Marriage Crisis - Husband having breakdown due to grief - affair

[rosa1983]

I’m at my wit's end and would love perspectives/advice if possible. I feel I’m sinking and losing my mind.
I’ve
been with DH for 9 years, married for almost 8. We have three children (two
with additional needs). His mum gave him up when he was 10, but kept his
younger three siblings. Growing up in care has caused a lot of issues with
anger and difficulties with emotions etc but overall he has turned his life
around, got a decent job and done us and himself proud.
His
mum died a few months ago and they were estranged. He has always had a lot of
hurt, anger and confusion about why she abandoned him and I have always felt he
still has that young boy in him desperate for her to explain - but then she
died and he was left with no answers and no idea if she loved him.
He
then withdrew from me. We went from being the couple people would describe as
'smitten' and soul mates, to him shutting me out, not saying 'i love you' being
snappy, barely talking. I supported him the best I could. Went with him to the
Drs, he got antidepressants. Wet with him to the funeral despite at this point
it being a month of him pushing me away and saying he didn’t know if he still
loved me.
He
changed - it was very dark and he became very secretive with his phone. I ended
up finding out he had been sending sexual messages to a girl at work. I say girl
because she is 21 and he is 42. Now, my dad went off with a 19 year old when he
was 45. DH knows this is my absolute biggest fear. I strongly feel he did this
to hurt me. He says it wasn’t sexual and he didn’t mean all the sexual things
he wrote (they are ingrained in my mind forever). I think he is punishing me
because he can't punish his mum and he is having counselling to address this.
I
can’t get over it. I’m trying so hard - but it is killing me. The rejection,
the head f**k of 'I don’t know how i feel about you' while doing that with her.
And now he is still clearly very depressed and doesn't have the mental capacity
to give me the love and reassurance I need. He says he loves me when I ask then
rolls his eyes like it's an annoying question but I don’t feel it. We were so
close. Best friends. I feel he wants out but is staying because we can't
financially separate (renting in Essex with three kids. Crippling).
I
guess I want to know if anyone has been through anything similar. Can grief
cause this 'affair' or am I clutching at straws? I can't forgive what I don’t
understand and I struggle to trust anyway due to what I saw my mum go through.
My mental health has declined terribly and I am now also on antidepressants and
attending counselling. I can't look in the mirror without thinking it must be
me. I am 39, but feel old (I know that is silly) I am a size 8 but feel fat and
saggy (I also know that is silly) but honestly, the mirror shows me these
things.
Thank
you for reading. xxx

You were close. Past tense.
He is making no amends - all very much about him isn’t it? His trauma, his needs, his sexual contact, his eye rolling and his abuse of you. And yes it is abuse. No appreciating you. Knowing his rejection and how it made him feel - he’s happy to do it to you.

In this case I would simply state - I won’t put up with this any more - you aren’t meeting my needs of basic friendship, respect and working through things together - so I want a divorce. How he behaves will give you an answer.

I didn't want to read and run. I don't have much advice except a big hug. This is obviously a really difficult time for you all. I don't think you can rush the healing and just give it more time. You seen so insightful and at the moment your heart is very hurt, but it will catch up with your insightful mind which can understand why he's done this.

He needs to leave. I’m not saying it is the end or that person you loved won’t be back as he was but you need to start putting yourself and your children first. He may well be taking all those complex emotions out on you but you have put up with it long enough.

"I can't get over it"

You don't have to get over it. You don't even have to want to get over it.

He lobbed a hand grenade into your family. Yes, grief may have been the cause of it but it was his decision to make you all as miserable as he is.

The only way back at this point is if he owns his behaviour, shows that that's not who he is and tries to make amends.

He's not doing that and you need to proceed on the assumption. If you knew now that he was going to be like this for the rest of your lives, how would you proceed? Because that's your reality now. You can't just wait for him to fix himself and then fix the pair of you. You have to try and find a way to live that in the long run will make you and the kids happy, rather than waiting in limbo for who knows how long.

In my deepest darkest depression I have done some terrible things to those closest to me. It was like I was lashing out at everyone verbally and emotionally so I could self destruct and further punish myself.

if I could push them away I was somehow proving to myself what a shit person I was and unworthy of love. My relationship broke down and to this day I have regrets about my behaviour to my then partner.

perhaps if I’d felt I could talk to someone or sought help, got therapy etc things would have improved - but I was very alone in the depression (wasn’t the done thing in my circles to talk about it back then).

Add onto your husbands existing emotions of not been good enough as a child and pent up unresolved trauma, compounded with grief.. it sounds like he’s lashing out the only way he can emotionally.

he may regret it, work through it and be back to his old self… whether you can work through it yourself or forgive him is another matter. Is couples counselling something you’d consider. If the situation was the other way around and say you had severe PND and did similar to him - would you want to try and work Through things with him?

My mother died after an illness where I cared for her for a few months which mostly entailed me staying 24/7 ( I was between jobs ) .
During this time I didn't get to see my partner much , but neither of us started , and my grief didn't lend me to go off and have an affair .
I should imagine it would also be the same for 99.9% of people.
Stop trying to come up with excuses for him.

Grief doesn't make you arica your dick somewhere it doesn't belong. He chose his actions.

He’s taking the piss. Whatever trauma he’s had does not justify this. He’s emotionally manipulating you to make you justify it.

My best friend is a relationship counsellor and I know what she’d say the same.

It's as if he's daring you to abandon him so he can be reassured that "all women" are like this.

I'm sorry if you are going to act like a doormat he will treat you like one.
You need to set boundaries - he needs the threat of losing you for him to decide he can live with this or whether he can't and wants to change his ways.
Unfortunately, as much as you seem lovely you are enabling him to treat you poorly as you are putting up with things.

He made his choices. He could've gone to counselling before. He chose not to. Don't excuse his choices.

My Mum died a few months ago.
I wasn’t a shit to DH and I didn’t have (at least) an emotional affair with someone half my age.
Grief is no excuse

Personally I do think that grief, depression or stress can make people behave in ways they wouldn’t normally.

Thank you so much everyone - the responses reflect what my head is telling me. I am looking at his actions rather than his words now and he is being incredibly selfish and dismissive. It's heartbreaking - we have been through so much and then he turns on me like this. I have a long road ahead and need to build strength (and finances). xx

He clearly has horrible issues and has been through an awful past - but that doesn’t oblige you to stay and be the punchbag he is looking for and to suffer through trauma yourself.

As a PP says, tell him he isn’t meeting any of your needs and wants and while you would have been there for him if he had let you, he didn’t and instead chose to hurt you in the worst possible way. Then ask him to leave immediately. And then get stuck into some therapy to help you get over the trauma that HE is inflicting on YOU.

I think you need to live separately while he works through his counselling, to give each of you space and time to consider whether this is something to work on in the hope of saving your relationship. He has treated you cruelly and disrespectfully, and whatever the reasons, they don't excuse it. I think you need to focus on licking your wounds, taking care of yourself and not having to live with the man who has hurt you massively. If you have the time and money, get counselling for yourself.

good luck

People do have affairs in times of stress. However, he appears to be still acting terribly, no remorse, you can't reconcile if they aren't really truly sorry for their actions and ready to do everything they can to fix it. He needs therapy and you need space to get your self together, healing from infidelity is so hard, I'm still struggling 2 years on. We had 8 months of fake reconciliation before i called time.

You don't have to get past this. It sounds like he's let his grief and trauma consume him and he's using you as an emotional punching bag. We can't fix people, only help them, but he doesn't sound like he wants any help at all.

He needs to access counselling. I had an abusive mother and the way her sudden death hit me was to cause RAGE! Rage because there was now no chance she would ever admit how shit abusive she had been. No chance Syed ever even think about apologising. That I would get no explanation, not even a “I’m sorry not sorry” admission of her abuse.

It fucks with your head. I couldn’t handle the rage and so my mind threw up barriers to ALL emotions. So I felt dead inside and empty. Hollowed out. I looked and my DH and DC and thought “they could all die today and I’d feel nothing. I can’t love. I am unlovable. I am nothing. I am a ghost.” I should have been horrified by feeling no love for them, but instead i felt safe, like untouchable no one can hurt me again like my mum did…

I did reckless and stupid things because I’m a ghost, no one cares what a ghost does. And my DH and DC probably don’t love me anyway, how could they my mum showed me that I am unlovable, they provably only tolerate me. I’m a pay check, a cash cow, a maid, a cook…not a person to them.

Long story short, I had enough presence of mind to realise this is terribly wrong. This isn’t the me I made of myself, the me that I want to be and I went and got counselling and therapy to come to grips with basically being raised as an object to abuse. Her death triggered all those bad memories.

Bad mothers aren’t really something you can talk about to anyone other than a therapist/psychologist. You know society worships mothers and thinks we all love our DC and our intentions are always good. So you stay quiet. You only open yourself up to more abuse if you badmouth your own mother!

Anyway, there comes a point where if he won’t get help, you’d have to let him go. Tell him to leave and not come back until he gets his head unfucked. So you don’t have to live with this especially if he’s hurting you. And you can’t fix him, you can’t help him, so it’s better to have him go so you aren’t an innocent bystander being sucked into that maelstrom he is going through.

Yes, this is a common way grief can manifest. It can make you very self absorbed in many many different ways.

Your children shouldn't need to be exposed to this.
You do not have to continue being on the receiving end.

I really feel for you, he is abusing you.

I had a long term relationship with someone who came from similar childhood. Starved of affection and shown rejection and neglect.
I have to be brutal and say some people are too far damaged, this causes personality issues and turns them into abusers.

The people around them who love them and know their story excuse many awful behaviours because of it. Maybe even attempt to fix them a little by showing the unconditional love they did not receive.
Perfect conditions for a co-dependant relationship.

A book called ‘why does he do that’ by Lundy Bancroft would be a good read for you.

Unfortunately, no one can fix another human in a relationship. You didn’t cause the damage and you are not responsible for it and ,crucially, you need to protect yourself and your children from it.

I find the part where you talk about his sexual messages and say you know he has targeted your fear the most disturbing. I want you to know that feeling like you are married to your enemy and your vulnerabilities being used against you is not normal nor acceptable.

At the very least get yourself some counselling. Relate will see people on their own and will know these sort of situations very well. A relate counsellor helped me immeasurably and I will always be in her debt.
Please stop taking care of him, stop focusing on his needs and hurts, def please stop trying to work the ‘why’ of him and begin talking to yourself about what you want and what you need.

I wish you every bit of happiness.

I had an incredibly abusive childhood and was rejected by my mother.

It hasn’t led me to betray anyone or cheat on them. I think you are clutching at straws to excuse his dreadful behaviour.

I would be getting legal advice, so sorry.

This is a good post.

Despite what people say on MN, many people in long term couples can and do get past affairs. However that doesn't mean you are under any obligation to do so. It is also not possible if he is not genuinely committed to working past this, and to give you lots of time, which it doesn't sound like he is.

Have you had couples counselling? It can help you see his commitment too, and work through even if the end result is a separation.

I mean this kindly, but please scrape up your self respect from off the floor and start seeing him for the man he is and not the man that you want/need him to be.

I'm recently bereaved (my darling Dad) and lost him in a horrid way (liver cancer). Your DH's behaviour is cruel and unnecessary, and sorry but MN really pisses me off at times because MH is used as a get out of jail free card far too bloody often. You don't deserve to be anyone's emotional punchbag and reaching out to other women is inexcusable.