He's not a bastard but he's behaved like he is. Confused.

[ComeDownToMe]

DP and I have been together nearly 2 years. We live together and it's great. We get on fantastically, he's witty, engaging, kind, supportive. The sex is amazing and we enjoy each other's company.

It started out as a casual relationship and I had a lot stronger feelings for him than he did me. But we ended up spending a lot more time together and grew a lot closer and our relationship turned serious.

The thing is one of my closest friends recently discovered her DH (now STBXH) was cheating on her and I've seen at first hand how broken she has been. Her ex has been an utter cunt and makes my blood boil.

My DP cheated on his then wife and she slung him out so I know everything I've said about my friend's ex I could equally say about my DP. I didn't feel good about this before but it's even worse now.

Can men really compartmentalise to such a degree they don't think about how much hurt they would cause someone they love.

I will probably be criticised for this and rightly so but I wasn't particularly judgemental on men having affairs before as long as no one got hurt. Now I've seen the hurt it feels a bit different.

I don't think of my DP as a bastard but he's done a lot worse than my friend's ex and I've called my friend's ex every name under the fucking sun.

How do I resolve this in my own mind.

Tbh his wife is much more likely to be on Mumsnet already as she's had children.

ComeDownToMe I think you need to be having a very similar conversation to this with your DP. What we think about infidelity isn't really the issue is it.

There are two types of cheaters - the amoral ones and the totally lacking in self-awareness. I think most people fall into the latter category TBH. They can be otherwise decent people who are kind to old ladies, children and animals. They just completely fail to equate that their behaviour has ramifications for others and that seeking a solution outside of themselves for a problem that comes from within can only ever be an exercise in futility at best and a recipe for heartbreak at worst.

Some people learn self-awareness, humility and empathy through living life - becoming older and wiser. Others don't. The fact that someone has cheated in the past does not mean they will do so again. However, the only way to tell is to really talk to someone about it and see what they have to say. The sort of cheater who still blames the clueless X or their 'situation' for their own infidelity is someone who hasn't learned.

Fatrascals his ex should have talked to him not looked at his phone.

Why? What difference would that have made? He was cheating on her, and had done so several times by that point, so how could talking have resolved anything other than to allow him to try and excuse his behaviour rather than allowing her to see for herself what he was really up to?

I think many people have given you good advice, but we don't know you or him. If you want to stay with him and convince yourself that you are good people who have done bad things, then that's up to you - it does happen and some people make happy lives for themselves in the aftermath of infidelity such as this.

However, I would be wary of allowing yourself to buy into the version of things that he has told you too completely - I'm sure nobody is as honest as they could be about situations where they know they have done wrong, so if he's no exception it wouldn't be a surprise. The fact that you are so willing to blame his ex wife for things like reading his phone instead of talking to him, instead of accepting that he allowed his marriage to be ended for him by taking the most cowardly option of waiting till he was caught, shows that you are perhaps a little too caught up in your own sense of wanting not to be 'the bad person' to be anything close to objective about this.

I do think you should talk to him about all this. Ask him if he's a bastard or just someone who acted like a bastard. I'm sure it will be enoug . No need to think for yourself about it or talk to anyone else, even.

You're not a nice person. Don't fool yourself. Deep down, you know it.

It is interesting on this thread to see the OP be completely unable to differentiate strong moral/ethical values from nice/fun/doesn't kick kittens. I think her problem is she sees her OP and herself as people who are superficially polite, kind enough to others and translates that to mean "decent' "not a bastard" or even "nice"

When the rest of posters know that it is at moral crossroads like wanting to have sex with someone other than your wife, or wanting to have sex with a married man, that true decency and character show through.

I can only hope the OP is young and therefore has some moral growth ahead of her. the fact that her friend's situation gave her pause is hopeful.

The dp is a lost cause - charming serial cheater, no reason he will change. He probably hurt his wife a lot and wasted a good many years of her life keeping her in ignorance when she could have dumped him years before and entered a new and better relationship. Hope he doesn't waste the same years of the OP's life.

Oh dear, OP. Poor you - he's only with you because the wife threw him out.

I can't feel sorrow for you though - you've been silly and allowed self-delusion to rule. I bet he'd go back to her tomorrow. You silly girl

I find it odd that you blame his wife for looking at his phone. How else was she supposed to find out the truth? She could hardly just ask him, what with his history of lying and all.

No one wants to be the person going through their husband's phone and hoping not to find proof he's been seeing other people. But, if you are going to blame her for wrongdoing, I'd say looking at his phone is a much lesser 'crime' than cheating on a wife and betraying his family.

He's self employed and doesn't pay himself too much because he doesn't need to.

He's self employed and doesn't pay himself too much because he's trying to hide his assets from his wife now it looks like she might divorce him

Fixed that for you. He's just sounding like the ultimate catch.

I'm not surprised his wife hates you, I'm not sure I'm too keen on you either.

A person like you has caused unbelievable harm to my dearest friend. Even now, a year on, the pain is still raw, the distress is still very real. The children are scarred for life, the way their father has behaved has left a mark, their ability to trust has been diminished.

I'm not sure what you wanted from this post, if it was reassurance that yours and your DP's actions didn't cause the anguish to his wife that your friend's H has caused to her, you're on a loser. You did.

All the pain your friend is going through, you (collectively) caused his wife. All the dirty tricks your friend's H is playing on her, your DP is playing or has played on his wife. All the lies your friend's H has told both to your friend and to his OW, your DP has told you or his wife.

She should have talked to him instead of looking at his phone behind his back? Are you serious? I had to look at my ex's phone because I asked him numerous times if he was cheating as I had a feeling just niggling away at me. I looked, saw the messages, confronted him, he denied it, I left then he begged me to take him back. I can't explain what this did to me. At the end of the day you're his second choice and only option. If people really want to leave then they leave.
You're just another one of those people allowing people to cheat. Your partner was a serial cheat over such a long time, he's a bad person. You on the other hand are very very dense. Don't feel sorry for his wife, feel sorry for yourself. She's well shot of him and will meet someone amazing like she deserves and I wish her a lifetime of happiness.

I finally got the proof that my dh was having an affair by waiting until he left his email open. I was already pretty sure he was having an affair, but when I asked him (repeatedly) he categorically denied it and made out I was some sort of mad person for even suspecting there was an issue. The weeks and months this went on were a particularly horrible time, and no I really didn't want to have to become a PI, but what choice did I have?

Weirdly dh seemed to think that my 'snooping' was in some way on the same level as his infidelity! I wonder if this is a common delusion?

Oh and when you are with someone who is having an affair their behaviour changes in all sorts of weird ways that puts you on edge and means that intimacy is no longer really an option. The person that you were once confident put you first is gone, replaced by a secretive and often quite nasty person, and that their behaviour is also inexplicable is a complete mindfuck.

OP your dh did that to his wife for years! It really isn't too surprising that their relationship was seriously damaged, but that damage was caused by him, not by her finding time . I wonder how much she was holding it together for the sake of their children. Children who will have been seriously hurt by his behaviour, not just since he was caught but in the decade before that, and most probably for at least a decade to come.

Oh and I don't think it's about compentmentalising, more total self centredness. The guy in his head probably painted his wife as a bad person who drove him into other women's arms. It's more about constructing alternative realities for the fantasies I think.

OP, how did your best friend find out about her DH's infidelity?

I don't know what you want from this thread unless you're a total masochist. You have behaved very badly. Your partner has treated the people who have been a significant part of his life for most of his life - over 20 years - appallingly.

Of course he's a bastard. You barely know the man.

Yes he has behaved like a bastard OP and so have you. The pain your watching your friend go through is the pain you and he caused his wife. Your with a man who is hiding his assets to deliberately deny his children financial support.

Weirdly dh seemed to think that my 'snooping' was in some way on the same level as his infidelity! I wonder if this is a common delusion?

It does appear to be. My friend's STBXH is trying to include her opening a tab on Google as one of the reasons he left her. He had already left her by that point, and had been having his tawdry little fling for over 6 months by then. Apparently, a wife actually having proof of infidelity is abusive to the Twunt, and utterly unreasonable.

Interestingly, the OW in that situation also believes that DFr having proof of his infidelity means that she has 'snooped'. The things people do to bolster their shoddy behaviour, eh?

I'm going to take a different line to many on here. I was the wife and my 'dh' of 24 yrs left me 5yrs ago for the OW. I feel sorry for you OP. When my DC asked, after a few years, what I would say if I ever met the OW I said that I would say "thank you". And that is how I feel. My exh had other 'traits' rather than serial philandering, but he's not my problem now. What my exh has lost, and your dp, is the respect of their DC. It will be hard to get that back. Young adults do not appreciate being lied to. When they find out their df has been lying like that it causes them to question the whole narrative of their happy childhood. It's deeply disturbing. Their mother is probably, like I was, trying to reassure them that this does not negate genuinely happy memories, they were happy as a family. It shakes their foundations. And yes, if the wife had no idea he was having affairs then it would shake hers too.

I feel sorry for you not just because you are stuck with him - but because you are stuck with a man who I do not believe is in love with you.

My exh actually fell in love with someone he'd recently met, he didn't admit there was someone else (but I knew, and I guessed who it was). He was so much in love that he rejected my suggestion of an open marriage and insisted on a divorce. A divorce does not have to take long at all, we were divorced less than 6 months after he left and he married her less than 6 months after that. That's what men do when they fall in love with the OW.

Ok I know he would have bullshitted his way out of it if his ex had asked him if he was cheating without looking at his phone.

My DP was really fucked off with her for looking as he said she didn't have a fucking clue he was cheating and he does think she 'snooped' (his word not mine)

My friend also looked at her ex's phone and I think she had every right to do so.

Yeah so I have projected my DP's anger with his ex for looking and I am wrong to have done so. Sorry.

ComeDownToMe your partner really doesn't seem like a nice person at all. His anger was totally unacceptable and the way he apparently talks about this wife is really nasty.

His narrative seems to be: How dare his wife discover he was being unfaithful. What a terrible person she is. How stupid she was not knowing he was sleeping around. How outrageous that she checked up on him. How out of order for his nice little scheme to be rumbled.

Plus of course all the complaints that she didn't meet his needs in every way he wanted whilst he apparently did whatever the fuck he wanted ('working' all the time on his poorly paying but presumably personally fulfilling job, sleeping with multiple women, avoiding the housework etc etc).

My dh had an affair and we made things work again (this was almost 10 years ago now) so I'm not in the black and white world of all cheaters are evil, but seriously your man sounds like he not only was but continues to be a complete bastard.

Nooka - my ex thought looking at his phone was the main issue rather than the cheating! I think that's how they try and shift the blame as most cheaters do!

OP - does his anger at her finding out not tell you anything? He had no intention of leaving her. He probably also didn't want to get caught breaking his vows as she will be entitled to more in the divorce which is probably also why he's not paying himself very much. I also consider cheating on this level to be emotional abuse. I do think cheaters can change, but not this one as he doesn't think he's done anything wrong

"My DP was really fucked off with her for looking as he said she didn't have a fucking clue he was cheating and he does think she 'snooped' (his word not mine)"

Jesus wept OP- does this tell you nothing???

Catsrus thanks for not having a go in your circumstances. I don't see my DP's ex thanking me any time soon. I would like to hope she can feel like you do one day.

My DP has had issues with his kids and he now has a very strained relationship with his eldest. It's why we thought it would be good for him to spend quality time with his youngest. His youngest really struggled to start with thinking he didn't love them to have conducted himself the way he did. It has been fucking hard for them and we both feel a lot of guilt.

His ex didn't know he was having affairs. She hadn't forgiven him previously as she didn't know and was in the dark.

I do think my DP is in love with me both from his words and actions. We have talked about marriage when he's divorced and we both want to when it's a tad easier with his family.

My DP was really fucked off with her for looking as he said she didn't have a fucking clue he was cheating and he does think she 'snooped' (his word not mine)

He sounds fucking hideous.

He's making a fool of you OP, he's basically told you straight to your face that he wouldn't have bothered with you and advanced your amazing love story if his wife hadn't found out, and dressed it up in a way that makes him look like the only wronged party in all of this. That's pretty big bastard behaviour, there.

Someone making a fool of you when you're oblivious is bad; someone making a fool of you when you're being told it and refused to listen, well...

'She didn't have a fucking clue'

Seriously OP? SERIOUSLY?

This, THIS is the bar you set yourself? What an absolute piece of shit this loser is.

This thread actually beggars belief.

My DP was really fucked off with her for looking as he said she didn't have a fucking clue he was cheating and he does think she 'snooped' (his word not mine)

So why did he think she 'snooped' if she had no 'fucking clue' he was cheating? What did he think she was expecting to find? It sounds like he was angry that he was caught out as it meant that he had to 'suffer' the upheaval of being thrown out rather than being mortified that he was caught cheating on his family and throwing away the trust and love that they had for him. That doesn't sound like the reaction of a nice person to me.