Help with affair

[Hurtandbetrayed]

I discovered at Christmas my husband was having an affair with someone i believed was my friend...
I confronted him and he claimed it was just flirty texts so i agreed to stay and work at it. Something he said a couple of weeks later made me question his 'flirty texts' story so i questioned him again and he admitted to meeting her once and having phone sex once. I again agreed to stick around but I didnt believe the phone sex bit (he's really shy and ive tried on numerous occasions to get him to try it but he just goes all shy and cant do it) but despite me asking him lots of times he still stuck to his story.

After a couple of months i felt we were just papering over the cracks so i asked him to talk to me about what had really happened. he still stuck to his story so i told him i was going to contact the 'other woman', he said that was up to me so i did. I asked her a couple of questions then i questioned him again.... This time he admitted they had met a fair few times but only slept together twice. I agreed again to stick around and work at it (see the pattern emerging here?) anyway, to cut a long story short he keeps admitting just enough to pacify me but then i re-check something and find out it was another lie! I've told him that if he cant be totally honest then it has to be over because i cant move on untill i know he has told me the complete truth. He says he's scared something he says will make me leave and hes trying to pluck up the courage to talk. I understand that and have been very patient with him up to now but nearly 5 months on from me discovering the affair he still doesnt seem any nearer to talking....
I cant imagine my life without him but i honestly cant stay stuck on this emotional rollercoaster for much longer. I need and deserve answers. How much longer do i give him before i walk?

Thing is from my experience, if your man really wants to make amends and start afresh and be with you and only you then he tells you the truth. He is open and honest and is where he says he is and does what he says he will do. If they are not doing this then it must be hard to trust and believe that it is worthwhile rebuilding cause even when they have been upfront and completely honest, it takes years for the little doubts to disappear until one day you realise that your relationship is "normal" again and feels more like it did before the affair.

I don't agree that an OW whose husband is completely in the dark has no vested interest in telling lies to you.

I think what I'd do in this situation is to pause and reflect on what you do know.

Which is that he had a full sexual affair for X number of months/years, shat on your own doorstep with your friend and lied then, just as much as he's lying now.

What other details can you learn that will change those basic facts?

I sort of understand why an obsession with getting all the details diverts people away from the real work that has to be done - making a decision to bin or keep.

But it is a distraction.

Get on with making the main decision and give yourself time and space to do that.

If you haven't left him already, I'm not sure if there is anything that would make you leave. Is there a point in your mind at which you would draw a line and kick him out? The only thing that matters here is your self-esteem - we all need to protect our self-esteem at all costs, for ourselves and for the example we set to our dcs. It's vital in everything we do. The boundaries all become very blurred once our self-esteem is low. We hear variations on this story so much that I think there must be pockets of society where it is normal to have to accept this, women sounding almost like it's normal blokeish behaviour and they can't reasonably expect anything better. But of course you can expect something way better! This man will never be trustworthy and your self-esteem will never be safeguarded as long as you are with him. He will drag you down and you would be so much better without him, free to find a man who deserves you, or just lead a proud dignified life alone until that great guy comes along.

"If you haven't left him already, I'm not sure if there is anything that would make you leave."

That's not true. I think a delayed reaction is fairly common. When I experienced the same thing my first response was shock, horror and an overriding desire to hold everything together. There was a spot of denial, a delusion that I could 'get past this', a fear of being alone, 'hysterical bonding' ... all kinds of conflicting things... and I don't suppose I'm unique. It took a few weeks for all of this madness to die down and for me to be able to think clearly. Once I snapped out of it I couldn't look at his miserable face without wanting to stab it with a bread-knife. :) That's when I told him to go.

I also found out over Xmas that my h was having an affair.

I agree with the posters who suggested that you ask him to move out in order to process things. I could not process things until he moved out. I was a sahm so financially dependent on him and finding out the practical stuff made me feel less scared about the future.

I personally think that your reconciliation is doomed as he refuses to tell you the truth. It is possible that he will be able to provide you with answers once he's moved out and had time to think too but in my experience living together really slows down the healing process. Once he moved out, it made the healing process a lot easier for me.

I agree badinage that the details don't change the basic facts and i also agree that the details are merely a distraction. However, i think my obsession with the details is because of how my mind works.... My head tends to process things in images and before i had any detail my head couldn't process anything as the images were all totally imaginary (and we always imagine things to be worse than they actually are!) Having details has enabled me to see it more clearly and actually made me feel slightly more in control of my own thoughts if that makes sense?

As for the comment about the OW having no vested interest in telling me lies... From where i'm standing it looks pretty clear - She thinks my hubby has told me everything and she's so scared i'll tell her hubby she's being brutally honest to make sure everything she says matches up with everything he's said... she has everything to lose so she's hardly likely to tell me it was going on for a year if it was only four months, or tell me they were at it like rabbits if they never slept together is she? Thats what makes me think i can believe what she says

50shadesofvomit - have you and hubby reconciled or are you remaining seperated?

We are separated.

It feels great to be free of paranoia although admittedly I have bad days when I feel angry and miss the man he was.

I can relate to that... i think my indecision is partly to do with remembering the man i fell in love with. he's trying so hard to be the perfect husband that i keep catching glimpses of that man but the reality that i dont know who he is now chases it away.

I tried to make him understand my need for total honesty and he just doesnt get it :(

I think it's highly possible that your husband and the OW have been in contact throughout your conversations with her and that they've agreed a 'joint story'.

I sort of 'get' that stuff you said about the imagination often being worse than the reality, but I remember posting something once on here to a woman who was having an affair and I talked about this a lot to a mate who was in that position. I know you're on the opposite end of this, but hopefully it will still resonate.

Truth's a funny thing. There are factual truths i.e when, where, what happened and then there are belief truths which are massively open to interpretation and can get distorted to fit the belief system of the person telling those 'truths'. So this means there are factual lies and/or belief lies.

Your husband has told you lots of 'factual lies' so it means that you are nowhere near even scratching the surface of his 'belief lies'. So for example he's lied about the OW 'blackmailing' him throughout the affair and while this goes unchallenged by either him or you, it allows his 'belief lie' that he wasn't responsible for his actions and that the OW was the villain of the piece.

The OW will be in a similar place and although because this is you she's speaking to and not her husband, she might not be telling 'factual lies' (that is unless she's in cahoots with your husband) but she will have told you lots of 'belief lies'. I can imagine for example, that you will have heard all about her 'low self esteem', her difficult marriage, her loneliness and sadness about some event or another. But rather less about this being typical of her selfish character and that it's also connected with sheer lust and/or sexual frustration.

The advice remains the same. Ask him to leave and then see how you can manage life and your disabilities without him. If he keeps being allowed to stay when he's found out in yet another lie, he'll just continue to do it. You're more likely to get the truth when he thinks it's over and coming clean couldn't make anything any worse than it already is.

Since you are talking to OW through text rather than in person you have to realise that it is easy for her to censor and downplay things.

I called OW and after talking to her I went from blaming her 80% to my h 20% to blaming my h 90%and her 10% She knew my h was married (she is single) and could have stopped things but at the end of the day my h made the choice to lie and risk everything.

No badinage, she hasnt done the whole low self esteem bit really. She gave me her story of why it happened for her but said she couldnt comment on why it had happened for him. The line i have taken with her has been firing questions... eg: how many times did you meet? where? ect ect. Ive fired the questions and shes provided the answers so although i understand your point about factual truths and belief truths it would seem my line of questioning hasnt been about thoughts or feelings but just fact, if you see what i mean?
50shadesofvomit - i think i probably blame them 50/50, they both knew they were married, they both knew they were friends with the others spouse and they both chose to cross the line.... neither of them deserves anything other than an equal share of the blame. I dont think i even care about blame.... I just hate that he's lied and continued to lie regardless of how that makes me feel....
I think one of us moving out for a while is a good idea!

When I wrote my post I assumed you were having proper direct conversations with her and not text exchanges, so yes I can see why with her it's just been factual stuff.

I'm assuming though that you've had rather different conversations with your husband over the past 5 months and so what I'm trying to get across is that because he's told you lots of factual lies, all the other belief stuff about why he did it, what he was getting out of it, are lies too.

"men are simple creatures and it doesn't take much for another woman to get their attention if she really wants to"

Oh please. You might find it reassuring to think of your partner as some sort of simpleton, easily led by the dick and then blame yourself for not being loving enough .... but what a pathetic position to be in. If it 'doesn't take much' and he has no personal boundaries & no conscience then it could happen again and again. Makes no difference how attentive you are

Betrayed, your cut and paste attitude to promoting your own blog on other people's threads under the cover of compassion for their live, ongoing betrayal rollercoasters does you no favours. Desist.

"Men are simple creatures...."

Yeah, you tell yourself that, Betrayed. It was all that scheming other woman's fault, wasn't it? Not your poor, put upon, lovely husband who accidentally tripped, and his dick fell inside her.

You're fooling no one but yourself.

Is he really such a brilliant catch, really?

He's continued to lie once you found out about the affair, that doesn't indicate to me someone wanting to salvage a relationship.

By going back and forth between her and him you really are doing your self esteem no good whatsoever not to mention wasting your time and energy on a pair of liars, who, will lie to you more so than probably anyone else they know.

Start caring for you, check out your options without him, see a way forward to being with someone who can give you respect, without trust and respect, there is no relationship.

Jan45 - another old one resurected by Betrayed40.

AAAAAARGH

Jan45 - I really know that feeling!