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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

I need help (and you'll probably flame me)

317 replies

MrsMorton · 20/11/2012 13:13

I met DH when he was married and I was the OW, I'm not going to talk about my guilt etc but believe me it is ever present.
We have been together (not in an affair) for seven years and married for three. He has older children from his previous marriage, the youngest is 18 and I'm 31.

He absolutely does not trust me, last night a friend called me and DH sulked all night and is still sulking. Another friend who's DH has just DIED, texted me at midnight and I got a hard time for that as well.

Will he ever trust me? Is it my fault for being the OW? Is it because he knows how easy it was for us to get together? It's such a depressing way to live. I don't even contemplate doing things like going for works Xmas do because I know that even asking him if I can go will make him accuse me of something and I will get loads of texts asking me where I am and what I'm doing.

The only thing I've ever done to make him think this is I had emails on my account which were rude/flirty from before we met, I had forgotten about them & he logged on and found them.

OP posts:
ClippedPhoenix · 20/11/2012 15:43

OP no one has to keep the same bed for life you know.

Stop that feeling that he "gave up a lot" for you, he didn't, he went all out to get a shiny new young thing that he thought he would be able to control.

oohlaalaa · 20/11/2012 15:52

So, you were 24 when you got together. At 24, I would have been far too young to be tied down with a much older married man. You are still young at 31, get rid, and find a nice tasty young man. If he doesn't like it, no need to feel shitty, as he shat on his ex-wife for sex with a much younger woman.

Abitwobblynow · 20/11/2012 15:54

Gave up a lot??? Believe me Mrs Morton, as a betrayed wife I can assure you he didn't care what his wife and children thought, what they felt or if they hurt. They were as important in his calculations as the dustball behind your cupboard.

The only thing he was focussed on was how good HE felt, how complete you made him feel and how deliciously exciting your tight twat was. Let's cut the cackle here.

But should this be a life sentence? I think the fact you posted here, is the beginnings of the stirrings of your authentic self. I wish you all the very bestest of luck in whatever you decide and commit to. Have you considered counselling?

And because he is a selfish man, I would not mind at all should he ever experience what being abandoned feels like. Not that Wobbly bears grudges, never!

Original poster
MrsMorton · 20/11/2012 15:59

I think I would like conselling but I don't know how to get it and I am quite a private person so I find it hard to talk about myself.

OP posts:
NoraGainesborough · 20/11/2012 15:59

wobbly now really, I have just spat juice on the back of my toddlers head after reading the 'tight twat' comment. He does not look impressed.

But OP please listen to wobbly, he gave up nothing because that's what he thought of his wife and kids. Nothing. He didn't even really think anything of you. If hr did he wouldn't have wanted you to be part of such a sordid shitty situation.

He only cared about him. So he didn't give anything up.

And even if he did, you don't have to stay. It doesn't give him license to be a twunt.

DontmindifIdo · 20/11/2012 16:05

I have made my bed and this is penance for it.

Oh love, a marriage shouldn't be penance - get out while you're young enough to start again, and more importantly, before, after years of him telling you you can't be trusted and are a cheat, you start to believe him and do actually cheat with the first man that treats you well. Right now, you probably are a big risk of an affair, because if someone hands you an easy escape route, I bet you'd take it.

The escape route you go on alone is harder in the short term, but long term it means you aren't just swapping one tosser for another.

NotQuintAtAllOhNo · 20/11/2012 16:06

Believe me, if he were in a position to find a 24 year old something now to dip his wick into, he would!

HilaryClinton · 20/11/2012 16:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 20/11/2012 16:09

Leaving all talk of guilt, bed-making and being the OW out of the equation, therefore, what you've got is a good old-fashioned controlling older man with an obsessive, possessive behavioural pattern making life horrible for a naive younger woman.

He has no reason to not trust you. You have far more reason to not trust him. You owe him nothing at all.

OneMoreChap · 20/11/2012 16:14

It's not because he was a man who had an affair, nor because your were the OW.

It's because he's being an arse. Basically, he needs to know that either he can trust you and have a lovely life with you, or be a whiny untrusting arse who will drive his wife away.

So would he rather be with you - or without you.
[Yes, some people here will point out that you had an affair too, with a married man - and maybe he worries you have an OM. That's his issue, not yours. He needs to deal with it, not you.]

JustFabulous · 20/11/2012 16:36

You sound so unhappy and you need to really think about what you want to do.

Firstly - if you met him now and were a few weeks in and he was being like this what would you do?

You owe him nothing other than for both of you to be grown up about your marriage if it is no longer working for both of you.

Don't stay with him because you think he sacrificed his wife and full time access to his children for you, as I suspect he didn't look back.

Have some gumption and stop being scared of him and being ignored by your mother and start sorting ouit your life as you can't stay where you are now. It is no life for anyone.

In 40 years you want to be able to look back, while not having any photos of children/grandchildren, that you made the right decisions and would do it all again.

Would you?

I worry you are sticking with a man who is giving you nothing but grief and you haven't even got any children to love and is that something else you are sacrificing that is too high a price? Maybe if he was loving, caring, trusting and a decent bloke to be with then no children would be fine. Are you giving up your chance to have children for someone who isn't worth it?

Sioda · 20/11/2012 16:43

"I think I would like conselling but I don't know how to get it and I am quite a private person so I find it hard to talk about myself. "

Come on OP - google! Phonebook! If you don't know anyone who could recommend someone then try the first one on the list then another and another till you find one you can work with. You need to start taking back some control over your life. You sound a bit depressed which is understandable and that makes it hard to make decisions or get things done. Start with something small like finding the phone book and work up to going to an appointment. Lots of people find it hard to talk about themselves but you sound like you don't really even know yourself anymore. Talking things through will help you find out who you are and what you want again. It might not be easy but nor are lots of things that are good for you.

Polecat2011 · 20/11/2012 16:45

You absolutely don't deserve this treatment. But he has made you believe that you should accept it. There is a form of extreme or unjustified "Jealousy" that is a mental health issue, Malignant jealousy or somesuch. Try Google. There is also the "othello syndrome" which is, just like the Shakespeare Play suggests, where the suspected party is totally innocent. The Othello Syndrome, I believe, is sometimes associated with heavy alcohol consumption. Whatever it is, don't accept it.

I have only read the first page, so apologise if someone else has made these suggestions.

Polecat2011 · 20/11/2012 16:47

Is it "Morbid Jealousy"?

Original poster
MrsMorton · 20/11/2012 16:54

I will do that regarding counselling. I am depressed. I'm on my way home now and I'm actually nervous FFS which is ridiculous.

OP posts:
Proudnscary · 20/11/2012 16:54

Yes, look, I think everyone's saying the same thing on a sort of varying harsh-o-meter!

  1. You do NOT have to stay with someone who is making you horribly unhappy because he left his wife for you. That is insane.
  2. You fucked up massively and you regret that. The past is the past. What you did, you did. It was shit. But you can't change the past. You can change the future. You can be a better person. And a free person and a happy person. Someone with a valuable life to lead.
  3. Stop saying 'I dooon't knoooo' as AF put it. You do know. You are a bit depressed but you can still get yourself out of this.
  4. If you are not ready to leave him and think there is hope then at the very least tell him in no uncertain terms that you are at breaking point, you are on your knees, you are extremely unhappy because you feel controlled by him and have no trust in your marriage - that if things don't change you WILL leave him.
  5. Then leave him.
  6. Don't look back.
  7. Don't fuck a married man again.
HoolioHallio · 20/11/2012 17:13

You should sell tickets on yourself OP - WHY would you tell him what your brother said ??

You sound desperately immature, he sounds like a control freak and you are both fine examples of the type of people who screw others over to get what they want.

Walk away and find someone else to make you happy - preferably someone who is NOT married with children this time.

Original poster
MrsMorton · 20/11/2012 17:17

I didn't tell him. My brother said it in front of us both. Thank you for your input.

OP posts:
pictish · 20/11/2012 17:32

Harsh Hoolio.

I think her brother said it...but don't let facts get in the way of your slating there.

helpyourself · 20/11/2012 17:36

hoolio
I would tell my dh if someone had com

helpyourself · 20/11/2012 17:40

Grr sorry
I would tell DH if someone had complimented me. Because he's not jealous and I don't have to watch what I say around him. Because that's what happens in healthy relationships.

Apocalypto · 20/11/2012 17:59

+1 for all the "he's a complete arse" comments.

You're only a baby at 31 and you have no idea, but believe us, proper relationships are not like this. No way.

Find yourself someone young, confident, cheerful, with a humongous dick that only just barely and eyewateringly squeezes into your tight twat (tyvm wobbly), whose balls haven't been surgically altered to fire blanks, who does not wear trousers with elasticated waistbands ordered out of the paper, and who does not have hair growing out of his ears and nose.

Someone normal and your own age in other words. Then make beautiful babies together and have fun dressing them up in their best outfits for parties, at exactly the time old grumpychops will be getting his bus pass, having even more trouble keeping it in the bowl when he wees, and the backs of whose hands will increasingly resemble a high-end granite kitchen work top what with all the liver splotches and all.

There's a time to put up with that shit. It's when you're in the same shape yourself not 20 years early FFS.

Get a life sweetheart. Your 20s are a writeoff - but OTOH they're not because when you find someone decent you'll now appreciate him more.

Apocalypto · 20/11/2012 17:59

optionally do the above while still married to victor meldrew. what can he say, really?

pictish · 20/11/2012 18:04

I agree with helpyourself completely. I too would tell my dh if someone said I was fit. Why wouldn't I?

StillSquiffy · 20/11/2012 18:15

Knowing what you know now, you would not touch him with a bargepole if this were the start of your relationship.

That's the difference. I didn't know how slovenly my own DH gets when he is absorbed in work, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I do now. And i would still marry him. As would most of us. But you wouldn't. You'd run a mile.

And running a mile is exactly what you should be doing, right now.