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Should I leave my wife (long post, sorry!)

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  • Alias_Omega
    Alias_Omega Posts: 7,917 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    If you really want to turn the tables, mention your attraction to another woman up at the dining table. Tell her how you felt, why you felt that way and what you have done about it.

    Now that would be an interesting conversation, and i think then she would be checking your phone message/emails.
  • paddy's_mum
    paddy's_mum Posts: 3,977 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    If you really want to turn the tables, mention your attraction to another woman up at the dining table. Tell her how you felt, why you felt that way and what you have done about it.

    Now that would be an interesting conversation, and i think then she would be checking your phone message/emails.

    I don't think so! I suspect that it would be her final straw ... nothing left to be worth fighting for.

    Tit for tat isn't very mature behaviour, is it?
  • Well my opinion is this - when you marry you promise to care for that person in sickness and health and in a long relationship its inevitable that one of you will be ill at some point. In this case it was you and put bluntly its her job to support you when you are ill as it is your when she is ill. Regardless of what the illness is. Depression can be hard to live with. My husband has depression and we have had some tough times so I do understand it can be very draining on athe other partner, but I would never consider going behind his back in any way because I love him and he needs my help and becauase I would be breaking my marriage vows and letting myself down too. The depression will pass at some point and we will continue a happy life. So I can appreciate that its probably been tough on your wife - living with someone who is depressed is frustrating becauase there is often little you can do to make that person feel better.Often you can feel alone or ignored and pretty powerless. Also if you sex drive has decreased as it can with depression this can make some woman feel unattractive. It takes time and sometimes you wonder if it will ever end. It does though and thats what you both have to focus on. It was wrong of your wife to go behind your back but I am guessing she did it as a way or proving to herslef that she is still attractive and to add some excitement, rather than becauase she wanted to hurt you or because she doenst love you anymore.
    I think maybe your feelings for this other woman have come to the surface becauase of what your wife has done. She did it first so I have a good excuse to do it too. I want some fun of my own or to cause her some hurt in revenge. If your wife didnt do what she did - would you still go behind her back ? Corny but 2 wrongs dont make a right and you could end up ending a relationship that would otherwise have had a great future.
    Forget this other woman. If you leave your wife I think you will regret it. You obviously love your wife or what you found out wouldnt hurt you would it. There is also no gaurentee that things will work out with the other woman anyway. Is 18 years worht a gamble that might not pay off ? Sit down and speak about why she did what she did. Is it something that can be changed. Expalin your feelings to her and agree on a plan to get you closer together and working as a team again and improve the trust issues. Try Relate again if you can and carry on with your own treatment. When the depression is gone and you are financially better off can you see the two of you being happy together ? If so then keep that in mind because its only a matter of time.
    Try and see past the hurt and look to the future - then decide.
  • Padstow
    Padstow Posts: 1,040 Forumite
    cottonhead wrote: »
    Well my opinion is this - when you marry you promise to care for that person in sickness and health and in a long relationship its inevitable that one of you will be ill at some point. In this case it was you and put bluntly its her job to support you when you are ill as it is your when she is ill. Regardless of what the illness is. Depression can be hard to live with. My husband has depression and we have had some tough times so I do understand it can be very draining on athe other partner, but I would never consider going behind his back in any way because I love him and he needs my help and becauase I would be breaking my marriage vows and letting myself down too. The depression will pass at some point and we will continue a happy life. So I can appreciate that its probably been tough on your wife - living with someone who is depressed is frustrating becauase there is often little you can do to make that person feel better.Often you can feel alone or ignored and pretty powerless. Also if you sex drive has decreased as it can with depression this can make some woman feel unattractive. It takes time and sometimes you wonder if it will ever end. It does though and thats what you both have to focus on. It was wrong of your wife to go behind your back but I am guessing she did it as a way or proving to herslef that she is still attractive and to add some excitement, rather than becauase she wanted to hurt you or because she doenst love you anymore.
    I think maybe your feelings for this other woman have come to the surface becauase of what your wife has done. She did it first so I have a good excuse to do it too. I want some fun of my own or to cause her some hurt in revenge. If your wife didnt do what she did - would you still go behind her back ? Corny but 2 wrongs dont make a right and you could end up ending a relationship that would otherwise have had a great future.
    Forget this other woman. If you leave your wife I think you will regret it. You obviously love your wife or what you found out wouldnt hurt you would it. There is also no gaurentee that things will work out with the other woman anyway. Is 18 years worht a gamble that might not pay off ? Sit down and speak about why she did what she did. Is it something that can be changed. Expalin your feelings to her and agree on a plan to get you closer together and working as a team again and improve the trust issues. Try Relate again if you can and carry on with your own treatment. When the depression is gone and you are financially better off can you see the two of you being happy together ? If so then keep that in mind because its only a matter of time.
    Try and see past the hurt and look to the future - then decide.
    I'm interested in reading, but the solid block of text makes my eyes bleed so I won't bother.
  • Anguished wrote: »
    It’s not so much WHAT she has done, it’s actually the lies that have done the most hurt to me. Lying about the affair, lying about what they had done together, refusing to discuss the circumstances around the affair starting (I was hoping to know so I could avoid it ever getting to that stage again) etc. She’s also changed her phone’s PIN 3 times since I guessed it last September when I found the texts. It’s really like there’s a side to her that I never knew existed. A cold hard side that saw him during the day then saw me in the evening like nothing’s happened. A side that looked me in the eyes and blatantly lied; that sent him dirty emails while I’d make her dinner in the evening only a few feet away; a side that told him “if I sleep with you then I’ll finally admit my marriage is over”.

    The thing is, while we’re now getting on perhaps better than ever, I know that dark side of her exists. I know the ‘happiness and light’ side she’s showing me is tinged with the fact that I feel it’s all an act and at any time she’ll just sidle off and do what she wants with no thought for me again.

    So.....as part of the activities I’ve been doing to beat the depression, I’ve met a really nice woman. Yes, I definitely feel attracted to her and I’ve no idea whether it’s mutual or not but it could develop that way. In fact, even if it doesn’t end up being her, I think that if the right person came along then there’s the possibility of me leaving my wife; the pain is still bad, I still feel she’s hiding things from me and I also feel like she’s carrying a loaded gun and without flinching could blow another hole in my heart.

    Do you think that there is anything you can do to stop yourself feeling as you do now about your marraige? Is there any hope of getting your relationship back to where it once was? Or has to much damage been done to get past the feelings and emotions you have advised us of above?

    Having seen people split up and seen their heartbreak when they go through divorce I would advise thinking it through carefully and doing whatever it takes to avoid it. However if a relationship has got to the point, where despite all best efforts it is beyond repair, then how long should someone spend feeling as you do now? Can you envisage your life say a year or two down the line? Is it likely that you could feel this bad still? Only you know if the relationship you have is able to be saved or needs to be ended.
    If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants ~ Isaac Newton
  • Dunroamin wrote: »
    Your best case scenario doesn't sound like much of an improvement on the worse!

    You can't really be suggesting that the OP's best hope is to be living on benefits in a council bedsit, surely?


    Nope. Neither sound particularly appealing to me, either.


    But they are both likely consequences of his current and proposed course of action. He either leaves now and has to have help to support himself (which he would be eligible for, so there is no shame in accepting it), but has the ability to say it is by his own hand, or he continues as he is intending to do, and the decision is taken out of his hands if his wife realises what is going on and puts him in almost an identical situation at some undetermined point in the future, perhaps when he is least able to cope with it.


    One way, he takes responsibility for himself and his happiness and, although not ideal, can begin to rebuild his life - the other, he is a passive recipient of somebody else's decisions, made as a result of his ongoing behaviour and feelings towards them, which is not good for anybody's self esteem, anymore than coldly planning and scheming such a revenge improves the soul.




    There aren't any winners in marriage breakups - this sounds like a desire to be the winner, the one to cause the most hurt - and that's a very dangerous game to play; it reduces the once innocent party to the status of the spiteful nemesis.

    Such anger and resentment and cold blooded scheming doesn't help him feel any better about himself, or his situation, and could destroy any future relationship (most women would run a mile if they were told that their date deliberately stayed in his marriage for months or years, just waiting for the opportunity to hurt/punish his wife for something she had done years previously).

    Plus, if she realises what's going on, she could call a halt to everything before he is ready, then he has no power again and has had his chance to hurt her taken away from him. How can he punish her then? He's had months to brood and stew on how to hurt her and then she takes it away from him again?



    It's the OP's choice. Does he decide to leave now, keep his head held high and say they tried but they weren't able to make it work, or does he stretch out the agony for 6 months, 4 years or for a lifetime, clinging on, just so he can be supported by her, get sex when he wants it, company, a house, all enabling him to obsess about what she is or isn't doing now or in the past?


    I think the first is the better option if, as he essentially says, this marriage is over. He's not saying he still loves her, he is saying that he hates her, doesn't care a bit about her and is just there to plan how to hurt her the most.


    So perhaps he should consider going before he becomes totally consumed by bitterness and rage, for his own mental health, if no other reason.
    I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die: I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by.
    colinw wrote: »
    Yup you are officially Rock n Roll :D
  • FBaby
    FBaby Posts: 18,374 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I'm surprised no one has commented on the following:
    The last months have been spent with her whinging because her employment is changing, but with the prospect of her possibly earning a heck of a lot more money, while I grin and bear it because I couldn’t give two hoots about her bloody job or money, I just want my life back!

    This woman has been financially supporting you for what months? Years? And you call her concerns about work whinging, you don't care about them, your only worry is your own self ? Don't you think she might have been grinning and bearing your depression and having to support you for some time?

    What a horrible statement to make.... If this is a reflection of how you treated her during your marriage, I could understand why she could have felt tempted to find support and attention from someone else. Not that it is right, it is always wrong, and yes, what she did was cheating, but the cheater is not always the only one in the wrong.
  • Nice to see so much empathy and understanding of mental illness on here
  • Nice to see so much empathy and understanding of mental illness on here

    Some of us - and I'm one of them having survived PTSD - know only too well what depression, anxiety and raw, gut-wrenching fear can do to the soul.

    However, this husband is damaging himself with his condemnation and loathing of his wife's past stupidity and cannot see that it is achieving absolutely nothing but more pain, loathing, anger, distress and damage.

    Does her frailty, weakness, and yes, disloyalty (but not adultery) really mean that she is to continue being punished by him for the next however many years?

    Perhaps he would be well advised to tally up all those loving, loyal, responsible, mature and care giving things that she does for him - such as funding the entire family for at least the past year and a half!

    I believe he needs to ask himself who actually needs who and, given the burdens she has willingly shouldered during the course of their marriage, ask himself if she really, really does deserve the continuing punishment, hatred and plans for revenge that he is harbouring against her.

    That concealment, dishonesty and vengeful feelings amount, in my view, to hypocricy.
  • Ok, some good posts but a few of the 'slippery slope' fallacy, jump-to-conclusion ones too!

    (To save ill will, I'll ignore those who think 1+1=3 or those who chose not/failed to read my original posts.)

    My wife and I have talked this through at length, however I'm struggling to believe anything she says, not only because she lied when the news broke, but also because she lied subsequently to this and still appears to be hiding something from me. I don't trust her quite simply and I've no idea whether that trust is likely to come back or not.

    Our marriage was exceptionally happy for years, I've tried to find out exactly when and why the affair started, but she just clams up and won't talk about it. I'm sure she's embarrassed about what she did but it doesn't help me understand if/why this might happen again and what I could do to prevent it.
    However if a relationship has got to the point, where despite all best efforts it is beyond repair, then how long should someone spend feeling as you do now? Can you envisage your life say a year or two down the line? Is it likely that you could feel this bad still? Only you know if the relationship you have is able to be saved or needs to be ended.

    I guess I might have to be content with taking on all the advice offered and weighing everything up. I'm struggling somedays to make decisions about whether to make a cup of tea or coffee, it seems so unfair that I have to make such a massive and potentially damaging life decision too.

    Thanks again everyone.
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