Husband's affair advice needed

[Clarrie59]

Hello,
I recently found out my DH was having an affair with a woman at work. He has worked with her for several years and we counted her as a friend before whatever went on went on. They were intimate for a year apparently. He says they have broken up (her doing).
I insisted that they no longer work together if there is any chance of repairing my marriage and he told me she would leave the firm. She is reluctant to leave, but insists their relationship will only be as friends from now on. However she also told him (I read an email) that she hopes he will still give her a hug and a kiss when she needs it.
This is not someone who has ended a relationship is it?

Frankly, her husband deserves to know, too. Once he knows, that might solve the ‚working together‘ issue quickly.

deepwater, OWH does know

So he’s still going on about her and expecting you to be understanding and not react. He bloody well deserves to be used as an emotional punchbag! He sounds like the most self centred, unintelligent person you could ever meet.

I had only read the start of the thread, now realize OP wrote an email to her DH and she is looking for another job. Excellent.

OP .... do not be his emotional punchbag either.... He has treated you disgustingly ... I am in awe at how you are handling this whilst bringing up your children and still going to work.... he is an utter fool and given time he will realise what a cretin he is ... but not by using you as an emotional crutch... how inappropriate ... you do what is right for you
... and Id have gotten rid of that bed as well... good on you 🌺

Emotional punchbag? HE has a therapist??

What a colossal cock. HE'S the one who screwed up, and now he needs a therapist? And he's concerned that you are in emotional pain and turning it on him?

He doesn't need a therapist, he needs a rocket up his arse.

Husband seems alarmed by how angry I am. Says I’m using him as an emotional punch bag (think he might have a therapist).
Husband also told me OW would be “devastated” if she could see how upset I am

He is just .... not right in the head. I don't know how to phrase it. This man couldn't be mentally normal.

He seems to lack the minutest scrap of empathy.

He seems to feel totally and utterly entitled to do what he's done.(and the same on behalf of the ow).

And he seems to think you're some kind of doll/robot with no emotions (or rights for that matter). It's like in his head you're wife bot and he's surprised you're not functioning in your usual state (in spite of him frying your circuits).

He's confessed to you only because he wanted to vent. Hrs expected you to listen to (and even sympathise by the looks of it) his upset.

He hadn't never, unless I missed it, shown any real remorse or sorrow for what he's done to you (and your family), not one sliver of empathy.

He's surprised you're angry .. how does he think.the vast majority of people would react to being betrayed and deceived, and with a quite close family friend at that, for months.

How would he be if you'd been shagging and having a full on affair with a male family friends for months, right handed in nose, in his home, in his bed??

And she would be devastated if she knew how upset you were!!!!!

Similar to the above, what did she think.the reaction would be of a woman whom she acted as friends with finding out she's been shagging her husband (and in her home etc)?? How would she feel?

The self absorption, lack of empathy, lack of integrity, selfishness etc is astounding and would be funny if it weren't so bad.

Hopefully ow's marriage in is trouble beneath the fake surface, not many men take a cheating wife lying down, and by fuck she deserves whatever happens. It may break up in the long run.

As for your husband .. tell him you don't care about her feelings, real or imagined .. because she didn't care one jot about yours, and you don't want to hear one word about his affair partner. He needs to learn when to shut the fuck up and quickly.

Emotional punch bag .. so he's supposed to cheat on you fir months with a family friend and you're not supposed to express any anger, upset etc. ?? You're not allowed anything in his view, are you?
Not allowed fidelity in your marriage, and not allowed to express anger or pain when you find out about adultery (or you're abusing him).

I know it's very hard but quite honestly, with an individual like this, there really seems to be nothing to do but get them out, get away from them.

*not express

Mix56, yes, thank you for the clarification. I just realized After going through the thread that the whole situation has evolved a lot.

Wishing OP all the best on her path. I think she is handling things very well.

Husband seems alarmed by how angry I am. Says I’m using him as an emotional punch bag (think he might have a therapist).
Husband also told me OW would be “devastated” if she could see how upset I am.

He is angry because he doesnt care about your feelings and cares about hers. He doesnt want you, his wife, doing anything to upset her, his mistress.

In circumstances like these, many people would have physically attacked their partner) and possibly the affair partner if they got access to them) and trashed their partners belongings etc. It's not great a d it's not super dignified but it happens s d we all understand how it happens. I think you've actually been incredibly controlled in your behaviour.

But it's still too much for him, eh. He should get to do what he's done without having to deal with any of his spouse's anger or pain. Even in the short term after she's found out.

I'd go to an excellent family solicitor, and get help.from citizens advice about help/benefits,lay your plans and get rid of him like the trash he is.

I was shocked at how young your kids were, I'd assumed they were older, it makes if even worse in my book.

Remember that as a single mum if you can get even a minimum universal credit payment, you'd get 85% of childcare paid (up to a cap of £1108.04).

It's almost as if he's made you his Mum in his mind. Responsible for his emotional health, in charge of making him feel 'safe' but ultimately with no feelings of your own to take into consideration.

You're doing brilliantly btw waves pompoms

Keep him gone. You aren't getting answers and you won't. My xh told me after 3 years where throughout our entire marriage he'd also been in a relationship with another woman that "he liked fucking her" he too couldn't understand why I was upset, after all he was finally being honest which meant we could renew our vows and start again. But at the point of separation I didn't know the half of it. If I'd gone with what I'd actually known my life would be so miserable. They don't change. He's found someone else on POF and while I'm.glad he's off my radar (I had to threaten him with the police) this poor woman is in for it because he has the family man act down to a tee

You are amazing 💐

crosshatching True. It sounds like he is licking his wounds and grieving the end of the affair and in the process has regressed to a point, where he can‘t process that other people have feelings, too. (Except maybe for his idealized ex-affair partner.)

yeah you obviously haben’t read any of the thread, so why comment?

@Clarrie59 well done re the bed and towels. Seriously well done. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 If it helps, do it. It’s that feeling that everything is contaminated. Totally justified. If it reminds you of any of it, if it makes you feel like crap, out it goes. Why should you have your day/ life/ current sixty seconds ruined by reminders of their crap behaviour? It’s not revenge, it’s helping you get rid of their shit from your life and move on. Healthy attitude if you ask me.

Now then: The bleating about how devastated his fuckbuddy would be if she knew how hurt you are. Irrelevant. So what? She still fucking did it. I know what you’re saying about blaming it on her rather than him, but she’s no angel and not totally exempt from censure in all this. She knew it was wrong and revelled in it. As if you can be so inhuman that you don’t know how your behave affects another. 🙄 She chose not to think about it.
If you really think about it, you can’t justify it. If you can’t justify it, you shouldn’t do it. If you shouldn’t do it but you still do, what does that say about you? Now you have to face up to the truth about yourself. That’s why they don’t look at this, @Clarrie59, because if they do, it might not be your fault any more or her husband’s fault, it might not be their ‘awful wife/ partner/ dead marriage’, it might actually be their fault for being total shits. Better to not think about how their behaviour affects the other people involved. Better to demonise their significant others, so that they can tell themselves they had no choice in their actions, didn’t they ‘deserve’ a little happiness? 🙄
The ‘emotional punchbag’ thing works in the same way. It’s a guilt-removal mechanism. “How dare you make me feel guilty about the awful thing I did to you by showing me how hurt you are? How dare you make me feel bad about my choices by being angry about my own terrible deliberate actions? Can’t you see how shit you’re making me feel about myself? Your totally justified reactions to my shitty behaviour, are like treating me as an emotional punchbag. (Poor me) You have to take all the pain I caused you, but ffs don’t show it to me because it’s awful to be reminded of the truth, which is that actually I can’t justify what I did to you. Oh shit... this makes me (and her) not victims of crap relationships, not poor victims of a loveless life who had no choice in this matter, but actually total bastards whose selfish behaviour, putting our immoral desires first, has devastated good people who deserved better.
Don’t let them boo hoo any longer Clarrie. They are starting to feel the heat of their awful behaviour as reality hits them, and exposes the bullshit they told themselves to protect them from realising the truth about themselves. The truth is horribly uncomfortable to shitty people who have avoided it for so long. Tell him to put the words “home have come to chickens roost” in a sentence.
Don’t let him blame you for his feeling shit about himself. You have every right to be hurt and express how their behaviour has made you feel. You don’t need karma when reality and a bit of time does it all for you. Find room in that skip for anything you want to get out of your life. Your game now, your rules. You gotta bin it to win it. X

Grow some balls and leave OP. There's no love or respect left in your marriage. Just read what you've written - he has the audacity to cry to you about the end of his affair with another woman who's also your friend, upset that he can no longer be happy without her and wishes to maintain a friendship!? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. They're both taking the absolute piss out of you and neither care about you in any way.

Husband also told me OW would be “devastated” if she could see how upset I am

Poor cow Not that it's true of course, but how like him to focus once again on her feelings instead of yours. I'd say why should he bother anyway since they're supposed to be "finished", but very obviously they're not finished as far as he's concerned

I may have said this before, but I'll say again you need good legal advice ... because while he's been gaslighting you he'll also have been making his own plans, and you don't want to be wrong-footed financially

@vixxo the OP has got balls. The one without any balls (her DH) is at his mother’s as I understood it, so she doesn’t need to ‘leave’ as such. He’s just decided to offload some ridiculous self absorbed bollocks onto the OP but I don’t think she’s sitting there just taking it! But I’m sure the OP @Clarrie59 is still reeling from all this. It takes a lot to cut off emotionally from a marriage you thought was happy even if you know you’re being treated appallingly.

Stop talking to him about anything except the children and getting the divorce ball rolling. He needs to stay at his mother’s until he finds somewhere else to live.

[quote Thewookiemustgo]**@Clarrie59 well done re the bed and towels. Seriously well done. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 If it helps, do it. It’s that feeling that everything is contaminated. Totally justified. If it reminds you of any of it, if it makes you feel like crap, out it goes. Why should you have your day/ life/ current sixty seconds ruined by reminders of their crap behaviour? It’s not revenge, it’s helping you get rid of their shit from your life and move on. Healthy attitude if you ask me.

Now then: The bleating about how devastated his fuckbuddy would be if she knew how hurt you are. Irrelevant. So what? She still fucking did it. I know what you’re saying about blaming it on her rather than him, but she’s no angel and not totally exempt from censure in all this. She knew it was wrong and revelled in it. As if you can be so inhuman that you don’t know how your behave affects another. 🙄 She chose not to think about it.
If you really think about it, you can’t justify it. If you can’t justify it, you shouldn’t do it. If you shouldn’t do it but you still do, what does that say about you? Now you have to face up to the truth about yourself. That’s why they don’t look at this, @Clarrie59, because if they do, it might not be your fault any more or her husband’s fault, it might not be their ‘awful wife/ partner/ dead marriage’, it might actually be their fault for being total shits. Better to not think about how their behaviour affects the other people involved. Better to demonise their significant others, so that they can tell themselves they had no choice in their actions, didn’t they ‘deserve’ a little happiness? 🙄
The ‘emotional punchbag’ thing works in the same way. It’s a guilt-removal mechanism. “How dare you make me feel guilty about the awful thing I did to you by showing me how hurt you are? How dare you make me feel bad about my choices by being angry about my own terrible deliberate actions? Can’t you see how shit you’re making me feel about myself? Your totally justified reactions to my shitty behaviour, are like treating me as an emotional punchbag. (Poor me) You have to take all the pain I caused you, but ffs don’t show it to me because it’s awful to be reminded of the truth, which is that actually I can’t justify what I did to you. Oh shit... this makes me (and her) not victims of crap relationships, not poor victims of a loveless life who had no choice in this matter, but actually total bastards whose selfish behaviour, putting our immoral desires first, has devastated good people who deserved better.
Don’t let them boo hoo any longer Clarrie. They are starting to feel the heat of their awful behaviour as reality hits them, and exposes the bullshit they told themselves to protect them from realising the truth about themselves. The truth is horribly uncomfortable to shitty people who have avoided it for so long. Tell him to put the words “home have come to chickens roost” in a sentence.
Don’t let him blame you for his feeling shit about himself. You have every right to be hurt and express how their behaviour has made you feel. You don’t need karma when reality and a bit of time does it all for you. Find room in that skip for anything you want to get out of your life. Your game now, your rules. You gotta bin it to win it. X[/quote]
This - very well put

All of what @thewookiemustgo said.

I urge you to stop talking to him about anything but the children. There's nothing he can say that can make you feel better and all of it will make you feel worse. He's SUCH an arsehole.

Sending strength and, dammit, hugs x

OP, now you’ve had time to think about the last few years of your relationship with him (I mean prior to his affair) was he always so selfish and dismissive of your feelings? The way he’s speaking to you makes me think he’s been disrespectful of your needs and wants for a long, long time. He sounds so cold. Did you used to go along with what he wanted to keep him happy?