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

Stay with him, if you still love him- but are you sure you don't want to stay with him because you are trapped?
You have to embrace the fact if this has happened before, and now, it is very likely to happen again in future- if you are ok with that, fine.
Bear in mind that if he does this again, your girls are going to be of an age to realise- this sort of thing always makes it's way into the light.
Your DH probably loves you and the children at some level, but he is also weak, thoughtless , insensitive, and completely unappreciative of what you have together. Remember someone can only love you in their capacity to do so, I am not impressed by your DH's capacity, you deserve better.

Very naive OP, he left a previous partner for you… it will never be your decision alone when there are two people who could make that decision

You don’t know the half of it. If you can accept that a leopard will never change its spots then stay in the marriage. Don’t delude yourself with the notion that he will ever be monogamous to you.

Sounds to me like you the financially dependent on him. Is this the reason for ypir dilemma?

You are being very thoughtful and balanced in your approach ie you recognise your own short comings and you recognise his.

My advice from a similar situation is that you both need counselling - separately and together. Your DH needs to understand why he does this and is unfaithful, there’s a bit of a fantasy going on in his head and I suspect he adores you and your family and does not actually want to blow this up hence telling you and trying to be open/up-front. The counselling for you would help you talk over the impact this has had on you and also the miscarriage, don’t talk your self down just because you play more of the home maker role, your role is just as important.

Wishing you luck - its fixable but don’t skip past it too quickly without resolving these underlying issues.

I hear you on that one and I'm sorry you went through that. It was the same in my family, though in our case both parents had affairs. It's such a selfish, callous thing to do to your kids and it's why I say cheaters are never good parents.

Well it's up to you. But I think you must know he won't change his ways if you do.

He'll have his cake and eat it. The dirty old sod.

Have you thought about how you'll feel being his carer while all the dozens of women he shagged are enjoying life with their similar age partners?

I wouldn't worry, there will always be topics to post on MN😀

It's simple, stay or leave, I would never ever forgive being cheated, who could look at their partner again knowing she had been filled by another man and she consensually wanted it, nah but each to their own.

Good luck.

It will never be the same and you will send yourself insane, in the beginning you will want to stay because you don’t want to lose him to another woman.. in the end once reality kicks in you will regret your decision and be miserable. Iv been here a couple of times. I can only advise you based on experience but honestly you’ve taken him as a fling, you have taken him back before for cheating, if you take him back again why would he ever be loyal? He has no reason to be because he knows you will take him back anyway. Your basically giving him a message he can do what he likes

I wouldn’t stay with him with those details of the ‘fling’. If circumstances were different (I’ve lived it) there may be a way forward. But not with the sceanario you described.

It's a bit like spiders/rats. If you see one, there are probably a hundred you can't see.

If you were a fling yourself, and you know about two other flings, and he gets a lot of attention from women, there are probably a lot of others you don't know about.

It depends on context. If you're happy with having an open marriage a la Francais, and you're also free to have affairs, why not? Especially if in other ways he's a good dad/husband and financially contributing.

But in any other scenario, you need to face the probability that he's a frequent and compulsive liar. He may have other forms of deceit like gambling, porn, substance abuse which you dont know about.

I have so many friends whose boyfriends / husbands were what i would describeas having a twinkle in their eye - "flirty". One by one they all eventually left, in a flurry of adultery, debts, lies. Some of them have turned into the most abusive, gaslighting exes too. Not all.

Please free yourself from this man before you're too old to start again. 🥺

I understand your wanting to stay. So what he had an affair/affairs. As they get older they are less able to run after the ladies 😁. Do what you want to do and don't feel judged for your choices!

Fucking Jesus, the bar is low.

It seems to me, if you were being brutally honest with yourself, that' you're only still with this man for his money and the lifestyle that his high paying job affords you and your girls. If he lost his job, I reckon you'd be out of there in a flash. Each to their own, but I think that's really sad. And I hope your girls set higher standards for themselves when they grow up.

Don’t bank on it… there’s a guy who lives near me who is still having affairs with younger women and he’s 68.
As his wife always forgives him he’s pretty blatant about it now.

She openly talks about staying for the life insurance 🙄

Legally it would be a very sensible thing to do and also, it would alert your husband to the fact that you do have options.

It feels like he's playing you a bit, being older, the provider, it feels like he thinks he has all the cards, trusting that you'll just give up and give in like you did the last time, and accept him as he is. If he realises that you aren't sitting by idly this time, he'll know you mean business and reconsider that sex with someone else is not the answer.

I'd find it hard to forgive this, though I do understand why you're considering it. You have a family that the rest of the time, outside of that 1 hour or so when he was shagging her, works for you.

From his side, it's a cack handed way of saying he wants more sex.

If you've not been active for over a year, it would be good to talk to him about why you're not feeling into it, and consider some therapy after the miscarriage to consider what comes next for you. Do you want another baby? What is the block to sex for you? You need to sit down and have that hard conversation.

I really do think you need therapy more than anything though, just for yourself and after that, together perhaps.

It makes me sad to see you repeatedly justify him cheating on you - TWICE - by saying that other women approach HIM and flirt with HIM.

That doesn't make him blameless. He is still a cheater. He is still at fault. It doesn't matter who "initiates" an affair - both people are still culpable, unless one of them doesn't know the other is in a relationship. THEN, it is 100% the fault of the person who is in a relationship, because they deliberately lie/withhold the fact that they are in a committed relationship.

Being drunk is also not an excuse. No one forced him to get drunk.

He's going to cheat on you again.

He has cheated THREE TIMES that you know of - once was with you! - he's going to cheat again.

However, you're very clearly stonewalling in regards to everyone who is telling you the truth about the kind of person he is: a cheater. It doesn't matter that he is a great dad, a wonderful partner otherwise, if he volunteers every weekend to help with orphans and kittens and puppies in wheelchairs - he is still a cheater and none of his "good" qualities cancel that out.

You're the one who is going to have to live with him cheating on you again, not us, so you can dismiss the truth that previous commenters have spoken, that's fine - but just try to remember that he has cheated THREE times within your knowledge. He will cheat again.

I wouldn’t break up an otherwise happy marriage for a ons. I know many people would, and no one who decides to leave is wrong. Fidelity is very important but it’s not the most important thing to me. As an example one of my friends has an extremely faithful (probably because he’s a boring casually sexist twat) husband.
another has a husband who had a brief fling 9 years ago when they had a rough patch (menopause rage on her part) her husband is loving, kind, funny and generous and has been making it up to her for 9 years.

I know which I find more acceptable.

there is more than one marriage vow and we all mostly break some of them be that
love
cherish
faithful
sex
care in sickness and so on…

I do think that if someone is a serial cheat or you couldn’t get over it or it caused you massive anxiety and jealousy etc then it’s worth leaving. But otherwise what about a fresh start, 2nd honeymoon. Give it a go. If it doesn’t work then think about leaving.
just my tuppence worth

Ps I do think withholding sex is cruel even if we don’t mean it. No one should have sex ever when they don’t want to but there’s no denying it can leave a partner lonely and insecure and hurt and a bit of patience is warranted imho.

But this man is a serial cheat. Did you not read the op?

Yeah I agree with this. You sound happy enough...a bit disappointed but u know that's who he is. And you can accept that. You like the life he can provide for you.
My only thoughts would be ... Be very careful he doesn't give you an STD and also be financially cautious...eg is he ultimately going to leave you and your kids and disappear having emptied his bank accounts beforehand 😬 obviously I don't know that man, but his behaviour doesn't ring 'reliable' and 'honest'. So just don't be naïve and really think about your future as well as the now.

Of course he’s not bothering you sexually that much
he’s getting his dick sucked by a 30 year old hottie 😂

look no one - I guarantee I’d that bothered about your husband the majority of women see him for what he is a sleazeball

probably if he wasn’t wealthy those women yourself included wouldn’t touch him with another women’s vagina

he’s a sleaze he’d 60 and fucking women young enough to be his daughter
ffs if that’s not enough to turn your stomach then nothing will
stay with him
try and be happy
And spend all his money

It would be bye bye for me. Your relationship is the result of him cheating on someone else, he cheated on you years ago and has done it again now with someone young enough to be his daughter. I know people can change but unfortunately in your case I think ‘once a cheat, always a cheat’ has some merit.

I do respect the fact he told you and didn’t try to hide it, but was this because he felt guilty or because a close friend knew he had done it? From my own perspective I have never once wanted to cheat on my husband. If someone tried it on with me, they would be told straight I wasn’t interested. The fact he did it, no matter how ‘persuasive’ she may have been shows his character.

Respect yourself, you are still young, don’t spend the next 40 years wondering if he will do it again.

A friend of mine stayed with her husband throughout his multiple affairs . He is very wealthy and they have two children who are both at university. He now has a flat in London and she has kept the big family home which he does come back to and they go on family holidays etc as a married couple. At the end of the day it works for them. Don’t pretend that this is a loving marriage because it isn’t , maybe you want an ‘arrangement’ because in truth you need the life that comes with it ( not saying there is anything wrong with that) It’s a big deal breaking up a family and it’s easy to tell you on the internet to do it, but in reality it’s not that simple. However accept that he has put you in that position, he has done this and even if he’s the loveliest man in the world otherwise he is selfish and has put his sexual gratification about the sanctity of your marriage and family life. He needs counselling and so do you. Good luck and I’m sorry. Also to add a very close relative of mine cheated on his wife, she forgave him and they have moved on. It is possible with proper work and time but don’t wrap it up in anything other than what it is. His disrespect. Especially as he has done it before.