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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

Help! Unbelievable reaction from DH?

103 replies

WishfulWanderer · 08/03/2018 10:40

Been with DH 15 yrs. Eight years ago after a close family member died I felt very let down by him, he decided to take a month long trip with his pals, I was grief stricken, he didn't think there was anything wrong in leaving me alone. I had a friendly neighbour who was a listening ear, and Simone DH was familiar with. For a very brief period of a week I thought I'd developed feelings for this man, and became flirtatious towards him, then realised how wrong it was and stopped communicating with him. About 9 months later DH for unknown reason opened my old phone bills to discover I'd messaged the neighbour a lot in that week, but never again. He confronted me and I told the truth, he said he did not believe me and has ever since said he knows I slept with this man, which I did not. I was pregnant when he confronted me and he spent the rest of the pregnancy calling me a slag. He's brought it up many times over the years, and again now and it's 8 years on and has told me he will never believe me, claims he heard sex noises and laughter, which was mine, and also thinks I made an amateur porno with this guy and it's on the internet, though he's never produced it, but says he's seen it. I don't think I can stay married to someone who is not going to believe something so fundamental. I find his reaction unbelievable and don't think it helps us have a good relationship. He does not want a divorce just wants to carry on and try to forget about it.
I feel so tortured by it, it affects how I can be with him, I constantly find myself thinking this is a man who thinks I had sex with someone else and made a porno.
I have a job working with the public not even that helps him see I would never want to be in a porno.
It's weird I know.
What do you think?
Could you stay with someone who didn't believe you?
If he started believing you, would you stay? I think he might pretend he believes me in desperation but he wouldn't really, and I feel like the damage has been done by him accusing me and not believing me for 8 yrs.

OP posts:
TITANIUMPINS · 08/03/2018 11:32

I dont think any of us can know he has cheated but I think there is a limit to what you should be putting up with. Granted with 3 young children a decision to leave is the hardest option. Perhaps you could try counselling to try and resolve the issues he is having. Other than that as you said yourself the cycle repeats itself and thats no good for anyone and so something needs to be done.

Thebluedog · 08/03/2018 11:33

The guy is emotionally abusing you. He’s found something he can use and he’s making up stories that are more and more extreme.

He uses it, makes it horrendous then just as you are on the brink of leaving, he gets all apologetic and so the circle starts again.

You only get one life! Do you really want to spend another 8 years with someone who treats you like this ?

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 08/03/2018 11:34

He doesn't believe you cheated but he has found something that he can use to bully and control you and he has happily used it for the last 8 years.

He is not a nice person.

ThisLittleKitty · 08/03/2018 11:34

I don't think he's cheated. I'm reading it more as mental health issues. Saying he's seen an heard things he hasn't.

Original poster
WishfulWanderer · 08/03/2018 11:35

We have done 2 years of counselling and the therapist asked him to produce the porn vid week after week and he'd said he would bring it, but of course never did. So she told him he had to stop believing it if he didn't have the proof, he said he will never stop believing it and doesn't care that he can't produce the video. Yes the counsellor thought it was very strange.

OP posts:
greendale17 · 08/03/2018 11:36

Sounds to me like he’s trying to justify an affair of his own.

^Exactly what I was thinking

Nanny0gg · 08/03/2018 11:37

Oh please.

Just LTB.

Shoxfordian · 08/03/2018 11:37

Am I right in thinking you've recently made lots of posts about your relationship? If so then you really shld consider ending it

NameChange30 · 08/03/2018 11:37

He is abusive. You even referred to the cycle - that’s the cycle of abuse.

These are the signs of emotional abuse - I expect he does quite a few things on the list?

I suggest you get some real life support, call Women’s Aid, talk to a trusted friend or family member, and maybe read “Why does he do that?” by Lundy Bancroft.

And then LTB. Do it in your own time, do it safely, but do it.

imsickbutimpretty · 08/03/2018 11:39

Jesus OP he sounds vile.
I've never ever said this before in seriousness, but LTB!
That's mental abuse. You made a mistake, you were honest about it - why should you be mentally tortured and degraded about it by someone who is supposed to love and respect you?!

LagunaBubbles · 08/03/2018 11:39

You need to leave this abusive relationship.

NameChange30 · 08/03/2018 11:40

I see that you’ve started 9 threads about your relationship in the last month. Can I suggest that you stick to one thread, then it will be a lot easier for people to understand the whole picture and advise you.

TheJoyOfSox · 08/03/2018 11:41

Oh my! Your life sounds exactly like mine was. I was so brainwashed, I thought I was in a ‘normal’ relationship. Then I don’t know what clicked, but I made up my mind on 1st January 2000 that I was not going to be punished any more.
I had to explain where I spent every moment whilst I was out, where literally every penny I spent had been spent, I had to ask permission to go out with friends etc. And was constantly accused of cheating.

In the end I left, yes life was bloody tough but I really could say “I’m poor but I’m happy” when I remarried, something I swore I’d never do, I found I had the loveliest husband ever. He trusts me, he encourages me to go out with friends and he thinks I’m weird when I start explaining what I’ve spent money on, because he is a lovely, loving, normal man.

You are in a toxic relationship, it’s very hard to see just how bad it is, until you are looking from somewhere other than inside. Oh, and my exH, he moved his new gf in the month after I moved out, he’d been having an affair for years too. I didn’t see that coming because I was too busy trying to be ‘a good wife’ I didn’t realise he was a crappy husband.

MistressDeeCee · 08/03/2018 11:41

Oh honestly. I'd have fucked him off out of my life years ago, in your shoes. He wasn't even there when you needed him & now he's chatting shit.

What do you need him for? The man's a pest. There is no redeeming feature of him in your post at all. Do you want years of misery with his whinging and disrespect in your ears? Setting yourself up for a blighted old age with him - for what, exactly? Theres no prize for being a martyr. Ruined mental health doesn't count.

Although I reckon he'll have bailed out on you long before you get to old age stage anyway.

He's justa man he's not a God. He's not the decider of your destiny. Do yourself a favor, get him out of your life and enjoy peace, and freedom from his nonsense. Start to live

8 years! My God.. I suppose he's "nice sometimes" and that 'makes up for it?'. It doesn't. It really, really does not.

BitOutOfPractice · 08/03/2018 11:43

A couple of things spring out at me.

He's projecting. He's had an affair?
He sounds horrible. Why would you want to be married to him?

SilentEm564 · 08/03/2018 11:44

Just a thought, could it be that the neighbour has been mouthing off to someone and your DH got wind of it? Maybe he was bragging about having produced a porn vid (might not even have mentioned who with and DH got the wrong end of the stick)? Would that be a possibility at all?

Ormally · 08/03/2018 11:45

He won't trust you whatever you have tried to say, or move beyond talking to you as if you are unfaithful and it's 'you' fanning the flames of what he thinks.

You know it affects how you are with him and feel as if he's ok to bully and goad you about this over many years, to ever more incomprehensible levels. He is in fact digging in rich clods of guilt to your period of grieving, which is quite sickening. Nobody can predict quite how they will be when they grieve, or for how long.

Even if it hurts and gets nastier, I think you have to consider leaving and drawing a final line, not trying to placate or fit in with this story. You have a much better one to write, Wishful.

amusedbush · 08/03/2018 11:45

Why have you put up with this for 8 years? And even had more children with this awful, abusive prick?

HobnobBob · 08/03/2018 11:46

You’ve written a lot of threads about this poor excuse of a man. You need to leave him.

RubyRed2017 · 08/03/2018 11:47

"We have done 2 years of counselling and the therapist asked him to produce the porn vid week after week and he'd said he would bring it, but of course never did. So she told him he had to stop believing it if he didn't have the proof, he said he will never stop believing it and doesn't care that he can't produce the video. Yes the counsellor thought it was very strange"

I despair of marriage counselling. It is blindingly obvious that he has invented this story as a way of punishing you and abusing you- for 8 years!! Do marriage counsellors really not recognise obvious emotional abuse and bullying when it is laid in front of them?
OP you will never get this man to change. You need to leave this relationship for your own sanity.

TITANIUMPINS · 08/03/2018 11:47

Oh I just read that you have had 2 years of counselling and nothing has changed. In that case i think deep down you know the answer. You cannot continue in that kind of abusive relationship. Just think when the kids get older and start to understand more of what they see and hear. Very sorry for your situation though OP.

JaneEyre70 · 08/03/2018 11:48

You've lived with this for 8 years?? How?? Please please please do something about it - you can't expose your kids to this continual abuse and don't think they don't know about it. They will. And you will look worse to them than him, as you allow him to do it.

ThisLittleKitty · 08/03/2018 11:50

9 threads in one month? Yet you won't leave? What do you want people to say other than advise you leave as you obviously don't want that?

user1467718508 · 08/03/2018 11:52

I'm seconding @Thebluedog

Life is too precious to waste it with someone who's manipulating your emotional well-being in order to keep you by his side in a state of constant unease.

After such a long time of him believing his fabricated version of events, I can't see this ever resolving itself, even with a frank make-or-break talk; it sounds like you've been there before without success.

Do you feel you could leave him, and would be happier away from him?

WellThisIsShit · 08/03/2018 11:52

What do you think about this?

Can you stay with a man who looks you in the eye and pretends/decides to believe you cheated, he heard sex noises, you made a porn video and it’s on the internet...?

How does it make you feel? About him? And also about yourself?

It definitely feels like he’s got a reason for ‘believing’ this. It’s a weapon. Whether it’s to beat you with to keep you down and continually trying to please him, or whether it’s to cover up his own infidelity, who knows... and actually, who cares? Because what’s most important is, that he’s the kind of man who deliberately keeps this weapon hanging over his wives head... and what kind of person does that? The kind of person who you want as your closest life partner, who is trustworthy and loves you more than anyone else in the world. The person who lives you in sickness and in health, who will stick by you when you’re happy and sad, when life is good and when you’re both struggling. The person who you’ve given the power of life and death in some circumstances... this man can make life and death choices over you as you lie in a hospital bed.

Does this man have your back? Do you trust him? Really?

Because he lies to get power over you. He makes up disgusting lies about you, and pretends he can back it up with evidence... except he can’t can he? But that doesn’t even bother him because he likes lying about you.

He likes to make you into a betrayer, an adulterer and a grubby porn star, with your body and your adulterous act exposed for all to see on the net ... that’s really foul isn’t it? Him, that is, not you. You are not disgusting, you are not a cheat, you have not betrayed your partner or your marriage lines. Soooo... why are you living like you have?