No you're just fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

HE is the selfish one who wants you stuck in his house caring for SD so he can wring his hands over his XW.

There is one thing though. "Do what you need to do" is rather cold and uncaring on his part but I agree with this statement.

You need to get a job. And away. This man has given you nothing to work with.
If he's so torn up over his XW why should you even give him one more single solitary thought?

Refer his pitiful ass to a therapist. Get yourself free.

Go to lovefraud.com and start reading on sociopathic behaviour--very similar to narcissistic people. These guys want:

1. free maid service
2. free nanny service
3. free tax, secretarial and legal service
4. free room and board (those who pay so much CS they are unable to contribute to SM)
5. free bedroom services

Very similar to being a mail order bride

the two of you are separated now, for all intents and purposes, have a heart to heart to discuss your relationship and all he's worried about/talks about is bm. how you're not there supporting him and sd, how selfish you are. do not contact this man. start figuring out long term separation plans. it's good that sd is at granny's, now he can see how much you've been doing. girl, i'd be thinking about divorce, too. don't listen to the part of you that is saying YOU'RE letting HIM down! this is the woman in you that has allowed your dh have an inappropriate relationship with his ex all along. i'd tell him that he's free to take care of bm all the time now. she OBVIOUSLY needs him more than you. I feel for ya hon.

Yeah, being away from him has cleared your thinking somewhat. Otherwise, you may have never even thought it strange that he couldn't care for his own daughter while you are away. Of COURSE MIL is pissed at you. He has spun the stories into you being a horrible person! Either that or she was sick of being the nanny herself!

Stay gone. Even you leaving isn't giving him enough of a kick in the ass to quit the emotional affair he is having with his ex. Why the hell did they even divorce? I bet it wasn't HIS idea or if it was, he is now regretting it.

>Part of me thinks it's the right thing and the other part is afraid that he's right, that I am leaving him and sd when they need me most. Maybe I am selfish but then again maybe he's the selfish one.<

I think I can safely say that in all breakups, there is always some doubt. It could be momentary or it could linger for years, but there will ALWAYS be doubt. Judging from what you wrote it sounds like he doesn't consider your marriage high on his list of priorities. All he talked to you was about SD and his ex? Reading your post again, it does sound like he trying to make you feel "guilty" about leaving. Neither does well for reaching marriage reconcilation.

The more he talks the easier he makes it to wash your hands of his ridiculousness.

It may interest you, alwaysanonymous, to hear what a loving husband says when his wife gets upset about something. Mine will give me his point of view, if relevant*, then he always proceeds to ask me what I need to make it right. ME. Not his kid, not his ex, not himself, ME.

Why didn't your husband say, "what can I do to make things right for you so you will come home and be happy?"

Why didn't he even say, "I LOVE you, you're my sweetheart, I can't stand being away from you." ???!!!?!&%!!

I know leaving the little girl will be hard for you. Why don't you name your dream salary then offer yourself as nanny to him for that price.

"Let's make this arrangement more honest, DH. Let's divorce. Then I'll work for you at this price. These will be my hours. Prices double if you need me to take her overnight. Feel free to date your ex-wife all you want. As long as my paycheck doesn't bounce, we're good. BTW, there will be some nights you'll have to make other arrangements, cuz I'll be dating as well."

If he agrees to any salary that you find attractive, consider doing this. If the money isn't good, just proceed with your job hunt as usual.

*Sometimes he doesn't have a point of view cuz it's an issue he doesn't care about. Sometimes the discussion is complicated and long, but in the end he ALWAYS gets to the "how can I make you happy on this" part.

When I split with ex, I was made to feel terrible. I was gas lighted throughout. My ex could not handle when I started school and he needed to be there for me, rather than the other way around.

My skids were told when I left that I was crazy and stories twisted around to them to make me the bad guy. My BS7 was very confused as he had that entire household talking about how evil I was, yet that was not who he saw. I sat him down and was honest: mom was sad and unhappy with dad, not necessarily because of dad, but because we were not a good match (you need to sugarcoat it!), and now mommy is happy and so we are happy on our own.

Interestingly, I still see the skids through their mom, we went kayaking a few weeks ago. All the kids are cool with me now. Ex-wife (mom of skids) said to start with the skids HATED me after I left, but now they say I am cool. As a SM, you are the bad guy. I was always gas lighted - and so would actually do the things he said I did - thus he was the hero and I was evil (as was BM). Now, I see the same pattern with his GF. Everything mean and bad is the woman, while he is just trying to keep everyone happy - where in fact I was a babysitter while he partied, and then he would turn up to be disney dad. Of course to the skids I was the evil disciplinarian and he was cool.

It has taken me two years to realize the "me" he told me I was, and gad lighted me into being, was never me, and is not me now. You need time and space to realize the toxicity...people will side with him because they saw the you he wanted them to see, but eventually they come around. I do not know a single person now who talks to my ex, I never needed to do anything, but they see the real me now, and the real him, and recognize who the problem really was. A friend actually contacted me today and said "thank God you got away, I always saw him as manipulative and poisonous, but I knew if I tried to talk to you you would have pushed me away". That is what these people do, isolate you, make you feel inferior and then use you for their own purpose. Stay away!

I would just lay the truth out there for him to swallow:

"This is me protecting myself. From my perspective, you are still hung up on BM, you have no interest in allowing me to adopt SD. You want me around as the full-time nanny that you get bed rights to. You've made me feel like the other woman here, and I have every reason to believe you'll show up with BM one day, and throw me out. You've made it clear where your allegiance is, and no one in their right mind would tolerate this. You call it jealousy, I call it common sense. Trust me, there is no trait BM possesses that I covet. Expecting your husband to NOT have an emotional (and possibly more) affair is not jealousy, it's sanity."

Then I'd leave and never look back.

He didn't ask me anything about how I feel!

Because as far as he is concerned, your feelings are irrelevant.

YOU don't matter in any of this, it's all about him and his ex. Even his daughter seems to matter very little to him in the long run. You don't matter at all, except when it comes to fulfilling all of their needs.

I say it's time to fulfill YOUR needs.

You're young you have your whole life ahead of you.

I have been with someone like your husband for fifteen years.
I have never come first. The main excuse was "She's SDs mother"
This one stepped out repeatedly abandoned SD for a while had an outside child and is now married to her affair partner. She was married she she and H met.
I suspected our marriage was meant to induce jealousy.

His former MIL actually had to explain proper boundaries to him a time or two.

He used to let her just walk into the house any time. He would dismantle our house to lend things to her. I live in the house they used to share.
I caused a small war because I wanted to take down a picture of the two of them that was in the living room.
I never felt like he was loyal to me.

I left many times over this and the unbearably sick mini wife situation he created.

I flat out told him if there's anything left over there here's your chance.

He always begged me to come back and I was stupid enough to do it.
I have wanted a house of our own forever. He refused to even consider moving until his XW told him he should buy a house. I wanted to do this for years but it wasn't a good idea until 8 Ball Barbie suggested it.

When he had cancer I was busy trying to get him settled in at home and order medical equipment. We just barely got home after running around for about twelve hours visiting one doctor after another.

His XW came to visit. She brought the outside child probably for a shield so I couldn't raise hell or so her husband wouldn't be suspicious.

I didn't know if he was going to live another week so I didn't bother to make an issue out of it.

She sat there in my living room and offered to care for him if it all got to be too much for me.
I felt like I'd been slapped in the face.

It was downhill ever since. He yelled at me in hospital at the chemo place at home wherever. I stepped back and just left him alone. I figured if he had enough energy to abuse me he would be just fine going to all his.chemo and whatnot without me.
I think the two of them have always been in contact. Why else could she feel so welcome to walk into my house and make such an offer unless HE made her feel that way?

I looked at his Facebook page and it does not mention any sort of relationship.

To an outsider it would look like he's still married to her because there is much communication with former in laws a who are still considered MIL and FIL.

I don't believe he has ever let go of her and likely never will. There was a time when I loved him enough to crawl over broken glass for him.

Now I can barely hide my sheer contempt for a man who married me and begged me to stay under false pretenses. I hate myself for not sticking to my gut feeling and wasting almost two decades of my life on someone who does not love me.

I want to slap him and call him a liar when he says I love you.

It's just words there is nothing to back it up aside from him not bagging up my shit and throwing it and me out of the house during one of his frequent meltdowns
I think he is very disappointed that I was the one who cared for him I was the one who tried to be a good wife never ran around and gave it my best effort

I think his anger boils down to feeling ripped off because he is with someone he doesn't really love.
He doesn't really want me to be a wife whenever I act like a normal wife would he can't stand it.

The only reason I'm here is so he can take it all out on me.
If you stay with this man my life or worse will be yours.

It's a long hard road full of heartache and regret.
You're young enough to find a man who really loves you. I wasted the last of my youth on this man who never really loved me.

Don't do what I did. Don't waste your youth on him

It will not get better that's a promise

You are only 25??? OMG get your ass out of that marriage and move on. Don't waste your youth in this relationship. You have many great years of life ahead of you. Seriously, know that.

Even if my XW and I had spawned together I would not give a flying rat's ass if she contracted cancer and rotted away. I would be there for my kid (thankfully a hypothetical whore of an XW spawned kid) but as for his/her mother, I couldn't care less.

Once she ran of with geriatric Fortune 500 executive sugar/baby grandpa daddy she was a complete non priority in my life and I gave no shits at all about her except when she tried to fuck with me in which case I made it my priority to bare her ass in her community as the adulterous whore that she is and to destroy her financially. Once she moved out my XW meant dick for nothing to me.

I get your feelings on this.

Maybe this makes me an evil unforgiving man but I am fine with karma shitting on toxic people.