DH lied about trustee

[SheSellsSeaShellz]

DH is chair of a board of trustees for a charity. I’ve found out that he’s lied over the past few years about how much time he’s been spending with one of the female trustees. It’s dinners, lunches etc with her alone, and he’d be implying he’s been with a group of people, lying about train problems while he’s been chatting for hours with her. I found out he’d invited her to a black tie dinner, asked him directly and he denied it, when I said I had found out, he says she’d been busy and hadn’t gone with him, so it’s apparently not a lie.

I don’t think it’s a physical affair, she sees him as a mentor for her career apparently, but I feel heartbroken to be lied to so persistently. He’s been quite panicky and saying I can’t tell anyone as he’d have to stand down in his role as chair of trustees. I don’t want him to work with her anymore , but he says she’s a good trustee and he wants to continue working with her, that I shouldn’t rock the boat.

We have four DC, two young adult, two are young teens. If it wasn’t for the children I’d leave.

I would like to make his untrustworthiness known to the board. AIBU?

Several things stand out to me, the first one is it's highly likely he is having an affair, even though you've spoke to the lady, don't let that fool you into sinking that nothing is going on because she was nice and honest with you.

Secondly, it's not you that could cause him to resign. It's his own actions. Don't let him push the blame onto you, if he hadn't of lied he wouldn't be in this position.

And thirdly, I would be expecting him to stand down from his position, for the sake of your relationship!

10 hour lunch and no one is suggesting this could be a full blown affair?

I wouldn’t report to the board, but I’d struggle to believe anything he said about the matter.

You have the personal and the professional thoroughly muddled up here!

It's not the job of a board of trustees to make your husband stay in his marriage, or to help you punish him for any suspected dalliances outwith the marriage. That's for you and him to figure out.

If you have something concrete and professionally relevant, by all means inform the board, but with a simple factual sentence.

The fact you intend to stay with him anyway makes it seem like vindictive lashing out.

You leave him. Because you suspect he has betrayed his vows, because he has lied to you, because he has no personal or professional integrity, because the marriage isn't working anyway.

Don't try to offload responsibility for your relationship choices onto others.

This.
So sorry that you've discovered his dishonesty.
Can you deal with the dishonesty or has the trust gone from your marriage?

The trust has gone. We’re done. Thanks everyone who kept me company overnight. I’m about to start work and am feeling broken but also very grateful for everyone’s opinions and advice.

If they are sleeping together, they both need to take a look at the Nolan principles for Public Service as they are breaking a couple of them. It is something the rest of the board should know
ttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life

I’m not sure keeping your husband AND telling the board is going to be an option. This is an either or situation.

The other woman has entered the chat...

@SheSellsSeaShellz - that's such a pity.
Use some time today to find a good solicitor and to start getting your ducks in a row so to speak. You are fortunate that you've said that your kids are grown up and are teenagers so that is less of a pressing issue when you do leave.

I would also have a conversation with your kids and lay it out to them what is going to happen and why. Tell them you don't expect them to take sides but you're explaining that you can't stay because of the dishonesty and you would hope that should something similar happen in their lives, they wouldn't feel compelled to stay in a relationship like that either. The teenagers - which side of being a teenager are they at - are they just 13 or are they 17?

Call on your friends and let them help you through this. Stay strong because you'll find inner strength you didn't know you had!

If he's so desperate to stay as chair of the board, it's simple enough. From now on he has nothing whatsoever to do with this other trustee outside trustee meetings. No ifs, buts or whatever. Tell him if his behaviour so much as gives rise to a suspicion that he's not keeping to that, you will tell the board all about it without so much as a warning to him.

If he's so desperate to stay as chair of the board, it's simple enough. From now on he has nothing whatsoever to do with this other trustee outside trustee meetings.

Would you trust him to stick to that?

If you want to remain in the marriage (and he does) I’d say a condition was that he resigns from the board voluntarily. He can state whatever reason he wants to, avoiding the embarrassment of the real reason being made public. I wouldn’t be happy with him continuing to remain on the board with her there if your relationship has a future. If he prefers to remain on the board at the price of your relationship, you have no marriage left to save.

I wouldn’t trust him to stick to that, no. It also isn’t realistic. As chair he delegates a lot of the tasks and has conversations with the other trustees quite often. But it also feels a bit academic now, I’ve realised that without trust, there isn’t anything.

he’s said if I present evidence of him lying I will be responsible for him stepping down. He’s said he will have no choice and it will be my fault. He has told me he will have to resign.

There's no way this is not an affair OP. Or a massive overstep.

I'd be telling him you won't be saying anything but resigning is the thing he has to do or he can leave.

Absolutely this.

It sounds like you have already decided that his persistent lying means the end of your marriage, and I don't blame you. If you are prepared to give it one more go, however, then I agee with @Usernameisunavailable .

Him resigning from this board would be absolutely necessary, as would an agreement not to contact this woman again for any reason.

He's admitting he's done something to jeopardise his position on the board. Now he's begging you not to grass him up. But it's ok love, it's definitely not an affair. Just incredibly professionally fucking stooopid?!
I think he'll end up needing to quit the charity board. You should tell him to do so. Presuming it's not a salaried role and just gives him excuses to swan around at black tie dinners flirting with his colleague?

As someone who has worked in charities for many years and, unfortunately, seen a lot of damage done by secret relationships between trustees, with senior members of staff and trustees, it's a nightmare and does cause damage to the charity. I am not saying you should or should not report, but trustees in relationships should absolutely have to declare it to the organisation.

You are quite right, without trust, there is no relationship.

OP put down the whole board issue and if they’d give a shit etc.

Look at the behaviour of his ex. He’s not even sorry, he’s assuming you’ll just put up with his shit behaviour and is going for a bit of emotional blackmail.

How do you feel about him. What do you want to happens going forward.

What a bloody nasty comment.

It’s quite possible the rest of the board is aware anyway or at least suspicious but yes I think you need to be realistic about what’s going on here. I’ve been/ am on a number of non profit boards and this level of contact between trustees between meetings/ committees is highly unusual in my experience- you just don’t need to spend this much time on it and v few trustees have time/ inclination to do so unless it’s a tiny charity where the trustees do a lot of what would usually be done by a management team.

I would park the whole charity governance thing and focus on yourself and the viability of the relationship. Sorry- his story just doesn’t sound in any way likely.

I've been there (OH had emotional affair). If he can't see what he's done is wrong, he thinks you're a doormat. Personally, I stayed a few years after the emotional affair but couldn't deal with always feeling the need to check what he was doing. Trust and respect gone.

@SheSellsSeaShellz, I agree that staying without trust would be a corrosive misery.

That he has used devious subterfuge for years to hoodwink you shows how easy it is for him to lie and manipulate. He is massively self-serving, and is happy to treat you like shit on his shoe and to use the charity to pursue OW.

It is very telling that he is now panicking about losing his stature and position on the board instead of feeling sick with remorse about hurting you. He would be an extremely poor candidate for reconciliation.

You must be reeling, @SheSellsSeaShellz. I hope you have a strong support system to help you move through this trauma.

A small update. She is leaving as a trustee and he is no longer her mentor. He says they spoke at the weekend and she was planning on leaving as a trustee anyway. My first reaction is to feel sorry for her, the man gets away with his and the woman, who I don’t think did anything wrong (they are his marriage vows, it was his board of trustees she was invited onto) gets ditched to save his face.

He seems to think it’s all fine now and we can just move on, but I’ve seen from this thread that it’s badly broken the trust I had in him. He won’t leave, but I’m going to divorce him and at some stage he’ll have to move out.

You sure she's not resigned so they can pursue a relationship?