Trying to forgive...

[noblesteed]

Hi all this is my first post on here. I am really struggling to come to terms with my husband's affair. He is still with me, refused to leave and wants to work it all out but I am struggling and have few people to talk to as obviously I don't want people to find out. I jsut want some advice from anyone who has been there and maybe a reassurance that I will recover.
We've been married 3 years but together 10. Both of us are well paid professionals. Have a rising 3 year-old and a 1 year old. Had a traumatic birth with the first and suffered PND/PTSD for which I recieved counselling. Husband very traumatised too and became ill. He has a very stressful job and has been bullied by his boss. He had bowel problems and weight loss and tests for bowel cancer all through my pregnancy with youngest child, turns out the docs think it was stress related IBS. All to do with work and first-born being difficult. My family are not supportive so he had to help me through it all pretty much alone. We got on well though he was very stressed with work and distant at times. After second child was born it was such a magical birth and he was such an easy baby I felt totally calm and healed and ready to get back to 'normal'. Sadly husband didn't, he bacame more and more angry, abusive, distant, anxious etc. Not sleeping, getting more stressed with work as the boss bullied him about his paternity leave. He was on the iphone a lot, he said talking about work. I noticed strange things - scratches on his back, him going off earier than his normal pub night out and the same name commenting on his facebook. Honestly I was SCARED to confront him as he was so nasty, he had a total personality change. ANyway one day I noticed he'd left his fb on the PC so I hid it then read his messages when he was out. OMG. 6 months' worth of sexually explicit conversation with The facebook Suspect, sexual fantasies, photos of each other's bits. Starting while I was up in the night in the other room breastfeeding our baby son. I called him and he rushed home and confessed everything. He had been nipping round her house for a quickie before the pub!!!! She is proper little scrubber, slutty photos of herself on her fb profile. SHe's a complete loser and works with him in a non-skilled position. Anyway this is totally sinister - it turns out she is some sort of amateur hypnotist... And the affair just 'happened'... He is SUCH an idiot. I threw him out 3 times but he wouldn't leave, he hates her, he beat himself up, smashed his phone, cried etc etc. THis was 3 months ago. He's having therapy twice a week and we are seeing Relate. The only reason he is still in my house is because he is the father of my children and they love him. I still love him but I hate what he has done. I also feel sorry for him. SInce I found out he's reverted back to being the man I love and married. But I keep getting flashbacks of the affair and thinking the most diabolical hateful thoughts about her. She knew he was married with 2 young children. How can women do this to other women? I don't sleep well and I feel like this has robbed me of a time that should be happy with 2 beautiful gorgeous young children. Poor things don't deserve any of this.

He really is doing a number on you. All this mea cupla stuff, reading psychology books and talking about hypnotism. There is a Shakespearean quote..... 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks'.

Ultimately, you've chosen to keep this man around. It's only been a few months so far and I'm sure you can't imagine a life any other way.... so you're motivated to keep things going, and he's motivated to keep his sorry backside from hitting the kerb. I'd suggest you come back to your decision once the raw shock and anger has worn off, and when he thinks he's 'safe' back in the family and starts to let his guard down. Mistrust is what kills relationships, not affairs. If, a few months down the track, you find you still don't trust him, still don't quite believe his story and feel very depressed at having put your faith in someone who didn't deserve it a) don't be surprised and b) revisit your decision.

Well yes he is has been a complete twat and it turns out both he and she were lying to each other about a lot of things.
He's a cold hearted selfish bastard who was jealous of the attention his wife was lavishing on his children so he went looking elsewhere. He only did it because he thought he could get away with it. He had that little respect for me that he thought I wouldn't figure it out, and that I wouldn't care and I didn't love him any more anyway (that was his own paranoia, he is mentally ill).
But the bare bones of the matter is that I have 2 young children to think about. A million times more important to me than him. 2 young children who deserve a happy family life. I owe it to them to try and forgive him, I know it might not work but I have to at least try.
I just don't know if I can do it and ever be happy again with him.

You don't owe anything to your DCs where he is concerned. He owes it to them to try to regain your trust and rebuild the family life he so blatantly destroyed ..... quite a different thing. If he doesn't manage to regain your trust adequately, he will be the one that broke up the family and not you.

You are not obliged to anyone to forgive this man against your better judgement. Your first duty is to be true to yourself. Husbands come and go.

OP I'm not alone on this board sadly when I say this happened to me too with two small DC.
I did everything in my power to get my marriage 'back on track'. How I wish I'd had Mumsnet and Cog and Anyfucker etc then. I really do.
What happened was I turned myself inside out doing the pick me dance. It was pathetic really and shredded my self esteem, but for me part of a process. He did nothing other than whine on about how it 'wouldn't go away' (his feelings for OW)
I caught him texting her again eventually and bin bagged his sorry arse out of my life. That time something in me had changed and I was livid with him for all the misery he'd put me through for months.
Now?
I am married to a wonderful man and couldn't be happier.
I kind of don't regret the period of time where I tried my hardest because I learned that sometimes when something is fucked up then it can't be unfucked up. Whatever you do 'it' will still have happened and everything has changed forever.
I am happy now and you will be in the future too, I promise you.
Leave this sorry excuse for a loser to his OW.
Focus your anger on him though not her.

Are you both talking about what happened and why it happened?

The silly dramatics of phone smashing and smacking himself are superficial.

He must have been acting his socks off over six months so I can imagine trusting him will be difficult.

You must have had your work cut out worrying about him while coping with your first child and expecting your second. Dealing with two infants you were reasonably expecting him to 'have your back' not getting hostile with you and being balls deep into another female.

I don't know either how women can latch onto men who are supposed to be settled with family - could it be, if these husbands and long term partners weren't looking for extra thrills they'd never be in that situation? Still proving something to themselves, still competing with the single men to attract and hook the opposite sex?

In spite of having two beautiful children and a loving wife, he conveniently forgot about every time he contacted her. If she was so awful why was he going back for more? Focus on him. She is just secondary.

So now he's such a weak character that because she hounded him, he felt obliged to have sex with her? And he felt obliged to do this lots of times, of course.

Or you didn't love him enough and you were concentrating on the children, so really it's your fault?

You can forgive him, but you have to be honest with yourself, even if he can't. He made a conscious choice to do this. And he's a bastard for suggesting it might be anyone else's fault but his.

He didn't think you didn't love him. That's just him shifting the blame onto you.

My exh said exactly the same. Your lying, cheating husband isn't any different to anyone else's...

The reason I didn't make him leave was because my sister persuaded me that I needed to talk to him before I kicked him out - she advised me this after her own terrible breakup. SO we talked and I decided to try and forgive him for the sake of my children. Make no mistake, if we didn't have the kids I would have been out of there as soon as I found out.

Your children are not quite 3 and 1. They are going to be at home for many years to come. Do you see yourself enduring and adapting purely for their sakes over the next 17 years? What if he has another 'breakdown'? Another crisis precipitated by somethng else? What do you use as a sort of opiate when things get tough?

This is really laughable, she hypnotised him, he confessed, no, he took the opportunity to shit all over you then he admitted it all when YOU found him out.

Please stop with the name calling of her, it just makes you look as bad as him.

You wont get over it until he makes you understand why he did it and assures you it wont happen again, sounds like neither has happened so you either move on from him (he sounds a nightmare anyway) or you sit and wait for the next one, he won't stop, he's had fuck all consequences.

She hypnotised him? That's the best one I've heard, in all my 56 years. For goodness sake, woman, get rid of the loser. Use your 'professional' brain and get him out of there, take him for every penny he's got. You have tiny children and a lot of expenses ahead.

As for the woman, she did you no harm at all. Your marriage is nothing to do with her. But its everything to do with him.