One about a sad pregnant lady married to a sad angry man.

[izchaz]

Before I start, please don't read this and say "divorce him, he's a shit head", much as that might be outstanding advice it's not an option I want to engage with. What I'm after is help in turning the negatives in my relationship into positives. How do I let go of the grief and hurt, and how do I persuade my husband to stop beating himself up over the protracted affair he had with my best friend (no longer)? I try every day to push the positives in our relationship: we're a good team, we can laugh and have fun together, we have an incredible group of friends that we share, we are going to be parents to a much wanted baby, and when we are both behaving we have glimpses of what used to be - it's easy to be together and we can both see how much the other loves us. However whenever times get tough - work stress, the whisper of tightening belts, having to multitask or balance multiple issues at once then the whole house of cards crumbles and one of us reverts to recriminations and aiming to wound the other. He is under a huge amount of pressure with work, an impending family bereavement, the worry of my earnings disappearing when I go off on maternity etc etc, and I try so hard to keep him afloat. On the days when I fail, as yesterday he rails and I cannot help but bite back. Last night we fought from 9 at night until 3am, and only stopped because our lodger came home. Once he has started he will follow me from room to room, verbally attacking and prickling me until I re-engage the fight. I am desperate to stop the cycle as I am conscious that our marriage is tiny and frail (married 11 months, his affair was on/off for the first 7, and when confronted twice he lied about it) and I do not feel it can stand up to such punishment without becoming a very twisted paradigm of what we wanted when we got engaged.
Please, help me to figure out how to break the cycle of bad behaviour we have both sunk into, I am miserable with him now, and would be miserable without him, but we had something so good and so precious not so long ago, and I want to find a way back to that.

No-one can tell you whether you are should or should not stay and work at your marriage - that is your prerogative to decide, no matter what has gone wrong, and I do know that it is very, very easy to sit on the other side of a computer screen and tell someone (in theory) what they should and should not do, when we don't actually have to do it ourselves.

I just hope that whatever you decide in the long term, and however this pans out, we can at least have helped lift the scales from your eyes about certain things, so that if you move forward in any direction you at least do it with a clear head, no delusions, realistic expectations and some self esteem. Good luck with your baby, and I wish you strength as I think you are going to need it, whatever happens.

izchaz I do feel for you, this is so so hard at what should be some of the best times of your life. You deserve more. But you're still directing your hurt and anger at the wrong people: at people here who say what you can't bear to hear and at the OW who your are determined to paint as a demon who snared your poor unsuspecting little husband, forced him to fuck her and lie to you. And lie again and again.

You need to get really really really fucking angry at him, because without his decision to do this, nothing would ever have happened. You need to live apart and have some serious therapy before you even begin to consider trying to "work through things". Would you consider that?

Periodfeatures so dangerous they force men to repeatedly fuck them and lie about it to their new wife???? What are you on???

yy to Fellatio and the scales falling from your eyes, at the moment you can't see what an outsider can, wishing you strength and courage for the moment when it becomes clear. Nobody wants anything but the best for you here, it's just hard to see you putting up with such errant nonsense from your "d"H.

I agree with PF that they can be manipulative and dangerous,but judging by the sound of the OP I don't think her husband is a stupid or easily duped man. He is some innocent victim of a narcissistic sociopath who was played like a fiddle, is he? If he was single, maybe, but like I said before whether she was mad and predatory or not makes no difference here. None whatsoever. It only affected how she behaved once she felt snubbed, it didn't affect his choice to sleep with her in the first place. He knew what he was doing as well as she did.

Sorry I meant to say he is NOT some innocent victim etc.

I'll be taking some time for myself in the coming weeks and will be going to therapy

I think that's a really important step to take, so well done.

Please, help me to figure out how to break the cycle of bad behaviour we have both sunk into, I am miserable with him now, and would be miserable without him, but we had something so good and so precious not so long ago, and I want to find a way back to that.

Hi OP, I think, as others have said, until you can really truly say you can forgive and to a certain extent forget, then these battles will win out.

The fundamental thing needed to make a marriage work is Trust.

Your husband made a commitment to you on your wedding day, and it is and was his responsibility to honour that. Not the other woman's. her responsibility was to her husband.

Yes he might have been manipulated but he could have walked away. He didn't. He chose this path, but doesn't have the strength of character to own up to that.

You seem to be the one trying to 'fix' this, but I wonder if it is your place to fix this. Yes you made a commitment, and yes you want to make things work because marriage shouldn't be entered into lightly, but at the end of the day, 7 out of your 11 months of marriage have been a lie. You would be well within your rights to end this based on that.

It seems that if he can do this to you so early on in your married life, it makes me question has he done this before? Or will he do it again?

You must not in any way accept responsibility for his actions. Remember he chose to do this. If you can accept that and then actually really and truly forgive that then the arguments will stop. Otherwise the pain and hurt from his actions will continue to bubble under the surface and every minor disagreement will turn into another hours long argument. Add to that the effect of sleepless night, recovering from the birth of your new baby and all the other things that come with that, it isn't easy, not even for couples who have no relationship issues. Your focus will be on the baby, you will not have time to keep him afloat and nor should you have to.

You say you are miserable with him but would be miserable without him. Personally I would rather be miserable without him.

Also, in you thread title, you describe ourself as a sad pregnant lady and him as a sad angry man. What has he got to be angry about ???

Also. Just thinking...also...he may have put you and your child at risk of an STD.

OP, I think you are a Rescuer. You need to make things right no matter what, and will near as damnit kill yourself trying to do so. Thus you sit for 20 hours with a woman - where was her h? - who tells you that your h is responsible for her state, without questioning why or how. You accept that someone is in trouble and needs you and you move heaven and earth to help them. Your needs are shoved behind someone else's wants (or even whims).

Can a part of you see that this is what you are doing with your h? You are rescuiing him from himself.

However, he has betrayed you so badly that it keeps bubbling up and taking over from your need to be the one who makes things right. You think the onus is on you to forgive him, but you push away his responsibility, his betrayal.

You will not be able to forgive him. Please believe me. That betrayal will always be there no matter how hard you push it away, stamp it down, confine it to a box you try not to open.

Your only chance is if he can say truthfully and willingly that he shagged her because he wanted to. Only then can he begin to show the true remorse and the learning that he will need to do, in order for you to forgive him.

If he cannot do this, or will not, then your hurt, bewilderment, justified anger, all of those feelings will always be there. Always. No matter how hard you try to pretend that they're not. No matter how hard you try to pretend that you have some responsibility. You don't and didn't.

And as time goes by they will be harder to push away, stamp down.
The more tired you are, the harder they will be to control.
The more stressed you are, the harder they will be to keep shut in the box.

You are infantilising him by not making him face up to the truth of his actions, the extent of his betrayal. Is he really such a child that he must be spared from it?

I agree with all of that Jux but I don't think OP wants to hear or really believes any o it yet

I agree too Jux, but I think from OPs last post she is beginning to see that her position is untenable.

OP, you write eloquently about what happened and how you discovered it. Perhaps you could write it again giving your husband free will all along the way this time. For he is not a big baby. He decided to have sex with your vulnerable friend in your home. He decided to keep the relationship going exchanging explicit pictures and texts. He decided to lie to you.
And then he decided to blame you for not 'realising' what happened.

I think you are vulnerable to believing that men can't think for themselves, they can't resist sex, because you inherited those beliefs from your mother.

Good luck OP. You have many people wishing you all the best.

I'm even beginning to wonder who may be the one with the personality disorder tbh. re it may be your husband. Some people are masters at getting the finger pointed at other people, with nothing sticking to them at all, and somehow becoming invisible in the chaos that follows revelation. I can't get past that he blames you for not seeing the desperation in his eyes when the poor love was apprently being eaten alive by this woman. She says DH was the author of her downfall...

Just saying.

izchaz

good luck, you are clearly clever and I applaud you for digesting the BITTER pill that is MN relationships!!!!!

I wish you, and your baby every luck

and....I agree she sounds like a cunt of the highest order, I am not your DHs biggest fan right now, but she behaved disgracefully too. I know people are accursing you of blaming her not him, but I can 100% understand why you are so angry with her . Tis human

xx

I agree with Jux and Fellatio. Love alone isn't enough here, because loving this man is actually bad for you. A poster earlier on likened you to their mother, carrying on with a disasterous relationship and the ruined lives at the end of it. I've been the child of such a relationship and its frankly cruel and is a way selfish to keep flogging a dead horse.

I'll reiterate a bit here because some of you may have missed my last few posts - im going to take some time (I don't yet know how much or how long) away and get some professional help sorting through all this.

Those of you who are convinced I need to get angry: please stop hitting me over the head with how angry I should be with him - I have been, and still regularly am fuelled with a rage that I struggle to talk about because it scares me. It doesn't help, it makes me freeze up, it doesn't fire me up to do the things I need to do, it takes away my ability to act and to make decisions. I don't like being angry, because anger makes people make mistakes, you stop thinking, how is that even vaguely a sensible place to make any moves or decisions from?

Good luck izchaz....all the best. Put yourself first for a bit and work out what to do next. x

You will be ok. Honestly you will. In fact you & your baby will be very happy & will thrive. Have courage in your own strength & do not accept anything less than you deserve which is to be cherished by those who say they love you.

You are wise. izchaz

And to all those judging with their big sticks. Just walk a mile in someone elses shoes before you beat them with it.

izchaz I went through some terrible shit with my DH early on in our r/ship. Different shit but pretty horrible. I can identify with how you describe the arguments.

I remember feeling drained, tired confused, desperate, hopeful and unbelievable close to a breakdown at times. Therapy and time apart help us. We had to be really tough with ourselves and each other.

10 years on we are happy. Really happy. I love him to his bones. We have a calm and happy home and it is because we have both made a commitment to each other, brutal honesty with ourselves and to getting it right. We laugh a lot, loads of affection, love tolerance and understanding and the past has been left behind.

I personally could forgive an affair under certain circumstances. Marriage is a lifetime. 50/60 years!! If we can't forgive and love despite difficulties and grow through tough times, what are we?

It sounds like you are both willing to face difficulties and want a way through.

Good luck. I have a good feeling for you......'bit woo' and I think you are having a girl 'bit more woo!' And it'll be the best thing you have ever done.

Izchaz I honestly wish you luck.

Marriage as many have said is not easy. All the best to you. x

Jesus christ springtotty, what on earth would possess you to say such a thing? Seriously? I am lost for words that you would dare to diagnose a man you have never met with a personality disorder on the back of a few pages of his wife's moans. If you don't believe then don't comment, but for goodness' sake, have more respect than that.

And for what it's worth he has mentioned once, in a very broken moment that he was sad I hadn't helped him. Once. I blame myself a million million times more than he blames me, so no, he doesn't have a disordered personality, what he has is a weak will. Get off your high horse and consider if you've ever done something that left you backed into a corner and left you considering a lie to avoid the uncomfortable truth. Because if you have then you too must have the same disordered personality that my husband has.

Jux - you are right, I have all my life put what I have considered to be right/important/necessary ahead of what I wanted. I know it's a problem, it's something I have been working on for more than a decade - just call me crusaderChaz...
I sat with her for 20 hours because at that point I still believed her husband to be the horrendous arsehole she'd described to me, rather than another person she'd duped with her worlds of lies - she had us each in a bubble and controlled the flow of information and communication between us to make sure we never compared notes - it didn't all come out until the following day when I felt I had to confront her husband and he was appalled by the things I accused him of.

I think I can work toward completely forgiving him, but not her because I can identify with his temptation, his all-too-human failure; meanwhile I cannot even begin to identify what drove her to twist and break something that wasn't hers to touch. He made a series of mistakes, he cheated, he lied, he was inappropriate. She murdered two friendships, my marriage and her own marriage simply because she could. She saw a weakness and she exploited it because she is a sociopath and because she doesn't care.

Good luck OP!

Really wish you and your baby all the very best for a happy future, with or without your husband.

Xxx

Good luck. I know this thread hasn't always gone as you hoped, but I'm glad you have taken some advice and will take some time to yourself to calm down and think this all through, and get some counselling for the two of you. People do get through terrible things and if you, and especially your husband, can learn to manage the anger and forgive each other, then finger out a way forward.

diagnose a man you have never met with a personality disorder on the back of a few pages of his wife's moans

Firstly, don't take your anger out on me. I said I wondered - which was what I meant. I usually say what I mean. I wondered. Sometimes things can be very different to how they look.

A wife's moans ??? Moans?? I wouldn't put this in the category of moans my dear.

If you post then you must expect to weather the responses. You are not in control of what people post. Perhaps that is one of the first lessons one learns when posting on forums. As I said upthread, you appear to be very bossy at times. Don't boss me. I am not involved in your situation and have taken the trouble to post. Suck it up my dear.