Devastated my husband wants to leave me for somebody else

[Lilly Pants]

It's sad. We know that the tighter we hold onto something, the more uncomfortable it will get. He will stay and resent you.

 

Hopefully that's not this case. Does the idea of splitting assets etc not matter to him?? Custody? All that?

 

He can stay and resent me all he wants but in the process of staying and moving on, that will pass. I don't expect him to fall in love with us and our marriage overnight. I expect we will hate each other during this process at points.

 

We don't have many assets to split. We rent and he said I could stay in the apartment. We have our own cars that were ours before we got married. We have basically $5,000 in the bank and he said I could have it. But he's the main breadwinner so I'll burn through that fast. The kids he's struggling with though. He's already said if it weren't for the kids he'd had left months ago. He's staying now for the kids.

[Lilly Pants]

I'm so sorry you're in this situation.

 

It sounds like the marriage fixing should have been done long before this. Having many ups and downs does not make for an environment conducive to contentment in a partner.

 

What kind of issues were you dealing with? It may be too late to fix them now, but perhaps talking through it will help you on your path to closure.

 

Just basic normal couple things. Money. My family. He had trust issues with me. I had problems with him being detached. We both took each other for granted. He resented some choices I made that he had to deal with. But it was typically normal couple things.

[Lilly Pants]

He did make an effort. He went a month without talking to her because he wanted to work on us. The only thing that changed between then and now was they had sex.

 

I don't think he could walk away and forget us, but I do think that if he says he wants to leave and we make a bonding experience of me packing his stuff and loading it in the car, he would go. I don't think he'd say that me saying he could go made him realize how much he'd want to stay.

 

Like I said, I don't need advice on how to get him to go. I want help figuring out how to talk to him about moving forward. I don't want another night where he comes home and pretends I'm not there. I want to talk to him about this.

[Mrs. John Adams]

Just basic normal couple things. Money. My family. He had trust issues with me. I had problems with him being detached. We both took each other for granted. He resented some choices I made that he had to deal with. But it was typically normal couple things.

 

He is in an ongoing relationship with a woman he works with.....this is BIGGER than you want to believe...this is not NORMAL behavior for resentment and money and your family.

 

But oh well....good luck to you.

[basil67]

cross posted.

[whichwayisup]

My husband and I have been married 4 years, together for 6, and we have 2 kids. We've had a lot of ups and downs but I always thought we were pretty happy. But I just found out he's been having an affair for the last month with a woman he works with and is close with. Now he wants to leave me for her. I'm devestated. I don't know what to do.

 

For now, tell him to pack his bags and GO to the OW. Tell him you're filing for divorce. Even if you don't follow through he doesn't need to know that. Right now the only chance of you have of possibly saving your marriage is doing a total 180 on your husband. He wants someone else? He can leave.

 

Sorry for your pain.

[basil67]

Just basic normal couple things. Money. My family. He had trust issues with me. I had problems with him being detached. We both took each other for granted. He resented some choices I made that he had to deal with. But it was typically normal couple things.

 

I find it alarming that you're writing about these problems in such a dismissive way. You're writing as if they would have no impact on a marriage or a person's desire to stay. It's quite possible that if these issues run deep, they aren't "typically normal couple things"

 

Why was money an issue?

Why did he have issues with your family?

Why did he have trust issues with you?

What choices did you make that he had to deal with?

 

I'm not blaming you for these problems. Perhaps he was a nutter and you're best off away from him. Again - just trying to help you work towards finding answers.

Edited March 22, 2017 by basil67

[Lilly Pants]

He is in an ongoing relationship with a woman he works with.....this is BIGGER than you want to believe...this is not NORMAL behavior for resentment and money and your family.

 

But oh well....good luck to you.

 

I didn't say it was. Somebody asked what issues we had that made things up and down.

[Lilly Pants]

For now, tell him to pack his bags and GO to the OW. Tell him you're filing for divorce. Even if you don't follow through he doesn't need to know that. Right now the only chance of you have of possibly saving your marriage is doing a total 180 on your husband. He wants someone else? He can leave.

 

Sorry for your pain.

 

I'm not going to lie to him about filing for divorce. He lied to me so the solution isn't to lie right back to him. I don't want one anyway and he does so saying I'm giving him one just tells him I'm fine with him leaving.

 

I don't believe that fighting for a marriage means letting him wander off to be with somebody else. It means sitting down and working stuff out. If he was a drug addict I wouldn't tell him to keep doing drugs and hope he'd stop. That isn't a technique that would work here either. I want him to know what this marriage means to me and chucking it away like he did isn't the answer. My husband isn't the type that would work on.

[somanymistakes]

Certainly talking it through like mature adults first is a reasonable plan.

 

But if it comes to begging and pleading and desperate emotional appeals to make him stay, it's not a lasting solution.

 

You mention drug addicts - just asking them to stop isn't going to stop them either, they first have to WANT to change, and sometimes it can take a horrible experience for them to reach that point.

[Lilly Pants]

I find it alarming that you're writing about these problems in such a dismissive way. You're writing as if they would have no impact on a marriage or a person's desire to stay. It's quite possible that if these issues run deep, they aren't "typically normal couple things"

 

Why was money an issue?

Why did he have issues with your family?

Why did he have trust issues with you?

What choices did you make that he had to deal with?

 

I'm not blaming you for these problems. Perhaps he was a nutter and you're best off away from him. Again - just trying to help you work towards finding answers.

 

I'm not trying to be dismissive. Sorry it's coming off that way, I just can't get past trying to deal with the affair to focus on the other issues. Truthfully they weren't that bad save for one.

 

The money was that we just didn't have enough.We are both spenders and neither one of us are good with money. He'd make big purchases without saying a word to me and I'd do the same thing. It was fine when I had a job that I worked full time but I didn't really pursue advancing in it because I didn't want that job to be my career. I didn't see that being my career I mean. When I got pregnant we were in a rough patch and I was having a hard time so I cut my hours. Then I cut them more after our son was born. Juggling a newborn and work and marriage was too hard for where we were at the time. We ran up a lot of debt on credit cards.

 

My family he just didn't like. He hates my brother and my brother hates him and he doesn't like my mother. My mom is a hard person to get along with though. That's not all him. My mom and I were rocky until I moved out and got married.

 

The trust thing is complicated. When we got married he said he wanted kids and I did too, but we both wanted to wait. A year later I was pregnant, totally unplanned. I freaked out because he was clear he didn't want a baby yet and I didn't either and we were having a down in our marriage. But when I told him he said we'd just make it work. Things got better for the most part. He's a great father and our son is the center of his universe.

 

Then when our son turned 2 she started working with him and she became good friends with some of the guys in my husband's circle, then my husband. She was trying to have a baby with her husband but was having a super hard time. Hearing about that and a bunch of my friends were pregnant or having babies so I had a bit of baby fever. I told my husband I wanted to try for another baby, but he said no. We were having a hard time again because he wanted me to work more but I said we'd go back to never seeing each other and I didn't want that. Money was tight. I really pushed it and he really pushed back. I got frustrated and told him I was tired of being on the pill (it gave me headaches) so I was going off it and if he didn't want another baby it was his job to prevent it. He says he doesn't remember me saying that I was going off of it immediately, just that I wanted to go off of it and would be.

 

He thinks that because I started initiating sex a lot and I never had before (I think the pill killed my drive) and wasn't clear about not being on birth control, I tricked him into getting pregnant. I didn't though, I was clear I was going off of it. Then he said he thought I did the same thing with our first son because a lot of the circumstances were similar (we were in a rough patch, we had talked about a baby and he was no but I was leaning yes, I got pregnant super, super easily) and didn't believe when I said it was an accident. I think he thinks both our sons were something I snuck on him.

 

He was distant the whole pregnancy and didn't really snap back until after our second son was born 11 months ago. The back and forth of me asking him to be into this pregnancy like he was the first was a constant battle through the whole pregnancy. Our relationship took a hit. When our son was born he said he'd made peace with everything but I don't think he did. We almost never had sex after our youngest was born. It became a big deal for me because he used to want it constantly and right up until our son was born we had sex 2-3 times a week, but after we've had sex maybe 5 times. I don't think he trusts me to not get pregnant again.

 

I know that's a complicated issue, but other than that we had basic normal marital ups and downs. He said he worked through it but I guess the more I think about it, he didn't.

[Lilly Pants]

First off I'm so sorry. No one should have to go thru this. It's so painful and hurtful.

 

Right now he is caught up in the affair. He's swept into a whirlwind "love" he thinks is amazing and unique.

 

It's not. But you will never convince him of that. He needs to figure it out on his own.

 

Let him go. It does not mean the end of your marriage. It doesn't have to be the end. But it might be for awhile until his bubble bursts and he now has to deal with the reality of the affair.

 

You can tell him you still love him and want the marriage, but you won't be second best.

 

Let him go, expose him to his (not your) family, tell this woman's husband if she has one, expose him at work if possible. He will have to deal with the full consequences of exactly what he is doing. Pack his stuff and leave it out for him. Set a visitation with the kids and don't let him come and go like it's still HIS house. Anything that has to do with marriage, cut him out of. He needs to know what being divorced feels like.

 

Get a lawyer and get a firm separation agreement in place including finances. You don't have to move forward with a divorce....though you can if it comes to that

 

do NOt engage with him. Other than letting him know you love him and this is not what you want for your marriage or your family and to arrange time with the kids.

 

Let him see how life is going to be without you, and see how their "relationship" holds up to scrutiny and stress in the real world.

 

Don't rush things. You don't have to make a final decision on the marriage right away. But he can't be with a thet woman AND be in your marital home.

 

I had a similar story and we are back together...it's been a hard two years but our marriage survived.

 

I'm really not going to send him off to her and hope that brings him back. He's the type that even if it didn't work he wouldn't come back because he'd remember I didn't fight and wouldn't think I wanted him.

 

Exposing him at work and to his family is a good idea, which I may do. My only worry is that at work he could get fired. So could she but that's not really a big deal. I don't know about telling her husband. Their relationship is very weird and I'm not sure it would really do anything but encourage them to split. If she's not going home to her husband, she'll be going home to mine.

 

My husband comes home any minute so I think I'm going to think of how to force this discussion. The 180 stuff is off the table though. Acts is my husband's love language and if I just throw him out he'll never come back. He needs to know he's loved to want to be here.

[BettyDraper]

It doesn't matter how much love you show your husband if he has decided to leave.

That's why the 180 works well. I used the 180 even when I was dating and I sensed different interest levels.

[Lilly Pants]

It really wouldn't work on him. If he doesn't feel like somebody is interested, he will completely disconnect. And I don't think he'd appreciate what's basically me tricking him into coming back.

[alsudduth]

I hope you are ok with your husband resenting you, maybe for the rest of your lives....or that you are ok with your husband cheating on you for maybe the rest of your lives.

 

I hope you are ok with being a doormat, and trapping your husband into staying in a marriage he doesn't really want to be in anymore. Your kids will see the tension. they will see the resentment in your husbands eyes, and they will think that they should settle and stay with someone later on who treats them the same way your husband treats you, because you did.

 

I don't mean to sound harsh, I've been on both sides of the infidelity coin, and it is not easy - I promise you though, that these people giving you the advise they are, know what they are talking about....and if you don't believe that will be the course you take, well that's your decision, no one here knows your situation or your spouse better than you do....but you are setting yourself up for some serious hurt for you and your children later on.

 

Good Luck. I'm sorry your husband turned out to not be who you thought he was. Is he going to go to counseling with you?

[niji]

A marriage takes two people to work. Throughout your posts you seem to believe in one thing: that you alone can make it work. I've seen many people believe in this, that if they try harder, their partner will stay with them. While giving it a chance may work in some circumstances (ie when divorce is seriously discussed, the straying partner snaps out of it and wants to consider reconciliation). However you refuse to even bring it up; that's like telling your husband no matter what he does you will NEVER leave him. Then he can cheat without any consequences. Why would he stop? What would motivate him to stop? You're not leaving anyway.

 

Also a recurring theme I've seen in your posts is that you seem to be in control most of the times, sort of forcing things on your husband. You stopped BC because of the side effects but I'm sure you're fully aware there are other forms of contraceptives out there. You wanted a child and while you didn't "force" him to have your second child, you basically made it much easier to go your way (for example if you truly wanted to prevent a pregnancy you wouldn't have sex with him if he didn't use a condom). And having a child because of "baby fever" while your husband doesn't want one would make any man upset, not just yours.

 

None of the above is an excuse for him to cheat. But you need to address them if you want to move forward.

[QuietDan]

Have you seen the movie Fireproof? If not, please watch it. Try to get your husband to watch it. It won't be easy. But it's not too late. I was regretfully about as foolish and stupid as your husband appear to be about 10 years ago. My wife and I recently celebrated our 30 th anniversary. This a chapter in your story together. It doesn't have to be the last one.

[Cymbeline]

I'm not sure the prior issues were 'small' ones either. I'd guess he feels unheard in the relationship. I can imagine that he feels manipulated and that you don't listen to him. You probably need to learn about how to alter this dynamic in therapy.

 

As for your approach. I did it and it's exhausting. I told myself many of the reasons you list. He will feel controlled.

 

An experienced divorce lawyer I know - and one who has been through the end of a marriage by being left for an OW told me that we all think our situation is different and will work out. In her experience, the reality of affairs - even when dealing with very high net worth individuals - are almost always tedious and banal.

 

She says the best and easiest way in the end is to allow them to leave and to wait and see if they return, or if they reach a point where they agree to counselling - as they very often do. If they don't, they would have left anyway, but the desperate attempt to make them stay can cause such arguments and tension, it can destroy what is left of the marriage so there is nothing left to build upon.

 

She also said men are frequently very expansive at first, when they leave, aniticipating excitement and a new life. Their wives are often bereft. Then after six months, the shine has worn off Miss Sparkly Knickers; they have lost friends and respect and miss their family. Meanwhile, the wives, who usually have stronger support networks and helpful friends, begin to thrive again, and the tables often are turned.

 

This is what posters are telling you. You will retain more self respect, and ultimately more respect from your WH if you can let go. I appreciate this feels impossible right now, but at least bear it in mind, and understand that if he does leave, it doesn't mean it is all over. He needs to miss you.

[aileD]

I'm really not going to send him off to her and hope that brings him back. He's the type that even if it didn't work he wouldn't come back because he'd remember I didn't fight and wouldn't think I wanted him.

 

Exposing him at work and to his family is a good idea, which I may do. My only worry is that at work he could get fired. So could she but that's not really a big deal. I don't know about telling her husband. Their relationship is very weird and I'm not sure it would really do anything but encourage them to split. If she's not going home to her husband, she'll be going home to mine.

 

My husband comes home any minute so I think I'm going to think of how to force this discussion. The 180 stuff is off the table though. Acts is my husband's love language and if I just throw him out he'll never come back. He needs to know he's loved to want to be here.

 

 

He's with her anyways. Now he has both of you. Now he can have his affair and not lose his real life.

[BuddyX]

It's great that you're fighting for your marriage but you're going about it in the wrong way. If you follow your current path get ready for the following; burner phone, hidden email accounts, overtime at work.

 

In order to fix your marriage H has to cut all ties with OW. That means NC. Quitting his job, changing phone number.

 

Every time he goes to work is like an alcoholic going to a bar. They might not drink, but you never know.

[aileD]

I was you. I am saving my marriage too. I was afraid to put my foot down with him. My husband is the same way "well I guess you don't want me, fine, I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want me".

 

Because I wasn't strong and afraid of losing him, he lost respect for me.

 

 

He continued the affair, going back and forth and back and forth for A YEAR AND A HALF.

 

Ya know when he finally got rid of her and wanted to work on our marriage?

 

When I said "this is dumb, you're married and you won't give up the OW. Let's just get divorced already, I'm done"

 

We aren't telling you to lie or manipulate him. You have to be really ready to leave and follow thru. I mean, if you do this and he doesn't fight for YOU....why would you want him anyway?

[waterwoman]

Please don't try to force him to stay. You can tell him that you love him, you don't want him to leave. but don't make him stay - long-term it won't work.

 

A marriage IS important but there has to be love and respect too.

[Jooles]

Lilly, please salvage your pride and let him go. Something was missing in your marriage for him to cheat. If you are truly meant to be together it will happen. Sometimes you need to let go of what you love to really keep it.

 

Personally I could perhaps forgive a physical affair or cheating, but if my husband actually chose someone else over me that is an unforgivable breach.

[Jooles]

I have to be honest: from your description of the events surrounding your 2nd pregnancy I get the feeling that you felt a growing distance from your husband and remembering the bond you shared during and after your first child's birth, you decided pretty much on your own that you would get pregnant. Having a baby is never a bandaid for a troubled marriage. I can't really blame him for feeling like you tricked him, but also understand why you felt the need to do what you did.

 

I am fairly sure that as long as you are holding on tight to the marriage your husband will be yearning for that other woman. Letting go speaks more about how you are willing to let him treat you than it does about your desire to save the relationship.

[BTDT2012]

Lilly, please salvage your pride and let him go. Something was missing in your marriage for him to cheat. If you are truly meant to be together it will happen. Sometimes you need to let go of what you love to really keep it.

 

Personally I could perhaps forgive a physical affair or cheating, but if my husband actually chose someone else over me that is an unforgivable breach.

Cheating is the result of something missing or broken in the cheater. Each time the cheater is with the AP, they are choosing someone else over you.

It's easy to say what you wouldn't do when you're not in a given situation.