Reflections on a failed marriage... was I undermining?

[regression]

I'm reflecting on my failed marriage. Exh left for affair partner after 17 years together.
He said it was because I undermined him and he felt he couldn't do anything right.
I want to take responsibility for my part in this.

I did undermine him as I intervened every time he shouted , criticised or nit picked at our children. Two have autism. He, as a Man is negative and critical and greeted our kids with a criticism each day eg What are those plates :doing in the sitting room ... no hello, nothing,

Even though he was very good at DIY, he regularly left me begging him to fix a toilet, socket or shower... things I wasn't able to do. When I said I'd be paying someone to do those jobs he lost his shit. I simply wasn't allowed.

I worked full time and raised our family and managed the house on my own. He worked from 7-7 which included an hours travel each way. He refused to look fur work near home.

Weekends were spent in bed with headaches and back aches, except when an invitation came to go to the pub.
When I asked him to bring kids to play ground or fur a walk they would come home early fighting and crying .

My kids have no relationship with him now and refuse to go to him eow. The two youngest are15/13.

Exh has cheated his way through his relationship with AP and is now onto gf no4 in a matter of years.

He was a sex pest but the reality is that I resented him so much for letting me carry all the load. He then tried it on every night. I couldn't get a hug as he saw it as an invitation to grope. He regularly groped me in front if kids. They started to copy him.
I am examining my part in this.
His words... ' I can never do anything right' and ' you're always criticising me' still haunt me.

Guilt makes me wonder if it was my fault he sought sex and adoration elsewhere.

I have had counselling but I'm trying to live in the present . I keep thinking back to the early years. I cannot be at the photographs of the children . They looked care free and happy . My heart is just a little broken today about it all.
I never thought my life would end up like this and I'm terribly lonely .

A marriage ending is very sad, there's no two ways about it. Even if it was supposed to end there is still a sadness to it and a grieving process involved.

I totally get how you feel about looking back on the happy early years, I went through that too and still do occasionally but then I force myself to remember the later years when things were pretty horrible and the initial relief I felt when my exH moved out. Try to do that too because from what you have described you were treated badly in your relationship.
Whatever your part in the ending of your marriage, you deserve to be treated with love, respect and kindness, everyone does. And I think you need to start by treating yourself that way.
No doubt you had some lovely early years with your exH, other wise you wouldn't have married him and your relationship produced your children who you obviously love more than anything. So it wasn't a "failed" marriage, it was just a marriage that had a life span and needed to end.

You will get through this with time but, from my experience, it does take a bit of 'brain training' to look at it all more objectively and to be kind to yourself about it. Acknowledge that, yes, you may have made some mistakes but don't keep beating yourself up about that and, as I said before, whatever you did/didn't do does not excuse your partner cheating on you or provide a valid reason for him to make that choice. x

I have ended an 8 year marraige for almost identical reasons you have outlined above. I am still sorting living situation etc but I do sometimes look for my part in it. I also undermined him to get him to lay off the kids, i also demanded we get tradesmen to do jobs for us (same trade as him) he didn't like it either. I think years of resentment have built up on top of poorly managed finances etc and all i can come up with is that i took his shit for way to long. I've seen the light and I'm glad i will soon be rid. It takes 2, i agree but sometimes it really is just 1 big arsehole that ruins things. It's no way to live and in time you will see that.

I've reflected on my marriage breakdown that was 7 years ago. Husband went off with OW. It broke me and I can honestly say that it's taken 6 of those years to get over it.
Then, out of the blue, I admitted to my mother that I'd actually been a pretty shitty wife in retrospect. We both had our faults, but I certainly undermined him, emasculated him and actually found him quite a bore. I'd lost interest yet when it was he who made the decision to leave, and not me, I was broken.
I truly think that when a marriage breaks down, most of the time, it's simply down to growing apart and both wanting something different.
I now finally realize that my and the children's lives are much better off without him. He's financially tight, is not the best dad, was hideous on holidays (we can now finally relax), was as dull as a plastic fork and his OW is welcome to him.
Time is a healer but you will get there, I promise.

I should add i had 10 months of psychotherapy which enabled me to see the wood from the trees.. invaluable to have someone confirm that his behaviour is not normal or in any way acceptable.

Even if you were undermining him, it still doesn't justify his adultery.

Relationships aren't a discreet, concrete entity. In that sense, no one has a relationship but we are all in a relationship with everyone we encounter. The relationship exists in the space between two people - how they interact, the responses they eicit from other people, their communication styles, conflict resolution etc.

The way he behaved around and spoke to you/the children elicited the responses it did from you. The same way as it has with his children (who notably no longer want a relationship with him either).

You say yourself that he has been unable to form a lasting, stable relationship since splitting up with you so maybe it's those women's fault too..?

Or maybe he is unable to relate to/with other people in a positive way?

He was unable to relate to you and your children in a way that made any of you want to develop, maintain or continue a relationship with him.

Sometimes, this is just an incompatibility between two genuinely people but, on this case, it seems he doesn't understand that he needs to relate in a positive way to others if he wants them to relate in a positive way with him.

So, no, it's not your fault.

*genuinely decent people

Great advice by @GreyCarpet as always.

And no-one is perfect in relationships but, since he is the one who has behaved particularly badly by having an affair, he’s particularly keen to blame you rather than take responsibility.

Rewriting history is part of the cheater's playbook. It's such a cliched move that he should be embarrassed. A you are not a sex doll whose purpose is to boost his ego.
He was married to you for a long time and will know that his actions mean that your self confidence is on the floor. It's easy to convince someone in your situation that they are to blame. It's another cheater's cliche to turn themselves into a victim and blame the spouse.
You didn't force him to cheat. He should have left if he was unhappy but cheaters think that they are smarter than their spouse and can have their cake and eat it.
If you let him get away with treating your kids the way that he was then you'd be enabling an abuser. You 100% did the right thing calling him out on his bad behaviour

He sounds awful. You should be examining more why you put up with that shit for 17 years. Why did you not do something about it before?

I'm terribly lonely.

You were lonely when you were together. I get the post relationship post mortem but it doesn’t change the fact that your Ex was a waste of space. Come on OP, you know his excuses are bs, some men always have to be the victim. Him abandoning his children is that also your ‘fault’.

I remember getting a letter from my Ex ‘explaining’ that the person who attacked me wasn’t him. I don’t think he realised that that letter stopped my post relationship post mortem dead in its tracks. I realised that trying to make sense of what happened was a waste of my energies. He of course abandoned DD, didn’t pay maintenance for 12 years and became the victim.

The truth is I hid in an unsatisfactory relationship and being in a relationship was more important than the person I was in a relationship with. I could never be as lonely as I was when I was with him.

He chooses to call it "undermining"; \I would call it protecting the children and making reasonable requests for help in the house.

Just don't buy in to his interpretation. Not only did he fail you in the ways noted above, but he was a sex [pest and philanderer. You are well rid and it sounds as though your children have got the right idea - they will have nothing to do with him. You should follow their lead; whilst ridding your mind of his attempt to place the blame on you.

A marriage ending is sad, but I think you are more sad for what might have been, not for what was.

And I see no indication in anything you've said that you "undermined" him in any way. You rightly and justifiably called him out when he didn't do his share, and when he poorly parented your children. That is not "undermining" at all, which I suspect is the word he is using to describe your behavior.

He is gaslighting you, OP. He was a crap husband and father and you're well rid of him.

i don't think there was anything to undermine. He was useless and annoying and the reaction he got from you and your children (them deciding to just ignore his existence) was just a reaction to his own behaviour. He will find out soon enough that others will react the same

if you truly want to reflect on your marriage start by analysing your own faults and failings not his - although it seems he has many, and most of them are serious.

Wowser. Think you’re well rid and people have definitely LTB for similar (or less) even without affairs.