Heartbroken

[gg321]

I'm posting on here as I'm just need to vent I think although I'm not even angry anymore just numb. My husband and I have been married for 2 years and we have the most beautiful baby who is just 4.5 months old. I am exclusively breast feeding and baby not the greatest of sleepers, up every hour at night, hubby gets a full night sleep every night. Understandably I probably haven't been the easiest person to live with, incredibly tired, hormonal due to BF. Irritable and all my time and attention goes to baby. I have now found out my husband has slept with another woman who he works with, says it was a one off and big mistake but he said he was feeling low and I wasn't being very nice to him! I'm devastated and I don't know what to do, I know only I can decide but I'm so confused as I do still love him but how can I forgive what he's done!? And ever trust again?! He would never normally even look at other women and I trusted him 1000% and now this.

Getting lots of support but obviously allsay it's my decision and I know that but it's such a hard one. Maybe need more time to think until it becomes clear

Hossenfeffer...very true

What a nasty shock. Have you told your families what happened?

A lot of couples find the first months after a baby arrives difficult. His pea sized brain thought, I know I'm going to make everything better by sleeping with a colleague. "Only" once? Was that supposed to make you feel reassured?

I hope you are getting rl support from somewhere. I think the first few weeks should be taken at the pace you feel is best. Where is he staying? Does he show any interest in his child? Are you financially all right?

If he is now hinting that he was unhappy even before you had your baby and saying that the problem started back during the pregnancy I am sorry but it sounds like he and this female at work were getting close some while ago.

He is still seeing daughter and is and has been a great dad to her and providing all his money, he's staying with parents

Yes. You need time to think. Does he feel a neglected little flower while you support another tiny helpless human? It isn't an explanation. It really is pathetic to say it is. It's for him to explain why he's so narcissistic as to seek attention from another woman while his wife nurtures the newborn they made together. His child. He is a grown up so why is he in competition with his child for affection?

I've had a couple of times in my life when I was an absolute bitch to my husband. I mean a fuel-injected, unreasonable bitch. And he NEVER cheated on me. There is NEVER a reason for infidelity. NONE. It is a deliberate decision made by the cheater for which they make up an excuse if they get caught.

Do not let him put one iota of blame on you for this. It is 100% on him. If he was unhappy with the way you were treating him, then he should have spoken up about it so the two of you could work it out. Instead he behaved like a selfish child and then said "you made me do it". No one 'makes' anyone do anything.

You'll need to think long and hard about this. Are you going to turn into a doormat to please him so he doesn't have any future 'excuses'. Is he going to become even more selfish by making you feel he might cheat again if you don't meet his 'requirements'? Is he sorry he cheated or just sorry he got caught.

If you decide to take him back, you and he should go to counseling. You'll need to learn to trust him again and he needs to learn to take responsibility for his actions.

I think he is genuinely sorry for what it's done to me. I know he wouldn't have been able to live with the guilt of what he'd done

Without telling me

'When in doubt, do nowt'

Discovering that your h and father of the child you've so recently borne him is a shit of lowest order has left you reeling.

Even if he were to prostrate himself at your feet and beg forgiveness, the hurt and pain he's caused you won't be easy to resolve which is why you should take all the time you need to decide whether you're going to flush him back to the sewer he crawled out of.

Many marriages recover and in some cases become stronger after infidelity but the fact that he has been unfaithful after a mere 2 years, coupled with the fact that he did so at a time when you were struggling with new motherhood, doesn't bode well for the future.

Asking how long it will be before you can make a rational decision is akin to asking 'how long is a piece of string' and more so because seemingly 'rational' decisions can be the product of irrational thinking.

When saying that you don't think he would have been able live with the guilt of what he's done, bear in mind that you may be projecting your morals onto him as he clearly didn't have any qualms about shagging another woman shortly you'd given birth to his child.

It's easy for adulterers to be sorry afterwards, but if their moral compasses were in working order the guilt they'd feel at the prospect of betraying their partners would be sufficient to prevent them from entertaining any notion of, let alone doing, the deed.

She was being very very nice to him and I wasnt

You were caring for his small baby and she wasn't.

That he even said what he did to you as an excuse would enrage me.

OP, maybe talk to people in real life, not about why this happened but about what you would like to happen now in your life. you have a partner who had sex with another woman very soon after you gave birth. Honestly, if a man isn't faithful in the immediate weeks after his partner gives birth, I honestly think he is very unlikely to every be faithful.

but only you can decide if this is how you want your life to play out.

if I were you I'd be shot of him. This isn't the kind of mistake you have to forgive.

"It was so awful. You weren't treating me like the centre of the universe so I sadly went to work where I was so sad I couldn't see where I was going and I tripped over because I was so sad and sadly my dick just fell in to someone's open legs"?????????

I'm so sorry, OP. My exh cheated when I was pregnant (I didn't understand him, apparently), so I can empathise a little. It didn't just happen and the woman he did it with wasn't just lying there with her legs spread on the off chance someone feeling sad would come along and 'neeeeeed' her. There would have been flirting, secrecy, meaningful looks, the whole sheebang before it happened. He knew. He absolutely knew what he was doing and it was absolutely not a spur of the moment, couldn't see it coming 'mistake'.

4 weeks is no time at all for you to get your head around this, and that's without being solely responsible for a small baby. There is no need at all for you to make decisions about the future at the moment and he will just have to accept that. And you need to stop feeling guilty. You don't know what to do because, at the moment, it's not clear to you what to do. So don't 'do' anything. Carry on as you are until you are in a much stronger, less shocked, less sleep deprived situation and then see what you think and how you feel. And it's fine to get bloody angry too - he has tainted these first precious weeks as a mother for you and you won't ever get to do them again untainted. Get really bloody angry about that.

You call the shots now and you don't call them until you're good and ready. Just to reassure you, if you're anxious about managing as a single mum (although you already ARE managing!), I raised ds alone. I didn't go on benefits, I worked full time, I kept my house, he went to a fab nursery, and I've even got to a position where I can afford to privately educate him if I choose to do so. Being a single mum is tiring but it is also the most rewarding experience of my life. It didn't blight it, it wasn't 'benefit street', grungy flats and Jeremy Kyle. It was also a HELL of a lot easier doing it by myself than trying to parent a self-pitying, selfish, whining man-child with a sense of entitlement the size of a family car alongside my ds would have been.

Whatever you decide, whenever you decide it, I promise you that this situation is not a disaster. Just manage the day to day for now.

I wonder if you'd be happier breaking up, but just can't bring yourself to rip the plaster off.

OMG, OP.
Your babe is only 4.5 months. So he's the type who goes for extra marital sexual healing when the going gets tough at home.
You have many more challenges coming your way. As parents. As people. As a couple.
And he will need to work, until he retires.
I am very sorry you are spending this time which is meant to be exhilirating, albeit exhausting, going through this hell.
and many hugs.
Oh and everything YvyB said.

He's been out for four weeks? He's your ex. No more heartbreak over this one (maybe regret and sadness, but he isn't worth more), just practicalities. See a solicitor asap and get things moving.

You don't need to know why he slept with her. You don't need to have him back so he can do it again.

Let's say he's serious about this and wants to be your life partner. After divorce and practical/financial arrangements are made, he will still be around because you have a child together. If he's as keen as he says, he'll be a conscientious father and good friend, and prove his worth to you over a period of years. After that, he can slowly work up to being a boyfriend, lover, maybe partner if that's what you both want. But for now, he's the joker who screwed someone else while you had a tiny baby. There are no excuses for that.

I agree with Across and others. Also, have you had an STI test?

For all you know he could have been sleeping with her for ages. Or lots of women. Who knows? I do know you and your DD deserve much better. He is not a good father if he is shagging around while you care for his daughter on no sleep. Entitled prick. And don't give him the opportunity to blame you by asking why he did it. He did it because he is a twat - no other reason than that.

What an awful thing for him to do :(

Don't let him blame you. He is a grown up and he made a conscious decision to betray his wife at her most vulnerable time. LTB.

Really pisses me off when blokes can't keep their dicks in their pants when their partners have a baby. I think they'll fuck around whatever their excuses. Don't get me wrong, I like women. But when you're married or in a real relationship be honest, please.

I'll admit I am no angel and can be really hard to live with at times but at least I hope I'm honest. I never, ever thought of shagging some other woman when my wife was having out baby. I think he would have 'fallen' inside her even if you had been shagging his brains out every day. Although I don't think brains and your OH should be in the same sentence.

OP, I don't know that you'll ever be able to trust him. He may be sorry now, but is that because he's been caught out?

He's a lying, cheating bastard.

Sorry...our baby not out baby.

And it's my ex. But not because we were shagging other people behind our partners backs.

How did you find out? Did someone else tell you, or did he?