I want to leave my wife

[sapphiresdad]

I can't tell anyone

I have wanted out for years. we don't get on, I know this sounds awful but I don't like her, she doesn't like me much, in the evenings we sit in separate rooms watching different TVs and most nights I fall asleep on the sofa as I just don't want to share a bed. I don't fancy her and the thought of sex with her turns my stomach...she says horrible things to me and puts me down all the time. Even in front of the children. I don't get why she even wants to be with me if I am so shit. I am scared if I leave she will make it hard for me to see them, as she thinks if a man leaves his wife that's it, he has "left his family" and doesn't deserve the title "dad" or to see his kids. She has said as much when couples we know have split.

I loved her at the start but we were very young and tbh I got pushed into getting married. We were early 20's, she was pregnant and it was the right thing to do. I thought this was what happened in life. We bought a house and she wanted baby number 2. I didn't as I was already unhappy. But she got caught with dc2. I suspect she wasn't on the pill. I love my children and don't regret them but they are the only thing keeping me here. The mortgage is massive, we are in debt and I am doing 60 hour weeks just to keep our heads above water. I have a second job at weekends, I feel like I am drowning. MY dc are 10 and 14 and she stopped work when she was pregnant with # 1 and she still doesn't work, she doesn't want to and when I have suggested it she gets angry with me.

Here's where you are going to lose any sympathy you might have had. I have fallen in love with someone else, she is a single mum to a 4 year old and works at my place. I have known her a couple of years as work colleagues but a couple of weeks ago we both admitted we had feelings for each other. Absolutely nothing has happened as we both want to wait until I am free, she knows I am married and knows I am unhappy but she (understandably) is sceptical that I would actually leave. But I would. For the first time ever, I have met someone I want to marry, to have a family with, to love forever. I am 37, am married, I have children already...The timings are wrong

she is amazing, kind, clever, funny, independent, hard working. I have never felt like this before not even as a teenager. If I don't sort my life out she will tell me to get lost. Everyone at work likes her, the women love her and the men all fancy her. She will be snapped up, she is 27 and stunning but most of all a lovely person. And if I leave my wife I will lose my children, my home, everything

I just need some advice, I can't carry on like this

sapphiresdad you did what everyone on Mumsnet always says you should do when you are unhappy in your relationship and on the brink of an affair. Leave first, take stock of things, start a new relationship afterwards. And that is what you did. Yet still they are not happy.

You don't owe you ex wife any kind of explanation of who you spend your time with now, any more than she owes it to you if she has started dating again. I don't think you need to hide it from her, but if you think your reasons are justified then that is your call.

If you'd been in the throes of an affair at the point you left then it would have been foolish and wrong and probably counter-productive to lie about it, but you weren't, were you?

So that's that. Don't feel you have to endlessly justify yourself to some of the people on this thread who are hellbent on making you the bad guy and your wife the poor victim no matter what you say. Some people just can't get their heads around the idea that a faithful wife and mother can ever be anything than a saint or a victim and that the man walking away is automatically the villain.

Because the poster is a man and automatically not to be trusted

Or would you aim the same vitriol at a woman?

I don't see why his wife can't go and look for work either.

Springy do you believe that the wife is automatically blameless and the man is automatically a shit simply on account of their gender?
Once a relationship is over I don't think either party are obliged to tell each other when they move on. It would be different if the children were spending time with the new girlfriend, in that situation I think their mum should know. But if that's not the case then why shouldn't he keep his relationship private?

Angry? I'm not angry. If it had happened to me my guess is I'd be angry but it hasn't so I'm not. I'll try, if you like.

Taken aback at how everyone seems to have swallowed this whole - certainly. I've also posted the exact same when a woman poster is half up the track with this age-old script.

It is still relatively early days in the separation and life should get easier for both parties once everything has settled.

Please do not worry about access to your children, they are old enough to make decisions.Do you keep in contact via email/text etc? Just continue to be involved and interested in them. Don't rush any introductions with the new woman- leave it at least 6-12months. Teenagers can often react more harshly to a parent having a new partner.

You actually don't need a solicitor for access. In the first instance you can request access in writing, keeping notes or confirming by email when access has not happened. If your ex is being difficult you can apply to court yourself, for a relatively small fee and a judge will hear the case. If your children want to see you then you will be granted access likely to be more than you have today. You don't need a solicitor and it really isn't as daunting as it may appear.

Don't rush anything with the new woman - it takes between 2-4 years to recover from a long relationship and it takes at least 2 years to know someone. My dh's ex has jumped into new relationships for the fear of being alone and it's been disastrous for the children.

I agree ilove. This type of woman gives all women a bad name. She has had it all her own way throughout the marriage, and now that she's losing her cash cow, she will attempt to make life even more of a nightmare than she has done throughout the marriage. From now on, she'll need to get off her backside and work to buy her own handbags.

sapphiresdad, see a solicitor and get the access sorted, then get your big boy pants on, and tell your wife exactly how things are, and that they are not going to change. Good luck, and I hope you find some peace of mind very soon.

springy sometimes the age-old script is age old because it has happened exactly like that for lots and lots of people.

Relationships end. People outgrow one another, they move on, they start to feel different and are unable to control just how differently they feel compared to at the start. People get swept up in things out of fear and social/family expectation, they stay in bad relationships out of habit and fear and a lack of self esteeem, or the need for financial security or in the belief that it's best for the children. Men AND women do these things all the time. There doesn't always have to be a stereotypical villain and there doesn't always have to be a stereotypical victim. It's way more complicated than that.

Every time a woman with children gets left by her husband it's awfully sad if she's devastated and angry and bewildered about that. But it's not always a given that she did absolutely nothing to bring it on herself, or that she shouldn't shoulder some of the blame for the breakdown of the relationship.

In fact blame is the wrong word because sometimes no-one is to blame, it's just what happens to people. But it seems it becomes a competition of endurance to see who can bear the misery and live the lie the longest, and the person that gives in first and says out loud that it must end is punished by being labelled the villain.

Yet another perfect example of the cheaters script.
Your poor kids.

New to this thread but seems to me there was fault on both sides. I speak as a woman who was genuinely left for a younger version (seriously we look very alike, have the same morals, politics and hobbies!) Yet I've always admitted I could have made more effort with the marriage, I got caught up in being a mum and neglected ex (that still doesn't excuse cheating which even he admits and says he should have spoken to me about how he was feeling instead).

You seem to be massively missing the point OP.

It's about YOUR KIDS!

NOT the ex, or the money or the new woman.

With them in mind you absolutely should not be moving in with new woman so soon. Kids of this age are not stupid and will realise you had feelings for this woman before you left( who regardless of her faults as a wife, they love as they do you). To put them in the position of having to not only adjust to their parents separation but also a new woman and another child who would be getting more of their father's time than they are is unfair and unacceptable.

In addition (but less important) you've only been with her for 3 months, you're still in the early lustful honeymoon phase. You have no idea how its going to work out. It's also unfair to put her and her YOUNG CHILD through the stress and mess of what is likely to be quite an acrimonious divorce.

Get your own place where you can see your kids. Get a decent solicitor (personal recommendations of solicitors that are no nonsense but not agressive is best), FOLLOW THEIR ADVICE because they WILL have seen it all before and be honest with them or they can't represent you properly. Get your finances sorted. This is all far more important than focussing on new woman. Nothing wrong with continuing to see her but you need to be honest with ex and your children. Don't even think about introducing the children to her until THEY'RE ready.

This type of woman gives all women a bad name. She has had it all her own way throughout the marriage, and now that she's losing her cash cow, she will attempt to make life even more of a nightmare than she has done throughout the marriage. From now on, she'll need to get off her backside and work to buy her own handbags.

Just LISTEN to yourself! I can scarcely believe you've posted this woman-hating shit. Do you not have ANY critical faculties to recognise this is what OP has said about her: a pantomime depiction of a feckless woman. Can you not see how 2D this is, how it feeds neat into a specific, well-worn, script?

And how come your so ready to pile in?

The stated fact though is that she hasn't worked for years and has allowed the OP to shoulder the responsibility of addressing their finances. And according to him she isn't working now.

Springy I agree to a point we are only getting his side of things. Also nobody held a gun to his head re getting married, having kids, mortgage etc. I did baulk at the 'she must have not been on the pill' it sounds like the OP was assuming plus also not taking responsibility for his own procreation. I CERTAINLY don't think he was forced into sex!

But I'm also aware not all women are perfect either. If she knew he didn't want a 2nd dc and deliberately deceived him as to contraception that's not on either.

Why are you so desperate for her to be a victim in the pathetic 'script' you're so desperate to promote?

Why can't marriages ever break down without there being a villain and a victim? It's not a blooming pantomime.

And on a purely pragmatic note. Yes she will have to buy her own handbags rather than get her husband to provide for her. Or do you think she was at home hand stitching them from rags whilst her husband worked 60 hours a week and her kids were in school?

OP you really need financial advice. If it suits your wife better not to sell the house (so that she can continue to live there) it is easy enough to put buyers off when they come to view. Do you know if there have been any viewings and, if so, did the agent show them round? Was the house well maintained as an attractive prospect to potential buyers?

"she would be the type to mess me around re access etc and possibly even turn them against me. I know it happens, I have seen it happen when mates have split with their wives "

I don't know what you have seen, but what I have seen is that legally children are entitled to a relationship with their father; this is enforceable. On the other hand, men, especially men in new relationships, often pick and choose whether they are going to be reliable; often financially abuse the ex-wife; often left following an affair or an emotional affair, which the dcs sense or sometimes even find out about properly; often use the children to get at, and control, their ex. So. As you plan to do none of these things, and as contact is legally enforceable, don't worry.

As everyone else is saying, get legal advice and financial advice.

The cheaters script - wheeled out with depressing regularity, sadly - is far from 'pathetic'. Though in one way it is pathetic, it is so predictable. But it carries with it real pain for those on the end of it.

I have no idea whether or not the op's wife is or isn't the victim in this. But I'd be very surprised indeed if she is the grotesque she is being painted here. Starting with the op, remember. With angel cheeks in the wings. The one who was trapped into marriage and fatherhood. With a handbag queen. With ms dewey lovely waiting for him to be free.

Come ON.

Bacon I agree he shouldn't be rushing to move in with his new girlfriend. She has a young child - it's far too soon and it would be more prudent to take things slower. If they are genuinely in love and the relationship is going to work out then there is nothing to lose by waiting and giving all of the children time to get to know their potential new step parent before they are foisted upon them permanently.

"Just LISTEN to yourself! I can scarcely believe you've posted this woman-hating shit. Do you not have ANY critical faculties to recognise this is what OP has said about her: a pantomime depiction of a feckless woman. Can you not see how 2D this is, how it feeds neat into a specific, well-worn, script?"

My take on this has nothing to do with gender, whilst yours is unbelievably so. This is about a person behaving badly in difficult economic circumstances. I would feel exactly the same about any man who was feeding financially off his wife. As for there being a "specific, well worn script", you may well be right, but it has nothing to do with gender, and more to do with an unfair division of providing for family.

How bizarre some of this advice is.

I left my DH in the September. I worked full time, he didn't wouldn't. We had school aged kids and debts.

By the April I met my now DH and married him 12 months later. We've been together 15 years.
You don't need 2-4 years to recover, necessarily. Nor do you need to tell your ex who you are dating. She's your EX! It's nothing to do with her.

I told my ex when I got engaged as I thought that he needed to know that, FOR THE DCS' SAKE - not his.

How is your new girlfriend 'independent' if she wants to move in with you at the first opportunity - that isn't independent.

Do your DCs want to live with a four year old? Have you asked them?

You want to have a family with the new girlfriend - that's nice - aren't your existing family enough?

You sound a bit like a single bloke who has found 'the one'. But you aren't a single bloke you have two DCs. I have to say, spouting that you want to live with them full time whilst landing the DCs with a new 'mother' and a new 'sibling' without asking them is a bit selfish. I think you say you want to live with them full time because you know your Dex-to-be will not go along with that. You just want to appear a caring DF when in fact you just want to move in with your new partner.

Nothing wrong with that, but don't disguise it as caring for your DCs or putting their welfare first.

she is 27

Wow, 10 years younger than you.
You must be so flattered!!!!!

Seriously, just because she's younger than your wife doesn't make her better typical male thinking
I feel sorry for your wife. You should man up and tell her you are thinking of leaving her for a woman who is younger and better looking.
Which is really what this is about, isn't it?
You are trying to justify things to yourself.

Are you my STBXH? Apparently, I was just like your wife.

Also, the star-crossed lovers stuff.

M, is that you?

I'm pretty sure he left her in March. And he said his ex is very attractive.

He's just updated the thread.

Very clever though, start a thread in March, and then come back in September to update just to show how great he is and how horrible his ex is.
Sure sign It's all his fault.

Or perhaps not.