Rumours at DH's work

[Ormiriathomimus]

He is one of the few men working in this school. Last year rumour started that he was having an affair with one of his assistants. Nasty particularly because her H is an abusive twat and if he got to hear these rumours the consequences could be pretty bad. Rumour was quashed by HT would sent strongly worded memo about spreading malicious rumours.

Anyway it has started again. Assistant in question is in the process of trying to end her marriage and is in a very difficult position.

But right now, I am more concerned about me. Selfish I know but I am recovering from depression and still a bit unstable. I know he isn't unfaithful. I know they are just stupid rumours. But it hurts to think that so many people (some of whom I know socially) might beleive these rumours and in fact be spreading them. It makes me feel undesirable and ugly, middle-aged and stupid, a sap who is being take for a ride.

I can't tell you how upset it has made me feel. It had made me angry with DH for being the sort of man he is - the sort of person who gets close to other and shows that he cares about them, and lays himself open to rumours.

Can anyone understand me?

Well done. Good to see your spirit shining through.

Good idea to write it all down, I did it for months, then came across it yesterday and it makes for some absolutely crazy reading now. I don't know what I was thinking I wish I had been stronger.

I think if I had had cut my X out when he left, he might be here right now, thank goodness I didn't for many other reasons.

Glad your friend is okay!

It is an addiction, he will come out of it, you are doing great, I love your 1-4 points!! The truth is good. He needs to see this.

Well done, you sound much stronger now.

To answer your earlier question stern 'did you find yourself wondering briefly whether you should let him go to be with someone he loved and who loved him?' Yes. That was first instant reaction. When you say you love someone that means something significant - I assumed that was what it was. I can still hear him saying it and it still cuts me to the quick.

Orm, you're quite right that he needs to move on from the dreamy fantasy. My only point is that that cannot be your job. He needs to stop loving her, you can't make him otherwise it will simply resurface somewhere down the line either with her or some other skank in distress who is more "perfect" than this one.

It's tough to accept that it is not in your hands but I'm afraid that that's the way it is. The only thing you control is whether or not to walk. I'm certainly not saying that you should walk but he has to genuinely believe that you might unless he gets his head in the right place AND tells you the truth.

Obviously we can't read your text exchange but what you wrote is exactly the kind of thing you should be saying. People can recover from affairs, but by necessity it requires the adulterer not the victim to prove themselves worthy of another chance. Getting over the OW really is square one for him.

Thanks schmarn. THe exchange started when I sent him a link to the 'accidental affair' page I linked here yesterday. He said something along the lines of 'Huh! I can't do anything original' with a little smiley So I gave it to him with both barrels - he needs to break the addiction. I can't live with someone who holds a torch for someone else. So far he acts as if his feelings for her are nothing to do with me, and while that is the case I won't/can't 100% trust him. He is being very loving, very caring, very attentive, and I have been the focus of all his attention for a month now but until he evicts OW from his heart and his head it will be hard to beleive him. I have finally realised he has no rights to any secrets when it comes to her. He has good friends, friends who he will suppport and care for and I will never have a problem with that, but she cannot be one of them. His fault.

BTW I know I can't 'know' what he feels about her and he could well pretend. But I want to make sure he realises he needs to pour cold water on all that 'love' and try and stamp it out. He can't build a little shrine to her in his heart.

I also reminded him that the bed in our friends' house is still available if he finds her memory too hard to give up.

Thanks for answering that question Orm, it helps me understand you more and it confirms what I thought. You see, that thought you had is a good example of real love; the sort of love that is selfless and puts the other person's interests first. I'm also sensing some guilt in that reaction? I might be way off the mark, but is it the case that you've felt for a long time that he loved you and relied on you more than you did him? So, some of that magnanimity was because you briefly wondered whether he'd be happier with someone else and deserved that chance?

Unfortunately, his words then will give you bad flashbacks for some time, but I hope you're seeing now that they weren't the truth. This was not love, on either side.

You are right to assert that before you can heal as a couple, he needs to see the OW and his feelings for her more realistically. From his perspective, he might regret the pain caused and the unholy mess his actions have caused, but I sense he's some way from regretting the experience overall. For this to work, he needs to get to a place where he regrets everything and wishes he'd never got involved and had this experience in the first place.

I might be alone here then in understanding why you are helping him do that. I think you need to do that for you and not just for him. In some ways this is no different to a husband who'd got a new male friend about whom you had deep misgivings and the friendship was going to impact on you. You would need to express those misgivings and give evidence to back them up, not just for your husband's sake but because his blindness to the friend's faults was eventually going to impact on you and the children. It's a form of self-protection.

His jokiness suggests that he thought he was getting somewhere with you "getting over it" - very glad that you stomped on that quickly! He's still not adequately ashamed of what he did, I feel; like Sternface, I still get the overall impression that he's not sorry that he did the Sir Galahad thing, he's only sorry that you found out and that it had such a strong impact on his marriage.

I don't know how you break down his self-image/delusion barrier - there must be a way but I don't know it, sorry.

He's an intelligent man who cannot help but see logic when it's pointed out to him. Therefore the only way he'll be able to see this is if Orm and other people who know them point out the glaring inconsistencies in the OW's 'story'. I'd be really interested for example if anyone other than the OW can corroborate the abusive behaviour in the husband, who those colleagues first heard the rumours from, who it was who claimed they'd witnessed the restaurant loo incident, who can have possibly known about the relationship ending if not from the OW, how close she was really to the person she lost in January, whether anyone had seen actual evidence of self-harming (and regarded it as a safeguarding issue)......

It never fails to amaze me what absolute tosh people will believe if they are in the midst of an infatuation. It's as though their usual 'bullshit' radar is completely shot to pieces.

I think as more lies are exposed, your husband will think of other implausible tales Orm. Be prepared for that denting your respect for him even further.

One thing that I know she lied about was the first marriage she destroyed. She was going out with a lad who lived with his mother and stepdad. Stepdad came onto her and they had an affair. Boy found out, fell out big time with his stepdad, finished with OW, mum forgave stepdad and they tried to make the marriage work - and failed a year down the line. She was 17. She told DH she was 15. Undoubtedly stepdad was the worst of the two and a fairly revolting individual, but she tried to imply that he was also a paedophile and that none of it was her fault. She also told DH her parents were totally unsupportive - they aren't, they look after her children all the time, help her financially and took her in without a second thought when she briefly left her husband. She also told DH that her grandfather and grandmother virtually brought her up because her parents didn't care. Hence why she was so distressed by his death. That isn't true.

I know all this because the friend I was talking about earlier knows her family really well and also knows the couple she split up. It's a very small town - far too small to be telling lies about your past

I really can't let DH know this litany of lies - he'll think I am being cruel to his damsel. But my friend can....

I have no idea how truthful her story about her marriage is - as someone said earlier why would you marry someone who was so vile to you?

"who it was who claimed they'd witnessed the restaurant loo incident, "

Yes, I'd like to know that too. It was DH's birthday and the only people who were there with him were people that got on with him really well - none of them would have spread malicious rumours. DH wasn't going to do it. So the question remains....

Added to which it was a busy restaurant, unisex loos and no privacy whatsoever. And when Dh was 'comforting' OW about her marriage there was also another of the TAs present handing out tissues and sympathy.

The only problem Stern is that some of those stories will have been hyped up by the DH himself, so exposing them may not achieve much because he already knows that much of it is bullshit. I'm sure there is some truth to what he says but it neatly serves his purpose, doesn't it? The story about things ramping up in January are self serving. I would be amazed if the affair didn't pre-date that. The sad reality here is that if the OW was not 25 and attractive, there would not have been affair.

Don't get me wrong, I expect the OW is a piece of work but I honestly don't think he cares that much because he will just think that, like him, she has told lies and engaged in duplicity in order to fulfil their star-crossed love. In that respect I don't see the OW as any worse (or better) than the DH. If the OW were to appear on MN under a pseudonym, we could just as easily analyse the DH's lies and have a discussion about how she needs to get over his sorry lying ass.

The one likely consequence of investigating these stories is what you allude to in your last paragraph, Stern. That it may expose further, more preposterous lies which may not be a bad thing.

Having said all of that, I'm going to give DH a break on the jokey text. I read that as self deprecating rather than presumptive of forgiveness but then again, I'm a bloke and, by definition, prone to insensitivity!

"The only problem Stern is that some of those stories will have been hyped up by the DH himself, so exposing them may not achieve much because he already knows that much of it is bullshit"

Eek! That had honestly never occurred to me. I am so used to beleiving everything he says. So all the time he was feeding me stories about how dreadful her life was (before I found out about the affair) he might have been embroidering them for my benefit. Oh.

Well it's abundantly clear that this OW has got a victim complex and tells lies to extract maximum sympathy from all around her. Of course she'll do the same about the affair. When she realises that she hasn't 'won' then she will tell more lies about your husband and she will try to attack. Be prepared for it.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with your thinking that you can't be the one to tell him all this. Of course you're not unbiased, but neither are those friends of your marriage. He should trust your judgement above anyone's and I think you're far more capable of being honest with him about why he believed all these tall tales. You also hold the 'corporate' memory of your marriage and can remind him of previous occasions when he has believed the unbelievable because it suited him - and made bad character judgements.

When you say 'DH wasn't going to do it' do you mean he wasn't going to ask who claimed they'd seen that? Are you certain that this witness testimony relates to that occasion and not some other night out?

I agree it seems an implausible tale, but I've got no doubt where it originated, even if it was just the OW telling him 'you'll never believe this latest rumour. Someone reckons they saw us having sex in the restaurant toilets!' whereas there was no such rumour and no such testimony.

I meant DH wasn't going to spread the rumour.

Cross-posted.

Yes I agree that your H will have also told some lies and exaggerations here. Almost as though if he made these stories seem too ludicrous, it would put you off the scent Orm. Those lies and exaggerations still need to be exposed though.

There is one lie that I'm very uncomfortable with Orm, because to believe it's anything other than a lie puts your husband in a much worse light. I just can't believe he genuinely thought she was married to a man who was that abusive and then put her and her children more at risk by having an affair with her, especially after the rumours started. Put you and the children at risk too because he must have been concerned that some neanderthal was going to knock on the door at any moment.

Is he really that selfish or do you think he took her lies with a pinch of salt?

From what i have read you seem hell bent on controlling his feeling and ow and the suituation. Your husband does not sound sorry at all.

I think i would kick him out and let him sort out the mess he has caused.

I get that he wants to resue her but have you pointed out that you are the victim here that he has hurt you and his marrage?

I think you need some space from all the lies and drama to see more clearly. Dont get boged down but the details the in and outs of what happened as it seems he will never tell you the truth. You cant expect it from ow or other people. If you cant get it from husband your not going to get it.

It doesnt seem as if he is trying hard to mend your trust and marrage.

"I get that he wants to resue her but have you pointed out that you are the victim here that he has hurt you and his marrage?"

Yes, many times. And he gets it. He is sorry for having hurt me so much and risked so much. I don't know yet that he regrets doing what he did.

Stern, I think your question answers Orm's question about DH exaggerating the state of the OW's abusive marriage throughout. You say:

"There is one lie that I'm very uncomfortable with Orm, because to believe it's anything other than a lie puts your husband in a much worse light. I just can't believe he genuinely thought she was married to a man who was that abusive and then put her and her children more at risk by having an affair with her, especially after the rumours started. Put you and the children at risk too because he must have been concerned that some neanderthal was going to knock on the door at any moment."

This is my point. The DH may have behaved abominably but he is not evil. The rational explanation here is that DH has exaggerated the state of the OW's marriage throughout to excuse spending time with her (if they were ever seen and it got back to Orm) and then having an affair with her. I don't think the OW ever sold her marriage to him on that basis. Sure, she no doubt told him she was unhappy and that her husband treats her terribly but I bet he told her much the same about Orm ("she pushes me away, she isn't affectionate, the love has gone etc"). It's not entirely out of the question that the OW's husband is a victim too. I just don't buy the Sir Gallahad story for a second. I think it's a cheap and cowardly cover for what is an utterly ordinary affair.

There is one way to be sure though, Orm. Why not ask him Stern's question word for word? I can guarantee that he will quickly backtrack and say "Oh, it wasn't that she was in danger, he was just horrible to her that's all". At the moment, you will know that the whole rescuer charade was a lie for your benefit.

Jesus, schmarn, you're good.

I mean, everyone on this thread is good, but your last couple of posts are really insightful.

orm - you're doing great, I can't compete with your gang of heavy hitters, but I'm still reading and wishing you well and constantly impressed at how you're coping.

Orm, I have read this entire thread,and whilst I can't really add much because everyone has said anything I would have said anyway, I just want to say that you come across as an extremely kind, dignified and intelligent woman and I trust that you will make the best decisions for you and your kids in this situation.

I have seen this situation arise quite a lot in my own job, and I'm shocked at how rife it is.

Anyway I hope u start to feel somewhat better soon, and can hold your head up high as from what I can make out here u sound like a lovely person. Good luck orm!

I can understand why you think that Schmarn, except for the fact that the OW also gave Orm a sob story about her abusive marriage, so much so that the wonderful, decent Orm offered her a bed for the night.

My conclusion is that it's probable that the OW was gilding the lily, that Orm's husband didn't really believe it was as bad as she was making out, but that they both exaggerated it to Orm.

I agree that Orm's H has behaved abominably but I can't think he is evil enough to risk the safety of 2 women and 2 sets of children (3 of whom are his own) to the mercy of a man whom he genuinely thought was abusive. Hence I agree that he was lying to Orm about how bad the OW's marital situation really was.
I agree too that your posts are great Schmarn .