DH had an affair

[Tallscandi]

Put a shorter title for length, but my question is: AIBU to stay with my husband after the had a fling - but to set some kind of ultimatum / expectation?

I am still working this through and I am upset, but not great at expressing my feelings, so will try to summarise here in a clear way.

My DH (52) slept with a woman, 29, at a work event. I found out because he told me, and I then confirmed the details with a colleague who was there (someone who is a long time close friend of ours). This woman really did proposition / very directly flirted with DH - he totally accepts his fault but this is the context.

DH gets a lot of attention from women - even though he is now middle aged, more than a bit overweight - he is extremely charismatic, generous, funny, very handsome, very good company. This is all part of why I fell for him - partly why I love him.

Actually our relationship started as kind of a fling, though i was not aware at the time. (They were 'on a break'). He is 15 years older than me; I'm 37. He's had a fling before, when our children were young, but I the 10 years since has not done anything. We haven't had sex for ages (after I had a miscarriage last year) and I think this is part of it.

I don-/ want to leave him - I am angry with him but he is honestly a great father, we have three daughters together, he also is in a high earning job while I have mainly been looking after our children

Is that crazy of me? Am I letting myself down? I don't want to break up our family
He has been very contrite. I would be grateful for any advice - and your kindness. Thank you

He knows he’d be out the door with bin bags full of his crap within minutes of me finding out.

Doesn't mean he hasn't so don't be so superior.

It's telling that you say the reason he won't cheat is because you'll chuck him out not because he's intrinsically respectful. Fear of repercussions just makes people better at hiding it.

Everyone is capable of cheating. Everyone.

Thank you everyone for these opinions. I am a bit surprised by how cross some people have been with me - implying I am a terrible role.model.for.my children, that pathetic, that I am just making excuses and am unable to see my situation clearly. I will say this has upset me a bit. I know it's a public forum, I'm just somewhat taken aback by the intensity of belief in the idea 'once a cheater always a cheater' - I honestly have not come across this in real life particularly. I understand that he has cheated on me twice and I am.angey about this, but I really don't think he has been having a string of affairs- firstly he is usually with us in the evenings, or otherwise at work / travelling for work with colleagues with him all the time. I have had access to his bills, phone, email since the first time (I'm aware he could have a burner phone etc but I really.think I would have noticed). I also work with him sometimes so know a lot of his work friends and acquaintances. It's a very close knit, quite gossipy / bitchy industry - people would tell me if anything happened.

OP, do not pay attention to any posts denigrating you as a mum, you are doing your best.

You and your children are in no danger from this man so of course you want to take your time and consider your options ver carefully.

I do think that your financial vulnerability is something to address in the longer term.

You are married so definitely entitled to a decent settlement.

But I think going forward looking at retraining would be helpful to make you feel less dependent on him.

You are very young still, often it is not until our 40's that we fully feel our power.

You sound like a great mom and woman, so take your time, you are in no rush at all to make any decision at all.

Be 100% about what suits you at this time, always reserving the right to change your mind in the future, should you wish to do so.

Don't take it personally, there is a lot of intensity around affairs, for obvious reasons, people are either very burned, or in fear that it could happen to them. It happens all the time. Honestly. Mostly the partners don't find out. When they do it's a massive shitshow and basically a whole lot of hurt and work to move forward whichever direction you choose. And it is up to you what you do. You're not a terrible role model for your children. You didn't have an affair.

I would stand by my previous post and say that if you seek legal and financial advice now, along with some individual therapy while you see the wood for the trees, plus a plan to get yourself into a better financial position so you're not reliant on him, you will benefit. Next time this happens you will be able to make a decision that's true for you, not clouded by your financial reliance on him.

There are people out there partnered with people who have had a string of affairs, and decide to carry on the relationship. Nobody is going to come in with a clipboard and tell you it's over, it's your decision at the end of the day. We all have our different lives to live, thank goodness.

You're not going to leave.. and he will cheat again atleast that much is obvious. Im sorry that you can't see he's shit and you are worth more

I LOVE the way that MN sees single parenthood to 3 kids as somehow the sunlit fucking uplands and the be all end all of ‘modelling’ what a strong woman looks like to their daughters .. Really ? Not in my experience !
Given the choice between ;
Broadly supportive and loving husband
Involved hands on father
Good solid friendship between you both
You enjoy his company
Good financial security
Strong family unit
Doesnt pester you for sex you don’t want but does go elsewhere occasionally.

VS
The £££££ that divorce costs
Distressed children whose lives will change forever

You will have to work full time
Children shuttling between 2 homes for a decade .
Financially on your own (with a divorce settlement)
No guarantee he will want 50/50 and you will almost certainly be having to balance full time work with full time single parenting to 3 teenage girls.
Children will almost certainly have a young ‘stepmother’ in their lives within a couple of years.

But HEY !! You get to ‘model’ being a ‘strong woman’ over him having sex (that you aren’t interested in) with someone else a couple of times a decade..

Nope - not for me in your position that’s for sure. I would prioritise my children’s stability and happiness rather than chuck a hand grenade into my family.
I would probably explore some therapy to do with the miscarriage and see if that might help improve my libido .

Once the kids are grown I may or may not reevaluate my decision.. perhaps treating myself to a fat divorce settlement before I’m 50 and decide to take myself on an extended gap year around the planet Leaving my mid-sixties ageing ‘it’ man to chase as many young women as he wishes… while I live my life to the max on MY terms .

I can't think why you value yourself so little that you'd put up with cheating once let alone more times. Your DH knows you'll put up with being cheated on so he cheats on you. Why doesn't he have sex with you instead of other women?

It may be a long time but a decent man would support his wife through what has been a difficult time after a miscarriage. Perhaps suggest counselling if it was bothering him so much. Not go off and fuck someone else.

If you DO decide to stay with him OP please get him to have a check-up for STI's before you have sex with him again.

Agree with @slimagain ....raising teens is no walk in the park on your own.

Of course women do it very successfully and work full-time.
But don't tell me it isn't a slog at times.

Verses the stability and support of two loving parents that care about each other.

Coming from a peaceful happy home is an enormous gift to children.

If he was a selfish prick, of course OP would be far better getting organised to get out of the marriage, but he is not.

She is rightly thinking of the next decade of child rearing and how she would navigate it.

Several of my children had divorced friends in their teens and it was very hard for them.
But their parents were good co parents and worked well together.
It was still very hard, particularly the back and forth to houses.
They divorced because they drifted apart and ended up like friends with two busy careers passing in the night.

During trying times two of the parents have said that they wonder was it worth the additional stress it brought to them all to separate while they were still in secondary school.

This is in huge contrast to women married to selfish abusive pricks where the atmosphere is toxic and the children are absorbing that.
Then it is always better to plan on getting away and for children to have one calm safe home even if it is only 50% of the time.

This.
It's clear you are blaming all the women who can't keep away from this beautiful, charming man - including yourself.
OP, he will continue to 'allow himself to be snared' by all women, up until the time he looses his looks and charm completely. Poor lamb 🙄
Are you willing to wait it out until women everywhere are no longer interested then?

Honestly, @Tallscandi it was a one-night stand he confessed to, not a years-long affair. It’s completely reasonable that you’d consider staying if he’s genuinely remorseful and willing to put in the work. That said, it does sound like he might not have come clean if your colleague hadn’t figured it out. So it’s worth asking yourself how you’d feel if you hadn’t found out—would turning a blind eye feel acceptable, or would you want to know if he did it again?

It’s just as reasonable for you to consider leaving. What isn’t reasonable is anyone implying you’re an unfit mother just because you’re in this situation and trying to figure out the best path forward.

If you decide to stay, think about what you’d need from him to feel secure—counselling, no more working away, more transparency? Maybe consider some financial safeguards like purchasing assets in your name that are harder to hide in a divorce. What could you do to hold him to account?

You say he’s regretful, but is he actually remorseful? Has he understood what he’s done and prepared to do whatever it takes to regain trust? That would be the biggest sway for me as to whether I’d stay with him ‘for now’ until kids are older etc and it suits you to leave, or leave. You can only rebuild if he’s actually remorseful and wants to change.

I don't really believe in the whole "once a cheater, always a cheater" thing. But your relationship started as an affair, or maybe they were on a break but hadn’t agreed it was okay to see other people. He cheated on you when your kids were little, and now he’s done it again. And you only found out because a colleague who knows you called him out.

This isn’t a situation where he cheated 20+ years ago, went to therapy, did some serious reflecting, made changes, and has been faithful ever since. So it's totally fair to wonder if these are the only times it’s happened.

That said, if this isn’t a dealbreaker for you and your kids won’t find out, it’s okay to stay. Tons of marriages stay intact after infidelity. Like yours has for the past 10 years. Sometimes the pros outweigh the cons.
People are always looking for quick answers, but it’s also okay to stay married and realize in five years that it actually is a dealbreaker. You don’t have to decide anything right now.

If you could guarantee that the dynamic would stay the same - that you would remain married with all of the advantages that affords you and with minimal conflict but knowing he strays occasionally - then I think you would be making a choice that many do and I certainly could see why you would. The problem is that HE may change his mind and want something else, especially once the children are reared, may fall in love with someone else, may decide he wants to be married to the same person he has sex with. At a minimum, if you go with the 'stay and accept' option, you need to make sure you are more financially independent and that you have choices as time goes on. You may feel you can rely on him not to fuck you over but you can't.

if this isn’t a dealbreaker for you and your kids won’t find out, it’s okay to stay. Tons of marriages stay intact after infidelity. Like yours has for the past 10 years. Sometimes the pros outweigh the cons.
People are always looking for quick answers, but it’s also okay to stay married and realize in five years that it actually is a dealbreaker. You don’t have to decide anything right now.

This.

And I really agree with an early poster who suggested that MN views single parenthood as a badge of honour - that's not for everyone, either.

Well he is a serial cheater, more than once makes him that. You need to understand that and then decide what you want to do.

I can tell you that if it was me he'd have been gone after rhe first time, but I'm not you. Everyone else has a different limit on what they feel they can live with.
I and others might disagree with you, which I absolutely do, as it's giving him the message that he can have sex with others and it won't change anything, but you have to decide what you want to do.

If he's done it once, he's very likely to do it again. Can you honestly say you'll be able to trust him going forward if you stay together?

This is what I would do too.Agree with wvery word.

My Ex husband did exactly the same and I get it.

I met him, dated etc, he lived in another part of the country, I met his family then a year later I found out he had had a wife the whole time, but it was easy for him to meet me, weekends away etc as he also had a travelling job.

I chose to stay with him as I was 23 at the time/ he was 35 and I was probably a bit of an idiot. He was also charismatic, charming etc. We got married.

He cheated on me on a work trip and after considering my kids current lifestyles, I also stayed. For about 6 weeks before I thought F this.

After a couple of weeks of it being public knowledge- he was a well known athlete in his sport, I got some more messages on instagram from women also showing me he had slept with them behind my back.

I was mad but I also kind of accepted that he had done it with me, so now he had done it to me I couldn't get massively irate.

Me and my kids left got a small flat. I went to therapy.

Now I am happily remarried to man who would/ I have witnessed- stone wall any other woman who came up to him. Have a nice house, and a happy family.

You do what you need to do, but you can also do this if you so decide you want better xxx

Im curious as to exactly how old you were when you first got together - I'm surprised that you are surprised he has slept with someone so much younger when you must have been very early twenties?

MN is black and white in the extreme about infidelity. Anyone who ever cheats is automatically tarred and feathered as if this is the sole personal characteristic that they bear and that they are nothing other than that. It doesn't take account of the complexity of human nature and how emotions can drive us to behave in ways that rationally, we know we shouldn't. Sexual infidelity is only one of the many ways in which people can and do betray each other in relationships; others can be far more damaging.

It is also very easy for people to sit and type what they think they would do or what they wish they had done, when in reality, many here are themselves in deeply unhappy relationships and are projecting their own self-loathing onto others. It isn't about you, it is about them.

MN really does not reflect the wider world on this topic, which tends to be far more nuanced and recognise that all humans are flawed and that many, many marriages survive a crisis. The choice to stay or leave is not an easy one. If you choose to stay, you can change your mind any time, coming back from leaving is less straightforward. I would not make a decision while emotions are running high, sit with it for a period of time of your own choice.

Whatever you choose, I wish you well.

I was 23 and he was 38. It wasn't planned and I would say he was v uncertain about it for the first couple of years at least - he was much more anxious about the age gap than me. I became pregnant quite quickly (long story short - I had very irregular periods / it was a surprise) and we stayed together. But I was the first time he had dated younger

When you slept together and you were 23 and he was 38, the woman he recently slept with was a 15 year old girl.

You say he was concerned about the age gap between you at the time but he's doing that classic Leonardo DiCaprio thing where he gets older but the women he wants to have sex with stay the same age (in their 20s).

He might be 15 years older but you're getting too old for him now.

I'd be making an exit plan personally.

OP I am finding your narrative naive, like you are desperate to be told it’s ok to stay and of course it is as long as you accept this could happen again.

I think if you were financially independent and had a career to rely
on you’d probably be more inclined to split, money does provide choice after all.

I would not be tolerating cheating, he has done it twice, how much more betrayal can a woman take before she decides to pull the trigger and finish it.

You say he's only cheated twice on you. He's also cheated WITH you. so that's 3 times that you know of. I believe he only told you because he was afraid mutual friend would tell you.

I don't judge you at all for staying with him, but you are very naive to trust him still. Of course he will always be a cheater. You should accept that your marriage is a one sided open marriage is all I'm saying.