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's a rat OP and a consistent one
Find higher standards for yourself

How will you feel in a few months if he tells you this work colleague ‘fling’ is pregnant? Stranger things have happened - he might even decide he’d like to live with her. How does that impact you?

Doesn't he owe her fidelity too or is it a case of Mr Needs Sex always get what he wants no matter the pain caused?

You are 37 and used to be a model - you have your whole life ahead of you. Why would you settle for this?

If you are going to stay with him then you are going to have to accept that he cannot be faithful. You know he has cheated at least twice and seem to be okay with this. He would be a player again if he could. He is obviously attracted to women in their 20s, including you when you first met. I think you have gotten too old for his taste. Why put up with this behaviour, he is not a nice husband.

The reason it’s keeping you up at night is because somewhere in the back of your mind you’re worried he’ll trade you for the younger, new OW.

Only you can decide if you want to stay or not, there’s no shame in whatever you decide. But a repeat offender? He’ll never change.

How is this older fat man attractive to so many young women?

No judgement on you choosing to stay but if he ends up leaving you for someone younger and imploding you and your daughters lives you may find that you are older and bitter that you didn’t take the chance to take control and leave when you were younger. He may not of course but as others have said he does seem to have form - these are times that you found out about - there may be others. Personally I think it is damaging your self respect - you say he is lovely (in so many words) but he doesn’t appear to be - he is seemingly lovely - that is how he attracts all these women, that’s not an accident. You sound much too nice for him - I am sorry for what you are going through though

The affairs you've mentioned, these are just the ones you know about, aren't they? There will be others. Guys who screw around, screw around.

I'd set my bar a lot higher than this to be honest.

Hi everyone, just wanted to to say quickly that I'm reading responses but have been also busy irl so unable to reply to everyone - really appreciate it and thank you again

gosh, sorry to hear this, OP. And what an awful conversation to have with your joint friend - how did you feel about that?

the way you talk about your husband - your friends openly fancying him, etc, isn’t typical. Or if it is, it’s certainly not the way happiness lies.

you are setting yourself up for a life of sadness and low self esteem. he won’t change, so you’ll have to decide what price your long term self respect is worth.

OP, if you want to stay with him, that’s up to you. Plenty of women do in your situation and make the best of things long term.

If you do this though, you need to accept a few things:

1. He’ll cheat again and again. It’s what he does, he has form for this. You’ll need to decide your tactic for living with this - Turning a blind eye? Constant vigilance? You decide.
2. No relationship is 100% certain, but yours is less certain than most - as a result, you need to get back into the workplace and start building up some personal financial resilience.

Do think carefully - is building this personal armour really a price worth paying?

He took an opportunity and he will again if he gets the chance.

If this situation happened to one of your daughters, what would you tell them to do?

If you have mismatched sex drives, how do you see the future looking?

If you aren't having sex with your husband do you expect him to live a celibate life as well?

He obviously is a bit of a player anyway, but if you don't want to have sex with him is this something that you can see changing? If not I can't really see a future for your marriage.

I think you really need to ask yourself is it the truth that you don’t want to break up your family or do you just not want to lose him. He will do it again. Surely he doesn’t get to have a different set of rules when it comes to infidelity just because he’s perceived as ‘hot’. I’m sorry this has happened OP. It’s horrible. And he’s horrible. No matter how charismatic he is. I’ve been there and I get it.

Money

There’s a few ‘it’s karma’ / ‘what goes around comes around’ type posts, which I personally think are pretty unhelpful and sometimes unfair.

i get that people have been badly hurt by cheating spouses ( it happened to me) , but OP said she was unaware at the time. It might be naive, but we’ve all been guilty of naivety.

I also know decent people who’ve ended up in affairs. And I’ve also noticed that some of the most ‘anti-affair’ types had ended up cheating!

OP- keep your relationship if you want. But equally, you can still continue your career with half his wealth.

I wouldn't want to be near my DH if he cheated on me. And twice is all you know about . Im willing to bet on this being something he does regularly'but since your friend saw him this time he had to fess up. If you aren't bothered by living in an open relationship (from his side) then that's fine. If not contact a solicitor.

The big deal breaker for me would be that this does not sound like a man who would have your back when you need him to. Granted, it might not be an issue as he's so much older, but would you trust him to support you if you got sick given when you've had a miscarriage he's had an affair?

I’m really struggling with this. On one hand, I do think ‘an’ affair can happen and you can come back from it. Particularly if the marriage is struggling and it’s a wake up call.

The difference with this is that it’s absolutely a pattern, not just once. Also - you say that you have been happy and are ‘in love’. This isn’t showing love.

You make it sound like it’s really not his fault and he’s not in control of it because he’s so charismatic to other women. And he doesn’t chase them so therefore it’s ok. Or it’s due to your miscarriage as you weren’t great after that. I’m sorry but that’s all rubbish.

This isn’t respectful and it’s not love and if you accept it now he’ll know it’s something that’s ok with you again in the future because where’s the line?

If your daughters came and said this to you in years to come, would you want them to stay in that relationship?

Also - I would highly suspect there have been others inbetween the two that you know about.

If you leave, maybe you can reset and make it work in the future (I wouldn’t want to but I could understand if you did). But staying fully and not breaking it off is literally just showing him you’re fine with him sleeping with other people.

I meant the universal you, as in one doesn't owe their OH celibacy.

I know their are other posters who bashed me for it, but I believe my position to be ethical and consistent. As a rule, as long as one's OH is having regular sex with them, they are morally bound to be faithful. However, if one partner stops having sex, that automatically allows the other partner to find it elsewhere.

It is no less ethical to expect one's partner to be celibate than it is to 'cheat'.

Anyone who has an issue with this position is probably someone who wants to control their partner's sex. To at least in theory have the option to force celibacy on them.

As others have said, this is apparently just part of who he is. You've forgiven him in the past. Every time you forgive and agree to move on, that's reinforcing the lesson that he can get away with this, because you'll forgive him.

My concern would be that even if you find a way to make peace with this and move on, at some point, he may meet someone that he prefers to you, and then it's completely out of your hands. It does seem like he's the type who's always on the look-out for the younger model of what he already has. It's a risk that he may end the relationship himself. He's shown he's selfish. Otherwise he'd control himself. I wouldn't want to trust him. If you stay with him, I hope you'll at least put some practical and financial measures in place to protect yourself and your children.

OP, only you can decide what to do but please don’t say you don’t want to break up your family when there is no family to break up. There’s a faithful wife, three daughters and a philanderer in your group of people, they do NOT a family make.

It seems you aren’t sure whether he was really ‘on a break’ or not when you started your relationship with him but that almost doesn’t matter; you know he has been unfaithful to YOU at least twice. What sort of ultimatums or expectations do you realistically think he will comply with ?

I’m not going to tell you to divorce him but will you really be able to look your daughters in the eye in the future if you don’t ? They can still have time with him but perhaps they need to know you were strong enough to say enough is enough on the infidelity.

To put it crudely do you really want and let your daughters see you condone…… ‘My wife is off sex so instead of working with her I had sex with some random work colleague.’ ?

You may love him but he doesn’t love you enough for you to be exclusive. There are other ways of dealing with sexual problems after a miscarriage than getting into bed with someone else, whether they throw themselves at you or not.

Of course he’s been contrite – he’s got you on a string.

I know you can only describe yourself in words, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you were absolutely beautiful. I bet your children are, too.
As for husband with the paunch, yes I’m sure he’s very attractive, but I’m quite sure to these women his money is, too. A young woman of 29? Come on, it’s not just his charm. He must have some authority/power at work?
You sound far too good for any of this, and in you he has the classic model beauty who luckily for him doesn’t crave outside attention.
As much as you love him, he’s not going to change.
He has the picture perfect wife and life at home, and away from home, still gets to be the player. He has no reason to change.
I know it would be tough leaving him. But you are only 37. At 47, you will feel differently about yourself. And he will be in his 60’s doing the same.
Happened to a friend of mine - it was her mum who was cheated on, 4 kids. She was a beauty, he owned a business. She had enough in the end and threw him out. She was in her 50’s by then and actually went on to meet the love of her life.
You can’t trust this man. If you stay, you will have to accept this is who he is.

Then I’d stay. If he overweight and 50s, I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be able to get it up.