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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

Life after affair - affecting everything

67 replies

MrsBonBons · 04/04/2023 23:29

Hi mumsnet
First post, been hanging round here for a while. 7 months ago I discovered my husband of 12 years was having an affair, very predictably with a woman 9 years younger than me from his work. To add to the drama she was engaged to a woman at the time. Her fiancé threatened to tell me as she found out several months before I did yet they still carried on. Basically she was the opposite of me. Didn’t want kids, free spirit, not hugely career minded. I think he wanted escapism. Things had been rocky for 3 years before he did this and I do take some responsibility for that.

I suspected for several weeks and found an email for an STI kit he had ordered, along with WhatsApp’s plotting to leave me and my two girls either before my 40th or to wait until after my 40th 🙄 (I found out before as a side note 😂). I feel hugely betrayed by him and I really didn’t think he was the kind of man to do this. I’ve since found out he did things like telling me he was going to work and instead spending the day with her, taking her to fancy restaurants, bought her a necklace….the whole works.

7 months on, I chucked him out the night I confronted him. He is now living in a flat round the corner from the family home and I’m trying so hard to keep things amicable. He comes round most eves after work to see my DDs (12 and 9). He also has them 2 nights a week. I’ve had to lie to my 12 year old who has asked me if daddy has had an affair. I decided it was up to him to tell her not me. I want the kids to have a positive relationship with him as I don’t want them F’ed up by this. I also have to be mindful that I need things to stay pleasant now divorce proceedings are starting.

My question is this…….I feel I have hit an emotional wall. If anything I’m struggling more than I was 2 months ago. My sleep is crap, I flit from feeling highly anxious to angry. I have tried online dating as really feel I need to try and move on with life. He didn’t beg me to take him back which has totally crushed my self confidence and feelings of rejection. I have met a nice man on Hinge a couple of months ago. We are just dating but I’m constantly looking for signs he is speaking to other women. It is making me feel sick with anxiety,

How do I move on with my life and lift myself out of this hole? I’m having weekly counselling. How long will I feel like this? X

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsBonBons · 05/04/2023 10:37

So I’ve had the chat with him. Just wanted to say a big thank you for all your help and advice. I said I can’t go on with things the way they are with him popping in like everything is normal after work. Told him I don’t have the emotional resilience for it. We have agreed that has to stop. New arrangement is he will take the kids out or round his for an hour or two on a Monday.

I also made the point that it’s very difficult that the kids don’t know the true reason for the split as they just see me struggling on feeling miserable and not being my best self. I’m not sure he will say anything to the kids but I’ve planted the seed that I’m not comfortable with them being in the dark. Think I probably need another conversation once I’m a bit stronger. This thread has really made me see I need to change things for my own sanity.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsBonBons · 05/04/2023 10:39

Oh and I also said he can’t be the one to make me feel any better so to stop with the ‘helpful advice’. He’s the cause of it so can’t be the fixer. That’s up to me and my support network.

OP posts:
Sittwritt · 05/04/2023 10:50

CheekyHobson · 05/04/2023 09:46

When someone has really fucked you over and they then insist on putting an 'amicable' performance for the kids, it is never actually for the benefit of the kids or the benefit of the injured spouse, it's for the benefit of the person who did the fucking over.

My ex made a big song and dance about how we should be amicable during our separation, and even had the nerve to send me an article on 'conscious uncoupling' (after years of emotional, psychological and financial abuse).

In practice, what he meant when he said that was that he wanted me to swallow my feelings, pretend I was completely fine with what had happened, and act sweetly and compliantly towards him, not say anything that would make him look bad in front of anyone, and make zero demands on him.

Simultaneously he felt perfectly entitled to do whatever he felt would best protect his own interests, would speak to me in a hostile and aggressive way if he wasn't getting exactly what he wanted and did only what he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted. If I pointed out this wasn't amicable, he would make out like his hostility was my fault.

If your ex is not paying child support, if he is not proactively pulling his weight as a co-parent, if you are living in fear of him becoming uncooperative about the separation agreement if you don't do what he wants and he is giving you unsolicited and patronising advise about how to 'sort yourself out', then the reality is that your separation is already not an amicable one, and any claims from your ex that he is 'trying to be amicable' is just gaslighting to keep you as compliant as possible.

Love this. He was fine when you do go for your little talk he will be just as cold and cunning, and out it all on you.

It’s equivalent to turning up to a psychopath that’s unable to process other peoples emotions and telling them you are a psychopath and you made me suffer. They still won’t have any empathy.

Sittwritt · 05/04/2023 10:55

Oh wow just saw you had the talk. Good for you. Stand up and believe in yourself because no one will do that job for you. It sounds like you are in a better place.

They can be horrid little things these cheaters so do expect that he will turn it all on you. Mine tried to, but got a quick correctional crash course in what’s what. That’s key to improving your life, and moving on or trying anything. It’s like the script that’s inscribed in the brain that literally just comes out and it’s the same over and over for so many people. That’s why so many of us are pointing out so many of the same things.

Write down some key things that you are sticking to. 1. His choice. 2. You have to cope with the fallout of that choice. 3. You were willing to try but he wanted to proceed with that choice. Xxxxx

Rubytoos · 05/04/2023 13:09

Well done OP. That was the start of you taking back control.

Original poster
MrsBonBons · 05/04/2023 15:18

Thanks all. Yes, definitely feel better than I did last night when I wrote this post. Got to take back control. It’s the only way to survive this horrendous situation. I’m glad I’ve had the first of, I’m sure, many discussions with him on this but I need to preserve my sanity and space. Thank you for allowing me to see that.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsBonBons · 05/04/2023 15:24

@KettrickenSmiled thanks for directing me to Chump lady. Think I need to work on getting angrier so I emotionally detach. This is helpful

OP posts:
Theos · 05/04/2023 15:27

Well done.

Theos · 05/04/2023 15:28

I agree, if you don’t get really angry now you will do later then everybody will take that you look a bit unhinged and say that you haven’t got over it.

Unfair, but true.

So really agree, if you don’t get really angry now you will do later and then everybody will think that you look a bit unhinged and say that you haven’t got over it.
Unfair but true.

So really feel angry that the life you’d planned is not working out

paulaparticles · 05/04/2023 16:15

well done be proud of yourself

Sittwritt · 05/04/2023 17:04

Definitely good time to get even. The diplomatic way was perhaps a time you thought it was salvageable but this is not a situation in which he is even seeking forgiveness. Rather pushing to do what he wants despite leaving kids which was what you both wanted.

KettrickenSmiled · 05/04/2023 20:08

Cracking updates OP :)

fwiw, you may be wounded & occasionally overwhelmed, but you are handling your ex (& your lawyer, & forensic pension guy Wink) like a pro.

Flowers
Original poster
MrsBonBons · 05/04/2023 23:10

@KettrickenSmiled 😂😂. Forensic pension guy 🙊

This thread has given me hope and reassurance. It’s amazing how strangers can give you a boost when you are your lowest. Thank you kind and warm people who have helped me today. You’ve all had my back.

OP posts:
ivegotthisyeah · 05/04/2023 23:31

@MrsBonBons my ex still pays half the mortgage but does he fuck step foot in the house it's my safe place and he will never step foot in it again. ( court ordered to pay half also took his key off him)

Sittwritt · 06/04/2023 07:01

That’s interesting @ivegotthisyeah how did u manage to stay in family home and half mortgage paid? Is it till kids are 18 and then sell?

Whatonearth07957 · 11/04/2023 21:56

Stop trying to be the better person here. By asking your DD needs to know you will be honest. Be authentic but appropriate. You need to stop prioritising your ex and centre yourself. If he is upset or disappointed, so be it. Boundaries as others have said.

Morewineplease10 · 14/04/2023 08:24

Hey OP

Good to see your updates. How are you feeling at the moment?

Please could someone PM me the deets of the forensic pension guy?
Thank you.

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