Do I contact this 'other woman?'

[Hoplikeabunny]

I need to start by saying that I 100% trust my DH, so my relationship with him is not in question here. He has been an idiot, but I trust that he is telling me the truth. He is a good husband and a brilliant father.

DH has an ex girlfriend who has for the last two years been very present, and I have had enough! Despite the fact that she is married and has a child the same age as mine, she still seems to have an unhealthy interest in my DH. Ever since my DD was born two years ago, she has been texting my DH, private messaging him and asking to meet up with him. Those things bother me less than the fact that whenever my DH puts pictures of DD or anything relating to our lives (holiday pics, new house- basically anything involving me!) on facebook, she always leaves rude, passive aggressive comments, to the extent where I have frequently had other people ask me who on earth she is and why she is so rude. DH knows that this annoys me, but until now we've basically just humoured her and never respond to the comments. I had assumed that this meant that he also never responds to the texts and private messages etc- but I found out on Saturday that isn't the case, and that he does speak to her fairly frequently. After a particularly nasty comment that she wrote on FB last week, DH deleted and blocked her (without telling me), which prompted a very cryptic text message from her which I happened to see. I ended up having a row with DH about it, and demanded to know what her game is and what is going on. This is when I found out that they do speak regularly, but he says this is only because he feels sorry for her because she is unhappy. I also found out that when he was away on business last year (near where she lives), they met up for dinner. I am of course, not at all happy about this, and he realises that he has been an idiot and should have left her well alone, but I honestly do trust him when he says that absolutely nothing happened and that it was just dinner. (Not that it is okay, because it absolutely isn't, and he has a LOT of grovelling to do before I accept his apology.)

Anyway, it is pretty apparent that she is interested in him. I am so angry about the whole situation, I am not happy with DH because I think that by continuing to speak to her (and meeting up with her), he has been encouraging her behaviour, but I am also angry with her that she has the audacity to be so blatant about her interest in potentially breaking up my marriage.

My question is, what do I do, if anything? DH has promised never to speak to her again, and has deleted her from his life (well so he says, but I do trust that he is telling the truth, he is a kind, usually honest man, I think this whole situation has just sort of run away with him?). However, I am not happy that she thinks she has got away with this. I am contemplating sending her a message just asking her to please leave him alone? Is this a totally bad idea? The trouble is, DH is a really soft, gentle man, and he doesn't have an ounce of fire in him, which I think that she knows, so I don't trust that she will listen to him now that he has said that enough is enough?

Argh, i'm so angry and confused by the whole thing.

Wow . Harsh words from some
I think you may have to accept there has been more to it than you would like to think .He probably does find it flattering that a former love can't let him go '.
But if you think that he has made full disclosure (and will not ever contact her again) ,and you can put it behind you and move on then I do think you should give your mariage a chance As youn say, a child is part of this equation .
I have a close friend who discovered her husband of thirteen years started an affair shortly before she went abroad to work for 3 m. (his secretary). It continued (after she found out about it on her return) for another 15m .She would not give him an ultimatum- only a couple of friends (me included) knew about it and couldnt understand why But she played a waiting game . . In the end he came back, they had a child together and are still married, 26 years later. She just had to trust he would never do it again (he certainly had the opportunity for one night stands as he travelled a lot on business.) They seem perfectly happy .
I don't disagre with previous posters that he has treated you with a lack of respect, but life is not a always black and white and trust can be rebuilt .

Thank you Postchildren, that is really great to know about your friend. It really isn't black and white, and my child is my ultimate concern in all of this, she is not responsible for her father's actions, and should not suffer as a consequence. I owe it to her to make this work, and I am very willing to do that because I do love him, and I know that he loves me, so that is a good start, surely?! He has fully admitted that he has been a total idiot and has been apologising left right and centre, and he knows that ultimately he has treated me badly, but I want to and do trust that he wont contact her again. I also trust 100% that absolutely nothing physical went on between them. Some of you may think that this is naive, and while I clearly don't know him as well as I thought I did, I do know that he would never sleep with someone else. If I thought for a second that he had slept with her then things would be different, i'm not sure I could forgive that as easily, but I absolutely do not believe that he did.

OP mn is very quick to say LTB etc. What your DH did was not very nice but you know him and if you can trust him then ignore what most poster's are saying and only take what you need from their posts.

I would be tempted to contact the 'ow' just once and tell her to fuck off and tell her how pathetic she is. Would it do any good? Probably not but it would make me feel better and at this time that's all I'd care about.

I assume you have told your dh also how pathetic he has been?

no-one has said that you need to leave your marriage op. But in order to rebuild your marriage and trust there has to be absolute transparency, and right now you don't have that.

He has deleted all the evidence of what went on between them, plus I imagine that before this weekend you would have said with absolute certainty that you know that he would never have met up with an ex behind your back, and yet he has.

What do you think would have happened if you hadn't discovered the text and confronted him? He has come clean not because he has had a sudden flash of conscience, but because he has been caught. Had he not been caught he would most likely have apologised to the ow, told her that you were annoyed and he had had to block/delete to placate you. And you would have been none the wiser.

It's not just about remorse, although of course that is required as well, but it's about honesty,however much that might hurt. He's not being honest, the fact that he has deleted text is proof positive of the fact that he has at the very least had an emotional affair with this woman. Even you must know that he hasn't purely been meeting up with her because he feels sorry for her? when she has been posting nasty comments on his fb?

I think that I would feel exactly like Possum and want to give her an absolute kick up the arse, but my fear is that if you did that she would come back ten times as nasty and start telling you lurid details of some affair, even if it hadn't happened. If she's that nuts maybe she would fabricate a load of stuff and then you'd be twice as anxious over something that maybe didn't happen. Just trying to get into the headspace of the lunatic- I'm not saying it did happen. I hope you're absolutely right and it's just a text thing that your husband has been daft about. Hugs, OP. I think you're getting some harsh treatment here.

It might sound an odd thing for a 32 years married never- been- unfaithful (nor DH as far as I know ) woman to say, but sexual infidelity isnt necessarily the hardest thing to forgive either IMO.

And no, I wouldnt go near the OW . Maintain dignified silence and do not let her know what impact this has had on you .

If you contact the OW it will give her a perfect opportunity to create drama and get attention from your DH.

He needs to utterly cease all contact from this point. No farewell conversation, last meeting or anything. Ignore from FB. If she finds a way to contact him, he must let you know. Good luck with rebuilding trust - it can take longer than you think.

Noone is telling the OP to leave her husband, Possum. Plenty of women who have chosen to stay in their marriages after infidelity have received support and advice here.

But the OP is tying herself in knots to preserve an idea that is very clearly gone - that she can trust this man. She needs to accept that he has deceived her, as frightening as that is, and wise up about what it means.

The only reason I'd be contacting the other woman, no quotation marks required, would be to find out what the hell has gone on.

Can you check mobile phone records to get an idea of the scale of his involvement? If I saw regular texts, especially at a time I was not around or, even worse, at times he was looking after the daughter, I would be fuming.

He has 'lied by omission' knowingly, for whatever reason, and I would find that hard to forgive, even if no kissing/touching took place. Marriage is no place for secrets.

My advice to you is to go quiet in 'watchful waiting' mode. Literally behave as if it is all in the past and never ever mention it. While you are showing this face to the world you are, of course, actually monitoring the situation closely. While this is a 'thing' between you and you appear on high alert regarding this OW, DH will be hypervigilant regarding his behaviour, texts etc. The sooner it appears dropped, the sooner his/their guard is dropped and the sooner you will find out the truth (by whatever means). Chances are that he is telling the truth and as a result of his blocking her, she will fade away and find someone new. If there is more to it, that will become evident also but while this thing is fresh, you will get no new information and without that, you can't change anything about this situation. Put on a breezy face, do not contact OW and watchfully wait for something new to crawl out of the woodwork is the clever way to proceed here. Good luck with this.

He must stop all contact with her, possibly even change his number. It does sound dodgy because if it wasn't then why was he so secretive?

What was the cryptic text she sent him?

Nobody is suggesting you leave him over this. However he is totally full of shit. Nobody allows someone they have no interest in to bug them by phone and Facebook for two years without taking action. Nobody meets up with exes they have no feelings for because they feel sorry for them. His reasons for this ongoing contact are bullshit and if you are to move on you need the truth.
He kept Her around because he wanted to and he got something from it. He lied to you because he thought he could have his cake and eat it and that it didn't matter if he lied to you.
That's massive stuff. He needs to own it and stop deflecting to her.

You are incredibly naive. Cheaters only ever tell you what they think they can get away with. No one coughs when they are caught out but I guarantee you it all comes flooding out later.

Your husband has abused your trust. Please don't think that he has been honest now.

Postchildrenpregnancy it's easy to say until it has happened too yu.

I think it's a bad idea to contact her directly, I do think your dh needs to be the one to sever contact and cease communications.

My dh had a full on affair and yet we have rebuilt and moved on so I am absolutely not advocating a hard line leave the bastard approach. However, in my experience most people on being caught only tell a fairly small piece of the truth. Whether their motivation is primarily to protect themselves or to in some way also to protect their partners is debatable I think but it does seem to be common.

OP the likelihood that your DH was chased and reluctantly replied/met up with this woman is probably relatively small. I think that in normal circumstances if he knew you didn't like her and found her intrusive he would have told her to back off and/or created a distance between them. Instead he contacted her regularly and met up with her, maybe he started off by feeling sorry for her but it is likely that she was meeting some sort of need and that this was at least an emotional affair.

People covering up for affairs use the most terrible excuses. My dh said that his 'friend' (OW) reminded him of his (dead) mother, making it very hard for me to say 'oy get her out of our lives', let alone 'is sometime going on'. Your man may be a lovely bloke who got caught up in something he very much regrets, but don't think about this as a one off mistake caused by a man stealer.

Oh and really I'd not approach the other woman, that way lies madness I think.

Nooka a man having an affair with someone who reminded him of his dead mother would actually be the icing on the cake. That's a whole new level of weirdness.

I agree with gelfbride my partner used to lie to me about stupid stupid things. (I think he picked it up from living at home and having to lie to his mother.) Not having an affair things but very silly little things it drove me insane but I just watched and waited and caught him out.
He's stopped it now thank god or I'd of LTB.

Did they part on good terms? I'm just wondering why they were friends on FB. Do you know the remark that actually made him delete her? I'm just wondering if it was something nasty or actually something that would put him in a bad light. But agree with everyone else, don't contact her at all.

It's classic post-discovery behaviour to lie, minimise, admit only what could have been seen by a third party (eg the dinner out) and then it's usually 'just one kiss' followed by 'well more than a kiss' then 'only that once'

I'm also ready to bet that the reason people commented on her FB posts was because the connection between your DH and his secret friend was getting to be known, and (as you can easily see from the 'do I tell my friend I've seen her DH with another woman?' threads here) many people don't, or hooe their cryptic hint will be enough.

If he travels a lot with business, and you know he's capable of covering up meetings with a woman with whom he has an ongoing relationship you knew nothing about, why do you trust him to be telling the truth about it? His track record now is one of lying (at least by omission), and it's clear you don't know what he does when he's out of sight.

You were never meant to find out. He now stands to lose reputation and home comforts. Being desperate to hang on to those would also account for his current attitude.

Deciding to trusting a cheat is a brave decision. Attempting post-deceit reconciliation, especially in circumstances where you have only the cheater's word about the extent of the deceit. Under no circumstance contact his other partner. Do consider booking some individual counselling for yourself, to help you with your decision making process. Has your H already arranged some for himself, to help understand why he keeps such a big and tawdry secret? IDC, that could lead to joint counselling.

Bunny your husband certainly isn't 100% trustworthy and honest. When exactly was he planning on blocking this woman on Facebook and his phone, never mind meeting her for dinner? They haven you and her husband for fools.
Your relationship has deep issues that need exploring.