Anyone up? DH is leaving me

[onitlikeacarbonnet]

I'll try to be short. Been together 16 years. Married for 9.
2 weeks ago, with no prior warning, he said he wasn't sure he loved me anymore. I asked outright but he said there wasn't anyone else.

2 days ago he told me he'd lied and there was someone else. He wanted to be with her. But he was full of doubt. We have 2 DC (dd is 5 in 10 days and ds is 6).
I begged him to stay. I cried all over him. I love him and told him so. He said he cares about me.

Tonight he went out to meet an old friend and came home having made up his mind finally that he was going.

I've been in pieces for 2 weeks and feel like I'm empty. I'm not crying now but I've never been so overwhelmingly sad. Not even when my parents died.

I'm not sure what I want from this post. Just feeling alone and scared.

Haven't had time to read all your letter but I would be tempted to remove some of the more personal stuff, keep it about the kids and loss of family life for them and send that version.

Yes, I would totally rewrite it. She was a friend of yours wasn't she.
You've written it from a sad point of view...I think I'd write it from an angry one.

It's very cathartic. I think she needs to know the destruction she's caused.

Now because you want him back.so she can own the part she played in three peoples lives that he and her devastated.

Get some fire in your belly and start from there.

I think I'd start from

Well it's now a couple of weeks since you and the man we both shared tipped the lives of my family upside down and I want you to know as you think about building a love nest with him just what devastation it has left behind for his children.

They cry for him. They worry about him. They love him and don't have the capacity to understand what he has done so they wonder if he is lonely. Excuse me while I insert a hollow laugh here.

Out of all the people I called as my friends I never thought you would be the one to stoop so low as to entice my husband away from under my nose.

Well now you know the legacy you have left behind for his children.

No family holidays. No family Christmases, no more creating happy family memories,

Well I hope you are proud of yourself and what you have done. Just remember that when you bed down for the night

To be continued

Please don't send the letter, this woman knows exactly what she's done lovely; she isn't worth engaging with. Focus on your well being and future. Your anger should be with him, he's the one who has broken his vows, he choose to go. So pity her, because she now has him, a man who left a lovely lady and and beautiful precious kids. You're better than the pair of them. Take care

I had visitors last night who are mutual friends. I didn't ask if they'd seen DH but I got the feeling not.

One of them has seen ow DH though and I asked how he was. Sounds in a very similar place to me. I said I'd considered contacting him and was told he'd been thinking the same.
It seems he'd like to hear from me so I'll try doing that today. Not sure what I'll say but...

On another note. I'm sad today. I miss DH a lot. I know he's not coming back. And in my more rational moments I don't want him back but I miss him tremendously. I want my friend back. I want to understand him if only to move on. I don't want him back. I don't think I do. He's changed into someone I don't like let alone love. And he loves someone else. But I have been thinking about hugging him. The closeness. The comfort of having him there to take care of me/us.

I have an appointment with my GP next week. I also have a smear test. I feel anxious about that in a way I haven't before. If it's abnormal. Or if I have a relapse. Or any number of things which make being alone scary.
And it angers me that, should anything bad happen to me, he will benefit.

But I think I'm passing through the anger stage of grief.
I have a screenshot of the 7 stages. It's bollocks. I've had every one of those emotional responses every hour of every day since he first told me he wasn't sure he loved me anymore.
If anyone has passed through it on a linear level I'd be amazed.

Id imagine you and the dh would be great support for each other.
All those feelings will numb over time, nice feelings will gradually overtake them. You are doing tremendously well as it is, sit with the process and ride it out.

I know you don't believe it yet but it will get better, slowly you will heal.

Hi OP,
In my experience the grief thing is not linear at all. I used to keep going back and forth from one phase to another. It's as if you feel you've been there and done that and then find you're doing it all over again. It does get less severe and you get to understand your feelings a bit better. It's a bit more like 'oh here I go again'. Thing is, you will probably continue to process it for years, it just starts to take fewer of your waking hours. At the moment you're probably never a couple of minutes away from one of those thoughts - like a goldfish - and you get hit with it everytime you remember. It won't stay fresh forever. But it is hard. Be kind to yourself.

That was a lovely post Hillfarmer, and i echo the thoughts.

My main feeling after a few weeks was the shock that my 'future' wasn't the one i thought i'd have.
If that makes sense.

op, i will be honest it took me a very long time, and a great deal of emotions and tears to get through it. As a parent, or the resident parent, I found that my kids got me through. x

I contacted ow DH.
He has copies of the messages he found which was how he realised what was going on 😢
We've decided to meet up to discuss things. Obviously my DH and ow won't be made aware we're in contact.
I always assumed DH had had his hand forced because her DH found out.
I'm sick with the thoughts of what these messages might say. I guess they'll be no worse than my imagination. Every time I think about it the adrenaline starts pumping and I get the shakes.
I have told one of my rl friends and she's agreed to be with me when I read them. Ow DH has said there's things he wishes he could unread and that it doesn't paint a good picture of DH as a good father.
I swear if he's been nasty about the DC IN ANY WAY I won't be responsible for my actions

Do you think it's a good idea to read them at all? It won't change anything now but could serve to hurt you even more if the OW's DH wishes he could un-read them then maybe you shouldn't

I'd read them, anger and disgust is so much better than sadness and misery.

I would be interested to know exactly what he was capable of, my neighbour got over her ex so much quicker when he told he he wished they'd never had kids, 4 teenagers as it happens. Until she heard that, she was still making him packed lunches and begging him to come home, even though he was living with the OW.

I don't want you to feel any more hurt than you already feel onit.

On the other hand, maybe you will feel less sympathetic to your dh when you face the extent of your dh's betrayal.

I just want you to get to a place where you can take all that energy and good will you have and use it for you.

Do you want to read the messages or do you feel you have to?

If you feel that reading them is the right thing to do for you, then that's what you have to do.

Have you arranged when you'll meet him?

I would read the messages, purely because I believe id have a right to know what exactly was going on. It would hurt but Id feel it was important.

I want to.
The point about still feeling sympathetic towards DH rings true. I am concerned about this change in his behaviour and part of me thinks there's something wrong about it (stress related breakdown, midlife crisis, depression whatever) because he is the last person in the world you would think capable of this.
If I can see in black and white that he is capable, and culpable, I might find the strength to confirm once and for all that it's over. And if anything he's written means I can't trust him with the DC I will seek advice regarding contact.
If I can get properly angry instead of just using it as a defence mechanism I might be better able to put myself and DC first. And look at my new future with more optimism.

My instinct is to let a friend see them first. Ow's DH has kept them in case the mess at their end means involving lawyers (they own a business)
He wants to meet up as he says some of it requires some context, whatever that means. I am aware they were having difficulties as my DH had told me he'd met ow for coffee one day to discuss that very thing.

I think you need to read them to know exactly what went on and what he's said about you and the DCs.

It could be that he spent time with the OW when he should have been at a school function or when the DCs were ill. Not that he said anything bad about them ... but very often it comes out that when the DC had scouts or school events ... The WS was with the OM or OW.

I've only heard of a couple of times the WH criticised his kids and gushed about the OWs kids. Sometimes, they say what they think the other person wants to hear. They also tell lies. Blatant lies.

Knowledge is power. I'd have to read everything.

And remember. You don't know they were having difficulties, only that your husband told you this. The main difficulties were probably caused by her thinking about/having an affair. As I suspect was the case with your H.

I would read them if I were you.

I think it will be incredibly hard, but he's never going to be completely honest with you about what happened, how or when. He might also play on your feelings for him to try to protect himself financially - he'll be less able to do that if you've read these messages.

It's horrible but I think you need to know exactly what he's been up to.

Just remember it's all a load of stupid, pointless, meaningless bullshit - they are just two deluded, selfish, utterly cliched idiots who just happen to have genitals. I hope horrible things happen to them (and their genitals)

Up in Scotland this weekend - will be sending you good vibes xxx

For what it's worth.
I think you're doing the right thing.

Having been in your position OP - I would read them.

It will fuel you & drive you to get the best outcome for you & DC.

It will ensure that you don't confuse the man he was - with the man he is now.

Let's face it - you couldn't possibly be any more hurt - and knowledge is power.

I found the messages the h of the woman in my situation had found and saved very hard to read.I still dwell on what was in them now.But I'm glad I read them as until then I didn't fully believe what had happened and it illustrated to me that h and friend were in fact very different people in reality to those that I thought I knew. If I hadn't read them I would never have had the full picture and they would have been able to continue to try and minimise and lie about what they had done.
It will be upsetting op but I think it's a good idea to get the full picture.
It would be more palatable maybe to think he has had a breakdown or whatever-but be prepared for the fact that he might not actually be the person you thought he was-or for the messages to reveal someone you dont recognise at all. This will be unsettling but it might also help you find your anger and process what's happening.
Thinking of you op-again, you are doing so well...

I wanted to work at our marriage. I wanted to save it. He doesn't. He made his decisions from the outset based on leaving me.
He didn't value our relationship or family at all. Preferring to chuck it for a 3 month affair.

I can't have him back now and as time moves on, I don't want him.

I have concerns now over his parenting which, again, is something I'd never thought I'd question.
How can anyone be a decent parent when they have no regard for the feelings of anyone but themself?
The only thing that seems to motivate him is his ego. His emotional responses are all about how he will be perceived by others. He doesn't like looking like a bad guy but there's no getting away from the fact that's exactly what he is.
This is what I can't understand.
My feelings for him are entirely about the man I've lost. He's making this easier for me as he clearly is no longer the man he was.
Reading their messages will further solidify that and hopefully advance my healing that bit quicker.
I'm fully aware that it will be painful. But I think, in the longer term, it will strengthen me and my resolve to get the best for DC and me. And hopefully remove my habit of thinking of him at all in the impact of that.
If he has to live in a hovel so the DC can still maintain their standard of living, so be it.
Me and DC were given no opportunity to influence his decisions.
He was free to make his choices. He is not free from the consequences of them.

As it is I haven't heard back from her DH since yesterday morning.
I guess I just have to be patient. That's difficult.