Devastated and blindsided. What now?

[Andwhynot]

Name changed for this post to avoid outing myself but I'm looking for a little bit of hand holding and some clarity. My DH suddenly left my 6 year old DD and myself 5 weeks ago for an old friend he had bumped into again after 20 years. After some initial to-and-froing (and even a reconciliation holiday in Disneyland that went disastrously wrong) he is moving into rented accommodation near his work and I am devastated and angry and every emotion in between. We own our house and a successful(ish) business and he is throwing all this away and only asking for one night a fortnight access to DD who was the centre of his world up until this.

I'm struggling to make sense of it all.

We had, what I thought, was a fantastic 12 year marriage. Tactile, still regular sex, lots of laughter but now he tells me I was an argumentative, abusive nightmare......a backstory I think he has since invented to justify his affair although he has me questioning this. There had been huge arguments but all about his sudden suspicious behaviour after meeting OW. He can't officially be with her as she has a DD the same age and has just been awarded a full bursary to a v exclusive all-girls school because of her lone parent, low income status hence DH 'renting' as a smoke screen. Because of this detail he won't admit they are in a relationship either but we have friends of friends in common and the OW likes to boast. And she has form.....she recently had an affair with another married man who left his wife and 2 DC's for a while before crawling back. She goes for the ones she thinks are wealthy. Not sure if that is relevant but wanted to share. And to bitch.

How do I move on?!! About from the hurt I am furious that he is renting and fully furnishing a new property to provide cover for his affair and giving my DD and I little money to survive on. The business is suffering and we are attempting to still run it together but it's incredibly painful. He is desperate to integrate DD into a new life with OW and her DD and I could cry my heart out. I want my old life back!!!

Sorry it's so long and thank you so very much for reading through it!

God! I am so sorry. I can't imagine how this all must hurt.

if it's any comfort he might well regret it all in the future. But I hope by them it will be waaaaay too late for you to even care.

I have given so many friends on here the same advice, you just have to take one day at a time - at the moment it is probably the first thing you thing of in the morning/all through the day and last thing at night. One day you will suddenly realise it hasn't crossed your mind until lunchtime.

This is a horrible betrayal on his part, if he were unhappy with you he should have discussed it with you before moving on with his life elsewhere, what a twunt.

So am I right in thinking OW's child would lose this bursary if their relationship becomes public? So he has 5 years of being the secret boyfriend whilst living on his own, if that's the case then I am pretty sure he will quickly become disillusioned with this relationship and lets face it she has form so its unlikely to last anyway.

The best thing you can do for yourself and your DD is put him behind you, I am pretty sure he will live to regret this.

Morning, how are you today?x

I so feel for you. My DH left me and our 2 sons aged 12 and 16 in May. OW was a very close friend of mine, the mother of my youngest son's best friend and lives 100 metres away. Don't know how we've got through it. 12 yo having specialist counselling and neither boy wants to see DH. All sounds the same - DH in victim mode - all my fault, he was fed up arguing (which we only did when I was suspicious!). His world was his boys and he has discarded us all. Best advice I was given by a solicitor was that the best way to get back at him was to be happy. Husbands can't stand it when the woman they have left starts managing without them and appears to be moving on and coping. Try to appear indifferent and he really wont like it and god forbid if you go on a date!!! I know its early days for you but try to appear happy to him, even if you're not. Good luck. My first post too so hope its not too long.

Hello all and morning cjel. Thanks for the advice and support again. All wise words and incredibly helpful. Ironically it's DD's Parents Evening tonight so I will have to see him but speaking to him this morning he is very calm and looking forward to seeing DD. He's talking a lot about "moving forward together" and "positive co-parenting" which makes him sound like his conversations have been written by a Spin Doctor. He's trying to keep me on side to alleviate his guilt though.

He denies his involvement is as deep as I think with OW and he wants to be on his own for a while but whilst there may be a grain of truth in that somewhere I do suspect it's more to do with the bursary issue and yes, BlueSky is right. OW stands to lose he daughters place at private school if she is living with anyone although I don't know when or if that condition continues for her DD's entire schooling.

To be honest the level of involvement at the moment with OW is immaterial really as he left us for her. End of story. And yet I still want him back. I could kick myself!! Or at least I want the companionship and affection and security and most of all I want the the smile on my daughters face back.

He is acting irrationally at our business too, cancelling a client on the morning of his 8 hour booking yesterday and giving the day to a friend instead. (Sorry, that probably doesn't make sense but I have to be vague as it would totally out us but it's a media related job and has quite a high profile).

It really shocks me that so many of the stories on here read the same. The change in personality, the made up back story, the lack of interest in DC's. Quite frightening that so many of us had so little idea.

I want to get over this. I want to beg him not to rent the cottage and come home but I won't. I'll stop myself for my DD's sake and try and let him go with an ounce of dignity left.

I would hate it if it were a friend wishingwell. Even more betrayal. I hope you and your boys are beginning to move on.

And it's incredible that so many of the DH's had criticised other men leaving prior to them doing exactly the same. The friend DH is staying with (or meant to be staying with anyway) is someone that left his wife a few months earlier and DH never stopped saying what an idiot he was and how he would miss his DC's terribly, he couldn't imagine living like that etc etc. Hypocrite!

I'm so sorry this has happened to you and for the pain you are feeling. I hope what I say will be of some help. I've often written about this type of affair on this board.

This sounds like a Romantic Idiot Affair. It typically involves a man who has a very high opinion of himself and his morals. He is in a good marriage and would tell anyone prepared to listen that he is happy in it. He is judgemental about other people's moral frailties though and talks in Absolutes. One of his firmest convictions is that Happy People Don't Cheat and that he personally is unassailable because his marriage is rewarding and he would never get himself into the messes that lesser mortals experience. He is excoriating in his blame of them when they do. He sees it as a moral weakness.

However this means that he doesn't protect his own boundaries at all. He regards himself as invulnerable. So when he meets an old flame or a new woman, he fails to register cognitively that he is attracted to her and what that could mean. When he does acknowledge it, he reverts to his default position of Happy People Don't Cheat. It wouldn't occur to him to think that his temptation is a personal weakness or something that is normal and understandable, so his default is to find a reason for doing something he has always said is wrong.

Because he wants to go ahead with the liaison but cannot justify it within his moral framework, he reframes the new object of his affections as The Love of His Life and tells himself and her that this love is incomparable and Not of This World. He effects a position of being defenceless in the face of this unique and incomparable event.

The more grandiose and judgemental he is, the more he finds reason to revise the history of his marriage. Despite his previous assessment that he was very happy and content - and despite that being the truth - he now re-writes the story of the marriage on the run-up to his affair. He reframes his wife's assertiveness as abuse, her teasing of his pompousness as sarcasm and wounding criticism, her good mothering as child-obsession and work-shyness. On occasions there are so few aspects to criticise, minor faults are resurrected and magnified.

He leaves for the OW, tells anyone prepared to listen that while he still disapproves of people who screw around for kicks, he understands when people Do It for Love after Unhappiness at Home.

As you can imagine for people with such a poor grip on reality and such a lack of self-awareness, these new relationships rarely last more than 2 years. The new love object suddenly develops feet of clay and is often far less tolerant of his pompousness and self-aggrandisement, than his ex-wife.

oh Charbon clearly you met my exH

OP the person you knew is no longer there - think 'invasion of the body snatchers' or some weird episode of Star Trek where the crew are taken over by aliens. Every now and then there will be a glimpse of the person you loved - and you want to respond to that - but don't. It won't last long as your h's new personality has a vested interest in protecting itself to prove that he was right.

With my exH I did 'know' the alter ego to some extent as this was the face he showed to clients and he could ruthlessly cut people out of his life. I didn't much like that side of him but it was always there. Of course he now thinks he is with 'the one' and no matter how hard he has to work at it the reward is this perfect romance . He has lost his relationship with one DC totally and with the others it is damaged. He has cut out any friend or family member who doesn't 100% accept and support his new relationship. He's up the creek in whitewater rapids without a life jacket - but he's not my problem.

Try to detach from him and what he is doing as much as you can - don't let him suck the energy you need to create your new life. Focus your energy on your DD and on getting some financial security. This time will pass and you will be happy again.

Charbon That was a very accurate and interesting account of my DH so thank you for taking the time to post it. It really helped. One of the only 'apologies' Dh ever gave me was that he had "lost the moral high ground" by going to OW's house that night and not staying at family or friends. We were with his family and they were begging him to stay with them for a night to cool down and yet he made his choice. I found that very telling.

catsrus Our ex's sound very similar! Mine virtually cut both his DM and his DSis out of his life for some petty reason. Individually too.

The trouble is I am staring to believe I was at fault which to an extent was true. I know I was drinking too much wine. Nothing frighteningly excessive but after my DM's cancer diagnoses and death I did use alcohol to cope although he drank too and was far more likely to binge than I, for want of a better description. I didn't think it was an issue for him although he did say that OW "didn't smell of wine constantly" when he was being cruel. She did however stink of cigarettes although cunningly he got round that by starting to smoke himself! Idiot!

I want to stop the feelings that this isn't forever and we will get back together or I can't move on. He had said he would still like to spend Christmas Day here and my head is filled with romantic ideas. False hope.

I am strong and yet so very weak at the same time.

You were not at fault.

It is vanishingly unlikely that anything you did or didn't do even caused any major dissatisfaction and highly likely that even if you hadn't been bereaved and using crutches that he himself used, this would still have happened.

One of the hardest battles to win for someone in your situation is to get to the realisation that you could not control this.

It's terrifying.

We all like to think that we can control our own outcomes, but giving someone complete trust means accepting that this person has the ability to change our outcome. This is because none of is is able to control someone else's behaviour and if people choose to behave badly, there's not a thing we can do to prevent it.

It's interesting that you say he cut people out of his life for petty reasons. This gives further clues about self-aggrandisement and a sense of moral superiority.

I would say No to Christmas Day. Be firm about that to him, even if you privately make a deal with yourself that you can retract that if things change over the next few months.

I'm going to outline a failsafe strategy for dealing with this and I hope it will help.

It's understandable that right now you want him back. But that might change, so you need to have a plan that covers both eventualities.

This is a win-win fake-it-to-make-it plan.

Publically and to him, you tell him the relationship is over and that all you are concerned with now is a co-parenting, business and financial agreement. You stop having any conversations about 'us' and if he tries to, you stop him and revert to business discussions.

You insist he sees DD outside of the house and you give every appearance of getting on with your life as a single woman and parent.

Over a long enough period of time, this will be less about faking it and more congruent with how you're actually feeling inside. It's at this point or just before that when Romantic Idiots (RI) usually want to come back, but often by that point the new life for the discarded partner has become far more appealing than the old. So she says 'No thanks'.

Some people say 'yes' if the affair ends before the process of true detachment has taken place, but that only works if the RI makes very fundamental changes to himself. Some people say 'yes' and regret giving up that independence and better life that was so hard-earned, especially when the RI has learnt nothing.

No He doesn't get to spend christmas with you and your DD.

He has opted out of your family so he gets to spend alone or with OW that's the consequence of his choices. It would not be fair to your DD to have her hopes if daddy plays happy family then she wakes up boxing day and he gone again.

She only 6 she wont understand.

He has to now build a new relationship with her seeing by herself every other weekend, not including you or as a family. it just gives false hope.

OP, take charbon's advice. I have never seen better.

You have had some great advice from Charbon.

and I agree, that he doesn't get to spend Christmas Day with you. This year, due to the circumstances and to avoid further upheavel for her, your DD should spend it with you and ongoing, you sort out from year to year.

as wheredid said, he needs to have a relationship with DD on his own, away from the house. While I thought that we were having a trial separation, XH was having tea a couple nights a week and putting DD to bed, but it just confused her because he wasn't here the next morning and that upset me too. It is better to draw a line and not let him into your home.

Charbon your plan was fantastic and is what I had roughly hoped I could manage but it was lovely to see it confirmed as something viable. AF and skye and wheredid and everyone else are right that your advice is bang on so please can I tell you I am genuinely thankful that you took the time to post and please continue to do so if you can.

He has been round tonight after parents evening although only because he doesn't sign his new lease until Friday and isn't really seeing DD so I was chirpy and nonchalant and kept out of his way for the hour.

I do want him back but it is more my old life and the old version of him I crave. Then his phone bleeped and I remembered he had kept it on silent for the previous 6 months or so and it was odd to hear it finally make a sound. I don't think OW is the first serious flirtation he has had either on fb, text, Twitter. He's pretty prolific on all of these social media sites and it used to drive me mad. It was like living with a 14 year old.

My first positive sign was that I genuinely sighed with relief when he left. And I smiled. Properly. For the first time in ages.

Well done AWK (and has anyone ever told you that you have a lovely way with words?).

What a lovely post AWN. Hope you get a good peaceful sleepxx

Vivacia Thank you so much for your support and that well needed compliment....your timing was perfect! I had just had a sudden pang of loneliness and was thinking the house felt very big.

Sadly, it isn't though!!

Just coming onto this thread for a huge group hug from so many women who all find ourselves in positions like this in today's world. Love to all xx and especially the OP tonight. Wonderful advice from Dahlen. It's always best to see realistically the sudden turns that life brings, out of the blue from one day to the next....when everything suddenly changes and we have to get used to it. It's best to get used to it and raise ourselves up to the bar but at first it really does hurt. Xxxx

cjel Thanks for your continuing support. I really think tonight I will finally get a good rest. Something that hasn't happened since I initially stayed with friends. x

I do bloody love MN sometimes. I have had such great advice and support and heard stories that rang so incredibly true and familiar that I do feel stronger now. I know I'm having a good moment and there will be many more blips (or complete downward spirals) ahead but thanks all. Genuinely.

There will always be somebody here to chat to when you have those inevitable down moments.

I don't usually post on this board but just wanted to say the advice given here is very good indeed. If only MN existed when my DM was going through exactly the same stuff over and over again, taking DF back when she should have been shown and made believe that she had strength and courage to make it on her own.

Andwhynot, I have no advice, sorry, just wanted to wish you all the best.

Next time you have a wobble you need to come on and look at that line

I genuinely sighed with relief when he left. And I smiled. Properly. For the first time in ages

You see he is already contemplating Christmas without his child, I think you need to be firm and just say "no, sorry, that's not possible" you are not with him now so the compromise that happens when you are in a relationship doesn't have to happen now if you don't want it to You don't have to negotiate or explain unless you want to.

Of course things may change, you may decide to spend Christmas with him but I think ruling it out now may make him face the reality of the decision he has made.

Wouldn't most normal people find the smell of a smoker way more repugnant than the smell of wine....that was just a cowardly way of him justifying the inexcusable.

Skyeskyeskye are you me?
That's exactly what my H did 8 weeks ago.

AWK I know how you are feeling and it is horrific.
I have been rock solid in getting financials sorted, he has promised to sign house to me.

I just hate all the waiting. Endless waiting.