Help.

[MummyIsMagic79]

Long story short - Gut feeling my DH is cheating/hiding things. All the usual signs. He's had a lot to drink tonight, and when he has, an earthquake won't wake him.

Do I check his phone when he's fast asleep or not? I am 90% sure I will find some very painful stuff on there.

Am 35 weeks preg with DC3. H and I have our second appt with Relate in a week or so. Relate was his idea. He swears blind there's nobody else.

I don't believe him.

If I look, and find something, I will lose the 'upper hand' if you like, because he'll be more focused on me snooping his stuff.

TIA

I think the message you need overwhelmingly is that you matter. Your opinion, your wishes, your feelings.

We all want you to feel that and not feel swayed by other people - H, OW, OWsH, other parents, family....and also MNetters. You have a right to do what you feel like doing. If it doesn't feel right, don't be told you have to do it because of others opinions

Well said, LivesIn

You matter, Mummy - not just as a mother, wife, daughter or carrier of your unborn baby.

But just you, the woman, the person who has has their life turned upside down.

You matter :)

MiM79 - love, it's not you that is causing the stress to either you or the baby, it's him. You can't just be all calm & serene until the baby is here. Some comments just need to be ignored.

I am so very sorry that your instincts were right :(

I am also really sorry that the OW was a friend, it's such a double betrayal.

Don't rush into 'forgiving him' or making a decision. There is no hurry, really there isn't.

It is a shit thing to be going through at anytime, but when you are pregnant it is beyond fucking awful.

Many of us wanted to know all of the gory details, the 'need to know' is completely senseless as it only hurts us, but it doesn't stop us asking.

Ignore any comments/debates about your parents, they are just muddling through this as you are, trying to be supportive and help as best they can. Some of their actions/comments etc aren't very helpful to you right now, but it's not through malice. Try to put it to one side.

As I said before, don't think you have to make any decisions right now - either way this is life changing and taking some time to decide what is going to happen now will only benefit you.

People can stay together after an affair, but it is a long hard road. It's not a case of 'going back to how it was' but a case of totally starting again. The one who has had the affair has to not only want it, but has to be prepared to build up trust, talk and put a lot of effort in. Any sign of 'let's just put this behind us and move on' shows they are not prepared to do that. He has to want this even more than you do, or the balance will be forever skewed and it wont work. Frankly, having been there, done that I would never try to build a relationship after an affair, it is soul destroying and takes so much more than you can imagine. BUT at the time, nothing anyone said would have made me see that - so there's no way I'd blame you for trying if it's what you want, but please try to listen to the advice from people who did that succesfully.

Stay strong - whatever happens, you will be OK
xxx

Yeah, look it is up to you what you do, and to be honest, I'm happy to hear there's been shouting and crying and hysterical need for the truth, because that's healthy! what you were at first was destroyed (understandably don't get me wrong) ,desperate to keep hold of him, defeated and bewildered. This is progress!!

The stress isn't good for the baby,but you need to sort this out, and you are.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR again at you having to go to the clinic :(

Hope relate goes well.

I'm not suggesting you are neglecting your baby! YOur husband has set this entire drama rolling, is sobbing and making a fuss, which ups the ante. You've enough horror to deal with without him making a godawful fuss around you, which is getting you wound right up. That's what I mean - get away from him. Limit the upset where you possibly can by getting your drama queen husband out of your orbit for a while so you can calm down.

I would send him away for a while, so you can get your head together and he can begin to realise that he has - or has almost - lost. That way he will value you more should you decide to have him back.

How was Relate?

hi mummy.have to agree with up thread, the ow husband cannot be a healthy contact for you..it maintains a link that needs to be severed and you don't need to hear how sorry she is blah blah..time for you to be selfish, lovely lady, and that means reading all this and then saying Bollocks and doing exactly what you like x

Another vote of support for Mummy. I read your op on Sunday and was gutted for you. Terribly sorry to hear the news x

Chippingin's last paragraph makes a lot of sense.

Took me back 8 years and put a lump in my throat. I totally agree that he needs to be putting in the effort here. I know how it feels to be pregnant with DC3 and be in your position. It is beyond shit. You should feel no pressure to make any decisions either way at this time. Take each day as it comes. Even if you want him to stay for now, you may find this shifts over time.

Take care x

How are you doing Mummy? How was Relate? Hope you are OK.

So sorry you've been so upset and stressed. I know I would be the same regarding wanting to know all the details. You need to know what you're dealing with, and if you're the type of person (like me) who would agonise over guessing/imagining everything, then at least you know now. It must have been so hard to hear though

I hope you are a bit calmer now. You're doing well, and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Deep breaths...

MM - you don't owe anyone any explanations or apologies. You only need to deal with your situation as you see fit, which is what you are already doing really well - and that is to your credit.

I'm so sorry that your experience at the STD clinic was traumatic - and I hope your H is going/has gone too.

Hopefully Relate was ok, although I'm sure that the first sessions in these circumstances are very painful.

Well.

Relate was ok. I didn't say anything I hadn't already said to him. But he seemed to talk a bit more and the counsellor was very nice and helpful, had some good angles/POV's that I hadn't thought of. He came home with me and stayed last night. We talked more and it was till painful, but I think I've exhausted all the questions I want the answer to. Except one - Why did he tell her he loved her, he wanted her forever and was hers for always, if he didn't mean it. He swears blind that he was just saying what she wanted to hear, in order to keep the dirty messages/pictures/actual sex going. He is distraught and can't understand why he was so stupid. Me either.

Today has been hard. Keep getting images of the pornographioc pictures and texts in my head. I have never had much of a memory, but I can revcall every word I read of pages and pages of texts/FB messages. I also get images of them having sex. Coupled with this I want him home to give me a cuddle. I can't help it.

The week at school came to an end with her never having showed her face and me having dragged myself up there, looking made up and heeled, a total of FIFTEEN times. Fuck knows how she's got her kids in and out, but it's not my problem.

I want to confront her. In a neutral location. I don't know why, but I have to see her every day for at least the next 7 years, and I want some answers. I'd probably never acknowledge her after we had a talk, but I need her to know what I know. H says he will support whatever decision I make. I'm worried i'll lose control and sob or scream. What do you think?

I wouldn't give her the steam off my piss, TBH.

She doesn't deserve a confrontation. She's probably looking forward to it.

Blank her. She's not worth a second of your time.

"He swears blind that he was just saying what she wanted to hear, in order to keep the dirty messages/pictures/actual sex going."

Does he think that says anything good about him

He thinks you should be reassured that he's the sort of person that lies to get sex and says he loves people when he doesn't?

Yeah, what a great bloke that makes him.

So he was lying to her about loving her to get her into bed, but really all along he loved you, and you can tell because he convinced you you were mentally ill.

Lying comes easy to this man.

I think seeing her right now would put you in a very vulnerable position.

I also think you are being far too understanding of how he feels, my love, when he has just treated you like absolute shite.

He told her those things because he wanted to. He would still be telling her them right now if you hadn't have found out. You don't know for certain he still isn't. And really - does it make it more acceptable if he was just saying them so he could have sex?! What does that say about him as a person? What does that say about how he feels for you?

Please - have some more respect for yourself, it is actually painful to read the way you seem to be dismissing what he has done to you more with each post :(

I am not doing much for the sisterhood am i? sorry.

we have kind of decided to make it try and make it work, but maybe im a fool.

nothing is helping me, including MN, just making me feel like i 'ought' to divorce him, wether i want to or not.

i am doubting my decision already, but i just want my family to start again and be stronger than before.

part of me knows it won't work and in 6 months time we will end up splitting up. but the rest of me wants him back so much

fuck this shit :( :(

Its nothing to do with sisterhood, sweetheart, its to do with you.

He ruined your family. None of this is your fault, and it feels rather like you are blaming yourself, and punishing yourself for it.

There is no "ought to divorce him". It is your decision, no-one elses. If you want to give it a go, then that's what you should do. Plenty of people do that, and for lots of them it does work, they find a way to make it work. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure there are many of those people on MN, but I certainly know people who have made it work and are happy with their decision to stay together. You stand as good a chance of being one of the couples who make it as anyone else does.

I'm sure that she is crapping herself at the thought of seeing you. She will probably stay away from school for as long as she possible can.

The "sisterhood" is here to help support you.

You don't owe us anything. Certainly not ending your marriage.

I said earlier that at this early stage the advice is the same whether you want to get divorced or save your marriage.

Letting him home so easily when he hasn't even begun to understand, let alone atone for, his wrongdoing is unlikely to lead to a happy future.

You recognise that yourself - you want his comfort, you want the pain to go away, you want this not to have happened, so you cling to him and to your wreck of a marriage and allow it to keep you afloat for now.

But the pain, the betrayal, the personality flaws in him are are still there waiting to take you down.

He told you one really useful thing last night - he lies to get what he wants.

Last week he wanted to fuck your friend. This week he wants you to stay in the marriage.

All that's changed is what he wants out of you.

And that you prefer hearing that he loves you than that you are mental.

How can you believe anything this man says, when he is a total liar?

Either he loves her, and told you that he only said he loved her to get sex, or he lied to get her to bed. Either way is untruthful, but you will never know which lie to prefer.

Oh mummy magic, this is miserable isn't it.

I agree with all the other posters - it seems like you are rushing towards decisions as if that will make it go away quicker. It Is less than a week since you found out and sadly, Its not going to go away soon however much you wish it.

I can understand you can't get the images from your head. :(

I also wouldn't believe a word he says right now esp. Re loving her.

Wishing you lots of love and strength - and the knowledge that you can always change your mind!

Also, you are really angry with the ow (bloody right, of course!) but if you truly believe your husband "I told her I loved her so she would fuck me" then doesn't that make you think she was deceived too?

Please also remember that this man persuaded you that you were mentally ill to cover up his affair.

You are thinking about confronting the other woman, because you are trying to blame her entirely for what has happened. It takes two. Your husband is just as much to blame.

He swears blind he was just saying it for sex. Firstly, that makes him a twisted bastard. And secondly - remember he also swore blind that he was entirely faithful to you.

You are worth so much more than this, really you are.

AThing has it spot on when she says he showed you something very clearly last night; he lies to get what he wants. When he wanted to climb into bed with your friend, he loved her, wanted to be with her forever. Now that you have found out, he loves you, and wants to save your marriage. Either way, he is lying.

And please - PLEASE - remember that this twisted arsehole had you doubting your own sanity mere days ago, to cover up the fact he was cheating on you.

Mummy you are absolutely right, this IS shit.

So for you.

I went through this many years ago.

If I can pass on what I've learnt, it is this:

• Don't make any decisions for quite some time. What you think you know now really isn't the truth. Suspend judgement until you've got all the facts and you know more about your own ability to get over this. Until you see your husband changing and sustaining those changes, it's unwise to make any decisions at all. That doesn't necessarily mean living separate lives, but it does mean suspending judgement. Your husband will have to get used to uncertainty, as will you.

• Get as much 'other' evidence as you can, that cannot be misinterpreted or doctored by false or learned memories. Ask to see saved e mails, texts, messages, letters and phone bills.

• Don't rush to determine a cause for your husband's affair because there are usually many. Don't project your own beliefs on to your husband and do listen to what he tells you. Listen particularly acutely to what he says when you ask him what reasons he gave himself at the time. If your relationship was bad at that point, consider that this might have been as a result of your husband's sabotage of it. When reviewing your relationship, backdate your memories to before he became friendly with the OW as this is a more reliable indicator.

• Don't rule out talking to the OW, but not just yet. At the moment, I can virtually guarantee your husband is minimising and lying and although she might be able to expose this, right now you're still in shock and as I'd suggest you only have one encounter with her, it would be better once the shock has worn off and you know more about what happened. By the sounds of it, she is also minimising her actions to her husband, so she is not yet in 'truth' mode herself. Her words to you that it 'felt' like love are probably the most truthful she has been so far.

• Your husband right now is telling you what he thinks you want to hear. He thinks that you will countenance him telling lies to the OW and because you understandably hate her guts, you might not be too sore about that. You should be though. If he's telling the truth, that means he was lying to two women, in order to get what he wanted.

• What I think you will learn in the coming weeks and months is that your husband had some feelings for the OW, but they were probably in a range between infatuation and being in love. So when he told her some of those things, he did mean them at the time. But that some of what he said was 'mirroring' her own strong feelings and weren't strictly true - and he would have had a sense of that at the time. Your husband is probably over-emphasising the sexual and minimising the emotional motive, because he thinks you can forgive sex but not emotional involvement. He might well be wrong and I hope he is.

• Although it might not seem like a priority right now, it will later on become very important to you that the OW is told by your husband what this affair was all about and why he is staying in his marriage. Right now she will think he is staying in it out of fear and loss of things and people unconnected to you as an individual. He needs to put her straight and this will also be a kindness to her as well as you.

• Your husband's journey needs to start with him reflecting on why he wants to stay with you. This is very important because any ambivalence on his part once the shock has worn off, will result in the marriage failing what ever you personally decide. Insist that he does that reflecting because if he is staying with you for any reasons other than deep love and attachment to you as a person - and not the package you represent, you need to know them. It follows that you must undertake the same process. If you're staying with your husband because of the children and the weight of expectation from others or that which is self-induced, this will not work.

• You need to understand that you did not cause this and that infidelity is an individual choice. It is never an aberration in someone and is usually a manifestation of earlier selfishness in him that you may have overlooked, because of his other qualities. The most reliable success indicator regarding his continued fidelity is that he examines his character, owns what is bad about it, rejects it and changes. This might require his own personal therapy and reading, as well as radical behaviour change until new habits are formed and become attitudinal changes.

I think you are feeling huge pressure at the moment from every quarter. Including MN

Do what you need to do to get through the short term. You have a baby to think about and despite what others think, now is probably not a good time for you to consider splitting. Plus...you don't want to.

I think everyone would like to think of you happy. That might mean staying together and I am 100% sure that is what you will do.

However I still want to give advice. Stay together but stay strong and change the dynamics of this relationship. It has to change. The 'old' relationship ended in his fucking your 'friend'. His fault. His fault alone. So he has to change. But you have to be clear about that and not allow him to stay the same

I think people should accept your decision and focus on helping you be strong in insisting on a new relationship