I left my husband and now he is having a breakdown

[thebighouse]

I told my husband two months ago that I wanted to leave him and I left two weeks ago. But he seems to be having a total breakdown. He is crying all the time and vomiting and not sleeping or eating for days. He is having psychological assessments and taking sedatives.

He was emotionally abusive and having left, I feel really happy. But I feel really awful watching him suffering so much. He keeps telling me that I have done this to him and humiliated him and he can't survive without me.

He refused to leave the house and refused to let me have the children any more than 45% of the time (so he can be the resident parent). But still he keeps saying that I have left with him nothing and I had no right to leave.

How long is it going to take him to move on and start recovering? Even after two months, he seems to be getting worse and worse. What can I do?

Please, get your DCs out of there!

Oh I'm making no particular judgement on the OP's affair, except the other man was married and was unlikely to have had similar reasons for leaving his marriage as the OP. I am however saying that the H's behaviour and mental state are understandable right now, are within the range of normal reactions for this situation and any calls to take the children away from him are premature and would be unlikely to be applied to a female primary carer who found herself in the same boat.

And this man is seriously abusive and nasty. And keeps demonstrating the fact. It's really really unsurprising that the OP 'fell in love' with someone else ie met someone who treated her like a human being. She frets about the children and feels she ought to leave them with him because the abusive H has her convinced that breaching monogamy is a far more wicked thing to do than continually abuse and neglect your partner - and on that score he's got a massive weight of cultural pressure and fuckwit mundanes backing him up - 'Never mind that he's abusive, you *breached monogamy, waaa, waaaa, you're the real bad person here.'

He's not a good dad, OP. He's a selfish prick and they don't make good parents. Get the DC away from him, get lawyers involved, keep him at a distance. Mostly the abusive-suicide-threateners are not obliging enough to actually die, but you never know, you might be one of the lucky ones...

Windsor, no they are not normal or acceptable. Anyone who reacts to a breach of monogamy by threatening to kill him/herself and dragging the children into it should have the children temporarily removed until s/he gets a fucking grip and grows up. Yes it hurts to lose a partner. But decent people cope with their grief, they don't use it as a weapon.

it bugs me when people start new threads about the same old same old without linking to previous ones

or even, in fact, referring to the back story and/or pertinent details

it feels like a pisstake to me

and smacks of emotional vampirism

AnyFucker is that helpful, really?

The OP and her DCs need support to get away from this excuse for a man, not vilification.

You have no idea what sort of father this man is. The OP was however willing for him to be the primary carer, presumably because she was satisfied as their mother that her husband was not abusive to the children.

No-one is saying this man shouldn't have lost his marriage, or that his behaviour didn't merit that. No-one is saying the OP should have stayed in the marriage.

But her husband has been the children's primary carer and is displaying the usual signs of loss. That doesn't make someone unfit to care for his children.

The OP hasn't said he's suicidal and in fact says he's holding it together in front of the children. But let's not let what the OP has said get in the way of a few prejudices eh?

What you've maybe not yet grasped, thebighouse, is that abusers are dependent on their partners, yes - dependent on them to be the abused repository for all their fears, fantasies and weirdnesses.

Think about how many failures he must have had to go through before he found you: suitable target material. Think about how much effort he had to put into 'training' you - the being nice to start with, the gradual pushes to your boundaries, the redefining of love, the first big violation and the subsequent reasoning to persuade you to accept him and abuse. It's a big effort. No abuser wants to go through all that again, not while there's a chance of reeling the current trained target back home.

I remember how vulnerable you seemed in a previous thread. You still are. Although it doesn't feel like it, you've done the hard part. It will get better, especially if you get yourself some proper support like the Freedom Programme.

I agree, the DC shouldn't be with him. You don't have to 'ask' him, that's your 'training' thinking for you! You can keep them with you and offer supervised visits in a public place while the situation is evaluated.

You're the boss of you now :)

If your happy thats only a good thing but remember you once loved this person so do what you can to help me through the difficult time he is going through without putting your self at risk.

Try and get him to see his GP. If he has a good GP they will be able to help him.

Or try talking to his family and let them know what is going on and hope they offer him support.

It takes some people a long long time to get over the end of a relationship.

Overclockers you would spend your time better back on the thread where you suggest that fat women should lose weight to please their husbands. There are people desperate for your wise words over there.

A man as abusive and manipulative as this one sounds probably told the OP he was going to be the primary carer whether she liked it or not. He sounds like someone who feeds off attention and he probably was an OK carer for small DC, who tend to love uncritically. But the more opinions of their own they get, the less good he will be with them.

YY, SGB. Time to tell right back at him.

Op this is exactly what my ex h did when I left I could have written most of what you have said myself. Difference being we were living abroad and I took dd and came back to uk.
I urge you to get you children back with you full time, for the immediate future only allow him supervised access. I say this as he will start on the children, I have little doubt of that.
My ex would 'break down' on the phone to my dd (she had just turned 8), he would be in tears, sobbing on the phone to her telling her he couldn't live without her. From the start he was asking her if there were other men coming to the house.

He got himself put on anti d's. He was constantly calling me and telling me how he would change. I understood at the time that he was controlling but have only come to realise since using this site that he was emotionally and financially abusing me (this abuse was starting to creep in to violence too).
I got a new phone but kept the old one and only turned the old one on for contact calls with dd. She suffered awfully as he really put pressure on her emotionally.
You must start the divorce process asap take control of it. My ex offered to pay me thousands if I would stop divorce proceedings, he also got most of my family onside and took away their support from me.
It is hard to detach very hard but so worth it.
Like you I didn't think dd had been affected by him until a couple of months after leaving she stopped having 'accidents' and also told me that she hated it if she was going home after school and knew that I was in work, she said she used to have 'butterflies' in her stomach.
Above all you have to protect your children, they really cannot speak for themselves about this right now they will be too frightened to upset him.
As hard as I know it is you must ignore this 'breakdown' of his.

On a bit of a flippant note, SGB, "fuckwit mundanes" is going in my list of important quotes .
OP, I hope things work out for you and I'm so glad you have got away from your h.

If this is genuine, I wonder why the op keeps skirting around concerns for her DC ?

Hi

I know this is the third thread I have started about this relationship in the last month or so. I'm sorry if that's overkill but so much has happened and I AM emotionally needy.

Yes the 'infidelity' was the sexual assault against my friend - but if I mention that, everyone just assumes he is a total bastard and focuses on that part of things, which isn't what I wanted advice about.

I HAVE taken people's advice - after the first thread I got myself a flat just around the corner and it really helped me make my mind up.

Yes I did fall in love with someone else at work which made me realise how much I am missing in my relationship - I know that is shit of me but I was brought up to think that you DON'T leave your marriage whatever happens and I had just accepted that was how I was going to live for the rest of my life. I've only really started to question that recently and I'd never heard of 'emotional abuse' before Mumsnet.

I have been vague about details because DH knows I post here (I am an old poster) and I don't want him working out that this name is me as well because he will guess I will come here for support.

I don't know how I am skirting around the issue of the children. They are here with me now and they are fine and colouring in stuff and seem very happy. I am living in a small flat and he is living in a massive house with all our pets and I don't think it is fair to him or them to take them for more than the three nights a week that we have agreed so far. I DO think he is a good father.

I AM worried about him and I don't know whether his reaction is normal as a response to a relationship breaking down or whether he is being manipulative. A friend saw him recently and said he seemed very ill but he also told them that he had been 'a bit of an animal' to me. Another friend told me that he said I had been really angry with him and he was very upset about it.

I have had a really difficult month and I'm sorry if my posts have been needy or manipulative or vague. I am just after some support which is hard to find in RL because I don't want to be a total drain on my friends. I'm sorry if I'm being a drain here.

Thanks for all your advice.

Please just take what you can use from your threads, thebighouse. When someone has been keeping you in a state of anxiety for a long time, it leaves you with PTSD. Just as a soldier with PTSD panics at sounds that remind him of gunfire, an abuse survivor can panic at words that make her feel attacked. It's really distressing. If you can, keep in mind that you have control of you now.

Well done for saying you're emotionally needy! That's a great start towards respecting yourself and your own needs :)

He's still taking up far too much of your head-space, though. Who deserves more of your care & concern - the person living in a big house, with all their emotional comforts and support, or the one in reduced circumstances with few friends, who can't spend much time with her children? (Clue: the second one.)

How much care and concern does he have for you? (Clue: none; he's only interested in you as supply.) You haven't got angry enough, yet, about this.

I have a few suggestions for you.
Try and pick out those of your friends who love you, and have quiet talks with them - tell them the truth and ask for help. He might have really turned them against you, but my guess is he's exaggerated this to you. You won't know what he's really said, or what they really think, until you talk openly with them.
See if you can find a counsellor to help you get a realistic perspective on what's been happening and how you are.
Get a solicitor who understands about abuse. Womens Aid can recommend one for you. Do a search here.
Get a pet.
Put aside half an hour a day for 'you'. Make yourself cosy, do some slow breathing, read an assertiveness book, do some affirmations.
Keep posting

He is definitely still bring manipulative.

My ex had a lot in common with your Exp.

When I split up with my exp, it took several attempts. He kept trying to "commit suicide". I ended up in hospital with his a couple of times.

Looking back, he really wasn't trying that hard! Seeing as he had easy access to hard drugs, but he was going for everyday medicines, and not even enough for the hospital to find dangerous levels in him.

I was sucked in at the time though, and it dragged the process of breaking up into months and months - over a year. I knew I didn't want to be with him but he kept wheedling his way back in. I only got away once I met someone else.

Part of the problem is you (and I) are too nice, and he is using that to manipulate you.

His response is not a normal response to a relationship breaking down, but he is not normal. He doesn't think like you or I. He does not care about how he is affecting you (even if he says he does). He wants to own you and control you.
You need to stop worrying about him, or at the very least stop acting on your worries about him. You need to worry about yourself and most importantly your DCs.

The man has chucked you out of your house! You should be fuming!

And a sexual assault is much worse than an affair, can you see that?

You should be at home with your DCs.

You are going to need to stand up to this man.

Please don't worry about being a drain here, you're not. Lots of people are her for you. Please continue to post as long as you feel it's useful.

OP you clearly had more than enough reasons for ending your marriage and based on what you've posted, it sounds like the right decision for you and your children. You don't say anything here about what's happening with the OM, but I think you've had advice on other threads about being wary of idealising him too much, because after your husband's behaviour, it would be understandable if you did so.

Don't forget that unless he was also in an abusive marriage and you know that to be true, he treated his wife as though she was expendable, because of his feelings for you. Be careful of thinking that just because he was kind to you, it makes him a good person overall. He might be, but his actions have been anything but kind to his wife. The other problem is that an abused woman will often go on to form relationships with a lesser abuser - because that man isn't nearly as bad as the last. I can understand your affair entirely, but often it's best to be on your own for a while so that your radar 'recalibrates'. Although exit affairs are often understandable, they have dangers attached to them too, if the new relationship continues.

Again based on what you've posted alone, your husband's reactions post break-up sound normal. You started this particular thread about that issue. You then had posts querying his residence with the children, which seemed unfair and sexist to my sensibilities at least. Part of this though is not trying to second-guess your judgement as their mother. If you believe the children to be safe and well-cared for on his watch (within the parameters of normal loss) then it seems unreasonable to doubt you.

It's only the children's best interests that should concern you and although it might seem heartless, his reactions to the loss are not your problem. If you think this way, it negates his ability to manipulate you if any of it is exaggerated. I also think you should both question whether the current arrangement is in the children's best interests - and not yours, your husband's or possibly the OM's.

Having read your earlier posts fully now, one of the things you might want to consider is whether it's probable or likely that your children will stumble across your exH's porn addiction, especially where it involves under-age girls. Exposing children to porn is a significant factor in deciding whether someone is suitable to care for children and whereas all his other disgusting behaviours seemed to target you and not the children, that one's the exception - because porn does harm children.

Thanks for your concerns and I appreciate that I need to be really careful and give myself lots of time.

I have seen OM since I left on two occasions but neither of us are not in any hurry to jump from one relationship into another. His personal life fell to pieces when he told his wife he has feelings for someone else - its his stuff to deal with but without wanting to go into all the details she is now living with someone else. Anyway, we are both aware that we need a lot of time to sort out our own lives, so I don't know what will happen there. It feels like a very peripheral issue IYKWIM?

Thanks for advice and concerns.

Well if you know that what the OM is saying about his wife's new partner is true and is corroborated by other people - and is not a lie to make his own actions seem justified in your eyes, then yes it is a peripheral issue.

Good luck OP.

thebighouse
I can totally understand that you are worried about your exH. And that he is really falling apart.
However, just as much as you have a duty towards your H (and I guess this is the reason why you struggled so mcuh to leave him), you also have a duty towards your dcs.
Regardless of whether he is a good father or not and what he has done to you/your friend, I would not recomment that children are left with a parenmt that is falling apart so much that he needs psychological assessments on the NHS. If he is so bad , then he is just isn't fit to lok after the dcs at the moment and you should not agree to leave your dcs with him more than necessary.
Saying that you are worried he would get worse is understandable but his wellbeing should not take priority over your dcs wellbeing.

Have you any way of finding out if he is actually recieving treatment? Because knobs like him are very good at claiming to have mystery illnesses/being mentally ill but to not actually be seeing any health care professionals at all (because said professionals would tell them to fuck off and stop wasting everyone's time).

I've sent you a pm thebighouse

Don't send the dc to him. Tell him that as he is crying etc all the time it isn't fit for dc to go there. That when he is better they can stay but in meantime short visits only eg soft play

Go to gp and record your concerns. But he isn't your reponsibility .
His mh isn't your responsibility.
You left him . So he should be crying to his friends not to you.
He doesn't have friends ?
Not your problem