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?

A good friend of mine found out that her husband had cheated on her while he was away for work. She decided to forgive him and try to save the marriage. At the time, they had two very young children, ages one and two. A year later, he left her for a woman who was ten years younger. She was absolutely devastated, and it took her years to put herself back together.

Of course, everyone is different, and only you know whether you could truly move past something like this. Personally, I never could. I would not be able to forgive it, forget it, or trust a word he said again. Why would you believe it only happened once? How could you know it hadn't happened before with someone else? And what reason is there to believe it won't happen again, especially if he realizes he can get away with it and that you would forgive almost anything to keep the marriage?

No older man starts an innocent friendship with a 21 year old woman, funny how they never become friends with 21 year old men

Tried to get her to hide it. Is now turning her pain into his pain ‘’ oh woe is me, it’s so hard to see the pain I’ve caused you’’

This. He knew he would look like a shit bag to his friends, especially the ones who saw this coming and tried to warn him, so rather than @MyHeartisinTwo going to friends for needed support, he wanted her to help him cover this up. He's turning on the waterworks and turning your pain into his so you'll feel sorry for him. He doesn't seem to have really taken responsibility for his cheating and lying and doesn't want to be held to account for blowing up his life. He's being deeply selfish and I suspect that's his core when the chips are down.

There is something you do need to rush and that's STI testing. Don't have sex with him unless he has STI testing done through a clinic or physician and you are shown the results. He can't be trusted to actually do the home tests accurately or at all or report true results and there are drug resistant STIs out there. He lied about putting your sexual and reproductive health at risk too. 🤬

It’s possibly a case of damage limitation given how enthusiastic OW was to let OP know ASAP they had slept together.

Sounds like it. More attempts to avoid taking responsibility and blame everyone but himself. But it isn't a good look for him either way, even if he tries the "she's crazy" (oh, and btw my dick just accidently fell into her) business. If OW decides to speak to HR (or someone else does, you don't know what other colleagues or managers know or think, depends on the culture there) he's in trouble. If he pre-empts that and speaks to them, he's still in trouble and it could look even worse for him, esp if he's in a senior position to her, that he's actively trying to use his power over her to lose her her job after using her for sex, while taking no responsibility himself. Which essentially is what he's doing.

What an absolute TWAT.

He's not crying about the pain and emotional carnage hes reaked in your family hes crying in self pity over what his actions will cost him.
Please don't fall for his bs

It’s only ‘killing him’ because he got caught and you found out. He wouldn’t have regrets if you never found out. He never put you and your dd first when he had the affair. My ex had the same reaction as your husband. I didn’t fall for it.

Quite.

He'd have quite happily carried on shagging behind OP's back with her none the wiser if OW hadn't decided to tell. It's why I unfortunately don't think that OP could know for certain whether or not it had ever happened before and why it could happen again. Or what else he's been hiding. These things, sadly, quite often end up unravelling other unexpected things.

He's been very, very stupid, obviously, but his decision-making in this seems quite a lot more than a one-off "mistake". Though I'm not sure he quite thought through the possibility that OW, as an actual person and not a sex toy, silly as she may be, might react in ways that were not in his control.

In my experience, in a professional workplace a twenty year old is generally thought of as a child. Usually an apprentice of some sort, someone who the grown ups will take under their wing and protect. Seducing one to use for sex in this day and age is beyond the pale and if it comes out in his workplace I suspect he's pretty well cooked.

As his conquest (I don't want to presume and call her his victim but given the age difference and likely power differential it's a close call)....as his conquest seems determined to ensure she isn't kept as his dirty little secret it seems more than likely it's going to come out.

Indeed we don’t have many people this young in my workplace and they are always on an internship or assistant role.

21 year olds have been out of school for only 3 years.

If an employee is an adult, employers don't judge on age. The litmus test is if she reports to him or works closely with him in a role that's junior to his. The reason is that this exposes the firm to allegations of sexual abuse if the junior employee says they felt they couldn't refuse lest their job be affected. I don't think employers moralise about age at all, if both are adults.

What did you do?

He never intended you to find out.
He secretly took your phone and blocked accounts - premeditated, calculated. Malicious.

You still don’t know the whole story.
Do not take at the face value anything he tells you.

The tears you see are not for you.
He is shitting himself. He’s worried about himself. Panick. He thought he had it under control, and was probably leading OW and feeding her stories too.
The OW unleashed hell. Likely to take it to work HR too. And this time he’ll try to get in there first to manage the narrative.
He knows he’s fucked on a few fronts. He’s worried about himself.

He knows you, and he’ll use that to play into your emotions and say anything that he thinks will serve him.

He’s not a victim. He’s a liar and manipulator.

Cut your losses.
You are young.

I am not claiming that every couple who stay together after infidelity will be happy, that would be ridiculous. However I know that it is possible for some. I was only trying to advise the OP that options other than ending her marriage were possible, because she seemed to be struggling with the idea of that.

She does not need to rush into divorce and all that entails if it isn't what she wants.

I'm sorry things didn't work out for you but it doesn't mean it might not for her.

Actually, it has plenty of real-world effects. You’ve only got to look at some of the behaviours of under-25s and statistics around the risks these can present to know that. Risk of death by dangerous driving, for example, is much higher in this age group - I believe the statistic for young male drivers is something like a four-fold increase in likelihood. In fact more recent developments suggest that brain maturation is ongoing much beyond 25 into the early thirties.

It’s highly questionable in this context whether under-25s should be allowed to be in some armed forces roles (and often the most dangerous ones), for example, or whether we should reconsider the ethics of assuming that they have full capacity to consent in the same way that older adults do.

So yes, under 25s are allowed to do certain things, but a lot of these rules and norms arose when understanding of neuroscience was either much cruder or non-existent, and it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s right. I’m not sure of the answer, because of course young people have to be out in the world and learning, but there are certain things that I believe should be much more heavily regulated for this age group.

These cognitive realities can and do translate into a higher risk of morally-questionable actions because while you can ‘know’ right from wrong (in the sense that you’ve been taught it) this is obviously far from the only thing that informs judgement. Brain structures and chemistry play a significant part while social norms (e.g. it’s wrong to have a relationship with a married person) are only one thing which influence behaviours. It’s very simplistic to say that we shouldn’t consider cognitive development when judging behaviours in the very young simply because they ‘should know’ something.

This young woman was 20 or 21 (I think I’ve read both). She simply is not a consenting adult in the same way that he is, if you consider not only life experience but brain development. He has taken advantage of a significant developmental imbalance (to say nothing of the likely power imbalance at work). I’m not saying she has no capacity to have thought about what she was doing, but if we consider it on a spectrum of behaviours and development, she is enormously less responsible than he is.

You don’t ask someone ‘where you fit in’ with regards to a relationship with a married man after a one night stand, or even a week or so of an affair.
She’s asking because he has given her the impression that there is a relationship on offer because this has been going on for a while.

I agree with this. She's little older than a child and definitely doesn't have adult brain development yet, which you get at 25. The fact he's her senior at work also means he's likely taken advantage of her

Well, there are posters who are arguing that this woman’s “lack of fully formed brain function” mean she cannot be held responsible for shagging a married man. Therefore it’s perfectly possible that such a person could….not understand…..that a one night stand or brief fling DOES NOT mean you are going to be the next wife?

This is what OP said regarding the Where she fits in comment:
As for the OW she is apparently angry as she called him and he wouldn’t speak to her. He has told her that he needs to sort out things with his family and she has asked where she fits in 😂 clearly wanted him for herself.

This to me reads that it is OP's H telling OP that the young woman asked him where she fits in. As he has lied and been economical with the truth , both in his emotional affair with the young woman and about his physical betrayal of OP and he has minimised and distorted everything since he was found out then if is entirely possible thd young woman said no.such thing.

The truth is, harsh though it is, you've no idea who else he has been having sex with. Of course he didn't get caught the first time, what are the odds of that? Please try to be logical, I know it is so hard, your entire reality has just been absolutely destroyed. But he's a liar.You only know about this one because she told you.

Until last week you'd have been saying "No way has my husband cheated on me" and he would still be doing it if she hadn't told you.

You don't know what to do? You do though, it's just hard to do it.

This won't go away. It can't be fixed. You will always know he went after a woman 10 years younger than him for sex and you will always know he will do it again once he realises you're willing to tolerate that. Why on earth wouldn't he?That was his choice.

What are a few tears and a bit of drama from the Mrs to him so long as he keeps his feet under your table.

So in a few more years, when you do realise you cannot live with him, or he gets caught again, it will be far more devastating for your daughter than right now. The younger she is the easier it will be for her to get used to the new circumstances.

It would be devastating for her to have no choice but to tolerate an unstable home, an unhappy mother, and a lying father.

I think you will stay. That's up to you. But please be clear - you will be doing it for you, not for your child. And he has almost certainly had sex with other women, and if not it was only because he could not line one up before now.

Sorry if this sounds harsh. I wish someone had spoken to me so honestly when I found out about my cheater. Someone mentioned the chump lady website earlier. You really should go on there and have a good read. Your cheater is not special. They are all the same sad, selfish, lying arseholes.

I don't think her age gives her a pass for poor moral decisions. A married man wanted to shag me at 16. I knew it was wrong then and lost all respect for him. I didn't shag him. I knew it was a bad thing to do.

OP will decide what's right for her but I suggest keeping the family unit together for the daughter is not necessarily the best thing. You are setting a blueprint for relationships for your daughter. If you stay, she may never know and maybe you can be happy and overcome this. Maybe you'll never feel secure and that would be miserable. Or maybe leaving teaches your daughter that you don't have to stay in a bad relationship and that men aren't allowed to get away with treating you certain ways. What would you advise your DD if she is in your shoes in 30 years, OP?

It's so weird that some women are pretending a 21 year old grown woman doesn't know that banging a married man is a no no, or somehow is not responsible for behaving really badly. Honestly, truly weird. I have to assume they did something horrific when they were 21 they dont' want to own, or maybe their adult kids behave badly.

If we start going down that stupid road, nobody gets to go to prison for murder if they're 20 and so on and so forth. And they might even have a point if it was just an impulse control thing, but she planned this and executed it, she didn't drunkenly snog him in a cupboard once, she chose to plan and execute shagging a married man and then chose to try to get him to leave his wife over it. And yep, even at that age, I'd have given her a wide berth, everyone is entitled to choose people who align with them morally as friends.

I did plenty of stupid stuff in my late teens and early 20s (I never chose to fuck a married man, mind you but who knows, I might have if he'd come on to me at work like OPs husband did). My decisions were all on me. My impulse control might not have been fully fledged but my morals and understanding of right and wrong were working perfectly well.

The grubby young woman doesn't get a pass. At all. She is not a victim. At all. He's far worse than she is, obviously, but she gets to wear the consequences of her actions now, like all adults.

My point is how can you possibly know that?

You have no idea if they are genuinely happy. You can’t possibly, unless you have some kind of mind reading power. They might choose to stay together. They might appear to be happy in public. They might say they are happy. But you have no idea if that really is the case. People don’t share their fears, doubts and pain always. And there would likely be a sense of shame to admit that you are not happy when people know you took someone back after cheating. There is an even higher drive to appear happy.

My reference to my own situation is to point out that my nearest and dearest didn’t know how I felt. We appeared like ‘the ideal couple’ one close friend said. Different circumstances to the OP.

So you can’t say with any degree of confidence that any one achieves happiness in a relationship after a betrayal like this unless you have been through the exact same thing.

The OP needs to make her own decision but don’t give her false hope that you can’t back up with facts. If you had been through the same and were saying you are genuinely happy you stayed (and by same, I mean the layers of betrayal and manipulation) then fair enough. But citing other people as being happy is not helpful because they might just look happy from the outside.

Thats the point I was making.

As an absolute bottom line, you really do have to chuck him out at least for a few months. He will definitely cheat on you again and again and again if you do not. Why wouldn't he? He needs to grovel, beg and plead and be shown there are true consequences and you need to at least fake being strong enough to dump the creep, he needs to believe this is a genuine possible outcome. Otherwise you're giving the adulterer a free pass to prey on your weakness.

Although, tbh, my belief is that when you chuck him out he'll shack up with the random shagger. Any port in a storm and all that.

Cheaters are more than three times as likely to betray their partners again, compared to decent, honest people. It is very, very difficult to think clearly when your husband has just ruined your life, but you need to try, it's very important that you at least try.

Anyway, good luck with it all, whatever happens.

It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.

She is both old enough to know what she was doing and be fully accountable and responsible for her choices.

AND

She is young enough that her frontal cortex was still in development and as an older man, married with a child, he holds the most responsibility and should receive the most of our anger AND be seen as predatory given the age difference and her mental
health issues.