So - let's just start with the fact that despite having been on mn for ages, and read all the posts that sound very much like this one I'm about to write, I just somehow thought that I would be different. And I'm in the same shitty place as all those other women who thought their dh would never, in a million years, act like the other douchebags...
And even worse, I am 20 months into a separation and am only just now beginning to accept the situation. I am just in such pain and part of it is because I have been hoping all along that stbxh was just having a mid life crisis and would come to his senses before the plug was actually pulled. But I was wrong in a thousand ways.
Stbxh has been noticeably unhappy for about the past three years, since I turned 50. I knew this but he had been miserable for at least the 8 years before that - depressed at the failure of a business; I took on a counselling sort of role and we limped along for a bit. I knew he wasn't happy but assumed it was with his life, which was not going the way he wanted it to. I thought it was a rough patch we were going through - busy with the children and the demands of jobs etc. I was hoping that with DD off to uni and DS starting college we would have a bit more time together to concentrate more on the relationship and could come closer together again.
Because when we first met I just fell so deeply in love, it felt so magical, and I have been trying all this time to get it back to that. I'm not mourning the relationship as it was in the past few years, but it's so hard to let go of the memory of how it was when it started. I couldn't even begin to count up the number of self-help books and websites and mantras I've taken on and I know that 'the man I'm divorcing is not the man I married' - that's because the man I married would not have had an utterly predictable affair with a woman ten years younger than me and then lied all about it, the whole time, avoiding having sex with me because of his ED but taking Viagra to be with her, would not have cried about the therapy he was having that he said was all about the silly mistakes that he made that should never have broken our marriage up (but were all about how he wanted to be with her - ironically she broke it off with him because she caught him in a lie, and he has been obsessed with getting her back while telling me he wanted to change). He would not have been telling me that he thought he would regret breaking the marriage up somewhere down the line, telling me about his counselling, and all the while obsessing about one other woman and sexting yet another one...
I feel like a fool but I so wanted to believe him and to believe in him. On the weekend I found out as much of the truth, finally, as I needed to know to accept that this has been a lie for years and that any intimations of regret were just to keep me from causing a fuss. But I am so mourning the loss of my family and of that man who I now know was a fantasy - and how do you mourn a fantasy without feeling like an idiot?
Tonight we had the first discussion that was based on any kind of truth. As soon as I found out about the affair he drove the 80 miles to where she lives (where we used to live, when it started, I suppose) and told me he'd only be back if she didn't accept him back. I was here looking after our son (he is normally the resident parent) and there was no comeback to that. He stayed out; I imagine he told her he'd finally told me about them (though in fact I found out and confronted him, I don't know how long it would have taken otherwise). Since then he has been to the bank to try to close the joint account, appointed a solicitor, and talked to his work about taking early retirement so he can move to be with her.
We've been married for almost 20 years. Our son has 18 months of college left; I would have stayed but got the chance of a funded study position elsewhere, stbxh was working locally, and so we decided he would be the one in the house looking after our son and I would move. Now stbxh is saying his mental state is precarious and he is not sure how he will cope staying in the area for 18 months. If I have to move back to look after our son during his A-levels I will have to do it but it will impact very negatively on my studies, perhaps funding, etc.
If I'd known about the affair from the beginning I would have thought twice about taking the funded position. So many things could have been more sensibly worked through. But the lies have not only caused me to wonder if there was hope for our relationship; they have meant I have missed time waiting for him to 'come to his senses' when I could have been moving on. I could have been preparing the DCs better instead of trying to keep everybody happy by playing happy families. I could have come to terms with much sooner with who it was I actually married instead of the fantasy man I thought I had. The lies have turned me into a crazy person, trying to fit information that only half fit into stories that I tried to believe in.
I know I'm an idiot but that's what lies do to you. I'm just looking for some hand holding I guess, and people to tell me it gets better and people can learn to trust again.