I’ve just found out that my husband has slept with someone else. My world has fallen apart and I don’t know what to do.

[MyHeartisinTwo]

Just that really. I can’t believe this is happening. I feel like I’m in a nightmare. We have a 3 year old DD. The OW sent me a message from a private instagram account because H had blocked her actual accounts on my phone without my knowledge. He works with her.

He’d gone to her birthday party which I knew about. Didn’t come home until after 4am which isn’t normal for him so I wasn’t happy and we had plans the next day. He said they’d all gone somewhere after the party. Turns out he was with her in a hotel down the road. This was weeks ago and he hadn’t told me.

When I confronted him he eventually admitted it. Said that he couldn’t explain it at first. Then said that there was distance between us and he was weak and naive. We were arguing a lot. He’s been struggling with his mental health and I’ve been doing my best to support him whilst working full-time in a stressful job. I thought we were just going through a rough patch.

I’m literally shaking. I don’t have a lot of family and I haven’t told anyone IRL yet. He says it doesn’t have to be over. But it does doesn’t it?

I honestly don't recommend agreeing to marriage counselling to "fix" a relationship in this situation. It's about compromise and being told you have to change when he's the one who has betrayed your marriage vows isn't conducive to success.

He really, really needs to change himself so he should take himself to individual counselling and work bloody hard at facing up to and tackling his own inadequacies. No coming home and telling you sob stories about how his counsellor says it all stems from his childhood trauma and you need to support him. He does the hard graft to make a happy marriage with him a feasible option. If in 6 months you then want to go to marriage counselling then you'll be in a better place to do so.

Marriage counselling is also good for couples exiting a relationship. You can thrash out custody, financial and contact arrangements with a lot less cost and stress than getting solicitors to organise it.

So it’s even worse than I thought. This morning I asked that he tell me everything. He says that it started as friends and then got flirty. Then there were messages including nudes. Apparently he’s completely deleted them from his phone.

He said that he didn’t stop it because due to his MH he wasn’t feeling much and this made him feel something. Though he maintains that he doesn’t want her. He says that he should have stopped it. He told her that they would never be together.

As for the hotel, he says that he helped her back with her presents and that she booked it because she still lives at home and the parents don’t approve of her being drunk. Then she kissed him and they ended up having sex.

I’ve told him that we are separated. Don’t know next steps yet. But I’ve also said that I will not be keeping his dirty little secret.

I asked for proof of the STI check but he said he’s deleted the text. I know I will have to be checked too but think it might be too soon to show anything right now.

He’s asked me not to tell anyone as he’s ashamed and embarrassed

He is thinking purely about his own feelings over this and not yours

You need help, support and friendship now and he want that to be cut off due to his feeling.

Yet he would do anything to make this marriage work...

until it makes him feel uncomfortable

He has absolutely no right to ask anything of you

he did this, he can't then.ask you to feel worse without some type of life line and support

I took 3 months to decide

there is a TED talk on coming back from an affair and its very insightful

google "TED talk coming back from an affair"

he needs to be searching for the solutions, watch carefully whilst you make your decision

and beware of solution sex - its a thing so Id advise to abstain but obviously thats just my thoughts

Literally idk what types of women these are encouraging her to stay with someone snagging other women? Are you all just weird misogynists?

"I don't know life without him" well she knows life with him, which is staying home with their infant daughter, excited for their plans the next day, while he's out putting his dick in another woman, kissing her and coming home and fucking OP with that same dick and kissing OP with that same mouth. Her not knowing about it because he was calculated enough to invade the privacy of her phone so she wouldn't find out. But her yea, being a single mum is hard so she should stay, LOL

I'm sorry OP. He's a sad, pathetic little man who needs to grow TF up and step up to his responsibilities as a husband and father.

Make sure to text his parents so they know what they've raised 😃

Though he maintains that he doesn’t want her. He says that he should have stopped it.

For someone who didn't want her he was putting on a pretty good act showing the opposite. This isn't a drunken grope, it's calculated deception

And he's embarrassed? so he bloody well should be.

i was weak and naive is such a lame excuse. lots of thought about him here and how hes feeling and hes ashamed and hes embarrassed and dont tell anyone ... what about you?

He’s a liar, he cheated on you, he’s put your health at risk, get rid OP 💐

I'd honestly be emailing everybody at their work to tell them loool. The audacity of fucking someone else then telling his wife not to tell anyone 🤯 no word of a lie if this was me he would not be breathing right now.

Oh op, your latest update shows him in his true colours. How dare he blame this on his MH, ffs. He’s a dirty fucking sleazebag. I think you’ve made the right decision in separating. Do not keep the reason secret .. you will end up being the bad one, as he will definitely turn nasty in the end. Good luck moving forward.

she still lives at home and the parents don’t approve of her being drunk.

How old is she??

I have to say, I agree with this. No woman shags someone else's husband and then feels the wife "deserves to know". If she genuinely thought that, she wouldn't have done it, would she? I'm not blaming her as such, but it's such a lame justification. Like, he's awful, look what he did, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your husband is a piece of shite! I think you could come back from this if you wanted to....but do you want to? My own husband has instigated our separation earlier this year and he has been seeing someone else since the very beginning....there's a big part of me that could let it go if he wanted to "come back", but there's a bigger part of me that sees him having sex with someone else, and that image will never leave my head, and I can't see myself ever being intimate with him again, knowing he's been effing someone else. Good luck xx

Agree ! Seems to me that things get angrier and bitchier when certain posters post late at night ! It never fails to amaze me how angry some posters can be, to people they don’t know. It’s mean and unnecessary behaviour. Maybe MN should have a curfew !

Just read your update OP.
I'm afraid it doesn’t come as a surprise given that you and at least one other person could sense their relationship as inappropriate, although obviously you were totally unaware of how far it had progressed into affair territory.

The fact that he is still basically refusing to accept blame for his infidelity is very revealing. He has blamed you, the OW, his mental health , everything apart from his own failure to respect his marriage vows when he saw the opportunity to boost his ego by having an affair
.
I don't see how you can reconcile with him because the betrayal is too big and you will never trust him again.

I'm betting starts with a 2 and he is late 30s at least.

He needs to GTFO out of the house while you sort your head out. You can't think clearly with him wheedling and going on about trivial shit like his phone.

Didn’t want to read and run but just wanted to say, some of us have been where you are and have become really happy and successful since we ended things and our hearts did heal. I’ve remarried and had more children. You will get through this.

She’s 21. We are both in our early 30s.

And don’t worry. I’ve made it clear that I’m furious with him for what he’s done to me and DD and how I hate him for that.

He’s said that he takes full responsibility and that he knows he’s hurt me and that he does love me. He regrets it all. I’ve said that I don’t believe anything he says at the moment.

The funny thing is that if you knew him you’d never think he was the type to cheat. I certainly didn’t. Part of the reason I haven’t told anyone is because I’m ashamed of my friends and family knowing exactly who I am leaving with and how I’ve been treated like a mug all this time.

My focus right now is on DD and trying to minimise disruption to her life.

I do work and am the higher earner.

I’m reading posts on here saying message his family and email his work colleagues and tell them all what he’s done. Please don’t do that right now. Find a counsellor and get yourself through the shock and make a plan for yourself, your daughter and your marriage before you go Dr Foster on the whole thing.

21?
For heaven's sake OP. What an absolute disgusting piece of work he is.
So he did this on her 21st birthday?
Edited to say if her parents don't like to see her drunk and that's why she was at the hotel then it's questionable whether she was competent to give consent.

He’s painted himself as the victim him with his mental health, he’s been feeling distance etc and he’s not taking ownership or responsibility. I couldn’t respect him.

You have to do what you think is right for you and stick to your guns

Honestly, once he's cheated, it'll always be in your head. Every time he's at work, every time he's out. What's he doing? Who's he talking to? My Mum took my Dad back time and time and time again because she was too afraid to go it alone. And by the end, I think he kind of despised her for it.

If you let him stay, you will never know peace of mind again. And being really honest, he doesn't love you because someone who does wouldn't hurt you like this. He wants to maintain the status quo, have a wifey at home to do his bidding and a comfortable life while chasing other women as a hobby.

Don't fall for his bullshit. You're worth more, and your family unit deserves to be treated with more respect. And don't enable his dirty secret. The shame is ALL his, not yours. He deserves for people to know who he really is.

It’s easy for me to say and I’m out of the other side of this now, and you will have conflicting feelings about it all.
i’m sorry, I think you will probably find more out and this will be bigger than he’s admitted. He’ll probably keep minimising and lying and then with any new information you find out he’ll try and say he was only keeping it from you to protect you/not to hurt you/ he cares about you…
the only practical advice I can give (and wished I’d listened too at the time) is to speak to a solicitor - you can have a free half hour usually - quietly get yourself protected and secure while he still thinks he’s winning you over or wearing you down.
because unfortunately, as much as we’d never think it or believe it, they can become very spiteful and nasty, and very quickly.

Yeah, going to their work is a bad idea. One thing I did when I was in the same situation was not involve ex''s work, and his manager told him that I was the only one behaving with any dignity.

Let's hope the OW doesn't go to HR, eh? then the shit might really hit the fan.

I would agree with that practical advice. Dont say anything to him but quietly have a talk with a solicitor just in case it comes to separation.