Starting over after 25 years

[Lily007]

I never gave a thought to the too precise info I was giving so I’ve had to hide my old thread. Is that the right thing to do?

I don’t know what I was thinking divulging so much personal info 🙈

I’lll continue to post on this new thread, as anyone who’s been contributing already knows the background so there’s no need for the history to be visible in any case.

Thank you to the poster who warned me 🙄

You will feel happy again Lily. Do you do much exercise? The endorphins from that will make you feel happier and you will feel stronger and more confident (at least that's how it makes me feel and whenever things are going badly in life I always go for a run to raise my spirits).

You laughed, my work for this evening is done

Early sleeps for me, I binge watched tabula rassa or whatever its called til 3am last night and I was a grumpy old baggins at work today, ooops!

OohOoh. I have been doing quite a bit of walking over the past few weeks but not so much for the last few days. I have fibromyalgia and I’ve had quite a bad flare up which restricts my exercise. It’s a bloody nuisance but it’s worse when I’m stressed.

BettyBaggins hope you get a good night’s sleep 😴 and feel better for it tomorrow.

Poor you re the fibroyalgia. Walking is great though and so lovely at this time of year.

I have just been reading another thread on here and the OP is going through something similar. She, like you, has impressed me with her strength. You've probably seen it already but if not:-

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3257939-Dh-sent-me-a-photo-by-mistake

Yes, I've been reading that other thread too. There are some truly awful men out there.

I watched the last episode of The Split this morning. I really enjoyed it. The characters were an interesting bunch, none covered themselves in glory. Sad at the end, but what the hell was she doing asking him to stay (I think he's a skank, by the way!).

Would swimming be easier exercise for your firbromyalgia? Less pressure/strain on joints etc?

Ooh but Agatha a very good looking skank. Also her husband was a shit too 💩

I’m not a very good swimmer so I don’t enjoy it.

I have been following the thread you’ve mentioned too. Just when you think nothing will shock you ...... something does 😱

Lily you mentioned a few times on here that you had a happy marriage until a few months ago. At some point you need to understand that your DH has been sending out massive red flags about his unhappiness for a long time and you simply didn’t notice or realise what they were.

In late middle age some people lose their way. In a good marriage they can talk to their DP and work it through, making changes together. The next stage of the crisis they will begin to behave or look differently, it’s a bit late but things can still be saved if DP recognises the changes are a sign of unhappiness and opens a dialogue. The final stage is an exit affair where they subconsciously leave all sorts of clues until they are caught out, so they finally get noticed. Things can even be saved here if their DP wants to work at it, with counselling, understanding and forgiveness.

You mention almost as an aside that your husband started working out at the gym, lost four stone, got full sleeve and chest tattoos and started using steroids but you had no clue that anything was wrong.

Perhaps understanding and recognising what was going on will help you accept the end of your marriage and help you move on.

I disagree Blueberry, if you read the thread OP's husband was telling her how much he loved her right up to the end. How he'd die without her ....

I also disagree with Blueberry. The 'unhappy for a long time' thing is often husbands rewriting history. I agree that it is sometimes the case that a marriage has been stagnating, with one partner simply not taking on board the needs of another, but I don't think this has been Lily's experience. Sometimes they really are just a tool whose head gets turned almost overnight.

Morning

Blueberry. I have his last Christmas card to me in which he wrote “I love you with all my heart - always know that. You are the love of my life”.

Despite the gym, weight loss, tattoos etc., I can pinpoint when his demeanour changed towards me and that was mid January this year.

My best friend, who knows H very well too, has always said he probably wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t discovered the relationship with OW and maybe it would have fizzled out. That makes me shudder.

It might well have fizzled out, Lily, but if he got away with it once, there was nothing to stop him doing it again. And would you feel better, or worse, if you found out the woman he'd left you for was the third or fourth one he'd had an affair with?

OMG Zaph. That’s why I said, the thought I might never have known makes me shudder.

I’ve known people who are married to serial adulterers and have always pitied them. I’d hate to be one of them.

I think maybe the point Blueberry was trying to show was that he didn't 'switch off his feelings', they gradually died away. No normal person wakes up in the morning and decides to 'switch off their feelings' in a perfectly good relationship.

Be aware that whatever he said in his Christmas card it doesn't mean it was true. Sorry if that sounds harsh. Maybe he was trying to play the part, maybe he was trying to convince himself, maybe he was trying to ensure that you didn't notice the changes in him/your relationship? Who knows? But you can't rely on what he said.

And yes absolutely it sounds like it could well have fizzled out with the OW without you finding out and that would've been so much worse even if you would still be happy now it would be happiness based on a lie.

FreeHotDrink. I do get what Blueberry was trying to say and some of it may be correct, but as I’ve said in previous posts, H only met OW on 25 November last year (I know this is true) and only had verbal contact until mid January. I asked him to leave on 11 March.

Even he wouldn’t be so stupid to have chosen to leave for such a new relationship but I gave him no choice!

I have to disagree with FreeHotDrink, I'm afraid. I've known it happen too many times - men (and sometimes women) who are perfectly happy and satisfied in their marriages and then, BOOM, something happens to shake it upt. Not always another woman (or man, to be strictly fair), sometimes it's death of someone close or a life-threatening illness. And they wake up suddenly and think 'I could be having more...'

And it really can happen overnight. The 'new' is just SO exciting it absorbs their life and their time and attention and the old just becomes ....there. Background noise. It's like taking up horseriding when you used to knit all the time. Suddenly all you can think about is your next canter, your next jump, maybe entering an event. And that knitting sits, unregarded and half way through that jumper for a friend, forever.

Whoops. Sorry. Got a bit literary there. I've got my 'author' head on again...

Rememory and Zaphod perhaps you should head on over to a site called ‘Talk about Marriage’. The whole point being as Freehotdrink describes a process whereby one partner begins a journey of checking out from a marriage leaving clues along the way.

It is far easier to continue appeasing your DP by telling them what they want to hear than start a difficult conversation about discontent and work it through. It’s just living a lie and it will inevitably lead to a marriage crisis.

Blueberry. I think I’ve trawled every relationship website there is 🙄

Dependent on which site you look at, the cause can be:-

Mid life crisis affair
Exit affair
Narcissism

or, and which is very common, plain stupidity and selfishness.

One thing I should mention is, even when I discovered the affair and told him to leave, H never said once “I don’t love you anymore”. I know this in itself doesn’t mean anything but I’m sure if you’ve scoured the different websites, the stock statement is “I love you but I’m not in love with you”

I also know that H has asked several people how I’m doing although I’m very careful to let anyone I know is still in contact with him, that I’m absolutely fine.

Basically, none of us know what was in his mind and, in the absence of his explanation, it’s all assumption.

Zaph. I like it when you have your author’s head on 😊

Zaphod our posts crossed, I agree that there cases where something can happen overnight. However it is most likely to be a long slow process of checking out where the signs are not picked up and addressed by DP. Lily describes an absolute classic situation of this happening in front of her but thinks everything is ok because she has a nice Christmas card.

I guess in the end it’s easier to convince yourself that all is perfect in your life until some evil OW gets their hands on your perfectly happy DH.

Ha ha Blueberry. I certainly don’t think everything was okay because I got a nice Christmas card 🙈. I’m not that foolish!

I have dozens of text messages and many, many other examples of how our life was pretty good up until mid January.

Thing is, I know H better than he knows himself and he’s not good at keeping up pretence, hence the reason I suspected something was wrong from end of January onwards. The change in his demeanour was so obvious. That’s how he got caught.

Blueberry but that puts all the onus on the DP to somehow mysteriously 'pick up' that something is wrong with their partner. If the partner is a big boy (or girl), surely they can use their words and bring up the fact that they are not happy or something is dissatisfying in their relationship? The first recourse shouldn't be 'I'm a bit miserable with the way she always chats to her mum on the phone for hours every day - I know, I won't actually discuss it with her, I'll have an affair and leave her.'

The fact that Lily's STBXH appeared happy and perfectly satisfied with their relationship right up until OW appeared would mean that he didn't try to raise any problems, he just went straight to DEFCON 1.

Morning all.

You seem perkier Lilly. That's a good thing!

I also agree there was something wrong, I'm sorry Lilly. I don't think this making it about shag or her is helpful really. And I think I remember he said he wished to leave first, in harsher terms, and you agreed for him to go, that you also wanted him to leave. Then watched stunned as he did.

I've hesitated to write that, because part of me thinks what ever you need to tell yourself to get you through this. But the larger part says you're just storing up more hurt for yourself and prolonging the pain, if you make this become something it wasn't, that he didn't want to go, that you kicked him out and gave him no choice, that he was very happy in the marriage, Because it leads to the thought process that when the infatuation wears off, he will come back. And I think that could be something that hurts you much much more in the long run.

I'm sorry, I know you're probably going to be upset I wrote that. 💐

Well.....Bluntness .... another psychological evaluation 🙄.

Firstly, I’m not under any illusion that he’s going to tip up begging me to take him back, I can assure you of that.

Also, on the day he actually left his words were “if I stay you’re never going to let me forget this and you’ll ram it down my throat at every given opportunity”. I said to him “what!!! Do you think I should just forget about it - really?” After a minute or so he said “I don’t want to be here” I said “and I don’t want you here so go.....now”.

If you recall, I discovered the affair at 7 pm on Friday evening and there were arguments, tears and discussions all that night, all the following day and again on Sunday morning. Up until the the exchange detailed above, we were going to work things out, but he was effectively saying if I didn’t just forget about it he’d leave me, I called his bluff and he left.

I feel you think you know what I’m thinking better than I do! I would not take him back under any circumstances, too much damage has been done.

If you wouldn't take him back then divorce him. You need a clean break - you find it hard to imagine how good your life might be in the future- but believe me, once you make that decision and get through the process you'll be amazed at how delightful life can be again.

Catsrus. I have a clean break, I have absolutely no contact.

There are several reasons why I’m not going to start divorce proceedings at the moment. I really don’t see what difference it will make