Just discovered H's affair - how to get over the fact OW stayed at my house?

[warmleatherette]

Discovered DH's affair three weeks ago. He'd been seeing a girl from work. It was an emotional affair that turned physical in March this year, and ended when she moved to another country last month. She didn't know he was married with children and thought he was her boyfriend.

The icing on the cake? We got married in May this year. We'd been together five years, have two children, age 3 and 1. He's made a mockery of my life.

He also regularly invited her, and lots of his mates from work, to party in our house at weekends, while I was taking the children to visit my parents. He'd hide all the kids' stuff in their bedroom and keep the door shut.

Turns out none of his workmates knew about his wife and children either - he explained away the women's clothing around the place by saying that I was his flatmate who he used to shag, had moved in with, and was now broken up from.

I've kicked him out and he's staying at his mum's. He's promised to get therapy and sort himself out etc, do anything to keep me / us, but we'll see. I don't feel the same about him any more. He's ruined everything.

My question is: how can I get rid of the images of this other woman in my house? Falling asleep in my husband's arms on my sofa? Watching my television? Drinking my coffee in the mornings? I feel like my space has been completely violated. Have any of you had the OW in your house? How did you get over it?

Well he's certainly... creative.

And wot Helena said: you're doing incredibly well only 3 weeks into these revelations. Stay strong!

Hello Warm - so sorry to hear there have been more lies and deceit. I agree that you are doing all you can and you sound so strong. Keep on fighting the good fight!

And I don't agree with MyChildDoesn'tNeedSleep - honour killings are meted out to daughters who bring so-called 'shame' to their families. As the white wife of a half-white son this is very unlikely - and I agree that everyone deserves to know just how dishonest this guy is.....

The thing I'd find most upsetting is not the fact he'd shagged someone else in our house, it would be that he'd try to hide the very existence of our dc. That I could never get over.

Couldn't forgive the shagging either, but that would come a definate second.

Na op does have to be really careful here. I used to work with a high % of Muslim men. Mainly 2nd generation.

Some had really strict parents, others more so the Dad, and they had married a western woman.

Anyway, you can't generalise as it's not everyone, but like a poster up thread said, you can only go on your experiences can't you? What you've seen?

Well about 75% of them had wives either "back home" or with the parents. They were either, shagging about and drinking as single men, or they were actually running several relationships, several families.

The other 25% ish of them. Treated western women as "sluts" their terms. Like sweets in a candy store. They'd all be smoking, drinking, gambling, shagging about, getting random women up the duff and legging it. With no regards for the consequences.

This is because there were none. If the family got wind, they'd keep schtum and try and shut it all up to defend the family honour. For those of the girls I knew who had the bright idea to go "running" to the inlaws it never went well at all. For some it was just nasty. They used to use several names, so getting even the CSA on them was hard. As they'd just leg it for cheap untraceable work.

The thing is these men talk about honour, whilst doing everything they "shouldn't" be doing behind closed doors. Even those who have married into western culture. In fact they can be worse as they still have to show they uphold the "honour", despite a western marriage.

From what I've seen op would be very, very ill advised to go running to the inlaws. She is just another one in these long trail of women that's been had by these men and there are loads of them.

They run around the country, taking all the western freedoms, shagging about, leaving a trail of kids in their wake, bleating about honour and leading multiple lives.

They don't face the consequences, the western woman does, they are the slut spreading rumours about their precious little family and son and she must shut up.

I've actually seen this so many times and seen so many men like this and so many ops it's unreal. She needs to be really careful. IME.

As I said upthread, unwise to contact parents OP, save it as it may be the only thing you can use as a bargining tool later.

I agree with posters who say that you should be very careful before contacting the grandparents.

Another thought: what if they are interested in your children? Very interested indeed? Remember that your husband is a compulsive liar - he is quite capable of painting a picture of you as an unfit mother. Look at that load of blllx he came up with about the godson...

Please, please be careful about his contact with your children.

I am connected to another British Asian community and agree that face-saving is very important. The carpet is regularly lifted so that all sorts of stuff can be brushed under it. Exaggeration and outright lying is not unusual eg. claiming that a son or daughter is a medical student when in fact they are a hospital technician (real example).

This individual may well be capable of being a compulsive liar and adulterer all by himself, whatever his ethnic / cultural background - and we have heard of many on MN who have done it without the benefit of Scary Mad Muslims for family, and for all the OP knows (given the compulsive lying) his parents may well be the most charming, liberal, kind, integrity-filled people on earth - as many muslim individuals are!! (like the ones in my extended family).

I think the OP has enough to worry about without scaremongering about her children being kidnapped and smuggled out to a madrassa in the kashmiri mountains, or being set alight in her bed.

However, I see no benefit in contacting his parents.

Love the last bit of your post Blu....

however IME extended muslim family can be very all of the above until you step out of line

The grandparents may be good, bad or indifferent.

If OP has no experience of this, it's worth at least giving her a heads up that "bad" could be a lot more serious than might have occurred to her.

But of course fingers-crossed the GPs are actually great ? and completely unlike their vile, pathological liar of a son.

Hi, sorry for radio silence, my stupid laptop died. Thanks so much for all your posts. Dunno if you want an update, but it's nice for these things to be a bit complete so:

Last weekend was hilarious. On Saturday I facebooked incessantly with the OW, comparing stories, timescales and lies. (Turns out he and she were first fooling around doing 'snogs and stuff', in January 2010, when I was 9 months pregnant. So classy, H.

He was also emotionally abusive to her, [as he has been to me for ages] and physically at one point too, holding her up against her wardrobe by her throat during an argument.)

A particular high point of our year was in June, when he came back early from our honeymoon 'to work', spent a few days in our flat doing MDMA with her, then came to my parents' place for our son's third birthday party.

Saturday afternoon the OW, furious, messaged around 30 of DH's workmates to tell them to watch out for DH's lies and manipulation, and that he has a wife and 2 kids despite partying for the whole previous year.

His workplace is stunned, they take DH for a drink to interrogate him. OW and I are on Facebook, DH's best friend and I are texting so we can call him out on his lies. These include DH allegedly being a rent boy and torturing people for the Russian mafia to support his family, in addition to his call centre job. Compulsive liar much?

I also found out he was snogging / attempting to fuck another female work colleague in our flat on 4th Nov, and doing coke there with work buddies the week after. So any notion that maybe this was just some crazy soulmate druggy love affair, an aberration, has gone. It wasn't an aberration. It's just how he rolls.

Er anyway. He's gone again and I think I really don't even want him seeing the children (though I know I have to let him if he wants to). I definitely think he has some kind of antisocial personality disorder and really don't want them growing up surrounded by his lies. He's agreed not to see them until he's had some therapy, so that's one good thing. I'm hoping he'll just lose interest and disappear.

As for telling the grandparents, I haven't yet. I want him out of my life completely so who cares if they know or not? And the legal helpline I called said he would only be entitled to take out of the marriage what he brought in, i.e. nothing. I have, however, given the CSA his details and given his parents' address and phone number as the contact details. So maybe they'll find something out yet... ha ha.

oh and this, from honverrburton:

The thing I'd find most upsetting is not the fact he'd shagged someone else in our house, it would be that he'd try to hide the very existence of our dc. That I could never get over.

= so true. he denied our daughter completely and said his son was not his son. how will our son feel about this, when / if he ever finds out about it? there's no excuse for all of this. even if you're desperate for fuck outside the marriage, to construct elaborate lies to deny your own son? so disgusting.

*to fuck

oh, also, to AgathaCrusty - I'm getting tested for STDs on Tuesday. And yeah, I checked on 192.com and he's on the electoral roll at his parents' place the whole time. I took the rent off him in cash for the majority of the time, and the rest shows up as a transfer from our joint account to my sole one - there's no sign that any of that money went toward the mortgage. So yeah, I reckon I could quite possibly deny his existence at my house and save myself a lot of hassle. It'd be the very least he deserves.

sorry for multiple posts!

Wow. I hate to pee in your parade op. I'd seek specific legal advice from your solicitor. This legal helpline I think have given you a false sense of security.

It dosent work like that.

Gosh his lies just get more and more over the top and weird!

Do definitely go see a solicitor (even just for a short free consultation) to get the lay of the land in terms of where you stand with house.

I'm glad to see you are ok, and although uncovering all these lies mustbe hurtful, I think it is better than not finding them out IYSWIM. These people who have witnessed him doing drugs - that is something I would much rather know than not, especially with dcs involved. Coke and MDMA? Plus all the huge outrageous lies? I know legally you may have to eventually grant contact, for now I would be nonagressively evasive, and hope with all the hope you have that he wanders off to his next string of lies and deception.

I'm definitely going to make an appointment with a solicitor tomorrow - or several - to get some free advice. Need to protect my meagre 'assets' - I just keep putting it off because it seems so grown up somehow. Pathetic I know.

After I pointed out the fact that doing drugs in a house where young children live is a child protection issue, while the upskirt videos I discovered he'd filmed on his phone just after I'd given birth to DS in 2008 were sexual assult, he agreed not to see the children again until after he'd started in therapy. I don't think therapists can actually do anything for sociopaths actually but hey. At least he's out of our lives for a while. It's what he wanted all along after all. Why do all this if you don't want your wife, kids and life together to just disappear?

Could the behaviour warrant an annulment of the marriage? I am not sure what that entails, so just a stab in the dark.

So he is a bit of a pervert as well as a drug user, cheat and lier? Wow!
Did you ever find out more regarding his other kids he had mentioned to you (that he admittedly doesn't bother with)?

Oh and OBVIOUSLY don't believe that he will be going to therapy. Believe nothing he says, if he tells you the sky is blue look up and check .

Do get to that solicitor, I know it seems very serious and daunting but you need to get the legal issues sorted.

"upskirt videos"

wtf ?? (on top of all the other unacceptable stuff)

what did you ever see in this twat ?

OP...whatever you need to do to get this fucker out of your life, do it

FWIW, legal helpline advice sounds about right bearing in mind the length of the marriage, what you each brought into it and the fact you have the kids, but yes, worth talking to a lawyer asap. Hanne & Co are good if you're in SW London.

Think a divorce is easier than annulment even if you do have to wait until May to start (but you could always do the groundwork between now and then). There's some info on direct gov if you're interested in that route. Solicitor should be able to advise.

Good luck OP.

Just come back to read the update and I am...staggered.
Treat him as a potentially dangerous individual. Have you asked your parents for help? I would suggest never seeing him without a (preferably male) witness.

its not my ex is it????
actually dont think so as his parents are abroad, but sound exactly like his behaviour, even down to the videos (though he was more keen on zoom pics on the beach)

Just called solicitor, hooray!

Other kids were apparently women he was in relationships, they got knocked up, he said 'I'm off!', and that was that. So he (allegedly) doesn't know whether they kept the children or not. But who can trust a word he says? Maybe there are no other children. Maybe there are thousands.

He did go to the consultation for the therapy - therapist called here to confirm the next appointment - but that doesn't mean he'll go to any of the others. Who knows?

What did I see in him. He is (omg, how shallow am I?) very, very, very good-looking. At least, I thought so. And we had incredible, transcendental sex (for a while, until I realised he was never going to go down on me again, only finger me once in a blue moon, and had no interest in giving me an orgasm whatsobloodyever.) And he could be so, so charming, picking flowers in the street and giving them to me, saying I was like a shooting star, burning and full of life, saying he wanted to keep me in a little box to show people 'that's all mine'. (All beautiful, cheesy romantic sayings that i later realised, after I discovered OW's blog, that HE HAD ALSO USED ON HER! Niiiiice. So romantic, DH.)

And I thought we got on so well. We had such rapport and would make each other laugh for hours and hours. I felt he was my best friend as well as incredible lover / boyfriend / father. And then slowly slowly I discovered the truth about him, by which point I was pretty well trapped in breastfeeding / potty training / SAHMing / all the rest of it.

Gotta get DS from nursery - well done if you've made it this far, sorry for rambling!

Blimey. He sounds very much like my ex. With whom the final straw was finding 'Barely Legal' porn mags in the bed.

It's kind of scary how many men like this are out there.