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.

I really don’t understand why you stay in this toxic relationship. 🤔

The kids are adults and you are allowed to focus on your own needs now. I split with my cheating ex in my 30’s and met my now DH in my late 30’s.

My life is a million percent better than when I was with my ex, even my supposed ‘happy life’ before he cheated.

I’m in my 60’s now and I’d hate to be spending my twilight years with a shitty partner.

You're allowing your anger and bitterness to take over your life. Your adult kids will be well aware of your unhappiness. My mum stayed with my dad and she was clearly unhappy throughout my childhood.

She only started living her life and being truly happy after he died.

Such a dreadful waste!

I feel very sorry for you @LifeSurvior but I can't follow the logic of your decisions here. Precisely because you have had the experience of a chaotic broken home, you are very likely to be super cautious in not replicating that should you separate from your husband. You say you are still full of anger over the betrayal of your husband cheating on you, but you appear to be willfully blind to very real possibility that he will do so again (if he's not doing it now). How is that healing your past trauma or creating a healthy family for your children to grow up in. Do you think that when they start their own families that they will look back at the decisions you made to be a martyr as something they will want to emulate or (as you have done with your DM's example) run a million miles from? Children may not tell you they are unhappy because of their mum and dad's toxic relationship; that doesn't mean that they don't notice it and aren't affected adversely by it. I don't know how long ago your husband cheated on you or how long that went on or how long ago you took him back, but I can make a fairly accurate guess that your marriage is not going to survive in the long term. If you really want to protect your children from trauma, then you should be making solid plans to be able to live a productive life without your deadbeat husband and without turning into either your DM or MiL. I wish you well.

My ex MIL could have written this. My goodness she hated him, it seeped out of every pore. And then he got very ill and she had to care for him for years, doing the basics through gritted teeth. He’s dead now and she’s still miserable because she made a series of shit choices and even once he was gone her life was crap as she’s wasted so many decades bitter and angry and neglected everything else.

Dear OP, only you can understand how easy or hard for you is to stay in the marriage. He has not been abusive, so you want to stay. He apparently pays for you all, so you want to stay. The kids love their father, so you want to stay

If the kids are now adults you have donecwhat you wanted to do and seen them through their childhood without the drink and neglect and merry go round of step patents. You have suceeded in not repeating the cycle.

You can move on now, take comfort and pride from that sucess and focus on the future for yourself and trying to heal.

I have not been exactly where you are but let's say ...life taught me not to want a man's romance all the time...and not to hate people, including a man who could have hurt my feelings. Live for life, for hope, for God, for your kids. Hatred is a killer and you know this from your own experience

The OP has stated that the children are now adults who have left home. So their childhood is a done deal, and most probably as a result of it they are thinking (much as the OP thinks of her own childhood) that they do not want to repeat the damaging mistakes of their parents. As you say, they'll absolutely have seen when growing up that their mum hates and despises her dad, and most likely vice versa.

The question is, why on earth is the OP determined to stay in a situation that is so completely toxic for her, when the active parenting of her children is done. Possibly it's because being this miserable and full of hatred feels deeply familiar to her (as a result of her childhood), and therefore somehow safe (no matter how contradictory that looks on paper). It's the kind of issue that probably won't be resolved without some professional therapy, but it doesn't sound like that's something the OP is interested in doing. It's a desperate situation. I hope she can find some peace.

Bringing up children in a destructive, loveless marriage does them no favours and you don't get a Martyr Medal for doing so. In 21st C Britain there are options beyond losing custody of your kids or the workhouse, which was a real possibility for women in terrible relationships through much of history.

Academic really as you're saying they're now adults and you're still with him. Why?

But as adults and parents we need to do better.

Her mum was from a generation where being a single parent was one of the worst things that could ever happen.
She likely had little choice but to try and find a man but because she was so desperate, she only found men who wanted to use her.

Our parents/childhood absolutely shape who we are as people but you cannot continue to blame others when you are an adult and can work on yourself.

OP could have looked at her mum and thought I’ll never allow myself to be in that position - I will get a good career and be financially independent. And if my DH ever disrespects me then I will leave and remain single until my kids are older etc.

OP and her DH have extremely misogynistic views and this would have had a massive impact on the kids.

There are certain things I won't say purely because of your fragile mh but..

I stayed, I came back and they haven't had my childhood. They have had both parents. We have given them two parents.
They always had two parents but that didn't mean you had to stay together. You just had to both be a parent, just not in the same house. Sometimes you can be a better parent by yourself.

I still think it's better than the horror of my childhood.
YOU ARE NOT YOUR MOTHER. So you wouldn't have given them the same horrible childhood. Just a different horrible one.

You need to leave OP, you will never be well until you stop internalising your absolute rage at your parents, your husband and actually at yourself. Start the process by leaving your husband.

This. Have some self respect for God's sake. And I say that as a single parent who does NOT have men over or live in poverty because their father loves them more than he wants to spite me.

I stay because my kids don't need random step men in their lives.

I feel sad for you if you think this is the only option.

I don’t think I have ever read a thread where I thought “You need therapy” as much as this one,
Seriously, you are coming across as unhinged. Your children are adults,
Get therapy as you are consumed by bitterness anger and resentment-and don’t think for one second your kids can’t see it,
They will,probably need therapy too as they will know you stayed for them -and look how it’s turned out,

You are getting a hard time OP, but I get it. Your H's behaviour put you in a place where you had two shit choices. Leave and face poverty for your children, or stay with a man who traumatised you. Both are shit and you chose the one you feel was a bit less shit for your kids than the other.

Life can be hard. Sometimes there are no good choices but you still have to make a choice.

I don't get this either, why are you with him @LifeSurvior as you clearly loathe and despise him? And with good reason to be fair. But I think you are deluding yourself if you think your children were not affected in any way whatsover by what your husband did, and the years of toxicity and bitterness that followed, because of you loathing and despising him. And you are still extremely angry TEN years on.

And still very bitter. (As I say, it's understandable to feel this way, but 10 years later, you should have moved on.... or left him... Or both....) You are talking as if this happened 6 months ago. What a terrible waste of life, still full of so much vitriol and hatred and bitterness for something that happened TEN years ago!

Your children WILL have picked up on the hatred, bitterness, and anger over the last 10 years. Children aren't daft. You sound full of so much anger and wrath. I really think you need counselling, and to make an exit plan to leave the marriage.

Like many other posters, I am really sorry for the childhood you suffered, but don't think your childrens childhood was much better, because they will have been living in a really toxic environment with a mother who despises their father. And they know, trust me they do.

As has been said, you have not done your children any 'favours' by staying with their father. They may have had a bit less material goods, but they would very likely have been happier and more content, and so would you, if you had walked away 10 years ago.

You could be doing them more harm than good living in this toxic environment! You don't have to follow in your parents footsteps and become a shit show yourself, you can be single and happier!

I'm sorry you feel you have to stay with a man you are so angry with because you can't imagine a more positive future - you really could be an amazing mum without him. Just believe it. You don't have to behave as your parents did - you can be a powerful mum on your own.

You are showing your children that any relationship is better than no relationship.

That two warring fighting adults is superior to a settled calm home with one adult as a parent or indeed two that genuinely love and care for each other.

That it is OK for your DH to do what he did and that there are NO consequences because you are not worthy. Inferior. A helpless victim.

I have friends that stay in unhappy marriages - to keep up appearances. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Awful for everyone especially their children.

You had an unhappy childhood and you feel that what you have done is better. It isn't. It's equally dysfunctional.

You owe it to yourself and your young adults to get out and live a proper life, worthy of you all.

You aren't going to get over this while you're still with him, and you are doing your children no favours here.

Her children are adults now. That ship has long since sailed.

No it’s different. My mum had an affair and my childhood was a series of fights and arguments as they stayed together and hated each other and my dad brought it up every time they argued. That and other stuff means I was traumatised - just differently than you but mine wasn’t better trauma.

You and your husband are not your parents. Some separated parents do not invite anyone to meet their children me included. Being separated is what you make it. The same as being married. The questions you have only your husband can answer. There is no perfect solution but you do deserve to be happy and it doesn’t sound as if you are. Financially in this day and age many women have careers and are fully able to financially support themselves.

Just wanted to add, I didn't point this out to shame you op, just that it makes a difference to how you might choose to deal with the advice your are being given now, based on misinterpreted information.

I hope you are ok x

I was the child in this situation.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking your disdain and animosity towards him is hidden. This is a toxic mess, and far more damaging to your children than seperating at this point.

You can AS my posts, I'm usually a big advocate of staying together being the best for children if there are no issues like abuse.

Cheating is a form of emotional abuse. You think you've taken control by holding on to him, taking out your anger on him, when all that is doing is trapping you in the dark place, and unfortunately making you look a fool.

That was my childhood. My dad is dead now but they were arguing virtually up to his last breath. I said in an earlier post my mum had an affair very soon after they married, I was an accident as was another pregnancy when I was 11 but thank god she had a termination. She had another affair when she was late sixties , man from a club she and I were in, Jesus the embarrassment seeing them at a party together . My first boyfriend was awful , coercive control but thank god I got out of that and have a lovely husband who ironically my mum does not like!