He had an affair...breaking out the Ben & Jerry's (2)

[Syc4moreTrees]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/thirty_days_only/2914533-If-hes-having-an-affair?

Not sure if I've managed to create a link to the old thread...someone more tech savvy can maybe help me out a little bit if not?

The old thread closed before i could thank you all again for all the collective wisdom, it's been a very surreal month to say the least, but it's been crazy how much support you can get from a bunch of lovely strangers.

So thanks!! You're all awesome!

How lovely for him that he has found a counsellor who has come up with a convenient if batshit excuse.

OP find your considerable strength and get him into his own place now. Otherwise he will do your head in when you are feeling hormonal and vulnerable with the baby. Tell him you will make a decision about the marriage when the baby is six months old or sleeping through!

I stayed. He cried, swore it was a massive mistake, did all the right things. A once off insanity. Like you, we'd been together since teens. He was my best friend.
I worked really, really hard to try and save the marriage and to try to trust him again.
It was bloody hard. And I too, like others on this thread, told people we'd worked it though and come out stronger.
I always believed strongly that marriage was for better or worse and that it wasn't easy.
And every time he was late or was out without me, I wondered.
And I was right to wonder.
Ten years later he did it again except he got better at hiding the evidence the next time.
And by the time he did slip up and I found out the truth I was an absolute emotional wreck from years of lies and my self esteem was in the toilet.
Of course, I got the same thing the second time too. Crying, begging, saying he'd do anything. He even threw up when I confronted him.
In hindsight, I believe he did believe he loved me, and was beating himself up over his "mistakes".
I don't believe he is a fundamentally bad man, but he is a weak one and ultimately what he wanted would always trump what was best for me and the DC.
Syc4more I'm not going to say LTB because not all circumstances are the same but your marriage can't be 'fixed'. It might go on but it'd be a very different shape to what it was before.
Either way, he really needs to respect your space and rent another place. You don't need him putting pressure on you along with the stress of new baby and moving house.
If he's serious about saving your marriage, he'll still be serious in six months when you've had time to process.

Too much time together? How convenient indeed. Now when he worms his way back in to way things were before, he has an excuse ready for his alone time with his game hobby and the people there.

I'd like to know what he told the counsellor for that to be her response! Assuming the counsellor isn't completely incompetent, he must have told her something that prompted that response.

I don't think I'd be basing any changes on what his counsellor tells him in isolation. I'd want to wait until we could attend sessions together so I could hear what he was saying and what the advice was from the horses mouth. Even more reason to keep the living arrangements seperate for now.

Plus, I can't help but think (given that the counsellor has said you spent too much time together) he needs to understand what it means to be alone, properly alone, day after day. I think there can be a tendency amount those who meet very young to stop appreciating the benefits being in a partnership brings into life, simply because they have always had those benefits.

I can't see any viable marriage guidance counceller saying you need time apart.

I would take everything he says about councelling with a pinch of salt.. not only that it often takes months of councelling to get past the superficial issues and to the deeper stuff.

Trees you continue to be so amazingly strong and your humour comes shining through ... no idea how you manage it but I'm in awe of you.

I can also feel how conflicted you are. I think I would feel the safest plan was a 6 month rental for him. And he needs to wise up and tell the DC he hurt you considerably and not just say it's up to Mummy when he can come home ... that is twattish.

Hope all goes well with your birth and everyone is healthy.

I smell bullshit.

If his counsellor really said that I'll eat my hat.

He's going to use that as a reason to do his own thing and carry on gaming/whatever else takes his fancy.

Be careful op. I have a horrible feeling he's playing you big time here.

I highly doubt his counsellor said that!!! He is still bloody lying too you syc and trying to lay some blame on you.

I'm sorry I change my mind get that fanny in his own flat asap he needs some of his own medicine. Show him how fecking untogether he can really be.

Get some joint counselling because he is getting off Scot free here and thinks he can say whatever he likes to manipulate you into his will. At least if you are both there you can see exactly what is being said. It won't be to much fucking togetherness that's for sure.

Christ il hit him over the head for you.

So he's using the counselling to confirm that he's not at fault - not that he's outright blaming you, y'know, but...
What an absolute twat.

Absolute rubbish. I would call his bluff and ask to join him for the next counselling session and see what advice is given then.

At this point I would almost be more angry about the minimising and blame-deflection than the original offence. You've broken my heart, don't insult my intelligence too

He is showing the he feels moving in with you at this stage will be a permanent foot in the door. He needs to take responsibility and rent a property and give you space to make your decisions in your own time. Sending you strength OP, you're doing amazing, even if, through your heavily pregnant weary fog you don't see it!!

'It was because you spent too much time together' said no marriage guidance counsellor ever-unless one of the parties had the other locked in a room somewhere...

I too would love to know what he said to prompt that response, if indeed it was actually given.

You have kids and work- how and when did this 'too much time' materialise? There are only 24 hours in a day, a fair proportion of which it seems he was online playing a game...enough to arrange to shag one of the other players so I'm assuming a fair bit of his available time...you also have to sleep,so is he including that time as being within the 'too much time' as well? Does he realise that when you are married it's customary to spend time with your spouse and you know, to want to do that?
I'm angry and disappointed with him on your behalf op.

I've been trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt but the more he deflects blame on to you and will not accept responsibility the less he seems to deserve it.He certainly doesn't deserve you, from what I've read here.

It's highly, highly unlikely that a trained counsellor would make a statement like that. It's more likely that a counsellor would reframe what he has said himself in different terms, to reflect it back at him.

Whether you get back together or separate, you will need processing time and space. It seems unfair that he is trying to shoehorn himself back into your physical space, which either forces you to act as the 'bad guy' in order to say no, or means you are compromising by letting him back into your life before you've thought about whether that's really what you want to do and worked on it together to see if it's possible.

I'd refuse. It'll be easier now than if you decide further down the line that the relationship isn't going to work for you. At least now you have the impetus of the terrible thing he did, right there in the background, right now.

If he's saving money by living with his parents, then he can certainly afford to rent some proper office space. There are lots of great coworking spaces in most cities where you can rent a secure office or desk on a rolling short contract.

I am just so angry on your behalf reading all this stuff, OP! He obviously wants things to go back to normal without having to make all the effort and put in the work to get there!

So yeah -- maybe that is roughly what he thinks, or how he's justifying the affair to himself. In which case you would definitely think that you both need the space in order to process everything and decide how to move ahead!

He's said he doesn't see a point in renting office space when we will have space in the new house. We picked somewhere that had a spare room big enough to house both our work spaces (too much togetherness?!). We were looking forward to sharing the space and he's talking about all our little plans for it a lot. It's actually a bit odd because he was bound to have to reduce his gaming at that point anyway, new baby and shared office would mean there wouldn't be time anyway.

He told me she emailed him last week to tell him she had emailed me. He says he didn't reply. He's been in touch with some other of his presumable male buddies from the online world via whatsapp rather than Line but says if they mention her he shuts the conversation down.

I think you are all correct that he just wants to get things back to normal as soon as possible, but i'm sort of coming round to the idea of asking him to rent someplace, and at least then if he's over helping with kids I can send him someplace else so he doesn't conveniently have to stay with me.

To those who have asked, I do believe he is genuinely sorry for hurting us, I think he's disappointed himself and his family have made it clear how they feel about his actions, which i know is hard for him because they are a very close family.

I have no plans to go to his counsellor, but am open to having discussions with him about what is happening there, he just seems to be a bit crap at explaining what the counsellor might mean when they say we have had too much togetherness etc.

If he wants to go back to being 15 and fancy free then more power to him, but it may have been a grass is greener sort of thing.

The reason he is crap at explaining what the counsellor said is because either she didn't say it or she said something that he has twisted in order to confirm his own opinions or wants. Or she has a Certificate of Armchair Psychology from the Online School of Woo.

He really thinks he has been "punished" enough and that you should just forget it and move on.
Actions have consequences and he just isn't making the right moves to reassure you that he is sorry, he believes he has a right to be moving into YOUR new home.
Please ask him to rent somewhere close by, let him live alone for a while to see what he has put at risk with his affair ( which would still be going on if you hadn't seen his laptop message). Living with his family hasn't given him a taste of reality and he needs to experience the life alone before he truely get it. That living alone is is "reward" for cheating on you.

I hope you are trying to rest up OP

OP you are doing amazing.

If I were you I would ask him to rent somewhere for six months as it will give you both breathing space.

Explain to the kids that when you move house Daddy will move into a different one for a while but still see them regularly.

Let him be at the birth and as hands on as possible once the baby is born, you need the help and support.

I think there's a good chance with counselling you may get past this and have a future together.

The very best of luck with the house move, baby and whatever the future holds X

I hope he told you she had been in contact via email immediately and didn't wait for you to bring it up.
Agree with others no way would a therapist state you spent too much time together, plus with children work and busy lives it would be nigh on impossible.

He's said he doesn't see a point in renting office space when we will have space in the new house

That was before you found out about the affair. Things have changed.

It sounds as if he wants to make all the ground rules here, he's not giving any consideration to you, how you feel or taking any responsibility. He just wants to move on, brush it under the carpet.

You decide what happens now. If you want him to give you space, he gives you space. And if he disagrees I would question why.

when we will have space
WOW! No... you will have space in YOUR new house.
HE will have to find his own space.
Blimey he's an entitled twat.

Head => desk

Trees he still doesn't bloody get it

What's this "we" business? What actual fucking planet is he on??

Sorry but I'm absolutely fucking fuming for you. The guy is an absolute fucknugget who is just so ridiculously selfish that he doesn't care about the amount of hurt he has caused, as long as he's ok that's all that matters

He's in this situation because he made it, no other reason and I think you need at least 6 months apart here for you both to be able to heal, deal and move on. The marriage you had has gone forever, you need to know whether or not you can trust enough in the future and he also needs to make changes that tbh so far, he's not showing much evidence of. His "poor little hurt me" isn't going to get him anywhere right now, and I think you need to be very careful of letting him get his feet back under the table when baby arrives and nothing really being dealt with. It's horrendous for you to be dealing with, but from your posts he's thinking of no one here but himself and disguising it as "being able to help" more..............

Am I right that you're buying the new house in your sole name? Even if 'D'H isn't on the deeds, he could claim an interest in the property if he is living and working there.

You are not responsible for providing him with a place of work. He doesn't have to live with you to help you take care of your children up to the summer.

Sending you lots of strength and xx