Runaway Husbands and Abandoned Wives?

[Langoustine]

How many of us are out there?

How many, like me, had a DH who they thought was very loving towards them, loyal, trustworthy and felt they had a healthy marriage only to have their DH disappear without ever indicating any unhappiness?

My DH followed the script from the book to a tee. Dropping the bombshell "just like that" after dinner and leaving within minutes. The reasons he gave later were as the book says "trivial or fraudulent". He became cruel overnight and tried to make himself the victim for the suferring he had endured of which he had never mentioned even in passing before.

No remorse, anger directed at me, friends and family turned against me, no interest in helping me or making it any easier and he redefined everything and our marriage and life as I saw it.

Would love to hear from anyone else, and how they came on over the years. I am 2.5 years in and while I have healed in many ways I still struggle with certain elements of it.

Mainly all the people who believed those lies about me. How I did not know who he really was for all those years. How I am supposed to feel about him in retrospect beause I feel both love and hate. Self esteem and fear all th time and needing reassurance from people.

There's a bit of me that still feels just totally bewildered and can't believe it ever happenned. In hindsight I see flaws in him (selfishness, manipulation) that I did not see back in the years when he loved me and chose to treat me like gold.

I do wonder where I will be in 5 years, 10 years or how marriage with someone new will work.

Anyone else out there?

[Langoustine]

That sounds awful. What a spiled, entitled, selfish baby he sounds like

[Langoustine]

Thinking more about this tonight, with the benefit of hindsight, these are characteristics in my DH which I could see once the rose tinted sectacles came off.

1. He was selfish
   

This was hard to pinpoint because outwardly he would do anything for anyone, but when you looked closer almost everything he did was for himself. He just made you feel like it wasn't! Out late drinking? he was "being there" for a sad mate.

1. He was manipulative
   

He was very good at getting what he wnated and making you feel like it was your idea! "oh baby I won't go to the party if we can't get a babysitter, I'd rather be with you anyway. "nooo, you go babe, no problem." "are you sure? wow you're an amazing wife".

1. He lied pathologically over small things
   

This was something I barely registered but he would never tell the truth to people. Always small things, always to "spare their feelings" or whatever but when he spoke to his parents or boss or anyone he would frequently re-arrange the truth slightly in his favour.

1. He was Mr Nice Guy
   

Absolutely petrified of difficult conversations or confrontation with anyone at any time.

1. He was obsessed with being seen as a good person
   

He hated if people didn't like him and he would often play the martyr to be liked.

1. He was always a victim
   

He as so clever on that front because he never outwardly got angry or complained about anyone; rather he would come in looking sad and say he was worried about something and cause you to become enraged on his behalf. It was always through no fault of his own.

1. He compartmentalised.
   

He was able to detach from certain things and pretend they weren't happenning if it suited him.

Anyone else see any of these characteristics?

[pieceofpurplesky]

Langoustine I think we were married to the same man! I can tick everything on your list. Scary thing is when I was in the middle of it I was so in lovebirds remedy perfectly natural!

[pieceofpurplesky]

Lovebirds remedy??? Was do in love it all seemed

[whateverloser]

Your list is spot on. For mine, I would add that he is extremely charming and popular, until people see the real him and he removes them from his life for ever. He was also abusive and an outright bully, but so manipulative, for years, I thought it was my fault.

[Atenco]

I fortunately was spared such a relationship as I'm sure it would have broken me.

But reading this I think it is great, OP, that you are getting down his defining characteristics as that will help you to have more trust in a new relationship. It is appalling that there should ever be any human being like the ones described here, but again, OP, they are very rare and the chances of your meeting another like that are thankfully slim.

[Langoustine]

purpelsky I know exactly what you mean, because those characteristics when someone adores you are actually fine - it's only when they are turned against you that they are shown in their true light.

atenco that's so very true....if I can see the parts of him that enabled him to behave like a conscience free toddler and hang me out to dry the way he did then it does make it easier to be ensured of the integrity of others.

I did used to believe DH had utmost integrity as he never wanted to hurt or upset anyone - but he was happy to lie manipulate or cheat to avoid doing so, and in that perhaps my view of what inegrity is was very blurry.

[DiscoDiva70]

Langoustine, I too can really identify with you and the other ladies on here!

My ex has also re written history. When he suddenly upped and left, leaving me with a new born and a toddler, he acted with such hatred towards me and told me that he'd 'never loved' me and that I'd only ever been a 'convenience' to him. I'll never forget those words, especially as we'd been together for 9 years and I felt all along up until the end that he did love me.

He also proudly told me about a year after our split that he'd never once cried over losing me, and yet I'd been distraught over his loss. It was as if he had been given a 'personality transplant' as although he looked the same, he was now unrecognisable to me. He had also moved on extremely quickly and within that year he was engaged and was expecting his third child with his new fiancee.

Ten years have passed and although I'm quite happy with my life now, I have found it difficult to trust other men as I can't understand how some can literally discard their first family, like they are meaningless, and start a new one almost immediately.

[RedMapleLeaf]

I'm not considering another relationship yet, but I have a growing curiosity about how I will feel and behave if I get close to someone else. How close will I get to another man? If not as close as I was with my ex, then what will I hold back?

I had a lovely dream last night about a new boyfriend and getting to know him. In my dream I had asked him out. It was almost a shame to find it wasn't real.
I blame you lot for discussing dreams up thread!

[Langoustine]

Sorry DiscoDiva. As I read your post I am reminded also of the awful things he said to me and I put into perspective the timeframe of how qickly it happenned.

Interestingly, the only "sign" he had given of any unhappiness of any kind was elevated drinking. That was going on for perhaps 6 - 8 months and we had argued about that and only that.

I was a pretty laid back wife and his modus operanda on the drinking front would really be that he elevated to drinking a bottl of wine a night and I would gently remind him it was unhealthy. He'd say "sorry honey you're right, next week I'm teetotal. I do like a drink".

That was a small niggle but 4 times in that 6 -8 month period he got actually paralytic. That was scary for me becase on those 4 - 5 ocassions I felt he was so drunk his personal safety was compromised.

The first time he'd done it was about 5 months before he left and he'd gotten so drunk on a night away that he'd gone to the toilet in the night and accidentaly left the hotel room and been found in bed with an old man a few doors down from us! That was considered a hilarious story at the time but i was concerned.

The second time was 4 months before he left and he'd gone out to a sports night out with the boys and phoned me as he was leaving to tell me how much he loved me and had actually fallen asleep on the way home on the pavement.

The third time was about 3 months before he left and we'd had people over for dinner and he'd been (as always) madly affctionatte and telling them how much he loved me (he'd actually bought me an eternity ring that day) but then he got so drunk over dinner that he'd gone outside for a fag and snapped the washing line and allen off the patio and had to go to A&E for a split eyebrow.

The fourth time was 3 weeks before he left and he'd gone away on business. As I said, I think he was particularly clingy on that trip and kept calling me night and day. He was homesick, he was sounding very depressed and he wanted to Facetime with me constantly -even falling asleep together on Facetime. Then he went out with his business friends one night and was calling me on Facetime with them, saying "check out my hot wife" and saying "I love you so much honey" and he said he was just leaving the taxi and would call me from his hotel room in 5 minutes. 10 minutes passd and no phonecall and I got worried. An hour passed. I was calling and callign and no answer. So after a couple of hours I got the hotel manager to look for him and he was found unconscious in the hallway of his hotel room.

For me, that was the final straw with the drinking and I sent him and email that night and told him we had a wonderful marriage and I loved him beyond reason but could not cope with his drinking anymore and that it had to stop. He got the email and telephoned and telephoned and telephoned but I was too angry to answer the phone. When i finally did he told me he loved me more than anything in the world, that he would die without me and please not to leave him. He said he would stop it, and that he was stressed and going through a midlife crisis and that he was sorry.

He came home from that trip, like I said, with lovely gifts for me, nd he was crying with relief that I hadn't gone and he promised me that his drinking would stop. We were especially loving, especially attached to each other and he was normal aside from being very stressed with work and he took a week off and stayed at home in his dressing gown saying he had a virus (I look back now and think maybe he was actually depressed).

Then he left a few days later. And switched from saying he could not live without me so saying the opposite.

I do think he had developed a drinking problem, and while there was no OW, he definitely spiralled into alcoholism for six months after he left and became absolutely drunk every single day. He wasn't even chasing women. He was crying and drinking and being angry and abusive to me.

He did stop drinking completely, sorted himself out, got some anti depressants and started to work through it but the feelings for me which he turned off like a tap on that day never came back on.

I do wonder if a part of these men do this to escape themselves? Like escaping the the bottle or escaping to a new woman and all of this allows them to pretend to be someone else? As if they are really trying to run away?

Then perhaps the characteristics I listed of being Mr Nice guy, seeking approval, avoiding confrontation made it impossible for them to just talk to us and work through it? Like they were playing a role of perfect husband and got tired of it?

Then those other characteristics I mentioned of being manipulative, lying to get out of trouble, compartmentalising and playing the victim are the ones that allowed them to do it in such a viscious and evil way?

Looking back, I remmeber the sheer hatred and rage and evil words that he directed at me had absolutely no place being spoken to me. He had no context for the way he was feeling so angry, he just wanted to hurt, harm and cause mazimum damage almost as if he was (a) angry at thw world and not just me and (b) completely unable to sit down and handle it like an adult and discuss our marraige because perhaps he knew if he did he would not like what he saw.

One thing I remmeber him saying as he left that day was "Phil got over Joanne, so I will get over you". Phil is a friend of ours who's wife died in an accident! It was bizarre that he likenened the end of our marriage to something like that because Phil had no option but to lose his beloved wife and my ex had every option in the world.

It was almost like he made a snap decision and then stacked the deck up as a way to prove he had done the right thing. Systematically devaluing me, minimising what he did, twisting it round so he was the victim - like he was painting a false picture of what had happenned so he could live with it and he became so embroiled in that he thought it was true.

I didn't think we were dealing with healthy, normal or logical men. I think we were dealing with deeply disturbed men who role played who they were (yes, even to us) because of deep insecurities and who faced internal crisis and used us a scapegoat's for their own failures.

It never occurred to my DH how unfair it was to blame me for not knowing he was unhappy when he freely admitted he bent over backwards to hide from me that he was. It never ocurred to him that he could not list a single thing in our marriage he found unsatisfactory -it was simple a case that he could not be married anymore, could not continue in the role he had created and he had to escape.

[Langoustine]

Redmaple, like I said, it would make me sad if any of the women on this thread did not love again - that's too high a price to pay for someone else's betrayal and too much to allow to pass you by.

I am not sure, looking back, if the level of complete trust I had for him was entirely healthy. Perhaps it is okay to retain an element of "reality check" because when you fall in love so many barriers fall down.

As I move forward, i am reminded that people can stop loving you - although when they do you would almost always be aware of it slowly over time, you would have time to adjust to it and they would treat you kindly and with respect. You would normally have a chance or say in it and would normally probably feel a disconnect yourself.

What happenned to us was abnormal. A cancer on the face of relationships. It's not normal even for bad relationhips with abuse and lies and affairs.

Normally when someone has an affair they are least still care about their wife!!!! This is science fiction we are dealing with and in my eyes the most abnormal and gur wrenching betrayal.

Moving forward, i know I would be looking for a man who was honest, had strength, knew how to argue, was not desperate for approval, had been faithful to previous wives, was in no rush to marry me, and who was unselfish and acted like an adult.

We have learned a lot and hopefully moving forward we will know what to look for. Maybe keeping back a slither of trust is not the end of the world - after all can we ever truly trust anyone?

I can't imagine it but I am going to make it happen. I want to love and be loved again and if he thinks he can kill that bit of me, he can fuck off!

[SpicedGingerTea]

I was an abandoned wife. My husband cleared out the house of all his belongings one day when I was at work, I was left to come home and find the house half empty. Turns out he'd been having an affair and got someone pregnant - I had no idea so the shock and devastation I felt was indescribable . I knew he'd been distant a few weeks before he upped and left, and whenever I tried to talk to him he put it down to work stress. But at no point did he think as his wife that he ought to share with me what he'd been up to or that our marriage was over. He simply disappeared and I had to hire a private detective to find out where he had gone to.

The night before he'd left he brought me home a really big bunch of flowers and cooked my favourite meal. Spent most of the evening telling me how great I was and how committed he was to trying for a family. It all seemed a bit weird to me, what I had no idea of was that he was In effect saying goodbye to me.

Fast forward 3 years and I'm still single with a 2.5 year old son, it turns out when he left I was also pregnant. He has never seen our son. He was a complete bastard during the divorce process, all about money, no sense of moral duty or sense of fairness (had I known he was fucking someone else and that our marriage was I tatters I would have tried to prepare myself better). He has dropped me and his son like a hot stone, turned a page and acted like we never existed, all to merely corroborate his new life.

I still remember meeting him 3 days after he fucked off. This was at his request and in my state of shock I agreed to it. He produced a list from his back pocket, 2 columns were on it, pros and cons. He had listed me on this, the cons column was much longer. At that point he hadn't shared any information with me about what he'd really been up to, still insisting he was living with a friend. My cons? I didn't trust him enough. He didn't have enough time in the marriage to pursue his own hobbies and interests. The sheer irony of these two statements seems doubley outrageous when you consider the double life he was leading. And of course it was all my fault apparently.

I would say I'm largely ok now, the benefit of him completely disappearing is that I don't have to deal with him or see him anymore. But it does of course still niggle away at me.

He was also very charming, very chatty and seemingly popular and well liked. Everyone thought he was Mr nice guy. But behind closed doors he was needy, manipulative and controlling. I remember when he finally confessed about 2 months after he'd left that he was with someone else and they were pregnant he said 'she adores me Lou, and you stopped adoring me a long time ago'. I will always remember this comment, says it all really, the bastard!

[RedMapleLeaf]

I am speechless Tricky.

[DiscoDiva70]

I so wish I could've read a thread like this year's ago.

[wintersocks]

trickytreelou that is just utterly despicable of your exh, what an absolute shit. Just vile behaviour which is inexcusable. I admire you and all the ladies on here. My ex reeled off all my alleged 'faults' too, just to rub salt in the wound really, whilst conveniently overlooking his own faults of course.

langoustine your analysis of it is helpful to me, and the traits you'd look out for in another partner. I agree we can't let these few cowardly men prevent us ever finding love again. There are good ones out there. Since dating I've been surprised by men putting themselves out for me, cherishing me, something I only realised I'd never properly had from exh after I found what it felt like. It's uncanny as my ex also had drink issues in the months leading up to his leaving (although mine left for OW) and had a business trip, i think the book says that's common too.

My exh had already lined up a mediator who telephoned me a week or two after he left, while I was in that dreadful shock phase- I think to try to take advantage of the shock to get a good deal. He'd obviously been planning it for ages and just leading a double life. He had all the character traits you listed except mr nice guy. Sometimes, looking back on it, he'd lie about little things, when it would have been just as easy to tell the truth, or try to encourage me to. I would look out for that now.

I've thought a lot about cheating in the past few years and know people from both genders who have cheated and my conclusion having really tried to observe them and how they operate is that the number one common factor is selfishness imo

[Langoustine]

Trickytree that is such a painful story to read. I really admire the strength in you. What an amazing woman you are. I am sorry for your losses and disappointments and hope you know that his behavior is dispicable and nothing to do with you.

This thread has been so therpeutic for me. I feel less soiled, less of a loser, less of a leper because everyone on here seems so lovely and their DHs sound like such dissappointing selfish cowards and it's really helping me to see my xH was one too.

I really hope all of us continue to move forward and start new chapters free of the carnage these idiots left in their wake and that new people come to MN and find this thread as a reminder they are not alone.

[WellWhoKnew]

In their own time and at their own pace, I think people do heal. It's important to not to expect too much of yourself and also to be realistic about it - it ain't going to take a few months to 'fix'.

Divorce is unpleasant, I think, for most but horrific when they demonise you throughout the process.

And also be realistic about others who either have never had such a trauma happen to them or, in a few cases, if they've totally blocked out the hellish emotions that this sort of ordeal creates inside of you - because they'll say the most pointless things, e.g. "You 'just' need to get over it'!

Find very, very, very understanding friends or make friends who totally get what you're going through!

And best you can, keep busy!

[TooSassy]

Wow. This thread is heartrending.

I wasn't left per se, he was busted over multiple infidelities. Overnight my life felt as if a bomb had gone off. He has since said (and believes) the following:

The infidelities were my fault.
I was a cold, emotionless wife
I didn't treat him well
He was trapped in a loveless marriage and had been for years (that one hurt)
I am not a normal person

He has not accepted one bit of responsibility, I've not had one apology over his actions. Nor an explanation over why he thinks his actions were ok for a married man with two young children.

Not once did he raise any of the issues to me, I thought we were doing ok. Not great but ok. It's like he became key witness, jury, judge and executioner in his mind and justified absolutely everything he has done. He continues to do so.

I honestly think these men are wired differently. We cannot account for why they have taken the actions they have. They've simply done it and moved on. I'll say one thing though, even though they've left a colossal pile of pain behind them I don't envy them one bit. I wouldn't go as far as saying I feel sorry for them (as if), but I sort of do. I'd never ever want to be so cold, ruthless and calculating. Those are horrible, horrible qualities. Pond scum has more redeeming parts than these individuals.

For me? I look for the silver lining.
I'm a good person, not perfect, but good. Kind, funny and a little crazy (the good crazy). I deserve to have people in my life who get that and thank the world I am in their life. People like my STBXH are welcome to their new lives. I thank the universe with every part of my being that he's no longer going to be part of mine.

They are horrible men ladies, we all deserve more.

OP thank you for starting this thread. Very therapeutic.

[DiscoDiva70]

I think it's bad enough to up and walk away from your partner and then cruelly add insult to injury by slating the ex, but I can never understand how someone can disappear from their own children's lives so easily.
No normal person in my opinion could reject their children.

[Elendon]

My ex all but abandoned us because he lives 250 miles away. He does still in contact with his children, sees them EOW and texts regularly. However what really hurt all of us was the fact that the 20 years together seemed to be a lie. He never talks about the children's past.

However, I do know two people who were abandoned after cancer diagnosis. One woman's husband left the day she told him and the other went on OLD sites, met someone and left to be with her and her children. When the second woman died a year later, he told her family he did not want his children (heartbreaking). I could never start a relationship with a man who would do that.

[hollieberrie]

I was abandoned by my fiance a week after my mum died. We were engaged, had been together years, rented a house, were trying for a baby, blissfully happy. I would've trusted him with my life. My mum died unexpectedly, he left for OW and I've never ever heard from him since. It kills me to be honest. I feel so insignificant.

I'm 14 months on but still can't get my head around it all. It's like I never existed

I'm doing a bit better day to day but still have awful nightmares. Such a head fuck when they do this.

Great thread Langoustine, i can really identify with everything you describe.It definitely helps to hear others experiences too. for everyone dealing with this.

[RedMapleLeaf]

I think it helps to reach the stage where you just let it go. Being a divorce statistic, never understanding why he left, losing assets etc... I've just had to let it go.

[Elendon]

You can no longer loose assets RedMaple, thanks to the recent high court decision, no more than you can lose memories.

What you can do is accept those memories and assets as being real and true and realise that the person who denies both (fraudulent behaviour), is the one who needs to accept that their behaviour is shitty and unacceptable in a civilised society.