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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

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Original poster

I want to leave my husband for someone else

81 replies

thebighouse · 21/11/2011 21:42

I've been with my husband for 15 years and we have school aged children. Over the last few months I've become really close to someone at work and we are now in love with each other. He's now left his wife as he says he can't bear to be without me. We haven't had a physical relationship but we are obviously in love with each other.

My husband is a good father and a good man. However, we have had issues in our relationship with him not looking after me when I've been ill ? it makes him angry and he ends up not speaking to me. He barely spoke to me all through my pregnancies and when I was really ill after having one of the children. He is supportive at other times, but not when I need him. During one of these times he also got really drunk and sexually assaulted my best friend. He was very remorseful but I'm not sure I've really got over it. We have been to counselling where he promises to change but I just feel that I am tired of his promises and all the 'effort' that is required on his part to just be nice.

I want to leave to be with this other man. Am I being incredibly selfish? DH says I will mess up the children and it will devastate him. Everyone loves DH and I know people will hate me. I feel so incredibly guilty and I don't know what to do. He is a good man and before I met this other man, I'm sure I would have been content to stay with him. But it's brought everything into focus for me. I worry that I won?t be able to live with myself whatever I decide. Can anyone offer any advice? I'm so miserable.

OP posts:

CrotchFlakes · 21/11/2011 21:50

Leaving, and leaving for someone else, are different things.

rightchoice · 21/11/2011 21:54

Not surprised you are miserable. This is a mess. You have met someone at work and you are ...now in love... but it isn't physical?

How do you know the new man will....look after you when you are ill...

DH says you will mess up the children and it will devastate him - so he knows then, you have told him?

If you will not be able to live with yourself, you are not ready to make the move. This is a mess, take some time out just for you to think things through, this is not straight forward, and who knows you may be going from the frying pan to the fire, as you don't really seem to know the man from work. How much time have you actually spent together, other than work?

Slow down and think this through. Oh and good luck!

TiarasTimeOutsAndTantrums · 21/11/2011 21:54

He sexually assaulted your friend?! Wtf?

madonnawhore · 21/11/2011 21:56

I would have left after the sexual assault.

In this instance I'd say just go. Life's too short.

giyadas · 21/11/2011 21:56

Deal with the relationship you are in before you get involved with someone else. Or you might end up pinning all your hopes on a new man thinking he represents a new life when he's just as flawed as the man you are thinking of leaving.

rightchoice · 21/11/2011 21:57

Do you plan to take the children, or leave them??

ballroomblitz · 21/11/2011 21:58

Personally I wouldn't have stuck his behaviour in the first place.

I don't think leaving for someone else is ever a good thing (just my opinion). I walked away from a ten year relationship and it was for me and no-one else.

Charbon · 21/11/2011 22:07

Have you both been honest with your partners that you've been having an affair?

lostmymind · 21/11/2011 22:08

I think you need to look at this as two separate issues - leaving your H, and starting a new relationship with the OM. A 'few months' would not be a long enough period of time for me to feel comfortable with - and want to move myself AND my DC's in with - a new partner.

Better perhaps to consider and decide that your marriage is over and allow time for yourself to come to terms with this, rather than simply to move house and commitment on the basis of a new romance.

So sorry OP, you seem sad, unhappy and clutching at straws. There are options open to you, try to consider that the easiest ones are not always the best.

Original poster

thebighouse · 21/11/2011 22:08

Well maybe I've made it sound worse than it was. He made a pass at her and then groped her. She was in a room with other people we know and froze. He was mortified when he realised the next day what he had done (after someone told me and I confronted him).

I don't know what to do with the children. I guess it would be whatever he wanted me to do. I don't feel that I have any moral right to fight for them.

The other man and I have had feelings for each other for about two years but never acted on them. A few weeks ago we kissed and after that we both felt awful and told our spouses that we were in love with other people. I don't know what I was expecting to happen.

OP posts:

angrygingermidget · 21/11/2011 22:12

Are you serious??? "I don't know what to do with the children" and then "whatever he wanted me to do"

Horsemad · 21/11/2011 22:15

Ok, you need to split from your husband and see this man in a dating situation. I left my husband for another man (there were no children involved) and my god, it completely messed me up. I almost had a breakdown, it was horrendous and I'd NEVER do it again.

Please, for your own sanity, leave your husband and set up on your own. If this man wants you, he will wait and let the relationship progress properly.

almostgrownup · 21/11/2011 22:15

I don't think you would have been content to stay with dh if you had not met om. If so, you would never have noticed om. Sometimes people in unsatisfactory marriages have an 'exit affair' in order to give them the emotional energy to propel themselves out of the marriage. Do you think this is the case?

WitchWitch · 21/11/2011 22:16

You don't know what to do with the children?
What the actual fuck?
You'd consider leaving your children for the sake of doe eyed 'we are in love' with OM that may all come crashing down once reality sets in?
You sound almost as detached from your DC as you are your DH
Completely speechless

rightchoice · 21/11/2011 22:17

It is a big leap of faith to consider you are in love, when you have not had time together other than work and a stolen kiss. There are so many important things to consider. The children, where you would live etc. Does the new man have children to consider too, if so how old are they? You may be so unhappy as you don't have options, you need time to work this through properly. Be kind to yourself, be realistic, and be honest with yourself. The new man won't like being on his own, but has he left, set up a new home and made financial arrangements with his DW and DC's if he has them?

Charbon · 21/11/2011 22:19

I think you need some clarity about why you really want to end your marriage. You said you'd have been content to stay with your H before you started your affair, so you appear to have accepted your husband's faults, including what happened with your friend. I doubt that the affair has brought these problems 'into focus' as you suggest. It's more likely that you are searching for justifications for what you have done and are about to do.

If you can honestly say that the marriage was irretrievable before the affair, then leave him you must - and work out a shared parenting arrangement.

But don't leave because of the affair, especially as you don't know this man well enough to make that sort of decision. I can imagine that if they both really do know the truth, your spouses are more than a little bemused that their marriages have been thrown away because of a crush and a kiss.

autumnflower · 21/11/2011 22:25

sounds to me that your H is vrey childish and sees you in a motherly role to him - he neglected and resented you when you were ill ('how dare mummy not look after me' sulk) and he has no self-control (getting drunk and groping a friend!) - he might be a kindly character to other people, but he's NOT good! Not a good caring husband. No wonder you like someone else. I think you should leave and let the r-ship with OM develop. Did you notice already whether OM is caring and mature? 2 yrs at worj is not just a crush - you must spend a lot of time together and seen each other in various situations, but obviously just don't move in with him at once. Children should chose who they want to be with if they are school age (I take it older school age).

ballroomblitz · 21/11/2011 22:29

I also find the statement about your children a bit shocking. I would fight tooth and nail to keep my ds with me and I was the one who moved out. I don't deny his father access because at the end of the day, it takes two to make a baby.

It seems you are looking at the easy options. You really need to have a long think about whether you want to stay with your h or not. If not, move out but make your own home for you and your children. They will find it unsettling enough without being instantly transported into another man's life.

Good luck

LemonDifficult · 21/11/2011 22:34

All people are just people. The new guy will not live up to the dream. You will have devastated your family and friendships. It will not be worth it.

Anyone who's felt themselves to be infatuated can sympathise with you. Nature puts a powerful curse on people who become this attracted to each other and they can feel out of their heads with desire and certainly that here, now, this, is the love that they have heard sung about on the radio.

Sorry, it's just a normal relationship like any other. 'Cept you've now got a fucked up relationship with everyone else.

The stuff about your DH groping your friend is your justification to yourself. It might piss you off and you need to work through it.

Do whatever you can change jobs, move house to get away from the man at work. If you still feel the same way in two years then go and look for him. What? Two years is too long to wait? Hmmmmm. Not really true love, then, so not worth leaving for.

ScarletForYa · 21/11/2011 22:39

He's not a good man. He sexually assaulted yourr friend and wouldn't speak to you when you were pregnant or sick?

That's not a good man, that's a nasty bastard.

I don't know about the other fella. Be careful you aren't jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. He's married. All you know is the persona you see at work. You've never seen him in hot water/real life situations.

I'd get rid of the husband but wouldn't do anything about the other fella. He's married for a start, so straight away you know he's untrustworthy. You're vulnerable. Recipe for disaster.

autumnflower · 21/11/2011 22:48

agree with Scarlet, as i already posted above - H is an immature twat, not what a reasonable H should be. What if she's ill again (and with age there will be more health issues) - he'll go into strop and get drunk again? wtf?

autumnflower · 21/11/2011 22:51

why should she sacrifice her life to him, and stay as some people recommended, when she does have a chance of happiness (but no chance with H changing)! She does have One life, and it's not just about children, what kind of example of marriage are they seeing currently? not good for them either.

WitchWitch · 21/11/2011 23:01

Hold on (yes I said I'd left but after reading some comments I felt the urge to pop back) many of you are quick to judge OP's DH and completely over look the fact that OP is having an affair. If a woman posted saying her DH was having an affair he'd be labelled a cheating bastard but here we have a woman openly admitting she's cheating and it's justified because her DH doesn't like her being ill? What the actual fuck? Again!
And she seems completely ambivalent to the future of her DC...
But that's ok cos she's in love and miserable at home...
Serious double standards going on here...
And who's to say OM is going to care for her when she's ill?

autumnflower · 21/11/2011 23:05

WitchW - come back on my thread as I'm interested in your story - some questions there (please)?

AnyFucker · 21/11/2011 23:05

Those poor children

< shakes head sadly >

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