Hi everyone. I’m posting anonymously because this is a very personal situation, but I’m really curious if anyone else has experienced something similar.
I was with my husband for nearly 20 years and we have two children together. We built a whole life as a family. I discovered his affair in May last year. At the time he was completely caught up in the excitement of the new relationship and didn’t want to fix things at all. He moved out in August.
He’s in his 40s she’s in her 20s.
The affair itself is painful enough, but what has been the hardest part for me is everything that happened after.
The woman he got involved with has inserted herself into things that should have remained completely private within our family. She has contacted me, insulted me, questioned personal things about my life, and even posted things online clearly aimed at me. Instead of protecting boundaries around our family and the mother of his children, he allowed it and often made excuses for her behaviour.
he has said she hates me. I’ve done nothing to her and to be honest I have all the reasons to hate her.
At one point I was also told that she wanted him to cut me off completely, delete my number and have nothing to do with me at all. Which I honestly found quite shocking considering we have children together and nearly 20 years of history. I suspect a lot of that comes from insecurity on her side, but it still feels completely unrealistic and inappropriate given that we are a family and always will be in some form because of the kids.
At the same time, he has been going back and forth constantly. One moment he says he misses the family, regrets everything and wants to fix things. The next moment he disappears again and hardly sees the kids because he’s back there. It’s been months of this flip-flopping.
Recently I also found out she tracks his location on his phone and reacts when he comes near my house. That was honestly the final moment where I lost the last bit of respect I had left. In nearly 20 years together we never tracked each other or monitored each other like that.
At this point I’ve stepped away from the whole situation. Our kids are teenagers now, so if they want to see him they can arrange that directly with him themselves. To be honest, they’re not very keen on it at the moment because they are old enough to understand what has been going on.
What I’m really curious about is whether anyone else has experienced this kind of situation where a partner keeps flip-flopping between the family and the new relationship while the other woman gets heavily involved in things that should be private.
his parents and brother are on my side and thinking he’s unstable. I do believe that too and we all encouraged him to get help.
Did it ever actually settle down or lead to a clear decision? Or did the chaos just keep going?
I’d really appreciate hearing other people’s experiences because right now it feels like a very strange and exhausting situation.
ETA there’s no way I’m taking him back.
Also she lives up north and he’s down south. Takes him 5 hours to drive to her.