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.
