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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

Original poster

Hell in paradise - what the f... would you do? Bit long.

92 replies

melonsmaygotobed · 07/04/2012 11:56

I brief, married to DH for 5 years, together for 7. 2 DC 3 and 4 YO. DH has had 'dalliances' in the past - 5 that I know of that range from joining inappropriate dating sites, porn use and snogging two women whilst drunk when out. He got a contract to work in Oz for 12 months so we decided I would leave my demanding job and we would take this amazing opportunity to live overseas and focus on the kids, the marriage and having a great time as a family.

Now I am not proud of this but I do snoop when his behaviour concerns me. For the last number of weeks he has been going for drinks after work - his job is extremely stressful here - and coming home at 8 ish 2 or 3 times a week. Drunk. He says he talks to clients and has to 'network'. I look at his work phone, to put my mind at rest, and each time there has been nothing to worry about (you can prob tell what's coming). But last Wednesday I found he had text a woman at work saying how he felt so relaxed in her company, had never felt this way before and that there was more than friendship. Ended with a X.

I confronted him immediately. He said that yes, it was was becoming more than a working relationship, and that's why he wanted to go back to the uk in May (sooner than I want but he said the job was really stressing him out).

So, despite doing all the cooking, cleaning, looking after the DC and having sex as much as his heart desires, he still lets this happen.

So my next move is... Stay here with him despite there being no trust for the sake of the 'family' (and I do love it here), or go back to the uk, house is still empty ready to move straight back in but kill him in the process as the kids are his life.

Oh bollocks.

OP posts:
Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 07/04/2012 12:59

Winky - need to learn to use emoticons but would put a smile one on! Schlong, must use ingeneral conversation, love it. I will persue the job option I think. Quite exciting!

OP posts:
PullUpAPew · 07/04/2012 13:00

Or yes, as garlic says, chuck him out and pursue a way to stay on if you love it. But don't put up with him because he is the problem.

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 07/04/2012 13:02

Have to go. Thank you all so much for this. And I'm not in the least surprised that no one has said to stay for the sake of the kids. They do adore him. It will be so sad. That's what upsets me, not leaving him. It's gone 10 pm and I need to get the kids Easter eggs ready for tomorrow.

Xxxx

OP posts:
namechangernumber9 · 07/04/2012 13:06

ah!! in that case, persue the idea of staying without him - tosser

doctordwt · 07/04/2012 13:20

No the kids are very much not his life. In fact, after your posts on his behaviour, it's clear that he doesn't give a damn how his actions affect them.

His life is his ego and sense of entitlement. He's crying for himself, because it now looks like he in fact can't get to do exactly as he wants and have a loving family ready made and waiting at home. How unfair! Doesn't anyone realise that he needs everything, for him, his way, all the time?

Do your children a favour and head back to the uk for them if not for yourself. You don't love him anymore - presumably because you have some semblance of intelligence - take them home where they can benefit from a better relationship with the rest of their family including his mum, who must be pretty sad too. Your kids need a dad in their lives, but they don't need to live with a dad who can't be a good dad to them except when he feels like.

Let him cry on his own. Sounds like the last chance that he might actually grow the fuck up. However I hope for your sake that you move on to a far happier relationship.

oikopolis · 07/04/2012 16:32

if he's an all-or-nothing person who blanks his own children when he can't "have" you, then you need to get your children away from him ASAP.

he sounds v much like my own father. impulsive, childish, petulant, infuriating and an utter disappointment to anyone who's not a drinking buddy or mistress.

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 08/04/2012 11:34

He's moved out tonight to a hotel for now. We can't live with each other like this, pretending to the kids and to each other. We've had a great day; egg hunts, trip out, making cakes. The kids have had a ball but he knows I need time to think about what happens next. I just don't care anymore. There's no love there on my part, so I know my decision has already been made. I just feel so gut-wrenchingly sad for the children. They don't deserve this but what price to pay for staying in a loveless, mistrusting marriage for their sake? Is this selfishness, putting my own well-being before the children's? For better or for worse? They don't see us argue so to them everything is fine, which is absolutely the right thing to do. But I believe that, in the long run, it will be to their detriment. Is there anyone out there who has continued in a marriage like this and made it work for the children, if not for themselves?

Xx

OP posts:
Doha · 08/04/2012 18:56

Life is short Melon. Children adapt very easily and you owe it to yourself to be happy.

Please do not stay for the sake ofdc the children, you would be commiting yourself to a life based on mistrust and deceit.

I am glad your H has moved out, you appear to believe that the relationship is over, so use this time to enjoy your last few weeks in OZ anad getting things sorted for your return to UK.

He has had his chance and blown it-you can do no more.

doctordwt · 08/04/2012 18:58

They may not see you argue, but no, to them everything will not be fine.

Living a lie is not living and it is not a family.

MissFaversham · 08/04/2012 19:13

Well done OP. You've got there. Don't go back go forward.

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 10/04/2012 06:01

Hello DH. I am going to continue posting on here whether you read it or not. I would rather you didn't because I would like to say exactly how I feel. Your choice. If it hurts your feelings, so be it.

OP posts:
MsNorbury · 10/04/2012 06:31

Sorry. But he's just "not that much into you"

It's not you but you can't drive yourself mad trying to save it. You sound like you can hold your head up high on years to come and say you bloody tried.

Cut your losses.

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 10/04/2012 07:03

I disagree msnorbury. I believe he loves me, but for what ever reason he has a very low opinion of himself. His insecurity is temporarily improved when others - women - boost his ego. It is this that needs addressing as it affects his friendships as well as his marriage.

OP posts:
Abitwobblynow · 10/04/2012 09:18

Melons: get a job. Tell him to go and be more than friends with anyone he wants.

Blank him. Get your own life.

Seriously.

RabidAnchovy · 10/04/2012 09:47

If the kids are his life then maybe he should think more about them before going off with any woman that will have him.

Move back, you will need support and he will never change

AThingInYourLife · 10/04/2012 09:53

He may "love you" in whatever pathetic way is possible for a grown man who needs the constant excitement of new girlfriends.

But what is that "love" worth?

He isn't loyal to you, he doesn't put you (or your children) first, he doesn't care about repeatedly hurting you, even after his 6th indiscretion is uncovered his response (wall punching, spying on you) is controlling, he is utterly obsessed with himself and his feelings but barely registers you as a person in your own right.

It's probably the best this overgrown 13 year old loser has to offer, but it's not enough for a woman, or for growing children who need to kearn about men and how decent and honourable and strong they are. While they live with an inadequate like him, they will never learn this.

If I were you I would be starting my new life unencumbered by this gobshite.

What kind of life do you want?

Where?

Start making that happen.

EggyFucker · 10/04/2012 10:20

Hello Mr Melons

You are a shit father

HTH

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 10/04/2012 11:18

Yes but what if reading this has been the smack in the teeth he needed to take a long, hard look at himself? What if this is the point where he decided to get some help to determine WHY he has to seek meaningless reassurances from others instead of putting his energies into family and friends? I know actions speak louder than words, but... What if this sad, miserable situation has given him the kick up the arse he deserves and needs?

OP posts:
EggyFucker · 10/04/2012 11:21

I tend to think that the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour

Do you really think this thread will change him for good, OP ? Really ? When nothing else has before ?

namechangingagain · 10/04/2012 11:28

you will never make a marriage work for the children, when they leave, it collapses like a pack of cards and they come to feel their whole life has been a sham.

If you stay it has to be for you and you alone.

ChickensHaveNoLips · 10/04/2012 11:36

Is that you, melons's husband? Nah. You've been together 7 years and he's fucked up 5 times. That's not a mistake, it's a habit. He is not worth the angst. Stay and face a lifetime of being lied to, taken for a mug and having zero self esteem. Let him be someone else's problem. Pretty words are just moving air. Farts can achieve that, and you wouldn't let one of those convince you black was white.

AThingInYourLife · 10/04/2012 12:27

" What if this sad, miserable situation has given him the kick up the arse he deserves and needs?"

Who cares?

Your love for him has eroded, and his wake-up call is his business.

Everything I wrote still stands, even if he is starting the process of late adolescence at this stage.

He can't realistically grow up into a man with a wife around, and it won't happen overnight.

You don't have years to waste on this bullshit, and neither do your children.

And that is even if you think it remotely credible that a serial philanderer would become a totally different kind of person because of a thread on MN Hmm

Sort out your own shit OP - you followed this loser to the other side of the world the last time he pretended to have had a kick up the arse, and now your children are going to suffer because it.

AThingInYourLife · 10/04/2012 12:29

"Pretty words are just moving air. Farts can achieve that, and you wouldn't let one of those convince you black was white."

:o

Original poster
melonsmaygotobed · 10/04/2012 12:46

Thanks athinginyourlife. I think late adolescence is a bit generous tho :)

I have to go through certain thought processes, what ifs, etc however bizarre it seems to those on the outside, or else any decision I make wont be as thought through as it needs to be. It may be a no-brainer to many (all!) of you, but I want to be 100% certain i am doing the right thing for me, and for my family and that I have no regrets on any decision I have made.

Thank you all for your frankness - that's why I posted this on mumsnet.

X

OP posts:
Abitwobblynow · 10/04/2012 15:18

melons, this is the hardest thing. To accept that when someone does this, it really is a choice and is nothing you have any control over at all.

'When someone tells you who they are, believe them' - Maya Angelou

Hope (that they will eventually see, etc) is the hardest thing to let go of.

Because it is a two prong thing:

  1. Really understanding that they are like this, do this, they really do think in this way.
  2. That is has nothing to do with us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to reach them, change them. We have NO CONTROL over this situation.

As my slap in the face was a lot harder than 'a little flirt' and to get to this place (quietly register the lack of love, lack of respect etc without retaliating or escalating or protesting, just looking at it for what it is) has taken me 3 years, I am not pointing any fingers at you.