Please help. Husband leaving after 26 years

[tartanbuggy]

I am starting a new thread with a post that I posted within another (very helpful) thread. Just looking for some hand holding please. So very sad.

This happened to me last night. Married 26 years, 3 kids (20 and 17 year old twins). DH and I had not been close or happy with each other for a long time and had grown apart, but I still didn't see it coming. He has got together with somebody at work (he is 54 and the boss), she is 28. He said that they had been attracted to each other for a long time but had not acted upon it until he realised that our marriage was dead. He wants to move out and has said I can stay in the house with the children, but he wants to change our joint account to a single account and then he will continue to pay the bills and arrange to pay an allowance to me for the kids and any necessities. This will be paid into my separate bank account. He earns a lot, I don't. I was SAHM for many years and then spend two years up and down to help my parents who lived at the other end of the country and have since died. I am working p/t time at the moment, but it is term-time only and I earn very little.

I feel like I'm in a dream. I keep "forgetting" and then remembering. I feel numb but with a weird churning sensation in my stomach. I haven't been happy in the marriage either - DH can, in my opinion, be quite difficult to live with and I gradually withdrew and stuck my head in the sand. It then all went round in circles. He said he had been unhappy for a number of years, and that if we had been happy together then the other woman "would not have existed".

The kids don't know yet. They will be told and I am absolutely dreading their reaction. I don't think I can bear it. Oldest DD is mentally very fragile and has been struggling with depression, culminating in an overdose a few weeks ago. Physically she is fine, but I am so worried about her.

I feel sick. Really, really sick and humiliated and terrified about the future and how we will manage. Please, MNers, let me know this can be got through. I am so scared.

Hello boo2410 nice to meet you and sorry to hear you've been down this road as well. You're absolutely right about the wonderful support on this thread and it just keeps coming! Wonderful people, all.

I'll be quite relieved to let the solicitor handle it all from now on. STBXH can just send his proposals to her and get himself a solicitor as well. I'm not entirely sure he has done so yet. I think it's all turning out to be a lot less simple than he had imagined; initially he said I could have the house and he would keep his pension. Rudimentary as my solicitor said.

I'm still obsessing about the OW I keep fantasising about bumping into her somewhere and whacking her one. And the things I want to say to them both .... oh my God!

Write it down Tartan. And then post it.... or not. But get it out of your system.

Do you have a timescale on your settlement yet from your sol? Once you know where you are financially I'm sure you'll feel much more secure.

You are doing so well. You will be ok, and you will feel happy again. I know that you can't probably really believe that at the moment, but you WILL be honestly. So will your dc. Be kind to yourself for now, give yourself permission to have treats, relax, bugger the lecky bill and do some fun silly stuff with the dc.

Please get legal advice asap. Like today.

You say your parents died recently (sorry for your loss). Did you inherit money etc? If so did he benefit from this? It's not fair that he has had all advantages of you staying at home looking after the household & the family and now he gets to walk away leaving you very much poorer even though you have made career sacrifices.

I wonder if he is protecting his finances, also from the OW. He must be wary that she is after his money. Much younger women in my experience want financial security from older men.

Please get legal advice to protect your rights & your children's best interests.

Oh just read that you are getting legal advice, apologies.

In my experience much younger women like the OW have major father/daughter issues and require looking after, which he will find draining. She does not fancy him, but wants financial security, know this. I think he is deluding himself.