This is my very first post though I have being going through this for about 2 years now - my mlc husband lives and works abroad since he lost his job. This is such a long story and like so many others posted here. Married 25 years this year. Doesn't know what he wants, doesn't know what love is and doesn't think anyone does really. Thinks I am great with how I am 'handling' this now (did the crying, pleading for a few months and then started 'letting go'. I found out that he was having an affair, started it just when he moved over for work, he would never have told me, thinks that because he is abroad no one has to know. I confronted him about the affair (had proof) and he ended it a few months later but he is now seeing lots of woman, some of them as young as our eldest daughter (25), he tells them he is not interested in a relationship. My question is, I know alot about what he is doing, and with whom but I have not told him directly yet - i am a very good 'snoop', a recent discovery of my talent though - i would never have checked up on him before all of this. do I tell him what I know? only our eldest son (31) knows about what his father is doing, our 3 daughters have no clue, in fact no one else knows - i am keeping his secret because I feel that if I tell everyone he would find it impossible to eventually come home. he was depressed and sucicidal when he left, but things are going well for him for him now, finally - he left the OW as soon as he was in a position to fend for himself, get his own apartment, pay bills etc. she is still waiting around for him to come back to her though. He says he is lonely but when he comes home to visit I know he is online dating and communciating with other woman. he is a charmer and is using this to his advantage while he has a bachelor pad. sorry, am rambling now - these are just the bare bones of my story for now.
If he has been suicidal recently, as you say, then . . . NO. I certainly wouldn't recommend you LIE to your adult children, to cover up their father's affair, but if he is as emotionally unstable as you make him sound, then I wouldn't be doing anything proactive that might cause him to harm himself.
thank you for your reply. we have 4 children, our son (30) knows about his father's affair and that it is over, he doesn't know how he is living his life abroad now, his many other women - i only about this from snooping -what good does it do to tell him? our eldest daughter (25) is travelling half way around the world and again it doesn't seem right to tell her when she is so far away. I have two other daughters living with me, one is 20 and very immature and highly sensitive, it would hurt her deeply. our youngest has just turned 16 and suffers from low self-esteem (is in recovery from self harming) - who does it help if i tell them, their father is only coming home twice a year at the moment for two weeks at a time. Last year he came home every 8 weeks for a week. He is emotionally unstable but not suicidal at the moment. His first love became pregnant when she was 30 and he was 24, they had a boy (now our son) and she died nine months later - he seems to be focusing on this now 30 years later, he lost his job, we are in serious debt, his mother died, all in the last few years - all the mlc triggers - recently he mailed me to say he 'needs my support and more' and that everything is 'cheap and meaningless'. I love him and dont want to make things worse for him by alienating his children. I do think he should know what I know because he genuinely believes that it is ok for him to live the life he wants, with several women on the go, so long as myself and the children don't know about it. He tells these women not to fall in love in with him, that he is not capable of love, that he has shown that by what he has done to his wife that he is not capable of commitment (in a strange way this seems to make them more interested). All insights welcome, i am on my own, but I am stronger now and need to be for all of us - he also told me at the beginning of this that I am the 'strenght'of our family.
So, to continue, with my story - husband left to work abroad September 2012, a colleague of 20 years offered him a job and as he had spent the previous two years looking for work (while working with me - I am self employed) and a sufficient income to sustain our huge debt (we could not make enough money working together)he accepted the offer. This colleague, a man, had a two bedroom apartment and my husband was to live with him for as long as he wanted. My husband didn't enjoy living with this man, he has nothing in common with him other than work. H was depressed. Met a single (divorced for a long time) woman (41) in a bar one night within weeks of starting work there and began an 'infatuation' affair, eventually moving in with her. He was obsessed as was she. H came home for christmas and because of his behaviour I knew something was wrong, he critised me constantly, slept on the edge of our bed and couldnt look me in the eye. He became very unwell, got severe psorisis (never had this before) and we were all so worried about him. We asked him to give up his job abroad and come home and we would figure out the rest - he said that he needed to work, needed the challenge. Things didnt go well at work for him at first. I found out about his affair at the end of January 2013 (just saw an email in his deleted items and it was all there, all the messages of love, telling her that he didnt want anyone at home to know - her saying they were soul mates and she would do whatever he wanted etc.) - I immediately confronted him to be told that our marriage was in trouble anyway (never knew that!), that he had no 'feelings', that 'he loved me but was not in love with me', that me, our home, our children, his life here was 'not enough' for him anymore. We had previously made a plan for me to visit him in the country where he is working to celebrate my 50th birthday the week following my discovery. I went anyway, thinking we could talk,his collegue let us have his apartment to ourselves for the few days I was there. He pretended during this time that he still lived there. He took me out on my birthday but we had a row when I saw him texting under the table! I accused him of texting her, he lied (eventually admitting the obvious truth). i cried, begged, pleaded to no effect. He said things could remain exactly the same at home for me, he would send money and we could pretend when he visited home. I have gone along with this. Our son found out about the affair by accident (he overheard us fighting), he was disgusted with his father and the way he had behaved, called him a 'snake in the grass'. We asked him not to tell anyone just yet - he agreed. the next time H came home I 'acted as if'and things improved, he would text his ow constantly from our home, I asked him why he kept telling her he loved her when he knew he didn't and why he was living with her (he said that he didnt really know how to pay to pay bills etc. and he was lonely). A few months later he got his own one bed apartment as work had improved and he had a better income. He is still friends with OW and when I asked him why he said that he 'doesn't hate her'. So much more to tell but think I should stop now - this is getting too long!!
Thanks so much Starsky - your advice is to the point and appreciated. I have 3 further posts / replies?? (with further info on my story) since my first one and now this, but i don't see them anywhere??? Am I posting correctly and in the right place? Can you see them? Take care, Sonas.
Thanks Cadet, I agree with everything you noted (though I don't know what 'GAL' is!!!)and am working my way through detaching and the 37 rules, i slip and fall sometimes but always get up and restart, i have accepted this 'gift of time' and am even grateful for it in a way but can't seem to stop myself snooping, I have found out so much about what he is doing and am not sure what to do with this information. I mentioned to Starsky that i had replied to him and have posted further info on my story but I don't see my further posts /replies anywhere (sent a few days ago!). Am i in the right place? Am i doing this correctly? Take care, Sonas
See all my posts now, thanks!! looking for advice? I do feel a bit like a doormat, he comes home when he wants, but his visits are getting further apart. He acts like the good father, is nice to me and generally helpful around the house. He wants to go out to the bar almost everynight he is at home, he wants me with him so I go. but he continues to communciate with other womem (including the original ow) when myself and our daughters are a few feet away. I have tried to get him to talk and he tells me that he can't and that talking to me about us makes him afraid to come home. He says he is sad for all of us. When this all started he told me that he needed time to sort out his head, maybe years, maybe 5 years. In my less than optomistic moments I feel that he wants to live the life of a single man for 5 years or so and then come back to me. Sometimes I think he is having a great time but then out of the blue he messages me to say that bad decisions (financial) on his part has put him where he is and there is nothing he can do about it and that he needs my support. he does seem very fearful of himself at times. Any thoughts anyone?
