'AITA for divorcing my cheating husband when I might lose my son in the divorce?' UPDATED
"AITA for divorcing my cheating husband when I might lose my son in the divorce?"
I ,29f, have been married to my husband for eight years, 32m. We got married just out of college, and had our wonderful son nearly right away, 7m. He has always been a loving and supportive husband, I never had to work and have been a S-A-H mom for our boy.
Thirteen years ago, before I met my husband, I lost my father to pancreatic cancer when I was only 16. It was very sudden and unexpected. With the trauma, I struggled a lot with mental health and depression for years afterward.
Meeting my husband was instrumental in healing. He knows this, and was a large part of my journey. My son was told his grandfather died from illness, but not specifically cancer, because he of his young age.
Today, our son came home from school and told us at dinner that one of his classmates in the second grades grandmother was just diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and not expected to live much longer, and how upset his friend was because he and his grandma are close.
I started crying and hugged my son and told him how sorry I was for his friend, and how much he needed to be there and how awful what his friend must be going through and about to go through was, and I told him about my father's, his grandfather's, death.
Naturally, my son started crying too. We were both just hugging and crying at the dinner table, while my husband kind of just stared at us and didn't say much, just kept eating.
Afterwards, my husband took our son into the other room while I finished cleaning up the plates after dinner, I assumed to comfort him in his own way as our son was still upset.
I walk over, and I hear my husband telling our son how he needs to "man up" for his friend, and that women are too sensitive, and I was overreacting and needed to "get over my fathers death already" since its been over a decade.
I was shocked, stunned, hurt. I entered the room while I was still processing what I'd heard, and of course my husband shuts up. I ask him if I can talk to him privately for a minute. I tell him that I overheard what he said to our son.
My husband says he's not sorry, that he's teaching our son to be "a real man" and that his regrets allowing me to be "stuck in my grief" and "not move on" for so many years, and he wishes he'd said something sooner.
He also said other hurtful things, that I coddle our son too much, and he should never have let me be a S-A-H mom for him, because he's growing up to be a big baby. I left without saying a word. Just took our son, and left for my mom's house.
I need time to think and cool down. Now my husband is blowing up my phone with calls and texts, saying I'm immature, that I'm proving his point, that real adults talk it out and move on, they don't just throw a tantrum and run away, and he's beginning to get other friends and family involved.
AITA for taking some space to work through my hurt, and the revival of the feelings of grief triggered by todays events? Or should I have just stayed there and worked things out with my husband? I do plan to go back, but I need some time.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
NTA. It sounds like your husband has some toxic and dangerously outdated ideas about emotions and who is allowed to show them. Men are not babies or lesser because they shed tears when something hurts. And you are not overreacting to hearing your son has a classmate going through so similar a grief to your own.
Your husband thinks he has to bottle up his emotions to be strong but that's only going to set him up for an unhealthy explosion at some point when his own repression boils over. If you want to keep the family together then it is time to find a good therapist to help husband come abreast of the current times and a healthy way to deal with his emotions.
Agreed, and it sounds like that unhealthy explosion is starting. He’s clearly been holding in this contempt for a while, and he’s now he’s even more furious at you for not just absorbing his insults, shutting up, and changing to suit his worldview. It sounds like he’s gearing up to triple down on his ugly, repressive beliefs, and recruiting his family to hound and shame you, too.
I’m so sorry that your husband hid this side of himself so many years. Ideally, therapy is the best next step for everyone involved. In the meantime, your instinct to leave is exactly what I would do.
This is a lot to take in and process, and he’s clearly not in the appropriate headspace to have a reasonable, mutually respectful conversation anyway. Cool down and let your nervous system settle so you can think about all this with a clear head. You will benefit from time to digest everything before you deal with him in person.
NTA - The whole 'men don't cry' misogynistic nonsense is so harmful, and results in resentful, angry, emotionally unavailable men who can't express themselves. You didn't leave because you were upset about your Dad, like hubby seems to think. You left because of your husband's terrible attitude.
Having said that, are you stuck in your grief? While there's no set period of time for grief to heal, if it is still affecting daily life, (not saying it is) you may wish to seek grief counseling.
Three days later, the OP returned with an update.
First I would like to address three recurring negative comments from my original post:
1)That I am stuck in my grief and need to move on:
As far as I can tell, I'm really not. I haven't had any issues or even cried in years. It was only the similar circumstances that were brought up that brought me to tears that night.
2) That I was unfairly putting my emotional problems on my son and made him cry. This is absolutely unfair. My son was not crying simply because I was, he was crying because of grief over what I had just shared newly shared about his grandfather, on top of feeling empathy for his friend.
Perhaps the timing of this was wrong of me, but if I hadn't told him then, what was I going to say years later? What exactly would be the "right time" to tell him the full story?
3) That maybe I had been overparenting my son:
I will address this further in my update.
So onto the actual update - as I said in my original post, my son and I did go back to my husband the next day. He did not apologize or admit he was wrong. I said I was sorry for leaving in a state of emotion, and we agreed to just table what had happened, and move on.
I did bring up couples counseling for our communication, as some redditors here had suggested. He was hostile to the idea, saying that maybe I needed therapy, but he didn't.
After some arguing, he finally very reluctantly agreed, as long as I went to more therapy sessions than him. We scheduled our first appointment for in a couple of weeks, which was the earliest we could get in.
While we've been in this state of waiting for that session to happen, I decided to take some more of reddit's advice, and try and get an impartial view of whether or not I was being a smothering parent as my husband had accused me of.
I went ahead and asked his parents and sister, who have seen us together, and they assured me I was a normal parent and not overcompensating or overprotective in any way more than anyone else. I was appreciative, but did want to get one last opinion that wasn't colored by any family bias.
So today, I went to my husband's best friend of several years, 31m, and asked him. He was surprised since we aren't very close, we know each other but haven't spent much time together, but he agreed with the others that I'm not an overprotective parent.
He then asked me what had made me ask him that, and I just said very briefly that my husband had suggested it, and we'd had a bit of a fight. He proceeded to ask, "but I thought you two were good?
Didn't you just go on that romantic trip to Europe a couple months ago?" I was very confused, and asked if he meant the work trip my husband took. He said no its was definitely a romantic trip.
He'd seen some of the romantic looking bookings himself in passing on my husbands phone, and was of course just assuming it was for us, which course, we now bot realized it wasn't and something was odd, because why would my husband lie about it to me?
I called my husband's office right then, and they confirmed there was no official work trip. After hearing how the last argument went, husband's friend offered to come along for support, which I agreed to.
So my husband got home tonight, I confronted him, and he got so mad that truth came out. He went with a female colleague who he has been seeing for the last few months.
He said it was easy with her because she was so "uncomplicated" compared to me, didn't require anything from him, and always made time for him since there "wasn't any kid in the way," and that she was more of a woman than I'd ever been.
Worse, that he regretted marrying me, that he "wasted his time trying to fix me", and that the sex wasn't worth what he'd gotten back, now being tied down to me because of our son. I think if the friend hadn't been there, it would've gotten physical, I was so scared because I've never seen him like this.
So now here we are. I didn't leave, since reddit roasted me so hard last time and told me last time that the disruption of taking him away wasn't healthy for my son, but I did ask my husband to leave, which he did after his friend backed me up.
I think he was pretty upset too just that his supposed "best friend" sided with me over him. I don't think our marriage can survive not just the cheating, but his cruel words afterwards. He clearly doesn't love me anymore, maybe never loved me. I want to divorce him, but I don't think I can.
My husband has threatened that if I move toward divorce, he will file for full custody of our son. I don't have any money of my own to fight him, and I'm not sure if my mom can afford to pitch very much in either.
WIBTA for leaving my husband even at the risk of losing my son? I want to do whats best for him. The hard truth is that even with his flaws, my husband is able to provide much better for my son financially than I am right now. I am taking steps towards getting a job and housing, but don't know if it will be enough. Should I just stay with him after everything thats happened?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Honestly call his bluff. He doesn't want his son after all the trash he was just talking and his mistress won't want to raise his kid either. He's gonna swallow his words soon enough. Sorry you're going through this. You deserve better. Good luck. NTA.
Absolutely this. Think about what he said about your son, he doesn't want full custody, he wants to hurt you and to make you afraid to leave. Get his best friend to testify what he said about your son.
He knows that he'll have to pay child support and possibly alimony if you leave and he won't have his uncomplicated fling to keep him warm at night, because that's not how it works. Sure, he could move in with her but then it's a relationship and relationships are complicated.
He wants you taking care of his home and being there for him when he wants it and he wants his side piece for fun and thrills. You leaving means he might still have to pay to support you and your child for years but he loses all that free labour. If he does file for full custody it will only be because he doesn't want to pay.
Full custody is rare, even rarer to award it to the dad. He would have to prove you're an unfit mother. Not having income doesn't make you unfit. They will award you some of his income to provide for your child and possibly you too for long enough to get on your feet. Joint custody is most likely but I'd definitely be bringing to the judge his toxic masculinity comments.
You will be failing your son if you stay and you will be failing yourself. You won’t be left with nothing financially. Your husbands money is also yours. Go and see a good solicitor and I do mean a good one. Be prepared the divorce may be bitter and nasty but ultimately it is better for your son to see you happy than to see you sad with a man who doesn’t respect you.