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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Getting over an affair

39 replies

TygerLeopard · 13/09/2015 23:26

I have NC for this, but have posted occasionally about my DH leaving me about 10 months ago. I was devastated. I've propped up Hobbits Bar a few times too, and the ladies (and man) there have been great.

However, totally unexpectedly my DH has now asked if we can work things out. I am willing, but actually having thought I'd have him back practically at any costs I'm now struggling. I was sure and he swore there was no OW - but of course there was it turns out, and even when we were trying to reconcile he lied about that to me again (I found out another way and confronted him).

And what doesn't help is, he seems pretty lukewarm about it all. It's all about him having a crisis and being in a state and wanting to be sure. So now I'm back in limbo again, and I'd slowly been adjusting to the breakup and now I'm being sucked back in. I do believe the OW is out of the picture (but then I believed him last time!). I just don't feel he really realises what he's done to me. And he still thinks all the criticisms he threw at me justifying the breakup are valid.

How do we save our marriage (I want to). How do I find peace and cope with what he's done.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 13/09/2015 23:29

And he still thinks all the criticisms he threw at me justifying the breakup are valid.

How can it work when he blames you for his lying and cruelty

It takes a special kind of absolute bastard to carry on doing that and expect you to take him back with open arms

I get the feeling he wants not you back but his convenient landing and I think you know it too Sad

OneDay103 · 13/09/2015 23:32

Please don't go back. He is so very far from wanting to genuinely make it work. He just wants an easy way out of his situation. You deserve better than to go back to someone who treated you so very badly.

Morganly · 13/09/2015 23:36

Oh sweetheart, don't do this to yourself. He has treated you so badly, he should be at your feet begging you for a second chance and promising you the earth if only you will forgive him. Instead he is giving you another chance but only if you shape up.

Why do you think so little of yourself that you think this is OK?

SpinachJelly · 13/09/2015 23:40

I don't think you will find peace - ever. Don't be sucked back in, you were doing so well without this excuse of a man. He will only let you down again and again.

Justaboy · 13/09/2015 23:48

JOOI how long have you been together might i ask?.

I does seem that he's a prat but you do want to save the marriage sometimes a man might have the odd fling if conditions are right its a hell of a temptation! do bear in mind the male mind is very different to he female one!.

It will be a hell of a job to trust him again and that might be the biggest issue by far. As advised in other posts in this forum a relate counselling session might be beneficial to both parties.

Its a very common problem and they're well versed in it and trying to stick a broken trust back together again.

Sorry to be blunt but have you asked him why it happened, was she giving him something you weren't at all and that could be many things other than the usual lack of nookie assumption;!.

AnyFucker · 13/09/2015 23:51

the male mind is very different to he female one!

bollocks

Original poster
TygerLeopard · 13/09/2015 23:57

Thanks for all the comments. I understand how it happened, the usual, life at home being mundane, meets someone and they 'hit it off' and one thing leads to another. We've been together 20 years. I acknowledge things were not great which is why I'm willing to see if we can both improve it. We are going to try counselling.

I've had no heartfelt apology though, he's sad it happened but his focus seems to be on him. How he got where he did etc. I am willing to give it time, but it still seems to be on his terms, I have to wait for him to sort himself out, whereas after all this surely it should be on mine. I suppose it is only if I'm willing to call it a day and walk away.

OP posts:
ToGoBoldly · 13/09/2015 23:57

I doubt the OW is out of the picture entirely, probably just doesn't want him full time. If she is out of the picture, he'll probably find another-other-woman, because it doesn't sound like your happiness is at the front of his mind.

He sounds horrible. Taking someone back when they are grovelling and bowing at your feet should be done with caution and a healthy amount of suspicion. Taking them back when they are still treating you like crap and saying you were in the wrong would be ill advised.

cozietoesie · 14/09/2015 00:03

...but it still seems to be on his terms...

Uh Huh. That says it all, I think.

Justaboy · 14/09/2015 00:24

TygerLeopard . well i think you have a good grasp the situation 20 years is a long time and people do change despite what they promise at the alter etc. It's only human for this to happen. It will be good for you to give counselling a go at least if it all goes down the pan you'll feel you did your best and utmost to try to mend it all. I should take a sterner line than what you have in the past when that happened. Being "nic" never seems to get you anywhere.

AnyFucker . beg to differ you have something to learn like it or not;!.

That's not to say women have affairs, they do. Still that's stating the blooming obvious;!.

ToGoBoldly · 14/09/2015 00:43

He would love the OP to suggest counselling as he gets to play big balls while she desperately scrambles around desperately trying to make it work.

Counselling has its place when a couple has hit a rough patch and both want to resolve things respectively. It's not appropriate when one partner is insistent on making the other feel like shit, especially when all the misdemeanours were committed by them and not the partner they are treating terribly.

This relationship already sounds dead to me. He's been unfaithful more than once, ditched the OP, then decided that he was more comfortable with her probably because the other woman told him to piss off, then comes back not saying he's sorry and made a huge mistake, but by putting the OP on the back foot while he navel gazes and does some self indulgent twaddle about "wanting to be sure". Basically keeping the OP in her place waiting for him, while giving her nothing in return.

Respect yourself OP.

AnyFucker · 14/09/2015 00:44

I think there is not one jot that you could teach me, Boy

ToGoBoldly · 14/09/2015 00:45

Actually OP, he's almost treating you like you are the OW! "I need to be sure this is right for me, and work out how it's going to look" is the kind of line an adulterer spins to their bit on the side to keep them hanging.

Whatifitoldyou · 14/09/2015 01:49

It's only human for this to happen. I disagree. It takes a special sort of twat.

Op your not even getting the bare minimum of remorse or responsibility.

www.chumplady.com/2013/07/real-remorse-or-genuine-imitation-naugahyde-remorse/

TheStoic · 14/09/2015 03:31

If he is not 100% remorseful, begging you to give him another chance, and vowing to do whatever it takes to fix this...it won't work, even if you wanted it to.

Reconciling a marriage after infidelity is incredibly difficult at the best of times, and what you're describing is FAR from that.

daisychain01 · 14/09/2015 04:09

if it all goes down the pan you'll feel you did your best and utmost to try to mend it all

You couldn't make it up!! Really??, so the OP has to feel like they have to mend anything, um sorry did I miss something, oh yes it was the AH of a husband who's been doing it on the side.

Kick him into touch for goodness sake, there's nothing to save.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 14/09/2015 06:34

Whilst he is still self obsessing and blaming you, not to mention most likely still concealing facts from you, your marriage doesn't have a hope in hell of being fixable. You know this really.

dreamingofblueskies · 14/09/2015 06:50

Please don't do this to yourself. As most other pp have said, if he's not remorseful then what's the point?

It should not be about him and his problems, he should be horrified that he caused you pain but he's not, he's minimising and justifying the unjustifiable.

Don't get sucked back in.

megandmogatthezoo · 14/09/2015 07:10

I took back a partner after an affair. They were remorseful, embarrassed, guilty, and well aware of what a complete shit they had been. I didn't even begin to consider it until they had got over trying to in some way pin the blame on me. There isn't any point unless they admit to themselves that they made choices and have to take responsibility for those choices.

I wouldn't recommend taking him back though. I have found it much harder than I thought it would be. He's spent three years falling over himself to make it right, by his actions, not just words. I literally cannot fault him. That doesn't mean there aren't days when I look at him and almost hate him. I'd probably have left if we didn't have very young children. He is a model husband and father these days, but even that isn't really enough. It'll never be enough.

Original poster
TygerLeopard · 14/09/2015 07:32

Thank you everyone. All your comments are useful. And tell me what I sort of know. I will give him some time (but not much) and at the same time prepare myself for this being over, and get my head round being the one to say it's not going to work. megandmog really interesting to hear your experience. We will see how the counselling goes...

And I wouldn't dare trying to teach AF anything!

OP posts:
BathtimeFunkster · 14/09/2015 07:34

I suppose it is only if I'm willing to call it a day and walk away.

He called it a day and walked away almost a year ago.

Your marriage ended.

The decision you have is not about leaving a marriage, it's about whether you should start a relationship with someone who treated you like a piece of shit on his shoe and who isn't even sorry.

ptumbi · 14/09/2015 07:42

Honestly OP - you can tie yourself in knots, trying to be the shape he wants you to be, spend years trying to work out 'what she had that you don't' (as per boy Hmm) and he would still not be faithful. Angry

Dont do it to yourself. Let him go - and be a cheating, lying, blaming bastard somewhere else.

Be yourself, not what he wants you to be (which will never be right). He blames you for his cheating; counselling will just give him more ammunition, as you tell the counsellor how you felt, what you want, how desperate you are for this 'relationship' to work. You are handing all the power to him.

Sansoora · 14/09/2015 07:53

Tyger can you tell us why you want to save your marriage? Is it because you've been together 20 years? If so, maybe it will help you to know that I can think of about 4 women currently posting on the forum who are now separated after marriages of 30 odd years. In my case I called it a day after 37.

Penfold007 · 14/09/2015 08:10

So the OW doesn't want him and he thinks he might go back to safe, familiar and oh so grateful ex wife until something better comes along. Tyger don't enable his behaviour.

SlowlyGoingINSAINIA · 14/09/2015 08:23

It sounds like you need to start being selfish op. Take control and make the decision that is best for YOU, that will make YOU happy.

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