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Original poster

DH found out I had an affair. Now our marriage is wrecked

222 replies

thisidid · 21/09/2012 14:19

I did something very stupid. It has been over for more than a year. Two days ago DH found out about it and he is devastated. Incandescent. I don't know if we will get past this. We have two beautiful DCs. The past two days have been appalling. The baby has picked up on the stress and has been inconsolable all day. I can't eat, my milk supply is dropping. DH wants a paternity test. We have had such a happy year together, culminating in the birth of DC2, and now everything is in ruins. Words cannot express how much I have hurt him and to witness that is the worst punishment. and to know it is worse for him.

We always had a good relationship, with lots of ups and downs like any couple, but we always used to be strong together. I did this through my own stupid vanity and selfishness. I took him for granted and went chasing ego gratification. I did this to the family I love so much. It turns out that the grass isn't greener, it is sordid and unfulfilling and I wish I had stopped it before things went as far as they did.

I thought that as time went on, my mistake would get lost in the past, but it didn't.

I don't know how to repair our marriage and protect our children, but I will do anything. But I think it my be too late.

OP posts:
Offred · 21/09/2012 20:58

Sgb - the big deal is only where someone had committed to be monogamous. If you commit to be monogamous, and FWIW I happen to think a lot of people might be happier if they asserted their common leanings towards various types of non-monogamy more, but if you commit to be monogamous and then you sleep around and deceive you deprive your committed monogamous partner of their choice and in a lot of ways you erode the principles of sexual consent.

dementedma · 21/09/2012 21:01

Op. I hope you manage to work things out and stay with dh if that is what you want. Is it?

BlameItOnTheCuervo · 21/09/2012 21:02

Offred, exactly!

Offred · 21/09/2012 21:04

Cheating isn't the same thing as non-monogamy sgb and it is a bit insulting to conflate the two. Cheating can occur within non-monogamous relationships or monogamous ones where agreed boundaries are crossed and there is deceit. To be fair we don't even know whether the op's or misguided's relationships were monogamous... We are just assuming, which is why I said the stuff about monogamy was fairly irrelevant because this is a thread about cheating not about monogamy.

Fairenuff · 21/09/2012 21:05

If people don't want to be monogomous, why do they promise that they will?

AThingInYourLife · 21/09/2012 21:06

"for the OP having another child was probably an attempt to put the past behind her and commit afresh to her DH, rather than any diabolical intent. "

Deciding to put her secret affair "behind her" and "committing afresh" to a man who didn't know there was any lack of commitment by bringing a new person into being is as close to diabolical intent as most people can manage.

She deliberately tied an ignorant man more closely to her by having another child after she had betrayed him.

Awful.

misguided08 · 21/09/2012 21:07

Offred - I am listening and hearing your comments and do feel that you have said some valid points. I do accept that it was a choice I made and an extremely bad and "misguided" one! I am absolutely sure that I would never have an affair again as I have seen the hurt it causes. I do love my partner very much as hard as it may seem for other posters to believe - my affair was the result of many factors some of which I really don't want to go into as they are very personal. My partner is a fantastic loving man and I would never take that love for granted again.

AThingInYourLife · 21/09/2012 21:07

MOS :(

AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:07

well said, offred

cheating is not non-monogamy

AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:09

mis, where has anyone said that you do not love your partner ?

you are putting words in people's posts that are not there

ProphetOfDoom · 21/09/2012 21:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
thisidid · 21/09/2012 21:11

I understand people thinking I am only sorry I was caught. I haven't expressed properly how I felt about the affair after it happened, which was awful guilt at having played my DH for a fool, and guilt at having lied to him and broken my vow, and confusion and disgust with myself at what I had done to him. I couldn't bear the thought of telling him - instead I promised myself he would never find out, and that it would never happen again. I didn't fully contemplate this moment though and really truly make myself understand what it would be like, but did a very good job of brushing it under the carpet so I didn't have to face up to what I had done.

Tonight he has gone off to visit his ex, possibly for a revenge fuck :(

I have no problem with people's frank comments on here, i didn't come on here for hand-holding but for advice and a talking to.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:13

it was her commitment to a marriage her husband was completely in the dark about

she had a bandaid baby without his insight into what exactly she was doing, and why

horrible, really horrible and just about the most selfish thing I have read on here

and I've read a lot of selfish shit

AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:15

I hope your H doesn't have a revenge fuck with his ex

Two wrongs don't make a right, and personally I don't think it will make him feel better

solidgoldbrass · 21/09/2012 21:18

I'm quite aware that cheating is not the same as consensual non-monogamy (it is, after all, possible to cheat even when you have an officially open relationship...)

But the problem is that people are fed this bullshit that monogamy is the One True Way and superior to all other ways of conducting your sex life, so they sign up for it and think it will Just Happen, and then find out that actually it doesn't suit them after all. Monogamy was constructed for men's benefit, not women's, and then men (as a class) built a structure round it that made living outside it very hard and dangerous for women. Then they set about convincing women that women are naturally monogamous and men are naturally not, so every woman has to tie herself in knots to please Her Man or he will.... Have Sex With Someone Else.

It isn't very ethical to decieve someone else. It isn't nice at all to be the one who's been decieved. But nor is it the end of the world, and to act like it is, is to do yourself no favours and waste your life obsessing about something that really isn't terrribly important.

AThingInYourLife · 21/09/2012 21:18

I dunno... if I was cheated on I think a revenge fuck would be pretty high on my agenda.

jadebond007 · 21/09/2012 21:20

I'm sorry, OP.

I've skimmed through all the vitriol on here directed at you. I hope you know that it's about what you represent to some of the people on here. We are all human. We all make mistakes. We all make big, big, awful mistakes that we would do anything to take back later.

I know I have, and I don't judge you for yours.

I don't know whether you can get your relationship back. It is too early to say. Try to be patient, as this will take a long time to be processed.

Was it a love affair or a silly fling or what?

Offred · 21/09/2012 21:20

Misguided - please understand that, and I know it is hard to see from the written word, but it is not that I think you don't love your dp or that I think you are a terrible person. I actually think terrible guilt and self-flagellation is unhelpful and unnecessary and that an affair in itself is not the worst thing in the world. I really hope you can forgive yourself, that needs to happen first I think, i also think it is unlikely to happen when you are still in the denial bit of feeling like you were swept along in the affair rather than seeing the weaknesses in yourself that influenced your choices IYSWIM? Please stop beating yourself up for the past so much too. If you go over it, try to look at things from an analytical, objective and less emotional perspective first before you bring emotions into it - very very hard I know. You sound very committed to your dp and like you love him a lot!

zoikscooby · 21/09/2012 21:21

Oh SGB, you speak so much sense on so many threads. But can you really not see that your opinion on the 'naturalness' or otherwise of monogamy is utterly irrelevant in cases of marital infidelity?

And that, actually, your comments about it not being a 'big deal' are really fucking insulting to anyone who's ever had their partner 'breach monogamy', as you so coldly put it?

For someone who is often so smart about relationships, you do seem to have a terrible blind spot when it comes to actual human feelings.

AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:22

erm, you are a complete dolt if you buy into "women are naturally monogamous and men are not"

that Venus/Mars shit has been pretty much decimated in all the circles I move in

I believe it exists in certain enclaves, but I am not sure how it relates to this thread, which is actually mainly propagated by women who have cheated

Offred · 21/09/2012 21:22

Thisidid - it is very early days.

AnyFucker · 21/09/2012 21:24

jade OP doesn't "represent" anything to me, other than a common-or-garden deceiver

I haven't been cheated upon in my marriage, so I am not projecting anything at all

Offred · 21/09/2012 21:29

Sgb- yeeeeesss BUT it is your view not the objective truth that sex with other people doesn't matter. Actually in reality I would prefer non-monogamy but i was aware of that when i chose a monogamous relationship with my DH (he definitely wants monogamy). For some people it is just that they cannot separate out their feelings and feel confused and upset by the idea of non-monogamy of any kind. Some people don't care but to some people it matters an awful lot. However most people care about being deceived. My x cheated on me extremely frequently and lied constantly I cared about the deceit and how it removed my right to informed consent about our relationship and how the covering up of the cheating involved a lot of psychological abuse including blaming me for me having chlamydia.

Offred · 21/09/2012 21:32

It is entirely gutless and pathetic to commit to monogamy because it is what society expects and then choose to cheat and lie because you are too pathetic to be honest with yourself about who you are and what you want never mind being honest with a person you are meant to care about.

CremeEggThief · 21/09/2012 21:39

I'm sorry, OP, but if he is having a revenge fuck, can you blame him?

I might get flamed for this, but cheating back on someone who cheated on you is not as bad. In fact, I have always thought it's only what the original cheater deserves when I've come across it in RL. However, it is one of the reasons I would never have given STBXH another chance, as I know I would have been looking for any excuse to do to him what he did to me; to hurt him like he hurt me. And you know what? If I'd gone down that line, I would have ultimately hurt myself as much as him.
But I understand why other people do it
and I would never judge them in the same way.