Is he an asshole or has he done the right thing?

[MarjorieWinklepicker]

So my dsis partner of 11 years left her two weeks ago. This was completely out of the blue, told her he had simply fallen out of love with her and of course she was completely devastated. They have two dc, aged 5 and 1.

I immediately suspected someone else but I didn't like to suggest it to her at the time. But lo and behold he reveals (on Valentine's Day too) that he has developed feelings for someone else. He says he hasn't had an affair and this ow doesn't even know about his feelings for her, but they are in constant contact and he had an inkling that she likes him back.

My DH has turned around and said "well at least he has done the right thing, ending his relationship before starting another". I can't get my head around that kind of thinking. He has completely destroyed dsis and their dc all because he fancies someone else? His timing couldn't be worse either as dsis has other issues going on (bereavement and health issues).

Just wondering how I can support her and what are the right things to say.

There is also the issue of whether he allowed himself to develop feelings for that person. Normally someone in a relationship would avoid getting into that situation. But that will be impossible to know.

He packed up and left with no warning, leaving his own children (who must be 11 at the oldest) and then would not even explain why he had left?

Regardless of the situation with the "OW" in no way shape or form can such behaviour ever be categorised as "doing the right thing".

This reminds me of a thread on MN 3 or 4 years ago when the OP came home to find that her husband had cleared out all his belongings from their house and disappeared without a trace. He initially claimed there was no-one else; it emerged eventually that not only was there an OW, the OW was 5 months pregnant.

timelytess I don't get why your GP was shouting at you? Was that a typo for DP?

I'd rather be dumped for someone to move on rather than someone cheating on me for a while before telling me

Luckily, there's a more honourable way than either of these options, and I guess the more grown-up third way is the one that the OP would have liked for her sister.

Her partner may be being honest now, but clearly he hasn't been for some time: leaving a relationship with children isn't something people just decide to do on a whim.

Reasonable to call time on a relationship that's not working for him anymore, and calling time before having an affair rather than after displays unusual self-restraint, if true. Disappearing without warning and refusing to enter into discussion is not so reasonable, in my view, and is certainly less than I would expect from a long-term partner (I read nothing into the fact that they weren't married, necessarily, fwiw). But are you sure you have the whole story here, OP? Absenting himself from an empty house during the day with no discussion suggests to me that he had tried to leave in a more civilised, mutual way previously, and that such discussion as he had attempted had ended badly. I have known men disappear in such circumstances where they knew extreme emotional blackmail, eg groundless threats of suicide, was likely to ensue. If that's the case, then I can't blame him for sidestepping it all, even though he must have known that everyone he leaves in his wake will be slagging him off. Perhaps your DH has a better perspective on whether this is a likely scenario than you are able to have, OP?

I feel very sorry for the children, though.

Im not specifically talking to you Rudelf Im looked over some parts of the thread & whilst Im thinking "thank God for the sane" on here, I am pretty bewildered by some thread aspects. No misinterpreting here - I say it as I see it. & being a cruel arsehole just because I CAN will never cut it with me Dismissive people aren't attractive. I hope this woman's not wasting any further time and is getting the financial and all other necessities in place. He may want some answers from HER then..and she can take her time

Ok well if your comment was referring to what i said in any way then it was misrepresentative of what i said. Only you know if thats the case.

This completely echoes a situation that happened to my BFF. The 'we're just friends' OW was eventually discovered to have been an affair of some months. He couldn't face the scene (or accept/admit he was the kind of man to cheat) & hoped he'd get away with it.

Personally I wouldn't believe his story for one moment & be prepared to support your friend when the beans start spilling everywhere.

Walking out on a 1yo and a 5yo and their mother because he's been flirting with someone else. Yes of course he's done the right thing, in cloud fucking cuckoo land. What he should have done was to stop, think why he had been in an 11 year relationship with your sister (obviously love), have some control of himself, remember he is a grown up dad of two and not a 15yo boy. Twat twat twat.

It is crap to leave someone, but if he wants to leave, it's his right to do so. It is entirely his decision. There's nothing to discuss. How can it be selfish for him to leave without talking about it? It's no more selfish than it is for your sister to expect him to stay.

No. No-one has the right to just walk out on their children without a backward glace.

How many women do that? He has responsibilities. What he has done is monumentally selfish.

He did have an affair (emotional if not physical, and quite likely also physical) and has behaved horribly.

People do fall out of love, people do then go on to quiçkly quickly move into other, new relationships.

This is often thought of as wrong, as in this case.

What do people want to happen, that people stay in love together for the same amount of time - but that doesn't happen and someone will get hurt.

Better though for this partner to leave than make his wife's life miserable as he no longer wants to be with her. This enables her to also have a better, different life

People want him not to have got involved with another women, maybe?

Perhaps if he'd distanced himself from his crush, he wouldn't be leaving.

Shoddy.

I would expect he hasnt walked out on his children without a backward glance. I imagine he'll still be their dad. Doing parenting and paying child support etc.

Once there are children - in this case a 1 yr old and a 5 yr old - it's NOT a question of 'life is too short'. No one is entitled to leave a relationship just because it's not working for them and they fancy a change.

Unless your partner/spouse is behaving unbelievably badly, to the extent that your mental health is compromised and leaving is a matter of survival, you stick it out, try everything you can to get things back on track, and make a point of not putting yourself in situations which might endanger your relationship. Only then do you leave. And even in those circumstances, I think you should still feel pretty bad about the mistake you made in starting a family with the wrong partner.

People should think a lot harder about their relationships before they have children. The idea that they can just walk away, with their heads held high, because they haven't actually slept with someone else YET is appalling.

Where he has been a twat is that there was a point, some time ago, where he let the OW into his relationship (even if it was just emotionally) in a way she shouldn't have been. That was a conscious decision that he made, to let her in, because he wanted to, for his selfish reasons.

Keeping your relationship with your DP/spouse a faithful one is not a passive activity, you need to intentionally keep it that way. At some point his focus shifted from him wanting to keep his family unit secure, to thinking that his priority was his ability to pursue his own happiness with someone else and that the collateral damage (his partner and children) was less important.

So he's slightly better than someone who just physically cheats, but not much.

Wake up, MN. Of course he is already having an affair. I don't believe that many men leave without a sure fire thing lined up to replace, and one they have 'tested out' too. Seen it a hundred times. I think women do often leave simply because it isn't right, but men tend to need to security of the next big thing on the table before leaving.

What he is trying to do is gain honour points for leaving 'before' he did anything. Which is BS. It's likely your sis wore him down with her (completely understandable) questions and he realised his 'no reason, just fallen out of love' line wasn't washing. But he didn't want to appear the bad guy and tried to claw some good-bloke points back with his 'I had to do the right thing, aren't I good?' line.

That all said, it doesn't mean he won't regret it so your sis should keep her dignity, not let on she doesn't want to split, and say very little. This happened to a friend of mine; he shacked up with the girl from work (had claimed nothing happened...later proven to be rubbish) and three months later was back, asking for forgiveness. My friend thought about it....and decided she couldn't spend the next forty years with someone who could be that unsure about what he wanted. And said no. He is still single, ten years later.

I'm not saying 'sit tight, and he will come back to you' but it might give your sis some strength to hold her head high, say 'bye' and then maybe end up with the decision being hers. If so, I hope she gives him his marching orders. There is a reason most blokes who leave when there is a whiff of someone else (but an affair denied) end up instantly in a relationship with the other person; because it has been lined up and planned for some time. And definitely tried on in advance, even if not fully consummated (but bet it has been).

I'm shocked at some of the comments on how he done the right thing!
this has just happened to me and knowing what her sister is going thru it is not the right thing!!!
my ex left me 6 weeks before I go in to have his daughter and with a 2 year old claiming the same crap I love you I'm not in love with you! when actually there was another woman in he was emotionally involved with before he left me!
he told me if he hadn't left me he would have cheated on me! I'm sorry but if he had came to me a few months so or when ever he started to feel "unhappy" I would have sat with him and seen what was happening and everything like that instead he made the choice to leave me and our children when he left it was all yeah I'll support you be there for the birth etc etc then when him and ow got into a relationship (3days later) my children where put in a back burner!
to me if you don't tell the other person there is a problem then you are not doing the right thing!

to me if you don't tell the other person there is a problem then you are not doing the right thing!

^^This

to me if you don't tell the other person there is a problem then you are not doing the right thing!

But what if you have tried, and tried, and they have shut your attempts down with anger and denial? My ex H refused to engage, for years and years. He would play guitar while I was trying to talk and nod as though it was me interrupting him. He would just leave the room. He refused to go to counselling. My DH's exW would just shout at him and tell him he was selfish and weak and had nothing to complain about.

By the time each of us left (not for each other) we had made up our minds and there was nothing left to salvage. Both of them claimed that they had not been involved in the decision.

I'm not saying that this is the case with OP's DSis, but for those claiming it's black and white - that's just not always true.

Unless your partner/spouse is behaving unbelievably badly, to the extent that your mental health is compromised and leaving is a matter of survival, you stick it out, try everything you can to get things back on track, and make a point of not putting yourself in situations which might endanger your relationship. Only then do you leave. And even in those circumstances, I think you should still feel pretty bad about the mistake you made in starting a family with the wrong partner.

We don't know that's not the case here, of course.

wiseup
you did try though didn't you? he wasn't for listening?
I am talking about the people who don't like my ex and ops dsis ex there was no tryin from them.
I know everything is not black and white I am just saying if you haven't tried to tell them you are unhappy then it's not the right thing to do.

This was the same for me. On many many occasions I had said I wanted to leave, that it wasn't working etc etc, but when it finally ended my STBXH said that he was completely shocked, that we hadn't had any problems and that it had come out of the blue. And thats what he told all his friends.

Thats not to say that anything similar happened with the OP's sister of course, just it did remind me of my own experience.

you did try though didn't you? he wasn't for listening?
I am talking about the people who don't like my ex and ops dsis ex there was no tryin from them

I did, but ExH claimed to have had no idea I was about to leave. DH's exW insisted he had never tried to talk to her about it.

What I'm saying is none of us really knows what goes on in other peoples' marriages. I know I tried with my ExH, but equally he "knows" I didn't. Their truth is quite different to ours.

Insisting on one party being blameless and another guilty is facile, and ultimately unhelpful.

No one is entitled to leave a relationship just because it's not working for them and they fancy a change.

Anyone is entitled to leave a relationship for any reason they like. Wanting to end it is the only reason anyone needs to do so.