Discovered affair led to suicide

[omg12345]

Hi I posted on here awhile back about discovering my husbands affair. Long story short it was a huge bombshell as I believed we were a happily married couple with kids. No financial problems, beautiful house and we seem happy enough except for the odd little argument. When I discovered about the affair I left with the kids. He was really upset so I met him later that evening and I told him I would need him to start being totally honest about everything if our marriage had any chance of surviving.I said I would need to look at all his phone bill so I could get facts of what was going on. Later that night my husband died my suicide, leaving a wife and kids. There are no words to explain what we have suffered since. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this. It's hard to believe he could throw it all away

No other family suicides but apparently he had tried it before we met which I never knew about. Only found out cause some kind man felt I should know. Apparently a lot of people knew about it. Hard to believe he kept it from me. I don't doubt he wasn't happy or didn't love me. I say him to leave house when I found out about affair but he said he couldn't cope with us separating

Sorry for your loss.

When did this happen? Have you had any help to deal with your loss?

My cousin did this after his affair was found out, he hung himself at home knowing the first people in the house would be the dc coming in from school. Will be 15 years this year and the anger and pity still hits in equal measures.

But omg, none of this was ever your fault, please try to always remember that.

I'm conscious of outing myself but it was less than a year. I haven't had much guilt as I know I did nothing wrong. He was my best friend and I really loved him. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened but I know I must accept I will not get answers to some questions. I think he believed he would never get caught and then couldn't face the consequences or the feelings when he was.

Mu123. That's terrible, how did the kids cope. Had he a mental history

It has not been long since it happened for you all then.How many previous attempts had he made? Had he received any help after the previous attempt/attempts? How many years had you been together?

I'm so sorry omg. Can I just say, no matter what you did, after his affair was discovered, he would probably still have done this. No matter what you say or do, if someone really wants to take their own life they will. The night I tried to take my own life, it was as if my mind broke. I couldn't think about how it would affect others, including my darling husband who I adored. As far as I was concerned, in my broken state, nothing existed but my pain.

When I recovered I felt guilty for years as my poor husband, wrongly, blamed himself. He could have said/done nothing that would have prevented me from trying, as I said earlier. The strange thing was, my life was better, at that time, than it had ever been.

You would never have been able to 'save' him, as he was determined to go. I'm so sorry omg. Please, please know that he, most likely, was just thinking of the release from his pain, which was most likely nothing to do with what had happened, but more to do with a deeper issue. It would not have been directed at you, or because of you. 🌹

No, no past history other than being unable to keep his dick in his pants. What you said about not being caught and the consequences sums up exactly my cousin. Kids are ok now I guess, both now parents and very much family orientated so while v damaged tweens/teens, have came out it ok. The older ds, not so much, hes his fathers son...

Are some of your feelings about control - or rather, your lack of it? Because when you look back on it, he took all the control for himself.

Every time he came home and played happy families, he was lying to control you into believing that you had a strong and secure relationship.

And then when you found out, you had no say in how you moved forward. You didn't get chance to think about how you wanted to react, whether you wanted to take him back and on what terms. Instead he controlled the outcome by taking his life.

Perhaps now is a time to start thinking about your future. I don't mean that callously, but while you are suffering in turmoil he is still controlling you. Grieve for him, but look to the rest of your life being about you and the children.

Oh omg I remember you and I've thought about you often

None of this is your fault. Not a single smidgen. There was no way of knowing he'd do this.

It's important to let yourself feel whatever it is you feel- be that anger or sadness or disbelief.

Wish there was something- anything- I could do to help xx

A boyfriend years ago committed suicide. It's coloured m whole life. He thought I was having an affair. I wasn't. I was working two jobs (a day job and a night job) to pay for everything because he was too lazy to turn up to his job. He was controlling, paranoid, a stalker.

I felt so much anger for him I couldn't believe it. Plus relief because to be honest, I couldn't see a way out of the relationship as he was starting to scare me. Of course, those feelings brought lots of guilt too for feeling so mean about him.

He had tried it before with a previous partner when things weren't going his way.

I found out who my friends were in the aftermath. Not as many as I'd thought!

What a mess .

You will be going through a lot of turmoil. Please seek counselling if you haven't already. I didn't but wish I had. I swallowed all the pain and just kept on going. Without a family to support me, I had little choice really. I believe it has at least contributed to my autoimmune illness. I believe that really deeply. It certainly stopped me caring about looking after myself for a long time.

Oh my goodness, how I've gone on. I've never posted any of this before. Sorry for hijacking thread.

It sounds like your husband just couldn't face up to things. Affairs,, suicide - it's all escapism or running away isn't it? Except you are here and having to cope with the lot, including your poor children.

If you want to PM me, please do. I will help you in any way I can.

You are in my thoughts. It's a horrible, cruel, painful thing to go through.

If the Internet had been around for me back then, it would have helped me so, so much.

We are here for you, OP. xx

Another effect it's had on me is it's kept me in other abusive relationships because I am scared if I stand up for myself or leave it will happen again. Not that I had split up with the boyfriend who killed himself. He just did it out of the blue after we'd gone through a time of him accusing me falsely.

OP: it wasn't your fault. It was his choice to have an affair and then take his life. I imagine you have been through the whole range of emotions. Perhaps he was in a terrible place even before the affair.

My uncle did a similar thing. He was a "sex addict" and during his marriage to my aunt had multiple affairs which she knew about including many trips to the STI clinic. She suffered in silence for years and knew that she needed to show her boys it was not a normal relationship and she kicked him out. At the time he was shaggin her best friend. She supported him, got the flat sorted for him and was still present in his life. He recorded himself after taking an overdose, wrote letters to everyone he felt had wronged him over the years. He killed himself with medication my dying aunt had left over from when she was dying of cancer he said he would return to the pharmacy several years earlier but had saved. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision.

My cousins have turned out to be strapping young men, beautifully respectful tho their girlfriends with a great relationship with their mum. What I find wonderful about my aunt is she doing hold any blame or guilt. Not one little part. It took her a while to get to this point and the following years were horrendous, but she is now in a good place.

I guess all I can say is talk it out, have counselling, and empty the blame from your head. His actions, both having the affair and his decision to end his life. I bet he had thought about it many times before.

I am sorry you have to go through this

No one who commits suicide is mentally well.

Disagree with this and it is not borne out by research either.

I think thinking about his suffering with mental illness is a dangerous thing to suggest for you too @Omg12345.

He made a choice to solve his difficulties by suicide. It does not mean he was mentally unwell, or that you could have noticed or done something differently. He made that choice and it is OK for you to feel whatever you do feel about it.

No one who commits suicide is mentally well.
Disagree with this and it is not borne out by research either

Of course, it can happen that a mentally well person commits suicide for a rational reason but it is extremely rare. Examples would be where they are going to face a trial and death penalty or debilitating disease.

Suicide of this type is rarely for "a reason". No one commits suicide rationally because of an affair. This is a sign of mental health issues and severe depression. Reactive depression (to an event - like bereavement or a dumping) is very rarely severe enough to lead to suicide as opposed to clinical depression (not caused by an event)

It's a side issue that I don't really want to derail the thread but TBH there is some good evidence that we don't actually know much about the link between suicide and mental health problems and that we shouldn't categorise suicide specifically as a mental health issue.

It is not coping and not seeing a way out other than suicide that can be reliably linked to suicide also not having feelings of responsibility towards others.

Someone may be irrational for many reasons without being mentally unwell - beliefs, experiences etc Someone may be rational about their suicide for reasons other than being condemned to death or terminal illness or in situations that most people would find they were able to cope. People may not be able to cope with things that others can. There are so many people with mental health problems that do not commit suicide and inquests usually do the same as on this thread and diagnose depression etc simply by reason of suicide.

Rational suicide is a thing in itself but equally an objectively irrational suicide may have been subjectively rational without there being any mental illness.

The reason I was trying to make that point to the OP though was because when something out of our control happens and it affects us in a big way it is human nature to pick over the scab and find ourselves to blame. Saying he must have been mentally unwell could lead to all sorts of completely unjustified self-blame.

Offred you are right. We don't know at all that there is always a direct link between mental health problems and suicide. We do know that there are more at risk groups, those just leaving psychiatric hospital, prison, men and others. Speculation about why won't help.

We do know that having lost someone from suicide has a huge impact and OP please I do hope that you are looking after yourself. You and your children are coping with one of the biggest traumas there is.

OP I just wanted to offer all my support and many hugs

I have had at least two people / relatives die through suicide and it's so hard.

My Ex cheated on me, he always held himselves up as a 'good man' and he really was in many ways, and was always 'in control', very highly thought of. So when I found out he cheated he told me thar for the first time in his life he had felt suicidal, through shame and the sheer fear that his controlled and happy world was going to come tumbling down around him. I think he also could not cope with me having this knowledge of him, and still finds it hard now.

I do think that knowing he was suicidal for a time made me think much more about him than me or our children, which was not healthy for me at all. I forgave him and went back to looking after his needs and not mine. I immediately felt for him. However the damage was to me and I'm still trying to cope with the feelings of being betrayed and lied to.

You must have not just his death but your feelings about his affair that were stopped in their tracks - yet will still have an impact. It's now 4 years later but I"m still processing those negative feelings that being betrayed had on me - so I do hope you are able to feel anything without feeling disloyal yourself. If you need to be angry, be angry, it won't be a betrayal to your husbands memory or of the good times. It takes a long time to pull these feelings together.

Sorry about the grammar!...