Wife's online affair killed everything we have

Hi. This is my first post and was hoping to air my situation, grief, heartbreak etc. We are both in our early 40's & have been married for over 4 years. For the past year my wife has been having an on line affair with a guy from Norway. Last Friday she said she loves him and wants to find out whether he is the one she wants to spend her life with. Her plan was to leave the uk with our 3yr old son and visit him for a week. She obtained passports for them both and snook off whilst I was at work. I came home to a note. I managed to stop her from taking son but she left him with her nasty mother and flew off to Norway. I have managed to bring my son back home. My wife is due back this Saturday. My mind is going nuts. She is very much a self centered person and doesn't think of consequences of any of her actions. I do love her with all my heart but I think our marriage is over. I am worried that she will try to take our son away again behind my back. I'm scared, hurt, angry. I have to put my son first in this. She has done this sort of thing before (never gone this far though) in our marriage and a previous marriage. She is also moody all the time,. I'm worried that she has mental health problems as there are mental issues in the family. Other family members have told her she has gone to far this time and shouldn't of tried to take soon. Is it my fault and what should I do now?? Thanks for reading

She did WHAT?! What does she think you are - her valet, standing patiently and discreetly in the corner awaiting to see if her ladyship clicks her fingers or not, and if not, to just keep standing there until dismissed? Is this, do you think, the result of a chronic state of unhappiness/confusion-related stress that's come to a head and reduced her to this overly selfish, self-obsessed state, and trying to escape her woes via leaping to some fantasy? You said 'nasty mother'. Explain, please? Thank GOD you managed to extricate your son from her mess! Note she still went? Yep, she's either in a bad way or always was and you tried to look the other way and make excuses or believed you could succeed where others had failed. So, yes, in a way, it is your bed that you forged ahead with making and which you're now laying on. But you probably couldn't have foreseen *this* extent of 'bed', it would have been a case of extrapolating (from clues present at the time) TOO far. It sounds like in the first instance, however, what you need is the advice of a solicitor (free initial consultation). You need to have the practical spelled out and ready so as to give your mind back better working cylindry for dealing with the emotional side of things. You'll be advised that if, having abandoned the Former Marital Home, and now her son, she stays away beyond a certain length of time, she'll have forfeited the right to main custodianship of him... depends on what country you live in.

Hi and thanks for reply. That's what I feel like. How can someone be married, living together, just leave for another country to meet up with a man she met on line that she thinks she's in love with and wants to spent the rest of her life with, while I'm left here picking up the pieces of my own (node wrecked) marriage. At least I have my son back hey. I don't think she's in any fit state to care for our child. I mean, last Wednesday she put petrol in our diesel car. On friday she drove the same car into the back of another car with the kids in the car. She has lost the plot. As for her mad mum. 4 marriages, 4 Kidz but can't be friends with all of them at the same time, she's a workaholic so spent very little time for her own kids when they were young, so they (wife being one of them) didn't have the love from a mother. She had argument with my wife about 4 years ago and buggered of. Wife was so glad as when there mother is in their lives, things tend to go pear shaped. There friendship always end in tears. All the females in the family seen to love a drama. Thought I could be the one to help her deal with her issues cause of love was indestructible, e have been through a lot together and dealt with everything life has thrown at us, together as one.

Hi and thanks for reply. That's what I feel like. How can someone be married, living together, just leave for another country to meet up with a man she met on line that she thinks she's in love with and wants to spent the rest of her life with, while I'm left here picking up the pieces of my own (node wrecked) marriage. At least I have my son back hey. We live in the UK. I don't think she's in any fit state to care for our child. I mean, last Wednesday she put petrol in our diesel car. On friday she drove the same car into the back of another car with the kids in the car. She has lost the plot. As for her mad mum. 4 marriages, 4 Kidz but can't be friends with all of them at the same time, she's a workaholic so spent very little time for her own kids when they were young, so they (wife being one of them) didn't have the love from a mother. She had argument with my wife about 4 years ago and buggered of. Wife was so glad as when there mother is in their lives, things tend to go pear shaped. There friendship always end in tears. All the females in the family seen to love a drama. Thought I could be the one to help her deal with her issues cause of love was indestructible, e have been through a lot together and dealt with everything life has thrown at us, together as one.

You're welcome and sorry to have kept you waiting, FS. "How can someone be married, living together, just leave for another country to meet up with a man she met on line that she thinks she's in love with and wants to spent the rest of her life with, while I'm left here picking up the pieces of my own (node wrecked) marriage. " Mid Life Crisis, typically...Issues, conflicts, confusions, usually from as far back as childhood, coming to a massive head and sending them into chronic DefCon1... the individual being too weak-charactered or in too much of a worn-down state to face them, thus preferring to dive into a deep hole or, more often, grab another person (usually someone with complimentary need/s or circumstance in common) to act as aider and abettor in an exercise to avoid the hard work of tackling and straightening those issues. Very common stuff, all that differs being degree. Your wife has hit DefCon1, no doubt about it. But because it's chronic stress, rather than sudden trauma, they appear onthe surface to be their same old self, perfectly sane (which makes their crazy choices and actions all the more mind-f*cking). So as you rightly said - she has lost the plot. And that'll be because the plot she'd got fed, led to a dead-end. Alternatively, it can be a case of the person having led their whole life in DefCon (personality disordered) whilst covering up or always providing plausible excuses over their emotional out-of-kilterness with superb acting...and then being no longer capable of keeping the act up, meaning - PLEUGH! - the mask finally drops off. It's slightly akin to an adult style massive tantrum where they start throwing all their prized possessions at the wall or in the bin, and breaking all the rules (- many of which were the wrong ones to follow as led them to this hugely conflictual impasse). Usually it's worse because they were too scared, insecure or oppressed to have gone typically ballistic in their teen years (which is the second mid-life-crisis, the first being the Terrible Twos). Think about it - everything she's doing smacks of huge rebellion, yes? And that she's been increasingly preoccupied (diesel) shows she's had an over-full mental in-tray. You can pity her if you like, but she made the choices that led her to her giant brick wall or muddy pit. In the UK. Okay. Then unless the rule's been changed since I last looked, she's got 3 months to return and if not - she can say goodbye to ever again being your son's day-to-day mother. Unless YOU say she can (either by taking her back at whatever stage or by overriding any family court ruling come the divorce). So don't try to coerce her into coming back using that warning or you could be doing yourself and your son a disservice in the long run. She has to come back because SHE wants to. This guy is irresponsible, playing with her very life that that. For starters, they've never even met. Secondly, a relationship in-person is a whole other kettle of fish to one conducted purely online. It won't last ...unless they're very, very lucky...although life - the court of emotional injustices - has a way of spanking naughty bums, as makes them sting for a very long time afterwards (or permanently if they never learn and make amends). She'll be back. You can bet on it. Tell me again "aboudt herr childthoodt" - and this time in greater detail? And have you rung around or asked around your friends for a recommendation of a solicitor and made an appointment for a chat yet?

PS: Now you really understand (on the deepest emotional level) the term, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, right?

Hi again and thanks. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said personality disorder. Something I didn't mention is that her first marriage ended exactly the same as this one is ending. She told me her ex husband was emotionally abusive to her but in fact it is more like the other way round. I have put up with a lot from my wife because I love her. Everything fits into place now. She used me for sympathy over her first marriage and it now seems to me as our relationship was a lie. If she had told me the truth from the start, that it was her abusing then ex husband, would I have gotten involved?!! She walked from her first marriage and left 5 kids, seems as tho she is walking com this one and leaving our son. We'll find out tomorrow ay. Her mother always worked and had no time for kids, my wife brought up her brother and Sister from a very early age, about 12 yrs old I think. Brother would of been 4 and sister 10. It was very hard for her and I can understand it would have an affect on her adult life but instead of wanting a better life for her own, she's he'll bent on destroying everything for every body... And her self. Her mum is worse , she h has a very bad track record with relationships. She has self destruct tendencies. Her (now grown up kids) have seen it all before and day just let her get on with it, there is nothing that will stop her. They are destrought that she has done this to me, as we get on very well indeed. Just a shame that someone I love so much has done this and will probably continue to do this for the rest of her life. Until that is she realises what she has done and that she needs help.. Don't think that will happen any time soon though.

"Hi again and thanks. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said personality disorder. Something I didn't mention is that her first marriage ended exactly the same as this one is ending. " Oh, well, there we go, then - pretty open and shut case. Personality Disordereds *can't* learn. Because that relies on accepting truthful incoming data, doesn't it, something which can't be allowed due to the PD's upside-down house. You imagine it was a real house and you said to the builder, 'Oy, mate - your front door's supposed to be on the GROUND floor. If he were to accept that truth he'd likewise have to start realising what ELSE was similarly mis-orientated...and there would burst the self-delusions and illusions bubble that their whole house (reality) hinges on. Crash!, the whole thing would come tumbling down, resulting in a nervous breakdown and having to basically start their whole life over. It has to be done gradually (if even possible, considering therapy relies wholly on admission and acceptance of the dreaded truth in the first place). Suggest you read, "I hate you/Don't leave me!" to see if you can recognise your wife from all the descriptions. But why didn't that ruddy great Red flag of her first marriage and how it ended give you pause to stop and think? Was it a classic case of greater things coming to light and no longer gelling with the original spin, hitting you only once it was too late and you were already well and truly hooked? What was her so-called justification for abandoning her 5 kids? Your poor little boy. :-( Please do try to find books on the subject to help you help him not to take it personally. Try, It's Not Your Fault, Koko Bear, and read it to him over and over each night (so that his subconscious can correlate and contextualise his own first-hand experiences while he sleeps). Kids get that one immediately, amazing it is. "She walked from her first marriage and left 5 kids, seems as tho she is walking com this one and leaving our son. We'll find out tomorrow ay. Her mother always worked and had no time for kids, my wife brought up her brother and Sister from a very early age, about 12 yrs old I think. Brother would of been 4 and sister 10." So her mother abandoned her and now she's abandoning her own kids. Okay, I know what this is all about... Some people lack a certain type of imagination when it comes to being able to relate and empathise, using purely their minds, with why someone once did something/s so particularly hurtfully impactful to them, i.e. can't somehow work out the person's reasons and why certain taboos and senses of sacrosanct didn't kick in. They hit a certain age and situation - usually which mirrors that of the transgressor - and then what happens is, the upsetting event that they've tried so long to ignore comes back to the fore, fuller-force, to haunt them. Suddenly, they can no longer abide the knowledge (and flashbacks). It starts to niggle increasingly. (This is why you hear of fairly mature adults who were sexually abused as small kids, suddenly reporting their past abuser to the police, that bit too late in the day you'd think.) With their first born (- usually) reaching the age they were when it either first began or reached its nadir, they look at that child (like it's them back then) and realise just how downright HEINOUS the act/series of acts was, and that the person must have been a monster to have brought themselves to do it. However, if the abuser seemed in all other ways so unlike what one would imagine a monster to be (because abusers typically prime kids by making the kid feel incredibly special and wanted - woo them, basically), confusion strikes. That confusion has to be sorted out once and for all. Lacking this aforementioned requisite mental skill, however, the only way to get their head around it is to RE-ENACT IT, this time in the perpetrator's role. (This is usually wholly subconscious, coming out only in the form of an URGE TO ACT or bring about an outcome via a whole chain of less consciously-noticeable, preceeding choices/actions.) Suddenly, there they are, having moreover under their own radar contrived a path to being stood in their abusers/transgressor's shoes. Not everyone is as mentally agile and strong as Dave Peltzer ("A Child Called 'It'"), in other words - he who worked it all out for himself thus chose to ensure he'd never make the same mistakes with his own son. Usually, however, that series of little steps has meantime brought about an emotional INVESTMENT (or this case, that and attachment), meaning, it's difficult to stop the whole ride and extricate oneself. So they go through with it. Better that they do, in fact, because then they can see for themselves how needless, avoidable and downright dissatisfactory this choices catalyst was and start to backtrack/make amends (you hope). In short, she's trying to understand her mother's neglect - emotional abandonment - by doing it in a faster and more extreme way. And then you have the added factor of her having been denied her childhood, thus her mind needing to catch up with that side of her development NOW. For some reason, the first episode with her first set of kids didn't quite do it for her. Perhaps because she chose to hide from the lesson by diving into full distraction with you/the new relationship added to that of a bitter ex whom no doubt was constantly on her case (hell-bent on revenge once he'd 'woken up' and realised just how duped and transgressed he'd been)? You do need a sustained period of situation normal/calm for these calculations to be received by the conscious in partnership with the subconscious. 'White noise' interferes with that process. Alternatively, it could be that she decided the experiment hadn't been a valid one because it lacked a vital component to make it a more authentic exercise? For example: abandoning a child you've had with someone you *do* love as opposed to one you don't? This is the problem with allowing yourself to play rescuer to your own romantic interest. What you're basically doing without even realising it is, to a certain large degree, offering your services as a serious contrast come CATALYST...a mechanism that brings everything to a giant head.............POP! Out comes the pus.... ALL OVER YOU AND YOUR OWN LIFE. Never ever again date any woman you feel that incredibly sorry and protective over. No more Poor Wee Fings. PARTICULARLY one who is especially skilled and prevalent on a *violin*. You want a strong, positive survivor type who says things like, '...Yeah, the ex was a total git at the time...but then I probably wasn't totally blameless myself, in fact at times I think I was a RIGHT bitch... plus what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and you live and learn, so - onwards and upwards!'. In other words, your wife is a bit emotionally FICK. But then, how WOULDN'T she be with an emotional tutor who never showed up to class? ...and so the legacy gets passed, like a rotten pass-the-parcel, from parent to 'abandoned' child who then as a parent passes it to his/her child who (in a box in a box in a box).....which is where you and 'Koko Bear' come in. You can ensure you stop that legacy, FULL STOP. So: here is your mission, should you choose to accept it ...."dah! dah! daaah-dah dah! dah! daah-dah.." - Mission Impossible music. Only it's not ('impossible'). "She has self destruct tendencies. " Slow Suicide. For the long-term background, chronically suppressed-depressed. "Until that is she realises what she has done and that she needs help.. Don't think that will happen any time soon though." Oh, yeah? Wanna bet? You imagine going on a first date, finding out the person isn't nearly as all-round attractive and nice in animation as you hoped, imagined and suspected. You can just make your excuses and go home, can't you - no big deal. But imagine how much worse that icky 'ew' feeling feels if you're TRAPPED there with them because you're thousands of miles from home in combination with the dread of having to return home too soon and thereby covered in serious egg on your face.... "PRESSURE!..press-in' dooown on me, push-in' doown on you, no man ask for" (- name the 80s singers!). Here - have the entire song, it's very apt! :-) Pressure pushing down on me Pressing down on you, no man ask for Under pressure that burns a building down Splits a family in two Puts people on streets It's the terror of knowing What this world is about Watching some good friends Screaming, "Let me out!" Tomorrow gets me higher Pressure on people - people on streets Chippin' around, kick my brains 'round the floor These are the days - it never rains but it pours People on streets - people on streets It's the terror of knowing What this world is about Watching some good friends Screaming, "Let me out!" Tomorrow gets me higher, higher, higher... Pressure on people - people on streets Turned away from it all like a blind man Sat on a fence but it don't work Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn Why, why, why? Love Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking Can't we give ourselves one more chance? Why can't we give love that one more chance? Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?.. 'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word And love dares you to care for The people on the edge of the night And love dares you to change our way of Caring about ourselves This is our last dance This is our last dance This is ourselves Under pressure Under pressure Pressure But who cares. You don't want her back, anyway, do you. Do you? Could you? Would you? ....on a train, in the rain, in a box with a fox, Sam-I-Am??? Or are you going to hang up your rescuer's hat?

Sorry - realise I missed out a sentance (doh) - second from last: "With their first born (- usually) reaching the age they were when it either first began or reached its nadir, they look at that child (like it's them back then) and realise just how downright HEINOUS the act/series of acts was, and that the person must have been a monster to have brought themselves to do it. However, if the abuser seemed in all other ways so unlike what one would imagine a monster to be (because abusers typically prime kids by making the kid feel incredibly special and wanted - woo them, basically), confusion strikes. And obviously, one's parent is one's "god", which conflicts madly with the whole understood idea of what is a monster. That confusion has to be sorted out once and for all."

And PPS: Obviously the gender in the song needs to be reversed...to read thus: "Turned away from it all like a blind woman"

Any update, FS?