DP "in love" with someone else. But I still love him.

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Some of you will recognise me.

Turns out DP wants more from the neighbour than he can have. There is nothing going on and probably never will.

He is "infatuated" with her. If she asked him to run away and start a new life (which she won't) there is a good chance he would leave me and go.

All his words. He is now trying to decide if he can put up with me "second best".

I love him. I don't want to/can't let him go. But it doesn't look good.

I want him to concentrate on US. But he seems to be focussing on whether he has a chance with her.

Feeling awful. I will accept being second best - IF he can move on. It doesn't look as though he can.

I think he is going to throw away his family for something he will never get.

I think he is going through a Midlife crisis and will regret his decision when he comes through it...but I don't see what I can do to stop it.

Feeling exceedingly

[Chickenshavenolips]

Ok, I really think that you need to throw him out. Much as you don't want to, much as you love him, you absolutely cannot rebuild your marriage while he is calling you second best He needs to be on his own and discover for himself that his behaviour is juvenile. At that point, you might decide you're better off without him anyway. If he stays, there will almost certainly be another crush down the road, and he will always be able to make his misery your fault. If you cling to him now, and lose all your dignity, there is no going back.

[MissWooWoo]

Hi ThisBoy

my heart goes out to you, it's an awful situation to be in ((((sending big hugs))))

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

no my mum slept on the sofa because she couln't bare to be in bed with him, but couln't break up the family.

She actually kicked my brother out at 19 so she could leave as she didn't want to leave him at home with dad (he was a chronic alcholoic.

[benjysmum]

History repeating itself?

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Until I can stop lovin ghim I can't leave.

If you can stop me loving him I will go....

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Actually if you can stop me loving him I will leave his belongings on the doorstep in black bags

[SparkleandShine]

forget this stuff about 'second best' you need to know if he wants to be with you - the only way to do it is take it away and see if he comes back.

He'll never stay for 'second best' he'll only stay if he thinks you are best.

[Tillyscoutsmum]

If you can't go because you still love him - can you go because it might make him realise what he is missing and want you back ??

If it is the mid life crisis you suspect, then sitting around being a doormat is not going to encourage him to be with you.

Leave, get on with your life, show him what he's missing. Do all the things a woman having a mid life crisis might do (dress up, new hair, go out with friends). Even if its all a pretense - he's much more likely to want to get back with a strong, independent, sexy woman than one who is being a complete wet lettuce. Where's his incentive to fight for you ??

[Callisto]

It does amaze me that you love him, despite his behaviour. Has this always been the dynamic of your relationship with him? He is always looking around for something 'better' and you're always working to keep him with you?

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

My own home life and my reasons for me wanting my mother to leave him are clouded by very very different events and therefore I can't answer that question objectively.

I know what DPs parents seperating did to him...and TBH neither option are appealing.

I have already stated that if he decides to stay it is because we all want that. Someone is going to be hurt by him leaving. That is without question. Someone is going to end up unhappy. We can't live under the same roof with any of us unhappy though...if that makes sense.

[MadameDuBain]

To me this sounds like the kind of situation where you need to leave (or rather, ask him to leave so you and DCs can stay in the house) for him to see the light of day.

In two past relationships (luckily before DC) I've had this kind of crap. I do not stand for being second best so dumped they were - though one of them I loved very much. Both came crawling back a few months later and said to me that the other woman was an annoying idiot once they got to know her, and they missed me and wanted me back. I didn't have them back, but perhaps with a longer relationship and DC and if I still loved them, I might have.

If it is a mid-life crisis which it does sound like, you might be able to come out the other side of it together but only by making him wake up and smell the coffee. Hanging around accepting being second best will just send him a message that he can treat you like dirt.

I would tell him you won't do that, and ask him to leave - maybe he could move into a friend's or relative's for a while so it isn't cast in stone - and explain to the DC that he is going to live elsewhere for a bit (of course seeing them regularly I would hope). Then get on with your life and lean on friends and whoever you can for support, and put yourself and your DC first. Yes it will hurt but what will happen is -

a) he will see sense and grovel and realise he does love you and you will have the option to rebuild things -

or -

b) you will realise you are happier without him, and can arrange a sensible set-up so you can co-parent.

Do not, do not, do not settle for being second best because that is nonsense. You are not second best to anyone - that is just his confused idiocy talking - and if you did that you would put the whole situation on a terrible footing.

I understand you're not ready... but I think you will be.

[lizzy6]

You're never going to leave him until you feel that that is the "right" thing to do.

If the issue continues then over time the way you feel will change. This may be sooner or later, probably hard to say at this stage. It took me a year. No doubt, things will happen and be said that will make you more ready to make the break (or show you that the relationship can be re-built).

In the meantime chin up, be strong, don't be a doormat and set clear boundaries and rules as much as possible. Be as independent as you can and this will make it easier for you if and when the break happens.

Don't think too much about your own parents' situation - do what is right for you and not what they did.

If it helps, see a counsellor and work through what you feel. If you do this, talk with a few on the phone before you meet up with one - it's important that you talk to someone on your wave length.

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Thanks Madame

Difficulty is he doesn't really have a temporary bed anywhere without B&Bing it. None of his friends locally have the capacity to put him up. The place where he coudl find a bed is too far from his business. Otherwise I think that is the obvious option.

[MadameDuBain]

You could tell him he's out on his arse anyway if you are not good enough to be his no1. so he's better look for a solution. He can research hostels, ask friends about sleeping on their floors or start budgeting.

Alternatively, if you have space, could you live separately in the same house?

I have to say if I was being called second best, my own room and my own space and a door to shut against him would be very important to me - even if I did love him.

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Difficulty dittany is that i did not get on with my father at all...so my obvious answer is that I would rather that she had have left. But not because of their relationship but because i hated by father and didn't want to be with him. TBH I didn't realise my mother had been sleeping on the sofa all those years at the time. I only worked it out retrospectively...so I think that at the time (until I was 14-15) I was unaware of the problems.

Why didn't my mum leave. I honestly don't know. Money (which would be DP's problem not mine in the instance)? Scared? it wasn't really the done thing back then I guess, but I honestly don't know the real answer as I have never asked.

[6feetundertheGroundhogs]

I don't think that you leaving him or kicking him out would be perhaps the most realistic move for now.

For one, you don't fundamentally want to 'leave'. you want to work/hang on in there.

But your confidence has taken an absolute battering in all this.

Can I suggest that you go away somewhere to get your head around things, to find yourself, contemplate things. You need to regain your own self respect, your confidence in yourself and HE, the fool, needs to miss you. Cos he WILL!!!

If your DH was an arse, he'd have just gone and had that affair, he hasn't so we can at least give him the benefit of the doubt as it were for now.

He does however need a bit of a kick in the pants to buck his ideas up, you saying I need space and time away, and go off somewhere for a while, to regroup could be what you need. I'm not talking a weekend here, perhaps a week or 2, longer if you need it. Long enough for you to be missed.

If you don't refind your inner self and the fire and passion to stand up for yourself, the one that will be unhappy for the rest of the time you all have left together is you.

Look around the threads, there are others on here that live like that. it's no life.

[Callisto]

Why is it your problem that he has nowhere to go? If he hadn't been such a self-indulgant idiot this wouldn't have been an issue. You need to stop taking responsibility for him and his behaviour.

I also think that you are doing yourself NO favours by labling his behaviour a 'mid-life crisis'. There is plenty of evidence that there is no such thing as a MLC, it is just an egocentric baby-boomer excuse for behaving badly. When you say to yourself 'Well he is doing this because he is going through a MLC' you are giving him an excuse to behave this way.

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

I'm sorry I don't appear to be listening.

I am listening...it is all contributing to those thought processes. It will all help contribute to that decision - when I am ready to make it.

Thankyou all for your wise words. I am off to bed know whilst he is out socialising with her (amongst others)...

[mrsboogie]

All this stuff about who gets hurt if he leaves and where he sleeps if you kick him out and the dynamics of your relationships with your parents is, by and large, not the point. If he is having a mid- life crisis his feelings are as real to him as if she was the love of his life. You can't just ride it out.

He has described you as second best and you accept that. Worse still, you are prepared to hang on to him on that basis.

All wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Let him go, you have, absolutely 100%, NO alternative.

[6feetundertheGroundhogs]

You need a holiday, a break, to recharge, to pamper and spoil yourself, to treat yourself well. You do deserve it, and right now you NEEEED to feel pampered, valued and loved.

Only then will you be able to reclaim the love, value and worth of others towards you.

Don't just sit there and wring your hands and just take it. Flounce off somewhere fabulous and expensive and he's paying for it!

Leave him holding the baby for a while, see how he feels after the day in day out you have to do.

Come on girl, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and don't show him you're hurt.

[ThisBoyDraculaDrew]

Git has just come in paraletic.

I am in Dds bed (they are away)

I would love to flounce off and him to pay for it and see my day in day out life...sadly he is the primary carer and it would be my money paying for it.