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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Husband to introduce mistress to teen DC's

134 replies

RestartingLife · 06/09/2023 09:51

Long story short. Husband had an affair with another married woman which was going on for months before her husband tracked me down and enlightened me. When confronted with it he was extremely remorseful and for some nonsensical reason I agreed to make a go of saving our 22 year relationship. In the weeks and months after this he continued behaviour towards me which had been going on for a long time but escalated it, such as gaslighting, silent treatment, complete disinterest. I didn't want our teenagers knowing what he'd done as I knew it would hurt them and thought I was strong enough. No. I broke. Turning to alcohol, depression thoroughly set in and i went into conplete self destruct. Lost my job, he took the DC's as and turned them against me when he left. He called me drunk out of his head one night when he was away screaming down the phone that it was over calling me a shit wife, shit mother and generally a shit human. The next night , alone, no DC's around either, I had a mental break and attempted to take my own life and failed. This was all the ammo he needed to turn our very few friends and my sisters overseas against me. After 3 months in the hell of total solitude I finally told a friend (male) when he got in touch again, he's an ex colleague. He has been a shining light for me in all the darkness. A few months on and I'm feeling more like me and can see a future after therapy, medication, rebuilding trust with my DC's, getting a new job etc. He has not stopped attacking me from afar through various methods but the one which I find most disagreeable is his weaponising my youngest. He's effectively moved his emotional abuse to her slating me to her as she wants to be with me alot more now. When he left he left me financially destitute refusing to pay towards the mortgage or other joint things. This has now impacted my credit file as I've had to continue paying a hefty mortgage alone. There is so much more but this pist is long enough.

Reason for post - he has just now told our teen DC's that he is seeing the woman he had the affair with (after he convinced them that he didnt have an affair and that hed just been 'texting and chatting' with this woman). He is to take them to meet her. They seem to want to go as they don't want to upset him. I am very careful not to speak negatively to them about their dad and now this woman, they get enough from him about me and its not fair on them, i can see that theyre hurting enough and the eldest is about to go off to uni so I want to focus on that with them for them as its a HUGE step in their little life...AIBU to not want them to want to meet this woman and form a relationship with her and to want them to realise the impact of their dads actions with this woman on all our lives?

NOT TO BE USED IN ANY NEWSPAPER

OP posts:
millymog11 · 06/09/2023 22:45

Fairymcclary · Today 21:15 has got it spot on.

Being the affair partner must be an incredibly uncomfortable experience - you are getting together with someone who very obviously and openly for all to see decides to betray someone in the most dramatic way, and in a lot of cases as a direct result of that betrayal and abandonment of their spouse and breaking of all and any promises they made, change the course of their spouses and their own children's lives forever.

People on this thread who have said that being betrayed is no big deal are quite arrogant. Of course depending on your personal circumstances, you might find your spouse leaving you for someone else much easier to cope with than someone with different circumstances/background who experiences that (eg lack of wider family support, financial circumstances, the identity of the person they had an affair with etc) But for the children in the original family it will always change the course of the rest of their life.

Doing something so permanent with such life changing consequences for your whole family (in the case of OP, involving 22 years of history) is massive.

In order to not feel the discomfort of knowingly being with someone who cannot be loyal, of course you would explain it by saying the person you are now with was desperately unhappy (in the case of OP, those people are going to say that the husband was unhappy for 22 whole years!!) and now they are with you, at long last they can finally be truly happy. It makes perfect sense to explain it that way if you are now with a person like that.

CornishGem1975 · 07/09/2023 09:27

I don't know why the spouse who had an affair does not often proclaim to the world how unhappy they were (by contrast the cheating spouse almost always says how unhappy he is to the person he has an affair with usually at the start of the affair - but never to anyone else - I guess it does happen sometimes but usually it is the affair partner who tells everyone how unhappy the person they had an affair with was when the affair started).

@millymog11 - the cheating spouse normally does do that. I have heard it loads of times.

millymog11 · 07/09/2023 09:35

CornishGem1975 · Today 09:27 that must have been very validating for you. Its interesting also that you have heard it loads of times i.e. you regularly socialise with people who leave their spouse and then tell the world how desperately unhappy they were. Like minded people flock together I guess.

MsRosley · 07/09/2023 10:04

User1789 · 06/09/2023 16:29

I don't have any experience to share OP, but the comments suggesting you think long and hard about the distinction between 'bad mouthing' somebody, and telling the truth about their behaviour.

While it is indeed not fair to bad mouth their father to your children, or to ask them to restrict contact with him, it is entirely fair for you to be honest with them about his behaviour and the impact this has had, and will have on you.
Including the fact that him wanting to introduce your children to his affair partner, following his minimisation of the affair to your children, is going to be very, very painful for you. I think that is just telling the truth.

Absolutely agree. Nothing is more corrosive to family life than secrets. Kids always sense that something is off, and if the adults around them won't tell the truth, then they grow up with trust issues.

CornishGem1975 · 07/09/2023 11:29

millymog11 · 07/09/2023 09:35

CornishGem1975 · Today 09:27 that must have been very validating for you. Its interesting also that you have heard it loads of times i.e. you regularly socialise with people who leave their spouse and then tell the world how desperately unhappy they were. Like minded people flock together I guess.

LOL. If you're trying to get a bite out of me, it won't work 😉

millymog11 · 07/09/2023 11:36

Cornish, I am not. You stick with your type thanks.

AnnieFarmer · 07/09/2023 12:02

People who leave a marriage for an affair partner have justified their decision in their own minds. They will tell close friends and family that they were driven to it because their marriage was so awful. This is normal. They need to do this because they’re not a ‘bad’ person. It’s called cognitive dissonance. They were in a bad marriage and they were desperately unhappy. This view may be in complete contrast to how the marriage was viewed by the betrayed spouse. This is why the revelation of the affair and end of the marriage comes as a shock to them. They thought their marriage was okay. They compare it to their friends and they know that most marriages aren’t without some problems from time to time.

Affairs aren’t always symptomatic of a bad marriage/relationship. This is an ignorant view. It exists because people prefer to believe it won’t happen to them.

Affairs often start very innocently and gradually escalate, each step along the way is justified by the cheating spouse and with each enticing step, their marriage appears less and less exciting until eventually it pales in comparison to the affair. A very good analogy of this was a cheating spouse who, when asked to picture in his mind his marriage partner and his spouse, he pictured the spouse in black and white while the affair partner appeared in his mind in sparkling colour.

OP, you’ve done nothing wrong. Ignore the victim blamers. This can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, humans are sometimes prone to temptation they cannot resist. People in affairs experience an alteration in brain chemistry. I read so much about the subject when it happened to me. It was devastating but understanding why and how this happens helped me. They aren’t excuses but they are facts.

Focus on you and your children. Dig deep and be stable for your children. It will help you. Time will heal. You will be happier than your ex in the long run, I bet.

Original poster
RestartingLife · 07/09/2023 12:32

AnnieFarmer · 07/09/2023 12:02

People who leave a marriage for an affair partner have justified their decision in their own minds. They will tell close friends and family that they were driven to it because their marriage was so awful. This is normal. They need to do this because they’re not a ‘bad’ person. It’s called cognitive dissonance. They were in a bad marriage and they were desperately unhappy. This view may be in complete contrast to how the marriage was viewed by the betrayed spouse. This is why the revelation of the affair and end of the marriage comes as a shock to them. They thought their marriage was okay. They compare it to their friends and they know that most marriages aren’t without some problems from time to time.

Affairs aren’t always symptomatic of a bad marriage/relationship. This is an ignorant view. It exists because people prefer to believe it won’t happen to them.

Affairs often start very innocently and gradually escalate, each step along the way is justified by the cheating spouse and with each enticing step, their marriage appears less and less exciting until eventually it pales in comparison to the affair. A very good analogy of this was a cheating spouse who, when asked to picture in his mind his marriage partner and his spouse, he pictured the spouse in black and white while the affair partner appeared in his mind in sparkling colour.

OP, you’ve done nothing wrong. Ignore the victim blamers. This can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, humans are sometimes prone to temptation they cannot resist. People in affairs experience an alteration in brain chemistry. I read so much about the subject when it happened to me. It was devastating but understanding why and how this happens helped me. They aren’t excuses but they are facts.

Focus on you and your children. Dig deep and be stable for your children. It will help you. Time will heal. You will be happier than your ex in the long run, I bet.

Thank you for this 💖

OP posts:
tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 08/09/2023 07:47

Fairymcclary · 06/09/2023 21:15

People do cheat when they are in a happy relationship. They cheat because the 80% contentment they get from their spouse isn’t enough for them. They feel they deserve 100%. They deserve more sex or more ego kibbles or validation. But funnily they don’t want their spouse to play by the same rule and have their fun with a third party (hence they lie and hide their behaviour- choosing to skulk around like a teenager smoking behind a bike shed).

People cheat because they lack integrity. They cannot self soothe. They communicate poorly. They maybe don’t like confrontation. They lie. Have poor boundaries. Struggle with self esteem and self respect. They have a ‘but’ I am monotonous but not if I don’t get sex every night. You m monogamous but not if I’m out on the town with the lads. Im monogamous but not at a strip club because that doesn’t count. They lie to themselves and rewrite their happiness with their spouse - because if they don’t they would struggle to live with the cognitive dissonance.

An unhappy marriage cannot make someone cheat. Just like you cannot tempt a vegetarian ti eat a bacon sarnie, or a tee total person to have a beer - it’s because their integrity, beliefs and self worth stop them from saying ‘yes’.

They say no for them, not their spouse. I don’t cheat for me, not my spouse, because I said I would be faithful - so I keep my word for me - what else do I have if I don’t have integrity and self worth.

This is such a great post

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