WH leaves me and our newborn in a few days to live with OW on the other side of the world.
I knew he left because fatherhood triggered a crisis in him (repetition of family history) but the A made it really hard to decipher what was what and of course, WH hasn't wanted to 'process' any of it with me.
I went dark for a month and half when I was 6 months pregnant, but then because of my own lack of courage, legal reasons (he has automatic 50-50 custody - 'no fault' country) and social pressure ('let him be a father even if it's not the sort of father you imagined') I started contact with him again ...and things never improved, in fact they deteriorated because it was all too much for me and I became overly emotional.
This did two things: proved to him I am not someone he'd WANT to come back to, and secondly, I exposed myself to his wayward craziness for too long which has been bad for my health.
I am hurting, and because of the pregnancy and the birth and a lot of other massive changes in my life outside of WH leaving, I have been stuck in a cycle of shock, anger, sadness, etc. It's been 8 months now since the bomb!
I don't know what to do once he is in the other country and living his life with OW.
Can you see any hope for my sitch, or should I be moving on?
Me 36; H 40 baby born in May M:13, T:15 Bomb (OW): Dec 09 began DBing: Feb WH overseas with OW old: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2027369#Post2027369
I should add that WH hung around waiting for the baby to be born because he wanted to meet her, be here (in his own disconnected way) and to be there to name her, like his dad did for him.
I was hoping in that time, with OW being o/seas and all, that he would 'wake up' and have a revelation.
In fact, it's only recently become clear to me, by piecing together comments and bits n pieces here and there, that he never intended to look back and reconcile once he decided to go. And that in fact he used the whole time post bomb and pre-birth, to start setting up his own life which would include OW.
Not counseling. Not reconsidering. Not helping me when I was pregnant. Nothing, except moving on towards a life without me.
Moving o/seas makes it so much easier for him to detach further & leave all the responsibility to me.
This is very out of character, all of this. I did not marry a bad man, but I married someone who was not grounded and who had a terrible family template which he is re-enacting and passing on to our daughter.
Anyway, him hanging around while I was pregnant, and a few months after birth has been a huge torment to me. I didn't fully understand it, what was motivating him. I thought, he can't be THAT heartless and selfish, can he? I wanted him to wake up. I am also resentful of the friends that put him up in their spare room for 7 months so WH could watch me have his baby from the sidelines without lifting a finger. These were my great friends. They thought they were doing our baby a favour by keeping him here to meet and bond with her. But it did me a lot of damage. Is my thinking wrong, here??
Affairs don't last long term. It may take him three years but things will get serious there too and he will break and run again.
The thing is piano, you put WAY TOO MUCH energy into worrying about HIM... It's not a healthy marriage to worry so much about the presence of one person in your life who is that destructive.
You didn't marry a bad man? How do you define a bad man then because this guy is pretty close to the mark.
Even IF he came back you need to TOSS HIM AWAY until he GROWS UP
I have mentioned this before on other threads to other visitors here... You can't make a man-child into a mature adult... They have to walk that road you can't walk it for them.
Take all that energy you are putting into HIM and put it into yourself and you will be a very strong, independent woman who HAS the strength to TOSS HIM AWAY when he returns.
You HAVE to toss these guys aside until they grow up... They are PARASITES.
He has way too many damn issues right now to be a healthy influence for you or your baby... He's POISON.
STEER CLEAR until YOU and your SUPPORT GROUP are satisfied that he's grown up... And I don't mean those clowns that put him up for seven months.
If you let this guy into your life before he grows up he's going to to irreversible damage to that baby and mess her up something fierce. You aren't just responsible for introducing people into your life that promote emotional health, you have a responsability to protect your baby from parasites too.
I am not telling you to stop loving this guy. I am telling you to get AWAY from HIM until he GROWS UP.
Think of it like parents sending a problem child off to boarding school... Still love the little guy, but he needs discipline he can't get at home.
You need to cut this guy lose. Someone who is willing to do what he did to you is NOT SAFE to be around CHILDREN OR ADULTS... Stop exposing yourself AND your child to him until he has GROWN UP.
That's what worries me most. Not that he's a problem but that YOU are so focussed on HIM that you are willing to expose yourself and your baby TO someone that is that unhealthy for the two of you. Your husband is nothing short of abusive. I don't CARE what his background is... It's abusive behaviour and you need to start taking responsability for yourself and your baby and STOP letting parasites near either of you. This is a LIFE SKILL.. to be able to say NO to a man because he presents potential HARM to you or your baby. You need to learn to say NO to him. Until you can do THAT then its best that he doens't COME BACK. You have work to do. YOU have growing up to do.
Instead of worrying about HIM, put all this energy into YOURSELF or you will regret it.
You are a mother first... And its time to protect your baby properly.
whoa, there, Allen...I know you are a passionate kind of guy, but Piano is not about to do any harm to her baby. Be careful when you toss around statements like:
Quote:
You are a mother first...And its time to protect your baby properly.
This is pure genius, though, and something you have been saying forever but the longer that time passes, the more it seems to ring true (for me and the rest of the wives whose men left their families):
Quote:
You can't make a man-child into a mature adult... They have to walk that road you can't walk it for them.
Last edited by newmama; 08/15/1004:51 PM.
me,34 exH,34 S,16 months S:3/31/09-left for OW started DBing 10/09 d final: sometime 10/10 current: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2022856&page=1 met in 2004
I don't think WH is abusive - although you might call abandonment, for whatever reason, passive agressive abuse or some such thing. I guess what I took from this is that the situation, as is, is too stressful and painful and therefore not good for me and the baby. The man-child thing is true. So is the woman-child thing. This is my opportunity to grow. But I am on my knees, and scared. He leaves in 3 days. What do I do? Say nothing? What final interraction/words am I supposed to be having? He will want to see the baby one last time. I would have a better time detaching if he wasn't going 'forever'...it's too much loss..
The best guideline I can give anyone on this forum is this :
If your spouse is cheating on you, and they ask for something.. Don't give it to them.
I don't recall how much exposure you have running on this or how much guilt he's feeling, but right now him coming back ins't a good thing anyways... If he came back I would tell you to reject him anyways... He's got a talent for talking and then running a few days later when the pressure kicks in...
That will be to your advantage when he leaves to meet OW... the pressure will kick in there too... He has a family with you and his baby and he will most likley run THERE FIRST...
YOU need to get yourself strong enough to tell him NO... NOT until you GROW UP
I don't think WH is abusive - although you might call abandonment, for whatever reason, passive agressive abuse or some such thing. I guess what I took from this is that the situation, as is, is too stressful and painful and therefore not good for me and the baby.
How much of the show below fits?
Does your partner continuously degrade or belittle you? If you think that just because you aren't being physically abused nothing is wrong, think again.
Emotional abuse can have devastating consequences on both physical and mental health. While emotional or psychological abuse may be difficult to pinpoint, examples abound. Here are some characteristics:
* Using economic power to control you
* Threatening to leave
* Making you afraid by using looks, gestures or actions
* Smashing things
* Controlling you through minimizing, denying and blaming
* Making light of the abuse and not taking your concerns about it seriously
* Continually criticizing you, calling you names, shouting at you
* Emotionally degrading you in private, but acting charming in public
* Humiliating you in private or public
* Withholding approval, appreciation or affection as punishment
Results of Verbal and Emotional Abuse, from the Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness:
* A distrust of her spontaneity * A loss of enthusiasm * An uncertainty about how she is coming across * A concern that something is wrong with her * An inclination to reviewing incidents with the hopes of determining what went wrong * A loss of self-confidence * A growing self-doubt * An internalized critical voice * A concern that she isn’t happier and ought to be * An anxiety or fear of being crazy * A sense that time is passing and she’s missing something * A desire not to be the way she is, e.g. “too sensitive,” etc. * A hesitancy to accept her perceptions * A reluctance to come to conclusions * A tendency to live in the future, e.g. “Everything will be great when/after …” * A desire to escape or run away * A distrust of future relationships
WH confessed his affair as soon as he followed me & arrived in my country. He was honest straight away about what had happened in the 3 months we were separated. He said they had 'renounced' their relationship because of the guilt & because he wanted to tell me & be sure of what he wanted to do. 4 weeks later, he 'made up his mind' that we were finished. He wanted space, I persued, he left. Then he hung around for the baby to be born.
Guilt? Yes. He says he feels very bad for what he has done, having a baby with me when he has been unhappy for years, and he would have left me anyway one day. The A has 'nothing to do' with our marital problems, he says.
When I tell him, how can you be so sure, which came first; the marital problems or the affair, he says he has had doubts about us for years.
I DO beleive he had doubts..I see it now with hindsight that his growing irritability, negativity and withdrawing from me were part of a built up resentment; I was not meeting his emotional needs.
I own those parts.
He feels guilty for not telling me years ago that he was unhappy. He says he should have. But now it's too late; there's no point raking over the past. What's done is done. He doesn't love me anymore.
When the pressure kicks in with the OW, he will not run back to me. I am 17,000kms away, an expensive airfare (he is unemployed - he tried to get work here, it failed) and here is not "home". Europe is his home.
I think that's why there is no hope.
I think he disconnected from me so brutally (which is not the case for all the other pregnant women on this forum), because he knew early on that he would not be living in the same country in the long term, so better deal with the separation from his offspring the sooner the better.
I agree I need to be strong no matter what. I am about to be 100% alone parenting our baby.
Have had a look at the emotional abuse list. He did none of these. I do relate to the Results list however, but I think it's because of low self-esteem.
