Am I fighting for my marriage or begging?

[cwtchy]

I've been with my DH 14 years, and married for 5 of them. We have a 2 yo and a 4 yo. Things haven't been great for a while as often happens with 2 babies, but DH also works shifts and I work on his days off, which means we have had almost zero time to ourselves since the DCs were born.

DH has told me this week he doesn't love me anymore and it's the end of our marriage.

I'm bloody devastated. I love him as I've always done and was looking forward to our youngest starting nursery this sept so we could have more time together - I was so looking forward to that. He says however that it's gone on too long for him and the love just isn't there any more for him.

I don't want to just let him go, and have told him exactly how I feel, asked him to come to counselling with me, asked for the separation to be a trial one. But he is refusing and says he doesn't want to drag the pain out for me. Should I be trying everything to keep him, or do I deserve better and let him get on with it? I just feel like he hasn't even tried. We used to have such a fantastic relationship. I don't want to beg someone to stay with me who doesn't love me. But I also want to fight for what we had.

I don't think you've cocked up - not at all. As you say, you've made your mind up and crucially he has otherwise he wouldn't have had The Big Conversation with you this week. That's not to say what you've found out is irrelevant but IMO the timing couldn't be better. Let's say you did no digging and bided your time. You could have believed what he said about there being no one else and blithely carried on thinking that this was some type of "trial separation" where you and he were separately working out how you felt about each other with the idea being taht you could get back together in the future.

Now you know the truth - this is not the man you married.

This is a Twat who, whilst knowing that his marriage could use some work, decided to pursue a relationship with a Work Colleague not only jeopardising the relationship with the mother of his children but also his job.

This is a Dickshit who thinks that getting out of a marriage is as simple as saying "This is the end" rather than realising that not only is he totally fucking up his life financially and emotionally but also the lives of those who he claims to hold as dear as his own.

This is Knobend who actually believes that he has the right to plan his own future at his own pace discussing the details with no one whilst leaving his wife to pick up the pieces.

Now you have this knowledge, you can plan your own future with your eyes wide open and although you will have some shitty times ahead, at least you won't have to deal with all this paranoia-inducing rollercoaster emotional shit.

I bet you'll find that things started going downhill in your marriage from that point onwards. You're probably focusing on the course too much and thinking that's when it kicked off, but these things are often slow-burners and he will have started distancing himself long before anything physical happened between them. This is the nasty thing about affairs - your understanding of the past year will be very different once you get that bit of information about when they first clapped eyes on eachother. Affairs start in the head long before they start in a bed.

Agree with cashncarry. Another horrible scenario would be that he would have left to be with the OW, never told you the truth and then when love's young dream turned out to be the usual nightmare once reality set in, he would have made a grandiose gesture of having done his thinking and wanting to give your marriage another chance. And you might have let him come back too, especially with two small children....

great post, Cash

OP has not made a mistake

she posted on Mumsnet

if she hadn't done that, she might have spent the next several months competing against something she had no awareness of, for a tarnished booby prize

"Tarnished booby prize" - love it AF, spot on.

Hope you're okay OP (it's too late for me to try to type your name out again!) - this must feel like a bloody kick in the guts for you. But I do think you come across as someone who's not going to take this shit lying down and I'm glad for that. Please please try not to take any of the blame for this. Raising children is bloody hard and wreaks havoc on any relationship. He should have come to you if he felt things were rocky - after you, you felt it too. You suffered too.

He's a wanker. No two ways about it. A big steaming pile of horseshit. And I'd dearly love to kick his arse to kingdom come for you.

I'm so sorry.

Use the time before he gets back to get your hands on paperwork - financial stuff, details of his account, pension etc- anything you think you might need. Get a bag ready for him and hand it to him on the door - don't even let him in- don't give him the chance to remove stuff from the house until you have had longer to think this through. Tell his parents and arrange for him to stay there - yes, just like the stupid child he is - take the control away from him, treat him like the embarrassment he is.

Keep cool from now on and don't show your hand and DON'T even allow him to start a conversation on 'it's not what you think.' Be icily cool and say something along the lines of 'You should have been more careful - if I were you I'd remember that word gets around fast and friends are never as loyal as you think they're going to be ... Once they know you're a cheating shit.'. Hint that you know from other means. Tell him he's got the next couple of days to choose to show some respect for your (and his) family by telling you the whole truth, or he's on his own - and it won't be pretty for him. Tell him you're surprised that he's been so keen to join that saddest set of statistics - the cowardly men who, instead of working at it during what are always the hardest years of marriage, look for amusement elsewhere and use it as an excuse to trash their families. Oh, and what's the statistic for those, err 'relationships' working out? About 5% or something silly? Tell him you're genuinely sad at the thought that it's more likely than anything that in a year he'll be a lonely Disney dad wondering how the hell he ended up where he is. Probably, in a few years time watching someone else be the live-at-home daddy to his children.

If you want to, you might be able to scare him into thinking through what he's choosing now and trying to scrabble back up the slippery slope. But you may not want to even try it... If it were me, the trust would be gone and it'd be over anyway. I wouldn't want to be with a weak cheat. You could thank him for showing you so clearly what he really is and giving you the chance to move on and build a family with a stronger base in the future, while the children are still young.

All of the above won't be the script he's reading to himself... Right now, he's the one slipping the noose for a new and exhilarating phase. He's blinded to anything but. I'd relish the chance to point out with a sympathetic smile the reality of what's happening - he's about to lose everything that he'll one day look back and see were the most important features of his life. Don't be angry and ranting - be sure of yourself and make it obvious you are actually quite sorry for stupid, short-term him and what he's about to lose.

Nothing like a bucket of cold water eh?

"McDonalds Daddy"

something to aspire to, eh ?

and he probably just thought he deserved a bit of fun

what a stupid man

Morning cwtchy ... did you get any sleep ? Did he come home? xx

Morning cwtchy, hope you got some sleep.

You sound v strong and I hope you can continue that way. I think there will be down/lonely times but we (and your RL friends) will be here for you.

x

So sorry you are going through this. I just hate seeing the way these threads ALWAYS pan out. Gives me that sinking feeling as I read down.

Husband or not this man is an utter arse - more than anything because he actually thought he could get away with it! It's amazing how stupid men having affairs tend to be at covering their tracks. Be aware that he WILL deny until he is blue in the face and try to get you doubting everything. They almost invariably maintain the deception beyond all sense and reason.

In my experience the absolute best thing you can do is throw him out and cease all contact with him for a while unless it is directly child related. This will bring him down to reality with a hard bump. At the moment he is floating round in some kind of fantasy headspace where he thinks nothing much will change, he will still see the kids often and they will deal with it perfectly and be unaffected, you'll separate amicably, no one will find out about OW until they announce it as a "new" relationship after the separation and the OW is the most perfect potential partner ever.

As soon as you get him to leave, expose the affair and immediately stop any kind of loving or understanding behaviour towards him it will begin to dawn on him exactly what he has done and what he has lost. It will put too much pressure on his budding little romance with OW and she is likely to also start having some major doubts about getting dragged into this mess.

Most of all, no matter how tempting it may be, no matter how broken you feel, DO NOT BEG HIM TO COME BACK. Even if you WANT him back and think you could give him another chance the best way to do this is to push him away as hard and fast as you can and stick to it.

Stay strong and keep your chin up. This is not your fault, no one deserves to be lied to and betrayed in this way. Thinking of you.

?Do people normally have leaving dos at someone's house? I've always gone to the pub?
Not sure there is a norm. My ex boss had an evening party at his place for all of us in his team; his wife and kids were there too. Other leaving dos have been at the local pub or in the office.

Let's face it there is no leaving do or Mrcwtchy would have said he was off to a leaving do .. instead he told her he was going to his mum's

Lying tosser!!

Oh Cwtchy- I'm so sorry- Sending a huge cwtch your way. He is an arse and doesn't deserve the niceness that you give him. :(

How are you OP?

I hope you are ok this morning cwtchy. You didn't mess up last night. It is so difficult to hold back when you are in shock. The fact is that whatever your husband says when he returns, you now sadly know one truth for sure. He is a liar.

I have been in a similar place with young children and a crumbling relationship and an EXH who had totally detached from me. I found evidence of an OW and for me, that was the end immediately. I knew I couldn't give him any second chances. But if you have decided that you do want to fight for things, or even if you are not sure yet, then I also agree that you must push him away. My EXH ended up begging me to change my mind and when I was furious, and walked out, leaving him with the dc for a change, he was wierdly impressed that 'the old mywashingmachineneverstops was back.' Wanker. In my experience, the more you show him what he has to lose by getting on with life without him, the more he will want you.

If you decide otherwise, you will get through this. Things may seem insurmountable this morning, but really, you will come out the other side and things will be ok.

Why is it that men add insult to injury by letting a woman think he would rather be alone than with her. Surely they must realise that for once the truth would probably hurt less.

Hope you are feeling strong today OP and sorry to see the way things have panned out.

Morning all. I'm not doing very well this morning he didn't come home and I haven't heard from him. I've told his family.

RL friends are supporting me, but to be honest they are just as shocked as I am, we had the longest running relationship in our friendship group and have all been friends together a long time.

The last few posts have been really helpful to me- I'm going to follow Doctordwt's plan of what to say when he turns up ( he has to come back today, he's working tomorrow and all his work stuff is here.)

Ionysis, your advice sounds sensible to me. I can't imagine being without him in the future, but can't imagine being with him now either. I need to get him away from me for a while as a kind of emergency measure I suppose.

It is shit isn't it, such a nasty shock to have to deal with

I would suggest buying Shirley Glass's Not Just friends - it came highly recommended on here and I found it very helpful when trying to sense of my thoughts, emotions as well as what was happening to us.

A friend of my husbands had been having an affair (he is Navy and works in Scotland while they live down south). He left his wife and 2 year old son (I reckon to be with the OW) but just messaged my H last night saying he "cant stop thinking about [wife]" "thinks he has made a terrible mistake" etc. I strongly suspect this is because she immediately said to him when he did the whole "not in love with you" bollocks "Understood. If you feel that way I suggest you eff off and let me and [son] get on with our lives. We've been doing fine whilst you've been deployed. Bye now". He hadn't expected that reaction at all and I think it knocked him for six.

I now only hope that when he goes crawling back begging she will send him packing with a kick up the arse, the bastard.

Good luck cwtchy you sound like a really strong, sensible woman and I'm positive you will get through this, however it pans out. Keep your dignity and self-respect and you will be fine. When my ex left me the thing I regret more than anything else is the begging, grovelling and humiliation I went through not the actual fact of his leaving. Its so so hard when all you want to do is burst into tears and have him make the pain go away, but he IS the cause of the pain. Hugs to you.

He has just text me. Text pasted below:
I'm glad u know. I was too much of a coward to tell you. Thats why i ended it as soon as i came home Didnt lie about how I felt about us, things weren't right for a while. I didn't go looking to meet anyone else but it happened. I know how u must feel and I'm so sorry to hurt u like this. Never meant to fuck it all up so much.ill tell u everything if u can ever speak to me again and I'll always be there for you and the kids. I'll do whatever u want

I've told him not to contact me again unless it's about the kids. Just went to get his work stuff from upstairs and he had already taken it. Oh god, I'm on my own ...my mother is on her way down.

So sorry cwtchy

sorry, cwtchy, so sorry...you will be fine but there will be a lot of rubbish to get through first. You will be amazed at how you can get through this and come out stronger and lovelier than ever. Your DCs will keep you going and your friends...keep posting

Bsending you good wishes, hugs and strength

Bastard. What a betrayal. Telling you by text too. Unbelievable.

Hugs to you cwtchy. You will survive this.