How can you not know someone is capable of that?

[stickydate65]

Three weeks ago my DH of 24 years dropped the bombshell that he had been seeing someone else and couldn't give them up to try and save our marriage. We had always had a happy strong marriage with no problems ever! Until about 2 months before when I suddenly realised he was behaving differently towards me, no longer texting me from work like he always had or telling me he loved me. I was/am absolutely devastated. We have 3 DC (21,19 and 15), we were a strong family unit, we never really argued and all of our friends /family are as shocked as I am at what's happened. It turns out he's fallen in love with someone from work (who had also left her husband for him a few weeks before) and he left that day to go to her. I can't get my head around how someone I thought I knew could behave like this. He has never ever shown signs of being unhappily married and has at times been quite disdainful of men who 'look elsewhere' instead of working at their marriage. I am a complete mess, I can't stop crying and I can't even begin to imagine my life without him. We were just reaching the point in our lives when we were going to start doing things for us again, having devoted our lives to our family. I can't understand what I did wrong for him to look elsewhere. I am truly heart broken, I can't sleep, eat or function in any sort of way. I just sit in my pj's all day crying. I am so confused as to how the man I thought I knew could do this to us. And I have such terrible feelings of hate towards the OW. How can a woman do this to someone else and their family? It's ok for her , her children are grown up, left home with lives of their own. Our kids still needed him. I have never hated anyone in my life before and it's such a destructive emotion. Everyone says time will heal and I will get over it, but atm I can't ever imagine that. I'm not sure what I am looking for with this post except maybe some answers and some support....
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he won't have been unhappy. men can compartmentalise and he will have been quite happy till he met her, they decided they fancied each other so he will have had to persuade himself that he really had been unhappy for some time to justify the shitty thing he did by starting an affair.

I completely understand what you're going through. My husband left me and my two girls (11 and 4) on 15th Aug 2014. Initially he said he didn't love me anymore then I eventually found out about the OW on Sept 12th.

We'd been together 23 years and married for nearly 14 (anniversary this week).

My 11 year old blames me for daddy not being here anymore and says the most hurtful things.

I too hate the OW and I've seen her pictures (and her son) on Facebook. I do not understand how she could break our family up and cause this pain. I would never dream of hurting anyone like this. In all the time I've been with my husband I've never thought of having a relationship with anyone else.

I know he choose to start the affair on a work course (they are both police officers).

My husband won't talk to me, he's cold, bullying, financially abusive, threatening, etc. He's threatened that if we go through solicitors we will lose the house. What a good dad he's turned out to be. He's even reported me to the police.

I have really terrible days of crying non-stop, blaming myself, going over everything I've done, thinking of ways to get him back, obsessing about her (she's younger than me), thinking how happy they are while I'm in pieces. Sometimes I just can't get moving - I feel stuck, paralysed.

I dread waking up in the morning because I realise that I'm still in this nightmare.

Apologies for going over my story but I wanted you to know that I understand all the feelings you're going through. People on mumsnet have been very supportive of me and it has helped to sit here typing at 1 in the morning.

Sending you big hugs xx

Whyme - sorry to hear your awful story, too. I hope MN advice has been to contact Womens Aid re financial etc abuse - 0808 2000 247 (better to call 7pm - 7am as the lines are busy during the day). xx

op,sorry to hear you are going through this...that was me 3 years ago after 24 years,out of the blue.
OW was a friend (of his),I knew her DH,bought her kids presents. It stinks!
You must see that she has no loyalty to you...your dh said his vows to you...he is the lying toad.
I can't even remember the 1st 6 months I was a zombie. You need to be strong.
Don't trust them. He will be doing everything for him/her now...my dh denied he was moving in with her but my DM saw his clothes go in the 1st day she moved into new house paid for by her poor xh.
Your h doesn't deserve a pig sty. Don't sympathise,just stand up for yourself and DC. Rise above him & any woman who would assist in that deceit,you are better than them!

You never really know anyone. I stopped being surprised a long time ago by the terrible things people do to strangers but I never stop being surprised by the awful things people do to the ones they're supposed to love.

My friend had the 'perfect' husband. Loving, romantic, supported her through a physical illness, fantastic Father to their children. Kind of bloke who'd do anything for anyone, utterly dependable.

He cheated on her and left. Has been an absolute shit ever since and now she and their kids live in a hostel because he stopped paying the mortgage and their house was repossessed. He doesn't pay a penny in child support and doesn't see the kids.

Two years ago she had the 'perfect' life in a big house. SAHM as he earned a big wage. She's utterly destroyed and no-one would ever have imagined he'd be capable of any of this.

I've also had other friends 'perfect husbands' come on to me after a few drinks and be given short shrift. My friends still think their husbands would never be unfaithful but obviously they would given half the chance.

You KNOW now. It seems impossible now but a time will come when you're grateful that you're no longer one of those women living an illusion. You know the truth and there IS power in that.

I won't give too many details here, but I have been through similar and know how you feel.

As the poster above said my DF was the "perfect" partner, loving, romantic, great father, do anything for anyone, particularly dependable etc. and we were looked at as one of the happiest couples around, then one day he just left.

Not for another woman, he just decided I wasn't for him and right away joined up to dating sites and acted like I had never even existed. Like the poster above, he gave absolutely no warning or even any hint it was coming and after he did it (maybe because of guilt) he turned into an absolute shit too, also stopped paying the bills overnight and I also ended up briefly homeless with kids. I'm still very slowly picking up the pieces almost a year on.

I know how you are feeling. I think the best word is "shattering" where everything you felt your life was based on and was most real and most important disappears in a moment. I understand the shock and horror as you realise you're under attack from the one person you trusted most.

I am so sorry sticky. I read how many times this sort of thing happens and despite knocking my head up against a brick wall trying to psychoanalyse I have never gotten any further with it. The best answer I have is that as someone else said, some people can just compartmentalise like that.

For whatever reason they are able to decide what they want and just do it - completely disregarding the casualties and the pain they cause to the people they are supposed to love.

As for knowing they are capable, I honestly sit here a year later and still almost struggle to believe what he did and how he did it. I just didn't see it and neither did anyone else who knew him. Don't pick yourself apart like that.

In terms of advice, I wish, if I could have the time back that I had fully understood from those first weeks that the man I thought was my best friend and the love of my life was now my enemy and I was under attack. I should have defended myself financially and emotionally but in the shock I failed to do that. While I was busy telling friends and family I was sure he'd be home soon and I "knew" he would not do this, he was busy badmouthing me and telling people he was amazed he had endured me for so long. He had made steps to emancipate me financially and because I did not understand he was gone for good I let him take everything - believing deep down he would be back next week, next month or soon.

Also, please don't look to blame yourself. The first reaction when you love and trust someone and they behave like this is to genuinely believe something you did must have caused it but trust me - it didn't.

People can hide in plain sight. Your DH is capable of incredible cruelty and selfishness and it's just something you didn't know before because being nice to you was in his interests. It isn't anymore.

The good news is, you will come out of this stronger and you can have a new life with someone else who (although you don't realise this yet) is deep down a better man.

The first reaction when you love and trust someone and they behave like this is to genuinely believe something you did must have caused it but trust me - it didn't.

Very true words.

Also, we all assume they are having a breakdown. They aren't. If you've ever met anyone having a breakdown - it's the spouse left behind who can barely function, eat, sleep or string sentences together.

That would be you stick and also today, which is why, please allow yourself anger and tears, and hurt and despair, and apologise to nobody for that.

You will slowly come back to life and learn to value yourself - but it's a long, slow and painful process. Please, just take it one day at a time.

Yes, I agree with the grieving part. The problem when someone turns from friend to foe suddenly is the complication of that grief. You miss your relationship, you miss your old love, you're grieving that but at the same time the person in front of you is a nasty stranger you no longer recognise.

I managed this by compartmentalising myself. The man I loved is gone. He "died" the day he changed and did these things to me. I grieve the person he was and will always love and miss him - and the alien who jumped into his body is a person I don't know and don't want to know.

Denying your grief is hurting yourself. Saying "I was married to a stranger" or "he obviously didn't love me the way I loved him" is taking away your own past in a sense. You had 24 years of very happy marriage to someone you loved very much, but that man is gone. That's incredibly sad, but it's the only healthy way to move through it.

We grieve because we love. If we loved a lot, we grieve a lot, and I have always believed honouring that was also honouring myself, my life and my children.

I agree with what another poster said about how things turned out. I was devastated and broken to bits but at least my self-respect is in tact and I have nothing to feel bad about. He let himself down, he acted in a way he feels a lot of shame for and he's not been "happy" since he did this.

I doubt anyone finds real "happiness" at the expense of their wife and children. At best it's some temporary and ill-gotten sense of excitement or a delusion that the grass is greener. At the end of the day they have to live with it, and I don't envy them that.

It feels like you will never be happy again, but you will. Just today I found myself doing the washing up with my earphones on dancing to the Nolan Sisters round the kitchen and I thought "wow, I feel happy". It's a journey to get there, but you do get there.

It's partly just time but you can also help yourself. What raven said at the start of the thread about caring for your mental health is invaluable advice. Just the simple basics of eating well, seeing friends, taking a walk every day and trying to keep busy will bolster you through.

You will survive and endure and bit by bit you feel the life come back to you. Whenever I find myself crying, I think to myself, "wow, aren't you a big hearted person to still feel so much sadness over this. You really loved him, and he really lost something special in you".

Just be kind to yourself.

Everyone on here is right - be kind to yourself. I've beat myself up taking the blame. I must have done something wrong. If only I had done this differently he'd still be here etc etc.

Well unfortunately it doesn't matter what I think - it what the selfish MLC idiot wants and nothing will stop them on their mission to get their cheap thrills. My husband now wears distressed jeans and slogan t-shirts and uses text speak for everything (seriously!!!!!!!!!!)

He's got a new pot noodle family and we're not needed anymore.

Just spoken to him on the phone again (yep I know I shouldn't have) and he is a cocky prat. He says he wants to see the kids but it's only to get to me.

They can only see a few feet in front of them and that usually has the other womans face in it.

Part of me still loves him and always will but I loved the part that died the day he walked out. He's turned into a nasty, vindictive, manipulating person - I wonder if that was always under the surface waiting to come out.

I know time will heal but every day is a challenge to get up, dressed and face the world when you have had such a dreadful thing hit you head on.

I try to tell one new person per day what's happened and you'll be surprised by the response. People are very kind and I've even made a few new friends since he went.

Thinking of you xx

What lovely advice wononbingo. It's true I am grieving for the man I loved! and I do feel that man no longer exists. The hardest thing for me is that he is telling people it happened because we weren't happy! But this is just how he is justifying what he has done to others! I know we were happy until the OW came on the scene! He clearly felt some earth shattering connection with her that then made him unhappy with me! In my hours of solitude since he went when you go over and over things in your mind I can chart the demise of our marriage directly to the time he met her! I know everyone will say that he wouldn't have crossed that barrier if he had been happy but I would have known! We were soul mates and I knew him inside out! His behaviour changed when he met her! But You're right I must grieve for someone that no longer exists and try to move on with my life. Yesterday I managed a whole day without crying, today the tears have returned fast and furious! Is it wrong to say I don't want the kids to ever have anything to do with her? I can't bear the thought of them playing happy families together!

I agree that wononbingo has written a great post.
Poor you OP...truly you did not deserve this.

You're right pictish I didn't deserve this! I just want to feel strong again! I want to survive and move on but without him by my side I don't know how to. Oh well! one day at a time!

Is there one of WhatsGoingOnEh's list of actions you can start today? Are there any you are already doing?

Absolutely sticky one day at a time indeed.
None of us knew how to move on.
You just make it up as you go. And we have all moved on so you do it.
It's just suddenly happened one day.

Don't let him ruin your memories with his 'rewriting of history'
It's what they all do and it's part of the 'script'.
As you quite rightly say, it's to justify his shitty behaviour.

You know the truth and don't let him take that away.

Cry as much as you want.
Try to eat and keep your strength up.
Make sure you get legal advice asap.

Stickydate65. Another one whose exDH upped and left one day for a woman at work when I had no idea our marriage was in trouble (in middle of IVF at the time, with a 2 year old). That was 4 years ago. And he was and is the type of man that WellWhoKnew describes.

Outside of the obvious heartbreak one of the hardest things to deal with was how I could be married to someone and not 'know' them and what they were capable of. I am (without sounding like I've got tickets on myself) quite 'smart' and my job had required a high degree of emotional intelligence. It felt like my 'D'H had been kidnapped overnight and replaced by a an awful robot. Truly terrifying feeling that someone you trusted your life with could just suddenly up and leave without a conversation.

I reference, to let you know, as others have done, that we undertand this pain and bewilderment. It is awful.

I also wanted to let you know, as impossible as this might be right now, not to torture yourself with the 'how can he be telling people we weren't happy'. Every situation is different but the reality in so many cases is that the 'D'H were generally OK/happy/content with the usual vagaries of life, then along comes OW. DH prefers OW for I think I'm off that seems a better prospect and can't face the agonies of DW's entreaties so won't bother to have a conversation.

But then the 'reality of their situation which is stickydate is jolly nice but OW is 'nicer' so I decided to upsticks and off avoiding that tricky conversation doesn't really sound great to the outside world. So instead it becomes, my life was terrible, stickydate was XYZ, I was living a life of quiet desperation, I had to leave to save my soul. OW is angel rescuing me, not adulterous shabby person, its true love, there is no other option I had to do it as life with stickydate was so unbearable. Of course poppycock but its a good story for others. Then they believe it. And then they often look to make it true or reinforce it. I hope your DH does not play the game that mine still does but he will be sickeningly unutterably monstrous and then when I used to react with tears, or anger, or disbelief it becomes the 'see, my exW is a dreadful person'. I'm wise to it now but he still seeks to manipulate things. And I have some peace knowing as long as they are together I have to play the role of hideous ex for them otherwise their dynamic is lost.

That is a bit long but I didn't figure it out until I'd spent a good 3 years bewildered, angry and bereft at why I was being painted and treated thus and I hope that little insight may spare you a little of that time. That said, I'm a firm believer in you feel what you feel until you don't feel it at all -- it is such early days it is probably impossible for you to think that there will be a time when you don't feel absolutely wretched and when waking each morning will not be like plunging down an elevator shaft but my love there will and there will eventually be good times ahead.

Good luck xx

Is it wrong to say I don't want the kids to ever have anything to do with her? I can't bear the thought of them playing happy families together!

Again, I can see why you feel that way. At least your DCs are old enough to decide for themselves whether they meet her. It must be worse for those whose DCs are still infants or school age and know their DCs really ought to have the opportunity to see their dad.

You don['t want to put them in the position that they feel they have to keep things from you. And if the OW is going to be a permanent fixture in their dad's life it will create further problems and anxiety in the family if siblings feel differently.

For now, you don't need to see the whole staircase, just the first step.

sticky my ex also told people he did what he did because we weren't happy. Even if he didn't come right out and say that, to even casual acquaintances he thanked them for their kindness and said "it's for the best" - alluding to the fact that behind closed doors we were not happy.

Well, if we were not happy in any way at all the first hint I got of that was the day he left me! I literally had no clue.

The rewriting if history is agonisingly painful. I can tell you though that my ex did (over time) admit and tell me directly that he'd done this. It was his head telling him what he wanted to hear and I think they do remember the truth in time. Be patient and your day of "I told you so" will come.

I agree with downunderdolly that people who do this manipulate everyone around them to make themselves look like they are not the absolute bastard that they are. It does make it a million times worse.

I remember thinking "fine, leave me, treat me like crap but at least have the decency to let everyone know the real truth so I can have some support and sympathy when I most need it"

In the end, the cruelty makes it easier to let go. Eventually you sit there and think there's just no way you want to spend your life with someone who'd behave like that.

This earth shattering connection you talk about is your DH believing happiness comes from an external source. He's forgotten the value of shared history, of loyalty, of commitment to a life together, of everything that really matters in life and he's following after that feeling of being "in love" which is really pretty easy to feel. Maintaining 20 or more happy year with someone through ups and downs is actually where the real magic is, and he's not grasped that.

Feel sorry for him OP, because that's just sad.

I do think people (men especially) read this mid life crisis point so often where they just feel unhappy with life in general, with who they have become, with growing older - and they are looking for an external source to make them feel a certain way again.

The trouble is that on the journey they do things which are the emotional equivalent of selling themselves to the devil.

Of course you don't want the kids to have anything to do with her! of course! Why would you, it's a hideous thought.

step/staircase, good point. Dolly (gorgeous Dolly) also makes good points about not being the stooge in the putrid pair's play. Let's hope it doesn't come to that but be prepared.

Still want to flag up CantRememberNN's list of strategies. No contact really does leave a howling void - which forces all the shit back in his face. Which is where it belongs.

Keep going, precious xx

I remember when my ex-DH and I split up and he magically got a new gf 3 months later , I HATED the thought of him and her with my kids. I felt so replaced, so "surplus to requirements" and so jealous that anyone seeing them together would assume that they were HER kids!

Ugh, horrible. So horrible. It's perfectly natural.

I got over it in time, but it took a while. After a while, I was having so much fun pursuing my own activities on "his" weekends with the kids that I honestly didn't give a minute's thought to it anymore.

You have to think of this like the tide. Right now it has washed out and taken everything you knew with it. It will eventually wash back in and bring other, newer, things in with it. They won't be what you had BUT they will be things you can love.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I wish there was something I could do!

OP I do genuinely feel for you and your situation but I just wanted to add from a different perspective - that it is possible for one partner to be unhappy for a long time and for the other to convince themselves that they are happy.

I am currently seperating from my H - there is no-one else involved - this morning he has had this whole conversation with me about how selfish I'm being, how we have been happy and have so much to look forward to...I'm flabbergasted that he can be so delusional.

I am not in anyway minimising your pain or suggesting you are re-writing history about how happy you are, I am merely ofering the point of view that some people can and I because will be telling friends and family that "it's for the best" while he is acting deveastated, it doesn't mean that it's not.

How do you know if it's your partner that's delusional, or you, or both, though? I mean, that's kind of the point of being delusional, that you don't know you're doing it :-)

Over the last 9 months or so of our relationship my ex's face increasingly took on a nasty, unfriendly expression, he picked fights, sat with his back to me, avoided the family, took everything I said the wrong way, however nice I was being - it got gradually worse and worse. I thought it was depression, stress about his mother's death, overwork etc. but it turned out to be an expression of dislike. It turned out to have started 3 months into his relationship with a married woman. It was only near the end that he started actually saying anything negative to me, and even then he was hugely evasive, never wanting to be "caught" saying anything "bad".

After I knew what that nasty look meant I remembered seeing it before, occasionally. I had always thought before that he was tired, bored, etc. but no, he'd been fed up with me for some time, he just never mentioned it. My only complaint had been that his job always took precedence over his family, and I'd been open about that - otherwise, as far as I knew, we were getting on fine. He told his girlfriend that we'd never been in love, ever - he just settled with me and was always hoping he could "improve" me, but it never happened.

That wasn't how I felt, or how I experienced our lives together. I have no doubt, however, that he is now convinced in his mind that that's how it happened, and amazed that I thought we were getting on OK.

raven I knw what you mean but we have talked and talked about how unhealthy our relationship is on and off for years. At the start of the summer I was leaving but allowed myself to be talked around - this was teh final straw so I've made the decision (and it is bloody hard) but to listen to him now, we've always been blissfully happy and were looking forward to growing old together and this has come as a bolt from the blue.

I may have been unhappier than him but he is definitely living in a fantasy by painting us as the worlds greatest romance.

I was reading a book recently that says that romantic love is basically all delusion, choosing to overlook annoying habits, seeing the other person as something special and convincing yourself that you're living the dream. So I guess it isn't that suprising if sometimes that convincing goes slightly awry - on either side, in either direction.

yougotafriend every case is diferrent, and if in your case you have been telling your DH for a long time that you are unhappy, and if there have been indirect signs things are "on the rocks" - for example a slump in sex and affection, regular bickering, a loss of intimacy, leading increasingly separate lives etc etc then it's very diferrent from what a lot of us here are talking about.

Even what Raven describes above is a cowardly version of dealing with unhappiness in the marriage. It's basically not giving the other person a chance to understand what is really going on - which is why her reality is so diferrent from his.

I can see from OPs posts that she was told specifically there was no one else, that her DH was working on their marriage and she's been blindsided by someone too cowardly to be honest.

He was obviously hedging his bets / weighing his decision for a long time and she was entirely left out of that process, which is gob-smackingly selfish.

In my case, my ex told me he was deliriously happy with me until the moment he left me, so he is a special case of twattery but I do think in general both parties should be aware they are headed for divorce before it comes to that or else someone's communication is way off.

yougotafriend I accept it's possible that he wasn't as happy as I thought we were, but that doesn't explain his behaviour pre meeting her, when we were blissfully happy, loving, affectionate and planning our big silver wedding holiday for next June. The kids constantly faked disgust at us being so affectionate and loved it that we were "still in love" (his words!) after such a long time together. He would have to have been a damned good actor to behave like that for 24 years! I really do believe that we were happy! But it's him that changed not me! and I have to grieve for the man I once had because wononbingo is correct, that man no longer exists! That man would never have done this to me. The imposter that walks around in his body will never know the same love and security that we had again. It is his loss I know that, but at the moment mine too! I am grieving as much for the lost future as I am for his deceit! I just resent him trying to justify his actions by saying we hadn't been happy! That is rewriting my past! He wasn't happy because he had crossed that line to seeing her not that he started seeing her because he wasn't happy!