My DS cheated on his girlfriend in my home

[ErsBears]

Hi, so DH and I were away staying with friends over new year, DS’s girlfriend had gone back to her home country to see her family and DS couldn’t as he had to work so I asked if he would be okay staying at ours to watch the dog, he said sure.
DH and I came home early as one of our friends has fallen ill and wanted some space, we went for dinner first then got a train and cab home at about 11:30pm. I didn’t pre warn DS as I didn’t really see the need to. When we got home he was in his room so I didn’t bother him but then DH realised we had no milk, nothing for breakfast and DH had a headache so needed some paracetamol. We have a 24 hour shop within driving distance and both DH and I had been drinking so I went to ask DS if he would mind popping out. I could see his light was on and hear the tv so knew he was awake. When I knocked on the door the first thing I heard was a girls voice saying “is that your mum”. He came the door in his boxers and asked why we were back early, I explained he told me he’d been drinking so couldn’t. Fine. I asked if his girlfriend was back early (I knew it wasn’t her as his girlfriend has a very identifying accent and it was clearly an English accent I heard).

Anyway he admitted he had someone else over, I told him that she had to leave, he booked her a cab and she left. I made it clear to him that either he tells his girlfriend tomorrow or as soon as she is back or I will tell her, I do not condone cheating. He tried to tell me he didn’t sleep with her but when I pointed out he was only in boxers he admitted he was lying. He said he would tell her but they have a holiday booked for next week (she gets back on Sunday, they fly out on Monday).

For context he’s 28, his girlfriend is 25 and they’ve been together for 2 years, they don’t live together but she owns a flat and he was meant to be moving in this year.

AIBU to be bloody raging and so disappointed that this is the man I raised? I am disgusted that he cheated and I think he needs to tell her before the holiday. We are meant to be picking them up on Monday morning to take them to the airport as it’s an early flight. I don’t think I can sit with her in the car and send her off on holiday with him knowing what he has done!

I'm afraid I think you are being overbearing. I understand how difficult you may feel meeting his GF and keeping quiet but this isn't or shouldn't be about you. Have you considered what this could do to your relationship with your son? If he is as committed to his GF as he claims and you ruin it,will he forgive you? People (especially on the eve of settling down) can do stupid things.

Loyalty to the son - and guidance - is most important.

The son and gf have only been together 24 months, it really isn’t that long. So no, the mum shouldn’t be putting the care of the gf above the care of her son.

The son does need to grow up though and stop acting like he can go through women as if he were still in his late teens.

I think I'd be "invested" in whatever randoms were coming into MY HOUSE.

Invested
Unhinged

Don't you just love a Mumsnet Mustword?

@Marieb19 he's not at all committed to his girlfriend. If he was he wouldn't have acted like a tomcat.

Perhaps her DS should have thought about what his actions would do to his relationship with his parents? Why is the responsibility for the way his life pans out, the relationship between mother and son, entirely her responsibility?

I’m sorry but this is entirely on the son. He is the person who betrayed the trust of all three people in this scenario. He needs to do all the work to rebuild trust and the relationship with his parents alongside showing some integrity and honour in telling his GF what he has done.

The fact he downloaded the app the second he was in a house alone speaks volumes, yet everyone is focusing on you not announcing your return home?😲

No way is he committed to his girlfriend or he would not be having sex with some random he met on a dating site.

Being unfaithful is NOT doing a stupid thing

Loyalty to the son - and guidance - is most important.

The son isn't loyal. That's the problem. He also needs guidance on what constitutes informed sexual consent because he has taken that away from his gf.

This also might not be the first time he's cheated and she needs to get checked for STIs.

The decision isn’t just his though, if he doesn’t tell her before she’s on holiday with him, being intimate with him while not having all the information she needs to give consent. Him being unsure is neither here nor there, he made his decision when he had sex with someone else. He should now give his girlfriend the respect due her so she can decide what she wants.

You make him sound like a murderer. He had sex outside his relationship, it's not the crime of the century ffs. And he's still a man. But he's the man you raised, so I would stop clutching your pearls and think about that. Then realise that if you think you owe his girlfriend something, it goes deeper than you realise.

For those saying stay out of it etc....I'm baffled. Do they expect you to lie to the girlfriend too? If you discovered your friend was being cheated on would you say nothing? Just stand by and do nothing?
....honestly OP, you were right to call him up on this behaviour under your own roof, and insist he comes clean.
to those posters advising you to stand by and watch your son cheat and lie and condone it....shame on you all.

It absolutely is a stupid thing. Chuck-in selfish, despicable and inconsiderate too.

Feel bad for some of the mum of sons who can’t call them out for shitty behaviour because they fear they’ll never speak to them again. Know your place ladies, keep the hysteria in check.

Some shameful responses on here.

OP sounds quite calm and clear headed about what the issues are here.

It's fine if you don't mind coming home to find that the person you left in your home has invited a stranger over for sex but other people are a bit fussier and they are perfectly within their rights to be. The woman wasn't chucked out, she was asked to leave and safe transport home was arranged. I'd have told the son to go with her tbh.

OP does not need to announce her arrival at her own home.

They couldn’t as DS used all the milk & not replaced it….how old is he!

Agreed.
How many on here have adults at home I wonder?
I have some living out of home whom return to visit and some that are still in university.
My home is not a shag pad for any of them.
They all work, or have well paid part time jobs.
Book a hotel by all means, but do not sign up to a dating app and treat my lovely home as your shag pad.
I can absolutely assure you that none of my friends would be anything other than well pissed off to find this scenario in their home, even more so if the child was in a long term relationship and they became party to their cheating.

Bollocks. The only loyalty anyone should have in situations where there is a clear right and wrong is loyalty to truth, justice and the morally right thing.

I can completely understand why people are saying it’s not your place to tell her. But if I put myself in the girlfriends shoes then of course I would want someone to tell me before a holiday or moving in together! Soo in this instance I would tell her.

You have a moral code. Looks like a rare thing here today.

I'm flabbergasted at the amount of people telling you (OP) that you're the one in the wrong for not telling him you were coming home early and for ordering and paying (DS) for a taxi home for the stranger in your home (which is supposedly throwing her out on the street?!?!).
Personally, I wouldn't tell the girlfriend but I would try to persuade/convince my son to do the honest thing and do it himself.
However, I think there has been a lot of deceit on his part (the dating app he 'just' added himself to, conveniently doing it away from his flat and while gf is on holiday, doing it in someone else's home....) and I don't know if you can trust him to go through with telling her. I also don't believe he is/was going to propose - I think this was just to pressure you into not taking her and forcing the break up. If he does propose to her then he's utterly foolish because he's clearly not happy/satisfied and to scheme, plan and cheat like he did is another level (ie he didn't just drunkenly snog a girl in a club while he was out).

I hope he ends things.

I’ 100% with you OP. I am amazed at the amount of posters who say that they wouldn’t say anything! I guess now we know who all the evil MILs are.

thing is, he downloaded the app and made a profile. That is far too much forethought. The poor GF def needs to know

It’s not tricky at all!! She deserves to know, so she can choose whether to go on holiday with him, spend more money, so she knows it’s a “rekindling “, so she can fucking choose whether to have sex with a man , that not only cheated on her, but by the sounds of it didn’t use protection either.

Really?
Have you got any idea what goes through a person's mind when they discover their partner is/was cheating on them? "Let them have a nice holiday" my arse. For the rest of her life the girlfriend is going to be thinking of this holiday as the biggest fraud of the century, agonising over every small detail, wondering how a man could be so very devious to let her "have fun" knowing all along that the breakup was imminent.
I'd rather explain a cancelled holiday a thousand times to my friends than live with the humiliation of acting like a loved-up idiot blissfully unaware that my "partner" is planning to drop a bomb on me the minute we get off the plain at Stansted.

You clearly have never been cheated on. Count yourself lucky.

But it's not actually loyalty to the son is it? Its just enablement. Covering up bullshit behaviour isn't any kind of loyalty at all.

Yep. As I said earlier in the thread, multiple women treated poorly by shit men. And enabled by their day zero the whole damn way.