Husband has left, Emotional Affair with Colleague, Can I save this?

[BarnabyRocks]

Husband of 14 years left 3 weeks ago, just told me he'd had enough, was unhappy, wanted to end it. Up and left to go stay with his sister, totally blindsided and devastated. We haven't been happy in our relationship for years, we have 2 young children and I have been in the trenches as it were with them, he has been head down, concentrating on his business. I have done the lion share of the care/parenting/house etc, you know the drill, working part time around their needs, feeling like I'm drowning or on a constant treadmill. We have no support from parents either side. This has caused resentments over the years with very few concessions from him, or admitting he should help more. He has been working extremely hard on his business, has had periods of burnout and dizzy spells and had reluctantly admitted (since he left) that he had been focussing on this and not us. I will admit we have had a dreadful communication style between us, with me pleading for help at times, him being defensive and dismissive, sulking on both sides then very little repair, just a gradually going back to normal after a few weeks, he has ot slightly better over time, helping a bit more, but it wasn't enough and he has said he felt that whatever he did was never good enough. I have been carrying lots of 'scars' from when I have felt let down and unsupported by him, he I think has felt unloved by me. On top of the communication style, I have been going through the menopause with all of the dreadful symptoms, including not wanting to be touched or intimate. He knew this but I admit I had been keeping a lot of how I was feeling to myself, as is my style plus through almost burnout myself, and just getting my head down and getting on with the jobs that needed doing.

My 2 kids are traumatised by him leaving, we have just been getting by. In his leaving speech to me,after some pressure from me, he admitted he has declared feelings for a married colleague and she has told him the same, that she is also leaving an unhappy marriage with her 3 children, he has assured me that nothing physical has happened but I'm not convinced. They are going to be at the same event together next week for 2 days/1 night. He knows I know this, it has been planned for 6 months, a work thing. He keeps saying 'nothing has happened', 'I haven't gone behind your back', but I think, as he's already told me he wants out and has left, that mentally he will think if something happens physically, that that won't be cheating. I'm not sure how I am going to cope with these two days, knowing they will be together. I still love him, I still want to try to work things out. We are in a dreadful place. We talked 2 days ago, the first time properly since he left, both admitting how we had been feeling for years and it turns out he thought I had been treating him like a doormat and I thought the exact same of him, we just hadn't been expressing it to each other or accepting each others feelings. Although I have tried in the past, this would, I felt, fall on deaf ears.

He has said his reason for ending it has got nothing to do with the other woman, and is purely because he is so unhappy in our relationship. That it is just a coincidence that she is also leaving at the same time..

How can I tell him not to take that step next week when they are together, and do anything physical with her? Should I? I know this will appear like I'm begging him but I love him and I cannot bear the thought of him kissing or being with another person. If I don't say anything, I think he will take that as my knowing he is going to do something anyway, that because he's already told me he's leaving, he can do it with a clearer conscience. I want him back, or at the very least, I want him to not take that step with her, so we can work on our relationship, even if it's just so we can not damage it further, but I don't know if me telling him that will push him further away?

I agree. I think this marriage was utterly miserable. I hope one day the OP will realise that her husband was right to call time on it, even if she might wish he'd done it in a different manner. I hope they can be friendly.

Op it’s been years. Years and years. You seem hell bent on blaming this other woman, and some posters are encouraging this, and you seem hell bent on living miserable for both of you, just to stay together. You seem to feel if he’d not met someone else your life could have stayed as is, both of you unhappy, but at least life stayed as is. Life’s too short for that.

I think possibly this is fear of change, being alone. And I get that. You’d rather stay miserable and married, in a dysfunctional relationship than be single and alone.

and you blame him for not trying hard enough, for meeting someone else. it is seldom one sided when a relationship fails. And sometimes they just do, people grow apart, they grow, evolve. And find they are no longer compatible.

he has done you a favour to call time on this as a pp said. One day you will see this, when you’re not faced with such an enormous change.

@Franklyannoyed the marriage is a fifty fifty share of the responsibility for the state of it, I absolutely agree with you about that.
However “you blame him for …. meeting someone else” is absolutely fair enough. He is to blame for that. OP is quite right to blame him alone for the choice he made there.
Meeting someone else is one thing, cheating with that person is quite another and is 100% his responsibility and he is the only one to blame for it, he didn’t have to do it, he chose to.
OP is not to blame one bit for his decision to cheat. Cheating is on those who cheat, never the betrayed. OP must take responsibility for her part in her marriage but has no responsibility whatsoever for his decision to cheat.
Disloyalty and dishonesty and his decision to deceive are not things which OP or anyone else could or can have any effect on at all.
OP was in the same marriage suffering the same circumstances and chose to remain loyal.
This was his behaviour to control and he chose not to. He is 100% to blame for it.

It's not ideal circumstances in which to leave but if it's what gave him the impetus to make the change then perhaps ultimately it's for the best. The OP and her husband seem to no longer have been in love, he fell in love with someone else. It happens.

@BarnabyRocks it is far, far more damaging and psychologically abusive to be unfaithful and leave a marriage in this manner. Being betrayed attacks your sense of worth, your judgement and can leave permanent scars. Rejection is never nice to deal with, but it happens and we have to deal with it. Betrayal and being deceived and lied to is a whole other thing.
Meeting somebody else and feeling strongly attracted to them might make you realise you no longer want your marriage, so you leave it honestly first and pursue a relationship when you are free to do so.
The marriage ending might be ultimately for the best, but the betrayal of OP certainly isn’t.

She doesn’t know if he’s cheated; and if this was a woman posting as said earlier, her marriage was unhappy for years, no intimacy, she’d met someone she developed feelings for, was going to exit the marriage and pursue it people would be applauding her. But because it’s a man, folks are frothing at the mouth.

even if he hadn’t met someone else, there would still be frothing as it appears in here, the simple act of exiting an unhappy marriage is only something women are encouraged to do. The man is all sorts of a bastard if he does it.

@Franklyannoyed part of the title of OP’s thread says “emotional affair with colleague”. OP herself does not believe for a second that this woman isn’t at least a big chunk of the reason he’s left. Neither do I.
Personally I don’t care whether it’s a man or a woman leaving a marriage honestly and with good reason, these things happen and relationships end.
Cheating, however, doesn’t have to happen, it doesn’t just happen, it’s a personal deliberate choice.
I have the same feelings towards those who cheat regardless of gender. In this case it just happens to be a man who just happens to be far too close to a female colleague for his wife’s liking.
Being a man is neither here nor there for me. I certainly wouldn’t applaud a woman or anyone else having an affair regardless of how unhappy they might be in their marriage, it’s dishonest and abusive. I’d say the same thing to her: leave your marriage and pursue the new relationship when you are free to do so.
Having an emotional affair with a colleague (which OP herself believes this is) is despicable whether it’s a man or a woman.

the biggest part of why he left is they’ve been unhappy for years. This wasn’t a happy couple; sure he may have found a soft landing, he may not but the main reason he’s gone is he’s unhappy; the op simply wanted him to stay, even though they were both unhappy.

i don’t agree with cheating, but if you’re unhappy for years , meet someone else, I feel it’s best to end the relationship before getting physically involved with the other person. And honestly I really don’t take issue with meeting someone else if you’ve been unhappy for years man or woman.

the op is blaming the other woman as she’s thinking he’d just have stayed and been miserable and deeply unhappy if it wasn’t for meeting someone else and having a shot at happiness; she’s probably right; but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to move on.

@Franklyannoyed I never said it was wrong to move on, you seem to think I think they should stay together or he shouldn’t leave, I have never said this.
I said it was wrong to have an emotional affair with a colleague. Of course if you’ve been unhappy for years you would want to move on. You can’t help meeting somebody else either, but you can help what you do about it.
OP hasn’t only blamed the OW, she’s been honest about the state of her marriage and his part in it as well as her own.
It sounds like a very unhappy marriage that needs to end, but cheating is inexcusable. OP believes he is cheating.

Sure, I dint disagree, but what she believes and what maybe the truth can be very different things, I’m sure he is as well. I just think it was ultimately bound to happen as they are unhappy and not intimate. The marriage was all but over. The fact he’s potentially met someone else gives him the reason to get out.

I do beleive he is cheating, but I also beleive the primary reason he’s leaving is he’s very unhappy. As is the op.

I don't accept that affairs are a form of abuse. It's worth noting that in the face of it, OP's ex has done exactly as you have suggested. He fell Iove with someone else and left the OP. He denies having physically cheated. That may not be true, but it absolutely is not impossible no matter what Mumsnet would have you believe.

I think this is where I am too. I think he probably is cheating, but it happened because he's spent years in a deeply unhappy marriage in which neither party seems to have been in love anymore. He probably could have handled it better but I don't see the point on dwelling on the other woman and the betrayal of it all. The OP and her husband were not having sex, they were not loving towards each other. I'm not sure what he was really betraying here.

Yes that’s where I am, I don’t really find it unforgivable to meet someone else and move on when your marriage has been dead for years, you’re deeply unhappy and there is no intimacy. And if it’s like he said, nothings happened yet, physically, then he’s done what mumsnet always says, move on before you do. But even if he has cheated, whuch I feel is likely, I’m not really sure what he’s betraying, there was no secret they were not happy, no one has been taken by surprise.

the op understandably is scared of going it alone, what this means to her, and sure she’s probably right, he may have stayed there, being miserable with her for even longer had he not met this person, but I see nothing heroic in staying miserable and celibate as you’ve no where better to be,

@BeaRightThere affairs absolutely are a recognised form of emotional and sexual abuse.
Gaslighting forms a huge part of infidelity and is classed as psychological abuse.
It’s not abusive to continually lie to someone to destabilise their sense of reality?
It’s not abusive to present a fake reality to your partner (and/ or children) and insist to your partner that they are being crazy, jealous or controlling when they ask questions?
It’s not abusive to blame someone else and make them feel terrible, damage their mental health for your own awful behaviour and selfish choices which harm others?
It’s not abusive to risk the sexual health of your partner without their knowledge?
It’s not financially abusive to secretly spend family money on another relationship outside of the marriage?
Infidelity can cause depression, anxiety, PTSD, even suicide and is recognised as doing so. Infidelity victims have even been victims of domestic violence for daring to question or for confronting a cheating partner.
Victims of infidelity suffer so badly because they are victims of abuse.

”Infidelity can elicit both physical abuse and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is when one person tries to make another person responsible for their emotional regulation or well-being in a manner that is detrimental to the other. Or when a person treats or exposes another person to behaviors that may result in psychological trauma. The attachment rupture created by betrayal destroys any sense of psychological safety.”

”It's understandable why violence seems to be the natural response to betrayal. As James Gilligan, former director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system and author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, observes, "I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this 'loss of face.' . . . The purpose of violence is to diminish the intensity of shame and replace it as far as possible with its opposite, pride, thus preventing the individual from being overwhelmed by the feeling of shame."

”Here are behaviors associated with emotional abuse:

• Controlling through finances.
• Using anger to intimidate.
• Threatening a person's safety.
• Humiliating, shaming, or demeaning a person.
• Threating to destroy the relationship with children or family as a way to manipulate or control.
• Ridicule.
• Manipulating by making the relationship contingent on them accepting your conditions.
• Telling someone what they are feeling or thinking.
• Instilling self-doubt and worthlessness.
• Gaslighting making a person question their reality or competence.
• Constant criticism.

More beguiling signs of abuse are:

• Blame rather than working on self-improvement.
• Regarding the other person as inferior.
• Judging a person's perspective without trying to understand it.
• Frequent sarcasm.
• Telling the other person how to feel in an attempt to be "helpful."

Rick Reynolds LCSW
“Psychological Abuse Within Infidelity.”

I think the scary thing about it is that The Script reads the same as someone who is genuinely unhappy and leaving for that reason only, which is why people use ‘unhappy for years’ to excuse their wrongdoing.
I think in this case OP’s partner is genuinely unhappy but for me nothing would excuse his cheating, if that’s what he is doing. OP knows him better than any of us and thinks he is having an emotional affair so I’m satisfied with her assessment of her situation.

Vomiting up half a therapy book doesn't strengthen your argument @Thewookiemustgo, it just drowns it.

I find it unsurprising and totally understandable that people in mutually miserable marriages have exit affairs. As w previous posters, I feel there was little here to betray and great benefit for both parties in ending it.

@InlandTaipan dismissing a valid contribution as ‘vomiting up half a therapy book’ does nothing for yours.

Usually quoting sources and acknowledging references is never referred to as ‘vomiting up a book” and is used to back up the validity of what might be taken as personal beliefs and opinions unsubstantiated by fact.
You are entitled to your opinion however.
My response was nothing to do with how understandable any of this might be, it was a specific response to a specific poster denying that affairs are abusive.
The thread will derail arguing extraneous points so it’s better left there.

You haven’t been happy for years, and now he’s left. The reason doesn’t matter. It’s over. 🤷‍♀️

I'll be honest, I'm not going to read all that or watch videos of unknown origin. I don't agree that affairs are a form of abuse and I believe describing them as such diminishes genuine abuse. That is not to say they are not deeply distressing and traumatic, I know they are. I have witnessed it.

If anyone on MN knows anything about infidelity and recovery from it, whether through divorce or not, @Thewookiemustgo is the one. She is extremely knowledgeable on this. It might serve you to listen to her knowledge and experience here rather than rudely dismissing it as vomiting up a therapy book.

Infidelity isn’t really why this marriage ended though, it’s been dead for a long time, with two unhappy people co habiting, it wasn’t any persons definition of a marriage.

She literally quoted a page of text along with the citation.

If the marriage was over the husband should have worked harder at ending it with a bit of grace earlier - he bears the responsibility for that. Leaving it until he'd already begun an affair was obviously going to inflict more pain. Too fucking lazy to leave before he had a soft landing. It is noticeable he had enough energy for his business and his new relationship - just not enough for the family he helped create. Spare me any romantic protestations. Its not the Brontes.

The fact that many people carry on affairs before leaving does little to commend him or them.

But of course the Op has to be responsible adult in this situation - one of them has to be. She will have to manage her own emotions as well as their childrens and all the adaptations to their lives that will come.
Good luck to her.

Sure, don’t think anyone disagrees with you, don’t really see the relevance though, either way he’s going, either way she’s gutted, either way the marriage is over.

Don't agree that giving him the 50:50 custody he asked for is "weaponising the children" as some posters seem to think 🤔.

I think having an affair can be abusive if there's lying and gaslighting involved, or if they have put their spouse at risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Cheaters don't like to think of themselves as abusive though and will often turn the blame to the betrayed spouse and try to justify their actions.

I hope you're doing OK OP, the thread has been derailed a bit with arguments. Hope you can get some real life support as well as on here x