please someone help me decide what to do....

[desperatelyseekingsolace]

Am in agony at the moment. Have been aware for some time that "D"H has at least one online relationship which is a bit questionable. He has been mailing and messaging a woman for at least a year... About three months ago I confronted him on it. He staunchly denied there was anything more than friendship and gaslighted me on it etc etc. I didn't really deal with it at the time for various reasons and accepted his explanations even though I wasn't convinced by them.

Fast forward and I have found further messages with this woman which make it clear that at the very least there is an EA going on. H has always sworn blind he's never had sex with anyone else since our marriage and as this woman lives a very long way away this is plausibly true, but I feel that its a betrayal of our marriage vows and the trust has gone as he is clearly still in touch with her, has messaged her pictures of hearts, says he wants to see her etc. He has also sent similar messages to at least one other woman though I don't think that was reciprocated at all.

There are other problems in the marriage as well until now I thought none of them were totally beyond repair but they have put a strain on it and I am resentful that he still hasn't done anything to address any of them. He drinks more than I think is healthy I wouldn't say he meets the definition of an alcoholic and rarely gets very drunk but he drinks every day almost without fail -- and he is still a heavy smoker, despite my pleading with him every day for about 9 years to quit. Doesn't smoke in the house or around DD but enough that it is a serious health risk and I'm petrified that he is going to get a heart attack or lung cancer all the time. Since our DD was born nearly 3 years ago I feel he has disengaged from the relationship, though he is very loving towards her he never makes any effort to spend time with me, is very reluctant to do anything at weekends, preferring basically to watch TV most of the time, and has since her birth insisted on sleeping in a different bed to me, ostensibly because he wants me to co-sleep with her but I can't help feeling that there's more to it than this (and that it may be connected to this woman). I have talked to him about all these issues at various points and he usually dismisses them, will occasionally promise to do something about them but never actually follows through.

I have basically made my peace with the marriage being over if that's what has happened. I am more or less financially independent and can afford to raise my daughter alone if this is what happens -- it won't be easy and there will be logistical challenges associated with work, but I will manage.

What really scares me is breaking up the family and separating my DD from her dad as she adores him. She will be 3 in about 3 months and I know that if we are going to split it is better done sooner than later and not being dragged out interminably, but the thought of separating her from her dad breaks my heart.

I really need a serious talking to. Is there anything worth saving here or should I just face up to it and ask him to move out?

hi OP! doesn't sound as though you have anything positive to save:( do you love him? he sounds like a bad lodger..............if you can afford to do it I personally feel your better off outta there with your daughter this cant be a nice environment for a child? new yr new start? x

He can still be a good father without both of you pretending to have a marriage.

Split now, while it will affect your dd less and she will grow up just knowing it as normal for her

ps: she will be happier with 2 happy parents who love her separately, than 2 parents that love her but are only staying co-habiting unhappily for her sake! she wont thank you for it as she gets older.........

booze I did love him a lot and he loved me. Something seemed to snap after my DD was born, it was as if someone had turned a light off and he seemed incapable of seeing me in a romantic light from that point on. We do still have sex but its pretty formulaic and he rarely does anything romantic for me, other than buying chocolates from time to time when he's done something that's pissed me off.

I suppose what I still get out of it are a) companionship b) a degree of financial and logistical support and c) a father for my daughter -- flawed and imperfect for sure but he is there for her. Up until now I took the view that a stable, if imperfect, family unit was preferable to single parenthood.

If he agreed to an amicable split and for him to spend as much time at weekends with her as possible I think that would probably be the best solution.

What scares me is that he will kick off about this and become unpleasant. I don't mean properly abusively unpleasant he has never been violent or anything like that. But he can be an argumentative bugger. He has it pretty cushy here I pay the lion's share of the mortgage and a fair amount of the bills and I think he would find the transition very difficult.

But I just don't feel that I can live a lie any more...

I imagine that he tells his OW that he is only staying with you because the dc...

Put both of you out of your miseries. He is obviously too weak to do it, but happy enough to take the piss out of your "marrigae"

AnyFucker quite possibly... Its not much of a marriage, is it?

the only other thing to try if you want 1 last stab at saving your marriage is relate couples counselling? or deep down do you feel your past this stage?

Just because you're the one saying 'enough's enough' it doesn't mean you're the one responsible for breaking up the family. If this was an employment tribunal he'd be guilty of constructive dismissal.... i.e. making continuation impossible. Please remember that because all that seems to be holding you back at the moment is some misplaced guilt.

Most kids adore their Dad but they can still do this whether they live under the same roof or not. Stay strong.

booze I don't know.... I sort of hoped when I confronted him about the OW back in the autumn that that would galvanise him into sorting himself out but he never admitted to it. Had he done so and been prepared to work on it things might have been different, I think.

But he basically denied and denied and denied, then put on a big romantic show for a few days and then we settled back into the old rut. I had loads of stuff going on at the time including my mum being very ill, my dad freaking out and needing lots of support and starting a new job and basically didn't have the energy to open another whole world of pain on the domestic front so I caved and tried to convince myself everything was OK.

If he came begging to me for a new start to save the marriage I don't know what I'd do.

The thing is that even if he cuts all ties with this woman etc, I'm still going to be on a knife edge waiting for him to start up again with someone else. Its just been really corrosive. At the moment its all calm -- I'm loathe to confront him until I know how I will deal with the logistics of a split. I'm just about to start a(nother) new job and don't really want to be trying to deal with that while all hell is breaking loose on the home front. But I suppose there's never a good time to end a marriage, is there?

and next time there will be some other domestic/work concern that stops you acting as you know you should

before you know it, you will be too old and knackered to start again and your daughter will be so much more aware of what is going on

No there isn't. No-one can tell you to either end it or continue either. But if you don't know what you'd do if he begged you to start fresh that's very sad and pretty revealing. Trust is such a fragile thing.

AnyFucker I know. I totally know. I'm just scared...

ive not been in your situation but your right there will be no good time to do it:( there will always be something going on in your life that you can say 'this isn't a good time' if you think theres no future then the sooner you do it the better...........have a sort out of your finances in the new year if emotionally makes it more ' comfortable' to do once this is set in place!

You must have really had to step hard on your self respect to still be there (or have him there)

You know he is messing around with OW

Why are you not angrier about that ? If you are staying for your dd, what message does that give her about what men should be entitled to get away with ?

AnyFucker I know. I don't want my DD growing up in an environment where she thinks men cheating on women and generally not being emotionally present for them and supportive of them is the norm.

I am angry -- and trying to suppress my anger in order to get through the day without constant fighting is making me very stressed.

My primary worry in terms of immediate logistics is that if I were to kick him out now I would have great difficulty beginning my new job -- mainly because of the hours I am required to do and the impact on childcare (he would have to do most of the evening pick-ups in order for me to do it.) What I really don't want to do is to put myself in a situation where I lose my income stream just as I'm kicking my husband out, prompting him to go AWOL or refuse to help.

Its possible that I'm also making excuses not to get around to it -- I know this. But the logistics do scare the shit out of me.

Get after school care. It isn't prohibitively expensive. There will be ways around it. Make sure you have all your ducks in a row before making a move, then you will not be forced to capitulate and lower yourself in his eyes any further.

he doesn't respect you, love, and if your daughter gets to the age where she realises what you are putting up with, neither will she

AnyFucker she is still in pre-school childcare. At the moment it is prohibitively expensive, trust me. It drops off when she gets to 3 and the 15 free hours from the government kick in, that will make things marginally more affordable. I've also emailed my existing childcare provider asking for a bit more leeway in evening collections (in case after we split he refuses to do evening pick-ups). And will look into other alternatives if that doesn't work.

Now I've (pretty much) decided what I need to do, I don't really want to hold the process up with further delay -- I want my daughter to be able to establish the "new normal" as soon as possible.

But I am also shitting myself about it...

Hi OP, I left my H about three months ago now, for different reasons but my main concern was exactly the same. Separating my DS from his dad, who he adores.

Turns out they are closer then ever. DS is with me but H actually makes time to spend with him now. For me, I have mixed feelings about it as it means I have to deal with him but Despite an unsettling few weeks when it all first happened, I would say DS is very happy.

Follow your heart, I have learned the DCs are not reason enough to ignore it

Good luck

Ellie thanks, that's really reassuring. I know, rationally, that you can't stay in a marriage endlessly after one or both people have checked out just for the children and that in the long term an amicable separation when the children are young is the best way forward.

But it just breaks my heart to think of her looking for him in the house once he's gone, calling out to him etc. It literally reduces me to tears.

How old is your DS? And how did you explain the situation to him?

I know what you mean, I "knew"it too but it just didnt stop me worrying. I still am, and I expect I will for some time but there is no denying, even to my neurosis, that he is totally fine!

DS is two. I just kept telling him that daddy was sleeping at grandma's now. In the first few weeks, he asked for him a lot but now he happily speaks about daddy being in work and then going to sleep at grandma's afterwards.

He also gets very excited when I tell him he is going for a sleepover with daddy that night.

To be completely honest with you there were issues in the beginning. He started being scared of going to sleep on his own. But I think part of that was an age thing. Also I think we didnt help there because H would want to talk when he had gone to bed and we'd end up rowing and DS must have heard.

So he was unsettled for a while but things are back to normal now in that respect and have been since the beginning of December and I can honestly say I haven't noticed any other difference in him.

Nursery are aware and were really good with him for those first few weeks. We had started potty training but thy advised me to stop that for the time being which I have.

Honestly, he's just fine!

She might feel it for a few weeks, but she will adjust they just do. My counsellor is also a children's councillor and she has reassured me too. It's not the separating that effects them, it's the rowing infront of them and tense atmospheres .

Ellie thanks.

This is why I'm kind of desperate to get it over with in a way. DD will be 3 soon and is very verbally advanced. I worry that the "window" during which breaking up will leave her relatively unscathed will close quite soon. Am determined to get it over with before she is old enough to be really traumatised and upset.

I wish I'd done this a year ago....

My big concern is for DH to sort himself out and transition out as cleanly as possible and I'm worried that won't be easy. He's not originally from this country and doesn't have any family or support networks here nor many savings to speak of. Its possible that he would go back to his home country. If he did this cleanly and without dithering that would be fine, although I would prefer him to stay here and continue a relationship with DD. But what I don't want is for him to faff about for ages, living in and out of very transitory and undesirable circumstances while he gets his life together.

That would be his problem, not yours

If he is in unsuitable accommodation then he couldn't have dd overnight, but could take her out places

I know the logistics are scary, but women such as yourself do this every day of the week

You will find a way if you really want to

Don't regret you didn't do it sooner, but do use it to galvanise you now

I think you should tell him exactly that. Also If he is not living anywhere suitable then he cannot have her for an overnight.

If he's anything like my ex he will want to have contact at the house, especially given his circumstances. But in my experience that was awful.

Also I don't think it's a coincidence that the improvement in DS came when I started insisting he took him out.

I don't think there really is a window after 18 months. Everything Ive read talks about the possible impact in eery age group and in some ways preschool/toddler age can be as complicated as older age groups, so don't beat yourself up.

But I would definitely agree that the younger the better

If the childcare costs go up as a result of his departure, he pays the difference. As for going AWOL... hasn't he already gone?

He is having affairs with other women. In plain sight. Right under your nose.

He is no longer "present" in the healthy sense of the word, is he