Husband has left for another woman after 20+ years together

[CluelessnotShoeless]

I've lurked on the relationship boards over the years and read other people's stories about their husbands leaving after having an affair, thought how terrible it must be for them but never thought it would be me.

In August my husband told me that he was in love with someone else and clearly wanted to leave. After a few weeks at home he left for her. We have two children, one with additional needs. Although I can now see signs that he was distracted in the last few months before he told me it was a massive shock - I had no idea. I'd always felt confident in his love for me. In fact over the last few years he had acted more devoted but he now claims that he was trying to make things right in our marriage despite his feelings of unhappiness. I don't know what to believe - we've had a tough few years. It's frustrating because I also believed we got on really well but apparently it was nothing like the deep connection he has with his new girlfriend.

I have started divorce proceedings as there seems to be no other option. I am completely financially dependent on him too as gave up work a couple of years ago to focus on our youngest daughter. We are not telling the children the real reason for our splitting up. We have softened the blow to them by saying that we will still do things together as a family and I think that's the right thing for them. He has babysat for me a few times so I could meet friends.

About 12 years ago I left him as his addictions were getting out of control. He turned that around and I stayed with him but he put me through a lot and did some terrible things. I forgave him. I wish I hadn't.

I just feel terrible a lot of the time with only brief periods of thinking I'm better without him. I can't seem to think about anything else. I need to talk through my feelings obsessively and although it helps at the time, it doesn't last long before my feelings build up again. I can't reconcile who I thought he was with his actions, except I can because he has shown self-destructive tendencies in the past. I'm bored with my thoughts but can't stop them. The lockdown makes it worse as I feel so isolated.

I think what I need to hear is that it will get better and how long it will take. Please, if anyone has been in my situation, please share how you moved on and got past it.

So just an update/vent.

I know that H has some cognitive dissonance about our relationship and I think I do too. I keep waiting for him to wake up and realise what he’s done and what he’s giving up. There is no evidence of this so why do I do it? And why would I want someone who has been so cruel?

About a week ago he was here and said he wanted to come home as he couldn’t live like this but what he meant was he couldn’t live with his guilt, not any desire to live as a family or be in a relationship with me. I said guilt was not enough and he hasn’t stopped seeing OW. His drinking has intensified, so much so that he was choosing to be on his own rather than be with OW, although his feelings for her have not diminished and I expect them to continue their relationship when he’s sober. I do believe he will find his sobriety soon, (he’s away for two weeks now & will not drink during that period) plus he was sober for a long time previously.

I’m having therapy and I know I deserve more. He’s let the children down too, by leaving them & turning up drunk. Why do I keep expecting him to do & be better? He’s no longer in love with me & obsessed with OW who he sees as his soulmate.

Why don’t I accept it? If I’m to believe him - his expressions of love over the last few years were an attempt to improve & rekindle our relationship as he no longer thought he was in love with me. It was OW, apparently, who gave him this advice - they weren’t having an affair at that point & were ‘just friends’.

He will, under the influence of booze, tell me he misses me & sometimes tells me he loves me but it’s clear he doesn’t mean ‘in love’.

Sober he will say he cares about me deeply, but again not the feelings he thinks he should have for a wife. I think he has unrealistic views of love in a long term relationship but my view can’t change his. I know that.

@CluelessnotShoeless

I hope things are getting better for you, I was reading your thread and felt compelled to post rather than read and run. I can't tell you when it will get better because I am going through this currently myself with my wife, who has decided our entire 20 year relationship and marriage was terrible (I can assure you it was not) enough that it gave her permissions to start texting and forming a relationship with her co-worker and who she is now "in love" with.

The post resonated so much I think because I like you have tried for the last 10 months to do the Pick me Dance and have for those 10 months thought that "our love" would win the day because what we had was real and special. One thing I have learned over the last 10 months is don't believe a word they say because words as cheap and easy, instead look at his actions. The few times my wife has come back and we have tried to reconcile I think this has been more out of fear on her side and/or guilt than it was love. Of course your/i'm "in love" with our spouses and that's why we're weak to fully protect ourselves in the way that we should, we want to believe we can have them back and this time it will be better. Reconciliation isn't easy as everything will have changed, you will have changed and so will he have and things have been said and done that will be there for a long time to come. Like you said you've done a lot of research on Affairs and I am sure like myself you have immediately grabbed onto the bits that we want to like affairs never last etc but I can say one thing if you where to reconcile he'd have work to do and he would need to become the healer, otherwise all of this will be carried on your shoulders and trust me its heavy lifting two people (you know ask you have helped him with his addition) to make your marriage work.

Having just had another false reconciliation myself I am back to square one in how I feel about it all (see this is what I mean about us being "in love" that stops us protecting ourselves). The injustice of it all, the rewriting of marital history, the blame shifting, the coldness, the happiness they get to share right now, the immediate dropping of you at a moments notice.

Right now you can't be friends its unhealthy for you, and don't take your Husbands affection and meaning anything because right now me and my wife can still be affectionate and share a kiss but guess what she still choose the OM. She wants to demote me to a "friend" which I suspect is to ease her guilt and so show everyone that the situation isn't that bad after all we are friends.

What your experiencing hurts I know and your emotions will range from rage to absolutely despair but protect yourself now, give yourself a break from this so that you can get clarity of thought. Give it time heart to listen to your head. You alone can't turn this situation around (I know that's bleak).. You need to become business like even if inside all you want to do is scream out "I love you, what is wrong with you, wake up!".

OP you're centring him and his possible thoughts and feelings and wrangling around with these, but what about you?

You need to get to a point where you understand that the ins and outs of it for him, the changes of heart, the 'what if's don't really matter. Because what's done is done and what matters now is you and how you move forward. To help yourself with this you have to get to a place of knowledge and certainty that a relationship with him is not what you want any more.

What do you want and deserve for your future - surely it's not him?

I did the notebook thing too, it really does help get everything out of your head.

I believe that people, especially men and especially in long marriages, don't know how to end them, don't know how to get out of them and certainly don't manage to do it gracefully and with dignity for the other person. I read so much about affairs and causing arguments and the ensuing counselling for couples that doesn't seem to work.

I don't know what the answer is but it all seems a huge, painful upheaval. I'm sorry for your pain, it won't always be like this and you can be happy again.

Uugghh I totally get what you're going through but unfortunately only time will make things better and like the grief process that is different for each of us.
For me , after 19 years and 2 kids it probably took me 5 years to be over it, initially my ex was the first thing I thought of when I woke up and the last thing at night. I also wished him ill, or at least hoped he would be unhappy with his choices. Now I scarcely think about him at all and certainly don't wish him ill.
He tried hard to be friends to make him feel better about how shitty he was and we are not friends in any way but are friendlier than we were.
It will get better but no one can give you a time scale just know that it will.

OP - put your armour on ready.

I learnt from my years in Al-anon that when an alcoholic moves their lips they are lying.

He is broken. He drinks because he has severe problems. You are likely with him because you put everyone else's happiness before your own.

When you have worked further through your journey you will realise that YOUR happiness comes first.

Stop fighting with OW over this broken weak man who is not worthy of you.

Stop feeling sorry for him because he is where he is - drinking or not - because of the decision he made. Nothing to do with you.

He is not at rock bottom - but he does know real well how to make you feel sorry for him. He is being manipulative to get what he wants. What he loves more than anyone or anything is the drink. Everyone else can form a queue to fight over who is next important to him.

Do you want to join the queue - or do you want to be free to find happiness for yourself & your DC?

Even if he manages to stop drinking again him & OW will NOT have the wonderful relationship you thought you had with him and also at the same time think he might have with her.

Keep on with Al-anon - it doesn't matter if you don't feel you are progressing because you will change over time - your thoughts will change over time - you will understand yourself more - it will get easier.

Tell us what YOU want. What makes YOU angry. What makes YOU sad. You are allowed to feel however you feel. There is no rush to be/do anything different. You have time, you have courage, you can do this.

If you'd like help to stop thinking so much there's a book called 'From stress to stillness' by Gina Lake - first half of it is great (and it doesn't need to be read in any order - second half not so good) but it might just change your life.

@feeficken I relate to a lot of what you’ve written. You’re right that words are cheap. H was texting that he loved me during the emotional affair. When I read about affairs I do tend to focus on things like ‘limerence’ & ‘affair fog’. And absolutely H is definitely trying to demote me to friend. It would make him feel a lot better if he could say that we’d split up on good terms. Realistically though that will not happen if he continues in his relationship with OW - I’m too offended by it. What I don’t want is a half hearted reconciliation attempt. I’ve realised that it’s going to take him being ready to fully commit, stop blaming me for everything. I think I know he won’t do that though and would I believe him anyway?

I know I definitely don’t want a relationship with the arsehole he is now. I think his current priorities have been alcohol, OW with his children coming third.

He’s away trying to get sober and it has given me some clarity. @londonbrick you’re right he is a weak broken man. I KNOW I deserve better. I think I am moving but it’s slow.

As to what I want I’m not sure if I know. Even before this happened I felt I was in a rut and something needed to change but I’m not clear what. At minimum I want to be financially secure and I want to have more child free time. Lockdown has been hard and I wasn’t able to take advantage of any let ups due to this relationship.

This is really painful. May give more strength to overcome form this situation.

Trust me @CluelessnotShoeless I am right there with you. I've said to myself if only the other OM wasn't there OR perhaps this will just fizzle out then maybe just maybe she'll see me again and want to properly attempt to repair our marriage, however that may not be the case either. Anything is possible but right now I just need to take each day as it comes and its a horrible situation we're in and right now neither of our spouses are safe or ready for real reconciliation and trust me I have had a few false reconciliation's because I have let my heart rule my head and its ended up hurt again and again.

I feel just like myself you just can't understand the switch in your husband and how he can just stop loving you and then sending you all the mixed messages afterwards, honestly I get it and I think the same about my wife. Its I do love you one minute to I love the OM more, or I love you but not in love with you just like a friend. Like others have said they are well ahead of us but have just kept it quiet which is why we struggle, we expected them to open their mouths and be honest so we could work together to make things better but they didn't and now we're left with all the emotional fall out from that. Of course they said they tried (and maybe they did) but clearly not hard enough. I bet like me you have gone out your way to become the best spouse you can be and you've tried to make things better (Pick me dance)? but where you perhaps told too little too late?

Then rather than own up to their own shitty choices they project and blame you for all that's gone wrong in the marriage and your left guilt ridden wanting desperately to be a better partner and to right your wrongs, the sad part is you start believing what their saying as though only their version of events is the truth and you question yourself on everything. Here's the kicker though the dynamic is all wrong, I am sure you and I have our faults BUT we stayed faithful and we took responsibility for our failings. Look at this way your marriage had a timer which was ticketing away and perhaps at one point may have run out and your marriage may have died a natural death BUT the thing about timers is they can be stopped and that could have happened had your husband been honest about what was going on with him, instead he wound the timer forward and threw a nuke into into your marriage and now everything has been blown apart and is in much smaller pieces which is harder to put back together. He did this not you and he hurt you badly in the process.

@feeficken I’m not sure I’ve gone out of my way to be the best spouse as apart from immediately after d-day (see I know all the terms) we’ve been separated Immediately after d-day I gave him a hard time but was also quite clingy. It was clear quite quickly that he wanted out and I was panicking. I’d gone from thinking I was happily married to discussing divorce in 3 weeks.

When we have talked about what I did that was so wrong there has been nothing that couldn’t be changed and also some things that are ridiculous. When we have these chats I seem to lose the ability to stand up for myself and that is something I need to change. I will not be a Stepford wife for anyone.

@londonbrick it’s interesting what you say about alcoholics & lying. I know and have experienced him lying about alcohol. I had never considered though that he would lie so much about everything else. I know he lies to me & occasionally I’ve tested him to see if he’d admit to something and he doesn’t. Yet when I catch him in other lies it shocks me.

We have softened the blow to them by saying that we will still do things together as a family

Don't bank on this - people always promise this but it rarely happens. I'd be planning on doing things with the DC and you, not " doing things as a family".

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