Essie
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Amber, he doesn’t care that he’s throwing your life together away. He does not care. He’s already decided that your life together has very little value to him. He couldn’t have made that plainer if he bought a billboard out on the highway. You just refuse to see it.
He doesn’t need or want to wake the fuck up. He’s fully awake. He’s doing what he wants. He has what he wants. He has her, and a wife to cook and clean and have sex and provide a socially acceptable appearance to the world. He likes his life this way. You’re the one who’s unhappy.
Another Jen, that was a really good point: “I think you need to stop focusing whether your marriage situation is “normal” and think more about how unhappy it’s making you.”
Look at what this marriage has done to you. You’ve been reduced to writing to an advice site under a bunch of different names, telling a slightly different version of the story each time, hoping you’ll hit on the one that finally fools a bunch of internet strangers into telling you the lies you want to hear.
Does that make you proud of yourself? Is this the woman you want to be? If you had a daughter, would you want her to be living this way?
Is this how you imagined your life as a married woman? Groveling for the attention of your own husband?
Your marriage sucks. It sucks so much that just about everyone here would have left years ago. It’s a marriage in name only at this point, because your husband has made it clear that he’ll dump you in a hot minute if you get in the way of his relationship with his girlfriend.
It saddens me so much to see someone with so little self-respect.
Let’s try to sum this up.
Amber, somewhere you’ve picked up this belief that you can’t be happy without a man and so you can’t leave him. You’re approaching this by repeatedly asking us to help you fool yourself into believing that he truly loves you, not her and she’s not really his lover/girlfriend. You apparently think you can spend the rest of your life in this delusion.
I don’t know what’s in his head. It’s possible that he feels some kind of love for you. Or maybe he just says that to get you to shut up and stop pestering him about her. Who knows. What I do know, beyond all doubt, is that he loves her more. He’s told you that. When he said that you could leave if you don’t like it, he was clearly telling you that if you force him to make a choice, he’ll pick her. When he said he’d rather divorce you than give her up, what did you think he meant? She’s more important to him than you are. That’s what he meant.
That’s why I think you’re going about this the wrong way. If you’re determined to stay, you have to see this clearly as it is and accept it: You’re in second place. She’s his main lady. She comes first.
Those are your choices. Fully accept that your husband has a girlfriend who comes first, or leave. Living in some kind of fantasy that none of this is happening? Not an option. You’ve tried. It didn’t work.
Tina, I’m going to be blunt, and it’s going to sting. I’m sorry.
The biggest problem in your life, the biggest cause of pain, is not his “friend,” and it’s not your husband.
It’s you. Your reaction to this situation is, frankly, irrational. You’re not emotionally well. And your life is not going to get better until you get yourself into professional mental health care.
You keep coming back to us with ridiculously obvious variations on the story because you want us to tell you that everything is ok and he really loves you. We won’t ever do that, because it’s not true. And the longer you keep up these delusional posts, the more years you’ll throw away on an empty marriage to a man who lies to you and goes off to be with the woman he really wants.
Get help. Please.
Tina, what he’s doing is classic abusive behavior. Google “gaslighting.” He’s trying to make you believe it’s all your fault.
And don’t bother posting any excuses for his behavior. He’s not doing this because he had a difficult childhood. Or because he doesn’t understand what he’s doing. He’s a selfish, manipulative jerk, and what he wants comes first.
It’s not just that he’s hurting you. He’s *purposefully* hurting you, and then compounding the hurt by telling you it’s your fault.
Like Mark, only with platonic friends that I had very non-platonic feelings for.
“ How can he tell me he loves me and be affectionate, and marry me and be with me for 10 years and yet not care when I’m in pain? ”
My friend’s husband was married to her for twenty years. When she suspected he was cheating with his “friend,” he told her he loved her and would never leave her, this woman was just a friend, nothing was going on, etc, etc, etc.
He told her that over and over again, right up until the day he told her he was divorcing her.
Tina, you’re missing the point we’re trying to make. A good man, a man who cared about you and valued you, would have put a stop to this “friendship“ long ago JUST BECAUSE IT HURT YOU. He wouldn’t want to see you in pain. The thought of hurting you would cause him pain.
He refuses to stop. That’s not because he doesn’t understand. It’s not because his daddy was mean. He’s not stopping because she’s more important to him than you are. If you were more important, he wouldn’t be seeing her. That’s the plain, honest truth of it, and you know it.
I can’t tell you what would make it ok. It would never be ok for me. In your very first post here, you described a man that I would never even have dated, let alone married. And a man that I never, in a million years, would have a child with. He would be a terrible father, and you know it.
You’re fixated on having a wonderful life with a loving partner and a child. Sure, that’s a great thing to want. Lots of people want that.
But you’re never going to have that until you develop some self-respect and some standards. You might have the outside appearance of the life you want, but it’s hollow and meaningless without a partner who respects you and values you.
Leave him, get therapy, and don’t even think about dating until you’ve found some self-respect.
Oh, and the fact that she has a boyfriend who knows she spends time with your husband is meaningless. Maybe she and her boyfriend have an open relationship.
You don’t even believe the things you’re telling us; why should we believe what you’re saying?
If you were convinced that he’s not cheating, you wouldn’t be this upset. You’re lying to yourself. Not only is he obviously, by your own description, in a relationship with this woman, but he’s chosen her over you, time and time again. He’s essentially created an open marriage without your consent, because he’s figured out that you’re so terrified of being “alone” that he can do anything he wants.
There have been long stretches in my life when I’ve been single. If anything, it was good for me, and improved the quality of my relationships. And I’m being 100% honest here: there was not one moment of my singleness that was as bad as what you’re living through right now. I’ll take being single over an empty marriage any day.
Tina, I really wish you’d come back and explain what you think you’re getting out of this – telling the same (easily recognized) story to the same group of people every week, over and over again. No matter what false name you use, no matter what details you tweak, the advice is always the same. Your marriage sucks, and your loser husband is never going to change. He’s just going to keep rubbing your face in the fact that he’s cheating on you. I don’t know whether he’s getting some sick jolt out of humiliating you, or he just enjoys the ego boost of having you stay with him no matter how badly he treats you.
Your life is not going to get better until you realize the problem is in you. Your desperation to be in a relationship leads you to tolerate mistreatment that most women would never put up with. When you talk about ending your marriage, you frame it in how hard it would be to start over with someone else. Which means you’re going to jump at the first guy that shows interest. Which means you’re going to end up with another dirtbag who doesn’t love you.
Please, please, get professional help.
