Is my marriage over

[Willthisgetbetter]

I'm a name changer - can't face anyone in RL knowing yet.

I don't know what I'm looking at, some reassurance that I'm not going mad, or a kick up the arse if it is in fact me...not really sure.

DH and I just can't get along. The big issue for me is that three years ago, when I thought we were at our happiest I caught him "sexting". She was a close friend, not so DH and I were trying for our third DC. We had a party and he kissed her, passionately, in front of everyone we knew. I was livid, he initially didn't see the big deal then blamed it on the drink. Subsequently he was contrite, apologetic.

He'd not done anything like that before so I let it go only to discover 10 weeks later that they had been exchanging 100's of explicit texts. The one I read described actions in the past tense: "I loved it when you...." A mutual friend who discovered what was going on confronted the OW and was told that "they'd agreed they wouldn't have sex in my house".

DH expects me to believe that they never had sex. He clearly thinks I'm an idiot but continues to deny it to this day.

We tried to move on, I discovered I was pregnant and we wanted it to work. He stopped contact with her and I am virtually certain that had been maintained. Our DC3 went on to be stillborn and tbh for a long time my energies were focused on my grief over that followed by a desperation to fall pregnant again.

Our DC4 is now a year and I think we hate each other. I still feel hurt and humiliated and that he doesn't care. He thinks my expectations are too high and that I need to stop being angry. I try but it resurfaces whenever we argue. I cannot get over the fact he was so ready to throw our life away.

We have had a series of huge rows over the last weeks and I don't know how we move on, or whether even I want to. I know I don't if it means that I have to spend the next 40 years swallowing my pain for the sake of keeping the peace. But we have a beautiful young family. We don't live in our home country and so a split would be hugely disruptive to the DC. I don't know what to do.

I am very sorry about your DC3.

Your husband sounds like a total arse and you are not doing you or your DC a favour by staying in such a sham of a marriage.

If he doesn't think cheating is a big deal and you do then I'm not sure what you do.

Although you think a split will be 'hugely disruptive' to the dc, how disruptive do you think having two parents at each others throats?
You may think you only argue out of earshot but trust me they know and it will be affecting them.
Either get some counselling or split and rebuild your life before you do more irrepairable damage to your DC.

I have no advice for you sorry but I didn't want to leave you unanswered.

I am sorry for the loss of your baby and I hope you can find a way forward for yourself and your children.

It does sound like he is not on your wavelength at all, sorry.

He has cheated.

He denies it.

He minimises it.

He dismisses your feelings.

No wonder you can't move on and you never will as long as he continues to lie and deny everything. It will continue to eat away at you.

Raising children in an unhappy and tense home will provide them with a poor model of relationships.

My heart aches for you reading this.Have felt the pain and anger of discovering my DH was 'sexting' but at least have the reassurance that's how far it got.Altho being discovered by her DP I will never really know what would have happened next and that's been hard enough to reconcile.
I totally identify with how anger resurfaces in waves.We had been through so many tough times together and stayed strong and were a great couple.He felt this too in his heart but let flirting and flattery go to his head and lost the plot for a time.
But you poor love have been through SO much.A stillbirth and a new baby to cope with as well as the ongoing emotions of his betrayal, and with a close friend,it's no wonder you are still in pieces and struggling to cope.And living in another country to boot.
I'm no expert so hesitate to advise but your DH continues to hurt you and make you feel insecure by appearing to still not fully 'get it'.I knew I would never regain any trust in my DH unless I was certain he had taken a really hard look at himself and patterns of behaviour leading up to the affair - and also stopped minimising it because nothing physical happened and 'she was just a friend'.It was secretive,it crossed boundaries therefore to me it was almost the end of us.But fortunately he 'got it' almost immediately and was willing to do anything,take any amount of grief and answer questions over and over if I needed it.It sounds as if your husband from the start has wanted it all to conveniently go away and life to go back to normal.Ther is no normal for a long time IMO.
Have you had any counselling?Are you in a position to get any help as a couple or individually?I was grieving for the loss of my marriage as I knew it,it felt like a loss.But you have been bereaved doubly,with his betrayal and losing your baby and I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through.But you've gone on to have your DC4 and you must be amazingly strong under all this hurt.You need more support and if you're not getting it from your DH it's no wonder anger and resentment keep bubbling up.It's irrelevant that it's been 3 years.There's no specific time limit on sadness and pain.And you're not mad,just angry and sad.This has probably been no use at all but really wanted to send support .Wiser posters will be along soon to help I'm sure x

Yes, your marriage as anything meaningful and viable is effectively over

It was over before you even tried to make it work, I am afraid, simply because it was a unilateral effort

That I'd what I thought.

I think he tried initially. He cut contact, went to counselling alone and we did talk but as I said he denies and now just cuts me dead.

I'm so tired of it. Everyone thinks he is such a good bloke and I am so awful for not getting over it. I have no doubt that almost every single person I know would think I was an idiot and that it is me throwing it all away.

Why does it matter what other people think. Other people don't have to live with him, have sex with him, sleep with him, share their lives with him, raise their children with him and grieve for their lost child with him.

Anyway, you might be surprised. People may just have been keeping their noses out of your relationship. Bet there'll be a few who surprise you.

it sounds miserable.

It's very, very hard to be able to forgive and forget. Sometimes you can forgive, but the forgetting can be impossible. And the trust has gone, hasn't it - not only because of what you know he did, but because of what he hasn't admitted to.

Does he know the extent of how you're feeling? That you think this might be the end? If not - you must tell him.

You don't say anywhere that you love him. All you're feeling for him is anger and hate - and you're right, you can't live the next 40 years feeling like that.

You sound miserable - how ever much of a 'good bloke' yopur DH manages to be in front of others, at the end of the day you sound miserable.

Vry easy on here to say just cut him loose but if you can manage it I think it would be the best.

You have already been through the worst pain any human could go through with your DC3, coped with it and started healing. You have amazing kids and you sound fab. You certainly sound like you can deal with this - sort out a new relationship with your husband, contact with kids, how things will work between you and very soon I suspect you will be happier than you have been in a long time.

Or go to relate and talk it through.

This does sound a miserable and lonely marriage. You have been through so much and you deserve to be happy.

I agree with Offred, I think you'll be surprised to what people actually do think, and you will probably get RL support from unexpected people.

Do what you know is the right thing, your gut is telling you the right answer, and take every bit of support you are offered in the process.

You've just been through two of the most difficult things anyone can go through in life. Leaving this man, who makes you feel so miserable, will be easy in comparison.

It matters what other people think because I don't think I will have any support if I left him and it would be hard enough even if I did.

I did love him but I am extraordinarily disappointed by th way in which things have worked out. As so many woman on here post I was 100% sure he wouldn't cheat. So it floored me.

I seem to have lost perspective on whether this is one of those normal lows which so many people tell me are to be expected in a long relationship ( married 10 years, together almost 20) or whether this is as awful as I sometime believe it to be.

Thanks for the advice so far

Really tricky, and obviously impossible for us lot on here to judge. Have you tried any talking therapies type stuff?

It isn't a "normal low" because he has shown zero respect for your feelings. DH and I have different feelings about monogamy. He is monogamous by nature I am not. I would not treat him how your h is treating you because I love and respect him and chose of my own free will to enter a highly committed monogamous marriage with him. Your DH may not believe in monogamy, you do, you are in a monogamous relationship which he shows no respect for and it seems he thinks he believes his views on monogamy are more important than yours - that you are Wong and he can do what he likes. This is not a basis for a relationship. Having different views is not the problem, not respecting each other is, why should he get to dictate how you should feel about things?

Wong? Wrong!

Not that I'm saying relate wouldn't help bridge the gap. But it certainly isn't a normal low to me.

Thanks all
mumble I saw a counsellor briefly after the loss of my son. It was mostly re my grief but we did touch on my relationship with DH. I didn't find it terribly helpful. DH also saw someone but again I don't think he found it terribly helpful - he told me there was a slant towards me having to gt over it and I think he began to think the counsellor was unfair to me.

I have considered joint counselling but it's hard to come by in we both work during the day and have DC's in the evening.

offred bizarrely I think I probably have less conventional views on monogamy than DH. I am faithful because that is the decision I made but I don't see it as that big a deal if a person chooses not to be - it is the deceit and the sense of humiliation that hurts me. DH takes a much more moral stance. Although clearly not enough to stop him!

well, you see the more "moralistic" cheaters can often be the worst

because they have to detach from you so completely to enable them to justify the cheating. They have to diminish you massively to allow themselves to feel ok about what they did. They have to convince themselves that they don't love you, because if they did, they wouldn't treat you like this. It must be difficult to get back from that (for them, but mostly for you)

he isn't showing he values you at all, right from the very first second he gave himself permission to take that very first tiny step away from your relationship, and it appears he isn't making very much effort to get back into it either

I don't get it then. You're not to bothered about monogamy but you say he is and you have agreed together the relationship is monogamous but he had cheated and lied? Think he is just an immature, disrespectful headfuck then!

Offered

I do care about monogamy in our marriage, although I don't necessarily believe marriages need to be monogomous. What I really object to is not so much that he became involved with someone else - I'm not the sort to get sentimental about sex- but the deceit. I asked him outright if he was interested in her and not only did I get an outright denial but a big old story about if he was attracted to anyone it wouldn't be her.... I'm not sure I'm making sense.

I had a long conversation with him last night. I feel I owe it to my youngest, who if I left today would never know him in the way the older two do, and he says he is going to stop drinking. That has long been an issue but I think maybe I chose to ignore the extent to which it has become a problem. In fact he has said he is going to AA on the weekend.

I have a horrible feeling that there is going to be a long and difficult road ahead.

Ps I realise I've done that really annoying thing of asking for an answer and then ignoring it. I don't know what to do for the best.

And thanks to everyone for their advice I have read it all and really tried to absorb it and make sense of everything