Where does the love go?

[debtherat]

20 years of marriage, two DS and a Xmas revelation! My OH behaved badly at Xmas and NY - shouting at them, snapping at me and constantly wanting to be away from us; also like an addict with his mobile.

Anyway told me that he has met and developed a relationship over the past few months with work colleague - just strong emotional and spiritual not physical but they are/were both sexually interested. She called a stop to it because he is married with kids (so he says) - she has left his workplace but he still has number .. not sure about level of contact.

Says he would have left if she had not ended it (for reasons above).

He wants to take stock and consider options and nurse his lost love (seems genuinely upset). Options might be trial separation (being a single man again), living together separately and maybe working on relationship with me. He is very keen to minimise impact on DS.

I haven't slept properly for 3 nights, feel (emotionally) sick and weepy.

Feel like I am waiting for a) a change of heart from OW, b) OH to decide how to move forward...feels like I have no option but to wait and see - uncertainty is making me sick.

Anyone been here? What did you do? What was the outcome?

[Charbon]

You might not see it now Deb but what happened tonight is just the tip of the iceberg. If you let him stay, there will be more disappointments for the children especially, than if he moved out.

Absolutely the best way of dealing with this is to separate and insist he has the children for long periods, doing everything a parent is expected to do while they have children in their care. Your husband has got the best of all worlds at the moment. He's told you you're sacked from your marriage as a romantic partner, but he still expects you to do all the shitwork and look after his kids while he dates other women. You do see this, don't you?

[Twattergy]

He's taking advantage of you. either pack his bags or when he gets back ask him how soon he can leave. When I asked this of my now xdp he surprised me by saying'tomorrow'. It was 100% better once he'd gone. I wish I'd asked him three months earlier when I first learnt of his affair.

[greeneyed]

Deb please ask him leave what have you got to lose, he is gone already - on the flip side once gone he may feel he has lost a hell of a lot. I have a male friend who has been through MLC this year - reverted to a teenager - was kicked out by wife and after 4 weeks living in a flat (crying evry night with lonliness) his madness lifted and he begged to go home and realised he'd been an absolute fool, if she hadn't kicked him out he might have just carried on

[debtherat]

Asked him about eharmony and he said I was being stupid and denied it Doesn't normally risk drink driving - he even turned quite nasty told me to F/O - full of contempt.

Back from pub - he went away from here halfway to work (for a drink & drive!) to a place on the A1.. v. good transport connections. Plenty of pubs in town. Doesn't normally risk drink driving.

Neighbour and friend came round and he became his normal kind self - getting drinks, asking about her holiday. Felt lovely to be back to normal but as soon as she was gone - anxiety/sadness hit me.. not sure about him.

[AppearingDignified]

Why are you not throwing him out?

[debtherat]

So started to have a rummage on his email/computer history. Found photo (on flickr) of inspirational new friend plus lovely pressie for her from National Gallery ordered via new email account google chrome and some tickets to . Also in account basic membership to "no strings attached - discreet dating shagging site (with nice local matches) - lots of tits and bits on display.. but this during his so special relationship? Do you think that she just made him extra horny??

[TanteRose]

Please please stop rummaging - it is not doing you any good.

Just make him leave - he really is a horrible man

[debtherat]

How does the no strings sex thing sit with his spiriutal and emotional inspirational friend - bet she wouldn't have been impressed - wonder if their relationship was a fantasy - his fantasy? I've seen nothing from her in all of this.

He has bought two tickets to a concert on 17th Jan in London - some group I have not heard of but he has developed a major interest in. I found this on his google/IPhone. Certainly not for me - maybe their romantic reunion?

[izzyizin]

I'm guessing her alleged Sydney Carton act 'tis a far better thing I do ... because you've got a dw & dc' is because she's not that into him. Having changed jobs upped sticks, she doesn't wnat him following coming onto her and figures this is a good way of getting him off her back.

Hostelries up and down the country have a motley collection of sad sacks middleaged men hunched over their pints, lamenting the unnaccountabe lack of short sighted sex-crazed women willing to drop their knickers for a ageing roue priapic male in his prime before they decamp to their lonely bedsits.

Recognisable by their combovers ability to take mutton dressed as lamb to an art form, these men once had it all but gave it all away in the expectation that the green grass of pastures new would provide opportunity for them to stave off the advancing years relive their youth.

The sooner you kick your deluded twat of a h out to join them the better, deb. There'll be nothing like a continual diet of hamburger to make him realise he had steak at home - but by the time the penny drops for him, you may have found yourself a guy who looks as good as he cooks hung your apron for good.

[heyelp]

Oh deb - I have been reading through this for the last few days but now feel I have to post now. You MUST throw him out. This is just horrendous. what is stopping you throwing him out. Even if you desperately want him you must throw him out because you will never have him if you keep putting up with this behaviour. What on earth is stopping you. He is treating you absolutely appallingly.

[greeneyed]

Izzy - love that post! Take Izzy's advice!

[ReeBee]

Deb, I agree with all the others. I've been following your story with mounting concern, sadness and anger. Your H is behaving with no care, compassion or respect for you or the boys and to salvage yourself, your emotions and your family (your DSs) as best you can you have to disengage and ask him to leave today.

I know it probably feels overwhelming but the reality won't be worse than the anticipation.

Please be brave. We are all here to support you.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"How does the no strings sex thing sit with his spiriutal and emotional inspirational friend "

Even someone looking for no-strings sex isn't immune from thinking they've found 'the real thing' in the process and pestering them with gifts. "There's no fool like an old fool". If she doesn't reciprocate, he just keeps going. I'm sorry but it all looks to me as though he is well and truly out there looking for your replacement.

The anger about being discovered, the way he can keep it together for a friend but turn on you... that just reeks of someone caught with their pants down but not wanting to give up their cushy lifestyle.

[Lifeissweet]

I know you are in the middle if this and can't see the wood for the trees, OP, but you seem to think you're still in a marriage and the fact that you are snooping around and confronting him about his betrayals is demonstrating this. You are not in a marriage anymore and he has told you he's looking for someone else. Listen to him. It's over.

The others are right. He needs to see you give a show of strength. The thing that will most give him a short sharp shock right now is your coldness and disdain. Throw him out and distance yourself completely. Until he loses you completely and totally, he can't realise what he's thrown away and regret it.

Be strong, be cold (on the outside) be calm (on the outside) tell him you can't bear to look at him. That he's not the man you thought he was and you need him to leave now. Please, please, please. It's really the only way this can end well.

[MadAboutHotChoc]

Not sure if OP is listening to us - she probably has head stuck in sand.

OP - you know where we are when you are ready to take control.

[Alittlestranger]

OP he's told you he's a duck. Why are you now trying to record him quacking and searching around for duck droppings?

I think you're still in the denial phase, this is entirely normal but you need to try and take some control. Even if you still think you have a marriage to save, ask him to leave.

Look, most people know betraying vows and abandoning a family makes them a shit. Yet they are not amoral psychopaths. This means people will rarely say as bluntly as they need to considering what the actual circumstances are. This makes it very easy for the person being left to cling on to crumbs: "I'm confused," "I still feel a lot of affection for you." People do not tell you what your OH has told you without it being an exit line.

And prepare yourself that you may never now the truth about the OW. Is she younger? She might be mortified that the work mate she had good banter with seems to think he has a chance with her. Maybe she has pushed him to leave and will be waiting. Maybe they're still together and he's just lying. Who knows, but you cannot rely on him anymore to tell the truth.

[puds11isNAUGHTYnotNAICE]

OP are you listening to us? Please listen, he is making a fool of you. Kick him out before he walks out on you.

[HappyNewSkyebluesapphire]

Deb - I know how hard it is for you to hear what everybody is saying, I have been there too.... But everybody posting has been through this, they have been where you are now and they want to help you.

Your H is clearly signing up with dating and shagging sites. If he is meeting people from there, then he is putting your health at risk.

If he is buying presents and tickets to events, then he is seeing somebody. OW walked away? Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Maybe he is now trying to impress her and win her back again.

It must be so hard to consider divorce after 20 years together. I was with my XH for ten years. But, once the shock wore off, I knew that I had to divorce him, as he had betrayed me and I did not want to be anybody's second choice if he decided to come running back again.

You will destroy yourself, your self esteem, your confidence and everything about you, if you put up with your H's behaviour. You are sitting around waiting for him to choose you....

Please go and get some legal advice this week, do something practical and positive, to help you decide what steps to take next. If you want to gather information, then do so. i did the same and printed out a mountain of mobile phone bills that proved contact with OW. But all you are doing is hurting yourself each time you find something new. I think that you have found enough now, that proves that he is cheating on you in various ways.

Hold your head up high, retain your dignity and ask him to leave while YOU decide what you want. Until you do that, he will keep on messing you around until you are at rock bottom. Don't let him do that to you.

Please keep posting as we are all here for you

[izzyizin]

Er... it's not strictly speaking true that everybody posting has been through what deb's going through, Skye.

I did once have a dalliance with a guy who was congenitally incapable of fidelity, but I didn't have dc with him or have property/finances in common with him.

Nevertheless, I found it interesting to experience the range of base emotions his activities engendered in me and it provided a useful exercise in how to inwardly feel extreme rage and plot fantasise about revenge while outwardly appearing unruffled.

As it is, I subscribe to the belief that we are more evolved than we may think ourselves to be and that when a relationship fails to enhance our liife it can, and should, be ended in a seemly manner.

[HappyNewSkyebluesapphire]

sorry, that was a generalisation, just trying to say that we are only saying these things because we know what we are talking about because we have been through it.

it was not meant to be a literal statement of fact

[izzyizin]

I know that, Skye, but I wouldn't want anyone to get the impression I'm speaking from personal experience of having, or having had, an adulterous h or a philandering dp who is also the father of my dc, and all that entails iyswim - not, I hasten to add, for any reason other than not wishing to give the appearance of being something I'm not.

[izzyizin]

Well said, Hesterton.

The longer you delay, deb, the longer he's got to rub your nose in it - and the more he'll come to believe his own hype.

Summon all the self-respect and self-worth you can muster. Tell him to live elsewhere because he's no longer the man you married and you don't like what he's become.

[Victoria3012]

Deb, please please please make him leave. I was married to my partner for 22 years, he did this to me and my heart was broken, i was devastated beyond belief. Eventually he left me and came back after 8 weeks (once i was getting my life back on track, well i wasnt but it appeared so to him). The 5 months that followed were the worst of my life, he reduced me to nothing, i tried so hard to make him happy and do everything right and believe me nothing i did was right. He destroyed my confidence, happiness, my childrens happiness, i let him reduce me to the shadow of the person i once was. I felt a failure as a women, wife, mother and as a person. I just about managed to hang on to my last shred of self respect and told him it was over and to leave.

For your own sanity and that of your children make him leave and keep all contact to a minimum, he is messing with your head and he knows what he is doing, he is loving the power he has and he is exploiting you emotionally.

I wish i had munsnet when this happened to me because the advice you are getting is the best advice for this situation.

[dequoisagitil]

Hugs to Victoria.