Have you forgiven EA and successfully moved on?

[siblingrevelry]

I posted a few weeks ago as my marriage was in trouble, DH confessed to falling for a colleague, but moved jobs before doing anything.

We've had an uneasy truce since then, so I confronted him last night and asked to see his emails.
Most had been deleted but I found 'damming' evidence that he was more emotionally involved than he claimed, and also that they're still in contact as recently as 4 days ago (things like ordering books/recommending & commenting on books on Goodreads with little romantic messages/making her 'mix cd's/ordering her a top she liked from Etsy). He hasn't physically cheated so I don't know that he fully understands why, to me, this intimacy is so much more hurtful. It's the stuff he should be doing for me, but he's investing his affections elsewhere. I'd prefer it if he'd got drunk at an office party and had a shag he regretted, rather than this emotional involvement.

I don't want to accept this as my future, and feel worth more than this, but equally we have three young children whose world will be blown apart, not to mention our families (we are one of those couples where people won't have seen it coming). I know that this isn't my fault, but what happens next will be my decision, and I'll have to decide whether I stay with him for the sake of our children's future.

If I do this, how do you ever reach a stage where you can forgive and move on? Has anyone come out happy/happier the other side of something like this?

They are having a physical relationship.

And even if they weren't, do you want to continue to live a life with someone who is in love with someone else?

He's lying to you. You've already discovered that. You've had an 'uneasy truce' that has meant nothing.

He's in a relationship with someone else, he just doesn't want to look like the bad guy by walking out on you and the children.

He's got nothing to lose by maintaining the status quo. You have.

I wouldn't even be trying to get past this. He doesn't want to.

Thanks Folkgirl. That's where my head is too.

You can't forgive someone who isn't repentant. If he doesn't understand why this relationship is a problem and has no intention of dropping contact then it's going to carry on. She is clearly more than just a friend, he's lied to you about his involvement and I'd be astonished if there wasn't more to it than ordering books and clothing (who does that?). Currently, he's taking it for granted that he can do this and nothing will change. You'll still be there. So I realise it's a tough thing to contemplate but I think the only way to get through to him that his behaviour is unacceptable is to threaten his cosy existence.

How many men buy clothing for a woman they are not relatively intimate with? I'd be very surprised if they've not already taken it to the physical relationship tbh. He's already shown you that he's quite happy to lie to you. Don't expect him to tell the truth now.

Even if you could forgive an EA affair in the future. It would have to be a longtime in the future it is far to soon to even think about that.

He has changed/accepted nothing, he still in contact with her and deleting e mails/texts so you can't see what is going on, while lying to you about it.

The only way to move on is to be strong in what you want. Whether that's him staying at home and going to relate or him leaving the home while you/he works on your relationship or divorce.

You need to be in control of what's going to happen for you and your children. And he needs to be one to work on himself and his relationship with you and your family.

He's coming home tonight to pack some things, put kids to bed (7, 5 & 2) and then go to stay at his Mom's (at my insistence-he is very contrite and wants to work things out). I feel gutted and sick but in control.

well done sibling - that is a big step. Now you can have some much needed space from him.

If he really wants to work things out then he is going to have to cut all ties with OW, be completely transparent and honest with you for a start.

Then he has to be the one to organize relate and any other things you ask him to do. If he really wants to work at your marriage then he has to show commitent to you.

He understand alright, he doesn't give a shit about your feelings, his and hers are far more important, he's double betrayed you now by keeping in contact all along, and I'd bet anything sex is involved, could he be any more deceitful, so angry on your behalf OP.

Please take control and get him out of your house while you and him think about whether there's a future for you both, certainly at the moment there isn't, just more deceit and hurt for you by the sounds of it.

You can't stay with a man that disrespects you like this on the premise it's better for your kids, it isn't and you are actually entitled to respect and honestly in a relationship, and that's what you want your kids to see, not this joke of plastering over the cracks whilst he carries on lying to you.

I don't even understand why he's even there tbh.

Sorry just read last bit, good, he's giving you space, not a great situation no but surely better than living with a liar.

I've spent time today printing out emails etc, to bolster myself when I feel my anger fading.

It's so out of character, but equally it's followed the textbook cheaters path-a few weeks ago he said he was stressed and unhappy and we needed to pay more attention to each other. A week or so later with nothing changed I asked if there was anyone else; he told me he had had feelings for someone at work so had left before acting on it. Then I discover last night that it is a full blown, telling her he loves her in messages, emotional affair (he still denies anything physical, but I guess he would).

I've bathed/fed the kids, now we're in limbo waiting for him to come back from work to put them to bed. I looked at their beautiful faces, playing happily in the bath, and can't believe what he has done and what I'm about to do to them.

He will deny that it's physical until there's proof of some sort. Until then it will be deny deny deny. Standard.

You can't forgive an EA when it is still ongoing. As little as four days ago!

If the messages still there which are damming (buying her clothes, mushy love swapping CDs etc) what are the deleted ones like?

This is the tip of the iceberg.

I am tempted to suggest you have an STI check. Just in case...

If he comes back after a week/two away I would ask him to have one before you have sex with him again also. Sorry!

Good luck.

The irony is that I've been desperate for a fourth child, but DH has always refused (and we've recently decided he'd have a vasectomy); the woman he's seeing has been with a guy for 10 years who wants kids but she doesn't. Poor guy, she needs to cut him loose so he can meet someone he can have a family with.

This is the kind of thing that happens to other people. My life was everything I'd ever hoped for: happy marriage (together 17 years, married 9), 3 amazing kids, SAHM, nice home/nice area. Now it's all blown apart.