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Original poster

Help me understand what I’m seeing (H’s behaviour related).

277 replies

FrogFighter · 25/10/2023 21:23

Together for 24 years. Married for 20. DS 15 and DD 19.

he left 6 weeks ago.

saw his rented house today.

bar table in front room with fully stocked beer fridge
all black and grey
pictures of DJs and music related visuals in black frames on walls
one photo of DCs in frame when very small
only other photo is of H on stag do 25 years ago with mates
‘joey and chandler’ armchair
black leather sofa and big TV
FROSTIES in cupboard
24 cans of tango in kitchen
polyester 90s bedding with black and white zigzags
plans to put a pool table in garage

what have I experienced?

OP posts:
MyCircumference · 26/10/2023 07:29

buy him a larva lamp

babyproblems · 26/10/2023 07:30

Oh op I’d be grateful actually if I were you... He’s made it hella easy for you! I would so much rather this than another woman etc etc. Maybe he’s discovered time travel. Or thinks he has!! What an absolute idiot. Best of luck to you xxxxx

Unusualactualname · 26/10/2023 07:31

FrogFighter · 25/10/2023 21:38

It’s not. He doesn’t have any reason to wind me up. I cause him no trouble at all and am quite supportive, though not so supportive of his time hop back to 1997. He is carrying the guilt as he wants to party and socialise and I am now at 50 waaaay past it.

Show quote history

He's still in your head. Nod, smile and back out slowly.

babyproblems · 26/10/2023 07:31

MyCircumference · 26/10/2023 07:29

buy him a larva lamp

Yes. From Argos!!!
(don’t know if they’re still around lol)

Thepúca · 26/10/2023 07:31

Lava lamp but a larva lamp would be interesting and gross.

WeeStyleIcon · 26/10/2023 07:41

I'd love a lava lamp! I had one when I was 15 and I loved it so much!

Some of the posters here are very serious. @FrogFighter has just been to his new pad. It's only human that she has a reaction, which she's sharing here! and describing it so well. Do people think that your husband can move out and you'd have no reaction to his new house! After I left my x (because he was controlling and abusive) his reaction to my new house was that it was a shit hole in a sink estate. I laughed because I knew he'd say something nasty. It's not a sink estate. It did need ''a bit of love'' as estate agents say.

Greenberg2 · 26/10/2023 07:44

Resilience · 25/10/2023 21:46

It's a bit of a cliche but it's not harming anyone so 🤷‍♀️

Her marriage has just broken up and he's acting like he's just broken up with Meghan from sixth form. And you think it's not harming anyone...

XiCi · 26/10/2023 07:47

So he's moved out, got his own place and decorated it to make himself comfortable. So what? His sense of style may be questionable but it probably how many men would style a home given half the chance, that's why its such a cliché. Not really understanding why there's such vitriol on the thread.

LizzieSiddal · 26/10/2023 07:50

God what a Wanker.

LizzieSiddal · 26/10/2023 07:52

XiCi · 26/10/2023 07:47

So he's moved out, got his own place and decorated it to make himself comfortable. So what? His sense of style may be questionable but it probably how many men would style a home given half the chance, that's why its such a cliché. Not really understanding why there's such vitriol on the thread.

Because he’s left his long marriage, his child in the middle of GCSEs, his dog and decided he wants to be a teenager again.

Needaholi · 26/10/2023 07:55

I don't know a single woman who would find this attractive or want to 'party" with him.

Chevvi · 26/10/2023 07:57

I’m trying to imagine living my teenage life now.
I would be sitting in my flat looking up at my Athena ‘man and baby’ poster whilst crossing out the letters of mine and my crush’s names trying to work out the percentage of his love for me. Probably with one of the massive biros where you can click down different colours.
I would then put on my jelly shoes and pick up my matching jelly bag and head for the park, stopping at the offy en route for a bottle of pink lady. It’s a given that one of my little toes will escape through a hole of my jelly shoe and get crippled up. Then my jelly bag will unpop itself and a box of tampax will fall on the pavement
i don’t think the mid life crisis will happen to me somehow!

BethDuttonsTwin · 26/10/2023 08:01

I respect that you're answering the sanctimonious "why are you even at his home?" type questions. I'd just ignore them.

It's quite interesting really, it's as though he's trying to regress to the time before he had his wife, family etc, as though he's idealised that time. I've long thought though that societal rules around marriage/LTR, do seem to suggest that a woman's life only begins when she marries and has children whereas a man's life ends and he is trapped. Less so in the last few decades but your ex seems to be a prime example of that.

WickedSerious · 26/10/2023 08:02

It sounds like a lot of those places you see on 'why won't anyone buy my house' type programmes.

BethDuttonsTwin · 26/10/2023 08:03

Her marriage has just broken up and he's acting like he's just broken up with Meghan from sixth form.

Lol

ElleCapitaine · 26/10/2023 08:06

Bet he’s playing 90’s music and getting into fights with his mates about whether Oasis is better than Blur 😂

Be thankful you’re out of it. If he was still living with you, you’d probably have to put up with his bong and bottles of Diamond White.

XiCi · 26/10/2023 08:07

LizzieSiddal · 26/10/2023 07:52

Because he’s left his long marriage, his child in the middle of GCSEs, his dog and decided he wants to be a teenager again.

Show quote history

The breakdown of a marriage is never as simple as that though. And all of the criticism is focused on this man's decor choices

ElleCapitaine · 26/10/2023 08:08

(And someone needs to tell him the Haçienda doesn’t exist anymore)

Nowherenew · 26/10/2023 08:10

It’s his home and he’s decorating it how he wants.

He’s also single for the first time in years and so has gone back to the time of when he was last single, because that’s what he knows.
He has no experience of being a single, middle aged man yet.

Lots of us would have different homes if we were single/didn’t have kids.
If you wouldn’t, then perhaps you had quite a big say in how your current home is decorated.

I’d love to have a games room.
But if I had a spare room my first thing would be to make it into a walk in wardrobe/make up room.

I think it just stings for you, as you can see that he’s happily single which would be hard for anyone to see.

The good thing about it though, is you both seem to be co-parenting well and being civil with each other, which you should be very proud of as that’s not an easy thing to do.

jeaux90 · 26/10/2023 08:10

Some men are just good at caring about anyone apart from themselves.

I'm a lone parent and whilst life is extremely busy juggling career, DD etc I absolutely love the autonomy, no one to negotiate anything with and my house is exactly the way I want it.

Enjoy your life and laugh at the massive cringe cliche he has become

Original poster
FrogFighter · 26/10/2023 08:10

Am much cheered on my way to work this morning reading some of these comments. I do feel as if I’ve the years I’ve become desensitised to his behaviour and now it’s starting to hit me like a brick how trapped in a time warp he is and that the older he’s getting the more cringe it’s getting.

look, I get the ‘just move on’ comments but, seriously???

have you ever broken up with someone?

you don’t just wake up after 25 years and ‘move on’ without any introspection or analysis. He will always be part of my life regardless in how I feel about him. Not facing up to things is the fastest road to crisis, which is why he is where he is right now.

and for the poster implying I was rooting through his cupboards and finding FROSTIES: I asked my son what he had for breakfast and that’s what he said there was. No boundaries crossed. You can stop trying to pin stuff on me. I’ve done nothing wrong but questioned the evidence in front of my face.

OP posts:
jeaux90 · 26/10/2023 08:11

That should say not good at caring about anyone else

RJnomore1 · 26/10/2023 08:12

He obviously wants something very different from the op and if it was a woman on here posting about how her husband and her have grown apart she’d probably be advised to consider leaving because life is too short. I don’t once remember seeing a woman advised to stay for the sake of the children. The opposite usually, life is too short, children are resilient etc.

I think questioning his interior design taste is pretty low. How much input did he have to the house he’s been living in for years? If he picked the couches and wallpaper fine but if he’s been accommodating someone else’s tastes and now has a chance to do his own thing so be it. He’s found accommodation where he can have his kids rather than a one bed and he hasn’t left for another woman.

It’s a sad time and I get the op is hurting but the sneering from others is not nice.

Spirallingdownwards · 26/10/2023 08:12

LizzieSiddal · 26/10/2023 07:52

Because he’s left his long marriage, his child in the middle of GCSEs, his dog and decided he wants to be a teenager again.

Show quote history

I suspect he hasn't left his marriage purely so he can live in an 80s throwback flat though. It is quite telling that the OP says he wants to go out and have fun but that she doesn't. It sounds as though they have grown apart and don't want the same things. The decor of his flat ,as another poster stated isn't the reason for the break up by a by-product of it.

It is unfortunate that it is close to his son's gcses but with the older child being just past A level age maybe it's been coming a while and he didn't want to prolong it any longer.

Whenever there is a breakdown of a marriage and one leaves it is always potentially painful for the other party who may have been living life totally unaware that the other party was so unhappy. OP, you are still in a state of shock that your life has been turned upside down and it isn't going to be the life you had pictured. However, it will get better and you will find your way to live how you want to just as he is finding his.⁸

ThisIsntThe80sPat · 26/10/2023 08:12

Definitely mid life crisis.