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Relationships

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

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

501 replies

izchaz · 24/07/2013 14:51

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.

OP posts:
freeandhappy · 30/07/2013 16:01

He will cheat on you again. I'd put money on it. When he has cheated on you with a variety of women the penny will drop and you'll realise the problem is with him. Don't have too many children too quickly will you? Wow tho murderous rage towards your ex friend. Have you no sympathy for her? Your husband DID use her you know and that's horrible. And if she accused him of rape she may feel he did rape her. Is she suffering from delusions? Have her accusations been taken seriously? She showed more loyalty to you than yr husband when she told you the truth. She couldn't cope with te situation and has broken down meanwhile your hubby talked you round, got you pregnant and is now angering you into catering to his every mood, and he did it in double quick time. I know who I think is more sinister. Anyway good luck with the baby. I'm signing out now. This is depressing.

izchaz · 30/07/2013 16:03

Springtotty, my apologies if you find me bossy, you may have noticed I have little I can martial to myself at the moment, what I can I tend to hang on to. I'm afraid if you say things I find to be rude and needlessly unpleasant I will get angry, be that on a forum or in the street. You are free to say as you like, you are also free not to post. How much precisely would you like me to suck up? I'm not to let my husband speak to me in xyz manner or make mistakes and try and recover from them, but I'm to accept a complete stranger's rudeness on more than one occasion with no recourse to telling her how unpleasant and wrong her opinion is? I think - and I fully expect to be corrected if I'm wrong - that I have "weathered" the responses to this thread pretty well for anyone in any situation, let alone a heartbroken, lonely woman who is pregnant, sleep deprived and scared.

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 16:22

Thank you for all the luck and well wishes, if people are interested I'll update from time to time about how I'm getting on.

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TotallyBursar · 30/07/2013 16:22

Period - While my personal experience of mh problems, personality disorders and emotional issues will not be used to play your misery top trumps the point you failed to see is this-

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if she is vulnerable or a spectacular manipulator.
Because the picture she painted and facade she constructed was of a vulnerable, pregnant woman fleeing or trying to cope with DA.
So you point is null. Even ignoring the very real fact a person with a PD can be a vulnerable adult for other reasons.

He either saw her for the liar she was and wanted to play a dangerous game
or
He didn't see through anything and knowingly took advantage of a woman he thought was vulnerable which makes him what exactly? In your opinion?
You can't have it both ways - she can't be so brilliantly manipulative he was 'forced' into it while at the same time not manipulative enough to fool you into believing she was vulnerable - and clearly from the horse's mouth only one of those things is true.
That's why I hope ichaz doesn't stay, a man that cheats for your whole 'marriage' is one thing but a man that chooses to do that with a woman who he believes to be at great risk, and while she lives in the marital home? Only a fistful of acid and a bottle of whisky would persuade me that he is anything other than deeply, deeply unpleasant.
I've also yet to meet a perpetrator of DA that owns up to the first time accusation of some mate of his wife's, willingly shattering the image he's built for himself outside the home, just as an aside.

TotallyBursar · 30/07/2013 16:28

Apologies ichaz for talking about you and not to you on your thread.

Good luck with your plan, it is eminently sensible, good luck with the rest of your pregnancy and I hope you end up at a place of health, happiness and security for both you and your baby- wherever that might be.
I will keep an eye out for updates because, however little you may believe it now!, I wish you well.

springytotty · 30/07/2013 16:29

I have not been rude, I have been straight. I am very long in the tooth with abusive relationships, psychopaths, narcs, etc. I also know to withold judgment - sometimes things are not what they seem.

What I see - brace yourself - is someone who insists the world falls in line with what she wants. You want a faithful husband, you are jolly well going to make a faithful husband, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You may want to blame it on a psychopathic evil woman but imo that looks too convenient to me, things may not be as simple as that - the overwhelming tenre of the posts on your thread attest to that. Practically to a one, posters believe your husband is not the innocent lamb led to the slaughter you both have a vested interest in believing - he, because he won't take responsibility for what he's done; you, becuase you insist you will have what you want: a faithful husband, a good marriage (unlike your parents'). imo you have followed the pattern your parents modelled to you as a child - welcome to the club, you are not alone. Unfortunately, that's how it very often goes.

Life can be very hard and very painful - we can't force life to be what we want it to be, we can't force it to bend to our will. Just as you insist people post what you want to hear, give or take, you insist you will be able to salvage this, save this (as you assumed you were saving the vulnerable woman). Perhaps you feel you have the space to take on lost souls, as you are so sorted yourself. It is humbling to accept that we are not as teflon-coated and sorted as we thought.

you also change your story - minimising aspects that are written in black and white, changing the emphasis (eg your last post says he said one little thing once - then why, out of the things you could have highlighted, did you mention it in your OP?). You thread is not yours for you to growl at posters to follow your prescribed trajectory. The person you need to be angry with appears to be the last on your list - it's either the evil bitch who seduced him and made his cock miraculously hard or it's an anonymous poster who is saying what you don't want to hear. Neither is appropriate imo.

Your anger towards him may make you feel unhinged but imo that is the way to go, becuase it's the truth; and without the truth you will be meandering up endless side alleys, making more and more of a mess, getting further and further away from resolution. It may be awesomely painful to grasp the nettle but you won't die of it - though it will certainly feel like it at the time. There is something wholesome about the truth, it is clean, like a scalpel. You are not the first and won't be the last to have to the intensely painful truth. People will support you through it but, ultimately, you have to go through it alone. It may, at the same time, unearth the pain of your childhood and the shit your parents covered you in. Welcome to the painful club. The other side is glorious but you have to go through the shit first.

welshharpy · 30/07/2013 16:48

Op, you asked your mother for her advice and it was 'to put up and shut up', then you ask advice on here and it (mostly) has been the complete opposite, yet you seem unhappy with both options.

It is very sad to see a woman who has so little self-respect.

Good luck with whatever you decide for you and the baby.

MadBusLady · 30/07/2013 17:19

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.

Well, that's quite interesting. You're trying to behave logically and "do the things you need to do" within the framework that existed pre-affair, and this is totally incompatible with the anger. I'd suggest that your anger comes from the place that knows your whole situation is just wrong and intolerable, that it cannot be worked with, and you can't let yourself contemplate that possibility. Were you encouraged to override anger and conciliate, or quickly default to responding "logically", as a child perhaps? I suppose you must have watched your mother go through this process, at least.

izchaz · 30/07/2013 17:43

I've just had the most mind-bogglingly brilliant conversation with DH. I asked him some very upfront questions, and for the first time ever we were able to discuss everything calmly and without recriminations. Not only did he say (without prompting) "what I did, I hold myself accountable for, she was bad, but I didn't have to do what she wanted", but he also apologised at length for ever making me feel like any of it was my doing. He even volunteered (again without prompting) to go back to therapy, and to take steps to deal with his anger and frustration - ramping up his physical activity a notch.
I feel about ten stone lighter with that off my shoulders. Thank you all for pushing me, I know I haven't done exactly what you asked, but I feel that your judiciously applied boots have made me address my questions more frankly and more collectedly that I would have managed otherwise. Thank you.

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 17:58

Totallybursar - part of the reason I believed her stories about her abusive husband is because I had had precisely that sort of relationship with a man who had one front for the world and another for me, so I made sure to check my facts when I confronted him. He was able to prove to my (deeply cynical satisfaction) that what she had said was lies. She has since admitted that she made it up, she has also had form for this behaviour in the past. I could go on, but it's probably not terribly helpful. I agree that what DH did with her was wrong, on several levels, he had sex with a woman he believed to be unstable mentally. Something that now fuels his anger and self reproach is that he did such a thing.

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ScarletWomanoftheVillage · 30/07/2013 17:59

Great to hear you sounding lighter izchaz, hope things start to look up now as BOTH of you start the repairs Thanks

Ezio · 30/07/2013 18:13

Well done izchaz, just keep being clear on your expectations of him, if your marriage is to continue, remember its your choice.

izchaz · 30/07/2013 18:15

Springytotty - I've never claimed DH was innocent, or that he was lead to the slaughter, I know, and he knows he has done a terrible thing and made a series of mistakes. Believe me when I say my life would be considerably easier had she not been a sociopath, because some or all of this could have been avoided and the waters would not be so muddy now, so no, it is not convenient that she is a sociopath, to suggest so misses the point. Not one of us is perfect or free from mistakes, I am not suggesting,nor have I ever suggested that DH went meekly into her pants like some sort of sex-marionette. What I am saying is that I don't think he would have strayed with any other woman, because no other woman would have put the pressure on him -and on me- in precisely the right sort of way, she has been the perfect storm of cuckold.
I find your suggestion that life is pain and that things cannot be changed to be fundamentally defeatist. If that were true we might as well all sit in the shit and hit ourselves with sticks, because how can it possibly be better? How can we possibly aspire for more from each other?
When I made my original post I was tired, extremely emotional and I wrote about some of the things that have affected me, one of which was that DH had once said that he was sad I hadn't done more, it stuck with me because i felt that I should have done more, not because he hammered me over the head with it.
To finish, I dislike your approach to truth, because you seem to suggest that my anger is truth, yet I have already said my anger paralyses me and makes me feel unhinged. That suggests to me that you are equating your truth with my anger, with my madness. You make one correct assertion: I will not die of what is to come, but there is the very real risk of my losing my grip on reality, which, during pregnancy and/or postnatally I find deeply terrifying, so forgive me if I don't fling myself with abandon into your anger/madness/truth maelstrom, it strikes me as dangerous and foolish, and not least selfish beyond reproach.

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 18:20

Welshharpy - I am unhappy with my mother's approach, because I become a permissive doormat, I am unhappy with the LTB approach because it does not line up with my values, I'm trying to navigate a medium, whereby I support the beliefs I brought to my marriage (that it is a union that two people work towards all their life, warts and all) and my beliefs about the emancipation of women (that all women have the right to make their own choices and and their own way in the world, with or without the approval of others), WHILST maintaining my sanity and dignity. Not a small task I'm sure you'll agree :-)

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 18:23

Madbuslady - I contemplate that possibility daily, I think it would be easier if that was what drove my anger, because then things would be a bit more cut and dried. As it is, I feel that my anger stems from the radical unfairness of what has happened, at no point did I do anything other than to love and support the two people I was closest to, and for a mixture of reasons (some I can identify with, some I can't) they betrayed me in a manner that I'm not sure I can recover from. That is where my rage stems from, the huge "it's-not-fairness" and powerlessness of it all.

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 18:28

Ezio, scarletwoman, welshharpy and totallybursar, thank for the goodwishes, I will try and remember to post updates for those of you who want to know.

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schmarn · 30/07/2013 18:39

Izchaz, it is good that he is accepting some responsibility but I still think you are some way from the truth. Men are not forced into affairs, he talks as if he didn't want it to happen. He loved every minute of it apart from the worry of being caught. Blaming the OW is a convenient coward's way out for him.

To the outsider (that is all we are) you have been married for 11 months. For the first 7 of those months he cheated on you even while you were pregnant and, presumably, talking hopefully and with joy about your plans for parenthood. Since then he has kept the truth from you and sold you a likely story about how he was coerced into penetrative sex. Put another way, if you were to post here in a year's time and say that he has cheated on you again, I don't think anyone would be surprised.

That said, it is done and the two of you have some big decisions with a baby about to enter this world. To go it alone would be a difficult choice and most of us entirely understand why you won't consider it. I hope for your sake that he is a one time adulterer who has learnt his lesson.

GoodtoBetter · 30/07/2013 18:40

I wish you all the best izchaz and I feel for you because it's true, it's NOT fair what they did to you. Keep that thought in mind, put yourself and your needs first and remember that if you decide you can't get past this then that's OK.

springytotty · 30/07/2013 18:58

your suggestion that life is pain and that things cannot be changed

?? I don't think I said that, izchaz . My belief is that one can work through the pain - but that it can't be avoided if there is to a functional future. Going around it doesn't work, as much as we try to get around it somehow. [qualifying that I said 'we' there - none of us embraces pain, it seems to be insanity to actually go for it. But it does make sense at times like this.]

Re anger I think MadBusLady and I were saying the same thing.

I hope you do embrace the truth at some stage - as awesomely painful as it is, it makes for a better, wholesome, future. You may not be in a place to do any flinging while you are pregnant, but at some stage.... (but will something else come along that absolves your addressing it? I wonder if you think you can get around it somehow? That you're cleverer than most?)

While I'm here: what were you thinking to push your husband and another woman together for long periods of time? Playing with fire, methinks. [I am resoundingly NOT blaming you for what happened!] We may think we're evolved but, essentially, we're animals underneath it all. Pheromones and all.. which don't bow to will, no matter how iron. However, ime of dysfunctional upbringings, we can often miss obvious things, a naivete about obvious things. Did you think that because you were helping her, grubby and serious things like sex just wouldn't flourish?

izchaz · 30/07/2013 19:40

Springytotty, "what were you thinking to push your husband and another woman together"? Which is it? Are men incapable of being honourable, are we all just sex-mad beasts waiting to rub genitals at the soonest opportunity, or are we in fact intelligent articulate adults capable of making choices (good or bad)?
Because if I was mad to encourage my husband to spend time with my friend then I shall have to rethink my entire approach to the male of the species. If they cannot be trusted out of sight then 90% of my socialising opportunities have just evaporated.
What I expected was that two adults in relationships with other people (one of which involved children, the other the hope of children) would be kind and decent to each other, whilst being kind and decent to their marriage vows if nothing else. Because that is what i have always done, and because that is what *i expect adult, sensible people to do.

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LoisPuddingLane · 30/07/2013 20:15

izchaz, do you think he will be faithful from now on? Honestly?

GoodtoBetter · 30/07/2013 20:19

and what will you do if he isn't?

PeriodFeatures · 30/07/2013 20:20

Period - While my personal experience of mh problems, personality disorders and emotional issues will not be used to play your misery top trumps the point you failed to see is this

I stopped reading about here ^^

How rude

There is nothing wrong with identifying with someone's situation. There is no pity in mine, only experiences and a great lot of strength. I am sorry my comment has been interpreted that way. I am hugely grateful for the difficult times that have had thank you. They have strengthened and deepened my marriage.

izchaz · 30/07/2013 20:36

Lois and good - I think he will be, as I said somewhere above I think he and I and she were in a perfect storm for what happened. I think in any other circumstance he would not have strayed - he doesn't have form for this, he has never previously given me cause to doubt, and even if you ignore that his previous track record with ex-girlfriends (many of whom I have met and he is still good friends with) has been impeccable. It is so out of character for him. All that said, should he ever give me reason to doubt his fidelity again I will be so far out the door before he's drawn breath to explain himself.

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izchaz · 30/07/2013 20:42

*and even if you ignore that /comma/ his previous track record....

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