Staying with dh after om

[GroundHogDayAgain]

Hi, I posted here yesterday re om dh business etc.

I think I am going to stay with dh and give my marriage another go.

I don't love dh and alot has happened in the 13years we have been together. We have small dcs.

I am going to have to leave my business (with om) and cut all contact with him. I will also become a sahm after working all my adult life.

Please can anyone tell me or give me advice on how to move forwards. I am going to arrange counselling for me then maybe couples if I think it's helping.

Any advice welcome. Thank you x

Imagine op it's an ideal world. What would you be doing, where would you be, who would you be with?

Whatever version of god/ gods you worship, I'm pretty sure they didn't go to all the effort of inventing and keeping going the universe for billions of years in order for some of their finest creations to spend their whole lives living in pain and fear and without love. Your dc are your finest creations, how do you want them to live? If your family value more the status quo than your true happiness, it says more about them than it does about you.

X post. Op you cannot drive someone to hit you, hire private investigators or police your every move. You are in an abusive relationship and you need to get out. Can you call women's aid and get some advice?

I had to delete my first paragraphs because they were far too harsh, even for mumsnet, though I think they were realistic.

I always try not to post such harsh posts, but I think you need to understand that once you have no way out then your husband will get worse. And that you are teaching your children what marriage is supposed to be. And without working you will have no way out. And he will be turning this onto the kids.

It is just going to get worse and worse and worse.

Thanks handbagcrab. I posted here as I literally have nobody else to talk to.

I will consider calling womens aid but I know ultimately I need to think what's best for me and dcs.

I feel like I've become a shell of the person I once was.

Lisamed plz be as harsh as you like. I need to hear it.

I'm not saying I'm sacrificing myself for sake of kids (even though that's how it sounds).

Good.

Because you're not. And it doesn't sound as though you are either; at least to anyone who can see right through this.

What you are doing is sacrificing your kids because of yourself.

(and AnyF is dead right about all these manipulative, chain-yanking OPs lately. This board should be retitled passiveagressivenet)

Your DH is absolutely right you should do the right thing.

The right thing is not showing your children that marriage is where one person is controlled by another who they don't love.

The right thing is to leave your DH, go to work, forget OM and begin to build a new life.

I'm sorry but...

You will end up drinking bleach, your children will learn that it is normal in marriage to be an abuser/abused and your family will be impoverished from the loss of income - and it is the best outcome?

I expect this post to be deleted. I regret that I think it is true.

Groundhog, you say you didn't have a physical relationship with OM is that right?
How'd your H use this affair as a stick to beat you with then?

If you give up your job and hand all control of yourself to your H it will end very badly. At least right now you have a fighting chance.

I'm also from a community where divorce is frowned upon, the reality is everyone has too much on their plate to give a crap how I live my life.

You need to choose.

You are, as I see it, hoping you can cop out of making a choice at all, but for your kids you really, absolutely must choose. It is truly terrible to have a mother who has been complicit in allowing abuse of herself and her family like this use "I was trying to provide stability"/"I was acting based on my religion" later as an excuse for the inaction which condemned the family life.

Fundamentally when religions require subjugation of women they are absolutely and fundamentally wrong and yes it is extremely hard to go against, some women are killed and tortured for going against it but really, what other option is there?

Surely no God anyone would be inclined to recognise as a higher authority would demand you stay with a man like this and no person of real worth either....

really, honestly, women's aid my love. Your spirit is broken and you have been trained to internalise beliefs which will not help you or your children to live happy stable lives. These lives these people expect you to live are lives of slavery and abuse...

A woman's place is in the home... the man is automatically the backbone, this bears no relation to any of his qualities as a person, it is simply an oppressive and prejudiced belief of oppressive prejudiced people. religion schmaligion... no excuse for it...

tell womens aid what you have said about how he treats you.

I agree 100& with Lisamed, his controlling ways will get worse. You sound so worn down and defeated. Remember you have self worth, it's not just your children. Speaking of someone who has been through a divorce, now 2 years later we are settled in a routine that works for all of us and me and exDH are very very good at coparenting. Best thing we ever did.

You know deep down this is wrong. I'd recommend separating and working on YOU and don't worry about men at all until you are strong. Thinking of you.

Lisamed- I've had those dark thoughts more times than I should say. I feel like a massive disappointment to everyone.

Fuzzy- there's no physical relationship at all with om, never has been and dh knows this as despite his efforts he's found nothing. But the fact that I loved om and arranged a house for me and dcs is bad enough.

Offred- your advice is great as always. I have a strong faith and I do believe that God/whoever else you believe in does not want anyone to live like this. I also recognise that you could hold onto your faith to make your marriage work and also hold on to it to help you make it work alone.

Everyone that knows dh would never believe he's like this.

Thank you queen, that means alot. I have read so many threads on here abt divorce etc but it doesn't feel real thinking that about myself.

I have huge admiration for single parents. It's prob the toughest thing ever to do.

Offred, what will women's aid tell me?? He also checks my emails, hacked into oms emails, checks my handbag. My cupboards. Even rubbish.

Faith in God can't make a marriage worth I think. Only faith in the marriage.

You have to do it your way. Ultimately we all do know this, even though we might be frustrated with you, us with the privilege of objectivity and hindsight!

We know it will be a bad idea to go through with what you write in your first post on this thread. I think you know this too but knowing at the moment is not helping you is it? You really need some support to translate that knowledge into real life action.

Remember though any mistake, no matter the size should not be made, or allowed to be made so great that it obliterates you. It is simply a mistake, we all make them, big ones, small ones, and mostly they can be either undone or fixed or grown from.

sorry, x-post.

I'm not sure what exactly WA would tell you because I'm quite sure you haven't told us everything, but it should be that spying on you, hitting you (even once) and demanding you give up your work is abusive behaviour.

They will not ask you to condemn him as a terrible abusive man, they should focus on you and your perceptions of yourself and also help you to correctly identify abusive behaviours of his and get a better perspective of your own behaviour which you seem to think is hideously sinful (its not).

Offred I will consider calling them. I'm sure they will at least assure me that I have other options- just like all of you are saying.

There's plenty I haven't told you about dh. Some posters here are already saying I'm doing this for a sympathy vote so I don't want to say anything more.

One thing which really scares me is physical contact with dh if I stayed. He has in the past said even if I don't love him I should still sleep with him. It's my 'role as a wife'. He wouldn't force me I don't think, but I would def get the pressure.

End your marriage.

Stay safe.

I know that this is a leap based on the fact that you have not spoken of any sexual violence which has been committed against you, simply a threat of it, but bear in mind that men who are both physically and sexually violent are the greatest risk to their female partners.

People are very frustrated with you because what we see time and time again on this board is posters using the board to vent about their terrible situations specifically so that it makes the relationship bearable. Posters are wary of this with you, that we will put effort in, be triggered by your posts, give desperate pleas to you that you will use in order to stay, which is very hard to see.

Please don't take it very personally, posters generally care very much about women posting about domestic violence. It is coming from a place of caring about you and your children.

OP, it is beyond the remit of MN to help you if you minimise and rationalise domestic violence and coercive sex in order to justify staying in an abusive relationship

Please seek some RL advice and support (and not from any religious sources that support the idea that to endure an unhappy marriage will bring you any sort of favours in the afterlife)

Why did OM arrange the house for you? Was there no physical affair because the relationship simply wasn't like that? Did you become emotionally bonded because he's actually a sympathetic man who has seen that what you need to do is get out? And has actually taken some practical steps so you can?

Offred, I'm very grateful for every single word of advice by every poster here, I apologise if it's come across that I'm not.

AF- I am going to try spk to someone in RL. But I don't know who to. Women's aid has been suggested and maybe I should go to my gp?? I don't know.

Scaevola- I got the other house for me and dcs only not om. It's in his name for financial reasons. But it would have been mine for next 12months at least.

Om knew what dh was doing/saying and he did say I need to get out not just to be with him though.

Om was really the only friend I had and who I could confide in.

OP, yes to Women's Aid. Have a look at their website, love. You can also email them as a starting point.

Your husband is horrible.

I would like to apologise for the comment I made at 12:42pm

I am a bit jaded with MN at the moment and used your thread to have a bit of a strop. Completely my issue and I spoke too soon on your thread.

We know love and I think it is not a conscious thing of a lot of the posters who use MN to vent, we understand the cognitive dissonance and all the crap, most of us have been there but it is just hard to watch it happening is all. None of us would expect you to up and leave based on an Internet forum and we'd all be around to support you, just sometimes we're an imperfect lot and it is stressful watching something unfold that you feel you can see the ending of!

Hope you understand we're not trying to get at you or accuse you of manipulation at all, or any other poster! Just mumsnet being a bit up it's own arse!

i don't understand that you say you and other man worked together and had the same friends but you didn't know he was married. that doesn't add up to me.

tbh it sounds like this man has been very kind to you and you say there was no physical relationship so i wonder if he was just being a friend and trying to help you but you latched onto the idea of being together forever.

i'm sorry for my comment too - it is very frustrating sometimes and there was a real feeling of drip feeding and wishing to cause maximum effect. if that wasn't the case i apologise for thinking it.