Kate & Emily

Hello:
I have just read your post and honestly wish I knew you so I could offer you my friendship and support. I am going through the same situation, and he was a golfer too and I can relate to all you said, only you seem so much stronger than I was. My husband left me, my 2 year old son and my 5 month daugher much the same way yours did, only there was an affair on top of that. This just makes it all worse because it is not just only the family break-up, but being replaced by another woman is really hard.
I still cry about it all, and it is the most horrible deepest suffering I have ever been put through. It is 1.5 years since and I still think about him.
my advise to you, toughen up, this is our test to life, this is when we endure and swallow bitter until it gets better. Get a counselor, and get help because you will have an easy tendency to depression, which is absolutely normal. Your brain goes through chemical imbalances and on top of that after pregnancy your body too. Get busy doing whatever, knit if you have to, cook clean, do something that will occupy your mind. Be extra loving to your children and tell them about the triangle you have. It is you (the base) and the two children on top. Everything else comes and goes, keep them happy as that is not hard to do with little ones. As for continuing to foster his relationship wiht her...blah blah blah. You dont have to be good, let yourself express your anger and be you. You do not have to do anyhting that you dont want. Dont be negative but no more taking one for the team. Be extra reassuring as a mom...period.
There are little good things about this experience ( and I say little because the pain is not worth anything)
for one you can do what you want with your time now, that you probably would have never done before because all your focus was on him and making him happy and waiting for his golf to end.
2, you will have a chance to be closer to your kids
3, you will have a chance to be closer to god
4, you will have a chance to be free and learn to depend on you and you alone.
5, you will have a chance to find someone that will truly make you happy, not now but in the future, someone you can connect with emotionally and will truly fill your void.
Ihave been told and read and come accross this many times:
god lets the people that do not love us walk out of our lives to make room for people who really love us to come in.
i cry still when he comes with his new girlfriend after exotic travel, to pick up the kids and take them for a day of fun to toys r us. Who doesnt have fun like that? But when I finish crying I say to myself, do I really want that? And the answer is always no. It is strange.
I guess that entire rejection is just so hard to take, and you wish to have them aknowledge that for many years, yes the love you shared meant something. But I dont think I will get that, I need it..but I am trying to learn Why do I need his acknowledgment and acceptance to feel better?
That is what I work on.
I think this posting is very old(on your part) but I hope you find wisdom and guidance from my words, and experince.
Yolanda

Hi Emily

Thanks for your posting. My husband hasnt returned home and I've been trying to spend a little 'me' time, trying to understand exactly why I think I miss him, because I dont think these are genuine feelings. I'm also trying to accept his decision to leave, as I feel that he is such an unhappy person within himself that he could never truly be happy within our family, for a any great length of time. He doesnt seem to miss us or experience any sense of loss and sounds happier away from us. I try not to talk about my situation too much with my extended family, as they are so used to my husband coming and going over the years, that they he will return and we'll all just bundle along as normal.

This blog has helped me in the sense that it's like writing a letter to myself, trying to work through my own feelings, so I'm going to start keeping a journal. My children seem to have taken my husbands absence really well and I think that's probably because I'm always with them and can pick up on their emotions very quickly.

I'm also on a quest to truly find myself in all of this, because I know I was never fulfilled in my marriage, with my husband needing/demanding far more than he was prepared to give. I was never able to share my thoughts, feelings, aspirations or even the highs or lows of my day with him. I aspire to be bolder in all areas of my life and introduce my children to a broader range of experiences.

And so I'm signing off on this positive note.

Thank you for caring

xx

Hello, you're right no-one can tell you what to do as no-one else ever truly understands a relationship, but from reading ouor posting I get the feeling that you're looking for suport to make the final break as you tell us more bad things about your relationship than you say nice things, and at the end you say perhaps it is the time to make a final break.  Well, perhaps now is the time to do it and perhaps i'ts only now that you feel strong enough to do it?  If it's what you want to do (and I wouldn't blame you!) but you're worried about not being able to get through it on your own, use your family or really close friend to help you.  If they're not around then go the GP and ask if they have someone you can talk to about it - they usually have councelling services that can help you I expect. .  I know these things are hard to talk about and you certainly don;t want to feel judged, so please find yourself a buddy to talk it all through with - mum?  sister?  cousin?  best friend?  And if none of these are any good then your doctor.  Lots and lots of luck, it sounds to me as if you're a very strong and capable lady, managing to bring up a large family and work and still looking after yourself so your confidence and self esteem stay high - that's vital - it's  how your children need you.  Emily

Hi

I have 4 children and each time I've fallen pregnant, my husband has created an unrelated dram and left me. I kept getting caught as soon as I'd stopped breastfeeding. 2 years ago, when my youngest was 5mths old, I found out I was pregnant again, and I couldn't bring myself to go through with the pregnancy as I felt as I was being driven insane. i terminated the pregnancy and had the coil fitted, vowing to never take my husband back. A couple of months later, a CSA letter dropped on my doormat and didnt stop probing until I found the woman and child named on the document and sure enough, her 4 year old daughter looked similar to my 2 year old. She showed me photos of my husband holding the baby. She told me he was already married before me in America and has at least 3 other children. Even with the evidence in front of me, my husband still kept denying it was his child, until eventually some 3 weeks later, he admitted the truth. I vowed never to take him back. He had left us in so much debt saying he had paid his portion of the rent when he hadnt, or working and saying that he hadnt been paid for his work. We were about to be evicted from our home, so I sold some of my own personal belongings and managed to find the deposit for a new home.

Somehow, my husband seemed to weedle his way back in....birthdays, Christmas, and before I knew it he was begging to make it up to me and had moved in. I After 18mths of some sort of stability with my husband never spending a night away from the house, I took the coil out as it was making me bloated and gain excessive weight. We were successfully using durex or withdrawal method for several months. I took our kids to Center parcs for a week, leaving my husband going to work every day.

We returned to find my husband gone with a note saying he'd gone to a wedding. It turned out he'd gone abroad and hasnt returned home since. Again, he created another drama about how we'd left him on his own, etc.

I have just found out that I'm pregnant again and I feel my husband has done this on purpose and probably had making me pregnant to trap me for all these years, as everytime I get myself on my feet, excercising , back to work, building my confidence and becoming more independent and less vulnerable, he leaves us in a bad situation.

I'm 5/6 weeks gone. We had only had intercourse once in that month, as we had fallen out for 2 weeks, so he may have planned it.

Now I'm faced with starting again with a baby and jeapordising my work prospects ( I juggle work from home whilst looking after my children, or terminating the pregnancy. 3 of my existing children are under the age of 6 and I've been looking forward to the youngest 2 progressing into the school years, so that I can work harder and earn more money for our outgoings and quality of life.

I know no one can tell me what I should do, but I wonder sometimes am I going mad, or have I been in an emotionally abusive relationship for so long that I cant detach myself from it. Now that my husband hasn't returned home (but I knw he's not far away from...as he seems to know most of our movements...creepy I know), I wonder if this is the best time to boot him out for good and stick to it. I dont think he is emotionally stable and sometimes I worry he may turn nasty and harm our children to hurt me, if I isolate him.

Hi,
I can't make you feel better but can re-assure you that you are not alone. I am in a similar position.
My husband and I only got married last year but had been together for 4 years. We have a little boy who is nearly three and a 6 month old baby. At the beginning of this year my husband started to emotionally abuse me, telling me that he didnt love me and he was going to leave me after the baby was born. I stupidly begged him to stay, offered to go to RELATE etc, didn't know what I had done wrong. This went on for 2 months until I discovered he was having an affair with a woman 10 years older who had two children of her own.
He left and I was left with a toddler and a soon to be born baby along with a string of debt.
I too struggle with how to explain to my children, especially to my baby, that their daddy left before she was even born. Our babies were planned, how dare he say he is not leaving his children!!!!
I didn't know what hate was until this happened.
One thing I do know though is that you will get stronger and you will start to turn the situation round for your children. Keep telling yourself I will NOT be a victim!!!
I wish you all the best xxx

Hi Nicola, Chris is right - keep strong! It's flipping early days and you will feel all those emotions (and should too - it's healthy). It may be too early to say this to you too, or for you to see what I'm saying but hey-ho in for a penny in for a pound - you say yourself that the marriage wasn't working. Your husband was simply the one to say it wasn't working and to realise that if you had stayed together he'd have hurt you (and by implication family life). He's not walking out on the children as he's still going to be their dad - he just won;t live with them, he's only saying 'husband and wife' doesn't work anymore and that's the bit that's ending. I know it's easy to say these things from a distance but let him be a dad to your children and you won;t have to ever explain 'why he walked out when you were 9 weeks old', you'll just have to explain that the marriage didn't work. Ending a marriage is incredibly hard and carries massive responsibility, I really don't believe anyone does it lightly - their timing may not be great, they may go about it in a cruel way, but I bet it was never undertaken easily. Try to bear in mind that what's broken is the grown up relationship, not the parent / child one. Your daughter (and you) will need him to be a dad - can she stay weekends with him? It'll help her to know she's still loved, and still has a dad and it will give you a respite with 2 very little ones.

My 2 were about the age of your daughter when we spilt up and it's settled down into pretty normal life. But there were (are!) ups and downs. Try to keep as much as you can constant around them - routines, friends, family, your behaviour etc. and reassure them lots. Little ones can also get the wrong end of the stick easily so decide how to explain your marriage ending and tell her, ask her if she understands, and ask her if she has questions. There's an article on this somewhere on the site which will help with this bit, but I found talking about it so I could help them deal with their emotions was good. And then of course - plan some fun for the 3 of you. Have a halloween party, do pumpkins - anything just have a good time so that you can show her that you can still all laugh and smile and be a happy family.

Lots and lots of luck - I think you're doing tremendously and Chris is right too when she says time is a great healer. There's alot of life out there to be had!

Hello there,

I know it wont help much but I really am begining to believe that time is a great healer. I left my husband and moved in with my parents with my little boy nearly 4 months ago, he is 2 years old and now that we are used to our new life he is far happier than he ever was whilst we were living with his dad. The little man and I had experienced too much fear and sadness and I couldn't let it continue, I simply could not allow for any more of his child hood to be stolen away from either of us, so when I am feeling sad, alone or doubtful I look at my little boy and I know that I have done exactly the right thing, I have no regrets at all. Do everything you can to keep strong, remember why things are the way they are and keep at your core the things that are best for your kids.

Life is always changing and a friend of mine once said that I should remember that nothing lasts forever, so when my little boy keeps me up all night I remember what my friend told me and I cherish every second, so what if I look nearly 90!!!

Good luck to you, keep your kids happy and safe.

xx