So, my 100% reliable, trustworthy, devoted DP has been having an affair....

[BornToFolk]

I've been with my partner for 12 years. We have a 4.5 year old son. We both work full time and DS is at nursery. I had a call from nursery today to say that DS was unwell and could I pick him up. I phoned DP, got his voicemail and left a message to say I was leaving work to collect DS (he normally does it). Picked a slighly poorly DS up from nursery, got the bus home and walking down the road, spotted DP's car in the drive. Very odd, as he hadn't told me he was working from home/unwell. He'd gone to work as normal in the am and we'd been emailing about various domestic things all day.

The front door was locked, with the key inside so couldn't open it. This was very weird as DP doesn't leave his key in the door. I knocked and then went in the side way. Came through the kitchen to find DP coming down the stairs saying X (friend from work) was there "helping him" as he had a back back I get the feeling that this was more for DS's benefit than mine as I immediately clocked what was going on from the look on DP's face. He told DS that she was in the bathroom but going in a minute and then said to me "we'll talk when she's gone". I took DS into the living room to read a book and she came down and left without me or DS seeing her. We set DS up watching TV and went to another room to talk.

DP immediately owned up to having "an affair" - his words. However, it had only been the second time. First time about a month ago apparently. He said he was sorry but didn't seem particularly apologetic. In face he almost seemed angry with me. He didn't seem surprised or upset weirdly. We had a chat which got quite heated (mainly on my part, DP just took what I dished out) and then I told DP to leave, which he did.

As background, our relationship has not been the same since DS was born. Our sex life in particular has taken a back seat to everything else and our communication got really bad a few months ago. We had a big row a couple of months ago, followed by a big, honest conversation about how things weren't going as well as we'd like and agreed that we'd like to make the effort to make things work. Since then I've been happier. Actually, really quite happy. We've been making plans for the future, holidays and days out etc, all happy family stuff. It was my birthday last week and DP bought me some lovely presents and took me out for a nice dinner where we had lots of fun and conversation about things other than DS. Admittedly, our sex life still isn't great but it's been better and something that I thought we were both working on.

But apparently it's not been enough for DP. He admits he's been stupid and selfish and went looking for what he was not getting at home. He's been exactly the kind of man I thought he wasn't. I had no clue this had been going on. I would not have thought he could ever do this. I feel utterly betrayed, humilated, violated (in my own fucking bed, for fuck's sake! Practically in front of our child!), disgusted and basically like a total fucking mug

What makes me feel most mug-like is that I miss him! I still want this relationship to work. I love him, even though I am utterly furious with him.

The plan is that he's staying with a friend. He's going to pick DS up from nursery as usual, bring him back here and then we'll talk more once DS is in bed. We've spoken on the phone tonight and he agrees he's been a utter shit. He doesn't want a relationship with OW (FFS, I never thought I'd use the term "OW" about my DP, or my relationship ) but is not sure about a relationship with me. He loves me, loves DS beyond anything and loves our family and our home. But somehow he's scared of talking to me and telling me how he feels I laid my cards on the table and said that I was prepared to try and make things work but only if he really wanted to, was prepared to try as hard as I was, we'd get some couples counselling and he was to cut all contact with OW.

Am I being a total doormat? I am so furious with him and not ready to forgive yet but I do WANT to forgive. I don't want to break up my family over this. Can a relationship survive something like this?

I am doing OK, in general. My sister came over for moral support and to help with DS (who has been told that we've had a row and daddy has gone away for a few days, which has made me sad, hence the tears ) I am just wiped out emotionally now. DS is fine, recovered from whatever was wrong with him at nursery and has gone happily to bed without asking for daddy, which is a relief.

I just need some wise MNer advice. What the actual fuck do I do now?

Glad your Mum is coming down.

As for practicalities - I would get legal advice (find a family solicitor offering free half hour) and go to CAB for advice re council tax, child tax credit etc.

I would also set up your own account and divert child benefits etc to it.

So the first time they got together she came over to his house to fuck?

Bollocks

I was in your shoes a month ago - not exactly because my H didn't have the OW in my home or in my bed but I can understand your shock and fear and utter utter despair.

It's instinctive to want to grab hold of your marriage and hold onto it tight with both hands. You have history, a child, years of partnership. It's very hard to just flick a switch and turn off those feelings and kick him out for ever. People say "god if my husband cheated on me that would be IT, I'd kick him out and kick him in the bollocks as he went". But it's not that black and white when it happens.

My advice would be to minimise or cut contact for now. It's very hard to deal with this dispassionately and logically when he's still there, or popping in and out to see the kids.

You don't need to make any decisions yet about finances, housing etc. It's too soon.

Use a couple of close friends, or family as a crutch. Allow them to be there for you and tell them everything, warts and all, but only if they're the sort of friends that can be reasonable and objective. You don't need a lynch mob or friends telling you what to do based on their experiences or agendas.

This will be the hardest thing you ever have to deal with but you can get through it, take it day by day and be kind to yourself. Your emotions will be swinging wildly and you will change your mind every ten minutes - "I want him, I don't want him, I don't know what I want." Don't rush into anything and don't promise him anything. Have some space and play it by ear. You are still shocked and devastated and any decisions made now are not likely to be ones that should be made IYKWIM.

Thinking of you.

It sounds like you're getting angry OP- but I think you need to be angrier at him.

Please listen to all this advice and the experiences of people who know he'll do it again. My heart bleeds for you, but you will be so much worse off if you (God forbid) end up in situation of someone like ike1 who forgave and then he just did it again for longer. What if you "got over this" and then have another child, or get married only to find out he had betrayed you a second time? Could you ever, ever, ever sit in a room with him again, sleep in a bed, hold hands with someone who you know has done this? Every time you had sex wouldn't you just be thinking "who else is he sleeping with? Maybe in this bed?"

I quote Carrie Bradshaw (and I seldom quote fictional characters!) when I say there are some men who are just bad men. Whatever charm they possess, whatever they have been doing to convince you other wise. He is a bad man who has done the very worst thing to you that he could have. He planned this. He planned to betray you. When he was being "kind" and "good" and "reliable" that was the act. This is the face behind the mask.

And if he has done it to get back at you for some persieved resentment, as has been suggested then, bloody hell. What a child. How immature and just plain spiteful and how weak. How disgusting to betray you and use the OW in that way.

He has proved himself to be a pig. There can't be any coming back from that. You are worth a million times more than that. No scrap that, a squillion, billion times more

Sorry, but that's as ridiculous as saying you are a bad woman for shagging a married man in his wife's bed for years dictionarydiva. You did a very bad thing over a long period of time, just as this man did over a short period of time until he was caught. This is a crap way to treat people, but it doesn't mean someone's a crap person and always was. I think there needs to be some realism on here about affairs - people who have them have done the wrong thing and there's no wriggling out of it, but as people they are not distinguishable from everyone else and the sad fact is that this could happen to anyone. I don't think it always helps an OP in this situation if we tell her that she picked a wrongun and misjudged him all along. Fact is, good people can behave like complete shits to the people they love when they have affairs and if anyone thinks they wouldn't be capable of that themselves or it couldn't happen to them they're deluding themselves. Crap people have affairs and good people have them too - not everyone's the same and we can't judge someone's character purely on whether they have been an OW or had an affair.

The reason why she needs advice about finances etc is because it helps her feel in control, it will prevent her from staying awake worrying about money, it will help strengthen her position and more importantly her DP is less likely to try and screw her - sadly many cheaters do go back on their word about supporting the family

She does not need make long term decisions but she needs to take steps to protect her and her DS.

I take that on the chin sternface - it was not my finest hour- but I wasn't deceiving anyone and, crucially, wasn't in the "history" of the relationship. Yeah, alright it was low. And alarmingly stupid and naive. But to me it was just a bed and just a house. I didn't have memories of the day me and someone I'd pledged my life to went and brought the bed. I wasn't married to the woman who went to the effort of painstakingly ironing the sheets. I hadn't gone to the shops with someone and picked out the bedding. Similarly with the house, I hadn't brought that house with someone in the weeks before our wedding and helped them strip the walls and do the floors. I hadn't stood next to someone in a church and promised fidelity. My ex had. OPs partner has. He knows all the things OP said about that bed being theirs and where their child was conceived and where she fed and played with him as a baby. And he still did it. I would say those were the actions of a bad man alright. If that ain't bad, I don't know what is.

Sadly, it is a very common scenario for cheating husbands, when caught, to say that they will continue to support, you have the house etc etc.

It's the shock, for them too, but from a different perspective.

However, even a month on, I am willing to bet that he changes his mind about a ot of those promises. Once they start looking into the realities, and once they find, for example, that you may have some future conditions about this or that, or you find further evidence of lying and he gets defensive, then he will probably renege on those promises.

Even if you think he will not do this, it would do no harm at all to quietly prepare for the worst, by seeing a solicitor, and photocopying everything of relevance.

I am glad your mum is coming over.

You may find it helpful, to contextualise what people have said to you, to know that there are seven stages of grief (used by all people coping with betrayal, death, and a few others). These are:

• Shock or Disbelief
• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Guilt
• Depression
• Acceptance and Hope.

You are in stage 1, even if you dont recognise it now. Also, you can revisit certain stages even on down the line, if new facts emerge.

My STBX said 'Promises smomishes' about the fact that he'd promised to pay bills and actually asked me to refund him the bills for January that came out of his account the day after I found out about the affair and kicked him out asked him to leave .. it was 'all verbal' and 'meant nothing'

As I said earlier the cheating husband is no longer on your side - he's on his ... when he has to pay his own rent etc he'll be less keen to pay your expenses - and as he has emotionally already left he doesn't really care that much either!

I tried to forgive my EX-Dh and move on with our marriage and put it all behind us etc etc

It limped along for a year until he did it again................but my marriage was dead in the water, the trust and more importantly the respect had gone.

I couldn't live with a liar.

Good luck OP with whatever you decide.

Yes these actions are wrong and they are bad - and I get that as an OW, you didn't feel any sense of responsibility to the woman whose bed you were defiling, but it feels a bit like cherry-picking to say that your actions didn't define your character and yet your ex's and this man's do. In a long life, people do lots of things that because of the situation they got themselves into, wasn't their finest hour but unless that behaviour is typical (as in your ex) it doesn't mean they are rotten to the core. I'm sure you're not and from what the OP is saying, the shock is greater because her husband's not either.

Sometimes I think there is too much comfort in thinking that cheaters are wildly different to anyone else, because then people can think that this will never happen to them; that they'll have the sense to swerve would-be-cheats and that they'd know if something was going on. How many times do people say 'but he wasn't the type?'

One of the most frightening things about a shock like this is that there were no real clues, or if there were they will only be seen in hindsight. The frightening conclusion many previously secure women make is that if their normally kind, loyal husband can cheat, well then anyone can.

And they'd be right. Cheaters and OW/OM don't come branded in scarlet letters. They are just like us.

I am sorry, he deserves to be kicked out with no second chance just for fucking in the marital bed. Thats just disrespectful.

Your partner is an arsehole and doesn't deserve you to be do understanding. I would feel do hurt, humiliated, let down, betrayed, totally fucked off!!!!

And the ow calmly walked down your stairs and out your door - do you have any idea how that would make any straight thinking women behave?

Take some time, talk to people, don't let him hurt you and ds all over again.

Oh BorntoFolk I'm so sorry :(

The important thing is you have your DS and he has you, you two will get each other through this no matter what your partner chooses to do with himself. I think the important thing is to think of you two as a unit. What's best for that unit? Emotionally/physically etc. And then work towards that.

Bornto - glad your mum will be home soon so you can have some support.

Not sure of the practicalities but just take as much time as you need. You've had a terrible shock and need to take care of you. Sod him.

anyfuckersfanjo

my nether regions have developed a voice !

I always thought they were extraordinarily clever

You seem to have gathered quite a following AF Klick last night and now your own fanjo

Your straight talking always goes down well it seems :)

kirsty, klick is currently sat in my front garden, begging to be let in

I keep throwing things at her, but she won't go

OP I am glad your mum is coming. Let her look after you x

AF Tinfoil didn't work then???

Bornto you will get through this - I know it seems terrible now but at least you haven't been lied to for a long time - that for me was worse than the affair - all the lies and deceit..

Sounds you've got good RL support with your mum xx

I have experience here (though NOT with the OW being in the house).

I 'm very sorry for your traumatic betrayal Born. It's hideous.

I've read through the thread and I think there's good advice re STD clinic, finances and giving yourself time to work out what you really want.

What you absolutely cannot have is your old life back. I feel your pain here as mine was good before his affair too. You need to grieve it - what you thought it was.

I absolutely agree with Sternface about good people doing very bad things though. People are not just black and white. However, you are best placed to know what kind of man he is now that you know more about what he is capable of. And I also think that this man has serious issues that need him to commit to seeing a qualified and experienced therapist to sort his own problems out, whether or not you stay together.

I think he wanted to be found out, sorry.

Your feelings will change a lot and none of them will be wrong.

Take care.

In fact - OP reread Sternface - so spot on.

I don't believe for a second it was twice, sorry op

What kind of woman goes to the family home of a married man in broad daylight for a second 'date' ?

A very low woman for sure, but also a woman quite familiar with the situation. And not atall bothered by his cheapness in dispensing with the hotel.

Sorry but I agree with everyone else - he isn't acting like he's really sorry and it's probably been going on for a while :(

I've been there (though not in our house) and we did get through it but it wasn't because he wasn't getting enough at home and he did act like he was sorry and did all the right things.

Get the Shirley Glass book pronto it will help.

Good luck.