After infidelity - those who are still with their partners

[Looksgoodingravy]

We are working through it, it's been four months, we have better days than bad, I know things will never be the same again and there are chinks of normality coming back into our lives again, I'm hoping we will be stronger than before, it will be different. I know my dp is deeply deeply sorry for the hurt he's caused, he's working hard to build those bridges.

My question I suppose is have you forgiven your partner? I know I'll never forget but I know I've got to forgive so that I can move on, I know I will forgive when I feel ready to but is it a necessary step to take...I'm just letting some sad feelings out tonight, I feel sad for the 17 years we had before I found out, seems a lovely carefree time now not one wrapped in pain and hurt.. time to move on and bring the good bits back into my life.

Can I suggest that you get Shirley Glass's Not Just Friends - it comes highly recommended on here and it really helped me.

Yes, it is good.

I read it all.
He read some of it.

I reckon there should be a MN swapping service for second-hand copies of NJF as so many people seem to be going through this awful crap.

Its not an easy book for cheaters to read. Have you tried getting him to read Linda J MacDonald's How to Help Your Spouse Heal from your Affair? Its a short but hard hitting book.

Thanks, Mad. I'll have a look for it.

I found out in April my husband had been having an affair for over a year with a woman he works with. I only found out because I went snooping, not because he confessed.

My reaction was to tell him to go but he appeared contrite, asked what he could do to stay, to repair our marriage. So I said I'd give him a chance - my logic was that if he really wanted to make it work I owed it to him, to me and to our children to try. He ended it with her, deleted her number, said he had no contact with her at all.

We went to counselling but it was like getting blood out of a stone. Despite the fact we hadn't had sex for months and months I went to GUM and luckily got the all clear. He stalled and stalled and never got round to going.

He left his phone lying around, rarely went out and when he did I knew where he was going and who with. He was doing and saying all the right things but I didn't relax, couldn't trust him and was still living in limbo, feeling that he was going through the motions but not committing to me.

Then on Monday this week I found lovey-dovey texts between him and the OW on his phone under a fake bloke's name. He had either had her on standby if not ongoing all this time.

I've kicked him out, am starting divorce proceedings and told everyone why we've separated. And you know what? I feel relieved. I couldn't live in a marriage like that - the suspicion, the fear, the mistrust, the lack of self-esteem and self-confidence.

Whilst I desperately hoped we could stay together, repair our 15 year marriage and start again I know now that wasn't possible because he thought he could have it all ways. I only realised after Monday that he had never apologised for what he had done - he acknowledged the hurt he had caused and the impact on me but HE NEVER APOLOGISED.

So as scary as it is on my own anything is preferable to living a lie, a half-marriage where he broke it and I was the one trying to fix it.

I'm sure some men are truly remorseful and will change but look deep inside yourself and in him and be wary of what is and isn't being said and done. IME affairs are all about him and what he wants and his complete disregard for me and what I wanted is very telling and runs deep.

sternface your posts are amazing and completely resonate with me. You describe my STBXH to a tee.

Apart from financially I feel I would be fine on my own, after all I more or less lived the single life while dp was gadding about last year. Dp would feel it more than me I suspect. I so want to make this work though and I've got to try and give him one more chance, he's fucked up on a monumental scale, he sent me a text today after our deep discussion last night and again apologised for the hurt he's caused, asked me to list 5 things good about him and five things bad. Tbh the bad were easy, the good I struggled with, does this speak volumes or is it just where my head is right now?

Counsellor said the biggest reason why couples don't stay together is that the betrayed can't get past the betrayal and the betrayer loses patience. I feel like I'm turning a corner one minute and the next I'm almost back to square one.

Sidge I'm so sorry this has happened again to you this is my biggest fear and probably why I can't turn the corner. The ow being listed under a mans name brings back painful thoughts as dp kept his three stooges listed under men's names!

Arrrggggghhhh!! I really really shouldn't google. I have been looking at site with cheating partners on them, threads with titles like 'Can't get over my married affair!' and 'He won't leave his wife, what can I do?'. So much selfishness and self-obsession. In all those threads hardly a mention of the betrayed spouse apart from a vague resentment. or any sense of responsibilty for the damage they have all done.

Twats!

"Needless to say he turned it on me and blamed me for not moving on!"

FFS! I wonder how long it would have taken him to do that?

Orm, one of the OW replied to my message to her that if I'd been fucking him he wouldn't have gone looking elsewhere, bitch! we were actually, albeit not as often! She was the one who gave him a bj, classy!

Nice I have her number on my phone from when she was arranging DH's bday present. I have been so tempted to text her. I won't.

Thanks looksgood - it is truly hideous but at the same time I feel a weight is off my shoulders. He had sucked all the joy out of my life and now I feel I can work on bringing some joy back in.

I don't think for us it would ever have worked. The depth of the deceit was staggering, and I don't think I could ever have trusted him again.

I'm not saying marriages can't be recovered after an affair but I am very cynical as to how many can truly succeed. I know I found it very hard to look at my husband, who was telling me he loved me, yet had lived a life of such deception and duplicity for so long. My marriage was at death's door for a while but his actions killed it and put the lid on the coffin and his recent behaviour nailed it down.

Sorry sidge .

Thanks Orm, I'm sorry you are travelling this hideous road too

So sorry Sidge for your recent text discovery.Without sincere remorse and effort to repair the huge damage I know I would have been divorcing my DH.And I only fought so hard to forgive because our marriage had been so solid, good and strong before OW hit on my DH when he was going through his mid life crisis of missed opportunities, not challenged enough at work and indulging his friendly,flirty and sociable nature.Not making excuses for him though.He was just as culpable.

Madabout thanks so much for your earlier endorsement and kind words.Means so much.My self esteem as a menopausal mum in early 50s was at a low after discovery.Not any more.I really did cope with so much in the aftermath.Not just the fallout with DH but a close bereavement,empty nest as youngest left for uni,health problems with DD and keeping my demanding business going - not to mention putting on a brave face to all but a few RL friends who knew how cut up I truly was.
We all deserve a massive pat on the back.And Countingto10 inspired me to find joy in rediscovering interests and friendships of my own and building a strong future for myself.Thank you x

Bless you Stargazy x

Stargazy the way you describe your dh as friendly, flirty and sociable is dp all over, he's fun to be around and people warm to him.

I'm so sorry you've been through this too and coping with a bereavement and your youngest leaving home I'm glad that you've worked on your marriage and are still together.

I'm still at the angry/sad/angry/shell shocked phase atm. One minute I think I can deal with this, I can save 17 years but then I think about what he's done and it cuts like a knife. Dp has apologised at everything I've thrown at him. At times I just want to leave this relationship and it just be my ds and I rather than be hurt ever again but it's only dp who has stopped me doing that. I sometimes feel like I'm going round the twist!

I know that feeling LOOKS!It messed with my head for months.
Esssentially I always loved my DHs sociable and friendly personality.Even the flirting over the years mainly amused me, although a couple of times years ago after after drinks he took things a bit too far and and made me feel angry and humiliated.I thought at the time we had dealt with that and he ' got it'
However OW was a different piece of work and maintained a long campaign to get close to him at work,even altering her hours!And rather than a one off at a party this became a sustained flirt fest over months that led to massive blurring of boundaries.
Suddenly that lovely sociable side of him no longer appealed IYSWIM?I could barely be I the same room and breathe the same air some days !
The aftermath was hard to cope with because I only confided in a few RL mates,and everyone thinks he's a great guy.Well he is now again to me.But only because he's finally seen how a bit of gentle flirting done openly is OK, a lot done covertly IS NOT.And this time I know he really understands.Hope you get ther too eventually.We had almost 30 years together pre discovery.It was simply too much not to fight for x

I was in Spain a few weeks ago for a girls weekend. We had an amazing time, got chatted up and I basically could have slept with a different bloke every night if I was that way inclined. One night I was chatting to a guy and my story came out, he asked me to look around at all the men outside the wine bars (and there were loads) he said to me I could probably count on one hand the number who HADN'T been unfaithful on some way.

I've thought about this a lot - is it the times we live in, the world of emails and mobile phones? Am I looking for perfection when it comes to fidelity?

I'd never trust a man again, I know that 100%. For me maybe i stay because we do get on, have fun and my family is financially secure.

We're away this weekend and there's an atmosphere after our words yesterday - i'd usually address it but I'm not this time, he has to learn to talk and APOLOGISE!!!

Sidge you are amazing, so brave and I take my hat of to you. When i divorced my 1st husband after he had an affair, I took him back initially after I found out then one evening he was bathing the kids and I checked his phone, a lovey dovey text! It was the kick I needed, I threw him out literally, clothes and all like a scene out of Eastenders! Then the next day i filed for divorce. He was gutted, absolutely broken but i was on such an adrenaline high. I enjoyed every bit of watching him crumble. He begged me on his knees in a car park one day, Mr Tough in his police uniform - that was a memory I'll never forget.

If I can give you one piece of advice it is that time is a healer. I never believed I'd get through the pain but I did, 28 with a newborn and a toddler.

I promise you the pain eases, 6months was a milestone for me. Keep strong, stay focused and hold your head up high. He will live to regret it I assure you.

(Then I married bastard no.2!!!)

Thinkin about you.

Star it sounds like you and your dh have become stronger and have built up your walls again, yes boundaries are an important topic in this house right now, dp stepped over them multiple times but he is truly sorry and I can't express in words how devastated he is, he's begged me for a second chance literally begged, I read posts such as yours and it gives me hope that we can somehow turn a corner and do this.

Edge I know with regards to the world we live in today it makes infidelity so easy doesn't it, I'm 99.9% sure that without his mobile and fb and the ease at which you can strike up a 'conversation' via chat which then leads to texting which leads to boundaries being crossed, you can be so much braver via text, you can be who you want to be, this is how dp described it to me anyway, once the meet up had happened (even though there was a bj involved) reality came crashing down around him and I think it was then that he realised just what he had done.

Hope you have a great weekend away and stick to your guns about apologising.

x

Any tips from you lovely strong ladies on what to say and not to say tonight?

I've told him tonight is the night he tells me the truth so I can decide what to do, I want to know who when and why, have already withdrawn for our marriage because he has made me feel paranoid and a snoop.

I'm not any of these thing s because I now know something has been going on, the only thing I have is that he doesn't know how much I know so if he tries to play it down I will know he needs to go

I'm angry that he gets to go to work and pretend everything is normal and I'm here trying to hold it together in front of our DC

I know I would brush it all under the carpet if it wasnt for threads like this, I deserve so much more than this hollow sham of a marriage.

Pissy how much do you know? have you got evidence, I've seen your previous thread about a couple of messages on his phone, was there enough in those messages to make you believe that he's up to something?

I stumbled upon something on fb which made me suspicious, when confronted last year dp denied denied denied when all along he was lying. Fast forward to this year and a chain of events bought up my suspicions yet again, he confessed to one thing but I knew in my heart of hearts that there was something more, I searched his phone early one morning found a couple of 'missed' deleted messages on his phone, one read 'ok sexy xxx' one read 'come and get me then xx' there were a couple more, all these messages were apparently sent from a (insert mans name) but of course he'd saved these women in his phone under mens names,none of his replies were still saved. When confronted with this evidence he told me everything, so in the space of three weeks I had the truth and more, things I couldn't possibly have found out, he told me everything. When asked why he hadn't told me last year he said he couldn't, he'd dug a huge hole and couldn't bring himself to tell me (at this point nothing more was going on).

My advice is to go with your gut instinct tonight, let him talk, don't jump in so he can get defensive and storm off or make you believe you're a paranoid silly woman, be very controlled (hard yes) with your questions try and be calm and provide him with the evidence you've got to justify why you feel the way you do as well as his behaviour contributing to those suspicions. Obviously I don't know your dh well enough to know how he'll react. When I found the extra phone evidence it bought a sort of relief as I just KNEW there was something more he hadn't told me.

Good luck x

Thanks stargazy and Edge.

Edge I don't know about amazing, but I do feel brave! When I saw those texts on Monday it's as if something in my head clicked. I thought 'I don't have to put up with this shit - I'm worth more than this'.

The realisation that I didn't have to stay in a marriage lacking in respect, intimacy, honesty, trust and integrity was incredibly liberating. Frightening - we've been together 18 years, but liberating. No more snooping, suspicion, mistrust, fear, anxiety and paranoia. That's no way to spend your life.

Pissy my advice is this (admittedly I don't know your backstory and I'm quite cynical): the chances of your DH telling you the truth are very slim. The men that repeatedly cheat and weave an entire web of deceit do not just spill their guts when confronted. They tell you what they want you to hear and cover their backs unless you have absolute proof that they can't wiggle out of.

looks when it all happened a good few years ago (the first time round) I was not in the right place to deal with it (I have posted on my other thread about why)

I know that the person who he told me was texting his phone because his friends phone was broken isn't who he said it is.

I picked up his phone early one morning and found a text saying "I love you" I answered with call me and when she did I said hello and she hung up and later text "was that her"

His excuse for this was a wrong number.

He went missing one night for the whole night and unbeknown to him I was admitted into hospital, he had text to say he was staying at a male friends house so my friend tried to find him so he could collect our baby from her house and he wasn't there.

His excuse is that he fell asleep at a different friends house.

I found a phone with pictures of some skank with chipped nail polish and a droopy fanny hood.

His excuse, it was a phone left in a hire car and he didn't know what was on it.

Writing it down makes it all so pathetic doesn't it? I wasn't ready to deal with it before but I a now, recently his phone broke so he had to swap to a Nokia for a while and I changed his settings (sorry if I'm repeating myself) I found messages he thought he had deleted.

They were innocent flirty ones but these women are people I now work with (work for the same company but different buildings) and these messages really pissed me off as there is no need for it, he must think heis a total hotty where he can flirt and get off of being smutty with these women whilst our marriage sits and becomes sour.

I've had enough, can you tell