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?

Wheedle, not weedle.

He has now blocked/deleted her, yes.

@CrazyMidget it isn't that she is void of any responsibility, but many a young woman has fell for the chat of an, older, senior man in work. It doesn't make her evil personified. There were posts which were very misogynistic. There were also posts about telling her parents, as if they would go against their daughter, who was only just out of her teen years when it started. Or along the theme that she'd come off worse in work, thankfully those days are gone. How anyone in the workplace is expected to have any respect for him, as a senior staff member, is now a joke. There's something very seedy and exceptionally grubby about the plan to shag her on her 21st birthday. The OP was being spurred along, as if the OW can't just pick herself up from this, while the OP and her DH would make absolute shows of themselves, especially if they stay together. She won't be his last affair, the OP doesn't know if she was his first, he's just playing the victim at the moment.

It doesn't really matter. I hope I'm wrong but I'd put money on him not being giving his marching orders.

Mumsnet is full of it. “He cheated” posts. Then a couple years later, the same OP is posting about more cheating or how miserable things are etc. So many women will put up with anything rather than be single and have self respect. You see it on here all the time.

Kindly, the logistics and finances are not your problem to navigate. He can kip on someone’s couch, get a bedsit, go to family. Ultimately that’s his issue.
It will be difficult for you to really have space to think and decide how you feel/what you want if he is still in the house, and you will undoubtably be influenced by his presence. So far, he is not having to deal with any real repercussions other than perhaps being slightly less comfortable on the couch. He’s really done quite a number on you.

I hope that when she's married with a child, her husband sticks it in someone as young and spiteful as she is today.

How ironic. Is it that you don’t know what “spiteful” means, or are you really just that lacking in self-awareness?

So shit bag husbands been put in his place now what about the husband shagger? What’s he going to do about that? Has she been told? Have you seen proof?
has he made his workplace aware to have separations put in place at work?

If hes still in hopes of winning you back he needs to be very open about the steps he takes with that and no hes not entitled to do it privately, full transparency is needed here.

I agree staying under the same roof isn’t going to give the OP the space she needs particularly if she WFH. Personally I would not want to be in the same space with cheated on me. Seeing their face and imagining them sending and receiving nude photos and having sex with someone else would all be too much.

Honestly OP I think having him stay in the family home while you thrash out what is to happen in the future is not a good idea for YOU . He will be fully aware that so long as he is there and putting on his contrte act for you that there is a good chance you will try to carry on with your marriage. He wasn't contrite when you warned him his friendship with this woman was inappropriate, he wasn't bothered about you when it became sexual. And he wasn't contrite when you found out about him having sex with her on her 21st birthday. And he won't be contrite in a few months time. But he very well knows if he can stay in the family home and make all the right noises and do what a contrite cheater is expected to do then he has a good chance of winning you over. He knows very well how emotionally dependent on him that you have always been and he will work on that.
Please make him find somewhere else to live to give you chance to experience life without him being there. To give you chance to gather yourself. You seem more worried about him and his welfare than your own, and ,by extension, your child's. And he knows he can manipulate you.

100%. She's going to let him worm his way back in eventually, the bar really is on the floor.

You have been together 16 years , share a life and a daughter. Dont base your decision on him having sex with someone. Do you love him? Is he a good partner ? Do you want to grow old with him ? I get it’s a massive breach of trust but Sex can be monumental or at best mediocre , it means so Little compared at years of shared Lives.

This 100%

OP you need to get more angry. And you need distance.

He has no moral right to stay in the house with you. Tell him he should have thought about all this before he betrayed you repeatedly.

It’s not just sex. He lied repeatedly. He actively pursued a flirtation with a 21 year old with the intention of fucking her while his wife is at home with a toddler. He had unsafe sex. He lied about getting an STI test. He lied about it being a one off spontaneous thing and later admitted to previous sexual interactions. He is a dirty, sleazy, lying, cheating, cunt. And you are encouraging another woman to ‘stand by her man’. If you want to tolerate being treated like this in your own relationships, fill your boots. But there is no excuse for encouraging a woman to accept this lot in life just because your bar is sub par.

Look, clearly some of you think that I’m a mug. But it’s really not possible for him to stay with family or rent somewhere else right now. His family is not local and friends would not be able to put him up.

I don’t want him here but regardless of what he’s done he is the father of my child and I just cannot see him on the streets. He also needs to be local to help with DD’s care. Again I have no family support where we are and I’m not being left to parent completely on my own because of his actions.

He also works outside of the home for long shifts so isn’t here during the day anyway. He is going to be out of the house as much as possible. Basically he will only be sleeping here and helping with DD’s care.

As I said, I have not made a long term decision. But I won’t be judged for this interim solution, it’s the best that I can do right now for me and DD.

Don’t let Mumsnet get you down. Again I would recommend the survivinginfidelity.com forums which are frequented by both betrayed spouses making difficult decisions, and wayward spouses who can show you what contrition looks like when it is genuine.

I'd say being under the same roof isn't necessarily the worst option right now OP. At least you know where he is and what he's doing.

What matters now is how much effort he puts in to make this right, if he can. So you need to take a huge step back and see how hard he wants to fight for his family. Do not make this easy for him - he's hurt you beyond words and he needs to take accountability, own it and make it better.

And if in the coming months, you can't see a way past this hurt, that's OK. You need to take your time making any decisions because this is the rest of your life here. And look after yourself.

I don't think anyone would judge you for the short term solution but more for the fact the long term solution doesn't seem to be making a plan to get him out. Keeping him in the house means slowly slithering back in.

She loves him but he doesn’t love her unfortunately. That daughter will grow up thinking women should always forgive their cheating partner.

If OP does forgive and they do get past it, I don't see why the daughter would ever have to know. Who would tell her and for what purpose?

That’s not fair. It hasn’t even been a week. I’m still processing this. I am in no fit state to be making significant long-term decisions right now.

And DD has no idea that anything has happened. She doesn’t need to know. I am keeping things as normal as possible for her.

You are doing what feels best for you and your daughter at this moment and I support you 100% in that. There will be many others on here who feel the same. I wish you all the best and I hope you’re ok.

Completely agree

Real life sometimes isn't as neat as some people here seem to think. Wouldn't it be lovely if everyone could discover their husband was a lying, cheating scumbag, process the news and be living separately from them inside a week? Remaining under the same roof does make you more vulnerable to the performative repentance routine but if there's nothing you can do about it then that's all there is to it. Ultimately there is a child in the home and it's not right to make drastic moves without considering her welfare.