Husband's affair: moving forwards in the right direction

[tomatoplantproject]

Previous thread here

Story so far:
Dh had a 7 month affair which I discovered 1 month ago just after he ended it.
We had been having problems in our marriage since the start of the affair which I took the blame for
He has moved out, my toddler dd and I are in the family home.
We had started having couples counselling before I discovered the affair which we are now using to deal with the aftermath
So far he wants reconciliation but doesn't seem to be going about it the right way. I am in 2 minds and hope the right course of action emerges over the next few weeks dependant on his behaviour/way he speaks about me.
Unfortunately the counselling tonight, when I had planned to spill out all of my feelings, has been cancelled. We are still meeting though.
With the support of my amazing parents, a handful of close friends, my adorable dd and of course the wonderful wise ladies of mumsnet I am ok.

[Christinayanglah]

Don't worry they will have saw it all before

Hmmm I can think of two words I would like to say to him .....

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

He said he loves you but can't explain how.
He can't guarantee he won't have an affair again- he's been in touch with her- and you can't see his phone.
He had counselling throughout the affair but not the separation?
He hasn't thought much about it all.

Wow. Either he thinks you're desperate and will put up with anything he does or he's planning to be alone/with someone else.

You deserve so much more than this arrogant entitled behaviour. He doesn't want to change. He doesn't want to accommodate you or respect you in any way.

[JohnFarleysRuskin]

Sorry. God I meant to say he's a complete twat and you are lovely.

[tomatoplantproject]

Thank you john - it's unbelievable. He's a prize shit. And that's being generous to shits.

Please don't be nice. I need to get through today with dd without crying. You can start being nice at 7.31 this evening.

[tomatoplantproject]

Christina - I would love to let you loose. I can provide phone numbers, email address, even his work address. Or his work address. Or his flat.

[Hussarsataparty]

Morning Tomato and the wise owls of MM.
Your STBXH is a weasel.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You can make a wonderful one for you and DD. I know it.
Stay strong xx

[MaMaof04]

Tom love
He is an absolute cunt.
He lives in a world parallel to the 'normal' one.
What a shock for you!
So he thinks that his love for you absolves all his actions and entitles him to repeat his misdeeds. He also thinks that he has the right to a private life- if he refused to let you see the phone because of some principle- but you do not have the right to be angry (he calls that vindictive) if it hurts you.
Well no rebuilding is possible if he does not understand that:
You are his private life.
The impact of his actions on you does not depend on what he wants this impact to be.
He also said- how honest of him - that he might indulge in another affair. His reasoning is that he does not know why he had one in the first place and this need/deed might resurface.
Well he must understand that no rebuilding is possible if he does not tackle in the first place the issues or thoughts or beliefs or whatever he wants to call his fucked up psyche that brought him to the affair and deal with them/it.
Tom, he needs therapy. But that is what he needs. You need to be strong enough to understand that YOU ARE OK. Your feelings- your anger- your confusion- your willingness to secure the best for you and your daughter: all these are legitimate feelings, actions. You said that you feel like 'he cheapened your marriage' - You put in a nutshell what most of us betrayed spouses feel.
Tom the book I advised is clearly warning betrayers against the attitude displayed yesterday by him.
Tom can some friend be with you today? If yes then maybe you go out on a long walk on your own when the friend takes care of your DD. I think that a long walk can calm a confused mind and a swirling heart. A day at a time dear. Good Luck Tom!

[Joysmum]

Good morning Tomato.

One thing that struck me overnight was that you've shown more concern and compassion for his bike accident and your own reaction to it than he's shown you for destroying your marriage.

He's emotionally bereft and can't be trusted with your feelings so I'm glad you are on the path to removing that power from him.

That will involve no longer wanting the marriage, but later still will come removing any sort of expectation from him and thus taking away his power to make you angry or sad too.

[BathtimeFunkster]

Well done, tomato. You did great.

Last night proved for sure what has gradually become clear over your previous threads - that your husband is a complete arsehole.

Last night proved him more of a dick than even I had imagined, and I already thought he sounded like an unredeemable knobhead.

To have cheated on you, and want to keep the family together, and not even bother to pretend to feel bad about what he did is mind boggling.

Or it would be if it didn't follow weeks of anger and aggression to you and your mother. That was the first clue that you were not dealing with a person with any fundamental decency underneath their laughable and embarrassing pretentious superiority complex.

It seems to me that he had really ground you down in your marriage, to the point that he expected you to be grateful to get to be his little wifey while he was the big important designer about the world. Grateful to the point of overlooking the understandable affairs he had with women who were more in his league of amazingness.

He has no respect for you. None.

He wants to stay married on the terms he has worked out for himself. He "loves" you in a sentimental and shallow way, because it suits him to have a compliant, non-working wife at home minding his daughter while he lives the full life of a superstar architect.

Put your kid's art up all over your home. A parent who would deliberately squash the talents and enthusiasms in their child that they themselves built their life on is a poor parent indeed.

Again, well done.

I'm sorry he has turned out to be such a complete wanker.

[Justusemyname]

OMG tomato, you are awesome! And I've only read your initial post about the meal. I expect there's more fabulousness from you.

Kicking him when he's down because he got knocked off his bike? I get that but what about what he has done to you?

You are just the most amazing person. You are managing your dd perfectly, keeping her happy and safe and words fail me. Hats off and respect to you.

Two exes have hurt me and I finished things and took them back. In neither case did the love come back and in one case I met my husband less than a month later and have been very happy ever since. History counts for nothing when someone shits all over it.

I hope you get yourself a SHL...

[iwashappy]

Tomato I am so very sorry that your husband didn't show himself to be the man you hoped he still was. He really is not worthy of you.

However, if he is incapable of behaving in the way that he should and reassuring you that he had made a huge mistake and regrets it more than he could say it is better you know that. At a time when he should be bending over backwards to make things right with you and reassure he won't even allow you to look at his phone. It matters not one iota whether he wouldn't let you because he has been in touch with OW or if it's a point of principle He should be doing anything he can to reassure you and by withholding his phone he has done the exact opposite.

If this is how he is he has done you a favour by showing you this than by telling you what you wanted to hear and not meaning it.

I did what you have done, didn't immediately end my marriage after discovering his affair and wanted to take my time to see if it was possible to get past it or not and if I wanted to try. If I hadn't have discovered that cheating wasn't out of character for him and he wasn't the man I thought he was I would have had doubts about ending my marriage. As it was I had none. He wasn't a man I wanted to be married to.

If you do decide you are done either now or in the future I think you will be in the same situation. You won't have doubt and it hurts like hell right now but the clarity of having no doubt really does help in the future. You won't wonder if you have made the right decision, you will always know that you did. When you're upset, missing him, struggling with something you won't wonder if you should take him back.

I'm five and a half months on from ending my marriage and my life isn't nearly as horrific and daunting as I thought it would be. It's not what I wanted or envisaged but believe those people who tell you that you can be happy again and that one day you will be pleased you're not married to him anymore because to my surprise they were right and they will be in your case too.

Take care sweetheart and I am genuinely very sorry.

[Nevergrowingup]

Morning Tomato, I feel heart sorry for you and your DD. Last night's encounter is really all you need, don't put yourself through any more of his games. He certainly isn't contrite or treating you with dignity.

The others are right, this looks like a set up. His ego thinks he is due more from life. He needs you to reject him so he can walk off into the sunset and live out his new reality.

First of all, look after yourself. You need to stay well. Don't take any decisions immediately, get all the advice you can then unleash yourself on him... legally. Let the law take care of him. Lastly, keep you circle of confidants small, you dont need advice from a myriad of people, just those close to you. I think that his family, for now, are off your friend's list.

Vent here as much as you like, get it out now so you can begin to heal. Xx

[Justusemyname]

Iwas, how are you doing?

[Justusemyname]

His comment about were you scared of the future was to make him the big I am who the little woman can't manage without....

[iwashappy]

When I read your update my heart sank for you, I so hoped he would at least say all the right things and he couldn't even do that.

He is a callous, insensitive, unfeeling shit and you sound absolutely lovely. Kind, caring, insightful and intelligent. It has been apparent reading your threads that you are like that and at no point has your husband come over in a good way.

You are far too good for him and always have been.

[iwashappy]

Hello Just I am okay thank you. Hope everything is okay with you xx

[tomatoplantproject]

Ah fuck him. I am sure he is going to wake up sore, stiff and shattered from the accident and the verbal battering I gave him yesterday.

I need to do a few things:
I have a friend/play date later this morning. I'm not going to tell her yet - she will act extremely angry on my behalf and I can't cope with her emotions too. I'll tell her in a couple of weeks when I've got my head in a better place.

Dd's big girl bed arrives today too - so goodness knows how I'm going to get her to go to sleep tonight. Hopefully she will be shattered from the play date.

I am going to tell another of my close friends and then I am going to book a girls night out at the restaurant we went to last night - reclaim it with some happy memories.

I've ordered the book mama has recommended for shitfeatures (he needs a new name if anyone has any suggestions) and downloaded it on my kindle. He said he would read it so I will give it to him. Not because I have any hope of getting anything from him but because I am going through the motions.

I'm going to set up a couple more recruiter meetings on Friday to really get the ball rolling. I think I'm going to look for a long term contract for now.

For a while I have been thinking of retraining to be a counsellor. I'm going to start thinking about that a bit more. I'm going to end up with more time on my hands that I could use for learning new things and new skills.

And I'm going to book in to get my tattoo.

[Christinayanglah]

Entitled tosser
Weasly wanker
Presumptuous prick

Or better still stbxh.....

[Christinayanglah]

Good for you girl, I think you would make a fab counsellor

[Snoozybird]

So sorry this wasn't the outcome you were hoping for TomTom but I have to say I'm kind of relieved for you.

Think how many pages on here you have dedicated towards trying to understand the situation, work out how to move forward, do what's best for your DD, plus all your thoughts in between postings. Then your H turns up and has clearly given no thought to anything beyond wanting the whole mess to go away without any meaningful input from himself.

My abusive exH showed caring/loving behaviours towards me but I now realise it was always done to make himself feel good rather than me. When I told him how unhappy I was his attitude was to not give it any headspace beyond waiting for me to 'come to my senses' and realise how lucky I was to have him. Your H sounds similar, just waiting for you 'snap out of it' and let the big man act how he sees fit and have his perks of the job. You're well rid.

Hope your day goes as well as it can x

[MaMaof04]

Tom Love! Excellent plans! Where will you have this tattoo (was it a feather that you wanted to have tattooed)?
(You can go lie with the little one in her big bed at bedtime- that might help her.)
Big Hugs dear!

[DrMorbius]

Tomato - I am sorry but I have to agree with others. I believe your DH is either so far up his own a**e that he genuinely thought after some minor play acting (and you playing the hurt little wife) that you would suck it up and accept the great conqueror home. Or he has already checked out of the marriage and wants to orchestrate the marriage ending in a way that doesn't make him look too bad.

He said I was putting him on the spot, and he hadn't thought about what to say, I find it strange (and revealing) that a "high flyer" who has probably done loads of presentations to important clients was under-prepared for what should have been one of the most important meetings of his life.

What little thought he did put into the meeting, he clearly underestimated you and obviously didn't expect you to ask to see his phone. Funny principles that make his p*s public property, but his phone is private.

I would urge caution as you progress, he most likely has the equivalent of your WOO. Once exposed and all is lost, he may well turn nasty, especially in terms of the separation of assets and future support.

[tomatoplantproject]

Hi all. I need to look after dd so don't have time to read but will do once I get her occupied xx

[BathtimeFunkster]

If he wants to read a book, he's this amazing genius that bestrides the world like a colossus, so I think he can work out how to find it for himself.

Sending him that book is an act of submission.

Don't do it.

He has continued his affair throughout your recent separation, and plans future affairs.

No book is going to fix him.

But receiving the book from his abandoned and shattered wife will be a big ego boost.

Unless you are deliberately trying to trick him into thinking that you are still in agreement that he is better than you, to better surprise him with divorce papers, don't send him that book.

[Christinayanglah]

Totally agree with Dr, I would start looking for a shit hot lawyer as I think he could become very nasty...he has also had longer to plan this than you have

No, I wouldn't send him the book either...his issues are no longer your problem