New to the board, fairly newly LBS from MLC.

[tigerlily78]

I have to admit I spent many hours reading old threads before I got up the courage to post. It has basically been three weeks since my guy walked into the kitchen and told me he met someone else and he loves her and she is his one true chance at happiness. And you know, the whole spiel about how he doesn't know if he loves me anymore, and doesn't know if he ever did. We are not actually married, but have been together 16 years and have a 15 year old son. I considered us married, I figured one day when we stopped being stubborn we would actually tie the knot. I am on his health insurance and stuff like that.

In retrospect I guess there were signs I should have picked up on, but *I* was trusting and secure in our relationship. I didn't think I needed to be jealous when he said some girl punched him in the arm like elementary school flirting. Since he came home and told me about these interactions, I thought that meant we were on the same page. It was harmless and stupid.

So, I guess after a year and a half of this "woman" being obsessed with him from afar she finally started to make a move to get to know him and be his friend and invited him out to a group activity. I only found out about the admitted "obsession" days/weeks after he confessed he loved her and not me. He ended up staying out with "her and her friends" until like 2am and didn't even call me to let me know he was alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere, and then comes home and drops the bomb on me. ONE night out with this OW and he is magically in love. He says he hasn't been happy in a long time, he only stayed with me because of our kid, doesn't know if he ever really loved me, He didn't even realize until this moment that I loved him, etc.

Admittedly, we had kind of fallen into a place where we spend most of our time independently, but we still watched tv before bed, we were still having sex pretty frequently, he still spooned me to sleep at night. I didn't see anything glaringly obvious in the past few months that would have let me know he was about to go into crisis.

I think I initially made a mistake in hugging him and sobbing and then telling him all I ever wanted was for him to be happy because I DO love him. And I wrote letters to that effect and that I hoped he would reconsider and give us a chance to work things out with US. But he wasn't having it. This was his ONE TRUE CHANCE, OMG, he HAS to do it, now or never!! I think my initial sadness and shock were much greater than my anger. Maybe if I had broken some dishes, then he would have known I was not actually giving him permission to run off and indulge his infatuation. But I guess my empathetic "I want you to be happy" sounded like I was opening the door for him, not begging him to think for a minute and realize I was really his chance for happiness, but it would take work.

We had several days of a temporary honeymoon phase where I tried to show him how much I still cared. We had sex everyday, sometimes more than once a day, it was hot and intimate and intense. No chore sex here, we were totally into each other like early on in our relationship. I thought that was proof enough that our spark wasn't really gone. We cuddled closer than ever to watch tv, his legs and mine intertwined, his hand in mine. Over those days I thought in some ways I saw progress. We were talking more about HARD stuff, and feelings, and having some minor arguments but seeming to come to a place where we were both empathetic to the other's feelings. There was the passion in the bedroom... I thought I had a chance that he would change his mind and think better of choosing the OW.

But then after those first few days he announced he was going skating (where he met OW) and would be going out with her afterwards, and I shouldn't wait up. I wondered who in the hell this guy thought he was. Did he just use me the past few days knowing he was going to run off and do what he wanted the whole time?

He came home pretty late. I waited up. Again, no call to let me know when to expect him. He came home and gave me way more details than I probably should have had to know: -He felt an instant attraction to her when he first saw her but didn't act on it at all until she initiated contact. -They are both "passionate about skating". -They both are rebellious and carefree. -They both like loud music. -The OW has her own laundry list of psychological issues, she is a recently rehabbed alcoholic who claims she has been sober for 4 - 6 months, her father died within the past 2 years, her grandmother died just a few months ago and SHE found the body while moving back in with her, which was in the direct aftermath of breaking up with a physically and mentally abusive boyfriend. I mean, you could not even make up half the [censored] he told me, and I was flabbergasted that he did not see the obvious implications of HER problems alone on their "relationship." He said since she did acknowledge all these issues, and that he had confessed to her one day after their "wild night out" that he had a "girlfriend of over a decade and a kid who's 14." He said that since they were both in complicated situations that they planned to "take it slow" and not do anything hasty. Apparently OW had some "reservations" about breaking up a family, but not enough to execute adult behavior and reject doing so. :P

And "hubby" was likewise afflicted. I thought since they had pledged to "go slow" this would give me some more time to show how I was feeling (That I didn't want him to do this, that I loved him still so much, that I was willing to work to make things better). We KEPT having sex and going out to lunch and spooning to bed. I wrote him poems, I drew him a sexy portrait, I left him little notes on the mirror and in the car to let him know I was thinking about him.

Then like 10 days later he says they are "officially a thing" and he isn't going to have sex with me anymore and he needs some space. So much for all those good intentions to take it slow. Even still, within 2 or 3 days of them being official, he crept to my side of the bed and said he still found me irresistibly sexy and wanted to be with me again, even though it was "wrong." I wanted it too, so we did it. I told him from my perspective what we were doing was RIGHT, what he was doing away from home was wrong.

Of course the very next morning he had to flip the switch back to "not caring about me at all" and being rude and aloof and hurtful (it seemed intentional). I could tell he was SCARED to have feelings for me too, he had to reaffirm to himself that I was a terrible person who brought him nothing but misery and he had to escape me. From then on he has been pretty close to insufferable.

Important detail here. Until he started this Midlife crisis affair/mutual emotional addiction my husband did not DRIVE. We shared one care and I drove him everywhere. Now that he has a new exciting, independent woman in his life he felt the need to FINALLY practice driving so he can be free to run all over town to meet her. He was quick to explain to me that two other times in 16 years that he had practiced driving, I had overreacted and embarrassed and humiliated him, so that's why he NEVER tried again until NOW. I admit, I may have overreacted, but in both situations I felt like he was being extra reckless for someone who was just starting to practice driving again and I was not comfortable riding with him when he does that. Now that he is driving regularly, he is still a very aggressive driver and that has me pretty worried. He is overconfident in his ability and the driving conditions.

So anyways, here is it a whole THREE WEEKS since he came home and broke my heart, and now he is basically practically LIVING with the OW. He came and took some items from OUR home to make him comfortable there, like an extra computer monitor and his laptop and some computer speaks that my son and I were USING on our computer. He explained that he was only taking these things "temporarily". (Does OW know that?!) He also mentioned thinking about giving her our automatic cat litter box. I told him that was NOT going to happen. If she has stinky cat litter problems he doesn't want to live with, then he shouldn't be hanging out there. :P He took the monitor and crap there 3 days ago and has only been to the house once since then to shower and change clothes.

So basically I am stuck here at the house with no car 97% of the time. We had previously come to a money management strategy where we only have one debit card for each of our bank accounts and we would share it. He conveniently now has all the debit cards in his possession. I tried to raise this as an issue and he gave me $20 cash he had and to let him know when I needed more. I ran out of minutes on my prepaid phone Friday, I kept reminding him that I needed a refill. He finally told me last night via a computer message that "he will get to it Wednesday, or later this week, close to Friday." Well gee, that sure is convenient. A few days into the OW situation he went out and bought himself a new cellphone and a real unlimited monthly plan... this is a man who never wanted a cellphone before in his life, he considered them obnoxious. He also set up a Facebook page, again something he thought was superficial and a tedious waste of time until the OW needed to have ways to get in touch with him from her phone. He bought a bunch of new pants and shirts, he started growing his beard out and asking me if he had gray hairs in his beard and the back of his head (yes, he does). He bought whitening toothpaste for the first time ever.

He also disappeared for 48 hours straight and didn't check in because he was "at the hospital with her" for a medical condition she knows she has and keeps doing things she shouldn't really be doing and puts herself at risk of blood clots. So he abandoned his family and left us in the lurch to get a ride to one of my son's activities so he could sit in the hospital with an grown woman for days. It's completely insane. A few nights after that I needed the car for a commitment I had in the evening (I had informed him of this meeting several days in advance so we wouldn't have a scheduling conflict). He tells me as I am getting ready to go that HE plans to go out skating. I remind him I already had plans to use the car. He tells me "we can probably work something out, maybe I can drop you off and you can catch a ride home with someone or take a cab." I was livid. I began to explain to him that he was being remarkably selfish and stupid, but then I just stomped away to his den to get the car keys. It appeared he had hidden them somewhere and I couldn't figure out where, so I went into the garage and grabbed the spare set and left before he could screw me in this situation too. When I got home he admitted he probably would have left with the car if I didn't first, but he spent all night chatting with OW from home, so his night was fine after all and he wasn't angry. I sometimes wish I could video tape the things he says to me so at some future point when/if the fog clears he can see for himself what a deliberate [censored] he has been lately.

When he first dropped the bomb he made all these statements about what he intended to do. "I still care about your well being and will take care of you financially as much as I can. I will still be here for our son. I will cooperate with you so we can both still share the car and I will help out around the house more, etc." And in turn he was hoping I would keep helping him out by cooking for all of us when he is here and doing the laundry, etc. Pretty much none of those things he pledged are happening now on any consistent basis. I keep writing him notes to remind him that he said he intended to do all these things and now he is letting me and his son down and I am tired of the disappointment and stress it causes. These notes get no response.

Likewise if I ask something as innocuous as "Will you be here at dinner time tonight?" Or "Are you safe? I haven't heard from you in awhile."

Two nights ago he came home for a shower and change of clothes and then was digging in my purse for the SPARE set of car keys, because he *thought* he left the primary set of keys in HER car." I told him like you might tell a small child to "Stop digging in my purse. You should ask first." He seemed to have a momentary flicker or realization, but then persisted that I find the spare keys and hand them over. I did was I was asked without even mentioning that it seemed really irresponsible to leave the keys in HER car, this after just 10 days ago or so I had to TAKE A CAB and go rescue him because he locked the keys in the car by accident. He did call the OW to help him out, but she was already asleep at the time. :P

After browsing some of the threads here I see that I made a number of mistakes early on and I am afraid they may have driven him ALL the way to the precipice with OW in short order by being clear and obvious about how I feel (still love him, ultimately want reconciliation) I am really scared that I can't make up for the mistakes by doing "better" now that I know better.

I know this is probably the longest introduction post in the history of web forums, but I really have not poured the details out to anyone except my journal so far and I think if I am going to tell anyone it will be the people in the best position to try and help me through this. People who understand this situation in a profound way.

I also have a few specific questions. Firstly, hubby mentioned a few days ago that we should probably have to tell our son now. I agree, he has been asking me for 3 weeks "if anything is wrong and if I want to talk about it" (my kid has Asperger's Syndrome, so if he knows something is wrong it is pretty clear and evident already!). But I don't know if what we tell him should be limited to the "Dad is going through some issues and needs some time on his own" speech, or if we really do have to talk about the OW. *I* don't want to talk about her. I am already pretty well convinced she is just a temporary complication to a complex problem, and I don't want to put my son through the confusion and stress of being forced to try and like someone that he probably shouldn't like. Or to have to contemplate why Dad likes this other random person more than Mom, enough to leave our home and put us in a really bad position. I would like to request the OW not meet our son for the time being (it's only been 3 weeks for God's sake, she is NOT his goddamned soulmate) and that he make an actual promise/commitment never to bring her into our home while I am here or away. They have her place and every other place in the universe to occupy. I do not want this lunatic of a woman in our home violating my space. Is that reasonable? If I ask for that is he likely to comply or just violate the request to spite me?

I honestly can't believe some of you have had the diligence to keep up with this behavior over YEARS. This has been the longest three weeks of my entire life. I have lost 17 pounds. I can't sleep at night.

Someone tell me that at some point it gets easier. (And then go ahead and remind me that it probably gets harder too) And then remind me that for whatever reason I loved this person with all my heart before he went off his rocker... and that means something.


I wrote a sample script I can share if anyone is interested in reviewing and giving advice.