Husband's affair - Tom is moving on

[tomatoplantproject]

I took a break from mumsnet for a little while. It has been an eventful little while. Mumsnet keeps breaking and I'm sorry but I can't link my previous threads.

My husband had an affair with an Italian, I found out over 2 months ago. I kicked him out and since then have been trying to rebuild my life whilst keeping things stable for my little girl. I have an amazing family and friends who have been looking out for me.

We have had various discussions since I found out and have been seeing a Relate counsellor. Various posters have been warning me to be wary given how he has been behaving.

He was due to go to Spain last week on his own for a holiday - he cancelled at the very last minute after I asked him not to go and has been spending time with dd and I. Things were starting to thaw between us and we were building at least a friendship.

I had a job interview this evening and he did dd's bedtime routine for me. When I came home he sat me down and told me he was going to be honest with me. He has been in touch with the Italian Job since I found out, and they were due to go to Spain to see if they had a long term future. He pulled out on the Sunday after I asked him not to go.

I won't ever trust him ever again, and he hasn't put me first or respected my wishes that he is not in touch with her. So I am done. Once and for all. I can now move on.

You were all right. I just wasn't ready to believe you.

It can be devastating facing perhaps not having DC2 when you'd very much like another child. have some limited insight into this (secondary fertility problems although after much heartache was lucky enough to have dc2 after all). For him to deliberately use the prospect of more DC as a "hook" to try to get you to take him back when you are facing having fewer DC than you hoped for due to his maltreatment of you (and DD in fact) is despicable.

It seems as though speaking to him is very stressful for you: time to adjust those boundaries again?

I don't think you have to give up on your idea of a happy family. Just not with him. You seem like a lovely person Tom, and I'd be very surprised if you didn't remarry. (Unimaginable as it seems now).

You'll never be happy with Shard, and if you get back together he will leave again. A relationship that one party has to come to terms with in therapy, is not going to last. Even if you both managed to hang together, and he managed to come to terms with all the 'compromises' (rolls eyes), I don't think he's a very nice person, and it would be impossible to trust him ever again.

I don't even think he's any more sincere about wanting to make this work than the last time he said that, when he was still in touch with OW. (With whom he may of course still be in touch).

Has anyone caught sight of Mama recently?

Ive messaged her just to see if she's ok but got no reply.

No, I haven't saw on her on any of the regular threads

Well here's hoping all is well in her life.

I haven't seen her for a while either. I hope she's happy rather than life having got on top of her.

He wanted to talk again this evening. I have told him its over and we are finished. I can't carry on with the turmoil and just need to be free from it.

Tonight hasn't been a good night.

Sorry to hear that Tom. Just remember that the right path is not necessarily the easiest

I'm sorry, Tom. Please try and bear in mind that deciding it is over is YOUR choice. It is not a decision you read together like most during marriage. There isn't a way of getting the other person to agree with you, as it were. His decision was made when he cheated on you repeatedly, lied to you, played you, betrayed you and planned to leave you multiple times while hedging his bets.

You get to make a decision now.

What will happen now is an extended period of rebelling against that decision, like a fish protesting being out of the water. Except you have every right. What he is tantruming about will be not just the end of the marriage, but more profoundly, the loss of control. you deciding something that affects him negatively will be EXTREMELY painful for him. Because he is a high status narcissist in every way you have described him, and your marriage has been him-focused for many years. This will not be comfortable for him. There will be extreme sorrow, extreme anger and probably manipulation on a grand scale. This will be hard, and many people give in half way through and take them back.

You must stay true to whatever YOUR true instinct is. He has been pursuing his own agenda for years, I'm afraid. It is time you pursue yours. And it means holding fast. Hold your nerve. If this is what you want he does not have a right, after what he has put through, to fuck that up also.

By the way I was also touched by your cat story, but it seemed eminently clear to me that the metaphor was not that your husband was the damaged cat, no. But that the runt cat was the life you fear without him, the way forward that 'seems' damaged but is in fact far more rewarding and beautiful than the more sensible, 'confident' route.

No, of course it hasn't been a good night. So hard for you. If you care what a random stranger on the internet thinks, I think you are absolutely doing the right thing and he is a lying cheating tosspot who doesn't deserve you.

He has gone away to lick his wounds. I have told him I no longer love him, cannot ever trust him, cannot ever be vulnerable with him, and cannot have another child with him.

I didn't mean that story about my cat as a metaphor but I like the way you think of it that way xx

Tom, he is not some 'wounded animal' that has gone away to "lick his wounds"!

He has shown you the person he really is over the past few months. It hurts, I am sure, but you are such a positive person & he is not deserving of you.

Your DD can have a good relationship with him- regardless of what may happen, but for now, please stop him entering your headspace. X

My life turned around when I realised that, actually, I could have a child on my own. I suddenly realised I could go it alone.

Unlike you I had no children at all at that point but, my god the relief! I subsequently have had fertility issues as well, but I had realised I could take control and maximise the chances myself, regardless of the presence of a man.

From that moment I stopped being so desperate, I stopped pursuing wholly inappropriate and damaging men.

Do not underestimate the confusion and hormonal chaos of a 38/9 year old woman who would like a child/children.

If you can somehow take that out of the equation, I do feel you might be able to think more clearly. There is no reason you couldn't have more children, even without this toe rag.

Oh and of course I met the most fantastic man about 6 months after this epiphany and we do have children.

He took full responsibility for the damage he has caused.

He still wants us to fight for the marriage but I told him I couldn't fight any longer. I wanted to stop.

TBH, he sounds a complete drama addict. Affairs provide it in spades, and he never shows more interest in you than when you're saying you don't want to be with him, does he? He appears to yearn romantically for whichever woman he feels less sure of securing.

Odd form of commitmentphobia but it crops up a lot with some men. My cynical side has noticed it tends to crop up when babies or very young children pull the focus away from them - what better way to re-engage it than this?

Tom, just another squeeze coming your way across the miles.

We've both been married to very similar men and Im glad Blood has now said exactly what she thinks is going on with your husband. I saw it from your your first post, I knew what you were up against and I know what's still to come. Its going to be very hard and I'll go as far as saying he will hate you for doing this but please always keep in mind that getting away from him and making a really good life for yourself is well worth being hated for.

HOW did he take full responsibility?! HOW?!

By saying he did?!!!!

That's nothing. I CAN DO THAT!

I take full responsibility for the damage that's been caused.

There. Do you see how easy that was?
Are you content now? Now that I've taken responsibility. I might be a stranger on the internet but at least I;ve taken away the responsibility so that's good. Makes everything easier right? OH WAIT. IT's FUCKING MEANINGLESS.

Cos it's words.

He has had MULTIPLE, CONTINUOUS opportunities to actually take responsibility, from the child-like facile easy shit of READING A BLOODY BOOK in the early days through to being honest with you, through to breaking it off with his mistress through to respecting a single thing you've said. And maybe not planning a holiday with his OW and sitting with you in counselling lying continuously and...

What the fuck is he talking about? fight for his marriage?! He squashed it into the dust. HE KILLED IT. And now he's going to be hero for it? It makes no sense. He's still even talking (meaningless though talk is anyway) as if some outside, terrible influence has visited itself upon 'the marriage' and now he's suddenly prepared to turn round and see it off. HE IS THE PROBLEM. HE IS NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. Because he doesn't see the basic truths. There is not a problem with the marriage. There is a problem with him.

ugh. words words words. boring. charmer, narcissist, hero-want to be-er. go away.

You are not giving up, Tom. You are bored and disenchanted with bollocks. There is a difference.

"Us" to fight for the marriage?! Why should you be fighting at all, it's not you who fucked up (or about). It's just another way of him telling you he wants you to do the Pick Me dance for him, prove to him that you're worthy and deserving of his love then he might decide to reward you with some of his attention.

This is not the actions of someone taking full responsibility for the damage caused. Please don't get sucked into his words, for that is all they are. His actions always betray his true intent.

Its been a horrific emotional rollercoaster for months and months and months. He told me this evening he was going to start being gentle and compassionate towards me. Keep feeding the ride to make it go on a bit longer still.

A drama llama just about sums up the whole thing. Lots of woe is me chest beating doe eyes please forgive me I could never do this again.

I've stepped off it.

X post with blood

Haven't you both been fighting for your marriage for the past few months?

Isn't that where this whole thing started?

Round and round and round you go with him upping the ante (and the drama) every go around.

What has he actually done that makes this different from all the other times when he was still seeing and planning holidays with his girlfriend?

If anything, this is the second time he's come to you playing "broken" because she's dumped him again.

"Oh shit, better put that money back. Looks like grinding my ex wife into the ground won't be my first act of adoration and the start of my new life."

The yoga lesson today was themed about fighting and war. Rather than fighting the pain we just had to relax and let go. I feel like I have been fighting against going it alone and this evening I have just relaxed into that feeling, into the pain. Its ok you know?

I am giving up fighting for the marriage. But he broke it so very very very badly and I can't spend my life manipulated. I felt like that when he trotted out the whole gentle and compassionate bollocks.

He might end up hating me. But thats ok too.

gentle and compassionate. nice. he openly admits to changing tactic. great. he can only think in terms of his actions and the results they get, and alter them in order to try and achieve what they way. That's not empathy. That's sadism and manipulation.

Please please get off the rollercoaster, step out of the dance. Whatever the metaphor, this is someone who is used to manipulating, charming. He needs an object, an other in order to get what he wants, in order to exist,

You've already told us, multiple times what it is you want. You need to disengage if that is so. He is a specialist at this. All shallow people are. YOu need to block him on all devices except one and only check that at a certain time each day. And have friends you can be close to and reach out to at all other times when you are feeling vulnerable.

Drama drama drama otherwise.

Well done tom for resisting the doe eyes. Brace yourself for the nastiness that is sure to come next. You are doing the right thing for dd's future happiness as well as your own,

He'a about to ramp up now isn't he. When I get back from our little trip I might get mum to stay for a few days.

Get your mum to come home with you just because you can, and not just because I think its possible there might be a calm before the storm.

It could very well be that he now tries to take control of whats going on by being nice then when he sees you're not falling for it he'll show you what he really thinks of it all.