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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

Wonderful new man met online but. . .

233 replies

Idontseeit · 13/06/2019 20:52

We are both going through nasty divorces. ExH and I never got along after the birth of our second child 6 years ago. We are moving on. I joined 1 dating website 6 months ago and spoke to new guy. I then realised it was too soon so wrote to him telling him I wasn’t up for it.

Fast forward to 2 months ago, I wrote to him & we met, got along brilliantly, have had an amazing time together 😁. He was the only date I went on. I’m 45 with a 9 & 6 year old so was naturally apprehensive. But he is so attentive, kind & considerate I thought fuck it and enjoy. I hadn’t had sex for 5 years and the sex is out of this world 😊

So he was in a relationship with his wife for 24 years, has 2 DDs age 18. Sadly he had an affair that ended the marriage. I’ve since found out about his high maintenance, materialistic, manipulative ex Wife but let’s not go there...

My problem is that this is the first time his daughters have had a blip in their lives. The exW got a boyfriend 2 weeks after they split up a year ago. They are accepting of this. Now dad has a relationship, they are not so cool about it. For example, they came back from university & knew we were in a relationship. We went out to his local pub and his DD rocked up and caused a scene accusing him of not answering his phone to her. Said things like ‘ I know what your priorities are’. Then later we were in bed and she stormed into his room screaming like a banshee saying ‘ you are having sex, how dare you, you don’t care about us, you are an alcoholic’. Blah blah.

Is she being a brat? Or does she have a point? I can truthfully say he is one of the kindest men I’ve ever known. Trust me after the abuse I’ve put up with I’m after lovely now.

Where do I go from here?

OP posts:
fecketyfeck21 · 14/06/2019 11:42

i think op has flounced as she didn't like the replies, and she never gave us a proper answer to his drinking situation, that possibly speaks volumes. she'll be back in the future having named changed and moaning about the waste of space.
well the big question is....are we jealous of op mners ? i don't think so.

Shequakes · 14/06/2019 11:52

Fucks sake.

I hope this OP is on the wind up.

Did he mistake the OW for his wife? Fall over and his dick accidentally went in her?

How is an affair a mistake? He chose to get close, chose to over step boundaries and chose to shag her. I bet it was several times.

You cant have an opinion on her as you have only heard his side. Which, oddly, paints him as a saint and her the devil incarnate. Sounds very one sided.

Chances are, op, you will find out in your own time.

forumdonkey · 14/06/2019 12:55

*@fatfluffycushion

Everyone's defending the daughters but the truth is we just don't know*

The daughters are being defended because they've come home from university after probably months away and their father can't even tear himself away from his latest shag to spend time with them. Not only can't he answer their phone calls he then he sneaks this woman up to his bed. They're being defended only on what OP has posted which is bad enough but OP doesn't see the problem with. Most posters feel sorry for the daughters having a selfish, thoughtless father.

forumdonkey · 14/06/2019 12:59

OP I hope you haven't introduced this man to your DC's yet?

LittlePaintBox · 14/06/2019 13:42

Maybe , just maybe the guy lived in a household that consisted of the females ganging up on him constantly for years

Hmmm, yes. As my dad used to say, after my brothers left home and he was left with me, my sister and our mum, 'Even the bloody dog is female!' It didn't cut much ice with me then, and it doesn't now. And AFAIK he didn't have an affair, but just went out with his brother a lot.

threestripes · 14/06/2019 13:43

Nice men don't cheat.

Grumpelstilskin · 14/06/2019 13:45

Most of these women sound harsh, bitter, negative and just generally horrid. So happy I am not any of them

Oh, but you will be very bitter. And you're well en route to being negative and generally horrid given your description of the ex and your stud muffin's DDs. I'd feel really sorry for you, were it not for your attitude. But yeah, you will find out what this man is really like. Maybe you will acquire some humility and empathy.

Ginlinessisnexttogodliness · 14/06/2019 14:10

@fatfluffycushion we all love a name change and a rallying to the defence of yourself first post.

ChristmasFluff · 14/06/2019 14:35

I can bet you the OP isn't lying about the AMAZING sex - again, it's part of The Abuser's Playbook (the smart ones, that is). Until they have you fished in.

Then, as @AnnaNimmity said, it becomes another means of control and they will withhold sex or force sex on you. It becomes impersonal, as though you are a blow-up doll. It is horrible and degrading and not amazing at all. But you hang on in there, because you remember how good it was at the beginning.

I am so sorry this happened to you, @Anna, and @DoctorDread. It really is so insidious, and that, OP, is why people are trying to point out that things may not be as idyllic as they seem. So that your eyes are at least open to the possibility he's not as wonderful as you think.

And we will all still be here if you come back for support if you find yourself in another abusive relationship. Even if it is this one.

DoctorDread · 14/06/2019 14:40

Well said @ChristmasFluff

Funny about the amazing sex. As you say, that's how it starts isn't it? Like nothing you've ever known? In the end for me, it felt sordid and degrading not adventurous and wild. I wrote a diary to make sense of things towards the end because I felt I was going mad. I read it just the other day. I wrote that I felt used and grubby and I only did it and went through the motions to shut him up.

In the beginning it was like I had died and gone to heaven and I felt I could never leave him because I'd never get to that 'level' again.

As you say, trauma bonding is hugely powerful and also as you say, if the OP DOES discover he's not all he's cracked up to be, we will indeed all be here too.

No-one deserves that shit.

ScreamingLadySutch · 14/06/2019 14:54

Idontseeit it could be that he was not open about seeing you, and kept you a secret.

Open people say 'I am going to start dating'. I met a person called See today for coffee, and she looks really nice'. I took See out to supper again. etc. Not blindsiding them.

Affairs happen in secret and shake everything up. Girlfriends who pop out of the woodwork are part of that pattern of secrecy as well.

This is what has happened in our family as well. Dad is secretive and deceitful, suddenly produces a stranger who the children are expected to treat as family, and it does not end at all well.

Because that is how he broke their family in the first place, by being secretive and deceitful. They have sent two girlfriends packing this way, simply because of the awful way their father goes about it - up to and including having to be aware of the fucking of the woman they have only just met, in the bedroom that was once their mother's.

Insensitive, inconsiderate, boundaryless people. Both of them.

Noimaginationxyzz · 14/06/2019 15:00

I hadn't realised the daughter being upset in the pub was the same afternoon you were in bed together....christ alive..... If my DC were upset and shouting at me, I'd be worried, not carrying on as normal. At best in very poor taste.

DoctorDread · 14/06/2019 15:45

That's how I read it @Noimaginationxyzz - but I doubt the OP will be back to clarify either way!

PlatypusPie · 14/06/2019 15:51

Merit points for the persistent use of the neglected word ‘horrid’, though, OP. A word with a lovely little foot stamp and head toss in it, directed at the meanies and cwosspatches who will never understand twooo luv.

DoctorDread · 14/06/2019 15:56

Don't forget a flinty gaze to add to your description @PlatypusPie . The word 'horrid' ALWAYS comes with a flinty gaze!

TheHodgeoftheHedge · 14/06/2019 16:09

You've only known him for 2 months FFS. You do not know him at all. This has disaster written all across it.
Please tell me he hasn't met your kids already?

AnnaNimmity · 14/06/2019 18:46

@Christmasfluff and @doctordread it sounds so similar. The lovebombing (including all the sex) means that you question the red flags less. And then you're hooked and they can do what they want to you because you're too bonded to walk away. My ex too caused more damage in my life than anyone else, (don't underestimate those fucking trauma bonds) and I sometimes think I'll never get over it. I'll certainly never be the same again. I know rationally that I would never respect anyone that had an affair and I can't abide the immorality and deceit, but even found myself justifying it in the same way that the OP is here.

The OP has disappeared I think (and is unlikely to listen anyway), but the only thing I'd add, is that someonesrealname upthread makes a good point. Abusive men deliberately seek out abused women. In fact anyone normal probably would heed the red flags anyway and run a mile, but abused women are easy to love bomb, gaslight and generally make forget they have any boundaries. You say in your OP that you're abused, that makes you a sure target.

AnnaNimmity · 14/06/2019 18:52

miniloso I wonder if we went out with the same person! Sounds v similar

Ihatehashtags · 14/06/2019 18:54

You’ve definitely got your rose tinted glasses on! I must admit I get so sick of men always referring to their ex as psychos . Maybe she turned into a psycho because he ruined their narrowing affairs. FFS!!

DoctorDread · 14/06/2019 18:56

I was just going to say the same @AnnaNimmity! Wouldn't that be hilarious?!?!?

Namechangeishardenoughonce · 14/06/2019 18:57

He likes a drink as do I, big deal.

But maybe if you hadn’t been drinking you would see that......

Going to bed after the scene in the pub? if he was any kind of a father he would have focused on his daughter and sent you home. He would have put her first.

Put your kids in his DD shoes.

expat101 · 15/06/2019 08:46

We happened to go back quietly to his room. No intention of meeting his DD. She burst in the room so that was that.

You are an appalling piece of work and well suited to each other. Shameful your children and his are getting caught up in this.

Sahara123 · 15/06/2019 09:53

My dad had an affair when I was a similarly aged teenage girl. I hated him for it, it felt like our family didn’t matter to him, he threw it all away. I was so angry and hurt for myself, my mum and my siblings. I still feel as if he just didn’t care about us many years later, I never forgave him for it really. He may be saying it was a mistake but he can’t undo the fact that he did it, and his daughter will feel like a bomb has been thrown into her family.it doesn’t matter that he was supposedly a good dad before, he has betrayed them all.

Shequakes · 15/06/2019 09:56

So he was ignoring his daughter.

She got upset and you tried to sneak into the house she was and in and up to his room, for a shag?

Either you both have drink problems and were hammered. Or you are one of these women that put getting some cock over everything and everyone else.

ThatCurlyGirl · 15/06/2019 10:55

So you know him better after 8 weeks than his kids do after 18 years?

According to the OW, my dad was undervalued and victimised in our family home. In reality he never lifted a finger, bullied mum and dictated the mood of the house to the extent that when we heard him unlock the door we would all wince.

Funnily enough now they're married and 15 years down the line, she's realised the truth!

You say one mistake in 18 years but you have no idea how he acted in the family home other than what he's told you. You've described their mother (privately, on here) in the most disgusting terms - and trust me although you may never say those words to the kids about her, your disdain for her and idolising of their dad will absolutely come across to them.

Nobody here has a reason to be nasty to someone else online, it's hit a nerve with people because they've been the wife, daughter or new partner in this situation and know how foolish it is to put someone on an unrealistic pedestal after a couple of months.

You only have his side of the story, surely you can see this?

Why did you post if you're so sure his daughter is just being unreasonable?