caravan working on rebuilding your relationship before he goes off to the OW again or starts whinging and moaning and pressuring you before you are ready he doesn't really want to rebuild it.

Also did you have sex while he and the OW did? If so please go and get yourself checked at an STI clinic Sad.

BeforeAndAfter · 26/07/2011 00:09

Do I risk getting hurt again or risk regretting never trying

In all honesty I don't regret trying. If I hadn't I would be torturing myself now wondering. At least by trying I saw rather more of H than I wanted to (in 15 years, there was never a trace of what I've seen over the last 5 months, EXCEPT two ex-Ws...). At least I know it is really over because I don't want him back, ever. He could crawl on six inch nails to me and I wouldn't want him back.

You get over the hurt, you really do. It makes you informed for next time but you do recover. I'm not sure I would ever get over not having tried so I'm glad I did. In the end I was true to myself above all else because I bailed out when I was ready to cope with turning that corner.

Have you asked your H why he married you only to start something with OW so soon afterwards? I do find that surprising and that would be something I'd want to get to the bottom of. Do you believe that OW only came on to the scene after you got married or has she been lurking for a while in the form of an EA?

The good thing about turning a corner is that you know what if feels like now and you know what to do to turn it. So if you do try with H and you feel uncomfortable about things, you know what to do. You?ll never go back to being how you were a week ago. You will always be that little bit stronger and wiser now. Remember that.

Ditto everything that Xales says about rebuilding a different marriage if you do try that route.

RamsaySnowsSausage · 29/01/2017 17:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Thinkingofausername1 · 29/01/2017 18:26

FlowersWine

springydaffs · 29/01/2017 19:11

Wow, what an encouraging update!

Bravo bravo bravo you. God, you went through it there - but it's all come out alright. Bravo! Flowers Flowers

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