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 did tell him that it’s over but he kept insisting that it doesn’t have to be.

I got a variation of this from my ex. 'I feel like I have to make a decision.' No mention that I might have an opinion on him sleeping with another woman or a decision about how we dealt with that. MN wasn't around then so I let it slide.

Listen to the collective wisdom on here and let it help you. Sorry, it's a shit thing to deal with.

The only way to come back from it for me would be to quit his job, continue the remorse, allow his phone to be checked until your trust is back. But it might never come back. Is that how you'd want to live?

He has ended your marriage. That is hard to hear but it’s the truth. Your marriage as you knew it is over and you are now in uncharted territory. To stay with him means to rebuild from the beginning when he has pushed you both miles back from what should be the starting line. What he’s done will always be there, he can’t undo it, he can’t make it better. It eats away at you and it will never truly go away.

It’s just not worth it.

I am sorry you are in this situation.

Read the book ‘not just friends’.
Read the book ‘how to help my spouse heal from my affair’.

Read the book cheating in a nutshell- this will explain some of how you feel (and how your feelings may evolve).

Marriage counselling - the marriage didn’t cheat - he did. He needs individual counselling with a betrayal counsellor (who does not listen to unmet needs bullshit).

At the end of the day he lied to himself to give himself permission to betray the values he says he has. He says he believes in fidelity but he clearly has a but in his fidelity. I am faithful but not if my wife won’t find out. I am faithful but it’s okay to block contacts in her phone to ensure she never finds out. I believe in fidelity but if I’m stressed at work and a bit drunk it’s okay to cheat.

His excuses are typical cheat responses. If he felt distance from you (not unusual in a long relationship when both stressed) why didn’t he come to you?

Maybe the texting and contact and lusting after her and the ego kibbles she gave him gave him mental health issues (very common due to cognitive dissonance (I’m a nice guy/nice guys don’t lust after colleagues). It’s very common for cheats to seem mentally imbalanced for a period of time. It’s pretty normal if you lie to a loved one’s face.

The cheat builds a narrative to justify their shit choices and behavior - that means they create distance and turn you into the villain.

If she’s contacting you I guess he has told her some lies too - why would a one night stand bother? She clearly hoped (was promised?) more.

Has your husband really told you the truth? Ask to see all the messages. Trickle truth is often the true killer of a marriage - if you find more lies in a month your respect for him will reduce further.

It takes 3-5 years to recover from infidelity. Most cheats don’t a have the traits to fix a marriage (that’s why they cheated in the first place).

Sorry you are in this position op. Kick him out again and ask him to come back with the full truth.

Right now your emotions are all over the place @MyHeartisinTwo so I’d get my ducks in a row behind his back and go see a solicitor to find out what you’re entitled if you did split up.
Don't let him dictate how you should forgive him or how long your grief lasts, this is entirely his fault and now’s it out in the open he gets no say on how you feel or react. You might feel your marriage is worth fighting for but if he starts getting resentment or using blame to excuse his behaviour six months down the line then you know he will never take responsibility for his own actions.

I'm so sorry OP. I became a single parent when mine were almost 5 and 3 and you WILL cope if that's the path you take.

Question: he's been "struggling with his MH". When you say this, has he been saying he's depressed, is pulling away from you, maybe even suggested he's not sure if he loves you anymore?

@therockingbird said: "It eats you up inside and he gets away with it.. then you the one in the wrong for not being able to move on." and this is so true. But there's no expiry date on processing, as mentioned up-thread, only on how long you're prepared to stick around to see if it's worth it.

It's as if he's brought home an ugly ornament he's picked up somewhere. He doesn't care about it, he says he doesn't even want it anymore, yet it's destined to sit forever on the mantlepiece of your home, and although you may become able to ignore it most of the time, even develop a bit of 'ornament blindness' or talk yourself into thinking it's perhaps not as bad as you thought when he first put it there, there will be days when you catch sight of it in the corner of your eye and the grossness of it is undeniable and inescapable.

And none of the confusion, shame or embarrassment is on you. You may say or do things in the coming days, weeks and months which feel out of character or which you'd never imagined yourself doing or agreeing to - please remember that his actions prompted all of this, not you supposedly being remiss in paying him enough attention at home. Repair and recovery can feel SO unfair -the effort and energy of repair should be weighted heavily on him, as you're stuck with the recovery bit, which you didn't ask for but have to engage with one way or the other anyway.

Find a marriage counsellor (or get him to find one and set up a meeting) and also a counsellor for yourself. You’ll need someone to talk with. Marriages can survive affairs and I think it’s worth both of you working through it and see where it brings you and your relationship. It seems the wound is very raw right now and I hope you have someone there to give you hug.

Just walk away...not that hard

I should imagine he has been struggling with his MH it must be hard to live a double life and try to keep both sides apart! MH is not an excuse, he had you to lean on instead he made up a story that he was emotionally supporting OW with her MH. My goodness he is throwing every excuse out to you making out you and OW are to blame and of course the old chestnut excuse his MH. He’s like a snivelling child who’s been caught with their hands in the cookie jar blaming mum that it’s her fault he’s hungry because he refused to eat his dinner.
He is to blame for his own actions that has blown up your marriage, he thought he could get away with it, he’s been caught out and snivelling that actions have consequences and trying to deflect the blame on everyone bar himself. He’s not the one who is devastated, you are and he may have led that woman on to think they had a future because I can’t think why she’d be so vindictive over a one night stand.

That OW sounds like a stalker and a home wrecker. She has no right to be contacting you directly. I would not reply at all or engage with her in any way. What happens now in your marriage, stays between you and your husband. Obviously he has to block her and stop all contact with her.

Take your time to decide what you want and to consider your options. If you decide to stay for now put plans in place to make a life without him in case you find you cant live with this after all. Do you have a job? If not find one. Build up more of an independent social life - he can look after your child so you have time for hobbies and making more or closer friends. You will feel more confident to demand what you need, better able to see a life without him and that could still bring you back together.

The thing that is really striking about this is how much he is minimising his own involvement here. If he could see that she fancied him, he could have been extra careful to distance himself from her, but he did the exact opposite. This makes him more to blame, not less. His lack of responsibility and failure to own his own actions makes him deeply unsexy as a man. What a loser.

You'll never get the trust back, once it's gone, it's gone.
Being unfaithful would be a deal breaker for me. I could maybe forgive, but forgetting would be impossible. So it would be game over for me.
Sorry you're going through this @MyHeartisinTwo.

100%. It's not just the act (that he clearly hoped to get away with) but the lies and then the calculated manipulation to block the phone!!

Had she been a different sort of person and not threatened to tell his wife, this would have been a permanent arrangment behind @MyHeartisinTwo 's back without a doubt.

To the PPs that say being a single Mum is hard. yes, it's hard but living with a cheat will eat at your soul. I would rather juggle a tonne of shit so I can get little Jimmy to his dentist or little Priscilla to her flute lessons than have this in my life.

The OW told you because she wanted to ruin your marriage, which she may well have done. It's so easy for " us" to say ltb, but not that easy to do. The only thing I will say is that once the trust has gone in a relationship there really isn't much left.
I am sorry this has happened to you. 🌺

My advice is to you is to save yourself a lot of heartache and just get rid of him now because it’s going to mess with your self esteem so badly you’ll be a shell of yourself in a year/ 2 years. By which time he’ll feel like he’s ‘done everything he can to fix the relationship’, and have absolved himself of all responsibility. Then he’ll be up for a fight with regards to marital assets and child custody. See a solicitor now while he’s contrite. And don’t be generous with anything. Speaking from experience. And ofc he wants to keep it secret. Don’t. If you can handle the backlash then don’t be a cheating asshole. Control the narrative.

His sordid act is not your secret to keep. I would kick him out and tell everyone why.

Anyway, why would you want such a weak individual back? He's not strong enough to keep the promise he made on your wedding day to forsake all others.

Dry your tears and get angry. So fucking angry that he won't know what has hit him.

Whether you can trust him again and whether you can forgive him for what he did are two completely separate things.

Perhaps it was a one off, he's extremely remorseful and would never do it again - so, potentially, you could trust him.

But that doesn't automatically mean that you can forgive and get over what he's done. You could be 1000% sure he'll never do it again and still not be able to forgive this one time, because, he's given something that was meant to be special and just between the two of you, to someone else.

I'm really sorry this has happened to you. I hope you find the strength to do whatever is the right thing for you.

He is sorry and doesn't want anyone to know? He wasn't thinking like that when he was inside her was he? Get rid. I'm sorry op, you deserve much more x

Did he opt out of his role as parent then? When is society going to shun men that do this? It’s simply not acceptable.

Tell him to shut up, stop whining and trying to back you into a corner. He gets to decide nothing here, it is all in your hands BUT you do not need to decide or commit to anything now, tomorrow or next week.
Its not 'just' the physical act of cheating, its the engagement beforehand which was enough that 2 people pointed out it was inappropriate, it was the choice to ignore that because he loved the ego boost, it was the choice to go to the party knowing things were already inappropriate, and as for trying to protect himself by accessing your phone and blocking her....im lost for words.
And its 'a one off' cos he's been caught because the dumbass picked a woman that gets her thrills by alerting the wife, would it be a one-off if she was happy to keep it a secret? Nope

Monogamy doesn't always come naturally to humans tbh. It doesn't necessarily mean he has no respect for you etc etc. I once had a one night stand while married. I was drunk and horny and the work colleague had consistently focus his attention on me for months and I felt special. My DH never found out. It didn't mean I didn't love my husband or value my marriage. I'd had too much to drink and got caught up in the moment - it wasn't calculating. I realised quickly it was a huge mistake and that yes, I'd been weak and naive. Nothing like that ever happened again. I have an extremely happy marriage of over 20 years. I'm not saying don't leave him. That's up to you. But don't feel you have to if you fell deep down this is a genuine one off and you want to stay. I agree you have to make him pay though. Don't forgive too easily.

Exactly. Not only are they beta feckless men wreaking damage on their children and ex wives / partners for ever, they also usually end up costing the tax payer money because They don't pay to look after their kid/s. And people call the mum 'single mums' and the kids 'fatherless' - no one labels the dad. He gets away with it all. Time society changed their approach to these useless idiots.