The Script - is he too far into it to pull him back to me?

[IAmNotDarling]

H is 42. Last year suddenly started getting interested in his fitness and went for it with running, weights and buying a fancy bike. We’ve been together 25 years and had a happy and loving relationship.

He started pulling away from me around November and made excuses about being busy at work, tired, etc..

He works away periodically; a night or two at a distance and has done for years. Usually accompanied by a colleague (as necessary for the work he does).

He went to his work Xmas do alone, after we couldn’t get a babysitter. He then decided to socialise twice with work over the last the month, involving staying out. Both completely out of character. He started working late and all weekend.

I joked to my Dsis he was probably having an affair. She asked who and I named OW because she’s the only one he works with who has no DC (recently divorced) and I just got a weird vibe when he recruited her 3 years ago. I said nothing to him except I was worried he would burn out. He bought expensive new clothes. I said “oh they’re nice.” He pulled away more. He started getting touchy about his phone. Before he would leave it out and not fuss over it.

I went out for a few drinks after work last night and came home earlier than expected to spend sometime with him before bedtime. He pulled away and made excuses about being uncomfortable after exercising.

Today I’ve been out all day with DD at her hobby and when she went to bed I went to snuggle up to him on the sofa. He pushed me away and said “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t love you.”

I was calm. I asked questions. He quickly fessed up to sleeping with a colleague he travels with. Says he hasn’t been happy for more than a year and that’s why he started exercising. Said he feels alone - DD has a very intense hobby which involve me taking her most evenings.

H says they have fun together but claims it’s only been going on since early January. I don’t believe this. Why would you throw your family away for something going on for only 6 weeks? He says he wants to move out locally (although he works a distance away, as does OW) and be on his own, but also wants to explore things with the OW. He is adamant he doesn’t love me. I asked if he still thought of me as his best friend. That was a resolute no.

I love him and want to save my marriage. Is it too far down the track to pull it back? I can forgive the sex - yes it was unprotected - so I have an STI test already in the post, but it’s the re-writing our history I am struggling with.

My heart is racing. I can’t sleep. I have to be up and out for DD in the morning to help with a big event for her hobby. He’s getting up to fuck off to work early, she has also been going in at weekends to be with him. I bet they’ve been fucking in his office.

I know it’s a total cliche but I never ever suspected he’d cheat.

I’m not trying to cling on because I’m financially dependent on him or because of pride. I am actually very worried he’s lost the plot. OW works for him (his business) and he’s now in a precarious situation. I’ve told him I’m not leaving the house, this is our home and DD needs the stability.

It’s fucked isn’t it?

Do you think your daughter understands that there is a difference between a parental relationship and a romantic one? Her asking your ex to choose between the OW and her isn’t a request she can win as they are 2 different relationships. It gives the impression that you would have him back after all this? If not, you need to make this clear to her.

By closing this option down you will give her space to adapt.

It’s her right to never accept OW ( my older daughter is the same) but it might make it easier to see a future. I do appreciate what an awful impact this has taken on you and your DD.

Yes, he has filed. I’m waiting for notification from the court portal.

Under the new process there’s no advantage in being the filer. I decided he could pay.

She fully accepts that there is no way back from this for our marriage. If you read my thread you will see this is her setting boundaries. He has chosen OW over his daughter.

It’s not really a boundary, it’s a condition.

I get you are both coming from a place of great pain but this is just my perspective from the outside.

@Secondstart1001 it isn't the OP who hasn't given her daughter space to adapt.

It's her father. Who in 3 months have left his family home, moved in with his AP & her children and expects his teenage daughter to deal with it.

Considering its the OP doing 100% care, while dealing with her own trauma and taking her daughter to counselling while he lives it up with his new partner I think she is doing enough.

Therapy will be were she works through what has happened and understand what his behaviour means.

And he did choose the OW. If he hadn't he would be out of the family home, independently living, focusing on stabilising her care and being there for her.

Instead he is being led by his dick having a pity party for one.

@Wonderingforever I am not attacking the op, I know what an absolute dick her ExH has been while she’s been 100% caregiver and going through such a sad time. She has done absolutely nothing wrong, she’s been her daughters rock.
I was trying to give a different perspective from my own personal experience with an older Dd who won’t accept Ow 4 years after knowing the truth about her dad. I’ve encouraged her to accept it as alternative is she’s eaten away by it and consumed by anger.

Why do women always get the blame. Posters trying to get her daughter to minimise her feelings so everyone can play happy families.

Bollocks, I'm older than many on here and have seen these divorces with abandonned children and step children trying to fit in with selfish adults, the very ones that bleat on about being mature and respnsible parents advocating pretend blended families.
I've seen how they end up in many cases when the parents pass on, wealth and inheritances being completely bypassed to the ow, who then in turn pass it all on to their children, leaving abandoned kids nothings.

Can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen, kids who've shoved their feelings down their throats just to remain in contact with a selfish prick of a father and some vile ow, it never did any good in the end.
Sorry it's not what the 40/50 year olds want to hear as they believe they are so mature but just wait till old age hits, you realise initial responses to vile behaviour is usually correct. Whatever your daughter wants, needs and feels at the moment op, allow her the right to be herself, she has her own guiding morals and my thoughts are that you are the right person to guide her with her own choices, and don't be afraid to disagree with councillors, some of them live in some silly utopian fantasy world.

Don't allow others to influence your decisions, you sound marvellous to me, a great mother.

She (ow) on the other hand I wouldn't want her to be in my cat's company let alone my daughters, she sounds a dreadful woman, with no empathy.

Your husband is a fool and an idiot, and one day you will see that, not yet, I won't lie it's going to be hard and the only thing which alieviates the pain and confusion is time, but time doesn't just make you forget, it also clears your mind to see the real facts.
And the real facts are that this man was never a safe husband or father and you always had stronger morals and ethics than him, so does your daughter, and one day you will see how important that is.

Take care
x

Thank you.

I’ve brought my DD up to trust her instincts. I read the ‘Gift of Fear’ when she was younger and really took the message that it’s better to be overly cautious than push down concerns.

The OW is devoid of empathy. What kind of woman would be with a man who disregarded his own child to continue an affair? An absolutely terrible one!

Hi @IAmNotDarling. I missed this the first time round but just wanted to send you solidarity.

I started getting The Script 2 weeks before Christmas, and STBXH left me on the 4th January. Our stories are strangely similar, he was getting up at 4am to go to "the gym" at work. Hindsight reminds me that he has severe mentionitis about a girl at work 16 years his junior - the gossip mill and my gut tell me they're together now.

I'm only a few weeks ahead of you but can promise you it DOES get better (I'm not anywhere near 100% yet, but certainly better than I was!).

Have you read the book Runaway Husbands? I found it massively useful, if only to tell me I wasn't alone. You're not alone either. PM's are open if you ever want to chat, and keep posting here - I got so much support from MN x

I don't think many people on this thread are saying the OP should pressure her DD to minimise her feelings and pretend to play happy families for her father's sake. Or in any way blaming the OP.

I'm 69 and have been there. The OP and her DD will be going through absolute hell at the moment and IME their pain will last a lifetime. The DD has every right to have no contact with her father now and in the future if that is what she wants. I send them all my love and support.

My point is that I am glad I did not let my pain stand in the way of encouraging my DC to rebuild a relationship with their father over time when they were ready.

I supported them to do so on their terms and in their own time because I believed and still believe it is better for them to have some kind of relationship with him in the longer term. It's not the relationship it would and should have been but he is the only father they will ever have. He is half their DNA and they have both inherited their looks and many traits from him. So the way they feel about their father affects the way they feel about themselves. They are now in their 30s with family their own and they are happy to have some kind of relationship with him on their terms.

Of course the OP and her DD are suffering terribly now. They will have to find their own way forward.

@Godesstobe

I think every breakup and every divorce is unique, the different circumstances and variables are for each family to navigate, but societies pressure when women and children are going through this hell, in my opinion does nothing for their confidence.

It's like a collective swarm gathers rounds to push the narrative that it's quite acceptable to abandon families and children must be encouraged to fall in line. I would rather remain nuetral as a mother in this situation.

It is for the father to heal his relationship with his children.

Op it's going to be hard enough to remain uplifted and stable for your daughter during this period let alone having to worry about poor Iron Sausage's feelings.

Just look after yourselves, protect yourselves, I won't give you false claims of new and exiting times but I will say you sound an intellegent pair of women, and maybe one day after the fear and anger have subsided you can get back on track, it is then in the future your daughter can start to make her choices, don't rush it at the moment, take everything at your own paces.
I think it's very difficult managing your own disgust and that of the children in these situations, they are very real feelings and are left entirely with the mother, these feeling also transfer to the mother sometimes, (sort of why couldn't you keep him,) these conversations need to be had because they are part and parcel of the hell of being abandoned by a selfish fucker.

Sending support
x

I've just read the thread and wanted to tell you OP how much I admire you.

Trust your judgment and your daughter's. Your bond is strong. She knows you've got her back and if she wants a relationship with her dad she won't be jeopardising what you two have together.

I'm so sorry about how your husband turned out and really respect how you are working with your feelings of missing the old him yet while not taking any shit off the new him.

I don't have any advice but am sending support. Keep going. This time will pass.

Boundaries, shmoundaries. Trying to blackmail her father into breaking up with his new gf isn't healthy. It isn't going to work. And it isn't going to achieve anything (even if it did work). He's still going to be the same CF he was before, just that he'll be a single one (and a resentful one).

It's fine for your dd to tell her father she doesn't want a relationship with him because he's a CF and she hates the way he treated you. It's not fine for her to make ransoms and ultimatums and say she'll get over it and see him again if he dumps the other woman. Unfortunately, it's your duty as a parent to explain this to her - she doesn't need to fight your corner and you don't want her to fight your corner. It's imperative that you get that message across to her, or else you're allowing it to fuck up her mental health. If you allow her to maintain this ultimatum then there are two possible outcomes - either she never has any relationship with her father ever again, or at some point she backs down and breaks her demand. And if that happens she'll carry the mental scars of what she's seeing a reasonable demand failing. What if ex and ow are still together in 10 years, 20 years? Or even if they aren't, and he's with another future partner, your dd will still see them all the same as the ow who wrecked her family.

Clearly the marriage is over and breaking up with the other woman isn't going to fix anything here. If you don't try to fix your dd's thinking now, then she'll carry this issue forward with her father forever, with all his future partners. Yes, it's painful, but behaving like this isn't healthy for you or dd.

@altmember

I don't think op asked for her daughter to say this, it's just anger in the heat of the moment, I'm sure many young teenages have said similar to their fathers.

She's hurting and can't understand this complete turnabout of a loving father to someone who is unrecognisabe to her, it's quite understandable that she doesn't want this unrecognisable shithead in her life.

Her father should understand her pain and realise he really shouldn't have gone full throttle and moved straight in with this ow, it beggars belief how they have not taken any of the children into account.
I doubt at this point that the daughter gives a shit about the future with him or her, and I don't think she needs to take them into account.

So what if the ow is hated forever more, same too with her dad, it's her choice.
Children are quite astute sometimes.

So you are accusing the child of blackmail, what kind of blackmailing is the ow doing to make this man leave his senses and go headlong into co habitating with this woman and her children, I honestly can't think of a worse way to abandon your family, they really don't deserve any consideration.

@YouAreAStrongLady thank you.

@altmember she’s not blackmailing her F. She’s saying to him you have hurt me, you continue to hurt me and you have chosen this path for our relationship. Are projecting?

I’ve brought my DD up to know she owes people who cause her pain or disrespect fuck all. Even her own father.

And so fucking what if he stays with the OW? OW has no interest in being a SM to my DD and DD doesn’t need the toxic shitbag in her life at all. Any proximity to this homewrecking whore is to too fucking close.

Apologies for the typos. I am exhausted.

I love and agree with every word of this.

Your STBXH is a stupid evil twat, putting his knob ahead of his DD.
I hope you get half of his business & then sack or make OW redundant.
There's probably a way to do this.

I'm not a bitter ex wife, I was the teenage DD.
I'll never forgive what my parent did.
I just wish that they'd been honest & said that they weren't happy & just left, instead of having an affair.

It's her father who's encouraging her in her normal early teen line of thought by effectively responding "right. Well then. You've given me no choice. So long DD!"

The mature response would be: "I'm sorry I've hurt you. I still love you and always will. You never have to meet the OW if you don't want to. I'd like to see you, just you and me."

She might still tell him to F off. But it would reduce the pain a little.

There is no excuse, Your DD is completely within her rights to see he has dumped her, he prefers a dinner date with his OW than see her for a few hours.
Of course she is outraged & hurting.
However hating people takes up a lot of time & energy. it makes you feel on edge & uncomfortable & eats you up, which fuels the misery.
She could try changing her view of his lying cheating cock fueled deceit, to imagining he has had a head injury or life changing illness.
The result is the same, but it hurts less to imagine he didn't have a choice

@Mix56 You’re right, the rage I feel is exhausting and DD is using a lot of emotional energy up. Thankfully we have a big, busy weekend away ahead which is I’ll hopefully be a welcome respite for us both.

I have a day off work tomorrow to go for
nice long walk by the water and a pub lunch with a friend.

What kind of woman would be with a man who disregarded his own child to continue an affair? An absolutely terrible one!

100%

Your daughter sees him for who he's become, and he's choosing someone who is more than happy to see him leave his own children in the past. They're both horrible people.

The chap that stole my motorcycle called round to ask if it had been insured and if it had could he have the log book as he was having trouble selling it without one!

Sorry wrong thread!

Although the analogy still kind of works... :)