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Relationships

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

Husband grieving for OW

999 replies

Filly2011 · 14/02/2020 21:25

Anyone had experience of this?
Husband had 14 month affair with woman at work. Told me about it when she finally dumped him in favour of her husband. DH says he wants to keep marriage and willing to work at it. After months of counselling he now admits he is very upset as still loves her and knows he’s lost her. I feel very cut up by this. Can’t stop thinking about it.

OP posts:
PatchworkElmer · 15/02/2020 12:17

I’m so sorry OP. He is being very cruel keeping you dangling like this. I think you know that this isn’t going to work out, and would second advice to see a solicitor ASAP- even if you do nothing with the information just yet.

Luckystar20 · 15/02/2020 12:24

Aw frilly you sound lovely and he sounds like an abusive arsehole. Dont be afraid to be on you're own you already are. I second moving closer to friends, look into hobbies and clubs. It's not the end it's only the beginning

TheReef · 15/02/2020 12:25

Well done for asking him not to come to you today, small baby steps op.

NONE of this is your fault, there is NO justification for an affair, if he was unhappy in his marriage it should have been you he spoke to. If you were cold and distance, it's you he should have talked to, nothing justifies an affair

NearlyGranny · 15/02/2020 12:34

Te thing about the couples counselling, Filly, and the preposterous advice the counsellor gave you, and the attitude your OH (not DH, I think) displays when you're there and drops when you're not, is that couples counselling is not the right approach for your situation!

Couple counselling is based on two assumptions: the first is that the couple are deeply in love and just aren't communicating well; the second is that both parties are committed to making the marriage work. Now, while scraping and re-painting a ship's hull is a worthy enterprise and one for which people train and specialise, it's no help at all if the name on the stern is Titanic and the passengers and crew are jumping ship and heading for the lifeboats!

I think you can safely dump the couples counselling and find a good counsellor just for you, to help you understand and get through this mess strong and intact.

Your OH's working assumption appears to be that everything is your fault and your responsibility from start to finish, even incorporating a bit of invented 'history' when he couldn't trust you because you were working away. I'm assuming he benefitted from the commitments you made to your successful career? You don't seem the type to have had a separate bank account...

I don't think he wants to fix things in any meaningful way. He doesn't seem to have accepted any responsibility for his own choices and behaviour, let alone the impact they have had on you. It's all about him, isn't it?

Until he is honest with himself and you, he is going to continue to play the victim here, though assuming the pose is clearly taking some weird contortions on his part. As long as he is the victim of his sage, you and OW too, are cast as traitors and his oppressors.

You don't have to accept his version of reality nor live in it, with or without him. I suggest it's high time to look at things from your point of view, consider your story, inhabit your reality and focus on what you want and need. He's been binding a big bundle of his dirty linen to your back and you've been struggling to lift and move with it. You can just put it down, you know. It's not yours, it's his.

You are entitled to be angry and to talk about how his betrayal has affected you for as long as you want. He is not entitled to silence you on the subject, nor to tell you how your hurt and anger impact on him. He caused all this, after all. All of it. You don't have to listen to him moan about his wrecked life if you don't want to.

Think about when and how you will tell the children. Do it before he does!

SalmonOfKnowledge · 15/02/2020 12:35

Telling somebody ''you're cold'' is very different from feeling the lack of warmth from a partner though.

I'm just talking generally here now but often, if we identify with being a decent, warm, empathetic person and we are labelled ''cold'' by somebody who KNOWS US WELL, then we'll go in to overdrive to prove we are not cold by being far too giving, far too forgiving, far too selfless. It suits the person who labelled us cold very nicely.

Some people are cold but that's probably because they have checked out and that is usually not the person still pointlessly trying to prove that they are not cold. It's a very sneaky little accusation in my opinion.

If you have already LEFT the marriage because your x was cold then that it different. You actually took a course of action. You're not still hanging around in the marriage manipulating the spouse's buttons.

NearlyGranny · 15/02/2020 12:37

Saga, not sage. Autocorrect. 😡

Annasgirl · 15/02/2020 12:39

Hi OP, you sound so lovely. Can I echo what everyone else says, please do not go back to the couples therapy (it does not work with men like your husband and the therapist sounds useless).

You have so many positives, think about it, you have a career you love, you are healthy, you have a good pension - and you can now start over. My dad changed his whole life at 64 and he lived to 96 and had a very, very full life as a counsellor, guide, friend, farmer, - he began it all at 64. You are never too old. Please do not engage any further with your husband.

You are so lucky that he has moved out - look at all the women on here whose abusive husbands refuse to move out, it can take them years to get a settlement. So I would take to-day as the start of your new life.

Why not go online and book your trip to France - for a time that suit YOU and you alone, and then spend the afternoon planning what you will take with you, clothes, if you want to shop next week for new clothes.

As everyone says, one step at a time, you can make a happy new life for you, and we are all here to support you.

Lunde · 15/02/2020 12:39

You need to stop with the marriage counselling - your counsellor is really, really crap and no good will come from counselling with a man who is bulling you to stop discussing the affair and punishing you with silent treatment. I had a crappy counsellor through Relate who was telling me that I should be "patient" - however in the meantime exH had started up with OW again and was taking her away on dirty weekends under the pretense of "seeing his mates"

I suspect that your H's idea of "working on the marriage" is that you let him come home and do what he wants and listen to his whines. He doesn't want to take any responsibility - but he doesn't want to hear anything about your feelings because only his feelings count. He is treating you like a second hand option - it is contradictory that he says that you are so awful but still wants you back now that OW is not available.

My advice is to cancel the marriage counselling, get individual counselling that is focussed on helping you, see a solicitor to find out your rights and plan things that you like to do (even better if they are things that your H never wanted to do)

ivykaty44 · 15/02/2020 12:40

Start concentrating on you

Make a list of all the things you want to do

Visiting friends
List of meetups to attend
Holiday away
Day trips

Robin2323 · 15/02/2020 12:43

*An affair is never the answer. But if someone accuses you of being Cold I'd be looking at that. My ex dh was cold and it is another reason we split

NO NO NO NO FUCKING NO. There is always the case whereby the cheater plays this gaslighting "it was all your fault" card, please do not listen to this shit advice, you don't "need" to look at anything about what he's said about you, op*

Sometimes there is faults on both side.

A mature person would see that.

NO ONE IS PEFECT.

If you don't learn from your mistakes you will repeat them.

There is a higher divorce rate for second marriage than first.

I have lots of friends who have are happily married and have been together 30 plus years.

They have all had rough bits but got through it. That's live.

Growingboys · 15/02/2020 12:46

LTB

Fefifofaff · 15/02/2020 12:52

NearlyGranny I love the Titanic metaphor.

OP stop catering to his midlife crisis. Read the script, cancel couples counseling, tell him you need some space and not to contact you. Go to France and tell your family and friends.

See how you feel after all that. I'd be willing to bet he'll be crawling back and you will walk past like he's an insect not worthy of your attention. Which is the truth. Nasty spineless git.

Pegsinarow · 15/02/2020 12:56

I realise this must be hell for you op but why is he making all the decisions?

He thinks his life has been shit
He has insisted on living apart for some of the time
He was going to come tomorrow but now he's too upset

Where is your voice in this op?
Fear is making you very passive.

You need to know that you are allowed to choose how you respond to this situation.

Hard though it is, I'm afraid you are going to have to give up the idea of the future you imagined would happen, with you two comfortably together in your retirement. You may choose to stay with him but it won't be the same ever again. It can't be.

So don't just reactively cling on to the marriage you once had out of fear. Because its a false security.

In your shoes I would separate and try living on your own for a bit and give yourself a chance to build up confidence and sort out your own feelings and work out how you want to proceed in response to this totally new set of circumstances Flowers.

Good luck and be strong!

Filly2011 · 15/02/2020 12:58

Thanks for all the advice. It means a lot to me. I’ve been really struggling.
The thing is - if you angry (and an affair makes you angry) - it is very hard if your dh just sulks or says he’s having a breakdown when you indicate in any way that you are unhappy.
The mid-life script was v accurate! He’s said nearly all of those things.
Even today when I politely asked him not to come here there’s no answer from him. Not even a text to ask if I’m ok. I’m just left hanging. He could just say ‘ok I understand’ or something.
I can’t even rely on him engaging with the therapy anymore now he’s started getting cross and walking out if the therapist challenges him or he has to say something he finds uncomfortable.
I feel like I’m being punished all the time.

OP posts:
Notverygrownup · 15/02/2020 13:00

Yy to meetup.com for the weekends.

But also try to develop some routines, so that you know what you are going to do in advance, to save you having to find something new to do every week. Eg.

Friday evening: organise after work drinks, then have a swim/visit the gym on the way home, or vice versa. Possibly start a creative hobby: quilting? Crochet/sewing? Jam/pickle making?

Saturday morning, washing on, off to the supermarket/market for main weekly shop. Coffee and cake in a cafe on the way home.

Afternoon, meetup.com with new friends, or walk with the dog, or go for a swim/to a museum with a local friend. Evening, favourite takeaway and film.

Sunday morning. Walk with dog, buy Sunday newspaper, and read it at home with a bagel/coffee. Afternoon, meetup.com with new friends, or go for a swim/to a museum/National Trust property (with a local friend?) Evening: ironing/back to the creative hobby, whilst watching Call the Midwife/Win the Wild/Sunday evening TV.

HTH

CinnnemonBeauty · 15/02/2020 13:05

Stop going to therapy with him - stop trying to think he gives two shits about you. - just get away from him

Pegsinarow · 15/02/2020 13:06

Op reading you last post about therapy and him not allowing you to express your distress sounds abusive. It's also very controlling of him not to reply to your text. I have no idea how you overcome this - I would be raging and cutting up ties etc - but maybe cancel couples therapy and engage with a therapist of your own and let it all out with her?

ivykaty44 · 15/02/2020 13:07

I have a friend, who after 40 years of marriage her husband went.

Friend threw herself into meetups, joined about 3/4 groups (all free) and by doing so found herself with many single friends. Invited people to meet for coffee at other times, to go to cinema etc

At first she went home and cried as she missed her previous life. After a few weeks she found she didn’t cry as much, after a few months she found she didn’t miss him as much and then she found that her life was actually better than it had been before. She had dinner parties, walks in the country, tried things she liked and didn’t like

But she realised that she wasn’t lonely, learnt to be on her own but enjoyed being free to socialise with who she wanted

dottydolly72 · 15/02/2020 13:11

Bless you, he's done a right job on denting your confidence! What an absolute sh*t of a man he is. Turn this around on him quick sharp and gain the power back. Woe is me will soon be panicking trust me.

Focus on yourself, leave him hanging and get some support in real life. Make it clear you are doing what you want when you want. Hugs x

Kit19 · 15/02/2020 13:13

I know this is so hard lovely but you need to stop engaging with him. Every engagement with him is an opportunity for him to use you as his emotional punch bag. You are covered with emotional bruises and you need to stop because the bruises will not heal

You have to see that he’s not the man you were married too. That man is gone and that’s so difficult because outwardly he looks the same but induce he’s not. He’s not your friend, he only cares about himself

You need to be equally as selfish now - this is about you x

dustibooks · 15/02/2020 13:36

Stop going to therapy with him

^^ this with giant brass knobs on.

TigerDater · 15/02/2020 13:47

Why would he ask if you're OK? He doesn't care about you, only himself. Return the compliment and think only of yourself 100%. It's time to get selfish OP. At every step, think: what's in it for me? Why would I want to do that? Stop looking to him for definition or concern, because he is a broken reed for you now.

FlowerArranger · 15/02/2020 13:49

Can I just ask people who have been in similar position (ie newly separated) what they do at weekends?

Last night I went out to dinner with a friend. This morning I volunteered with the RSPCA. I was supposed to go to a Meetup walk this afternooon but the weather put paid to that. So, instead, I'm ensconced in my big comfortable bed, wasting time on Mumsnet and drinking rum + coke - at 1.30 in the afternoon!! (He would not have approved...) This evening I'm taking one of my DC out to dinner. Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend for lunch. Rest of Sunday? Not sure yet. Maybe read a novel and then Netflix in the evening?

I never have time to get bored. However, do you really want to base your decision on whether to stay with your husband on your fear of perhaps being alone at weekends? You could take up painting or needlework or learn to play the piano...

Ellie56 · 15/02/2020 13:52

Yes stop[ going to therapy with the arsehole and find a new therapist just for you.

Filly2011 · 15/02/2020 13:54

I find it so encouraging to see what others do at weekends. I always think I’m doing it wrong! Not being sociable enough. But I’m with people at work all week so it’s nice to relax with the dog!

OP posts: