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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

How can I have been so stupid

568 replies

Fuzzywig1 · 16/02/2018 08:40

I am in a terrible terrible mess and it is all my own fault.

This is long sorry.

Before I post please can I say that anything nasty or mean you say to me I have said to myself and it is not why I am here

I have been married for 21 years to a kind and gentle but emotionally distant man. I know he loves me but he does not find it easy to be vulnerable and show it in some ways. I am very warm and physically affectionate and he is not or not consistently meaning I often would feel lonely. Sex was also always on his terms and less than I wanted.

30 years ago I had an 18 month relationship with who I thought was ‘the one’ . Yes I was very young 22 and he was even younger (19). Anyway after a very very passionate relationship he went off to drama school and decided to leave me. I was heartbroken and never forgot him and never trusted that sort of passion again.

2 years ago and out of the blue an email arrived saying he had seen me at my sons football training. We started emailing agreed to meet ( I told my husband about this first meeting) blah blah yes we started an affair.

From the beginning he told me he always loved me but buried the feelings deep he wants us to be together we are twin souls. He left his wife and now lives on his own.

I did not ask him to do this by the way

I feel somehow enchanted by him and that I lose my reason ....

I have told my husband I want to get divorced but he cannot believe it and says we have always had a lovely and sweet relationship

Eventually he found out and now I am in an awful impasse.

The om said he does not want to put pressure on me but his moving out made its own guilt and pressure. His constant emailing showering of love and gifts etc have made me stupid.

My husband seems to just want to carry on as if nothing has happened and that I’m the end I will ‘cone Back to him’.

Over and over every day I change my mind about what to do. What will cause the least harm.

I have two lovely children aged 13 and 9 and I cannot bear the thought of hurting them. I have already hurt them by being distant from their father and sleeping separately from him.

I think I have now got to the point of knowing that I cannot do this. It is wrong, I have been deluded Abd stupid.

But I am now scared to tell the om who has changed his life for me and will be devastated

This email sounds so stupid.

I don’t think people would believe this of me.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 22/02/2018 16:53

i have a terrible urge to email.

I am not going to.

OP posts:
NK1cf53daaX127805d4fd5 · 22/02/2018 17:12

Leave him alone. He is respecting your wishes. Keep concentrating on your own family and read up on addiction because you are now going cold turkey.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 22/02/2018 17:22

the fact he is respecting my wishes has actually meant i am now thinking he is a 'better' man if you see what i mean

OP posts:
springydaff · 22/02/2018 17:24

Well you know he isn't, it is likely yet another manipulation. It's working, isn't it? Hmm

NK1cf53daaX127805d4fd5 · 22/02/2018 17:26

What does it matter what type of man he is. He has done what you asked so you need to move on and concentrate on breaking the addiction

BishBoshBashBop · 22/02/2018 17:32

Sounds to me like you are trying to justify continuing your affair.

mummmy2017 · 22/02/2018 17:51

He's got you hooked on the fact something is happening in your life and it;s like a drug.
Each time you go to send him anything or call sit and this of how this will wreck your life and only give you a few moments of high, and years of pain.

NK1cf53daaX127805d4fd5 · 22/02/2018 18:00

I'm actually beginning to feel a bit sorry for OM as well as your DH.

Guardsman18 · 22/02/2018 18:39

Oh love. Please don't contact him. Springydaffs and mummmy know the pain it will cause.

Trust them, please? x

springydaff · 22/02/2018 21:09

I was thinking about you earlier. I had to say goodbye to a very weird group of people and duly sent the text (not appropriate to do it f2f). I felt so guilty! I felt so sad! I cent so sorry for them!

My insane feelings are wildly off the mark, much much more to do with me than them. They doesn't even mean that much to me.

When you get the time look into codependence? Sorry about this but is fucked up sorts have a lot of this stuff rumbling around.

springydaff · 22/02/2018 21:10

He is poison to you and your family.

That first picking up is the disaster - you can't dabble and be OK.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 23/02/2018 07:10

I didn’t contact him.

I won’t.

I know it is bad for me and for him.

I expect he will not contact me for a while and then he will out of the blue with a litany of how bad he feels and how us being apart is a crime against the universe.

When I am with h I feel so happy and calm and relieved (and guilty) but I feel this sort of hysterical bonding where I just want to be with him all the time and panic when I am not.

I will be strong

Xxxx

OP posts:
springydaff · 23/02/2018 07:44

Well, do it a day at a time. don't look ahead, look to today/this hour/minute.

There's a long-running NC thread on here, on its 6th incarnation. That may be a help.

All this 'I'll die if I can't have him' - it's not real y'know? Pretty convincing but really not the thing at all.

wishing you this passes sooner rather than later. Do you pray? Doesn't have to be a religious belief but a belief in a power for good, or for love, kindness.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 23/02/2018 10:52

Well i am feeling much much better today . I realised that the reason I found yesterday so hard is because i was in the other office and when i was there he would come and stay with me. (I know this is not nice).

anyway this morning I took all his gifts to the charity shop. I chose Mind as i thought it was appropriate! seeing as my mind has been truly a mess these last 2 years.

I said to the lady this is your lucky day as the things were so epxensive. An unworn pair of Louboutin shoes, £500 sunglasses etc. She said what is all this and i said gifts from a bad man who tried to lure me away from my family. Anyway she was very sweet to me and gave me a hug and told me she had been in a very similar position herself.

As had my beauty therapist.

It will pass I am sure.

No i dont pray - i was brought up very strict Catholic but now I dont believe in anything really. Apart from human kindness.

we are going to therapy together this afternoon but my h is scared of it a bit...

OP posts:
Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 23/02/2018 10:53

Thank you so mcuh to all of you who have been so kind and supportive. It has really helped me

OP posts:
IrianOfW · 23/02/2018 12:03

Well done Fuzzy xx

Guardsman18 · 23/02/2018 12:33

I hope therapy goes well for you both.

Just think where you were this time last Friday and congratulate yourself on what you've achieved.

You probably feel as if you have a gaping hole in your middle, but it will ease if you look after yourself and give yourself time.

Post on here if ever you feel you need/want to xx

WhatWouldOliviaPopeDo · 23/02/2018 12:48

You're doing so well OP. You should make some time to read back over this thread because you have come so far in such a short space of time. Good luck with the therapy, it's great your H is doing it too. He's probably scared because he's worried your marriage is beyond repair but it sounds very much like the opposite right now. Smile

FantasticButtocks · 23/02/2018 16:42

Hope your therapy today was helpful Flowers

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 24/02/2018 09:06

Oh dear it really wasn’t. It was awful. The guy just wanted us to talk about what was wrong in our marriage and h said he felt like it was an attack on him. Which it wasn’t but to be honest I think right now what we need is to see what is good about us not dwell on issues

I know the issues need to be addressed but right now we need positive things not negativity

We went for a glass of champagne together after the therapy in a hotel but I don’t think that was right either.. it isn’t really who we are.

I think we need to do things that we used to really like together eg going for walks and talking

We have talked and talked today and we are feeling better

I still keep getting sort of panic feelings and nausea though. And find it hard to get OM out of head. And to remind myself of WHY I ended it with him and WHO he really is which is not some ideal lover but a selfish person who did not care how much pain he caused me he just wanted me and did everything he could to get me

OP posts:
Zaphodsotherhead · 24/02/2018 09:12

Are you maybe contrasting this 'ideal man' (wanting you, trying everything to get you) with your confused upset husband and finding your husband a bit...lacking? It's understandable, after a whirlwind of high emotions, flattery and gift buying,, a man you've been with for years is never going to measure up!

BUT. Your imaginary man is just that. It's easy to get carried away with the lovebombing and the talking and the secrecy, it's an addiction. You're right, you and your husband need to get back to who you were when you met, do some 'normal' things. Ground yourself. Love really isn't grand gestures and talk, it's a cup of tea and your favourite programme on and a smile. Anyone can fake it for a while, but your marriage has lasted for years...

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 24/02/2018 09:52

Yes we do. We are having some time together in our own tomorrow

We will go for a walk and maybe for lunch

OP posts:
TatianaLarina · 24/02/2018 10:32

If it was Relate they don’t have that much training. 10 weekends a year for 3 years. Compared to 7 years proper training to become a psychotherapist.

Also the Relate orthodoxy is that if an affair happens there’s something wrong with the relationship. In this case it’s true, but often it’s not. In all cases that’s hard for the betrayed party to hear so I don’t know how much good it does.

I think your instincts are right that you need to focus on the positive with your DH. Maybe look around for a different therapist.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 24/02/2018 11:38

I think we should yes

It wasn’t relate he is a very experienced psychotherapist but it just made us both feel very negative which is not good at all

I’ve also had a deep look at myself and my motivation and realised some things that I have hidden from because they are painful and to do with abusive father and mother

OP posts:
AcrossthePond55 · 24/02/2018 14:42

I've mentioned before, it took DH and I tried three counselors before we found the right one on the third try. DH and I agreed to three visits with a counselor before we said 'yea or nay' to them.

BUT you must work on the flaws in a marriage from the 'get go'. You can't rebuild what is good without fixing what is bad first. Think about it. If you were to 're-do' a house the first thing you do is fix the foundation, not 'touch up' the paint on the walls. That's not to say that a session should be 100% a 'bitch session' against either of you. But there has to be some 'bad' with the 'good'.

Your H has some work to do on himself, no? So do you. One can't do the work if one doesn't acknowledge the problems. Your H, I think, doesn't truly want to accept his responsibility in the breakdown of your marriage. He'd rather just patch up his parts in it as opposed to truly making a 'heart change.. I think you may be more willing to really dig in to your issues that need changing.

DH and my issues were very different to yours, mainly parenting styles and lack of communication skills, and we were in counseling for around 18 months. Counseling doesn't work overnight. It's a long slog but very worth it if you can fix things.

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