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Original poster

Can a marriage be saved from a passionate affair? UPDATED

283 replies

Truly40 · 15/04/2015 13:19

After lurking on here a while, and re-reading most of the advice and support given on the original thread to my situation last year, I've decided to 'come out' and update all those MNers who invested their time, and gave wise words of advice which I wasn't ready to accept and didn't have enough of a rational viewpoint to value at the time.

DH did decide at the time to stay with me and end the affair. But we just carried on with the hysterical bonding, and carried on with the frantic work / family life without addressing the underlying issues within our marriage, and as someone previously said while I was busy trying to repair the relationship, I ignored the fact that I couldn't repair the man.

It's not a suprise then, that the affair re-started earlier this year - that DH had not maintained distance from OW, and 5 weeks ago he walked out on me and the children following a final ultimatum from the OW.

They have already moved in together, and whilst it is early days on the emotional rollercoaster that I am now on, I am at least able to have some clarity and respite from the intensity of last year's situation.

I have now started counselling on my own, the children have been told he is working away at the moment whilst the initial dust settles, and he visits on the weekend, and is at least now spending quality time with them, and perhaps starting to realise the consequences of his reckless, selfish actions.

I don't know where things will go from here, but my priority is to gain strength and some self-respect to make the right decisions for myself and the children.

He is already expressing doubts as to his decision to leave, saying he will come to counselling, and that he is appalled and ashamed at his behaviour.

Whether this is guilt and self-pity or genuine remorse, remains to be seen in his future course of action.

I just feel ready to let those Mners who followed my thread last year know the outcome, and to acknowledge that in retrospect a great deal of sensible and wise advice was wasted on me at the time.

I hope that I will be a wiser, stronger person dealing with the situation this time around.

OP posts:
tribpot · 19/04/2015 12:42

he misses family life, he still loves me, and that he can't live without the children

That's what he says today (or rather yesterday). By next week anything could have happened. That's the problem. You can't rely on anything that he says.

So the answer to his supposedly heartfelt plea is that the most important thing to you is stability for the children. If he wants to set up home nearby on his own and demonstrate real remorse and a commitment to the family for a period of a year, you may consider postponing divorce proceedings for that same period. Little ds needs a regular schedule of contact with his dad, as much as is practical. But it will not be in your house because it is too confusing.

Hope everyone is over this horrible virus soon.

NettleTea · 19/04/2015 12:52

I suspect he sees the change in your tone and actually doesnt feel any different to how he felt before, apart from realising he needs to get you back in line.
Thats why he is trotting all this crap out.
He feels he is losing control.

Fairenuff · 19/04/2015 13:02

he misses family life, he still loves me, and that he can't live without the children

OP, from your other thread, this is what he said on 20 April, 2014 - exactly a year ago:

...it's giving time for DH to make some major realisations too - that he didn't stop loving me, that he has made a massive mess of our lives, that infatuation with OW means very little in actually making it work in RL, and that he may need to change his employment to repair all the damage he's causing.

Can you see that nothing has changed? He is saying exactly the same things to you and you are still believing it.

You are worth so much more than this x

JohnFarleysRuskin · 19/04/2015 13:44

My god - one year down the line with you bending over backwards to accommodate him and he is still 'making a mess of all your lives'
Is this selfish twat 50 or 5?

PeeNoMore · 19/04/2015 14:08

Please read the quote (your own words) that Faire posted from last year. This man is a selfish arsehole. He doesn't care about you, your children, the OW - anyone but himself. It's all about him.

You really do deserve more than him.

Duckdeamon · 19/04/2015 15:19

What a total arsehole. Strange how he said this to you when you said you were going to tell the DC.

Lweji · 19/04/2015 15:24

Just tell the children and get a solicitor on it. Enough of being controlled by him.

sassandfaff · 19/04/2015 15:51

What did you say to him?

BloodontheTracks · 19/04/2015 16:54

Truly, it really is WAY too convenient for his apparent change of heart to have come exactly as he sense you taking important, confident, detaching steps away emotionally. he is hugely manipulative, Please see through this man. He mentions his children way more than you. He sees you as part of the package. He sees that life is more convenient for him within that package than without. But this isn't love for you. You will be bending to his life choices and preferences, like both you women have for years.

Quitelikely · 19/04/2015 18:01

Don't listen to what he says, look at what he does.

What he does is telling you who he is.

Also I've noticed he keeps buying time! He throws you crumbs and so you stall on telling the children hoping that he will see sense!

MaMaof04 · 19/04/2015 19:54

I hope you do not fall for this again and let him back in your life.
Osar Wilde said something like:
Doing an mistake can be acceptable - redoing it again and again is completely stupid.

So please JUST SAY NO TO HIM coming back ! Tell your kids ASAP and involve the school.
Good Luck!

WrachBach · 19/04/2015 20:48

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Original poster
Truly40 · 20/04/2015 09:07

Thanks for all the really solid advice - it's helping me maintain a detached viewpoint, when it would be so easy for him to drag me back in to the emotional turmoil.

He spent yesterday with the children, and I was at a family event, and spent an hour with them before bedtime. We just talked for an hour after they'd gone to bed.

He says that he had thought that he could have an easier life with OW than the daily grind of family life, and see his children on weekends. That usual compartmentalizing the parts of his life. But during last week, he kept seeing families, and dads with their children, and he was starting to cry at random moments and then not being here for DS being ill killed him . OW is so optimistic that things will just settle down and he'll get used to spending weekend time with the kids - and he says that Saturday was the first time he's admitted to her that actually he's finding it unbearable, and that he's been hiding how upset he constantly is.

I'm not saying much - I spent so much energy last year talking AT him, trying to make him consider the situation rationally, that I know he needs to work all this out for himself, and go through absolute hell.

I just said that the stability of the children is the priority here, and with them being ill on the weekend - it's another missed opportunity to be honest with them.

I've told him that he needs to sort out his relationship with OW - whether it really is genuine enough to compensate the guilt he's always going to have, and whether he wants to make it work with her, or whether it was just a nice escape fantasy. If he wants to be with her, then he'll have to accept that it will have to be picking up / dropping off the kids - not putting them to bed, spending time in the family home.

And if he wants to be a family, then he'll have to resolve his OW relationship, work out how he's actually going to make that happen and what it's going to take.

I did feel quite thrown around by it all, and his total inability to know what he wants - but this morning, I actually feel quite proud that I talked about it quite calmly, and detached, and I haven't said I want him back. Nothing has changed other than his apparent feelings at the moment. so I'm just continuing to move on with my life, and I don't want him back for the moment.

Whether that changes months down the line, depends on the commtiment of his actions. I am clear on that.

OP posts:
Vivacia · 20/04/2015 09:12

I think you're just sitting around patiently waiting for him to have had his fun. Again.

Lydiand · 20/04/2015 09:17

I don't understand why this is all about the children.

Why would you want him back when he doesn't love you?

Christinayangstwistedsister · 20/04/2015 09:28

So he misses his kids, where do you come into this scenario? Did he not miss his kids when he cheated a year ago?

I wonder how the ow would feel about the kids all moving in with them then???????

sassandfaff · 20/04/2015 09:32

I'm reading it like this;

He seems to be saying, he is confused/can't make his mind up, because he wants to be with the dc's, but he also wants to be with the ow. So he has to make a choice, of ow and the children only at weekends or give up ow, for the sake of family life with the children.

Is that right?

Does he ever say anything about missing you? Wanting to be with you?

Or do you get lumped in with the title 'family'?

This screams that he LOVES the ow and the dc's. That is choice is between them. That is where is conflict lies.

Unless he does say something about you, and you just haven't mentioned it?

sassandfaff · 20/04/2015 09:34

That his choice is between them. That is where his conflict lies.

Cherryapple1 · 20/04/2015 09:37

please stop counselling him on his relationship with her. And you are still giving him the option to come home. So with the next OW he can say he only stayed with you for the kids. Nice. Where is your self respect. I agree you are sitting around waiting for him to pick you again. How many more times does he have to make a fool of you?

Sickoffrozen · 20/04/2015 09:43

Sounds like it's the kids he misses, not you!

Why are you wasting time and energy on him?

wannaBe · 20/04/2015 10:18

Op, it is entirely possible that your h feels genuine sadness at not being able to be with the dc permanently. But that was the choice he made when he decided to leave the marriage. And that would still have been the case even if he'd left the marriage for the reasons which he will claim drove him into the ow's arms, iykwim?

At the moment he has choices. He has the choice of whether to stay with the ow or whether to leave her. But the choice as to whether he returns to family life is yours, not his.

I am not usually the type to tell people what they should or shouldn't be saying to their partners, but the one thing I would say is that your h needs to know in no uncertain terms that he has actually made his choices wrt family life, and now those choices are no longer his to make.

Whether you take him back is up to you, but what I would say is that making him aware that it's no longer a case of his leaving the ow to get family life back will most likely give you the answer as to what it is he really feels. Once he realises he doesn't have the choice, he will show his true cards....

Jan45 · 20/04/2015 10:35

It's his children he is missing, not you, sorry but he made that choice when he fucked of with someone else.

He misses them at the same time does very little with them, just imposes into your life, your private space so he can play daddy, does he actually ever take them out anywhere and give you an actual break, from them, and him?

Sorry Truly, once again you are listening to his crap, he knows you will and he knows it has an affect, you are just going round in circles, he seems to see you as a sounding board or the person he can spill his heart out to, even though he shat all over your relationship, it amazes me you are still engaging with him, why do you even want to know what is going on with him and his OW. As has been said over and over again, talk about the children and the arrangements he must make to see them, nothing else.

It just reads that you are still hanging on hoping the kids will change his mind and he will come limping back to you, it's all sounding rather pathetic.

Jan45 · 20/04/2015 10:38

Yeah he is constantly upset about his kids but he can't answer his phone when you ring to say one is ill.

Twinklestein · 20/04/2015 10:53

He says that he had thought that he could have an easier life with OW than the daily grind of family life, and see his children on weekends

Wtaf?

So part of the impetus for the affair is that he got fed up of looking after his children during the week & thought it would be nicer just to see them at weekends. (Children not just for Christmas)

Furthermore, as everyone has pointed out, he has not mentioned you at all, the only reason he is considering staying is for the children.

At no point does he say he loves you and wants your relationship to work. If he does not love you then your marriage will never work, and if he comes back he will leave again.

Telling him he's got to sort out his relationship with OW bizarre. He's had a year. And you're still waiting for him to inform you what he's decided to do.

There's always a hope in an affair scenario if the wife plays hard enough ball the husband will come to his senses, and sometimes it does work.

But from all the information here, this is not a relationship you should be wanting to 'work out', because, given his attitude your relationship will never work anyway, and because he's just too awful & selfish to remain married to.

You can't inflict more of his nonsense on your children. I think you need to take control of your life and draw a line and say - this much selfishness, narcissism, fuckwittage is too much for me ever to respect or trust this man again, and he should not be doing this to the children. Accept that he has kyboshed the marriage totally and file for divorce.

WrachBach · 20/04/2015 11:45

This is all the same as last year's posts. Is this a book your writing? It's just the same.
You havnt said how you feel about the fact that the affair never stopped so he has been having sex with her the whole time he was with you. Have you had tests.
Why only two threads in a year? Thats odd as well.