just recovering from shock of discovering dh's affair

[mollynp]

i discovered on friday my husband's affair (after suspecting for a while) after reading his text messages.
it's been going on for six months, there have been a lot of calls, texts and emails and he has kissed her 4 times, though never had sex.
he said he fell in love with her but didn't want to sleep with her as that would be taking it too far.
she is a colleague of his (which i'm not happy about) but he doesn't see her a lot at work as they work in different buildings.
he did go to her flat twice but insists that they only kissed and never slept together.
but even though they never slept together i feel totally devastated. we've been together for 18 years (married for nearly nine) and have 3 young children.
am i being over the top? is this as bad as a normal affair?
he says that it's an awful mistake, that he loves me and doesn't want to leave me and never did and i feel i couldn't live without him (i never expected this!), so don't want him to.
i am totally confused and don't understand how he could have done this to me.

Thanks, i'm so glad i started this post, if i hadn't i would have spent another day in bed crying. Before this i had been trying to get answers from other posts, but it wasn't working. The uncomfortable adrenaline description is exactly how i'm feeling, i was wondering why i felt so alert all day on very little sleep. How long do these symptoms usually last? We've made love a lot the last few days, even the night i found out! Some people might find this strange, but at the moment it's hugely important to me that he shows me he loves me and i feel loved. I only regret making love on friday night as i discovered more details on saturday. I know we can get through this together and i know it will take a long time. we both love each other dearly and couldn't live without each other. he is truly sorry that it happened, he didn't think about how awful i would feel on finding out. The affair was going to end in the summer anyway as the ow is going away for a few months and he wishes that i had never found out. I'm glad i did despite the pain he has caused me as if i hadn't found out i think it could very easily happen again. I don't think he could knowingly put me through this again.

Can you explain what you mean by you were trying to get answers from other posts molly?

Look I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to be a rocky road and you won't always feel the way you do now - sometimes you'll feel a whole lot worse and at others, a whole lot better.

You've heard of the fight or flight survival mechanism and what you're experiencing right now is fight mode. Your instincts are to confront this situation and head off the enemy at the pass. At some point over the next few days, you will feel exhausted though, so do give into sleep when it comes and make sure your H takes up the slack when that slump arrives.

I noticed you said in your OP that the feeling that you couldn't live without him was unexpected. That's entirely understandable. He's been part of the fabric of your life for 18 years and you came to trust that he would always be there, but perhaps you believed that if it all went awry, you would cope pretty well. Your feelings might have shocked you to the core, that in fact you wouldn't cope as well as you'd thought and that actually, you love him more than you'd imagined. That can be frightening and a pleasant surprise in equal measure.

The sex you're describing has been coined "hysterical bonding" and there are complex reasons for this happening, but it is again very commonplace in these situations.

It forms part of the "fight" mechanism I've described above, it becomes a symbol of "reclaiming" eachother and at a time when nothing seems certain any more in life, it can be the one thing that is good and true, while the storm rages elsewhere. There is also an aspect to it that I see written about less, in affair recovery manuals, but I'll try to explain it here.

In a long-term relationship, many couples get into the habit of not really seeing their partner as a sexual being. Sex can become more about "making love" and less about eroticism. The discovery that someone else finds your partner sexually desirable and very attractive literally causes you to see him in a new light - and your libido goes through the roof.

For your H's part, it might be that despite you having regular sex, he had also stopped seeing you as a sexual woman with needs and I'd be surprised if during his affair and the long build-up to it, from first meeting this woman, he hadn't started to think about you differently. He may have cast you in the role of mum to the kids and even though you were having regular sex, I'd be surprised if he hadn't made some unfair comparisons with the OW who was playing the role of the sex siren and every man's fantasy figure . This is the unfairness of affairs - all the while she was telling him how sexy and desirable he was, there would have been times when you would have complained that he hadn't put the bins out. In competition terms (because atm, some of what you're feeling is competitiveness) it is never a level playing-field.

One of the things I always advise a betrayed partner to do is to speak honestly about how your needs were being met in recent times. It can come as an almighty shock to unfaithful men that they don't have a golden dick after all and that actually, they had been failing to meet their wives' real intimacy needs.

This is all part of what Shirley Glass talks about in the book - affairs often occur not when someone wasn't "getting enough" from their relationship, but when they stopped "giving" to it. The challenge for you as a couple is to chart when your H stopped investing in your relationship.

Typically in a feelings addiction affair, or any affair that occurs in a "good" marriage, that under-investment only started after the affair partner loomed into view, but in order to understand this all properly, it's really important that you both timeline properly. Your H must tell you when he first had any contact whatsoever with the OW and explain what happened after that in terms of the various boundaries breached until this point. It's possible that he tried to create a gap to let the affair partner in, but invariably this happens subconsciously. It happens a lot to people who literally cannot feel romantic feelings for more than one partner at a time and even though your H insists that he didn't see the OW as a long-term alternative, in order to have the affair at all, he may have had to distance himself from you. You will read in the book about monogomous infidels, but there are enormous variations within this. At one extreme, the MI feels guilty and unfaithful to the OW if he has sex and happy times with his wife and at the other, he feels guilt towards his wife who wouldn't want to be intimate if she knew what was happening. MIs are never compartmentalisers.

This could be confusing for your H, who may have congratulated himself in recent months that he was managing to pull this off and keep his worlds separate without causing anyone any pain. The OW knew the score and he hadn't made any promises to her - and what you didn't know didn't hurt you. I expect he thought this would all burn brightly for a while and then when the summer was over, he and the OW would part amicably and it would be a nice memory in his dotage. At that point too, he would renew his efforts in your marriage, because even he can't have deluded himself that he had been fully present in your relationship.

The timeline is also crucial to you, because I sense you might be the sort of person who needs to make sense of what is a "missing chapter" in your life. Various events and incidents might be explained now that you know about the affair. It is very common for people to sit down with diaries and their spouse's phone bills and re-construct the entire period, until it makes sense.

It is actually vital that your H knows what life has been like for you in recent months, but do include the build-up, because however long this affair was in its "active phase", there would have been a period beforehand, when the work friendship started down the slippery slope towards an affair.

I can send you a chronology of an affair that you might find helpful, but I'd be interested in what life has been like for you.

Finally, what has your H told the OW and did you witness it? It will be essential to your recovery that she got the right message about your marriage and an unequivocal parting statement.

< awe >

i was hoping to find a similar situation to mine, wanted to read about how other people felt and how they recovered. i suppose hoping that in the end everything would be alright.

at the time he started seeing the ow, i was making an effort to dress better and started dying my hair (to cover greys) and styled it differently. He didn't want me to (didn't see the point, always thought it unecessary), but i did it for me (though later he commented that he thought i had got sexier recently).

but also around the same time i started to become more stressed. i thought it was down to work, i had very bad heartburn that burnt my oesophagus and had to take meds to help it heal as it was too painful to eat anything, then i had thrush a few times (which i never have). maybe i subconsciously knew that something was wrong, and put it all down to work.

He's at work today and i'm at home with the kids. But when he rang me earlier, i did ask him if he felt guilty when he made love to me and he said that he did (in response to your message).

i knew he had been sending texts to this woman at work, and though there were a lot, believed him when he said that they were friends (his friends are usually female). But when i saw that he had been calling her for hours on the mobile i wasn't so sure and questioned him again (and of course he denied anything was happening). Last week i listened to his CD that he has recorded and listened to the last two songs a few times (one he recorded at the start of his affair and one recently). Then it clicked, i knew that these songs were about someone else and on friday after hearing them again in the car, i decided to look at his text messages.

When i showed him his phone he still denied it, but in the end told me. he told me he had kissed her twice and texted and phoned her (and had fallen in love with her!). i took his phone and said that i was going to ring her, but he said that if i did we would definately divorce! i did it anyway i was so angry but i really can't remember what she or i said. we then did more talking and he said he never had any intention of leaving me and that he definately hadn't slept with her. He phoned her to tell her it was over and that she wasn't to ring him or text him again and i think he was worried about her being upset. but he wouldn't let me listen to this conversation.

We went to bed and we made love and went to sleep, but i awoke an hour later wondering about his hotmail account. i tried to get on to it, but didn't know his password. i asked him to show me his emails and he said that we would definately divorce if i did (as i wouldn't like what they said), but in the end he showed me anyway. there was a bit of moaning about me in there (maybe as i had taken one of our kids out for a few hours this had prevented him from meeting her at the pub where all his work colleagues were), and i can't really remember what else apart from that they were obviously intimate. We did more talking and he later admitted that he had been to her flat twice and kissed her then but nothing else.

I found the lyrics written down to his last song and it says in the song that he still loves her even though he can't touch her. It's a shame that the song that he wrote about her at the start of the affair is his best ever song (i really liked it!). he has offered to delete these songs off his website, but i feel bad about that (maybe i shouldn't). Should i make him delete them, will this make me feel better?

I let him ring ow the other day so that she could ask her if she has any intention of changing jobs. This was actually my suggestion as he planned to stay at home with me on monday and i wanted to know what she was doing to stop him going on about how difficult it would be for him to get another job. the number was no longer in his phone, so i had to give it to him from the phone bill (if he ever rings or texts her again i will know). though he didn't want me to be in the room, he did tell me what they said (though i can't actually remember what it was).

please send me the chronology, i would like to see it. I agree i would like to do a timeline, i am constantly thinking of the last 6 months and what has been happening and why.

just struggling to give any attention to the kids at the moment as i just want to be on my own. I made him tell his parents, though he never actually mentioned the word 'affair' he said he made it obvious that was what it was. he doesn't have a very good history with communicating with his parents but i needed them to know so they could take my son to the dentist this morning (a 45 minute drive for an appt he has waited 2 months for so couldn't miss it) as i knew i was in no fit state to do it. I also wanted them to know that the problems he had said that were in our marriage were all his fault (not six of one and half a dozen of the other as his mum was saying). he told them the other day we had problems so that we could book a relationship councillor together and so needed them to look after the kids. i also didn't want to ask my parents for help as i don't want them to know (they think i am off work for stress). When we first starting going out we were only kids ourselves (i was 17) and my parents didn't like him, as they thought he was wasting his life bumming around (though he was probably depressed then. i have helped him go to uni and get jobs, so now he is more 'respectable', but i don't want them thinking that they were right all along!

Here is the chronology of an affair I promised. I'd really like you to tell me which bits resonate (if any) and which bits don't. I might be able to target help more easily then, but thanks for your fuller last post. I'll comment on that in my next post:

Initial friendship/mirroring stage No danger is perceived and the friendship feels "safe". Mood might be even better at home, since the spouse has an extra "spring in his step" as he starts to look forward to interactions with the new friend. The friends start to "mirror" eachother and disclose similar views about life, shared interests and mutual liking. Some of the mirroring is entirely false and wouldn't withstand scrutiny.

This "innocent" mirroring gives way to more intimate disclosures and one of the parties confesses unhappiness in their present or previous relationships. The happier friend's instinct is to mirror this too and so he will falsely claim marital dissatisfaction, either mildly or to an exaggerated extent. Just before the end of this phase, he starts to notice more faults in his partner. If she is feeling down, upset or miserable, whereas once there would have been concern and care, now there is irritation.

Meanwhile, the spouse starts to feel disorientated and unsettled, but she doesn't know why. The trust default is so enormous in her relationship that she doesn't give any serious thought to infidelity, but her unease grows about the new friendship. She tells herself that her husband is being a good friend to this new woman and that it would be old-fashioned and most unlike her to suppress a friendship, so she tells herself that she must be feeling uneasy about other things in life - and these are easy to find in a stressful existence.

Pre-affair permission-giving stage At the start of this, there is still no conscious acknowledgement that an affair is on the cards, or that an opportunity will be accepted. But sub-consciously, the person realises that he needs to reduce the marital connection to create a gap that will allow him to say "yes" when the time comes.

So he stops doing things that will keep the connection going. He will botch things up; forget tasks that are important to the spouse and stop doing things that will make her life easier. If the spouse remonstrates (even kindly), he will go on the counter-attack and make accusations of "nagging". The spouse will think: "How come I'm the bad guy here?" A disproportionately bad argument has come out of nowhere and about something relatively trivial.

He will become manipulative about sex, requesting it when it is obviously an inappropriate time or situation and is likely to yield a refusal. When that refusal comes, he will chalk it up as another point against the spouse.

He will set tests that the spouse can't or won't comply with. A surprise weekend without the children, but so imminent that there is no childcare sorted or arrangements made. A night out to somewhere the spouse won't want to go. Occasionally, he will instigate a conversation with the spouse about dissatisfactions in the relationship. What will be missing however are the efforts he will make to improve the relationship. This is because the motive for this conversation is not to improve the primary relationship, but to ?set his partner up to fail?.

Since there is no intention to make joint efforts, the relationship will inevitably worsen and the soon-to-be unfaithful partner can pretend that he tried to discuss the problems, to no avail. In extreme cases, there might even be a request to go to Relate, with no real intention of engaging in the therapeutic process.

He might start to say things in company that jar and hurt a little. Empathy for the spouse is now very low and what were previously endearing foibles are now major irritations.

On and on it goes, until the connection between the couple is reduced and it is therefore much easier to give self-permission to say yes to the affair partner's agenda, which is now becoming clear. He still won't admit that this is his agenda too.

Affair Stage Behaviour at home is now markedly worse. Arguments happen not just in response to complaints of the unsuspecting spouse, but because of complaints by the unfaithful party. Everything about the spouse is scrutinised and found wanting, from her appearance to everyday issues like eating habits. He finds fault with everything and everyone. He becomes openly critical and horrible to be around and appears to be disproportionately stressed and angry. The unsuspecting spouse reacts with disbelief, concern and more latterly, anger. Other people start to notice and the children suffer too. Occasionally, the unfaithful party starts having uncharacteristic arguments with other people.

His ability to self-delude is enormous right now. The arguments that are happening at home and elsewhere are attributed to other reasons and definitely others' actions. He will not associate it with the affair and will believe that he is compartmentalising successfully. If there is still a strong attachment to the spouse, occasionally he will be adoring and kind, notably during periods spent out of contact with the affair partner. At other times, the stress of leading a double-life is so enormous that there are regular flash-points and then withdrawals from family life. He will "go into hiding" and start napping during the day, or working longer hours and on days off. He feels out of control.

I have a few questions based on your last post - and also some observations.

I have a feeling that there is more to come out here, in terms of disclosures.
It's evident that your H lied several times initially, until there was nowhere to go. This is not unusual at all, incidentally. His frightened response to you wanting to call the OW/look at the E mails suggests that he was terrified about what you'd learn and I'd be interested to know whether there was any communication from him to the OW after discovery and before your call. There are likely to be good reasons why the OW might have been "on message" when you called.

He was still in the habit of protecting her dignity and privacy, hence he wouldn't let you hear his calls to her. I think you might need some more information about what was said - and also some control over what is said now to her. I think it will haunt you otherwise.

Likewise those songs will forever haunt you and in your shoes, yes I would want them deleted.

Your husband is also minimising this, as evidenced by his inability to even call this an affair, when speaking to his parents. This is also fairly typical, but needs to stop. This is an enormous deal.

These are the questions:

What is the OW's situation?

How easy/difficult will it be for your H to detach from the OW and sever the relationship?

What will he miss about it/her?

What role did he enjoy playing in the affair - what side of him did it allow him to show to an uncritical and unknowing audience, that was the OW? How can this be brought back into the marriage instead?

I would say the chances that he has slept with her are highly likely. Sorry to have to say that, but you only have to read others on here or real life to find, the first thing they say is,it was only a kiss, they never slept together blah blah. Then over time, the rest is drip fed.

Yes, he slept with her, it is certainly clear to me

I don't know whether that will pile more hurt on or not, tbh

He has behaved abominably, whether he slept with her or not

and he still is behaving very poorly...he is not being clear enough, with you, with others and mostly with himself about his own permission-giving and the fact he felt entitled to cheat on you

like WWIFN said, you do not know the whole story yet...just the bits that he thinks make him look better. His panic at you reading/hearing stuff said between him and OW is very, very telling

have you asked him what he thought gave him the right to make such a fool of you ?

The other post needs more thought so i'll reply to the last one first. He agreed to delete the songs earlier, he did offer the other day, but i felt bad about doing it! The ow is single and looking for a partner with the end goal i presume of settling down and having children. she was even using internet dating unsuccessfully (encouraged by dh) whilst the affair was going on. You mentioned in an earlier thread about how he justified the affair to himself and one thing he told me was that he felt sorry for her as she was lonely. He encouraged her to go on dating websites as he had no intention of leaving his family. He has severed the relationship apart from on sunday night when he rang her to ask when she intended to get another job (she intends to stay on another year). He said that she is pretty ashamed about the whole thing and doesn't want to break a family apart. She doesn't want anyone at work to know. He will still be seeing her at work though, but not a lot as they mainly work in different buildings. he couldn't have contacted her after i found out and before i rang her as i had his phone, though she had known for a few weeks at least that i had questioned dh about him having an affair. I can't answer the last part of the post as i don't know as he's still at work

He's still lying.

He wrote songs about her and put them on the Internet? Jesus

Also the fact that he made you leave the room so he could have little cosy chats with her is a big red flag.

When the initial shock wears off I hope you'll see how badly he's treated you since you found out - repeated lying, threatening to divorce you if you don't
do as he demands, little cosy goodbye chats with his girlfriend

Also what was with him telling you not to make an effort with your hair while he was in the middle of choosing a new woman to fall in love with? Creepy

you were right WWIFN, there was more that i got out from him when he came home from work (after i'd spent the entire day worrying). he admitted to performing cunulingus on her when he went to her flat the last time. he swears on the kids lives that he didn't have sexual intercourse with her or that she touched him. he said he was too worried to tell me as he thought i was suicidal (i have been thinking about it).

He feels better for finally telling all, but he says he kept it to himself as he didn't want to hurt me even further. But strangely enough, though i was upset when he told me (partly as he always makes me more nervous by telling me that i would want to divorce him if he told me everything and so maybe also protecting himself), i don't think it really makes any difference. it's the betrayal overall that hurts, not the intricate details. so maybe the fact that he didn't actually have penetrative sex makes no difference at all, and for some reason for him it was better that they didn't cross this line.

The songs i really don't like, the good song he was desperate to put on his website in time for christmas, so i worked out that this was a present for her. He would never write a song for me ffs! it turns out that he had written a song about what he did to her in her flat! but he deleted that one on sunday morning and that hadn't made it to his website yet. Not sure i would have really wanted to listen to it, doesn't sound that great!

The last discussion that he had with her on sunday evening, he told her that he hadn't told me about the incident at her flat and that he was worried that i would kill myself (i don't mind him making her feel more guilty and ashamed, though i doubt that was his intention). I don't think he had any idea that i would be so badly affected by discovering the affair, i don't know why!

he says that he doesn't love her now, that it was all a fantasy world, not real life. he started texting her the last week of november when she was unwell (but still working so not that ill), and i presume she enjoyed the attention and responded and it moved on from there. I don't know if it makes it worse that he actually made a conscious decision to go off and have an affair! i must have known something was wrong and that was why i was stressed and getting unusual things wrong with me, i just didn't know what or why and your right about the trust default. but i didn't think there was anything wrong in our marriage, but maybe i did and didn't realise! we were still making love and we weren't arguing a lot. he did develop a new laugh (like Sid James) at the time and i commented that it was annoying, but have no idea why, people don't suddenly change their laugh all of a sudden after laughing differently all their lives!

with your chronology of the affair i didn't really notice any of these things happen, life was the same as ever, the usual slog and stress that is our lives with three young kids and both of us working. he said that he didn't moan about his relationship with me to the OW, it was her moaning about not having a man at her age (i presume with her biological clock ticking). i asked to see a photo of her yesterday, and she showed me her facebook page. it helped me to think that she wasn't particularly pretty and i thought her tarty looking!

how long do the uncomfortable adrenaline symptoms last? i've hardly been able to eat or sleep since i found out on friday (even after i take sleeping tablets i still wake up at 3am with my mind racing but hardly being able to move or open my eyes). i don't understand how i'm functioning in any way at all.

"he performed cunnilingus on her but swears she didn't touch him"

that is laughable love, really. Bill Clinton-esque in its flawed logic...

is that mansplaining for the kind of sex that should bother you the least ?

he is lying to you, and also taking you for a fool

I know that wwifn is fab and all that, molly, but are you reading anyone else's posts too ?

Mollynp, you are in denial and shock atm, it gets you through the initial days but you really do need to get angry now. Yes there maybe inidividual vunerblilities to affairs, marriage issues etc but he has treated you appallingly. Whilst you were at home looking after the DCs, working to keep a roof over your heads, he was getting his end away with this poor, vunerable woman ......

It hurts and it's hard to get your head around initially but it is fact. Get very, very angry.

Your marriage can survive (mine has) but it takes hard work.

My DH lied through his teeth for as long as he could get away with it, there are no good or nice bits about an affair, they are all awful appalling acts of pure selfishness, deceit, lies, sordid acts etc.

Good luck and keep posting

Well anything below trousers wasn't touched. what can i do? i still can't believe any of it is happening! Am i supposed to make him leave? I can't imagine a life without him, i still love him despite all this. I need him around to comfort me and talk it through. i can't stand him being at work all day even, as there is still so much more talking to do.

I know how you feel, I have been there - I was so bad I phoned the Samaritans and was on diazepam for a week. Those awful feelings do diminish when the reality sinks in. You are in shock, get as much rl support as you can and go for some counselling (individual first is probably best). But your DH is still lying - just think about what went on before he went down on her (horrible I know but what he is saying doesn't add up, does it ?).

As I said to my DH at the time "I'm not as green as the cabbage I look so stop the bullsh*t now". He is manipulating you, get some space from him, treat yourself to something really nice, new hairdo, clothes etc, take care of yourself. Try and calm yourself down.

in response to countingto10 i know he's a bastard, and i've told him. he admits that what he's done is truly awful. i am getting angry phases (amongst many others, feel as if i'm going mad!)
i know he used her as well as really i don't think she wanted a married man with 3 kids! i'm still angry with her though. i feel like emailing her and telling her how i feel, but don't know if it will help and i worry that H will be really angry with me, which is pathetic really. i also found out that they once kissed in his car. what kind of woman kisses a man with his three children's car seats in the back!?

How about you tell him that there is a chance you will allow him to stay but he has to tell you everything and if anything else comes out you will divorce him and he will be a weekend dad in a bedsit. He doesn't have to know you won't divorce him, hell he mustn't know that you will stay regardless, but you need to stick a rocket up his arse. I always tell my kids I am more cross about the lying than what they have done and if they lie they get into trouble twice.

he truly thought that if i found out any of it i would make him leave. i know i need to be stronger, just feel so fragile and pathetic at the moment. he insists that there is nothing else to tell now. and feels relieved that he told me. he was worried about going to relationship counselling together as he would have ended up telling me then. but now he has he is ok with going, apart from the fact that he thinks it's him not us that is the problem, which is probably true. is relationship councelling useful for healing all of this?

They are both as bad as eachother, she gave him the stick to beat you and your dcs with. Don't contact her though, dignity at all times . Do you think she will truly care when she has already slept with your DH ?

My H's OW just spouted a load of bile at me when I refused to get into a text conversation with her (my "D"H gave her my mobile number ). Just confirmed to me the type of woman she was but she had nothing on me IYSWIM.

You are in a hyper state atm, step back a bit if you can (my counsellor said I was almost pyschotic so you can imagine what I was like).

Put yourself first now .

can't think of anything else but this at the moment, we're supposed to be going away at half term but i can't imagine what it is going to be like, or how i will organise it all! how long did your almost psychotic episode last for? and when do you think that it would be appropriate to have counselling? i'm not sure that it would be a waste of money at the moment, but then posting on here is really helpful. As i don't feel i can talk to anyone else about it.

He's been insisting a lot of things over the last few days, and they've all been lies. You can't believe a thing that comes out of his mouth at the moment.

And now you know this about him - when your relationship faced its biggest crisis, his first reaction was to save himself.

Despite his nauseatingly self-serving attempts to justify his continued deception, it's clear that his motives have been (and still are) entirely selfish.

He's only sorry he was caught, that much he is clearly telling you. Do you think this is the first time he's done this? His guilt seems to be entirely based on your reaction and not at all on the fact that he's done a terrible, ugly, sleazy thing that could well pull his family apart.

Why did he (in his latest betrayal of you and display of loyalty to her) tell her he thought you were suicidal? It's pretty much textbook "this is why I can't leave yet" excuses to OW.

sounds to me like he's doing that classic thing where he's only telling you a bit of the truth at a time. People who have affairs will give the minmum information until tey are backed into a corner and have the information forced out of them or until there is so much evidence that they can't lie anymore. They do this because they know if the truth was really out they would be in deep shit.

Have you thought about asking him to move out for a while so you can get your head straight.

Also, do you really know that he has told his parents? Were you there? Do you really know what he has told OW? If it were me I would call the number, hand him the phone and make him have a conversation with her on loud speaker where he ends it. Are you certain he doesn't have another phone and isn't still in contact with her?

You may still love him, you may want a future with him but for your own sake I think that future has to be built on the truth rather than the lies he is obviously telling you now.

LAstly, have you considered texting the OW and pretending you are your husband? Maybe if you did and she fell for it you may find out all you need to know.

Sorry haven't read all of our thread but he is lying to you, he had sex with her he just knows it will break your heart so he is spinning a tale giving you bits of inforamtion which he hopes will be enough to stop you asking anymore.

And do not let his previous depression give him an excuse or temper your feelings to what he has done and his responses - you sound as though you are giving him a get out card in a way worrying about his depression coming back - feck him - he shouldn;t have done it he wasn't thinking about you when he was shagging (or not as he says) her was he. I would make him go out and look for a new job because it seems all tooo conveient that she was going to be going in a year anyway - what was that the limit on their relationship - when she left were they going to split up??????

Do ring her and ring his parents - he sounds ike a lying little toad and I wouldn't be sure that he had not just told her that you have found out so they may have to stop temporarily.

And he didn't use her - she got involved with a married man with three kids she is as dispicable as him - between then they made choices that hurt you so don't feel sorry for either of them.

AF I don't think I'm saying anything different to anyone else, actually apart from perhaps understanding your position Molly to face this head-on and not needing time apart from your H. Not everyone needs space away from their partner in the aftermath, especially if in the early days, telling other people might make a person feel worse, not better. And if someone does need time apart, it makes more sense for the betrayed partner to have total space and let the faithless spouse stay at home and with the DCs and do all the necessary shitwork in the home.

I'm afraid I also think that time apart might be a bad move in this case because I think your H is still lying molly and time spent on his own without you asking questions is going to give him more ways of constructing alibis and defences. Drip-feeding factual information that can have no other interpretation, is going to make recovery much harder. It is cruel and indefensible, because each new shock will take you back to square one.

Don't waste energy sympathising with the OW's position either and don't feel that you are wrong for hating her actions too. She knew he was a married father and all we know about her is that she was "lonely" which doesn't make her vulnerable at all. Loneliness is no excuse for screwing around with married men.

Likewise, if your H is running a "I felt sorry for her loneliness" defence as a justification for having an affair, that is highly disingenuous. There might be some rescuer tendencies going on there, that are often found in faithless men, but it doesn't explain how he gave himself permission to do this to you.

Re half-term, you need to change your thinking. It is now his responsibility to get the family ready for it. It's actually really essential that you regard yourself as ill and incapable of functioning normally right now and so he must do all the things you cannot.

One of the things you might want to do echoes what Fab says - tell him that you absolutely know he is lying to you and that if you find out later down the line, you will call time on your marriage, so best he comes clean now. Explain that what he is doing is cruelty, to add to all the other cruelty.

After an affair, there are all sorts of lies told. There sometimes what I call absolute lies, about factual details, there are lies of omission and the tricky and murky area is where the involved spouse has been lying to himself as much as anybody and because clarity and mature reflection is in short supply during the madness of an affair, sometimes it needs time and distance for a person to admit some truths. Typically this latter area includes what his true feelings were for the affair partner.

Lying about "absolute" details such as who initiated the affair, the sex, how many times, places visited, when the affair started or who knew, is indefensible. They are outright lies designed purely to save a person's skin - not as he might tell you, to make you feel better. You might be able cope with a few lies by omission and have some patience with things he has yet to understand, but take no prisoners about the absolute factual lies.