“I’ve been involved with an EUM man now for 15 years. I was only 23 when we met. We’ve had 4 children together. The last 3 yrs were very difficult. Deaths in the family, problems with a son. He started blaming not being intimate with me on everything from work, to the kids, feeling sick, his dying mother. Just before the holidays I knew in my heart he’s cheating again. I kept quiet to make it through the holidays with our family.
Right after his birthday I put my foot down saying I can’t give anymore and live without love. He said I just needed to get out of the house more. Well I did go out and have a drink and when I got back I got a hold of his phone and found the proof of text messages and phone calls from 6 other women. I was speaking to one when he walked in on me. Well needless to say it was a big blow out. He offered me anything. Said he’d give me anything I wanted and I nearly threw up when I had to the courage to say…”You can never give me what I deserve. I’ve been a faithful woman, good mother, hard worker and I deserve real love.”
He blamed cheating this time on his education. He’s much older than I am at 53. I saw him for the first time in my life as a true coward. It’s been over for two weeks. In that time he’s talked to me every day. He’s begged me not to take the kids and move, offering to pay the bills and take care of me and the kids for the long haul. Even if I don’t see him he will still pay the bills. I can even go out to have sex with anyone I want and he’ll baby sit the kids. Just as long as I don’t leave because I am the only real friend and family he has left.
Well I did let him baby sit and I went out, and I let him know I had a couple of dates. ( I didn’t sleep with any of the men but I didn’t give him any details.) He even took me shopping for new clothes. Something he never did before. At first I thought I could play this game. He was right that staying in the home would mean that the children would be secure and on the honor roll in an upper class environment. Because of the children I can’t just leave. We are so tied together in so many ways I am not sure how to even leave. All I have learned for sure is how we got here. I never knew what an EUM was. In these two weeks I’ve learned about this from this blog and started looking for books. Yes knowledge helps but it doesn’t stop the pain.
Your “rules” of no contact and just walk away don’t apply to me.
So please tell me…Do these men ever heal?
How do you walk away from a EUM after 15 yrs and 4 children? Should I continue to bide my time and just date other men? I kicked him out, changed the door locks, but everything is still in his name. Even my car.
I am resigned that he won’t want to change at age 53 but the children are only 5 -11 yrs old.Would it be wrong to stay in the home and the only thing that changes is the “we”? We didn’t have any real sex in the last 3 yrs. He either couldn’t hold an erection or just couldn’t orgasm and I am entering my prime. He’s willing to just slip money under the door until I go back into the workforce in 2 yrs. per our agreement when the last child was born.
What I am wondering is…this seems like a win-win, but is it really when I think I am finally ready to find a man to love me. Yes, really love me. Or do I become the emotionally unavailable woman because of this set up?”
NML says: Wow. This is one hell of a situation. There are three things at play here. 1) What you want or think you want? 2) His flip flappiness, and 3) Your children.
You have four children together and whatever happens from here, you have to consider that there will be impacts both positive and negative no matter which option you choose. Leave him and they are going to go through a period of being insecure. You will both have to work very hard to reassure your children that they are loved by you both and that you’re both committed to their happiness. It wouldn’t be easy. But in the medium and certainly in the long term, you would be happy and your children won’t grow up in what must surely be an uncomfortable environment, what with his cheating and the rather odd arrangement and marriage you both have going.
But stay and they get to do the honor roll and upper class thing and they get the semblance of togetherness. They get their parents as a ‘unit’. But what will YOU do, and what will HE do?
No Contact doesn’t apply here. You have four children and short of running off (don’t do that), you have to find a way to find a situation that works for both of you (and them). If having an open marriage where he allows you to date and shag other people whilst he gets to be emotionally unavailable, not give you sex, and shag other people is what works for you, then that’s your prerogative . Is it something I’d recommend you do? Hell no, but you would be surprised at what people will do when they don’t want to go through the breakup of a marriage.
If what you want is to be in a relationship where you can be emotionally available and loved, you are wasting your time here. You are flogging the deadest of dead horses and your needs are not going to be met.
Is he going to change? It’s very unlikely. Why break the habit of a lifetime?
If he is going to change it’s because he wants to and he recognises that he wants to be better than what he is and that he would rather sort his sh*t out and be emotionally unavailable, than be disconnected and lose you (and the kids). Right now, he’d rather not sort his sh*t out, stay disconnected, and keep you in the relationship. This is not the actions of a man who wants to change. He wants to stay the same and keep the status quo of the relationship and the only way he thinks he can do this is by telling you to go shag other people.
I’ll be frank. If I had a husband who couldn’t find his way to sexing me but could find his way to sexing other people and texting six women, you can be damn sure that there would be hell to pay and I wouldn’t be sticking around. I certainly wouldn’t let him pimp me out the door to other men either!
You have to ask yourself why you have been willing to put up with this? You have been together for fifteen years and I recognise that you have kids, but this is not just about the kids. This relationship for whatever reason has worked for you and remember that emotionally unavailable men draw in emotionally unavailable women. You don’t have to become emotionally unavailable to deal with him; you ARE already emotionally unavailable.
You say you want to be loved but your actions (and his) are in conflict with this desire.
So what do you do? You need to sit down with your husband and get real and get honest. You need to ascertain how much he wants to save your marriage and whether you want what he’s trying to save. I suggest that if you want to think about giving your marriage a try that you both seek counselling and get to the bottom of what it is that has him so disconnected. Unless you do this, you will both go round and round in circles. If he is unwilling to go to counselling and actively seek to change his behaviour of his own accord, your relationship is doomed.
If you choose to stay with him, irrespective of his behaviour, then you have to accept that he won’t change and that you are actively responsible for your choice.
You need to decide if an open marriage is a win win for you. But remember: this is how emotionally unavailable men get us. They manage down our expectations and you’ve gone from being a woman who hates being cheated on, wants to be loved, wants a proper marriage with sex in it, to a woman who has to go out with other men so that she lets her husband off his marital obligations…
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I agree that the children are a consideration. But they have been involved for the last eleven (11) years.
Your children will watch you and your husband, and call whatever process you work out, or attempt, or fumble at, ‘home.’ They will grow up expecting this kind of interaction in the families they hope to form when they mature. An open marriage (shudder) or any separation between you will establish what is ‘normal’ for them. The ideal, I believe, would have you married to a man you respect, trust, and cherish. I think next would be to see you being honest and honorable about your marriage vows, and responsible about your relationship with their father.
Remember when all the viagra commercials started? There are many causes for impotence, including open chest surgery. Most of the affected marriages survive just fine. Although you are ‘in your prime’, consider that other women manage to make do, from married women, to women married to injured or otherwise incapable men, to single women (including those vowed to chastity). As the song goes, “We can work it out.” Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
The biggest risk I see, is that he is in the home, and cheating. The children see him – cheating affects his behavior from lying to not being with his family during the time he is ‘occupied’. Whether the children ever see or hear about another woman, his cheating affects them. I am inclined to want to protect the kids from a borderline sexual predator. And I would want him out of the house until you are satisfied, through counseling, that he is both a solid role model for the kids, and unlikely to pursue his (criminal adultery) cheating. Please *don’t* enable his misbehavior.
Just wanted to update you.
Well I worked on emotionally letting him go. Then I demanded honesty from myself and spent time really looking at who I am. I contacted several colleges and am working on applications and finding some grants. Made a goal to finish my own degree and move out of my state in 2 yrs. Took a trip to Phoenix even. The first time I’ve done that since being married.
I guess you can see that the bottom line is I put this part of my life behind me and I am working on going on in the future alone with my children.
I figure I can do it all on my own. All I had to do was step back to see clearly the mind games he was playing. When I got a good look from the outside I clearly saw what a broken and messed up person he was/is. I didn’t fail at this relationship, I only failed myself. I will never let that happen again. Thank you for being here for me when I was lost in emotional shock of it all.
Karen,
I was the other woman in a relationship that sounded eerily similar to yours. In fact, if the ages of your children would have been slightly different, I would have thought you were the wife in my love triangle.
I can assure you that my experience as the other woman was miserable and unfulfilling. The same issues your husband brings to your relationship, he brings to his affairs – including the impotence. In my situation, it was a long lost love who looked me up and we rekindled an intimate friendship that took a sexual turn. I, myself, am a married woman but the allure of an emotionally unavailable man from my past who (I thought) realized the error of letting me go was too difficult to resist. My romantic fantasies were quickly crushed. Long story short, he was a messed up guy who brought his troubles with him.
Your post has given me a valuable insight into what might have really been happening at home. When he said “open marriage” and “wife and I haven’t had sex for 3+ years”, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a good woman in a great deal of torment at home. I ended my affair when the pain became too great. I am on this site, like you, because I am trying to figure out how I devoted so much time to someone so undeserving of me and to move on and heal.
I wish you much happiness and peace in your heart and mind. Your children will forgive you and understand when they are old enough for doing what is best for you and your family.
Karen,
Best of luck to you! I hope you find all you need in the days and years ahead. Make good friends wherever you go!
Blessed be!
I’m always saddened to hear when a spouse steps out of their covenant of marraige. I Have gone thru the same thing and my husband has wanted to work out our marraige I too have 4 children and have been marraiged for 16 years. I too asked him to move out. It is devastating and the healing process been hard. We took the Marraige of Dynamic course with the book His Needs Her Needs, by Dr. Harley. We also discovered my husband has an addiction, and like Dr. Harley says their are as many sexual addictions as there are sexual positions. I now can see how sex sin has trapped him in a very dark scary place. Sex addiction is is not about attraction or about the SEX. It is about the natural high you get. Maybe this is similar to what you are going thru. Their are many books and meeting that can help you and your husband to have healing and happiness and YES have an intimate marraige, and better then it was before. The strength and understanding, pain and healing, and yes thru the tears I have found recoverery with a book a healing Journey, by Marsha Means. I did not go out and do an eye foe an eye. That can only cause more damage. Yuo both need to step up to the plate and make the committment to DO something about it. Put your stake in the ground and fight for the marraige you want and stick to it. Starting with that committment honesty follows. I wish you well and remember those innocent offspring are watching every move you make that will be their lifetime-learning instilled in them. They will know if you were not quiters no matter how tough it gets! And they will love and admire you for it. We are all sinners. I pray you dio the right thing and you both can be strong thru this hardship of betrayal. Best of Love