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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

DH was being blackmailed and no I don't know what to do.

500 replies

TheCunnyFunt · 01/12/2015 13:48

This is going to be long...

It all came out on sunday morning, he took DD to his mums and when he came back he told me he was being blackmailed and he didn't know what to do. He said that he'd slept with someone years ago (while he was with me) and the woman was blackmailing him for money, threatening to tell me everything if he didn't cough up.

It transpired that the woman was actually my best friend at the time (we haven't spoken in a few years now) and he'd slept with her more than once, and she has been blackmailing him for most of our relationship (9 years). He'd finally had enough when she asked him to be a guarantor on a house and pay £700 for bond and first months rent. He couldn't give in to her anymore so he broke down and told me everything. Over the years she has had several hundred pounds out of him, maybe even thousands. He doesn't actually know.

He's been to the police and they've called her and told her that if she ever contacts DH, me or my mum (she was threatening to tell my mum too) ever again that she'll be taken straight to crown court and prosecuted for harassment and blackmail.

I think the one thing that hurts the most is that she had a really shit home life, her mum was awful and abusive. Me and my mum took her in for weeks at a time, our home was her home. She even lived with us for a few months when she got pregnant at 15 and her mum kicked her out. How could she do this to me?

I'm just totally confused. I'm beyond angry at DH and exBF. But as well as angry at DH, I also feel pity for him. The amount of stress he has been under for all these years.

On one hand, He obviously wanted to stay with me otherwise he wouldn't have kept paying up to keep her quiet.
But on the other hand, if he liked/loved me that much all those years ago he wouldn't have shagged my best friend in the first place.

I just don't know what to do. I love him and I don't want to split up, but I don't know if I can ever forgive him for this. My head is saying that he's more than paid for it by spending all that money and the pressure he's been under for all these years, but my heart is saying ouch.

OP posts:
roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2015 18:45

If your ex bf was as screwed up and vulnerable as you say she was, what would bother me is the thought that your dh was apparently willing to exploit her up until the point he realised she was actually planning on exploiting him. Or did he not know the backstory of abuse when he chose to sleep with her behind your back? Presumably it was guilt, not just fear of you catching him out that made it possible to blackmail him for so long before he decided she had become too mercenary?

An awful lot of explaining is required to make sense of it!

itsbetterthanabox · 01/12/2015 18:48

I'm very sorry this must be horrible for you.
However the blackmailing would have been irrelevant if he had told you the truth. He chose to lie. He chose to pay someone else to lie. He should have told you. He is in the wrong here.

anonacfr · 01/12/2015 18:49

Good point.

The fact that she was still blackmailing him until now suggests an ongoing sexual relationship too.

And he doesn't even know how much money he's given her? Hundreds, maybe thousands but only recently she was asking him for 700 pound?

I don't mean to be horrible to you OP but it doesn't look good. I think you'll find his admission was only the tip of the iceberg.

anonacfr · 01/12/2015 18:50

Good point was regarding the second child by the way.

Original poster
TheCunnyFunt · 01/12/2015 18:51

Expat did you not read my post? She fell pregnant, carried and gave birth to a baby while she was in an abusive relationship. Her every move was watched. She literally spent 24-7 with her partner. She didn't go anywhere without him, and he didn't go anywhere without her, and if he did, she was locked in with no way of contacting anyone. She didn't even have a phone. She had to ask him to allow her to use it. I was one of very few 'allowed' visitors.

Someone asked how old we were roughly. Well when we started going out I was 15 and he was 17. We're 24 and 26 now.

OP posts:
Original poster
TheCunnyFunt · 01/12/2015 18:53

He said it was £100-£200 a time roughly. The £700 is the most she'd asked for in one go.

OP posts:
roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2015 18:54

A bit hard for her to blackmail him while she was being watched 24/7 by a jealous and abusive partner, I would presume? Unless her partner of the time was involved in it.

mintoil · 01/12/2015 18:56

I would not believe it was a one off - it sounds like a long term thing to me. He has cheated on you and lied for years.
If you don't LTB then you have just shown him what he can get away with.

expatinscotland · 01/12/2015 18:56

Stranger things have happened, Cunny, but again, it will be hard to know because the pair of them are both liars who have been deceiving you for a long time. It's your life, but man, that's a long time to live with someone who shags your best friend behind your back and lies about it and spunks hundreds or thousands of pounds up a wall so the lie can continue. I'm sure he'll be all apologies, though. Then, years later, there will be another post, 'He cheated again.' A leopard doesn't change its spots. Right now, you're young enough to meet someone who would never dream of shagging his partner's best friend, or anyone else besides his partner.

wannaBe · 01/12/2015 18:56

and perhaps the abusive partner was so jealous because she had already cheated on him with op's dh? Doesn't excuse being abusive, if it was the case he should have left perhaps, but it's a possibility, surely?

roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2015 18:57

Well, it's not as if the abusive partner had no reason not to trust her, is it?

expatinscotland · 01/12/2015 18:59

Who knows, wannaBe, with liars like this there are always three sides to the story: his side, her side and the truth.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 01/12/2015 19:00

How was she blackmailing him if she had no access to a phone and wasn't allowed visitors? When did the blackmail actually start?

whattheseithakasmean · 01/12/2015 19:02

Your ex friend sounds vulnerable with a tragic past. Your husband took advantage of her emotion fragility and neediness to get a shag on the sly. For that alone I couldn't for forgive him. He didn't see your friend as a desperately sad person but a hole to fuck. He kept this from you for years. Your marriage is not what you thought.

roundaboutthetown · 01/12/2015 19:02

He was an idiot teenager when all this started, then. Blackmail might have been enough to put him off infidelity.

expatinscotland · 01/12/2015 19:05

'He was an idiot teenager when all this started, then. Blackmail might have been enough to put him off infidelity.'

And for all we know, he is an idiot adult who shagged her then, too.

SuperFlyHigh · 01/12/2015 19:06

I'm sorry but having slept with her more than once, lying not about that but about her blackmailing him and him paying her, I'd struggle to get over that. The lying and betrayal of trust.

So he married you and took vows (or not) knowing he was lying??

I personally think he'd have never have told you only his Hand was forced into telling you, hence Pandora's box being opened, so would you be happy if you'd never found out? Well of course he would and you would (if you hadn't known and been blissfully unaware) - for me it's a LTB. So sorry OP.

lavenderhoney · 01/12/2015 19:07

Perhaps the ex best friend and her controlling dp were in on it. Who knows?

But it's clear he spent all this time and money deceiving you, so what's changed, apart from marriage?

He had sex with your bf
He stopped ( you assume) for whatever reason
He paid her lost of money and he doesn't know how much (!)
He suddenly fessed up after marriage.
She's been warned off
He's very sorry, of course
Is this a book? Is he famous? Otherwise he'd just tell her to fuck off.

What happens now? Personally, with no DC in the mix I'd be off.

Original poster
TheCunnyFunt · 01/12/2015 19:11

I suppose it helps that the second child happens to be the spitting image of her father.

I don't know when the blackmail started. I don't know many details yet but I will do tonight.

OP posts:
Oakmaiden · 01/12/2015 19:11

I would have thought you need more facts before you can possibly decide what to do. Believing what you are told is going to be the tricky one, though, and may be a deciding factor...

wannaBe · 01/12/2015 19:16

It's the ongoing element of it which is the issue here. Let's face it, they were seventeen when all this started, bearly kids themselves, and while infidelity at seventeen is no more acceptable than at 27, seventeen year olds are often wreckless, stupid and do stupid things which they'd rather not take forward into the future.

But presumably the relationship continued onwards to the extent that this girl and then woman was able to blackmail him continuously over a period of nine years, and he danced to her tune. That is not the action of someone who did something stupid at seventeen and just wanted it to go away.

I would hazzard a guess she has a lot more on him than that he slept with her, hence why he was happy for the police to just give her a stern talking to, for fear of it all coming out in court.

expatinscotland · 01/12/2015 19:20

You'll know what he wants you to believe, and he's has a lot more time to think of some damage control than you have.

mummytime · 01/12/2015 19:27

It is obvious you are angry. But please don't lash out at those trying to help.

From what he has told you your now DH has betrayed you, and so did your then bf.
But your "D"H has betrayed you very recently by allowing you to marry him without the truth being admitted.

Ideally you would: get space from him; get some independent counselling to help you work out what you think and feel.

You are so young and have so much life to live.

Fairenuff · 01/12/2015 19:28

I don't think you'll get the truth out of him. I think he will continue to minimise, lie and blame it all on her.

After all, he only told you because he had to, right?

APlaceOnTheCouch · 01/12/2015 19:38

Please don't let him fob you off tonight with tales of how difficult it was for him. He put himself into this situation (whatever it was). He deliberately lied to you for years and as a PP said, he married you knowing that you were unaware of the truth.

I honestly don't know how he can fix this. In fact, I don't think he can. He has shown himself to be weak, a liar and a coward. You deserve more.

Please tell people who care about you in RL and spend some time with them. You owe yourself that time. You don't owe him anything. Flowers