Help / advice for devastated dad

[Stormside]

I discovered my wife has recently started an affair with a much younger female colleague. We have a toddler. My wife has never shown interest before although when we have talked over the weekend seems like maybe suppressed.

The time we have been married has been tough, I am an entrepreneur and I have been working a lot on an intense project and have been absent emotionally and travelling. My wife stopped work to have a child, and has just started to get back into work after a period of intense child care. Money has been scarce and life's luxuries lacking. We discussed the path we were about to take before we embarked. Neither of us thought it would be as tough as it has been, on each of us.

We both have had the sense that we needed to make changes, but not the sense to talk them through out loud before what seems like a train has just driven through our life. My wife was pursued by the other half of the affair and actively discouraged it as she was worried that this might happen.

My wife feels alive and open in her new relationship and that has made her realise how broken we had both allowed our marriage to become. She has said that she does not want to give up either of her relationships. We have agreed to urgently get individual and couples counselling.

Anyone else been in this situation or similar has any advice beyond time and talking to help with the hurt would be appreciated.

I'm sorry you're in this situation but I'm afraid your DW is being very dishonest and also rather cruel if she's expecting you to give into the idea of not giving up either of her relationships. It's called 'having your cake and eating it' and, even though I know you are hurting and desperate, it would be a huge mistake to even entertain the idea. Your DW may well have been pursued but she could, at any point, have said 'no thanks'.

Please tell her to step out of the relationship for a while and consider your options. Difficult with a toddler to consider, I grant you, but you need to take advice, sort out your thinking and you won't be able to do that if she is in your face, confusing your judgement.

Solo counselling will be good for you and may help you to stop blaming yourself and work out why you're even considering her idea of having a husband and a lover running simultaneously. But do take time to think and consider.

The lack of anger in your post amazes me. She cheated on you and lied, presumably. Now she wants to continue to have you and an affair. Why are you considering this?

Are you in a position to ask her to leave the family home for a week whilst you take time to come to terms with her betrayal? You don't describe any fact which would make me want to stay in a relationship with her. Let her go to the OW and see how she likes that.

If it had been another man would you be so calm about it?

As far as I'm concerned if my partner was getting love, affection and sexual fulfilment from someone who isn't me, I wouldn't care if it were male or female, they'd be out the door.

Is your DW using the excuse that she can get different things from her other partner which she can't get from you, to justify being unfaithful? It is completely disrespectful of your DW to even suggest that she won't give up either of the relationships, as if that is her choice and her right.

She married you, she needs to be faithful to you, which may mean both of you putting in more time and effort for the sake of your marriage and your child. It will definitely mean her ending things with her OW, showing how sorry she is for hurting you and making herself accountable and her actions transparent. Or she has to finish things with you and move onto her new relationship.

Either way, I fail to see how she can justify having two relationships on the go, just because one is a man and one a woman. It's like me having an affair with someone of another race or with blonde hair instead of dark and saying to DP that the other man gives me something he doesn't, so I can't give up either of them because I want a blonde lover and a dark one.

Nobody has the right to expect their spouse to share them with someone else, no matter how different the other person may be.

Unless you're into 'sharing', if she is telling you that she doesn't want to give up the other woman, then I simply don't see what 'couple's' counselling is going to achieve. I mean really, that's a delusion.

Again, I'm assuming you aren't into sharing (some are quite happy with that) and so I think deep down you already know what needs to happen unless she were to make a dramatic turnaround. Even if she did this, I personally couldn't possibly find her credible in the circumstances.

What do you mean by 'maybe suppressed'? That she is actually gay and didn't realise?

If so, there is a lot more here to deal with than an affair, although IMO she needs to stop stringing you both along and decide what the hell she is doing. I daresay her girlfriend isn't too happy about it either.

I don't have anything useful to suggest about how you cope with this, but just want to offer all my sympathies.

She wants both relationships? I take it she's proposing an open marriage, so you can also find a little extra outside? If not, she's compounding infidelity by expecting you to lie down and roll over, too. And in all honesty I've yet to see anyone post about an affair when their spouse says they chased the affair partner. They're always the pursued.

Small children are always hard on a relationship, that's true. But there are infinitely better ways of dealing with that stress than she's chosen. The counselling does sound a good idea IMO as long as you do both have individual as well. I am assuming this is really recent, because you sound in shock, quite frankly. You do also sound very project-oriented and problem-solving, which I appreciate is probably very useful professionally, but here perhaps you need to get thinking about how you feel and what you actually want? You mention emotional disengagement due to work pressures and absence - does that include from your baby, at all? I only say that because my own husband wasn't that interested in our son until he was around 18 months, and tbh that was very much detrimental to the intimacy between my husband and I on all levels. NOT that it excuses or explains her choices (I didn't have an affair, and we're now closer than ever), just that it might be something to consider as an issue, if you go for counselling? A way in which you really began to diverge? Though when you say she "suppressed" her attraction to women, I suppose what you really need to explore is whether she is saying she is bi, or solely gay and previously in denial. There was a thread a few months ago from a woman whose husband came out to her as gay and had a boyfriend with her consent, and she was trying to be understanding while they continued the marriage alongside. It was devastating for her, and I don't think it was likely to be tenable much longer, tbh. So maybe you need to get her to talk about what she thinks is happening with her, and I agree shared counselling is probably the right place for that.

I appreciate you want to make things work going forward, and that's really laudable, but I'm afraid I do also think you need to visit a solicitor, just to see what the position is if things don't work as you hope. It's always helpful in life to see things as fully and with as much knowledge as you can. I hope that doesn't sound too cold-blooded, but I honestly think everyone, man or woman, in your situation should do so. Marriage is an emotional commitment, but it's also a financial contract, and then there's the child residence/contact aspects if you were to part. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know where you stand, just in case.

thanks everyone for the thoughtful words. this is extremely raw. i found out on Friday and the affair has been active for about two weeks although wife has been obsessing over the OW since she met her a few months ago it seems.

as i mentioned OW is much younger and works with my wife.

wife definitely feels as if she is bisexual and wants to explore this in an open relationship with me and with the OW - who also wants to have an open relationship with my wife.

wife is also rebelling against 3 years of practically solo childcare while i stressed about how to pay bills

i am at my wits end. really swinging between sad and frustrated.

wondering how i could have been more present and wondering if that would have even made any difference to this situation.

mostly i want to make sure my 3 year old is safe and secure and loved while we work out how this works out.

It's all 'she wants' at the moment isn't it? Rebelling and finding lovers is a very immature thing to do. Beating yourself up about how much time you've invested in the relationship is not helping, really. It's just making you feel guilty enough to be entertaining this ridiculous open relationship idea. It may be what 'she wants' but I don't think it's what you want at all. You're just in shock.

Regarding your 3yo I would strongly recommend you take some legal advice both about finances and co-parenting. They will have no real concept of what is going on at the moment.

Awwww, sweetie. That's a horrible, horrible hand of hurt that life has dealt you.

First of all, your wife sounds very confused and panicky right now. She's trying to cling to the past because it is safe and stable, while also exploring a very different identity and future. It is not that uncommon for people to want to experience relationship change in this way, because it reduces their risk. After all, this is why so many people start new relationships while they are still in an old one - and when you have issues of sexuality thrown in at the same time, then you have greater uncertainties that are likely to make her even more risk-averse. On top of that, she's probably been feeling a bit trapped by the childcare responsibilities that she's taken on - which is bound to make change seem more alluring. She clearly needs to take some time to work out who she is from the inside out, rather than simply reacting to external pressures of work and childcare.

However, it is also important to recognise that what she's trying to do is to avoid the consequences of her actions - and that this, while understandable, is ultimately irresponsible, child-like, and incredibly damaging for you as her partner. We all have impulses to run away and hide from reality at times, but the thing about being a decent grown-up is that you know some things are off-limits!

You are clearly reeling from the shock of all this still - you're grieving for the infidelity, trying to understand, feeling angry, sad, guilty, confused, and unstable. It's important to give yourself time to process all this - I know it's painful, but sometimes all we can do is to sit with those feelings for a while, until we get more of a sense of the best way forward for yourself. Developing a dialogue with your wife is an important part of this - if you are able to get some urgent couples counselling, I think it could be a really helpful way for you both to work out what your next moves are. The thing is, you are united forever by the fact that you have a child together, so whatever the solution is to the situation, you need to keep communicating. Please try not to worry about your toddler: kids are very resilient, and whatever happens, you will both still be great parents.

Well, she's having her cake and eating it, and she continues to want to.

There's no bisexuality in a monogamous relationship. You didn't sign up for an open relationship, so it is unfair to ask you for one now.

I don't think it would be unfair if you decided to split at least for a while for both of you to consider what you really want. You don't have to decide now, anyway. Take as long as you need.

If I was trying to be sympathetic, I'd say she wanted to hang onto her relationship with the other woman while she sees how things pan out between you and her. She's fence sitting. Understandable maybe, but not fair on you, really.

Less charitably, it sounds like she wants you to provide the place to live, babysitting etc, while she enjoys her girlfreind and saves up enough to leave you.

Sorry, but either way, she's being unreasonable.

Did you 'find out' by accident or did she tell you?

It is possible To rebel without having an affair.

As someone else said, How would you feel if the OW was an OM?

back online after a massively chaotic week.

this has been an extremely difficult week. it has also been a hugely rewarding week for me as i have connected properly with my daughter for what feels like the first time.

we are a few sessions in to counselling, individual and together and have managed between that, and on our own, to have created a mental and emotional space that will sustain for a long enough period that we can process the massive amounts of change (for me) and emotional energy (for her) that have been released.

the clear message from both of us is that a sense of self has been repressed by circumstance, by each other, by poor communication, you know, all the usual crap that goes into being in a human relationship..

i am feeling pretty comfortable that we are both in a position to take a long look at ourselves and decide what it is that we want, understand who we are now, and from that the path we want to take going forward will emerge

much appreciation from here to you all..

Thanks for the update. Sounds like you are in a position to look at your relationship and move forward. Hopefully you will be able to address your own needs through this process and not be drowned out by the confusion and chaos coming from your wife's actions.

You might want to check out the Straight Spouse Network for help and advice. I think it has become a closed group for registered members (men married to gay women, and women married to gay men).

Glad you're feeling more positive about the changes you can make to the situation, and above all about your relationship with your daughter. I so hope things unfurl in a positive direction for you and your family.