Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis "I Love you but love her too"....WHAT?

My H put an offer in on the house and it was accepted. Now what? Guess he's going to move out and live there with the gold digging s!^+. He asked me to do something that I knew would put me in a bad position with the house and I refused. That started World War III. I had a major melt-down and said a few things that I probably shouldn't have but I had to stand my ground. I wasn't threatening nor did I tell him that he was out of his mind. I told him that I needed to protect myself and that started it! I'm sure he felt like he lost control of the conversation and hoped that I would immediately agree to his request. He made threats that he would file for a separation but then later said that it could be undone. ????? At one point I told him that we were both too angry to be talking to each other about this and that I was going to leave. He told me that he was leaving for the weekend but then didn't make a move. He just kept threatening and badgering me. I stood up to leave and he followed me. Long conversation and long story short it ended with both of us in tears and a compromise that was acceptable to both of us. I can't believe that this is happening! I thought I was doing pretty well until that conversation. Now I feel like I'm back at square one.

Since then he's been quite attentive yet still on his mission to leave. I think it will be easier for me to DB when he is gone. He said that he has this emotional attachment to me. Then he said, "You have no idea what this will do to me". Being without you isn't going to be easy...we have a connection that I don't want to lose." I wish now that I wouldn't have said it but in response to that I said YOU are making that decision, just like you allowed yourself to start the relationship with XYZ. When he told me that he "has to do this" I told him that it seemed like he was obsessed with her (in a calm and concerned voice, of course). He didn't deny it but maybe he just didn't respond because he was so angry at the comment. He has the nerve to act like a victim? I should have showed some empathy but my emotions were out of control at that point and I couldn't help it.

If I had more time to come here and read and post I might be further along in this. I don't know what to say or do. I take the book with me when I leave the house and keep reading and re-reading the parts about doing what works and changing what doesn't. At this point, I'm convinced that nothing will work except for him to leave and see for himself that what he's doing isn't really what he wants.

I'm lining up the bags of popcorn and lounge chairs if anyone wants to join me. I need a little company to help me get things back into perspective.

Have you seen an attorney yet? I sure as heck wouldn't be letting him use any community funds to purchase this house without talking to a lawyer.

Kml,

You must have missed my reply to you from the first page....

I did contact an attorney when he first started talking about buying a house instead of rentng and was told that half would be mine in the event of separation and or divorce. It won't matter legally whether I sign the paperwork to purchase the house.

But it will still mean taking on debt, won't it?

Imagine, for a minute, he buys the house. And a year later you get divorced, and the house has dropped in value, so that it's underwater. And his love affair has blown up and he wants to move to another country and sell the house at a loss. Would you be responsible for paying half of the loss?


I just think, when they start making major financial moves like this, it seldom benefits the LBS. This is usually the time to initiate a divorce or legal separation, to protect yourself financially. I doubt any divorce attorney worth their salt would advise you to sit by while your H spends community assets on a house for the OW and him to live in.

What are you hoping to gain by being a doormat in this situation?

kml...I appreciate your concern and have thought long and hard about what he is doing. Too put your concerns at ease I will start by saying that it's not about money in my situation.

The house that he is buying will have no debt. In our compromise from this past weekends blow-out, I had him sign a Quit Claim Deed to on our current house (no debt except monthly bills). I have a sizeable inheritance that I have kept separate and not co-mingled as well as a monthly guaranteed income from the inheritance, a pension from my job of 34 years and lifetime health insurance. If he spends every last nickel of our community funds, I won't be happy but it will hurt him more than it will hurt me. He makes a very good salary and if he wants to continue to work until he drops dead to support himself and possibily the OW then that's his decision.

Until this happened to him, he was a very loving and giving husband and father. We had fun traveling and had respect for each other and our differences (he being a career driven person and I being a home and family focused person.) Together we built a good and comfortable life and didn't need to spend a lot of money to be happy. The kids may lose if he goes off the deep end and spends everything that we have in community property. Our youngest of the 4 kids is mentally disabled and there is a Special Needs Trust set up for her. As much as I don't like what he's doing, rest assured that financially, I will be more than just okay and the kids will too.

I may apprear to be a doormat but I am not a weak person and have a well thought out plan should he take that one way flight into space! When he moves out, I will certainly change the locks to the house, go dark or as dark as I can and will grab my bag of popcorn and watch from the sidelines.

What bothers me the most is that he is throwing away our marriage for a gold digging s!ut that has no money. She has just as many issues as he does and my H knows it! If they end up together then they deserve the misery that they will have with one another. She didn't even work until she was 35 years old and it was because her family cut her off for marrying a "working class man". Talk about issues!

It make take a long while before I heal emotionally but financially I will survive.

I appreciate your concern and wisdom and like that you are helping all of us consider important issues for our futures that we might not be thinking about. What I think I need most right now is support and advice on how and what I should be doing to help my chances of keeping this marriage together. I am not fooling myself into thinking that he will dump the s!ut any time soon, if ever but I know that others have saved their marriages with worse problems than we have. That is all I'm hoping for.

While I didn't want to share as much as I have and it may have been TMI, I felt it necessary so that others wouldn't think that I was oblivious to what can happen to people financially in our situation. I am thankful for all of the veterans here that provide us the pep talks when we need them, ideas when we're lost as to what to do and with a reality check when our focus isn't in the right place.

Glad to hear you've got the financial end of things taken care of. Far too many women here, in an effort to appease their WAS, end up shooting themselves in the foot financially.

As for how best to win your H back - at this point, I think setting firm boundaries is important. He can't have you both, and what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. He needs to realize that you won't always be there waiting for him, that you may move on to another man. NOT suggesting that you date - but it's sometimes a good idea to give him the notion that you MIGHT meet another guy. Right now all your behaviors have just suggested you are waiting there as his plan B.

You need to start going out, being mysterious about your whereabouts, take a vacation weekend with "friends". Flowers may start to mysteriously appear with the card removed. Fancy underwear hanging from the bathroom rod to dry. Give him the gift of realizing what it would be like to lose you to another man NOW, BEFORE you actually start dating.

Yes, I agree, he more than likely thinks that I will be here for him when "Plan A" (the ow) blows up in his face. I have done a few of the mysterious outings, a few weekend trips without letting him know who I was with and I ocassionally hang fancy lingerie on the shower head so that when he gets in the shower in the morning he has to remove it! I love the idea of the flowers showing up without a card. Knowing him, he'd think they were for him. HA! His response to my trips and mysterious ways has him thinking that I'm playing a game with him. He asks me why I can't just tell him where I'm going and with whom. I know it crosses his mind that he might lose me....he's said as much. He's doing with the ow exactly what he doesn't want me to do so let him get angry! I just don't want to push it so far that he has another meltdown like this past weekend.

I think I'll visit the local florist and see what trouble I can cause.

All and all it was a good 3 day weekend. Friday, H had an appt. at the dentist that took nearly all day. He was dazed and even more confused than usual when I picked him up. (They had him take a valium so he couldn't drive.) We were invited to a neighborhood BBQ and even though he should have been home resting he insisted on going. He was, as usual the life of the party and had a good time. The subject of board games came up and he suggested that we all get together some time in the near future which is normal behavior for him!

Saturday he invited me to go out to breakfast. Again, a good time, good non R conversation about kids etc. He wanted to go shopping for some things for a BBQ for that night so we stopped and picked up massive amounts of food. I saw glimmers of the old H all day long...happy, very talkative and pleasant as can be. Do you suppose it was the after effects of the valium. If so, I need a years supply of it! LOL He went about the day ordering things online for the house, talking about future plans for years into the future. We BBQ'd watched movies and he was more calm than I've seen him in a very long time. He always falls asleep with his hand on me but that night when I got into bed he pulled me closer and had even turned on some relaxing music. I kept my hands to myself and for the most part my back to him. I wasn't totally ignoring him but just a bit less warm than usual.

Sunday was a blustery day so we spent most of the day inside. He showed some signs of distancing and left the house to "get some air". A little bit later he asked me if I minded if he took one of the beds when he moved. It took every ounce of strength that I had to answer without emotion. I told him that he could take the one in the middle bedroom upstairs (the oldest bed that we own, of course) and he seemed surprised that I didn't tell him NO and even thanked me. I've wanted to use that room for a different purpose so it works for me and I don't even have to have someone come and take it away! He pushed a little further and asked if he could take one of the newer ones (give him an inch and he always takes a mile) and I calmly said no. He asked to take a specific blanket, the one that happens to be on our bed and I told him that he could. Poor guy, couldn't deny him his favorite blankie. He asked if I was sure....that he was worried that I'd get cold. In a joking tone I told him that I would be fine and would find another one and then told him teasingly that I was "resourceful". He laughed but he had thoughtful, worried look in his eye that told me he was thinking that I would replace the blanket with someone else. He said nothing for a very long time.

Yesterday morning he asked me if I wanted to go out and get a coffee. I declined so he went alone. When he came back he had this horrified look on his face and told me he had run into his sister and brother-in-law at the coffee shop. The odd thing is that they live at least an hour and a boat ride away. For them to run into each other in "our town" was very strange. The more he talked about it the more I could see how it effected him. His sister is one of his major issues from the past. He wouldn't let it go, saying that he felt like they were invading our space etc. He even mentioned it again last night as we were having dinner. This is good, he needs to work through that issue and seemed to be trying.

He went to bed early last night but at one point I heard him talking to someone. I'm pretty sure it was the ow. When I finally came to bed he woke up and started talking and cuddling. The first thing out of his mouth was that "he knew that this was all going to work out". I won't guess what he meant since, as Snodderly says, if their lips are moving, they are lying. He rambled about many things including running into his sister (he couldn't remember that it was just earlier in the day that he'd talked to her), held on tight until he finally fell asleep and left me laying there wondering what he has in store for me next. I expect nothing and hope for everything....someday, way off in the future. He's not ripe yet! LOL

Hey NLT!

I have heard all of the crazy stuff your H says coming out of my x's mouth. I felt like a daisy being plucked while he went thru his "He loves me, he loves me not" routine.

Read enough of these threads and you will see it is all script. I'm glad you have the money end worked out. But think long and hard about all the rest. And for pity sakes don't let your H leave without taking his favorite pillow to go with his blankie....

Take Care Of Yourself!

Wendy

Wendy, thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I am overwhelmed with this forum and all of the info and people on it. I've tried to read the basics first (read Divorce Remedy) and then read through more posts. I'm thankful for a place to talk to people going through the same thing and to know that my h isn't special when it comes to the things that come out of his mouth. So you have been living with your xh now for how long since the D or did your house sell and you've moved? Has he softened up a bit since or is he still a confused and disoriented man? OW? I'm sorry for what has happened. Are you doing well and still Dbing?

I'm starting to get my sense of humor back after the BD and all the craziness that I've been living with for nearly a year now. I wish I had found this site earlier, like as soon as he started with his EA with the OW. Oh well, I found it and I'm happy to be here learning not only how to deal with him but to make sure that I survive with my sanity.

I just thought of something. I wonder if after my h moves out and if the gold digging s!^t moves in if I'll be the OW? LOL I can see him now, sneaking away to call me, sending secret emails, making excuses why he needs to come to the house and texting during all hours of the day and night. He is/was so dependent on me that it was almost easy to "do something different" by remaining silent or saying little when he wants to run a thought by me and not responding with anything of substance when he asks what I think he should do about this or that. I just had to take the step of faith and believe that it might make a difference in the way that he looks at me and realize what he'll be missing when he leaves.
I thank God that I have a busy life and don't have time to really think about his antics 24/7. It's tough enough to think about it during the few quiet times that I have.

I also wonder if he'll say anything to the kids. I think he has a fear of doing that and it certainly won't be ME that tells them.