Me and my husband are separating and I have no one to talk to

[iwasagirlinavillage]

I've left the house - arranged, I didn't just storm out - so we can get some space today and I will go back this evening to get both DDs to bed. DD2 is breastfed but there's expressed milk for her to have while I'm out. Then after they're asleep I'll go and stay somewhere else for the night. Tomorrow I'll go back and he'll leave, then I'll be the one at home all week as I'm on Mat leave and that's as far as we've got. Supposedly it's not permanent but I could be. I'm stuck. I wanted to stay and work on it but I understand his reasoning - we can't be in the same room without arguing and it's not good for anyone. But I'm scared.

Thank you all for the continued support. I managed to get a bit more sleep last night. My parents took the monitor for DD1 but she was really upset at one point so I ended up having to I go in anyway. DD2 was up a few times and then woke up at 5.30 this morning.

I'm going to try to continue with the ignoring messages today as, although I want to ask questions about a few practical things, it can wait because it is making me feel like I'm getting a bit of power and control back and that's giving me the drive to get through.

Magical has it right again-the more you ignore him the more he will start to panic that actually you don't need him-and that will hurt his ego and his projected plan to have a new life whilst appearing to be a great Dad and having a good relationship with you.
If you need to ask him about practical things then ask him but literally just that. Two line text to say 'what time are you doing X?' or whatever.Continue to put yourself and the girls first-he has made this choice, so now he will have to fit in around you for a bit until you are ready To make a more formal plan for contact etc.

Obviously short term ignoring him is helping me to regain some control of the situation. But long term am I shooting myself in the foot? Or is it likely to help me to get over him by not having contact? I don't want to have found that I've pushed him away and then still have all of these questions and unresolved feelings and no possibility of closure.

For the practical things, keep a notepad and jot things down as you think of them.
Then decide when you are going to contact him, and you can be business like and make sure all the things you really need to know are asked then.

Well you won't be able to ignore him forever-but this is still early days and you need to do whatever is getting you through.
I think you will need a conversation with him at some point-about both practical and emotional stuff.But not until you feel strong enough for it.
Thing is though you may never get the answers from him-so you might need to prepare for the possibility that you might never know the truth of what's gone on. The closure will come when you feel strong enough to tell yourself that it doesn't matter, and mean it.

I've just caught up with alltgats happened throughout this thread. OP, I'm so sorry this is happening. What an awful shitty shitty thing to be foisted on you.

Can you focus on getting through each hour as it comes? Sleep is becoming the big issue, and DDs behaviour in that it's stopping you from sleeping. And sleep is the key to getting through this.

I've also noticed that DD1 is channeling all your devastation and unease. They do pick up on the adults feelings around them, and I'd be careful how you're reacting to it, as sometimes they are testing out how they should behave and feel, and of the adults then confirm that it's right to feel so bad, it intensifies the issue, versus comforting them. Best is routine and normality. I know you can't give her complete normality as her arsehole dad has broken that, but can you start really emphasizing the normal unchanged stuff as much as possible? And possibly be a bit matter of fact about the night time waking and crying? Please don't think I'm judging or laying any responsibility at your door, I'm really really not (& I would cheerfully kick the cheating cruel bastard in the nuts for the way he's destroyed your life and is hurting you, passificist though I am). I'm just passing on my experience of how children are little divining rods for our emotions and how boring normality helps. It's shot that he's caused this but you have to deal with this. That's the ultimate irony about a man walking away from the broken devastation he has caused and whining about his poor ickle self and his poor little needs.

You will get through this. Please try and believe in yourself. 5 mins by 5 mins.

Grab sleep when you can, prioritise this before everything else. I didn't and wouldn't nap because of the pain of being dragged awake again. But I wish I had napped as every little bit helps, even if it seems pointless at the time.

Thanks Misc. You are right about DD1, the past few days I've not been as good at putting on a front and have been more short tempered because I've been so tired but I need to try harder to keep things calmer. I have kept her routine as much as I can. Bedtime is obviously slightly different now but I'm at least keeping it consistent every day.

I'm feeling the most devastating pain today. How could he do this to us? We were a perfect little family. We survived so much together and he's thrown it all away on a whim. He's left a mass of destruction and he doesn't even care. How can I be expected to pick up all the pieces that he's shattered and left behind? If I now walked away from my children in the way that he has I would be prosecuted for neglect, how does he get to make that choice? I'm not saying I want to be how is he allowed to. He wanted these children, we planned for these children and god knows we and they went through hell to get to where we are. How can he just turn his back on that and neglect his responsibilities?

Something that I'm really struggling with is that both premature births, DD1s especially, had such an enormous impact on me and as much as I struggled, the one person who went through it too was always there right beside me. He was the one who sat next to me watching them in their incubators for hours at a time, he was the one who knew how difficult it was to change their nappies through portholes, he was the only other person who held DD1 in her first 9 weeks, he was the one who held my hand and cried with me when we were told she had sepsis and we just had to get through the next 24 hours. He was the one who woke up with me in the middle of the night and washed my breast pump and labelled my bottle of expressed milk. He was the one who went through it all with me, and now that he's no longer there it's like I did it alone and it's as though I can't confirm to myself that it happened the way it did because the one person who can confirm that isn't there to confirm that anymore. So am I actually going crazy? Did she really have a blood transfusion, or do I just think she did? Did she really have a brain bleed, or do I just think she did? I suddenly feel very alone in the trauma that I experienced.

This is the difference between relationships that break down because a couple have grown apart and those that break down because one of the people has an affair.

In the first scenario, relations gradually get worse over a period of time and when the end comes it's sad but also a relief and not unexpected. In the latter case, one person sods off suddenly whilst also blaming the other person and rewriting history. It's often completely unexpected and like dropping from fifth to first gear on the motorway.

I know it's hard but eventually you'll need to portion off your memories. The past is what you remember: you were together, united, strong. That hasn't changed. He might have behaved terribly now in the present but that doesn't mean you weren't once happy and secure. What I'm trying to say is that if you question the past it'll drive you mad. Accept it for what is was. It's only recently that he's changed into the shitbag he's become. It's what affairs do to people. They behave in ways that are totally out of character. This is who he is now. It isn't who he was.

I know it hurts so much and you are in about the darkest place you could imagine. But it will get better. Hold on to that fact. I hope you have some friends you can talk to and unburden the pain to. It will help.

Really struggling again. I don't know what to do to make this easier.

Keep talking, let it out, cry, shout, scream. Whatever you need to do. And then just carry on. One step after the other. It will get easier. I am 7 months on - slightly different scenario and no dc - and whilst I still struggle and feel low, I am a hell of a lot stronger than I was at first. Try to distract yourself from the thoughts and the analysing. Try to put your head into the here and now.

It's still such early days. This isn't going to get better for a while.... even then it will become easier not better.
I wish I could take it away from you. Please stay strong. Yes all those things happened with your lovely daughter but he has chosen to do this to you and them. The shared history you have: I really don't want to say what I really think as I think you don't need anymore body blows but he is undeserving of you all. And has done nothing to make me think he wants to rectify things.
Sending hugs x

Hope you are resting now. Continuing to think of you and your family.

How are you doing op?

Still rooting for you!

You can't really do anything to make it better unfortunately.
Just love and support and time will get you through this utterly horrible stage.
Just keep putting one foot in front of the other for now.
There will probably be a day this week where you feel much stronger.
And then maybe 2 days next week etc....
But time.... give yourself time.
You will get there!!!

I'm not doing so well. I really don't want this to be over. I feel so overwhelmed by sadness and so completely lost. What did I do to deserve this? For the past three years all I've experienced is sadness and trauma. Why do I have to go through this? I'm not sure if I can get through this. It's just too much.

I mean this kindly.....
It's not too much. You have to dig deep and start being angry. Wallowing over. Everyone has their fair share of misery and upset but it's how you deal with this that will shape you and your daughters. If I listed to you everything I had going on/ or that has happened to me you would be shocked.
I refuse to be beaten though. You need to start fighting back instead of letting this own you. For every bodies sake.
I am sending hugs and strength. You can do this. Xxx

I know it's feels like you are drowning now. But you must do what you need to to get through, for yourself and for the girls. They need you. And you owe it to yourself not to succumb to this.

Just dropping by to say you can do it OP, I know you can. Look how strong you've been throughout your life already. You've got it in you.

I really don't want this to be over
Well then that's something you really need to think through.
It doesn't have to be over.
Think about your future from both sides.
You take him back, how does that look?
Will you ever trust him again?
How will that impact on your mental health?
You don't take him back, how does that look?
You may well have options here so think them all through.
Then once you've made a decision about what YOU want work towards that end goal.

You will get through it either way.
You have your family and your girls and you will, I promise you, get through it. It just doesn't feel like it right now.

You do realise that if he came back, you would never have the same relationship.....every text he got/phone call, you'd wonder who. If he went out, you'd wonder where. If he's late back from work, where's he been.....once that trust has gone OP, trust me, it's gone forever. You would end up completely destroying your own lives and those of your children. I think you need to write him a letter, say you're struggling to cope with all of this and need time and space from him. He can see the children on sunday afternoon for 2-3 hours but any more than that is out of the question as they are too unsettled and too little. You have to toughen up and protect the space around you and the children. His feelings became irrelevant the moment he cheated on you. And not just you, your children. Block any contact other than by phone, and stop letting him fuck with your head like he is. This is about you and your kids, not him. I say all this because my dad left my mum for another woman but he wanted the best of both worlds and kept my mum dangling on a string for years with his messing. It was horrid to see, and I've never fully forgiven him. It took years for her to see what he was doing, by which time he'd destroyed all of her confidence and she ended up having a nervous breakdown. In truth I hated them both for many years for their behaviour - him for doing it, and her for letting him. Be a mum that your children are proud of, you know you can do it.

How are you tonight?

The thing is I know all of that about if I could trust him and what I'd think about his phone going off and how I'd be about where he is. I'm not stupid, I do know there would be a lot to overcome. I'm not sure that I or we could overcome it but that's the point, at the moment I'm not sure. I don't feel adamant that I couldn't and I don't feel adamant that I could. We had the most reasonable conversation we've had the other day and he said how sorry he is for hurting me, he hates himself for what he's done and he also doesn't know what he thinks, what he feels or what he wants. We've agreed to agree nothing and just carry on with time apart and keep talking.

Both girls slept badly the night before last and took forever to settle last night. I really felt the strain.