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.

[NicknameTaken]

we have until the child is born to reconcile our problems

Well, it's good that you've given yourself this deadline, but to be rigorously practical about it, moving out with a newborn is horrendously difficult. Even supposing you managed to patch things up while you're pregnant, throw a crying baby, sleepless nights, and resentment over whose turn it is to get up, and the most solid of relationships can get rocky.

I won't tell you to end the marriage as you don't want to hear it. I will tell you to reverse your plan: he should move out now. You can still try to see if you can fix it if that's what your really, really want, but it's a lot easier to sort out logistics during pregnancy than during the newborn phase.

The above comments are from a pragmatic viewpoint. If you want a moral judgement (and who ever does?) he sounds like an incurably nasty little shit.

[Thurlow]

I know you came on here for constructive advice, and not to be told to leave him, and I know there is a baby on the way but... Cheating on you for the first six months of your marriage and then having the nerve to blame it partially on you, and wanting to continue having an argument for 6 hours... Wow.

He cheated on you. He picks fights with you. My only constructive suggestion, seen as you don't want yet to contemplate the really logical answer here, is some serious counselling.

[NicknameTaken]

Don't throw a crying baby. Throw one into the mix. Metaphorically.

[eurozammo]

This is all so broken and messed up I don't even know where to start.

Using the time the baby comes as a deadline is a terrible idea, for the reasons already given.

[Jan45]

OMG I am shocked at your view of what happened and him actually saying he holds you accountable, OMG is he for real?

2.5 years and you've already had to cope with him shagging your mentally ill friend, does that not tell you anything?

If you really feel you want to stay with him then I would suggest he takes full responsibility for what he did to the relationship, it really doesn't sound like he has, perhaps that's why you are constantly arguing. Unfortunately you are finding out much to your dismay that affairs can't just be gotten over, the person who has broken the trust must do everything and I mean everything in their power to regain that trust and build a better relationship together, him following you from room to room in your pregnant state for 6 hours isn't going to do that. It's him that needs to put the positives back in, try finding out if it's really what he wants.

[Bitofkipper]

What was it you had to " slog through" to be together and could it be the reason you are scared of this marriage failing?

[newlifeforme]

Do you really know your husband? It is typical for the honeymoon period, in a relationship, to last 2 years so it seem that once your relationship moved into the steady phase he was off seeking excitement with your friend. He continued with the affair because he wanted to.

What do you know about his background and upbringing? He obviously has issues and whilst you can't change him you can encourage him to go to counselling. It may not save your relationship but it may help him to be a better father in the future.

Please do seek counselling for yourself and you will need support through this difficult stage.

If you can't bear for him to move out then you must get an agreement
that your fights end when they escalate. It's not productive to row for 6 hours - nothing is achieved.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"if I spend all day thinking only about the negatives, and only about the wrongs he did then we are doomed before we have begun, so I choose not to think in terms of apportioning blame unequally, I choose to try and get past this. Does that make an ounce of sense?"

Not really. At the moment you remind me of those terrible old police teams who, convinced that X is responsible for the crime, will go all out to pin it on X, looking only for evidence that fits their case and ignoring or falsifying anything that doesn't support it.

That's where you are unfortunately. I sympathise because you have a lot of pressures on you to make this work... a baby, ideas of 'love', family expectations (I'm guessing), looking a fool in front of friends that haven't got their wedding outfits back from the dry-cleaners. You're not a quitter and you are an optimist... not necessarily bad traits. But your mistake is that you want to see your DH as a damaged, tormented and sad man that can be fixed and not a nasty, abusive, aggressive, and thoroughly contemptible man that you should walk away from very quickly.

If you want your marriage to stand a chance, send him away to think about what he's done. Let him take whatever time he needs to work out why he cheated on you... (and not blame the OW which is cowardly or you which is insulting) ... and why he thinks it's OK to harangue you for hours on end when you're the innocent party. Tell him to do this from another location so that you can also think clearly without him in your face.

[Greatdomestic]

I'm sorry you are in this situation, it's grim.

Your husband is treating you with a total lack of respect and care. But you know this already.

Does your husband want your marriage to last? Sounds like he might as long as you make all the effort and absolve him of any blame for repeatedly having sex with a mentally ill and vulnerable woman.

A marriage can recover from an affair but only with a lot of work from both parties. From what you've said, this is not your situation.

I hope you do decide to have counselling.

[clodhopper13]

Oh my Goodness. This it totally doomed. You just CANNOT mend a relationship on your own, YOU cannot. And I cant believe you are so deluded about his 'affair' story. The reasons its such hard work is because you cannot forgiven what your gut knows is complete and utter rubbish.

Until and unless you get "real" ... you will live the rest of the time you spend with this arse in misery.

LTB sorry

[Peartreepeartree]

I know you probably are not at the point where you are willing to accept this, but I really don't think this is a healthy relationship to bring a child into.

I think you have to think about your baby and take some time apart to focus on yourself. I think you are in denial about how toxic this relationship is.

[izchaz]

I'm sorry, I know you're all saying what is right according to what you have been told by me, and you may still be right when I fill in the blank I deliberately left. The OW is not vulnerable, I took her to the secure unit after she threatened to take her own life (and that of my godson) for the umpteenth time because she wasn't getting her way (my husband had broken off their affair and she had been caught by her husband). She has since been diagnosed as a sociopath, and it turns out she has form for seducing men and then accusing them of rape or sexual assault when she is caught. My husband is not innocent, I do no absolve him of guilt, but I also know that she is an arch manipulator who spent almost 8 months before we married wearing him down, and making him believe that he could not come to me. She is not a vulnerable woman, she created this situation and I will not allow her the victory of having achieved what she set out to do: to break our marriage and put me through a nervous breakdown.
She would walk to my house whilst I was working nights (5 long shifts a week) and moan to him about her marriage and her husbands infidelities, and her aspirations for our marriage, all the while poisoning his convictions and reducing his confidence in us.
My husband is not innocent but he was led to this by a woman far beyond the scope of anything I have ever met. Her husband and I have worked out a confirmed count of 13 instances where she has done precisely this sort of thing to other couples in the past 16 years. I cannot stress how dangerous she is, what sort of a woman threatens the life of her months-old son in an effort to persuade anyone of her innocence?

[StillSeekingSpike]

REALLY??????? .

If she has form for manipulating and sexually molesting men, why on earth didn't your husband just go to the police? I am sorry for you and for the poor baby who does not know what it is being born into- but I don't believe a word of the above post. I think you are so far up that river in Egypt, you have gone beyond rationality.

[EhricLovesTeamQhuay]

Whatever the circumstances of the affair, he had it, by choice. Unless and until he takes full responsibility for that and does everything in his power to regain your trust you are on a hiding to nothing. While you continue to suppress your anger and hurt over it you will continue to feel the poison inside you. That's just a fact (millions of women can attest to that, many of them on this forum).
His behaviour to you, following you and haranguing you for 6 hours into the night is abusive, full stop. It doesn't matter whether it only happens once in a blue moon, any abuse is too much.
I advise you to ask him to move out for the time being while you both undergo separate counselling. You can then assess the progress of his contrition and personal development from a safe place, while working on your own boundaries and understanding of infidelity and abuse.

[MadBusLady]

None of which alters the fact that he was still able to get an erection with her, and he is still apportioning blame to you for the whole thing which is just brazenly, sickeningly unreasonable. Until there is a proper reckoning for him, none of this will get any better.

I will not allow her the victory of having achieved what she set out to do: to break our marriage and put me through a nervous breakdown.

Do you see how having this as a motivation is basically scuppering everything you do? By pre-ordaining that your marriage must be happy-happy-joy at all times, you're not giving either of you a chance to truly go through a healing process together. This woman is irrelevant now. The biggest "victory" you could hand her would be to continue obsessing over her toxicity and letting it direct your thoughts about YOUR marriage.

[Chubfuddler]

No of course someone who gets taken to a secure unit and threatens suicude isn't vulnerable. Good good.

[MadBusLady]

And this is a former "best friend" apparently

[CailinDana]

The six hour fight the other night - i get the impression that it wasn't actually a fight but in fact a six hour session of criticism from him? Am i right?

[izchaz]

Cheers for the advice all, I'm sad that so many of you feel that my marriage is doomed. Thank you for taking the time to share your views though. I will get counselling, and I will keep trying to move forward, with or without my husband. If anyone is interested I'll post updates every now and then. It's very hard to write succinctly about what has been an horrific few months for me, so I know I've left gaps, left questions unanswered and made it thoroughly difficult for you all to get a true appreciation of the situation. But thank you for trying.

[izchaz]

CailinDana - no it was a stand up row, we fought about trivial things, with the heat of much greater things.

[izchaz]

Madbuslady - I was this woman's protector from a vile unhappy marriage for a long time, except that she'd made up all the unhappiness to gain my sympathy, orchestrated events to make her husband look bad, and ensured we never spoke without her present to guide the conversation. She arranged a falling out with her husband so she could move into my house (knowing I'd not refuse an abused woman a place to stay) and then spent a month getting her claws into my husband. As much as I am no longer her friend, she was never ever mine, because friends do not tell friends lies in order to monopolise their time and their care, they do not harangue and threaten when that friend needs time to go and get married, and they don't seduce their friend's husbands.

[pictish]

And equally, good husbands do not spend seven months fucking their wife's pal, do they?

You seem to have the measure of her...now apply the same intelligent rancour to your loser husband.

[KvassInTheNight]

you sound like you desperatly want this relationship. I advise you read 'The Surrendered Wife' if you want to make a go of it. All the best.

[MadBusLady]

Ok, so what about my point about still letting her direct your life - because you are. You're not prepared to get seriously angry about what your husband, who took vows to you, has done, because as you see it that is playing into her hands - a woman who sounds like she should mean nothing to you now. That is profoundly fucked-up.

You're also making her the scapegoat for everything bad that's happened, and now you're wondering why it doesn't feel good, why you and your H can't "move on". Well, because it's not all her fault is why.

I'd be hopeful this would all come out in individual counselling.

[hotbot]

Poor poor child....... Get real and get organised for yours child's sake.