It's me now

[LifeSurvior]

I am ten years on from a very traumatic experience of my husband cheating.
It took me into horrendously dark places,,suicide, drinking, hospital admission to mental health facilities.
I am so much better now with my mental health wellbeing, I'm stable, I cope okay with my life, I'm a good Mum, I sorted myself.
But the anger, the disdain, the sheer fucking how on earth could he have done this to our family feelings are still here.
He came back after I had to be in hospital.
I still look at him and think, you only did that because your family were horrified. He has never come clean with his family, he told them I had a breakdown, I was suicidal, I was the nutty one.
He has never, ever told them he met another woman in hotel rooms for sex.
He still now can not abide me saying the reason I don't like you is because you fucked an other women behind my back and gaslightied me it was my fault.
He thinks I should just shut up, be okay, shag him and be silent.

They've already left. Her children are adults now.

She's staying now for herself. No one else. She always was, really.

I think, possibly, @LifeSurvior has not made the complete recovery from her breakdown that she might believe. I get the feeling that her mental health is not good at all and she is, perhaps, trying to feel her way around what her next steps might be.

I think you fooling yourself if you think your kids don't know your relationship with their dad isn't all it should be. He clearly has zero respect for you. He will leave eventually, he probably feels trapped. You can only control what you do, and what you will tolerate. Your kids will still have one stable parent if you kick him out. You. So I don't know why you're convinced they will suffer because they won't, not in the way you did, you can make sure of that. I don't get how you are still sleeping with him. The reason he has no remorse is because he doesn't care. He likely feels resentful at being held hostage in the marriage because he owant his parents, children or friends to know.

Just realised OP was probably (very) drunk when she posted this.
It is difficult not to replicate your parents' patterns. Even if you manage to avoid repeating some behaviours, others can sneak in as 'coping' mechanisms.

I completely misread that! Thanks, @GreyCarpet.

@MaidOfSteel wanting kids of any age to think their parent was selfless and appreciate them staying in an utterly miserable marriage full of hate 'for them' is awful. That what dysfunctional, toxic people would want.

No healthy parent would expect gratitude from their kids of any age for their choice to be unhappy.

I had the same impression, especially as the responses came in.

I don’t get it
your formative years were ruined partly because your parents kept bringing random strangers in, being toxic and not paying attention to you
so now you can’t get a divorce or your kids would experience the same thing?
You could just get a divorce and not ignore your kids whilst you shag around?

If you don’t want to divorce the man who cheated on you and has shown zero remorse, that’s fine and your choice, but there’s no point saying it’s to help your kids or to be a fuck you to him because that doesn’t make sense

Divorce this twat. Your life will be better.

OP can I ask, do you have daughters or sons? If daughters can you imagine for a second that one of them is in this situation in the future - what would you say to her? Kindly, listen to that advice yourself, for yours and their sake. If you have sons, how would you like them to treat their partners in the future? I imagine you’d be horrified if they acted like your husband has. By staying in this marriage you are showing them that they can get away with disrespecting their partner and family. You didn’t cause this OP but you have the power to change it. You’re so strong to bounce back from your breakdown but now you are healthier please find the courage to leave. Life can be happier, for you and your children. It will be hard of course but you are not your mum and you can still be divorced parents and do better than you experienced as a child. Being divorced doesn’t always equal more trauma for the children - in the long term it can be healthier for them. You matter too and yeah you might have bonded with your husband over trauma but he therefore knew your vulnerability and did what he did. You have the opportunity to escape this marriage and have a happy trauma free future. Wishing you luck

This is so sad. You don't need to bring random men into your children's lives. You can control the narrative, you know the mistakes your mum made so don't repeat them.

Work to provide for your children, they will see hard work pays. They will see you being a strong independent woman providing everything they need.

To stay in a toxic environment is highly damaging to your children, im sure they would rather have a safe loving space they can call home, rather than the alternative.

Sorry if this is harsh, but 10 years on you need to take some accountability for your role in the relationship and your own wellbeing and resilience as well as your children's. Some people still work after affairs, but they need to forgive and move on.
The excuse of not wanting your DC to have a childhood like yours is a load of rubbish. You choose what men you bring into their life, you choose if you will go to the pub or be with them, you choose how you earn and spend the money. Same way you choose what relationship you're in now.
Your H may have started this off with the affair but you are just as responsible for this awful situation you, H and DC are in right now. The children are the only innocent ones tied up in this.

That's exactly what my mother expects now, some sort of fucking medal for staying with my dickhead father - and yes, BOTH OF THEM wrecked mine and my two brother's childhoods. Her by being a doormat and thinking she was doing us a 'favour' by staying, and him for shagging everything that moved.

I was in my 20s before I completely realised how fucked up it was. My parents showed no affection between themselves or to us. My mother was angry, resentful and bitter...all of which have increased as she's got older. If there was a gold medal for being a martyr, she would have won it for the last 40 years. Whereas I've spent the last 15 years being treated for C-PTSD, thanks to them...

My mother could have written all the OPs posts. And frankly I find her defence of 'if I'd left it would have been like when my Mum left' bizarre, like the OP has no agency in her own life and would have been almost 'obliged' to repeat her mother's mistakes? I spent 20 years in the legal system and that's up there with the feeblest of excuses ever.

Keep deluding yourself you've done better OP. You haven't.

I don’t really understand why you are seeing your options as - staying with a cheat or your kids seeing tons of men in and out. Being single is also an option.

I had a horrific childhood, I’ve been single 7 years (I briefly dated one guy but my daughter never met him). People do have agency over their lives…

But that was down to your mother, you don’t have to do the same.

I became a single parent when DD was around 7-8 and there was never a parade of men in our house. It doesn’t mean I was a perfect mother by any means, but it’s miles better than staying in a bad relationship.

Very well said @FreeRider

@LifeSurvior are you listening to this? Take heed please. You've already messed up your children, whether you know it or not. Why continue being that angry doormat martyr? And as for saying "fuck you" to your rag of a DH, I'm sure he's been ever so grateful to you over these last 10 years.

You don't have to bring men home. Just don't date. Lots of single mums don't date whilst their kids are still minors.

Staying with a cheat will destroy you. Having sex that you don't want will destroy you.

Model healthy boundaries to your kids.

He can leave and do that anyway. He's exposing you to STI risk by cheating and expecting sex from you.

Leave him, take half his assets and pension, and get a job.

Poverty is not the worst thing you can inflict on a child. I say this as someone whose mum couldn't always afford to put the boiler for hot water each day. I don't mean heating (that was limited to one gas fire in one room), I mean hot water from the taps.

My parents stayed together because of me, they both had happy childhoods where their parents stayed together. However, my parents relationship was a complete toxic mess of abuse, violence, alcohol, and infidelity. It only ended when my father passed away when I was still a teenager. I would have given anything for them to split up now that I look back - I'm now 40 years old, lived a life of depression and anxiety and never been able to have a proper relationship because of the trauma that childhood left me with. You think they don't know and they weren't exposed - believe they DO and they WERE

I sincerely hope you haven't fucked up your children (adults or not) the way my parents did me

I don’t think your username is apt. You haven’t survived life, you’ve accepted it.

Life survior are you ok?

She posted her OP at around midnight the night before last, and all her follow-ups at around midnight last night. I would expect her to be back at around midnight tonight.

You need to choose what you can accept if you can't fully forgive yourself and your spouse you can't heal or ever move forward. You need to leave. Your not comprehending the damage your doing as your blind to it. I honestly feel for you but you have to make a choice

Life survior, I hope you are feeling ok.

It must be difficult to hear so many replies that say you have failed your children.

That was what all your effort, stress and toil was for and what you have desperately tried to avoid. I don't know you anymore than other posters do but I would say you handled all those difficult days, you did the emotional and physical labour, you tried to provide stability for your family. You have taken on so much over the years, I honestly think that you have done your best in circumstances not of your choosing.

This forum is really not the place to go when you are feeling vulnerable.

I really hope you can find some help that will benefit you and that you will begin to think about what is best for you now.