Thirty years

[fuckitybollocks]

My husband had an affair 5 years ago. He has not been 'in love' with me since. I have really struggled, living with the man you love who does not feel the same way is soul destroying. We have two teenage children so at least we have been together with them. He would continue like this although he is not happy. He says he does not really know what he wants. At the weekend I told him I did not want to live with someone who dies not feel the same way about me. He says he loves me but cannot remember when he was in ,I've with me. He has a neurological issue which affects his memory especially biographical memory and that really does not help.

We are currently hiding the fact that one of us sleeps on the sofa from the children. I can't do that anymore as I have hurt my back. He has not done anything about finding somewhere to live. He does not really want to I don't think. He does not have someone else now, he hasn't for a long while so would prefer us to live together, us being all of us. I think he thinks I will capitulate and he will be able to stay with us for longer.

This is so very very hard. I am crying at times, not when the children are around, he hugs me. He hates seeing me upset. He says he loves me, cares for me. When he had his girlfriend he experienced that infatuated soul mate type relationship. Of course a wife of 30 years cannot match that. He does not value that total love and loyalty that comes with time and family. He says he does not think about me and look forward to seeing me. I know he would stay if he could, he does not really want to have all the hassle if finding somewhere to live etc and he does want to be with children. I am so lonely. Being friends sleeping together (he does not want sex with me often at all) is so souk destroying. I don't blame him for not wanting me, I smell of fags and he hates that, I have always smoked but the smell of me has become really horrid for him and I understand tht. I quit for nearly three months last year and am gearing up to try again. When I didn't smoke he did not want me more though.

This situation can't continue. One child is gearing up for his gcses next month. I do not want children to see this train wreck. I feel so pathetic and selfish messing things up because it is hard living with someone who is not in love with me. Until this crisis he has not told me he loves me at all for months. Valentines day for the first time was just a card. I had chosen a present or him. Two actually although one was not delivered in time.

When he has affair I did not cope. I was very depressed and ended up unable to work. I know I will not do that this time (although am off suck fir a few days while this back pain dies down). He does not respect me, I have behaved badly and been very weal and feeble. Not now though. I am never going into that depression again. I am very unhappy but not depressed and there us a big difference. He might be depressed though. He certainly feels as though there is little point o life.

I am not sure why I am writing this. What if anything anyone can say. I just feel so alone and a bit scared.

From Agatha on Thurs:

It is probably worth having a calm conversation when your children are not around, so spell out how the next few weeks are going to work. Namely that as you are in the process of (now, not some distant thing in the future) separating, hugs, cuddles and sex are now inappropriate. Polite respect is the way forward. Some kind of timescale of when you expect him to have found somewhere to go, sorted bank accounts etc, packed his stuff. He doesn't really seem to accept that it is happening, does he?

From you in reply:

Again, you are right Agatha. I will do that, but tomorrow (Friday not the tomorrow that never comes).

I didn't imagine these posts.

No, I did not link that with your pestering about boundaries. We did, of course, talk while children were at school etc. mainly about money where (geographically) and also a little about how we would deal with child arrangements.

Can I please ask that you do not continue hassling and expressing your belief that I will not manage to separate on this thread? I totally understand it us a public space etc but I honestly think i have enough on my plate without being hectored by you.

Sorry that should have read where...he would live.

I have read back through and wondered if I gave grounds for the comment about 'letting my dubious friend' tell my husband the marriage was over! I can't see it although I know my posts have often been muddled. Just to correct that though, no one told my husband the marriage was over except me.

I'm glad you enjoyed your night out, and as you say, that will have sent a message to him.

Hope you have some nice plans for the rest of the weekend.

I do, other than I have to go food shopping which I hate. Incentive of a child coming dog walking with me after though! Just curing hangover with bacon rolls, then off.

Oh don't worry OP. I had no intention of coming back to the thread anyway after you tried to claim your own posts were a figment of my imagination, especially now that you've also claimed you didn't realise that what Agatha was saying, related to boundaries .

Alter, why do you say you will be in this position in a few years time? I really hope you will not. I would not have invested so much in maintaining our relationship if I had the slightest inkling of how life would be. I am not saying that I would not have been in a two parent home for the last five years, just that I would not have put so much of myself into the relationship.

I have been thinking, all along and excaberated by some posts here I have considered myself to be weak beyond redemption. What if it was actually him who was weak? What if my confusion has been to a large extent the result of him being both unable to say the relationship will no longer work and also unable to try and make it work? I am not explaining this very well. He used to be both strong and compassionate. There is little evidence of either now. Ages ago he said some thing along the lines that his affair had to be true love, ergo he could not truly be in love with me, otherwise all the deceit pain etc would have been worth nothing. I think the affair might have been a weakness, and his failures since to be a result of him trying to justify it?

This is pretty irrelevant now but it does kind of make a bit of sense of stuff. He is most emphatically not the person he was. I lost that person a long while ago. I don't know if this makes me crosser or sadder, however it does help me feel as though I am not individually culpable. It has taken two people (perhaps three but that is in the past) to perpetuate this miserable existence. The ow and my husband constructed a narrative based in me being inadequate, including at looking after my children. I went along with this which I deeply regret. Anyway, alter, don't allow this to be you. If you are truly in a similar situation start now with building your confidence, make friends and do things for you, I wish I had not been so ready to buy into the idea that it was my fault, that I was not worth more and that his feeling sorry for me meant I was to be pitied.

Hi. I think you have a point in that he hasn't the courage to let you go. 30 years is a long time and he is probably as nervous of separating as you are. It is completely understandable and you will need support to make such a huge change in your life.

Sure he is "nervous" of separating. He will lose his domestic service provider and convenient sponge to mop up all his inadequacy.

It's not a reason to give him any sympathy, understanding or waste any more of your precious life trying to work out though.

I agree with you AF but it helps that OP has insight as it will help her to let go of him.

Indeed

However, I feel the time is ^waaaaay" past OP trying to "understand" where her husband is coming from.

Such thoughts have kept her with him for many years more than is healthy for her.

Time to let them all go and think only of herself.

I was thinking of myself, and how I allowed my life to be like this.

He has just assured me that he will continue to pay mortgage for five or so years, and that he will be paying more child support than required. I wish I could cut all ties. I went through this before. I cannot afford to pay a mortgage and live. There is no housing support unless in rented accommodation. If I move out of the house into rented there will be limited support as I will be intentionally homeless. How do people work this out? There must be a way.

He's paying though so why do you need to rent? Why do you want to cut off all ties? You can't, he's their Dad and there will always be ties.

For the record, I think you are right to wait until after the GCSEs. My mum walker out in the run up to my exams and it was hell. I did think that she could have waited a few damn months, if she had been so unhappy for years. After 30 years, what is 8 weeks? Let your child get his exams behind him and then the will have the summer to come to terms with his parents marriage ending. That is not weak. That is strong, sensible and nurturing.

I would like to cut out any financial dependence, obviously not for the children. I don't think that will be possible but I will ensure I am as well informed about choices as I can be.

Ithaka thanks for that. I realise it is different for everyone and for each family but I think I should at least this for my family. It will also help me to prepare in terms of pennies and practicalities.

What do you think about mutual friends? Do friends tend to maintain friendships with one half not the other? For those of you further down the line is it hard when your friend is seeing the ex? I can't get my head round this bit at all. He said this afternoon that we could both continue seeing certain friends. I am not sure. Not really my decision I know but I am wondering.

I'd have thought this is feasible as long as the friends also want to see you both. Sad when people are effectively asked to choose between two halves of a couple that split. Sadly some do revel in your drama.

Only thing is, if you are aware H is also in contact you'd have to guard against disclosing anything they may repeat to him.

It might be that your friends will be able to cut through any nonsense should he try to use them against you. It could work in your favour to keep in good contact with them.

Can I ask what date you envisage for the split?

8 weeks really isn't very long to find separate homes and distentangle your joint finances.

Having seen that other thread and the comments from others about earlier threads, is it really true that you didn't realise until recently that your husband was never going to fully participate in this marriage? It was so clear-cut and obvious on that other thread and you appeared to accept it then. Are you saying that you actually thought then that everyone who commented had got it wrong?

If that is what you're saying, I do think it would be helpful to look at your own thought processes and ways of processing information. Also how you present information.

It's so strange reading this thread where you talk about new realisations, when in reality nothing much appears to have changed apart from some more acceptance from your husband that the relationship is over.

This might look to unfamiliar posters therefore that you are coping with a relatively new situation and that this explains your bargaining and reluctance to face practicalities and establishing new house rules, but as I alluded to in earlier posts there is for me a strong sense of deja vu about this and no real sense that you have changed your mindset, only that you're reacting to your husband's altered position.

The clues to that are in what's preoccupying you; his weakness, the damage the affair wreaked to his personality, whether friendships will survive the separation. Meanwhile more pressing matters such as finding houses, separating finances, agreeing the best environment for your children during this short time, establishing house rules and new ways of relating seem to be on the backburner.

I was also puzzled about how ignoring a text about your child could be interpreted by your husband as being more meaningful than plans for divorce? I would have thought that it's in the family's best interests now if you agree to co-operate civilly and with maturity and with no games being played or obscure messages delivered.

Time I think to have a proper conversation about how you will interact and in this relatively short period of time, some practical work on achieving the separation if your timescale is really only eight weeks?

a strong sense of deja vu about this and no real sense that you have changed your mindset, only that you're reacting to your husband's altered position

Yes probably. The text did not require a response, it was to let me know child was home safe. Usually I would have texted back and had a conversation. I didn't.

The date is June 17th. 4 days before anniversary but the date is around children not us.

I still have a feeling he is chucking away something worthwhile. Yes I do wish so hard that he will realise and start fighting for us. Yes I have repeatedly fallen for the brief charm initative. All along I have gone round to this way of thinking each time he says loves me nd looks at me with love. This has become increasingly rare however and there was nothing over last two months. Until this last ten days when he has told me he loves me more often that I could count.
In between telling me he doesn't.

Yesterday he was discussing with everyone what we would do to the house. Forgetting that it would not be his home? I don't know. He started that conversation not children or me.

We discussed money again yesterday and how that might work. He seems to think, at the very least, we will be friends. Going to the same gatherings and helping each other if stuck with something. His phrase not mine. I don't think I will be able to do that, it would just be a continuation of what you point out is a repeating pattern.

I know how I should feel and what I should do, when it comes to it so far I have always failed. Each time this adds to the low opinion he has of me and the low opinion I have of myself. I am trying so hard I really am. But I am so sad. I have to stop crying inside and get in with it all, I know that and try and take the initiative. It was me who started convo yesterday. I had been checking out divorce proceedure on gov.org. Will avoid solicitors if possible. There is little to divide an the children will be relatively autonomous

I don't know what else I can' say. I wonder if you think I am a leech or troll. That would be preferable to who I really am but no. This is me still trying to live.

Not just trying to live, trying to reach a better way to live.

So far this time each time he has told me he lived me and we could sort this out I have turned away. Yesterday I stupidly told him I loved him and he just said I know before I turned away. I need to get to a point I do not see him.

Hi OP, just read through your entire thread. I dont usually post much but thought I would on yours as its quite disturbing. I am not sure I have ever met someone as deluded to the truth infront of your eyes as you are.
Your husband has lied and cheated on you, he is unkind to you, he has sex with you because he only wants the physical pleasure, he has told you such, he doesnt love you anymore which he has told you, and yet you hang around him begging for scraps of "love" and affection. And when he feels llike it he throws you a bone and you get all hopeful again at how he might be the husband you want him to be.
You have seriousl blinders on regarding him, you need to see him how he truely is, a lying shit. When he says " you are pathetic" he means, I can treat you like total shit and you put up with it and still come begging for more. I can treat you and do whatever I want and you wont stop me, I can even live here without being a true husband and loving you and you take it. Its no wonder he thinks you are pathetic because who, with any self respect, would put up with this?
Get your head out of the sand OP, and get some guts and get out of this marriage. You are well and truely being manipulated emotionally by someone who doesnt have your best interest at heart and is completely using you. I recommed you read Last train to loserville's thread and see an example of a woman who refuses to be treated badly. Sorry if this is harsh but its time to dry your tears and see life as it really is. The only one paying a harsh price is you and the only one you have to blame after all this time is yourself.

you should post more often, CH

Yy ^^