Hello, I've NC for this but am a long-time lurker and occasional poster, including about my DH's affair which took place four years ago while I was working temporarily overseas with my company. The support I received at the time was fantastic and assisted me in regaining my emotional sanity after truly despicable behaviour at the hands of H and OW.
The OW used every option to try and destroy me professionally and personally, including making malicious and unfounded complaints to my employer and the police (the latter resulted in her receiving a formal caution) and did the same to my H, after we made the decision to try and rebuild our marriage.
Because of my H's behaviour in the six months after I discovered their affair and before he properly ended it with her, the process of reconciliation has been very challenging and painful as I battled to get over the absolutely dreadful things he said to me about me and my numerous shortcomings in relation to the 'perfect' OW - these ranged across the whole gamut of my looks, my weight, my hair (she has glorious hair - mine is thin and has been a cause of much self-consciousness from a very early age), my lack of sportiness, my poor culinary ability (she has cooked professionally), plus my age - I am 12 years older than her. He now bitterly regrets his cruelty but is has left me with profound emotional scars and my self-confidence about my appearance which was never high anyway, has been decimated.
The situation was complicated by the fact that they worked in the same team as her and it was not until he sought a move of location to a different depot that he seemed able to put the relationship with her behind him and properly focus on us, although her making the numerous allegations she did repeatedly set us back. But he did everything to try and demonstrate his remorse and make clear his determination to seek my forgiveness - NC and blocking her, individual counselling for him and relationship counselling for us, changing the car in which she had given him a regular blow job before he dropped her back home after work, and getting rid of the furniture they had had sex on in our family home during my absence, the job move - which also involved a family house move right across the country (I was fine with this), plus repeatedly and unprompted, expressing his guilt and sorrow. On occasions he has cried about how much he hurt me and our 3 DC.
I have struggled to get over it all and was on antiDs for two years before weening myself off them. I have lived with the niggling fear that he has been going through the motions but reasoned that he could have left if he had really wanted to as she had told her DH she wanted to marry my H and her DH, although devastated, had made it clear to her - and me - that he had no wish to be the consolation prize and would agree to a divorce if my DH did leave me for her. However my H was adamant that it was me he wanted, not her, and said that he knew he had been in the grip of limerence during the affair and for some months after and that the cold turkey approach had been the only solution.
Things have been slowly improving between us but I admit that on occasion my hurt and humiliation can bubble up but I always apologise if I lose it and he responds by apologising too for having given me cause to react that way
- I can honestly say that she was no longer of any great interest to me and I could even view the entire thing in a fairly objective, almost neutral, manner most (not all!) of the time.
However 4 weeks ago I was woken by a Skype call in the middle of the night. I thought it might be one of my colleagues currently working overseas but was horrified to see it was a missed call from the OW. I immediately woke my H with a 'why the fuck is xxxxxx skypeing me?' - to my devastation he immediately told me everything - showing me the emails between them and the whatsapp conversation. He had re-contacted her at the beginning of the year after we had a difficult Christmas following the sudden and totally unexpected death of his DM, and after being told by his company that the promotion he had long expected was now never going to happen. He said he felt I had been 'fairly supportive' about both events (very unfair particularly about his DM as I arranged the funeral from start to finish, sorted out the money, her small estate etc etc because he was in pieces and his 2 sisters were estranged from their mum) - but he knew that he would get 'more sympathy' from her as she has long made it clear via third parties that she still wants him. There was no resumption of their sexual relationship although in her messages she begged to have sex with him (he refuses in his replies, saying that he could not betray me or the children again in that way), but there is very much an emotional reconnection.
He ended it immediately that day - telephoned her husband to apologise - they had decided to reconcile for the sake of their young DC after my H made it clear after their first affair that he wanted to remain in our marriage. He also sent her an email apologising for getting her hopes up again for purely selfish and egocentric reasons. He swears that he had 'finally' grown up and truly realised how dreadful both the original affair and now this revisiting their emotional affair has been and what a 'complete fool' he has been. He said he had been self-pitying, pathetic and wanted the assurance that he could still have a beautiful woman risk everything in order to be with him. I have no doubt that the OW skyped me in order to provoke a reaction in both him and me but frankly I don't care about her motives.
But despite all that he has now done I feel dead inside. I can not comprehend that he resumed an affair with a woman who had done so much very real damage to both of us! Nor that he wilfully set aside all the shit and hard work we have endured individually and as a couple to really start to rebuild our marriage. I have told him that if he truly loves her I will not stand in their way but he has begged for forgiveness and is adamant that it was a lapse driven by external factors. But when I ask him how long it would have continued had the OW not contacted me, he just says that it would have 'fizzled out' because he had realised that he had 're-opened Pandora's Box' and was 'desperate' to close it again but feared that if he did so too abruptly then based on her past actions, she would wreak havoc again. Certainly the exchanges I have seen between them are unbalanced in the sense that she repeatedly begs for more, to plan for a future together, for sex, while his are very non-committal and almost like an exchange with a close friend rather than a lover. And he does mostly talk about his distress over the death of his DM and how frustrated he is professionally. Unlike their last relationship he writes nothing derogatory about me but does talk about his pride in my professional achievements. But even the latter disgusts me as how DARE he discuss me in any way with her!
I still love him but at the moment I despise him. He did what he knew I feared most in terms of our relationship. He has changed since this latest revelation and seems genuinely committed to gaining my forgiveness. But where will I ever find peace of mind now? Will the next life crisis see him running back to her?? He says not and that he has finally 'woken up'.
I am so very sorry for the length of this but if there is anyone out there who has experienced a similar scenario I would love to hear what the outcome was. Please don't flame me wise mumsnetters for having believed him when he said it was over for good the first time around..