"if that is supposed to encourage me to want to spend time with you"...

[chasingautumn]

I told DH that I was lonely and bored.

Barely see him all week. We've moved abroad and I can't drive and I am trying to meet people but it's SO isolating, he works long hours and I don't have anyone to leave the DCs with for an evening class or whatever and even if I did I am so knackered all the time. This week he's been out almost every evening - often with one of the DCs, but one night out with work friends and didn't come back til 1am despite me asking him to come back early as DD fell and I was concerned we might need to go to the out of hours equivalent.

So I feel neglected and irritable and it's especially bad now of course as I find having the DCs around 24/7 in the holidays much harder than I should. They only just went to bed and I asked if DH wanted to watch a tv show with me and he said no he was going to be in the kitchen on his computer and I huffed and he said "what's wrong now", and I said I was lonely and bored and he said the above.

I said I wasn't interested in begging him to be around and if he didn't want to spend time with me that was fine.

Horrible horrible I made the mistake of my life coming here I really did.

I think the mistake you're making autumn is presuming that an affair is not already underway. I don't think he's wrestling with the fact that he might have an affair and is trying to sabotage your relationship to allow it. I think he's at the stage where the stress he's under from having an affair, coupled with the need to vilify you to provide a justification for it in his head, is producing this behaviour.

I understand your disconnect, but plenty of women will tell you that with hindsight, the biggest clue was that their previously warm, kind, funny and loving husbands turned into a cold, contemptuous stranger while the affair was going on. You can't connect the old H with the sort of man who would have an affair, but as you will see many MNetters saying - there are no 'sorts'. Although having an affair is an active choice and never 'just happens', affairs are far more 'circumstantial' than many people believe. People are often more vulnerable to an 'escapist affair' at pressure points in their lives. You're vulnerable yourself right now in fact. You might not think of yourself as the 'sort' of woman who would have an affair, but stressed people having a hard time with life are always more vulnerable than they (and their loved ones) think. I therefore think you need to see him and what's happening more realistically.

Some of what's happening here though is quite sinister. He is deliberately doing things he knows will upset you and he is also criticising you in front of the children. When the children have talked to you about these days out, have they mentioned 'bumping into' anyone? Have they said what rationale he has given for you not coming?

Also, I don't want to be alarmist but are you counting your sleeping tablets carefully?

You didn't answer those questions about his non-verbal communication with you, but I'd still be interested in your response. I understand why you don't want to hold hands and that's exactly the reaction in you that he intended, of course.

Has he got a work phone as well as a private mobile?

I'm assuming that you're not doing any checking yourself? Again I think that's a mistake. This is a crisis that calls for crisis interventions and you should feel no guilt at all about trying to rule out the most likely cause of his behaviour. Knowledge is power.

Now that you've announced that you intend going home with the children in the summer, you need to lock their passports away in a safe place. I agree with the poster who said that this sounds like you're living with an enemy, but I understand totally why your memories of when he was different are a barrier to you catching up with the mindset he's in now. But that inability to see this more clearly is going to wrongfoot you and impair your decisions.

Unless I have misread this thread, Charbon, you are beyond extreme.

About 10 years ago if I'd read this thread, I'd have had the same reaction as you Patsys, so I don't feel offended or upset that you say that. Unfortunately through my work and life experience I've seen this situation play out many times now and have learnt to recognise the signs. However I don't think a prolonged period of suspicion is healthy for individuals so I generally always recommend getting as much information as possible before coming to any life-changing decisions. As an aside to that though, I don't think it's ever good advice to suggest that women ignore what is in the open domain - cruel and hostile behaviour that causes unhappiness. Whatever the reason for it, it doesn't make it acceptable and it should never be tolerated.

OP mentioned before that DP works in a macho environment where his work colleagues are having affairs etc. There are plenty of clues in her story to indicate that it is a definite possibility. Charbon has a point, but of course we don't know that.

OP - how would you feel if you just gave up on the Sunday and made Saturday your day with the DCs? Use the time to do something for yourself. I must say my DP spends most weekend mornings in bed and if I waited for him to get up the day would be gone. It would be lovely for you to all go out together, but while there is this atmosphere of conflict it may be better for the children that you spend less time together as a family.

Sorry Autumn, you say DCs are fine - do you think they haven't asked or questioned why they go out on Sunday morning while Mummy's asleep? And when they have, what has DP said? Because whatever he's said, he hasn't said 'Mummy wants to come but we are going without her anyway'. He's probably said Mummy can't come or Mummy won't come. If he's saying that he's lying to his kids, if he's telling the truth - that you want to come but they are going without you anyway - what message does that send to them? That it's OK to ignore you?

Autumn I do feel for you and as you say it looks like your DH is preparing the ground to feel he is justified in looking elsewhere.

Your top priority now is to learn to drive. Even if you move back to the UK and have to resit the test it will be much easier if you have some experience already. Plus you might be staying longer where you are- you don't know what is round the corner.

Zorra- that is awful- what sort of man speaks like that? Or sulks for a week? Was he this awful when you were in the UK?

Agree with charbon - even if he is not having an affair,(yet) he is laying the ground for one.

He is alienating you from the dc at weekends(and therefore from their weekend lives) and alienating you from your family physically, by being so far away. He was removing financial control from you (well done for getting some control back). He still undermines you and your efforts - because he maybe wants to force you out of his life? If you throw up your hands and walk away, he can sit backand tell people 'chasingautumn couldn't take it, was miserable, didn't make an effort, didn't make friends, so it was better that she went.'

Zorra - you should start your own thread, your life sounds even worse!

What Charbon said with knobs on OP. And, yes, I do have the T shirt.

I absolutely back up everything Charbon says, because I lived it. What Autumn writes, I remember.

The leaving her behind I will repeat for the third time, is not a mistake, it is absolutely deliberate and the hostility and contempt is not part of her imagination.

I will also repeat: he does not want her on his bank account, because he does not want her to see what he is spending his $$$ on.

Autumn, put a voice activated tape recorder in his car, under the driving seat. Radio Shack, or get one posted from UK.

One thing that strikes me about those of you living in your partners home country is that you seem to be isolated. This is a key element in an abusive relationship, cut off all contacts so that they have total control. Be very careful.

I could never move to my dps home town (in the UK), however practical or sensible it may be for work reasons. I know I would lose all sense of who I am because he would go back to being a child again. I'm not sure if that's the case for everyone, but it does seem as though when men go back 'home' it brings back a certain kind of behaviour regression.

Hi,

Just been thinking. How do u know this about the flat in the city? Has somebody told you this?

Also when you said your husband left with the kids at the weekend. How could you not hear the kids at least banging about? I would wake up if i heard three kids banging about in the morning.

Does he get home at 8pm because of the trainS?

Charbon, I'm not sure if you were suggesting it, but I certainly wasn't advocating ignoring what is hostile behaviour from the OP's husband.

I just think people are leaping to huge conclusions without the evidence to do so.

For example, the suggestion the husband has deliberately taken OP away from her family and friends in order for her to feel alienated. NO. OP has said several times this was their JOINT dream and joint decision. Why invent things that are not there when the OP is suffering enough already? I swear some people get a kick out of this.

I may be true that the husband is having an affair or considering it, but we have no evidence to confirm this whatsoever.

Why do you suggest OP count the sleeping pills? Is he planning to bump her off??

I think it's very insulting to posters that you infer that some are 'getting a kick out of this' Patsy. People bring their life and work experiences to these threads and I don't think anyone has any other agenda on this particular thread but to help the OP makes sense of a bewildering time in her life. Unfortunately many of us have had personal experience or work with women whose partners have isolated them, had affairs and unfortunately, played mind tricks on them including tampering with their medication. The latter tactic is rarely to 'bump them off' but to induce longer sleep. You and I are very lucky that we haven't been involved with men who have done this, but sadly I have met more women than I ever wanted to, where this has happened.

The OP herself has also considered infidelity as a possible cause of this harmful behaviour, but because this has never happened to her, she is unaware of the signs to look for, which are always very different from those featured in the media in articles that are written by journalists who have never lived through or heard people's testimonies first hand. This is the beauty of Mumsnet. Posters hear from real-life people who have lived to tell the tale and remember it well. Unfortunately, infidelity is one of those real-life situations where people behave very similarly despite the illusion they have created that no-one has ever felt such intense feelings before. I'm afraid that if you work in this field and read enough threads on this and other forums, you will see that too.

Like I said earlier, I don't judge you for your optimism and I agree you weren't advising the OP to ignore her husband's unacceptable behaviour, but I do think your last post was ill-judged in some of its allegations and I'd like you to acknowledge that posters are writing from the benefit of hard-won and painful experience with the sole motive of giving the OP a heads-up in a very painful situation where clear-sightedness is understandably difficult.

Sorry, my last post probably was ill-judged. I didn't mean to offend. Like you say, people write from their own experience and obviously lots of people have experienced awful things. Do you never feel people are putting their own lives into it too much and seeing evidence that isn't there? Objectivity seems to get pushed aside for a more emotional response. I just find it amazing that people can extrapolate so much from such little evidence given by the OP.

That's okay Patsy. I understand and like I've said, I once might have said the same myself. But I'm grateful that women who've learnt the hard way still find a generosity of spirit within them and are willing to share their experiences with strangers. Years ago, I used to think that more experienced women were projecting and advancing the most outlandish hypotheses on what appeared to be very little information. I assumed they were projecting and to my eternal shame, presumed them to be bitter .

But then I found my jaw dropping when what they'd suggested came to pass and I found myself wondering how they'd developed such insight into human behaviour.

None of us can know for definite what's going on here, we can only call it how we see it and warn of the possibilities. But like I said earlier what's in the open domain is bad enough and is causing unnecessary unhappiness to the OP. That's something we can all agree on because what the OP is feeling is valid and by any objective standard, what she is experiencing is unacceptable and harmful to her and her children.

But there's always a reason for that behaviour and in someone who's previously been a kind, supportive partner, usually only an affair or an illness can explain the sudden metamorphosis from that to the distant, critical stranger who's being described on this thread. It's a strange dynamic but I've known people to be relieved after discovery to learn that their partner wasn't ill and that they weren't going mad after all - there was a reason for this temporary insanity.

What's going on Chasing? Are you ok?