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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Husband's affair - I'm completely broken, please help

445 replies

Janeysbroken · 18/03/2013 20:16

I found out last week that my DH of 22 years has been having an affair. It was with a woman he met online who is also married and ten years younger than me. I found out when her husband knocked on our door at midnight and told me, in a rage. Our 20 year old son heard everything and is inconsolable. When the husband had gone my DH told me he'd already finished the affair a few weeks earlier, he was drunk and it meant nothing. I was shocked and angry and unbelievably sad but he works away a lot and it's something I'd always feared. He swore it was the first time he'd been unfaithful in the 24 years we've been together.

The next morning I was burning up with anger and asked him to leave. I went out. He then phones me to tell me the OW has turned up at our house wanting to apologise and is demanding to speak to me. I was so livid I went home and grabbed his phone and called her. I told her he wasn't leaving, neither was I and he was drunk and she meant nothing to him. What followed has broken me.

She was obviously enraged by this. And told me the truth. He loved her, he hasn't finished it, had been meeting at hotels for four months, he said she was love of his life. Thousands and thousands of FB messages. To cut a long story short me and DH ended up driving down to their house that night as both me and OW needed answers from DH.

We all talked for almost two hours. He admitted he loved her, had told her she was love of his life, best friend and soulmate. He'd told her that morning that he loved her but couldn't leave because he has nowhere to go. He'd bought her presents. Talked to her almost constantly on FB for months. Said he was unhappy, I'm boring, our sex life is rubbish. But because i now knew he told her it had to stop and he's staying with me. She was crying and devastated. He'd told her we were just friends now and he hasn't felt anything more than friendship for me for over a decade. He was clearly besotted with her. And she with him.

I was having panic attacks. Can't eat. Want to kill her, him, myself. She showed me a FB message where he called me a boring twat. I thought we'd had a lovely day that day - we'd even had sex. He took her to a hotel the day after.

She refused to stop contacting him. Threatening to tell our 19 year old daughter (who still doesn't know) and his boss, which would get him sacked as he took her to hotels on fake business trips on expenses. I made it clear he couldn't ever speak to her again and was feeling physically like I might die. She then texts to say she's pregnant. Her husband phoned going mad as he says it's impossible it's his, it's my DH's.

My DH is, to his credit refusing to speak to her and has told her to have an abortion and never contact us again. Her husband phoned pleading for him to speak to her as she's slashed all her arms with a razor over the guilt of having to face an abortion. But I've told him I'll kill myself if he speaks to her again. Our son hates him. Our life is shattered and I'm destroyed.

I can't bear to think he loved her so much. It was plainly obvious. He claims not to now and I know he isn't in contact with her. Could he really have fallen out of love with her in the space of 24 hours? They'd just come back from a hotel when her husband found out and came to our house. I don't know what to do or think. I'm grieving and love him. I'm 48 and don't work or drive. I have nothing without him. He's my life. Please, please help me.

OP posts:
AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 17:56

"I promise you OP, if you do the right thing now (i.e. encourage him to face up to his responsibilities) you will feel better about yourself in the long term."

I strongly disagree that acting like this twat's Mammy and telling him how to deal with his horrible girlfriend's unwanted pregnancy is "the right thing".

The nasty end of their sordid dalliance should not trouble janey one iota.

Only the deeply vain, married to their own conception of themselves as "a good person", would bother with that.

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 17:59

And janey is beyond reproach.

This evil was done to her.

Nobody gets to demand a certain reaction while she is in shock at having her life torn apart by a pair of selfish cunts.

Badvoc · 19/03/2013 18:02

This child (if its exists and the og goes ahead) will be the ops children's sibling. They may want a relationship with it in the future.
Like it or not.
He has already shat all over her kids.
Does that make it ok for him to do it to someone else's?
No.
Is it really ok to wish this on an innocent child?
Ffs.
Op...AF speaks sense.

Hopingtobehappy · 19/03/2013 18:04

AThingInYourLife

The OP has banned her H from contacting OW I wasnt suggesting that she become his Mummy, only to back off and [allow and encourage] him to contact her

And this is not just about the OW and the H, its about an unborn child who had no say in any of this either

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 18:09

There is no "kid".

There might be a bunch of non-sentient cells that are currently being used in the most cynical fashion by the woman who houses them.

If and when there is an actual child to worry about is time enough to get concerned about siblings and relationships.

At the moment that is just sentimental nonsense.

Same as all the crap about how he needs to go with her to an abortion.

BettySuarez · 19/03/2013 18:12

Janey, you are gathering strength. I know you are Smile

Keep posting, keep talking.

Channel your anger towards your DH because that is where it should be directed. You are not responsible for him, his feelings, his decisions anymore.

In time you will find the strength to rebuild your life and we will be right here behind you x

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 18:12

Unless the OP has her husband at gunpoint, her ban is meaningless.

And "encouraging" her husband to talk to his ex mistress about the pregnancy he wants her to terminate is acting like his Mammy.

"its about an unborn child who had no say in any of this either"

Oh, a pro-lifer. Yeah, we're never going to agree.

ladyjadie · 19/03/2013 18:15

I am so sorry Angry Sad [non-existent puke emoticon]

This hits me to the bone Sad

Janeysbroken · 19/03/2013 18:17

Her DH said she doesn't want my DH to go with her. She apparently said she just wants an hour of his time on their own for 'closure' and to get some answers from him. She's said if she can't move on then none of us can. Why should I bow to her 'needs'?

OP posts:
noddyholder · 19/03/2013 18:19

She is pregnant he owes her an hour no matter what you think.

ike1 · 19/03/2013 18:19

Dont bother banging your head Mad that would be ridiculous! And I have clearly stated that I can see how the Op's actions are shielding her husband. However...I very much disagree with some of the suggestions that the OP should in someway feel bad about her reaction to stop her husband from running to the OW's side to talk about stuff. This is a woman clearly in shock and dealing with vomitting her guts out and panic attacks. FFS!!!Even thinking about the OW would be enough to make her feel ill.

Thisisaeuphemism · 19/03/2013 18:19

She sounds awful janey, but so does your husband. He brought this calamity onto you.
You really need to get him out.

sassy34264 · 19/03/2013 18:19

For the first time ever AF i totally disagree with you.

I don't think that i would have any compassion for a woman that knowingly fucked my husband. It's her own making. I certainly wouldn't give a shite about being the bigger person, keeping my dignity, being beyond reproach, when the world as i know it, had just been ripped out from under me.

I agree with athing

Only the deeply vain, married to their own conception of themselves as "a good person", would bother with that.

^this^ totally agree

You have to have a massive level of detachment to be thinking in those terms imho.

On the other hand i wouldn't cling on to him either. If i had read in black and white that he had no where to go and would sort it out, he would be doubly out the door.

As cognito says, your self esteem would have to be on the bones of it's arse to put up with that.

Hopingtobehappy · 19/03/2013 18:21

Im not a pro-lifer, far from it, im pro-choice.

This man obviously doesnt give one jot about either his W or the OW, but the OP does not have to stand back and allow that to happen (or indeed encourage him to abandon her)

And I dont think anyone has said that the H should go with her to the abortion, only to acknowledge the OW

ike1 · 19/03/2013 18:21

Give her fucking break!

Badvoc · 19/03/2013 18:22

I am not a pro lifer.
I am pro not being a twat-er.
You shouldn't bow to her needs op.
You shouldn't bow to anyone's needs anymore.
You cannot stop your dh seeing her. You must know that.
You also cannot stop him going with her for the termination.
Things you can change: your behaviour and how you react to this god awful mess.

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 18:23

"She's said if she can't move on then none of us can."

Hmm

Silly bitch.

She could fuck off with her "closure" as far as I was concerned.

ZolaBuddleia · 19/03/2013 18:23

Holy fuck, the self-indulgence of this pair!

It's going round in circles. OP, you and the OW's DH are being dragged backwards and forwards in all this. Distance yourself from what either of them want, they created this mess, you need to think of yourself.

PureQuintessence · 19/03/2013 18:24

I dont think you are actually refusing to bow to her needs. You are just clinging to your husband and trying to protect him from an uncomfortable hour.

I dont think there is a chance in hell that the ow will want your husband, not even if he was on special discount or came with diamonds and peals or even a palace. She just wants to talk to him and quite possibly rant and scream at him (like YOU should also do) for being a complete and utter despicable turd.

He needs to hear it. And if you cant bring yourself to tell him what a shit he is, then let her do it.

You are deluded if you think that this woman will want your husband, after discovering what type of man he is.

Thisisaeuphemism · 19/03/2013 18:26

Let him go - the guy who didn't miss you even a tiny bit - that'll teach the fucker. Really. Look what he, not her, HE, has done to you.

ike1 · 19/03/2013 18:26

Sassy I totally get where you are coming from...really! I consider myself a really f great person and would absolutely have forgiven myself some irrational thougths and actions under the terrrible strain the OP is in...

Badvoc · 19/03/2013 18:26

Well having an affair is the ultimate in self indulgement and self delusion, surely?
I feel for the ows dh too.

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 18:27

"You cannot stop your dh seeing her. You must know that."

Of course she can't stop him.

If he wanted to see her, he would.

Making sure that happens is not the OP's responsibility.

And people who are pro-choice don't describe embryos as "unborn children".

AThingInYourLife · 19/03/2013 18:29

"You are deluded if you think that this woman will want your husband, after discovering what type of man he is."

Not necessarily.

The OW bought into this shitbag's obvious lies.

She might well still be hoping they can have their happy ever after.

Badvoc · 19/03/2013 18:30

I worry that the op is venting her -totally understandable rage and pain - onto the ow and not her dh.
2 to tango and that.
And the other posters are right...the ow does not want your h.
He has shown his true colours.
The rose tinted specs are well and truly off.