I need a good old fashioned MN dressing down

[Givemeasterntalkingto]

I have a shameful tale to confess....
A prolonged flirtation with an extremely hot tradesman who had been working in my house. Husband is a good man who I love but always at work. Nothing physical has gone on, just lots of extremely flirtatious texting and lots of time spent sitting around chatting (instead of him working).

The job was finally finished last week and we both decided we needed to stop the texting. Bloody hard though, he's extremely hot, just my type totally. Dark, beardy and body like Becks in his heyday. Feel completely overtaken by carnal desire - so am not making good decisions really.

We've had no contact for 5 days (after speaking virtually every day either in person or by text) for 2 months, and I'm going stir crazy.
Obviously it's a "bad idea" to text him but I am weakening and need a right royal roasting on Planet Mumsnet. In my heart I know that I've been leading all of this and he's just been responding (he isn't married), which is making me feel very undeserving of my lovely husband and generally like a bit of a lowlife for letting it get so far.

Patricia ... not too far off yes ... though I am also earning a crust I feel the need to add!

I think you need to focus, and I mean really focus, on how you would feel if it were your dh behaving like this instead of you.

How would you feel?

Imagine your dh flirting and exchanging inappropriate texts with another woman. For weeks.

Imagine your dh describing another woman as 'hot' and totally his type.

Imagine your dh whining that he knows it's wrong but he can't delete this other woman's number.

Imagine your dh daydreaming about this other woman.

How do you feel now? Do you think your dh deserves this?

Apologies - I'm too cynical these days

Destinys good thought.

I quite often find myself thinking I'm going to waste. I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm really well and happy, why am I not feeling more fulfilled? I'm not at all blaming my husband, and I agree I need to have a good long think about where to next. I love him (DH) so very much and would like to make this up to him (without actually telling him).

Trust me he doesn't give a shit about you, you were most probably something to laugh at with his mates at the pub... Sad older woman hanging off his every word. The guys down the pub i used to work at used to do it all the time and compare notes every friday. He'll be on to the next now so at least you're not laughing stock anymore.

You are so clearly loving the attention and dragging this out. If you think all the replies you are getting is right, you would have deleted his number by now instead of replying to loads of posters in order to keep this thread bumped. I suspect we will get pages of pages of agonising "Shall I delete the number or not" followed by "Oooh i just don't know if I can do it" followed by "Oh no, I did something terrible I texted him while I was drunk last night" followed by "He's replied back and asked to meet for coffee...what should I do?" followed by "I really shouldn't do it. I love my DH too much" followed by "That's it, I'm going to meet up for coffee to explicitly say that we can't see or text each other any more" followed by "We met and it was REALLY flirtatious" etc etc etc.

Hopefully I've wrapped this all up and we can all be done here.

How about this scenario... Your husband comes home and borrows your phone while you are out of the room. He finds the text conversion with this guy. Imagine his face.

Or the alternative. Your husband comes home and asks you if he can borrow your phone. You have to think on the spot of a convincing reason why he can´t have access to it. You are now lying to your husband to cover up your contact with another man. From that moment on you are the person being secretive with your phone that is described on just about every cheating thread in the Relationships folder. Is that really the person you want to be?

would like to make this up to him

So start by deleting the builders number, have you done that yet?

Sorry but this is disgusting. I was your DH OP. Do you know what it's like to realise that your OH has been cheating? Has such little respect for you that they're willing to essentially forget you while texting god knows what rubbish to someone who won't even remember them 2 months down the track? Who knows the impact it will have on you but doesn't care enough to delete the number??

I will tell you that it destroyed me completely. My kids suffered more than you can imagine from the break up and 6 years down the track I'm still doing the 'what did I do wrong?/ what happened?' Thing.

Think about that.

It may be some ego stoking game to you but it's your DHs feelings, self esteem and the life you have together that you're playing with.

Just think about it.

Is it some sort of mid-life crisis?

Needing to convince yourself that someone "hot" is into you, because you feel in great shape?

That doesn't say a lot for your self-esteem, tbh.

Miscella ... I would be destroyed. Completely.

My husband can never know about this. He wouldn't leave me over it, but he would be absolutely crushed, would take several years to repair, if at all.

Oh Unicorn... fucking hell...

WalterMitty ... hard to say. Maybe I needed to spend more time in my 20s shagging randoms.

Well, you didn't and that's the choice you made.

So you don't get to risk destroying your husband's life because of it.

Leave him if you want to shag around with some random workman.

And btw, the conviction you have that you mean something to him is the same one that countless women have about the sleaze they're involved with. They're never right, either...

Mission ... I'm confused ... do you want me to reply?

Fucking hell Walter ... don't know what your job is but I think you've missed your calling, whatever it is!

You say your husband can never know, but you do realize that you cannot control that completely, don´t you?

Your friends you have confided in could decide to tell him. The builder could send him the messages you exchanged. You can´t control their actions. What you have done is out there already. The only thing you can do now is not make it even worse.

Look. You're just going to get a load of people telling you to delete his number.

Because it's the decent and right thing to do.

So do it. Because this is getting boring now.

Delete his number immediately you know it makes sense and plan a night/ wknd of fun and frolics for you and OH.... remember why you fell in love/ lust with eachother

Have you deleted his number now?

Sonja ... I do yes

PEOPLE, SHE'S NOT GOING TO DELETE HIS NUMBER

OP is enjoying the attention and giving us all the details plus a fat justification of why this is ok really. I say stop feeding that attention.

If I found DH doing this it would destoy me & the trust our marriage is built on therefore ending it.
You have crossed way over the line & I really feel for your poor husband.

You did say you wanted a dressing down!

Have you deleted his number yet? Because your dh has done nothing to deserve this.

Matilda for fucks sake I deleted the number about 60 posts ago