Husband's affair: I have started!

[tomatoplantproject]

I have had my first thread deleted this morning, because I posted too much identifying information and disclosed far too much detail about my plans. However the support I have received so far has been amazing, and I have such a long way to go still.

The story so far: I discovered at the weekend my husband has been having an on/off affair for the last 6 months. He finished it before I discovered the evidence because he had decided to choose me over her.

I have been utterly devastated by this. In my anger I have taken the practical steps I need in order to help secure my long term future (I think).

My final practical step will be to get our home back for dd and me for a while. And then let the dust settle and figure out how to rebuild or recreate my life. With minimal collateral damage to dd.

Please keep holding my hand.

Hi Xarra - thank you for your perspective. I'm not looking for an exact response from him but I do need to have signs that he is willing to change, and to do the soul searching required to change. And the work to start me feeling more secure in the relationship.

Without that I will leave.

I set myself an initial 2 months so I had a timeframe for myself and a chance for the emotions to settle. At the end of the 2 months I will probably start getting an indication of whether it is worth continuing or calling it quits. And then set another month or 2 until I'm ready to make a bigger decision.

I am seeing the relate counsellor this evening and will talk it through with her. However I need to show him exactly how angry I am and why in a way that he will take all of it in. Without doing that step I can't even imagine going forward. By doing it in a measured way I want to take the heat out of the discussion so the messages and underlying pain, anger and betrayal is heard by him. It is not enough for me if he only hears what he wants to.

I think you're doing great Tomato - and I would have been thrilled to see tears in his eyes yesterday (bitch!) - The message that you are not unconditionally his might be belatedly hitting home. But I agree with you, your reading the letter, is not about his reactions, so much as your chance to have your say, in a calm and orderly way, of what he did to your marriage.
I think its a really good move, regardless of outcome or his reaction. I suppose psychologically, its akin to a 'victim statement' - (unfortunate word) - in that its helpful for the wronged party to get it all out.

Generally people do only hear what they want to. They hear what you say and filter it. It's human to do so.
I know the chances of my DH doing soul searching (or if he did telling me about it!) are precisely zero. He doesn't do that kind of thing. Not all people can or do or see the point.
I understand what you're trying to do - I've tried it before with people - but I think you're hoping that he'll hear it, feel remorse and try and change... He may well hear it and get angry back, or not understand why you're angry, or why something causes you pain (I'm just about to send an email to DP explaining why something he did yesterday upset me so much - it's usual for some people to want to explain and be heard)
However I can explain why something's upset me to DH until I'm blue in the face (and have tried. Repeatedly.) and he just won't get it. He'll not understand why it matters, or think what I'm upset about is irrelevant, or I'm over reacting...
I don't know your H, I only know mine and my DP (meh, I'm polyamorous, 2 guys, twice the trouble in some ways!) but I hope that you get what you want from this letter you're pinning so much hope on, and that he doesn't disappoint you by just going 'ok, get over it?'

I agree, think of it like a victim statement, because you are a victim. It will probably help you a lot to get it all out at him. I just worry you'll find yourself getting more stressed if he doesn't react how you want, and try explaining over and over again to a man that just may not be capable of Getting it... Been there, done that...

Just because other people don't hear you, doesn't mean that there is no point talking to them. I think its massively important to express yourself.

Keeping stuff in, just because you're with someone who doesn't do 'soul searching' seems really grim. Being with a partner who screws you over, and then gets the hump when you 'go on about it' doesn't seem much fun either. Being with a partner who tells you when you're upset that you're over-reacting or irrelevant seems pointless.

If you are with someone who won't communicate, if you are with someone who won't listen to you, then the relationship is surely kaput anyway.

Sorry xarra, I didn't mean to sound so harsh. Im not sure I like the sound of your DH - I hope your DP is nicer!

I have to agree with JohnFarley comments, and I'm not sure how productive it is to assume that all men are like your husband Xarra.

If the OP's husband behaves like yours, from everything she has written here, I think it would be over.

Tomato: I am 100% supporting you.
It is not about little details it is about fundamental principles that you are fighting. He has to understand the full extent of his misdeed. He has to understand the depth of the pain he inflicted upon you and your child. He also has to understand that he only he put himself in the absurd situation where he has to weigh the OW- a stranger after all!- against you (you have been together soul-mates for so long and his daughter). He should have not reached this stage in the first place. He has to understand that he did not wrong you and DD only- but himself in the process (the DH and DF he was willing to forgo for a stranger.) And I agree with you that only through pain (when he sees what he could have missed) and time that he can understand that and try to redeem his actions. If he does not understand that and does not redeem his misdeeds then you will have to leave him- no doubt about it.
Xarra had good points in her first posts as I said before, but you are aware of them already I think. I know that you are clever enough to take counseling so as to know how to speak to him and how to reach him, and also so as to adjust the time you are giving to each stage of the process.
I disagree with her last post. See above.
*Tomato: my H was the one to tell me that he can't understand his affair; it is a madness - not a nice madness but a sordid mental state that brought him down to absurd lows. These are his words. He is not asking me to excuse or forgive him. It is just that he is torturing himself to come up with some decent explanation and he can't find any satisfying one; (he brought up the circumstances to explain the pseudo rationalization that brought him to indulge in the affair but he agrees that they are in no way absolving him.) It helped me a lot. Don't we vow to be by our spouse in sickness time? So maybe if you see his affair as such it might help you heal. (Just maybe.) (Again for you to stay with him he must seriously tackle this illness...) Have a nice day, Tomato!

John, Twinkle - yes if he doesn't listen or take me seriously I will leave. I don't want to spend my life with a man like that - it's not me.

grins I do love my husband, but he is hard work at times! DP is a lot easier to work with...
I think my point was that my DH is an extreme end of the spectrum, but your H will be on there somewhere and you shouldn't expect everything to go as planned...
I would be reacting a lot like Tomato I think, and I often want to explain things to both DH and DP... I just know that if you pin your hopes on a response or result from an explaination, you may not get quite what you want...
Still working on my email to DP explaining how he upset me last night... Hoping he understands!

Xarra First I have no problem with polyamorous people; it is their life; they build it as they wish; as long as they do not hurt anyone in the process it is fine by me. However- sorry if I sound harsh- but it seems to me that being a polyamourous you have no idea of what betrayal means in a monogamous relationship. I have always been monogamous and never ever betrayed anyone. Tomato stated the same. It is not about sex. It is much deeper. It is something fundamental in monogamous relationships. That is maybe why you do not grasp the depth of the pain a betrayed spouse feels in a monogamous relationship.
Good luck at juggling two men at the same time!

Actually, I do. As I stated earlier, I suspect my husband was messing around online several years ago. It set of severe anxiety/OCD which I'm still medicated for today, tons of trust issues, which still affect me badly today... I felt betrayed, hurt and absolutely miserable. And it took me counselling and a good 2 years at least - including 6 months off work and several stays with my parents - to at least begin to work it out. So, yes, I do understand.
Poly means multiple loves and full relationships which are each independent and separate relationships. I can still be betrayed, hurt and devastated by one person I love, and in some ways it's worse trying to stop one relationship reflecting on the other. If DH had told me and been open about the playing around, I'd have been happier, and it's only in the last few years I've realised I'm poly. So please don't assume poly people can't be devastated or betrayed by someone they love. It just means there's more relationships in which it's possible... wry smile I mean, you have multiple friends you can be betrayed by, right? And having other friends doesn't lessen that any more other than as a support network...
Ok, end of derailing, back to Tomato :)

(And with the type of poly I practise with my DH and DP, yes, they could cheat on me - I think it's termed poly fidelity - I'm not looking, DP isn't looking, my husband is vaguely looking but totally open about it, and DP's gf isn't looking... If DP or DH found someone and sneaked around, hid, lied and generally acted as any other cheating spouse, yes they'd be cheating and I'd feel just as broken as any mono couple...)

I fully support Tomato in dealing with this in the way she feels she needs to. This is her life, and she has the right to conduct it in whatever way she wants.

I couldn't help feeling sad though that when they met yesterday, her husband - with tears in his eyes - was unable to say "I'm so sorry I hurt you, I love you and DD and want to try again". That would have been enough, I feel, for Tomato to at least feel progress was being made. There's a lack of spontaneity from him that I would find worrying.

Got it Xarra- Sorry for misunderstanding.
Good point Eliana: it is uo to Tomato and not to us to act/react the way she feels best for her.
Sorry Tomato if I gave you any impression that I wanted or want to influence your healing /marriage recovery or break up. I just try to share with you my experience and being very individual it might not be of great help to you.
Good Luck!

I think it's great that he got to see you and DD happy and separate from him.

That can be a jolting moment in a happy relationship - when you unexpectedly see the person who you are so used to as other people do.

Good that it hurt him. He needs moments like that to wake him up to what he has done.

And what he wants to do next.

I don't think it's fair to criticise him for his reaction. Presumably that was from the heart.

Thank you everyone for your perspectives. And yes mama your experiences are very useful to hear about as I ponder what to do.

I had a more heartfelt apology from him over text the other day. And his reaction yesterday was a spur of the moment - I was walking a route he didn't know that I used and he didn't see us until we almost passed each other. The welling up was real.

I am glad that he is starting to feel emotional and hurt by the consequences of what he has done. It does allow me to think he might be up for the challenges ahead. And for me that is far preferable to the blind anger I got from him when I first found out.

Tomatoplease relax if you can dear. You have done a lot and you are surely still doing a lot to find ways to make him realize the devastating impacts his mis-behavior had on each of you as individual and on all of you as a family. (All this in addition to being a wonderful mum- 'single' mum!)
Yesterday he has been moved to tears- THANKS to you (yes it is thanks to you- your walk through this path unknown to him and which helped prompting in him 'tears' is so symbolical! You helped him - in your [own way] feel the tragedy his behavior could have wrecked on him and on all of you, had you not been there to prevent it) .
IMO it is now up to him and to the counselor to talk about his sins and to find a way to admit to you that he has sinned. 'Confession' is a necessary step to redemption. It is not the end of it but just the start of it. You worked extremely hard and in a very clever way- despite your deep pain and the turmoil in your mind- to bring this 'start'.
Bravo! Good Luck!

But did he well up because he's hurt you or because he's lost his family unit.

You aren't going to know until you're ready to open communication, and even then would you be able to trust it if he did say it was you he had chosen, rather than the family unit.

...it's hard to trust somebody you now know will lie to get what they want.

I have no idea why he welled up. It could have been saying goodbye to dd. It could have been the realisation he has lost the family unit. It could be because of me. It could be because I'm a cold hearted bitch who is keeping him away from dd - I won't find out for a while I don't think.

I had lunch earlier with his best friend's wife. They were both utterly shocked at what he has done and there for the both of us (although if push came to shove...). She has corroborated what dh has always said about his ex - is still in touch with her so I don't think I need to spend too much time worrying that he has fabricated that part of his life and what really happened.

I'm going to see the counsellor in a bit. I'm hoping things will be a bit more clear afterwards. Fingers crossed anyway.

Joys I am not sure that it is good at this point to distinguish between the family unit and the OP. Of course this will be an important aspect to deal with. But not now IMO. Later on I think. Remember: it is a process. IMO the most important is that he started understanding that his misdeeds generated deep pain to all of them including him. Tears are keys to the heart and open up people to the existence of others and to the impact of their behavior on others. It is a good omen in my opinion to any counseling sessions.
Tomato:
What do you think about the Bercow's imbroglio? I think that the only dignified person was indeed the betrayed spouse who is fighting to rebuild her marriage for the sake of her kids.

Good Night dear!

I think that the only dignified person was indeed the betrayed spouse who is fighting to rebuild her marriage for the sake of her kids.

I missed that bit. I thought she said that her husband was hiding in the house and his future at home remained remained unclear. That she had no idea yet what the future held.

John Bercow hasn't said anything in public, I don't think either. I'm waiting for SB to declare she has mental health issues, and go into hospital next with 'exhaustion'.

Tomato, just checking in for the evening. Thinking of you and hope you are being selfish and taking time for yourself.

I'll be happy to hear you've had some uneventful days. Days you are not thinking about everything all the time and use the space to let thoughts drift through your mind.

You know what your deal breakers are but its far too early to come down on one side or the other. Keep your options open and don't feel obliged to make decisions about anything yet.

This is your story, your rules and there may be times when you just want to keep things private until you are ready to share. I'm concerned that there is a lot of information/views on this thread and you feel the need to respond to everything. Your circumstances are unique to you and you are living it.

It was dramatic and difficult initially. There now needs to be a period of reflection and thought. Time for you to float ideas, not be nailing your colours to the mast. Please take time and be selfish if you need to be.