This is my first post so I will give some history on our R. We met 15 years ago. Had a rocky start but we were 21 and just having fun. Got engaged once. Broke it off. Decided to move 8 hours away where he was offered a job – we were young then it was easy to pick up and move and I thought even then he was worth the gamble. So we moved away from our friends and family. Our relationship became better than it ever has been. We made a new home for ourselves, both had great jobs. Got married in 2006. Had a D in 2008. In 2009 H decided he wanted to do a career change and that he wanted to move back to where our family was. Not loving the idea I decided that it might be good for the D and I wanted to support my H. Once there our M fell apart rather fast. He concentrated on his career and I concentrated on our D. We stopped spending time together, fought quite a bit, stopped listening to eachother. In September, he stopped coming home. We just kept arguing and I felt like he wasn’t talking to me but it was actually that neither of us were listening. Sometime in December we had started talking about moving back to where we had just come from because he had been offered a fantastic job. He asked where I wanted to be if we didn’t make it. I said we should move back. I figured if we were going to make it work it would be back where I thought we had a successful M. From September to January things were so up and down. He tried to come back twice but now I know that he just cant come back – it doesn’t work that way. So we moved in the middle of January. On the way there we had to drive in a huge snow storm for 6 hours. Being a little stressed with the D and him in the moving van, I started an argument that he says was the final one. He tells me that before the fight he was committed to giving us another try. So here we are living separately. I found the DR book about 2 months ago. It has been an awaking for me. I wish someone would have gave me this book years ago. I have been so blind as to how to how to handle a relationship and to know how to actually love my H and tell him how I need to be loved. But all this may have come to late. I found out about a month ago there is an OW. He was supposed to be spending time with our D – which he was – but then I saw the OW get out of his car. It was an accident I happened to be driving by. So I turned around and went into the restaurant. I calmly said “so now I know” and turned around and left. Since then he hasn’t told me much about her. We have had a few conversations but mostly it is me talking. He isn’t willing to let her go. On the positive side we are better friends today than we were 4 months ago. I am being patient hoping that he will come to his senses. He still says he is in love with me. I believe there is still a foundation there to build on. I have been doing a lot of thinking this week on why he is with the OW. (found out this info from SIL) She lives 8 hours away. Has 2 kids by 2 different men. I am not planning on moving back so he can be with her and I don’t know if she is willing to leave her kids and move here or maybe the fathers don’t care if she moves the kids here. They did date in HS. H brothers won’t talk to him and his mother is very disappointed. I don’t know what to do – what he chooses and who he dates will affect me in the long run and it will definitely affect our D. This does not sound like someone who is a good catch. If I have to let him go he could at least date someone without so much baggage and who is responsible! My dilemma today is if I should talk to him and be an opposing view on what he is doing. I would want my friends to do the same for me and I don’t know who he has to talk to. Of course my real motive is to get them to end the A but right now I just don’t want him to be the 3rd daddy.
Your H has to find out for himself that OW is not a good catch; you can't explain that to him - he won't listen. He will be in that emotional fog that doesn't let him see clearly at the moment. You may just have to give this time.....which I know is hard.
Just try and take some comfort in the knowledge that usually they do trade down when an OW is involved.....and often they do see the light.
Concentrate on looking after yourself and your D - in doing that you will show your H you are the better option. Try and remember who you used to be when you both fell in love. Also, do this for yourself and your D.....not to just try and attract your H back. Changes have to be genuine - the WAS seems to be able to detect changes that are made in order to just try and attract them back home.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
Thank you. I needed to hear that. It is so hard to stay strong and keep my thoughts and feelings to myself - even though I know it will more than likely do more damage than good. Patience is something I always thought I had a lot of until all this came to light.
So sorry you have to be here. We can help though. We can help you stay strong and focused.
I've been DBing for over a year now. In fact, I didn't realize I was I in the very beginning. I only started suspecting my H's A after it was on the skids. Details...details... I started out in MLC section.
Anyway, I've been trying to catch up with Saffie's sitch because our stories are very similar and that is what lead me here to your thread. It sounds like you are like us in that the OW is a real piece of work! I let OW rent a lot of space in my head and I am just now able to get away from that more. It's hard. In fact this is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life! The only thing that could be worse (God forbid) is losing one of my kids.
I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread where several of us could post and ask each other general questions so as to not interfere with someone's time of need on their thread. Not sure if that makes sense, but I can explain further if needed.
Saffie- I hope you come over. I have some questions and it seems you don't have a current thread going now.
M 55 H 58 M 24 T 29 S 22,21, 19 Bomb 4/10 It (A) really isn't about you 11/2013 We all have work to do
The truth will set you free, but it will almost kill you first.
I am new here too, and our situations are very similar. (I have a thread going a few pages back on my efforts to implement the 180/Last Resort Technique.)
My partner (if what he tells me is true) is currently involved with a less-than-ideal OW. Supposedly they met on the internet, she lives with her ex-boyfriend and a child who calls her "Mama" but whom she claims is not her biological child. First she said it was just a child she was babysitting and now she claims its an ex-boyfriend's child that she is trying to adopt. She even gave him two different names after they "met" online - I asked why she changed her name and he gave a nutty explanation. She told him that she was a grad student but when I googled the college I found out they don't offer graduate degrees, he said that maybe he remembered incorrectly. Though she lives a state away, he declared his love for her within three weeks of meeting. After he dropped the "I don't love you anymore" bomb on me, he vowed we would move slowly and amicably through our separation, but within days the OW demanded that he have no contact with me, that he stop contributing to our mutual bills, etc., etc. She tells him that I am a "pathetic doormat" and he shared this with me before I initiated boundaries via the Last Resort Technique. Also, I had to suffer the indignity of watching him sob over her (while my heart is breaking for our own 20-year relationship ending) because she 'dumped' him twice in the first month of our separation for having contact with me. Even his therapist said the OW was "worrisome" - so he stopped going to his therapist!
This man was always solid as a rock, so like you, I am worried about him. I love him very, very much and I miss him more than life itself. Also, it is interesting to note that he makes tons of money so there is no reason that he shouldn't be contributing to our mutual bills and he's even in the process of buying a very expensive McMansion/bachelor pad to live in, but suddenly he's incredibly frantic about money - as though he has recently lost a lot of it or has a lot of new expenses that I'm not aware of. (His income is 10x mine, so I have a hard time understanding his new scrupulosity toward money.)
Of course, as I learned from DB, believe NOTHING that your WS tells you, and believe only 50% of what you see with your own eyes. It could very well be that none of the things he's shared with me about the OW are true and that he is just trying to mislead me. Perhaps she is actually a successful co-worker or friend of ours and he is only trying to put me off of the trail of finding out who she really is by weaving this ludicrous story. In fact, sometimes the story seems so unbelievable that I must seem like a fool for even entertaining it. Surely he could do better, so he must just be lying, lying, lying his pants off. No way a sensible, grown man at the top of his profession runs off with some fruitloopy lady he met on the internet, right?
Either way, how does this situation pertain to you? Well, my instincts (in my own situation) are not to interfere. As my Mom says, the train is off the tracks, the sooner it crashes, the better. Actually, the only comfort I have in this situation is what a basket case the OW seems to be. I'll actually be much more hurt if I find out that she is not the nutty basket case I've been told about.
Keep working on the friendship you have with your H, but bite your tongue if you feel the need to editorialize about his OW. It will only put him in a position of defending her. I envy that you still have a friendship with your H. My partner is AWOL - no contact with me whatsoever (and to think, less than two months ago I believed I would be with him for the rest of our lives). I miss his friendship most of all. My only hope is that if his current relationship doesn't work out, we can start by rebuilding a friendship.
Me: 35 Him: 43 Together: 19 1/2 years 1st Bomb (IDLYAM): March 2011 2nd Bomb (OW): April 2011 He abandons home/bills/everything: May 2011 He's bought a new house for OW: September 2011
Hi Krit, Im new here too. Seems that we found out about OW roughly the same time.
H's OW is a psycho. Threatened to jump out of the car whilst he was driving because he told her that he still kissed me on the cheek. They had only been seeing each other for a week or so. They work together and see each other after work. So basically they are together 24x7. What fun they must be having!
Am wondering when he will see her for what she is. She was meant to be fired from her job because she couldnt function at work. Then dear H came to her rescue. What a hero! Most of the people at her workplace didnt like her. And now H & OW are practically living together. I think most of the people at his work know about it. I cant believe they would condone this type of behaviour.
What is it that they see in these women? And when will they see them for who they really are? H used to have great taste in women - or so i thought?
W - 31 H - 33 Married - 7 years Together - 10 yrs Kids - S 3yrs old Separated - 27/03/11 OW - 10/04/11
