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.

And you recently said his father being very ill could add a very big complication to things. Perhaps he's remembered that too and he's using it to his advantage.

Wow. He finished with the Italian? After all this time when he er hasn't been with her, no, no.

Great point! Wasn't he just away with her recently? And if they are now finished - who finished with who?

Sorry for my separate posts but the site is playing up for me.

I've always had a gut feeling that you may get back together and then split again.

This! Absolutely! I tried to say it in a post yesterday but was disturbed by something here at home.

Some great advice on the previous page Tom as well as the advice on this page to make it a large bar of chocolate.

xxxxx

Tom. This site is absolutely fantastic for women leaving men who have been unfaithful. It is not for those taking husbands back.

My advice would be carry on at your own pace towards divorce. You can change it to a post nup if you want. Putting in the best divorce deal you want ( excellent negotiating tool) and you will see what how he behaves.

I knew posting here would help. You must all think I'm crazy going round and round and round in circles.

I haven't slept amazingly. I have a little interloper to partly thank for that.

I'm going to talk to the lawyer eith my dad this morning. Get myself facts and figures. I'm going to tell him to back off and start working to my timetable and my decisions amd to lay off any guilt trips.

I am also hoing to try and get a massage today. My back is rigid with stress again.

I'm going to arrange to see the counsellor for a few sessions because my head is in such a muddle. She was good before and I got the sense she would be very fortifying if I said I needed help keeping separated.

And for those who asked, he said he finished with her and no going back. Seeing her apparently made him feel guilty about me.

Its the same old swing though, her, me, can't decide, me, her, her, me. Now me.

He sounds a player. And as if he doesn't want you, but doesn't want anyone else to have you either (worn that t-shirt).

Be very careful. Protect yourself.

Not crazy at all. It is perfectly normal to want what you thought your life was before. Except unfortunately as you now know that was all a lie. Even knowing all that it's still normal to hope and wish and think, maybe, just maybe he's had a shock and a wake up but I think you probably know deep deep down that if that were true it would have happened months ago.
He wants his life as it was before with his home and hearth all cosy and warm waiting for him when he deigns to be there.
Unfortunately for him the scales have fallen from your eyes.
Of course you will still mourn the loss of WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. I think a lot of us still have that grief pop up occasionally even years down the line when circumstances find us upset or lonely or whatever.
Perhaps reading your old threads and remembering just what a shit he is/was would help you reclaim your perspective a bit?

Hi Tom, (long time),
Does this mean we could have our family unit back together and share the hard stuff as well as the good stuff again?

That depends on what you really mean by that statement. You had a nice life, lovely DD, lovely DH, who you loved and trusted implicitly (after the initial hard years) your DH was dong well in business, you had been trying for another DC, nice home etc.

Sorry but all that has gone!! Of course you want it back. Especially as non of us want to be seen as a failure (even if it is not our fault).

The truth is you did not know your DH!!! Part of the foundation that you built your life with, was false. You do not even know the reason why he went outside your marriage.

He has since proved to be all the things others have posted (a maniplulator, a liar, duplicitous, deceitful and most of all a man with many faces). Now you are getting the remorseful face.

Only you can decide if there is a possibility of having your family unit back together, but it will never be the family unit you had before, that has gone.

Can you build a new family unit with him / Can he change? IMHO people can change, if they truly want to. But honesty is the foundation of a good marriage. Unless you are both open and acknowledge what he was missing from your marriage (in his opinion) then you don't have honesty. Equally he has to be honest on why it has taken him 4 months to decide he wants his family unit. My experience (of friends) is the regret is most at the biginning (when caught) unless they plan to leave the marriage.

Seeing her apparently made him feel guilty about me.

That is the most shameful, obvious, manipulative lie.

I'd be interested to see where on your timeline of his affair this new found guilt appeared.

Last we heard he had no option (and no remorse or guilt at all) but to continue his relationship with her because you were being too difficult.

Tell him to back off for a year, during which you will proceed with divorce.

If he is really prepared to do whatever it takes to repair a relationship he has been openly taking the piss out of for months, then he will do it.

You can always marry him again if he proves himself.

This marriage is dead.

You can always marry him again if he proves himself. This marriage is dead

I almost wrote those exact words in my post.

I took the dog for a walk and I've made some decisions. The best way to look after myself is to get off this emotional rollercoaster and get some financial security. I can't start making wise decisions when I feel this wobbly.

I think I'm going to file the divorce papers. That is then done. I'm going to also want to get the financial settlement wrapped up in such a way so I don't have to worry about living/schools etc. I'm going to tell him to back right off until the new year so I can properly stabilise.

In the new year I can then make a decision about whether or not to take him back, flip the settlement into a post nup, or go for the decree absolute. If he behaves properly through the financial settlement business and waits until I'm ready that will say something, but I'm going to assume it will all blow up and the divorce will go through.

I've got the counsellor booked for tomorrow evening and am waiting to hear back from shl.

I'm also going to book some time doing something really nice just before christmas, on my own. A yoga retreat or spa or something so I have some proper space to think once the dust has settled, and when work and nursery routines are more steady.

I've realised everything has been on his terms and I have felt pulled to and fro like a puppet. I'm going to end it now.

Please remember that even if he does appear to prove himself its still ok for you to decide you know what, I don't want you after all.

Sorry, - I'd not be able to have a relationship with anyone, on any level, who was with around me because they felt guilty.

That last sentence feels so true, tom. The further you pull away, the more he will move toward, out of fear of loss and not being in control. That was always going to be so.

You have done amazingly, getting yourself work etc. But you would need a friendship group that excludes him, and possibilities of other partners before you could even hope to feel 'normal' again. I strongly also suggest you reread this thread, if only to see how much his behaviour has been isolating you and you forced into protecting and isolating yourself. It's so so hard.

I would only remind you that you had a bottom line and that was broken. There is nothing he could say or do or be that would take away that, or his other actions. There is no proof that is possible when you will 'know' he has changed or 'got it'. He is a man in his 40s presumably? He's not going to suddenly become someone else.

I also agree with others that the hard thing to come to terms with is that it will NEVER be like it was. Yes partly because, it wasn't, it never was, you just didn't know. But also because after an affair as serious as this and deception as serious as this it is absolutely impossible to return to anything that has gone before. It doesn't happen. Whatever you do will have to be new. That doesn't mean forgetting about what has happened, it would take ten times more work than a new relationship because of the baggage, but you know and can trust him as little as a relative stranger. And you must let go of the siren sounds of the 'good times' before you can think clearly. There are new lives to choose from, none old.

Of course I cannot know, but from experience and drawing on his past behaviour, and statistical likelihood, I think he has probably cheated on yoy before with someone else, also that it is most likely that he is still lying to you in some way, probably something like he has not dropped the Italian Job yet but would do if you were to commit to taking him back. He's a hedger. Every other single time he has been manipulating you in some way, controlling the information to keep himself covered, likelihood is that continues. He will be predicting from your previous behaviour that you are vulnerable if he has can find the right words to unlock you, and that you will consider crashing through previously made bottom lines, and that you will not check up on his stories.

I personally would talk to the OW, preferably without him knowing, if I was even considering taking him back. I've no doubt he has been in a romantic relationship with her all this time and may continue to be so. You obviously cannot know what has been going on behind the scenes and should proceed on the completely logical basis that many of the things he says to you are lies designed to hide his true and worst behaviour from you. This has been true a vast proportion of the time.

I personally would talk to the OW, preferably without him knowing, if I was even considering taking him back
No point in this course of action what so ever.

should proceed on the completely logical basis that many of the things he says to you are lies
Then there is no point in proceeding at all.

Not many people here championing making a marriage work. I realise I will be a lone voice and I accept that I will be shouted down, but this will not stop me speaking up after quietly watching Tom's journey from the first thread.

Tom, please take care not to destroy your marriage our of a desire to "win". No one will win.

Marriages can and do recover from adultery. Only if both parties accept the gravity of the situation and seek to heal each other.

Part of accepting the gravity comes from him and is well documented on the thread. Part is less palatable and involves accepting that he was in love with her. That feels of love are true and genuine and cannot be turned off like a light swatch. He was always going to need time to properly end the love affair.

If he had been able to end it quickly (as would be desirable for you) that would mean (a) it was just about the sex or (b) he was lying about it ending quickly. By taking time to end the relationship he is just being honest to himself about his feelings for her (whilst trying not to rub your face in it) and allowing time to grieve the loss. I do not feel he would be berated for taking this time.

That he has now reached the end of grieving for the love affair, he could be in a place to work towards rebuilding your marriage. I am not saying he will, but that he could.

Shutting him down. Shutting him out. Shutting him up. He could do all of these things and your relationship could end. Or you could see. You could try rebuilding. All of your other options are still there while trying.

I openly peak on the side of working at your marriage. I fully expect that everyone else here will disagree with me.

Yes, all you have to do is acknowledge how important and true his love affair was and that he was entirely justified in breaking your heart to have it, and then you can have a lovely life waiting for the next time his important man feelings need to be indulged by falling in love with someone else and treating you like a piece of shit.

I do not feel he would be berated for taking this time.

Really, you think months of planning a future with your GF (using the same worn old songs and seduction techniques you used on your wife) while you are constantly lying, pretending to be desperate about the end of your marriage is something no one should be berated for?

How very peculiar.

If she does stay with him, OP should be prepared to massively up her ante. He has already told her that she is not exciting/passionate enough for him. Regular foreign excursions are a must, excellent stimulating conversation, exciting sex to keep him on the straight and narrow.

God forbid she ever gets comfortable with him again...

I'm listening and reading.

I need to stop the damned if I do and damned if I don't space I am in. I think the only way to do that is to have a proper break from him for a while so I can figure myself out without this head fuckery.

Perhaps you need a break from MN too Tom. Even just for a week or 2

But we would miss you

Yes, all you have to do is acknowledge how important and true his love affair was and that he was entirely justified in breaking your heart to have it, and then you can have a lovely life waiting for the next time his important man feelings need to be indulged by falling in love with someone else and treating you like a piece of shit.

This!

I fully expect that everyone else here will disagree with me.

Nope, I dont disagree that marriages can recover.

But I do disagree with the Stepford wife spin you put on things.

Tom

Here we are again, you must be drained by the constant back and forth

I think you are doing the right thing , you need time on your own, you need to discover whether it is the dream family life you miss or this man. I have a feeling it may be the former. This man who has torn your dd's family apart.

I think in situations like this the tempting to try and return to the life you know as it is exhausting and sometimes terrifying starting out on your own, but as other have said that life is gone. Whichever path you pick will involve change and hard work, but being on your own will mean you are responsible for your own happiness, it will not be dependent on a liar. A future with him would take a lot of work, especially from him, as yet we haven't saw anything that indicates he is capable of this. Could you cope with this happening again, as that will always be a risk

He drove 3 hours to see you, but remember he flew to another country to see her

Take a look at these...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2289860-support-thread-Marriages-in-recovery

www.wikihow.com/Rebuild-Your-Spouse%27s-Trust-After-an-Affair

www.dearpeggy.com/2-affairs/honesty.html

This is the book by a marriage counsellor of 30 years that your DH would have to read and follow to the letter for there to be any chance of recovery..

www.amazon.co.uk/Help-Your-Spouse-Heal-Affair/dp/145055332X

Tom, please take care not to destroy your marriage our of a desire to "win". No one will win

Tom hasn't destroyed the marriage, he did!

Since then she's realised and har she though was a happy marriage was anything else but happy for either of them because it was built on falsehoods and inequality.

By returning to the marriage
A) it's not the happy marriage she thought she was in at the time
B) she will always have doubt as his default setting is to look outside the marriage for fulfillment, be that work or an affair.

I'd not wish someone like that on my worst enemy or maybe I would