Hi all. I am a British SAHM to a DS(9) and a DD(7) with a baby due in 3 weeks! DH and I have (at least legally) been married for almost 12 years, together for 14, having been friends for two years prior to that.
Six weeks ago DH left me and our two kids. At that time I was 31 weeks PG and was sure he was depressed, rushed to try and get counselling etc. He said he couldn't stay, he needed to be by himself. He would have to stay at a "friends", but he couldn't properly move out because he needed to find somewhere to live and everything was SOOOO difficult for HIM!
I'd had my suspicions several months ago, early on in the PG about an OW and confronted him with several things (mainly from the fact his FB account is tied to our joint email and notifications which included PM conversations with OW kept coming through!) He kept talking his way out of it and I had to decide whether to pursue the matter further without absolute concrete proof or risk pushing him in to an actual affair with my "paranoia".
My suspicions of said affair with THE OW were confirmed 3 weeks ago, as I noticed how his friends on his old FB account were dwindling so I searched him up and found a new public profile, confirming he was "in a relationship". Once I told him the evidence I had he didn't deny it. They met on FB and then saw each other at a reunion for a school they had both attended although their paths had never previously crossed. DH tried to play on MY sympathies about how the affair started - she basically acted like a damsel in distress on FB. He just had to be the one to rescue her!
He comes back to see the kids and stays over - several times now he has promised them he would see then on x day, then he changes his mind. I used to send him texts to give him what for about the effects on the kids. Now I text and say "Okay, I will tell the kids" and I show them the text where he has said he isn't coming home on promised day (provided that is all it says). The reason for all the text communications is that he is profoundly Deaf, so that is the best means of distance communication for us anyway. I am saving all text exchanges for evidence should it become necessary. (OW is also Deaf - I am hearing).
I have now provided him with his own laundry bin so he can do his own washing (for some reason OW can't do it!), I leave him to wash his work lunch box (that he brings back and puts in the sink when he could have done it the previous night at OW's!) and he seems very perplexed that I don't keep food in for his packed lunches!
Having read Michelle's Divorce Remedy and researched further at the books recommendation, I am 100% convinced he is going through a MLC. The transformation in him is unbelievable from the kind, sensitive, caring man I first met and came to knew all those years ago. The behavioural traits described for one with a MLC are exactly him now.
I am now acting "as if" and try not to draw into any arguments etc. It is really hard to keep my nice composure when he seems to have absolutely no conscience in what he has done. He can't understand why I won't just allow him to have the money he has earned for himself (I am no longer finnacially independent, having had a good career before the kids, and until he decides he is moving out I can't start to claim welfare). He has even flaunted the fact that he took the day off work on my birthday last week to spend it in a place with OW that I would have loved him to take me and he has plastered it all over FB. His old account had lots of privacy settings on it and the new one he has left public. I don't know if he is just trying to test me, but I am not rising to it any more.
My immediate goal is to ensure he does all the necessary practical things like buying stuff for the baby and getting the nursary sorted, and of course trying to ensure that he is at the birth and takes 2 weeks paternity leave. I am so scared for the baby that if he runs away from the fact (very few people on his new FB account know he is "in a relationship" having just left his "almost ready to drop" PG wife) that he is very soon to be a father for the third time, that he will never bond with the baby and baby will end up feeling rejected. Therefore I am trying my upmost to "play the game".
I am also trying to treat the suspected MLC as a mental illness and reading up on it as helped me detach and not take the actual fleeing from our lives personally. I think myself fortunate that through having to overcome in the earlier part of our marriage a cutoff with his parents, owing to their abuse of us and other family members that I actually started to take an interest in psychology and have started studying various areas with a view to retraining as a counsellor in the future. Whilst DH would not think so, HE has to consider himself fortunate that I am doing this, as it has allowed me to think through my actions instead of having knee jerk reactions and therefore saved his tackle from being rendered useless by OW!
The few people that know about the situation (great friends who are supporting me and I know will help me if he fails to live up to his obligations for the birth etc) initially wondered why I haven't just kicked him out. The reason being is that I have told him he has to make that choice and own and be responsible for that choice, which includes telling the children exactly what he is doing (choosing to leave). To date he hasn't done so. I believe he wants me to kick him out to relieve him of the responsiblility and make me the scapegoat where the children are concerned. I simply REFUSE to do this.
I am doing everything I can currently with a view to saving the marriage (DB way!), but if it fails I know that I can look at my kids with a clear conscience and they will know I have tried everything, even if DH wasn't prepared to.
The link provided by Cadet basically is me seeking advice on how to handle it if today is the day he comes to say he is officially leaving. I have been forewarned by a friend that it is possible he is going to bring OW. I do not want her in the house, and I do not want to look at or even talk to her. Their relationship is up to them but she shouldn't have involvement in any interactions between me and DH.
I will try my best to be as detached as possible, but make it clear he has to tell the kids the choices HE is making, and what he intends to do when baby is to arrive as previously he has promised that he would be there at the birth and take 2 weeks paternity leave to be with the kids and bond with the baby.
Please can anyone advice me of anything else to keep me on top? Thanks!
The children are at a party. I am waiting to see is DH is coming. My friend who sent OW a PM through FB to say she should be ashamed of herself told me that OW had responsed that "all the Deaf people KNEW what I was like". I have never met OW, nor half the people DH now hooks up with in the Deaf community.
I am trying to keep perspective on it all. We have been here before, with DH's parents. I have been the scapegoat for his mother and been the bad person for the last 10 years for "splitting up their family". Luckily in that respect the only people who thought that to be true were his P's and brothers and his father's family who live away (because they only had his P's word for it.) His mother's side of the family live in our area and they DO know the truth about how abusive his P's are because they have all been victims too. So I have been happy to bear the brunt of the abuse from her all these years, because I know how she operates and I could emotionally detach from it all, to ensure our own family unit were kept safe.
It tears me apart now that he is doing the same to me (even though I know I shouldn't take it personally). The fact that people I have known for years appear to be taking his side and overlooking the timing of his leaving and the flaunting of his new relationship on public FB. I have remained quiet on that front, I do not contact them (hope to never be in any contact with OW) or play tit for tat or anything. I have kept everything private other than to a small group of friends who will each be there for me and the kids in their own way if he fails to be there for the birth.
Hurts so much when I have spent so many years trying to protect ALL of us (including him) from this same type of Narcissistic abuse.
WAH (who had previously said he would be "home" either Friday or Saturday) text me on Saturday tea time to say "Hi how are you? You want me to come home?"
I text back to say it was up to him. I wasn't expecting him back now and the kids were having their tea so it was his choice.
He replied he would come "home" and would see us soon.
He got here about three hours later. I have managed to maintain polite and light hearted conversation.
It's so hard to do much else as I am now 2 and half weeks away from Baby being due and I am worn out! Something I would have been anyway if I hadn't found myself a single parent! So with everything else I now find I have to do myself, I am finding it difficult to muster up much more energy.
I made him a cup of tea and he asked me questions about baby things we had bought, but I have only just taken out of the boxes. So we chatted in that respect. The kids were round the table and we had some banter. I never even asked him about work or anything. I then left him with the kids whilst I went in the other room to read the paper.
WAH came in and sat down to watch TV. Then DD came in and wanted me and WAH to play pass the balloon with her, so we spent some time doing that. I then put the kids to bed and went to bed myself.
This morning the conversation has been friendly still. WAH set up the high chair for the baby and done a couple of jobs.
I asked him to sign a letter to the Credit Card people to cancel his credit card, which I am second account holder on, as I don't want any responsibility for debts he may start to incur. He was happy to do so.
He has been asking me all the time to sort out his business accounts, which I said I would not be rushed on, because my priority was the baby and the kids. He asked me again today, so I said if he wanted, I would hand everything over to him then he could get someone else to sort it. I said it all very nicely and in a way that made it like I was doing him a favour. So he is gong to do that quite happily. Saves me a job!
He came back with his dirty work lunch box to put in my sink.
He came back with his washing!
He wanted to borrow MY car to do a 90 mile return journey to take the kids somewhere last week. (How does he expect me to replace the fuel, when he is spending all the money on himself?)
He wanted to borrow MY car to take the kids out yesterday.
He DID borrow MY car to see some friends last night.
I spent 4 hours getting HIS accounts to a state for him to pass on to someone else to finish off whilst he was out.
He came back after his night out and made HIMSELF a drink whilst I was working on HIS accounts, without asking if I wanted one.
He was quite sullen which means he has been bad mouthing me to his friends and crowing about his OW. (I've worked out now everytime he does something he knows is bad i.e. be nasty about me, he is like a sulking school boy who has already been told off!)
He spent �10 less on a meal with OW from our joint bank account, than I have spent on a weeks food shop for me and the kids, and he is still happy to come and eat our food!
This morning I go into our LOUNGE and he has left all his bedding out, and his stinky clothes on the floor. This when one of the excuses for him being unhappy in the marriage was I kept a "dirty" house!!! (Note, most people compliment me on our lovely home when they visit!)
He has used our food for his lunch box.
He is returning tonight so he can get with more friends who haven't seen him in a long while!
Do I pick up after him in the lounge, or do I ask him politely to pick up after himself? considering I am now 2 weeks away from giving birth!
The kids are at a friends house for tea, so it would just be us for a meal before he goes out. Do I be the bigger person and do a proper meal, or just serve toast on the basis that we can't afford any more food this week!
I gave WAH his accounts (I actually completed the accounts and printed them off - for my own peace of mind that everything was reconciled!), but all the other paperwork and everything else needs to be sorted.
He took them away today and has since text that the person who he thought would be able to do them can't and who did it before? Erm that would be me!. So I text back that everything he needed was there as was the contact of the accountant, and nothing else.
It seems to me that he doesn't want me as his wife, but he would quite like me to be like a mother helping their child settle in to college! When one is in MLC and you are trying to distance yourself, let them find themselves and give them the space but be prepared to be a listening ear, how far does this extend?
Am I doing right by establishing boundaries such as you need to sort things out that you want/need to do - for yourself? You need to work out how to do these things by yourself?
