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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Can't you just be civil enough until the kids are old enough for you to fuck off and leave?

36 replies

Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 00:22

Sometimes you just need to write it down to realise what's been said, don't you?

Anyone else trying to live day to day making the most of an unhappy marriage?
Sad

OP posts:
Original poster
Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 00:24

That's what he just said to me btw.

OP posts:
Spinaroo · 06/11/2014 00:27

Sad that's not good. How old are the kids? How do you feel about the relationship?

ZenNudist · 06/11/2014 00:33

It's not sounding good, sorry. I guess more info needed. I can't see the point in putting up with an unhappy relationship. No good for dc either ime. Hmm

Original poster
Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 00:33

7&10, feel trapped really. We are making a 'go' of it since his affair 5 yrs ago.

He said he was desperately sorry. I decided to stay ( 2 young children and sahm) since then I have gone back to work, re-trained (for my own identity etc but fuelled through the sheer fear of him ever doing it again and being left).

All a bit crap. Thanks for posting just needed to write it down. Seems so much worse when I read it back?

OP posts:
SoonToBeSix · 06/11/2014 00:41

It's been five years , yet your post reads like you still can't forgive?

MexicanSpringtime · 06/11/2014 00:55

It depends what old enough is, really? I think you would either want to split up now or wait until the youngest is eighteen.

Original poster
Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 00:56

This has all stemmed from a very realistic dream last night, where dh told me he was back with OW (in reality she's married, just had a baby and moved on).

I'm not sure deep down if I'm truly honest, that I ever thought I could forgive him. I feel strongly about affairs and still resent him for the fact I didn't have the balls to leave him and stick to my word.

I have no reason to distrust him anymore (he's totally changed, doesn't go out all the time, put back all his weight Wink etc) but as his affair was predominantly during work time, I wouldn't know either way.

At the time I also found out he'd been to a massage parlour, and had been using them for 3 years prior to the affair. So what I 'thought' was a happy marriage maybe wasn't ever truly that.

Screwed my mind up and still in a loop ever since. We've just gone with it for the past few years. But all of a sudden, I just struggle to look at him and feel anything but hate/disgust.
All stemming from last nights dream.

OP posts:
Original poster
Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 00:58

That's a very good point MexicanSpringtime....

OP posts:
BOFster · 06/11/2014 00:59

The dream may have triggered it, but the real issue is that your trust in him has been irrevocably broken. I don't think that's an unreasonable rationale behind ending a relationship. Have you been to couple counselling?

Original poster
Puppy2014 · 06/11/2014 01:05

We did go to marriage counselling after the affair. But she didn't resolve anything and on our last visit she asked me how she'd helped us. I said she hadn't and that we had gone around in circles during the whole process.

I still didn't trust him, and a few months later I was still checking his phone records and then came across phone numbers to massage parlours during the time we were at counselling.

So it was all irrelevant anyway I guess.

The thing is, the whole time during counselling things just didn't add up. When I found out about the massage paper three months later, it all did make sense.

OP posts:
MexicanSpringtime · 06/11/2014 02:03

OP, what are you getting out of staying with him?

magpiegin · 06/11/2014 02:26

Please don't stay together for the kids. Mine did this for us and I wish they split up when we were young. They will notice the atmosphere etc.

dollius · 06/11/2014 05:31

I think you should leave now.

Massage parlours? FFS, this says a lot about his attitude to women (as long as you mean the sort of places I think you mean…)

You are still dreaming about this because it has not been resolved for you. I would cut my losses now tbh.

Joysmum · 06/11/2014 05:33

My parents marriage only split after I was grown up. It wasn't a dreadful marriage, just a doomed one that limped on. I wish they'd split earlier.

boxoftissues · 06/11/2014 05:36

Agree with dollius

EverythingsRunningAway · 06/11/2014 05:58

The kids are old enough now.

ImperialBlether · 06/11/2014 08:40

He sounds awful. Either the massage parlour (once, never mind regularly for three years!) or the affair or being spoken to like that would do it for me. Have some respect for yourself, OP! You can't put up with someone talking to you like that!

Tell him to sod off. You were living a lie with him for years and now he's actually telling you the truth - what he really thinks - and it's awful.

Quitelikely · 06/11/2014 08:58

Sounds like your relationship never truly recovered from his deceit.

Well done for retraining in order to maintain your independence.

I will say that I don't think it's fair on him to still throw it back at him after five years.

I'm a firm believer that you agree to move on or you don't and if you don't you move on from the relationship, otherwise it's all very destructive................

mummytime · 06/11/2014 08:58

Get out!

To be honest children are happier to be in a happy home whether with one or two parents. If they are younger they will adapt faster, mid teens would be the worst age to split (but they still might prefer it to being in an unhappy home).

nicenewdusters · 06/11/2014 10:09

Just wanted to say that I've read lots of posts recently where people have said they wished their parents had split earlier. They had either suffered from living in an unhappy environment and/or felt their childhood had been a lie to some extent when they realised that their parents had only stayed because of them.

Five years is a long time to try and see if you can live together after an affair. You're dreaming that he's untrustworthy because he's shown you that he is - both the affair and the massage parlours.

I have similar aged children and am struggling with trust/support issues (not affair related). Mine's only been a few months, but if my partner said to me what your husband has, that would be a game changer. Perhaps your answer is that no, apparently you can't be civil enough. Therefore you will take his advice and fuck off, and in true mumsnet style this will be to the other side of fuck off where you'll fuck off some more !!

Just because you agreed to stay (although you say you didn't have the balls to leave) you're not tied to that decision. You hoped you could put it behind you, you had counselling (he went to massage parlours!), but it's not working for you. You not being able to trust/move on, however you see it, is not the problem. He's the problem - he had the affair, he changed everything.

If you didn't have children with him would you stay ? I know that's the world's biggest "if", but the answer to that question is the key. I know my heart breaks a little bit more each time I ask myself that.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 06/11/2014 10:15

Puppy

What do you want to teach your children about relationships?.

If there is no trust now there is really no relationship. Its really limped on for the past 5 years hasn't it.

Staying within a marriage purely for the sake of the children is never a good idea. The children won't thank you at all for doing that and it just teaches them a lie. Do you want them to think that actually a loveless marriage is their "norm" and for them to potentially emulate themselves?. They see and hear far more than you care to realise even if you are both not arguing in front of each other; they pick up on all the vibes that both of you show.

nicenewdusters · 06/11/2014 12:22

Just popped back to say there's a new thread on Relationships entitled "Don't even know where to start". I read the first couple of paragraphs and immediately thought of your post. You might find it interesting.

BarbarianMum · 06/11/2014 12:30

My parents stayed together 'for the sake of the kids'.

It was fucking horrendous tbh. And now we're expected to be grateful for their great sacrifice. Angry

You have tried really hard to make your marriage work - and I think you were right to do so. But it hasn't worked. In the circumstances now would seem like an excellent time to move on.

Jan45 · 06/11/2014 14:08

It's not stemming from last night's dream that you feel you hate him, it comes from years of cheating behind your back, no idea why you are staying for the children's sake.

He fucked the relationship ages ago, there's no shame in you now realising you cannot continue with someone you clearly cannot trust.

ChippingInAutumnLover · 06/11/2014 14:24

Love, he has never had any respect for you or your marriage.

What he said this morning is just a part of that, though frankly, it's a weird thing for the one who cheated to say.

You aren't doing yourself or your kids any favours staying, please don't fool yourself into thinking that staying is the best thing for the kids, it really isn't. You being happy is far more important to them - and they do know you know.

Find the strength to kick him out.