Can a marriage be saved if he's having a passionate affair?

[Truly40]

First time on Mumsnet Talk - but completely shocked by my husband's revelation yesterday evening that he has been having a 6 month affair with his assistant. He is MD of a company, and has plenty of valid opportunity to travel away (and play away obviously!)
We have been together 4 yrs, and have a 2 yr old together and another 3 children (8, 14, 20) between us. He is 50, I am 40 and other woman - early thirties.
We have always been adoring and affectionate with each other, even during the last 6 months - and the only reasons he can give is that he's frustrated at my disorganisation, and finds 'family life' i.e. children - difficult and tiring. the children all get along well, and we're a close family - no step-family difficulties at all. I suspected all was not well, only as he seemed distracted and very protective of his phone recently.
He says he still loves me, but that he loves the other woman (who I know!) and is pretty sure he wants to be with her and the "idea" of a carefree life. he says he hasn't made a decision yet, and that if it had been the other way around he would fight to the ends of the earth for me...
However I've just been reading his texts to her full of "adore and love you hugely" messages, and which seemed to suggest he was going to leave me last night, and asked her to be ready to collect him - however we drank wine as all this was revealed and whilst he told her he was in the spare room, he came to bed with me and snuggled up and said we would discuss further tomorrow.
I have also just texted her asking her to please give us space to work things out, and begging her not to let him leave his family, and to think of the children. All very civil and polite.
Please don't say not worth saving - he's my soulmate, my world and we have a good life together. Yes, I'm devastated at his betrayal, but he's deceiving her also.
What do I do next, I don't know how to fight for someone who is on the verge of leaving for someone younger, prettier, in front of him at work every day, and carefree??

Nothing anybody has said on this thread would or should stop the op from coming back to this thread to access further support if it all goes tits up

Any body who is a regular user of MN will know, and have witnessed for themselves, that there is a remarkable lack of an "I told you so" mentality around these parts

Bit... I know what you mean but it's been said many times that if twenty people say the exact same thing, number 21 is kind of irrelevant. Nobody should be telling anybody to stop posting even the OP. I just have visions of her (which may not be realistic even) of her in complete shock, denial and with that neverending niggle that her world is never going to be the same again and that is difficult to face up to.

mrsbrownsgirls... I can say he's horrid because the OP told us so - he's been having an affair ergo, he's horrid. Give him any other label you like, I won't mind. "Good luck OP. You will probably be fine". What a patronising and pointless statement. Please don't diminish the vast experience of other posters who have been through this and know the script. The words may vary, the content not so much.

AF... Agree that there is no 'told you so' here, I've never seen it in hundreds of threads. I think OP won't be back until she needs to; hopefully she'll realise that she'll be backed and supported to the hilt.

mrsbrown you make it sound like people have enjoyed saying it. I doubt anybody has. I know I haven't.

What should we say? "Yes yes OP, what you're doing will all be fine! It can't possibly go wrong! It sounds like a great plan" if we don't believe that to be the case?

And the DH's behaviour has been, even according to the OP herself, horrid, to say the very least. In fact that's the understatement of the year!

The trouble is that when you out your hands on your ears and go la la la you can only block out other people's thoughts but never your own.

Yes Ledkr. You're right.

I remember when I was in a similar situation feeling FURIOUS with friends giving me eally good, solid, sensible advice because it didnt coincide with the plan I had made in my mind to win back my DP. I just didn't want to hear it. Though I knew, even then, that they were right - which probably explains why it made me so cross

Loverboy aged 50 wanting the carefree life with the 30 something is giong to find minding 5 children at weekends including a 2 year old up in the night and then from 5am for the day whilst the original poster is with her new boyfriend or on a weekend trip to London will soon get his comeuppance. Make sure he does his half of the 4 children's washing too. You can send it with them in large plastic bags and make sure he's ironed it by Sunday night.

yy Bit, it's not at all a comfortable place to be. I've been there too.

That's just it though, most people who dished out the advice to the op had the misfortune to be in the same position themselves previously. Which I guess is why we can see the errors.
There's nothing wrong with fighting for your marriage but not when you take all the blame and the cheater gets off scot free therefore leaving the path nicely open for the next affair, I mean why wouldn't he? He suffered no consequences, didn't even see his wife's anguish because she was too busy trying to smooth things over.

Truly I have just read the whole thread, and have to say, the advice you have been given here - the insight and straight talking - has been brilliant!! I wish I had had this kind of advice when I was going through something similar years before. It might seem harsh to you but that is only because it is painful to hear the truth of the situation and you must know that the women on this board ONLY have your wellbeing at heart.

It is your life and your family, and I doubt anyone here doesn't get that, but I hope you understand too that it is very difficult to see a lovely woman like you suffer at the hands of someone who is supposed to love her and there is nothing stopping him from doing it again to you. It's a helpless, foreboding kind of feeling.

Anyway, I hope you get the ending you wish for, and deserve.

I've read this whole thread, and how OP dealt with the situation sounds like how I would. Calm, rational, and with strategy.

But the overall point she is missing, is that whilst she thinks she has forgiven, 'understood', salvaged and cleverly repaired his infidelity - as indeed I believe I would be thinking if I was in this position - the man still expertly lied to her face for several months, and continued lying to both her and the OW once the affair was discovered.

He's an expert liar. That's not a marriage worth saving.

This thread has helped me change my opinion on what I suspect is the exact course of action I would take if my soulmate was unfaithful to me.
Good luck OP.
And even if you trust you have repaired your marriage, you haven't repaired the man. I lay these eggshells beneath your feet.

Swindon - great post!

Thing is, the OP came started this thread with the intention to 'repair' the marriage in the face of the 'passionate affair' of the title. She never saw the marriage as broken, the trust as broken, the man as broken. She only saw it as her prize, to be repaired and won back.

I suspect she will have to do it a few more times before she realises what MN has been telling her - that this man is not worthy of her, that he is a shit in life/work/family, that the marriage is indeed not worth the paper it's written on.

The twat's motivation has always been to be fought over by his wife. The way he came out with it was not because he was found out, or because he actually wanted to leave. It was all to get an ego boost IMO. Worst case scenario he'd move on to his mistress and his wife would be at fault for not fighting for him.

Lweji - well said. This is exactly what the mm I was involved with wanted. DW begging to save their marriage, me begging to have him back so he would feel wanted, special and like someone's ultimate prize. I know I should not have got involved with an mm but I didn't beg him back, hard as it was to maintain nc. I feel sorry for his dw who knows all trying to work out what is next. All about him and his ego though. Good luck OP.

You've said you are both doing more to meet one another's needs as this had slipped. I hope you are thinking carefully about what he is now doing to better meet your needs, that was missing during his affair and 60-hour working week. If there is more you want him to do, make sure you ask.

I think some people are perhaps being so harsh on the 'D'H because it wasn't a short affair of a few weeks/a month ... six months is an awful long time to be having an affair, it must have required an awful lot of organising/lying/deception. Yes, I know they saw each other at work.. so it make have got increasingly hard to not act on their passionate feelings for each other (i'm quoting the OP, not just guessing that it was passionate)... but even so... SIX months is a long time. and he was ready to leave not enjoying family life and kids.

I do feel for Truly, she had only been in this relationship a short time too. 3.5 years before he started this, and has a young child. I hope that he has genuinely changed his spots but would feel more like that was possible if it was a one night stand or brief fling then so many months of deception. it becomes what is natural and easy to do when you deceive for so long

Please, OP ask him to have an STI test, just in case. You need to protect yourself, too.

I think that particular horse has bolted, tb

After lurking on here a while, and re-reading most of the advice and support given on the original thread to my situation last year, I've decided to 'come out' and update all those MNers who invested their time, and gave wise words of advice which I wasn't ready to accept and didn't have enough of a rational viewpoint to value at the time.

DH did decide at the time to stay with me and end the affair. But we just carried on with the hysterical bonding, and carried on with the frantic work / family life without addressing the underlying issues within our marriage, and as someone previously said while I was busy trying to repair the relationship, I ignored the fact that I couldn't repair the man.

It's not a suprise then, that the affair re-started earlier this year - that DH had not maintained distance from OW, and 5 weeks ago he walked out on me and the children following a final ultimatum from the OW.

They have already moved in together, and whilst it is early days on the emotional rollercoaster that I am now on, I am at least able to have some clarity and respite from the intensity of last year's situation.

I have now started counselling on my own, the children have been told he is working away at the moment whilst the initial dust settles, and he visits on the weekend, and is at least now spending quality time with them, and perhaps starting to realise the consequences of his reckless, selfish actions.

I don't know where things will go from here, but my priority is to gain strength and some self-respect to make the right decisions for myself and the children.

He is already expressing doubts as to his decision to leave, saying he will come to counselling, and that he is appalled and ashamed at his behaviour.

Whether this is guilt and self-pity or genuine remorse, remains to be seen in his future course of action.

I just feel ready to let those Mners who followed my thread last year know the outcome, and to acknowledge that in retrospect a great deal of sensible and wise advice was wasted on me at the time.

I hope that I will be a wiser, stronger person dealing with the situation this time around.

Truly - of all the threads I have read on Mumsnet, yours has stuck with me the most. I have repeatedly wondered how you were getting on.
He is a complete idiot and you deserve so, so, so much more from life.
I hope this recent development means that you can now start moving forward in your life. Much better things lie ahead for you xxx

Please don't let him back. Councelling is a good idea.

Whatever the outcome I wish you well, it must have been a hard year and I hope the following year will be less traumatic for you and you find some calm in yourself to move on.

My ex left me and married his child free mistress, (after a 5 year affair, he told me was 3 months) he's free to do what he wants whenever he wants and for the most part he looks utterly miserable and very overweight.

4 years on, I'm 4.5 stone lighter and have an amazing family with kids and lovely boyfriend.

He should be crawling and grovelling not telling you what you've done.

Incidentally at the time I begged him to stay.. I'm so so glad he didn't.

Please throw him out til he at least a starts behaving with remorse and respect, until then it's not worth trying to repair things.

Oops, only just saw your update! Hang in there xx

Thanks for your comments - I will move my update onto a new thread - rather than people reading the original post and thinking that's the current situation.

You tried. He failed. It's easy to say it wasn't worth trying, but hopefully now you have no doubts, no exactly where you stand, and can move on since he's thoroughly proved himself not worth it. After a year's worth of having a good go and fixing things, he has demonstrated he's unfixable. Initial desire to try and save things was understandable (IMHO), but now I think you leave him well alone to stew in the situation he's created. Don't let him back.