It makes him a poor person, it just happens that part of that personality is Dad, and thus he is a very poor dad.
When we first got together, I was very conscious that he was a dad and really made sure he spent time with his kids, called them every night. They were 4 and 8 when they divorced, so it was important to me that he become a good dad. He thought they didn't need them, but soon came to realize they did.
When his EA was in full force, DSS20 was 12 and living with us. He never abandoned him, in fact, nothing changed at all for son, other than he noticed dad was treating me with less respect and thus he also treated me with less respect. I stood up and demanded respect from both of them.
That's another way this is so different this time. With me, there was no drinking, no depression, just looking forward to a good future. I really thought the M was over and didn't realize we were carrying on an A - and I guess it wasn't long because he moved out within a few weeks to live with me. With the EA, he drank heavily, but it was while he was at home. He went on long "drives" where I'm sure he went to see her, but didn't drink unless he was home. He drinks probably 3x as much now as he did then.
And abandoning the kids and all responsibility is very, very new. He has NEVER done this before. He feels entitled to control, entitled - like he feels like he's spent his entire life taking care of others and now it's time for him. He's right, he has, but so has everyone else I know - that's part of being an adult.
He's just such a child. He was never like this when he first got together with me. The one similarity to us in the beginning and his OW now is that he said we were soul mates, and the EA was his soul mate also.
Now he's just such an immature, angry, entitled brat. He's so silent also, not telling me anything that's going on with him. It's like we're strangers. We never interact at all.
Somehow, Puppy, it just seems to much worse when a MOTHER abandons her kids. I know that's crazy, and stereotyping, but it just seems like that to me, ya know?
Time for a family level intervention in my opinion... still think the kids will side with him?
I'm really still trying to work this through. DSD will side with me. DSS20 I know will side with me b/c I'm like a mom to him, he loves me, but eventually I am sure H would sit him down and give him the "sometimes people just fall out of love" speech, and then he'd side with Daddy. He's always been close to his dad, which is why he came to live with us 8 years ago, he just needed to be with his dad and stepdad was abusing him.
DSS15 is confused and angry and has a lot of emotional issues. He identifies with stepdad, who has anger issues, and DSS15 has issues with anger... but stepdad just moved down south with mom, abandoning him. Now he's left with a dad he's never felt very close to b/c mom told him since he was little that he abandoned him, but he wants to be close to dad... and he's been taking him fishing lately, driving him to his activities, trying to become close. Spending time playing video games, so although he's affected by dad abandoning him overnights, he's taking what he can from it and feeling as close as he ever has to dad... if I expose to him, it may make him question his dad as a man, it may confuse him and make him think it's OK to cheat on women, and it may make him turn against me b/c I hurt his dad... he's the one I'm most worried about. I'm just not sure that he can handle the emotions involved with exposing. It may confuse and hurt him for life. This boy should be in therapy but we stopped b/c for months we'd take him and he wouldn't talk, so it was wasting time and money to take him.
I don't see how you can hide it from the kids anymore. You may not have to tell them he has a girlfriend, but you can explain to them that he wants a divorce and you won't be able to be their mother under those circumstances. So someone has to take some responsibility in that house. You tried it for the weekend to see what would happen, and it was a dismal failure. So now what? As nice as you are, this isn't your problem. It's theirs.
He'll say he isn't planning to divorce you for 2 more years. He will just make you miserable for that time and treat you like a servant. But you don't want to be his servant. So his plan isn't going to work. The family needs a new plan.
Girlfriend are you serious? Don't even call OW a girlfriend... that way dignifies her status and sets you up for failure right away.
And I think these kids may be old enough to understand what infidelity is... a 15 year old can grasp that concept for sure.
----------------
Pass, is this behaviour most since you exposed the affair or has this been goign on the whole time?
If it is new, he could be acting out as a way to (mis)manage withdrawal, so it really depends how new this all is.
Are these drinking buddies of his the same people you exposed to who said they would support this marriage?
Doesn't sound very supportive to me.
It's too bad you don't live in OfficerInNeed's city. You could get OfficerInNeed to pull your H over and threaten to charge him with drunk driving and take away his license... lol
Your Husband can't very easily cheat if he can't drive!
H was staying out all night first on Mondays when he was staying at our apt supposedly working on the stove, but really meeting her. Then he started going to his karate class on Thursdays and heading to the apt to meet her then also, so two nights a week. I knew where he was, though, he was at our apt.
This staying out with friends is new. These friends are friends he had in high school, and stopped seeing when he was first with his XW 20 years ago. I've never met them, they reunited with him on fb. I thought at first that they were probably friends of OW also, but I know he didn't actually talk/hang out with OW in high school, they just sat at the same lunch table on occasion.
His buddies never said they would support the M. Quite the opposite, they support the A and have fully accepted her. She says by email "say hi to xxx" and they say hi back to her. One of these men is in his 50's and he still is not wise enough to say stay away... only H's best friend said he would support the M. Only one out of 4 friends.
Yep I kind of thought that might happen. That's why I was opposed to you telling his friends for an "intervention". In the end they are his friends and will stick by him. That's why in DB it says not to involve family or friends because they will choose a side.
So do you know that he is actively pursuing the OW or is just shirking all of his parental and household responsibilities.
Sounds like he's continuing to push her limits to see how much he can get away with the same way he was doing with the FB post that he KNEW you were going to see.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Well, I don't know for a fact that he's pursuing OW. I do feel from what little I know that he is the pursuer, although she's right up there with him. She's enjoying the pursuit, but pretending to work on her M. I don't have proof of that, but I'm no dummy and that's what I suspect.
He doesn't have many friends outside of the M. He has a few very close friends. She has a lot of friends that she goes out drinking and partying with. He may be going out with them, or he may be really going to see this couple he mentioned to me that he was going to see. It's one of the thing he misses from our early days, that we would go out a lot. Now it's family - his kids came to live with us. It's different now.
Anyway, he was home when I got up at 5:30. Not sure when, I didn't hear him, but I did wake up at 3:30 for no reason. He didn't say anything to me. I acted as if... asked "I assume you remembered to pick up DSS20 from work last night." He just said "no." I asked if he had a good time this weekend and he said "yes, did you?" I said "yes..." if he was with OW, I would have been able to smell the guilt on him, but it wasn't there. I think he was just out with those high school friends. It's just strange, I don't know them, but they're his age, 43, and married, with a house - that they're letting a married man hang out with them to all hours, it's strange. Anyway, could be that his friends are making excuses not to see him so he's picked up on these friends and is using them to fulfill his need to be accepted in what he's doing. They have never met me, so they don't know anything other than what H is telling them. He's looking for poor babies from someone.
We made a little more small talk and then I just walked out and left for work early.
I noticed on this forum it is common for WS's having an affair to "drop" their old friends and pick up new affair-friendly friends... My wife did that... stopped calling her family and friends and just found people younger than her who were a lot more wreckless... It seems to be part of the package...
OK, so, taking this thread in another direction. I'm going to post H's actions and our interactions for comments still, I really love to see what others believe is going on... it helps immensely when I'm too close to the problem to look at it objectively.
However, I'm going to start to try to take more introspective looks at myself and I'm hoping all my new DB friends will help me out with becoming a new, better person - for myself - stronger, more able, more detached - it's time to focus on me now. (And the kids, I am going to stay focused on them to maintain our relationships - they may be older, but they're going through their own crap right now.)
Maybe it will be good and maybe bad, but the twins will be going down south for the summer to spend time with their mom. That means that H will be alone with me and DSS20, who will be working. He'll probably go nuts and just start never coming home, etc. He'll have complete freedom (in his mind) to come and go as he pleases... let's hope he doesn't lose his job. We need his income.
Yeah, Allen... The weird thing is that H is hanging out with all his friends from high school. He told me that he used to party a lot and found out that those friends were not real friends. Now he's going back to them. They're not younger, but they do seem to represent to him some lost youth? I'm 6 years his junior and he's hanging out with folks his own age. (I'm also more mature than OW for sure, not sure about these other new-old friends)
