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.

[MadBusLady]

I didn't think the 6 hour argument was about the affair. Your first post was specific that the fights are about family illness, work, domestic stuff etc. In other words, the stresses that crop up in any marriage. I think people have focused on the affair because that is the inevitable backdrop to the fights, and should at this point be affecting how he treats you and behaves around you.

Either that or he's the kind of man who will always harangue his pregnant partner for six hours about commonplace stuff, which is actually rather worse as an interpretation.

[kalidanger]

The only thing you've actually enjoyed someone suggesting on here is a grab bag. You're only saying you'll look at books because they might contain some magic that tells you want you want to hear.

A grab bag of stuff and taxi money. The means to escape from him.

[Inertia]

It doesn't matter that he wasn't haranguing you about the affair.

It does matter that he followed you from room to room to keep restarting the argument, verbally abusing you- irrespective of the subject matter, that is not acceptable.

Sorry to be so brutal, but you are finding excuses for all of the behaviour he exhibits which you say you want to change. You can't change his behaviour- only he can do that. He won't bother, though, while he can get away with blaming you for it and relying on your willingness to paper over the cracks.

You want to honour your wedding vows- he clearly didn't, and those vows mean nothing until he accepts that he has to mend the damage caused by his actions.

[pictish]

But I married him, I stood in front of everyone I've ever given a damn about and promised to love him and honour him for all time. I can't walk away freely until I have done all I can to work with him to repair the damage and build something better from the ruins.

So what, and yes you can.

[Ezio]

Wow, your marriage has scared me off marriage for life.

Are you sure the affair didnt happen before you got married, or a lot longer than he cops too.

Seriously, you have no hope with this man, he blames you for his affair, so he hasnt dealt with it and you havent forgiven him.

Hes stopped counselling, that says he thinks it time you got over it.

Its shocking that your bringing a baby into this sham of a marriage, if you think you baby will fix things or hes gonna become a great man, your deluded.

Look up wavesandsmiles, shes pregnant, her ex was abusive and cheating, and even looked up late abortions, she left her ex, because she knows, she deserves better.

[freeandhappy]

Your wedding vows are completely voided out because within weeks he was making a joke of them. You have grounds for an annulment and you have no grounds to continue the marriage an every reason to believe that he is not capable of fidelity respect love.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Wow. He has really done a number on you.
I know you took vows, but HE broke them. repeatedly. And now he resents YOU for not being jealous enough!?
Unless this woman strapped him down and jumped up and down on his cock for 7 months (in which case charges should be brought) he CHOSE to have lots and lots of sex with your best friend.
You didn't do that-he did.
I am sorry, and I know it's not what you want to hear, but your marriage doesn't exist. It's not a marriage if one of you fucked it up to this extent.
I am also concerned about the following you around and goading business.
Listen, I was in a relationship with an abusive man, and that sounds mighty familiar.
I too stayed a LOT longer than I should have, because I too couldn't face the idea of my marriage being a failure. He (I thought) was my closest friend. I couldn't imagine life without him. I blamed myself for reacting to his goading. If I hadn't been so fiesty and combative, he wouldn't have been like that. Blah blah blah.
Thank God I left.
I barely ever think of him now. He was not my friend, or my soulmate. He was a bully who gaslighted me to the point where even his affair was my fault.
Now I know that I can have a relationship with a man and it's nice. We don't have to fight. We can respect each other. It's easy.
How easy do you think it would be to leave after the baby is born??
Having a new baby piles more stress and angst onto any relationship, so to have one together you need to be rock solid.
This baby won't magically change things. It will make things between you harder.
Now, while you are pregnant is the time to take action.
Sorry again, but I have to be honest.

[pictish]

HE stood in front of everyone he's ever given a damn about and promised to love YOU and honour YOU for all time.
But rather than keep his promise, (the one that you hold so dear) he chose to fuck your mentally unstable friend, for the majority of the first year of your marriage!

He follows you around from room to room for six fucking hours over a load of shite, nitpicking and goading and refusing to let you disengage from the row, until you are completely wrung out.
That's how sorry he is. That's how devastated he is. That's what he thinks of your marriage.

Never judge someone by what they say, but by what they do.

[BrianButterfield]

My husband is a flawed man. We are all flawed. But his flaws are leaving the milk out, or not bringing a drink for the toddler, or getting grumpy when I toss and turn in bed and keep him awake.

We exchange a slightly cross word or two, leave the room, and come back later, sheepish. Maybe he brings me an ice lolly or I rub his back to make up for it.

That's a normal marriage, that's a normal 'flawed' - and I'm pregnant, we have a toddler, our kitchen ceiling fell down - you know, we have stresses like anyone else. When they say a marriage is work, it means sometimes you bite your tongue when your husband conveniently overlooks a stinky nappy, not forgive a 7-month affair. It means he sighs a little when you haul your pregnant self to bed at 8pm for the third night running, but tidies the house up when you're asleep. Can't you see, it's not naive or idealistic to want that, it's normal and lots of people have it. Drama and angst and soul-searching isn't normal, or romantic, or a sign you're 'worth fighting for'. What's worth fighting for is a man who pays the extra 50p to get your marshmallows on your hot chocolate even when he thinks it's a rip-off.

[izchaz]

It's hard to hear, but please don't think I'm not listening, or that I'm rejecting out-of-hand what you're all saying. I think perhaps it's my failing in explanation - to give you a little bit of insight all of our mutual friends, my family AND his family (those that know) have all backed my plan to give this another shot, they all said (without coaching) that he's been exceptionally stupid, incredibly childish, but is obviously keen to try and correct his mistakes. Of course I'm not trying simply because they've all said it's a good idea, what I'm trying to say is that the people who know him, have known him longer than I, and those who have my interests vested above his have all said independently that there is something there to fight for. I fear I'm not writing any of this clearly enough to help, ugh, too frustrating!

[BalloonSlayer]

"but is obviously keen to try and correct his mistakes. "

• but all the posters on here are saying that he is not trying at all. He is blaming it on you and shouting and yelling for hours. What is the obvious "trying" that all your family and friends have observed. I'd wonder if it is just looking affectionately at you when they are around and getting you pregnant. Some people are easily impressed.
  

The clue might be that they have known him longer than you. So they might be more friends of his then they are of yours? So they are hardly likely to say "Don't waste your time - leave him" about their dear old mate, are they?

[freeandhappy]

Also is it possible that your positioning him as victim is a passive aggressive way of pretend forgiving him while actually seething but refusing to let him go? It's a v unerotic sort of mummy energy and very castrating (apologies I have been studying Freud). He would be less angry with you if you were honest enough to display righteous anger and separate from him. Not saying you couldn't get back together later. But he drove the dishonesty for the first seven months and now you are. Come on be brave be honest and find your dignity and courage. Get thee to a counsellor quick.

[MadBusLady]

Well, I've not been disagreeing at all that it is worth working at the marriage - if he is prepared to do it. I'm just not sure, given what his behaviour is like at the moment, that he is, or that a conciliatory approach in which you go around trying so hard to "keep him afloat" is the correct one.

As an aside, families IME are very keen to maintain the status quo - it upsets their ideas about the world when family couples split up, or aren't quite who they thought they were. That may or may not be the case here, we can't know, but it doesn't by itself cut much ice compared to the concrete examples you've given us of his actual behaviour.

[Wiseysdaughter]

I wasn't going to post but for your last post iz.

Thing is it isn't about you and him any more. It's about the need of your child to live in a secure, safe and calm home where her/his parents are both emotionally and psychologically able to keep their child in mind every moment of every day.

What you have described is so far from that I worry about your grip on the reality of this situation. You are not going to be able to tuck all this away before the baby comes. It's bad, really bad.

[Chubfuddler]

Absolutely none of your "I'm not explaining this properly x y z" posts have made a jot of difference to my view. And just because your family and friends are invested in the you staying together - so what? You learned you should put up with this crap somewhere. Your family's attitude is unsurprising.

[MadBusLady]

Anyway, will stop banging on at you now, I'm sorry if this is making you feel got at

[CailinDana]

Do they know about the 6 hour row?

[freeandhappy]

That's what I was thinking chubfuddler. Tremendously motivated to hide/minimize/take the blame for a massive injury, betrayal and hurt.

[izchaz]

Balloon - it's not just our friends (many of whom I've known longer than him), but his family and my family. Everyone who knows as a couple was shocked and appalled when all this came out, and initially refused to believe it until I made him visit every single one and explain himself to them.

Free - I do like a good bit of Freud, and there have been days when I'd happily have castrated him with a particularly rusty spoon, however I have done a lot of soul searching over what I want to do, and what the motivators for those desires are, and part of the reason I came back and fought, and part of the reason I have worked so hard to forgive and move past this, and part of the reason I'm on here asking for help is because I don't want to make him less than a man, I want a partner and an equal, and I am trying to set an example of how to behave, so that he has a paradigm.

And that last sentence is so grammatically poor! Sorry!
I do feel that the best way for us to come through this is to create a framework for positive behaviour - no recriminations, trust, mutual forgiveness, calm, honest engagement ect etc, and if I behave in that manner and encourage him to do likewise we have a better chance of avoiding falling into poor relationship manners/habits. In order to understand all of that logic you probably have to share my viewpoint that the affair (which I should add was mostly nonphysical, more sexting and inappropriate communication - not that is ok either) was and is an abberation, and is absolutely out of character for him.

[akaWisey]

(NC) In fact I think if you stay and try to mend it without him taking 100% responsibility and crawling bare-arsed over broken glass to make amends - you'll be back in a few months time because he'll have had another affair and this time it'll be your fault that you failed to spot how upset he was that you aren't taking as much notice of him because of the DC.

[Chubfuddler]

Good luck with that. Seriously. You need it. And probably a tank load of ads. Just don't be surprised if you wake from the fog in a few months, think "what the fuck am I doing" and kick him out.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

It's not your responsibility to set him an example!
Why would you ever think it was!?
I am utterly gobsmacked tbh.
I have no doubt that you will come to your sense at some point down the line, but it won't be soon by the sounds of it.
And if you put your child through this, well, that will be on you. None of this is your fault, but once that child is born, you will be responsible for what happens in it's life.

[SunshineBossaNova]

He sounds awful. I wish you all the best.

[freeandhappy]

But no recriminations is inappropriate an massively unhealthy in this instance. So even if you set up the quite patronising dynamic of good big sister showing naughty little brother how to behave by setting a good example, you aren't going to succeed! You are setting a bad example! You can't be his mummy/teacher and his lover. And you are quite frankly the worst placed person in his world to be taking on this task. I appreciate you love him an want to fix it but IMHO you are going to fuck it up even worse. You will end up in a sexless marriage. Four months is WAY too soon to be moving on. Get some therapy. It is absolutely misguided to play the sainted martyr here. I have seen it many times. He will grow to despise you and far from being grateful for yr benevolence and good example he will disrespect you and want to get away from you. You are de-valuing yourself as much as he did. Be smart. Show some independence. Make him up his game by about a million percent.

[akaWisey]

The framework for positive behaviour was embedded in your wedding vows.