Rebuilding without a confession

[dogearedtooth]

Is it possible to move on from an affair if the DH does not confess to having had a physical relationship with OW, even in the face of some pretty damning evidence?

I am asking for advice to enable me to help a friend in this situation and would appreciate some anecdotes from people in similar situations who have or have not been able to do this.

Thanks .

Thanks for all the comments.

She has seen a solicitor and knows what she is entitled to and they have also been to Relate for a couples session and she has had a session on her own. They have also had their current house valued. They have a family holiday booked and he wants them to go as a family.

I think she's probably still in shock - and maybe at the 'I'm not going to let the OW win' stage.

It must be hard to watch as a friend. I think I would encourage her to go to counselling on her own (NOT relate). I would also be encouraging her to look at her own happiness - maybe it's time to retrain and go back to work? At the very least take up a cause/charity/hobby that really interests her and is away from the home. Her self-esteem is built around him and the marriage at the moment, so it's no surprise that she's clinging on.

If she was my friend I think I would be calmly asserting that her happiness has to come first.

You are right about giving direct answers Cognito. I have said that if it were me, I wouldn't go on the family holiday with him as I would feel too vulnerable away from home. She doesn't want to take the DC away on her own as she would be leaving him at home, child free, to see OW as he wishes.

It really is a tale of woe .

Triffid, I have been doing just that but she is reluctant to make any changes that will affect the DC's stability, like going out to work etc. I have just returned to work PT after a similar amount of time out and it is working well for us but mainly because DH and I are both flexible/supportive of each other and communicate well. Her parents are very supportive and I have encouraged her to accept as much help as possible from others. However, her DH doesn't appreciate her DF doing school drop offs etc as he feels he should be doing them and so it goes on....

So basically, her H cheated and now wants to dictate how it's going to be! It must be so hard to watch her sacrifice herself on the altar of his vanity! To tell her he doesn't love her but will live with her for the sake of the children? What a total dick! Her self-esteem must be shot to pieces to accept this. He is still acting like he's doing her a favour!
All you can do is be there and answer direct questions like you have, hopefully she will realise she is worth more than his crumbs.
I know this happens all the time but it never fails to shock me how cruel people can be to their partners.

Good grief.

She knows that she deserves better but she is just not selfish enough to put her needs ahead of those of her DC. She feels that she would be the one breaking up their family if she asked him to leave and she is quite confident that DH would see her throwing him out as the go ahead to consummate his relationship with OW.

She seems to be completely powerless - surely there is something that she could do to bolster her completely flagging self esteem? She has contacted DH's parents and told them what is going on but she is reluctant to tell too many friends as the affair is with a parent at school.

Depending on when he told her he didn't love her any longer, it's possible she's still in shock. If she's in contact with the OW's husband, it's also likely that she's had lots of fresh shocks as new information came out in drip feeds.

It sounds as though the catalyst for all this was the OW's husband finding out, not the relationship petering out of its own accord, or because your friend's H ended things. Some of the lies about their physical relationship are being maintained by your friend's H to protect the OW, who is no doubt lying to her husband because she thinks he can forgive emotions, but not sex.

What people always under-estimate though is that discoveries of any kind also involve shock for the people who were found out. Consequently, what they feel, say and do is often as unreliable as the behaviour of the faithful partners who are also in shock.

So her H might be re-writing history about a longstanding loss of feelings for your friend that is simply not true, because his emotions are being clouded by the new feelings (note new, not deeper) for this woman and the loss of her. So she's right to be sceptical about her husband's lost-love claims towards her and she's right that this might well pass, but wrong to wait around until it does.

If she wants to save her marriage and believes she can forgive, curiously the best thing she can do now is to end her marriage and ask him to leave. He will never respect her again if she stays with him and more importantly, she will never respect herself if she makes these trade-offs.

Yes it's a risk that he will go off to be with the OW, or nurse his wounds when the husband takes her back and she chooses him and not her lover, but statistically there is a greater probability of your friend's husband coming out of the fantasy affair stage when he is living by himself and deciding he wants your friend back. For her to take him back at that stage will require total honesty and a great deal of work on his part, but with any luck she will be out of her shock then and will have created a better life for herself without him - and will say no.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that stern face.

Those are my feelings exactly and I have told my friend how I feel. However, I just don't seem to have an answer for her about how best to handle things with her DC.

I have spoken to my 11 and asked for her 'advice' in as much as you can seek the advice of an 11 year old and she and I have agreed that it is not the crime of the Century to fall in love with someone else. She feels that the parents should be open with the DC and tell them that things are not working out between them and that it may be best for them to separate for a while.

My friend has a DD and she doesn't want to shatter her illusion of the 'handsome prince' .

'If she wants to save her marriage and believes she can forgive, curiously the best thing she can do now is to end her marriage and ask him to leave. He will never respect her again if she stays with him and more importantly, she will never respect herself if she makes these trade-offs.'

Does any one disagree with this? I would be interested to hear your story. My friend seems to think that her DH is so stubborn that he would never come back to her, even if he realised that he still loved her...and as I have mentioned, she is still in love with him (although not his current behaviour).

Tales of handsome princes and beautiful princesses are in my view, a form of child abuse towards young girls, especially when this romantic, sexist garbage gets in the way of their choices and frames of reference for human relationships. Children grow from learning that adults are fallible and get it wrong sometimes, but that there are consequences for behaving badly. Your friend will be doing an enormous disservice to her children if she role models being a doormat who lets people treat her atrociously without penalty.

"she is just not selfish enough to put her needs ahead of those of her DC."

It's not selfish to want to be treated by your life-partner with love and respect. It is not selfish to want your DCs to grow up in a happy household rather than one where contempt, disrespect and mistrust are the norm. She is deluding herself if she thinks that getting her husband back home will stop him 'consummating his relationship' with his girlfriend because that's probably already happened. She cannot tag this man night and day.... he will find an opportunity to pick up where he left off.

I agree with you there as well stern face but I'm not sure now is the time (if ever) to broach that with her. We parent very differently and that makes it difficult to give advice too.

He is quite a controlling guy (and clever and handsome... bleurgh) and has even said to her that he would use his money and family connections to make sure that he 'got' the DC. She knows that that can't happen having seen a solicitor and she was even worried that it could somehow be held against her (in court?) if she stopped sharing a bed with him - I put her straight on that one. She is frightened/angry/hurt and I wish there was a way to empower her.

All ideas most welcome.

Agree with you too btw Cognito .

Don't be fooled by that 'I'm just not selfish enough' statement. It's a form of denial about herself and her motives. People often say they are 'staying for the children' but there is always some self-interest going on, to greater and lesser degrees. Given all the research about the damage caused to children by having dysfunctional role models of adult romantic relationships, this really needs to be exposed as the crock that it is. She's staying because she loves him and doesn't want to lose him. Yes, there will be fear about being a lone parent and concern for the effects on the children, materially and emotionally, but you might need to give her permission to be honest about this. It's okay to admit loving someone and fearing their loss.

Their relationship was probably far better than he's depicting it now and she's still got to play catch-up. I think she'll find that things changed in her marriage when the prospect of an affair arose. Not that he'll admit that right now of course. One of the best things you can do for her as a friend is to discourage her from allowing him to distort her memory. Encourage her to get her diary or calendar out for more accuracy about when things changed for the worse.

Can you suggest that she reads this thread or posts herself? The more you post, the more obvious it is that this woman needs protection and information.

she is just not selfish enough to put her needs ahead of those of her DC Lucky that one of these children's parent actually isn't selfish. shame the dad isn't as selfless.

Personally I predict if things end with current OW there will be another and another until he meets one he will leave her for. When he decides he wants to and OP and family are not as important as him and his dick. When he has ground OP completely to dust and sucked every piece of joy and happiness from her life.

He will not care enough then about the children and he will use everything he can then to get as much out of the marriage then as your friend is worried he will do now.

stern face, it is interesting what you have said about letting him distort her memory and I have already pointed this out to her. I had my own experience to draw on from when my best friend was going through a difficult time in her life (problems trying to conceive and MCs); she would try to rewrite History, rubbishing things about our past and extrapolating negatively in the extreme.

I think that it is her 'handsome prince' complex that she doesn't want to destroy. She has been very open and honest with me as you can probably tell from the details I have given and she will openly admit to not wanting to live without him. She has hinted a couple of times that there may have been unexplained events in the past (much earlier in their relationship) that could indicate that her DH is a 'liar' ,for want of a better word. He really has embarked on a ludicrous cover up mission that is alienating him from the people that care about him.

Yes, as I seem to be writing on a lot of threads at the moment, it's human nature to some extent to find justifications for doing something we want to do, but know to be 'wrong'. And human beings are capable of enormous cruelty to the people they love if they are perceived as a barrier to doing what they want. Re-writing history is a good example of that cruelty. It's really helpful that you can empathise with that aspect of the human condition. It will help your friend to see that she wasn't blind or foolish not to know that her husband hadn't loved her for years. To see this for the lie it probably is.

Talking of which, if he has been in the habit of lying to her throughout their marriage, it will have been much easier for him to have an affair. There is an undeniable link between the two. People who lie easily to others are also in the habit of lying to themselves.

Xales, I hope you are wrong but I suspect that you have very valid reasons for thinking like you do.

My friend is herself the product of a dysfunctional marriage and was aware of her father having affairs from the age of 8. She couldn't give me a straight answer (first yes, then no) when I asked her if she was glad that her parents stayed together. I guess it is a difficult question to answer.

Sternface, I wondered about drawing her attention to this thread but she may not appreciate how much of her life I have laid bare (I am a fairly regular poster and have namechanged for this). She is quite paranoid about people finding out, so far only 4 of her close friends know and both sets of parents.

Are there perhaps other ways of handling this that we (me, my friend and others on the thread) may not have thought of?

Is it a good idea for her to go on holiday with DH and DC?

Off on the school run now but will be back later.

Thanks once again to all who have responded so far.

I don't think its a great idea to go on holiday with him as it would be a good time to have some space. She could even take a friend in his place. But if she won't go without him . . . ?

Has she snooped to try to find the truth? If she knows they have already had sex perhaps she won't be reluctant to leave him at home.

Maybe she prefers the luxury lifestyle with this total shit to being a less affluent single parent. Sad but true that if it breaks the home up the children may well blame her for having to live in straitened circumstances.

I was in this situation 5 years ago; I never had a confession despite overwhelming evidence. I loved him and was also under his control as he had been physically and emotionally abusive for years. The months following me finding out were horrific and resulted in me losing my very well paid job, having an accident that left me disabled follwing an arguement over the situation. My dependence on him grew as a result as he also owned our house on paper and I was now financially and physically dependent on him.

He made a decision at some point to stay although it was never talked about or discussed at all, I felt grateful, we carried on. It has taken me 5 years to get back my confidence and over this period I realised how little he respected me. I asked him to leave last July, it took 3 months for him to leave, he was devastated and tried everything to get me back finally admitting to the affair and saying he was ready to talk. I wish I had been strong enough before to leave him or insist that he came clean.

My life is 100% better without him and he has moved on very quickly to his next victim. My guess is that the woman he had the affair with (who was also married and had a child) actually ended the relationship which is the reason he came back, rather than because he was full of remorse and really wanted me.