DH had 1 night stand - I'm struggling to get over it

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I'm a regular poster but have NC for this. We've been married for 21 years, have 3 DC (youngest age 10), no money worries, "perfect" life...except last week DH got drunk and bumped into an old work colleague. They ended up in bed together - he says they didn't have sex as he was too drunk to perform. I found out. He has spent the weekend apologising, crying, saying we (the family) are his life, that we have grown up together, that he's an idiot and he can't believe he's done this.

I'm a bit of a mess (can't sleep, crying, no appetite). I thought I could trust him. I love him with all my heart but it's fractured now. How do I get it to heal? How do I forgive him? I don't want this to split us up - I can't do that to my DC. So if that's my decision I have no choice but to find a way to move on from this and start to rebuild things. Has anyone out there been in this situation? Any words of wisdom?

A few points to think about..

1. Lots of people fantasise about what would happen if..sex fantasies
2. And in those fantasies they are guilt free sexual athletes everything works and it's horny etc guilt is aside..its a fantasy
3. The reality of being pissed is we do things and think things are cool and funny when sober, they just arent..

4.and we sometimes try to do things and be things that are essentially fantasies (like me fantasising that people I don't know think I'm hilarious)

1. But it can be difficult to get your soul/real you to join in in the real scenario even if you fantasise about it (a friend's girlfriend wanted to spend the night with me, and I totally fancied her, but when it started to happen one night (she led it all) I couldn't really join in, and sort of shut down..(and destroyed my reputation as good in bed as a result (wide set/network of friends)
2. If the real him couldn't join in, that might be his heart sinking, realising he doesn't really want to be the fantasy sexual warrior really, he wants to be with you.
3. They could have literally not really known what they are doing, its happened to me before, sort of 'woken up' and been in the corner of a room with no clothes on with someone I was sure I had just lain down near to sleep.
4. Its not definite at all that there's more..that's made up from not much by people responding here
5. Trust will be difficult for a while and he'll have to accept that he will need to over demonstrate for a bit.

10. For the record, in that situation above (friends gf) she had a few 'things' when she was seeing her long term partner/boyfriend, but never was in danger of leaving him, they have a strong relationship. Everyone else who wanted to get off with someone else in their 20s ended really good relationships for/after their odd diversions, and some people-myself included- ended really great relationships in an attempt to 'do the right thing' because one of us had 'done something wrong' I now look back and realise how stupid it is to keep trying to start a perfect relationship over and over with no mistakes, instead of working through the odd bits of human behaviour that happen... Maybe my view is wrong, maybe it's not an appropriate one, but I grew up where you were 'allowed' to constantly ditch girlfriends for talking to other men, or beating up people they talked to, and feeling humiliated if they were out and you didn't know, and so I would rather have a girlfriend who made mistakes than one I made sure couldn't iyswim, so I would now try and take the heavy blow of this, to try to see if there is a point you can get to on the other side...at least I would try this first..

But there is no absolute right and wrong in what to do, and we know neither of you or how the relationship is. I just thought I'd say those things as there is a lot of 'definitely if he nicked some sweets, he also runs a regional organised crime syndicate and murders people'catastrophising here..it might not be like that...

I don't agree it may well have been the first time.

Trust will be the hardest thing to regain.

It is up to you whether you stay together and up to him how he behaves from now on.
I would suggest you have some couple time without the kids to rebuild your relationship.

People on Mumsnet are too keen to throw away relationship. There are always cries of "get rid" but you have darling children to think of too.

Blokes do daft things when they are drunk. It is up to you whether you believe him and whether you want to continue. If he is genuinely sorry and makes an effort then try to rebuild your relationship. You will be reeling from shock just now so give yourself a bit of time before making this important decision. Good luck.

He's lying, sorry.

I reckon when pushed he will change 'we didn't have sex' to 'we had sex but I couldn't come'

He is textbook so far

Blokes do daft things when they are drunk

Yeah those daft fellas, falling into bed with a woman with no clothes on! Silly billies!

Don't minimise it by saying it was 'daft' - he knew what he was doing and what he intended to do.

I think it's possible, though unlikely,that this was the first time.
But I do think there was some premeditation that he hasn't confessed to.I don't really know anyone under the age of about 20 that would have the free time or lack of commitments to enable them to randomly meet an old friend, off the cuff stay out and get drunk with them and then end up in bed.Im talking about the woman as much as your h.It just doesn't seem like something that would happen like that.
You can probably get over this, but your marriage won't ever be quite the same.You will probably never 100% believe anything he says to you again-so you will need to learn to live with a tiny doubting voice in your head.Its not insurmountable, but is exhausting and wouldn't be (and wasn't) for me. I just never felt the same about my h after the affair though we tried to get back on track for nearly four years, and on the face of it in that time we were happy enough I suppose.But there was always the nagging doubt and the feeling of betrayal for me.

Also op...because this is a horrible things to have to find out about.

Blokes do daft things when they are drunk

No they don't.

Can we stop this generalising of men? Lots of men don't try and have sex with other women when they're drunk. And stop blaming the drink. He had a choice. FFS.

Please analyse the evidence OP. When you listened to the conversation did he sound drunk? You know how drunk he needs to be to not be able to perform.
It all sounds like BS to me. The fact that you were away, he bumped into her etc. I call BS utterly. More likely to be one of many. You need to do a lot more digging to get the truth not expect him to confess, he has far too much to lose.

people sometimes do daft things when drunk! Men do not have the monopoly on that!

I wouldn't call going to bed with someone else when you are drunk "daft" either, Id call it selfish cuntishness.

ruined my reputation for being good in bed ha ha ha ha ha

I've checked everything - phone logs, texts, emails, bank statements - there's nothing. No contact with woman, nothing.

Thanks for your comments - it helped me with my investigations and questioning.

Well that's even worse - if he was randomly meeting up with an old colleague and it was all innocent to start with (like he claims) - there would be a trail of them arranging this "one" meeting.

Do you have a regular router? Not virgin/sky broadband box. There's a way to look up all websites accessed from any device going through the router, even if history was wiped off individual devices.

Where's the hotel charge on his card? I would be suspicious if she paid for the room.

I suspect he's got a new email address just for chatting with her.

Gosh. So it would have been better to have found evidence - I'm confused now. Will you only be happy if I leave him and break up my family of 21 years? My OP was asking for advice on rebuilding trust.

I agree with Horton. It sounds like he wiped out any evidence.

An innocent meeting would have had a few messages or phone calls arranging it.
If totally random, then he could be having loads of random sex.

That is the problem with trust. It's been lost. Can it be regained at all?
He needs go figure that out. Not you.

I think it could be completely plausible that it was 'just' 1 night a day they happened to bump into each other.
I think you could get over it but it will take lots of time and you shouldn't rush to have it back to normal ASAP.

I don't think you should LTB, nit yet anyway, not if you are willing to try to forgive a day forget. It may not work but I think you need time to figure it out and not be rushed into decisions.
He is in the wrong. Take as long as you need .

Horton

Disagreeing with you here. According to what OP was told, there was no arranging to meet, they bumped into one another. There is no hotel charge that OP found. It IS just possible that he is telling the truth, but isn't that up to OP to decide?

Have you managed to discuss it some more with him yet OP? How are you today?

Unfortunately op, you can't rebuild the trust because it's not you that destroyed it.

He can try, but it is him that needs to do the work here. Ask him what he thinks he should be doing to regain your trust. His answer may tell you a lot.

Good luck whatever you decide.

My ex DS dad this, broke up after something wasn't right and he was back with his ex gf in days caught him out that he cheated but apparently couldn't perform 😒 i knew that was bullshit plus all the sexual contact prior is still cheating. It made me feel physically sick especially as we had been intimate after he did that.

You got to ask yourself can you stay with him knowing what he done,wondering how many other times this happened.

My ex wanted his family back but i know i was worth more than being second best and looking over my back. I suspect he cheated throughtout the relationship. He never learned i heard hes cheated on his DW back.

I have a great DH who respects me and trust 100%. You deserve to be able to go away and not be looking over your back.

Horton, he said he bumped into the colleague. Plus they could have gone to hers?
OP, if you feel its plausible, then it could well be.

I would still want to know why, in a long and happy marriage, he decided after a few drinks, that it was a good idea to go off with her and shag her.

The key thing for me would be that he only admitted it (and then only admitted the bare minimum possible) because he was caught.

Before he got caught, he wasn't crying or panicking. He was just heading home, chatting to a taxi driver like normal. He wasnt on the phone to you, full of guilt and confessing. If he could do that once, he's dishonest and he could have done it a thousand times.

Op - when you say you've seen call logs etc. Do you mean in his phone? Or an itemised list from his network provider? Calls and texts can be deleted from phones.

so we are buying the serendipitous meeting fable now?

so much better than a planned affair..... he bumps into old flame, then thinks "oh well the wife is off on a jolly, let's get naked and drunk and boff another woman"

Either way he's a lying philanderer. I really don't know which is worse, the deceitful planning of an affair, or the poor impulse control of the ONS

This is not a man who cares about you.

Oh for goodness sake, some people determind to make the op believe the worst case scenario.

Maybe he did just bump into her? You know that could actually have happened! It may only be a small chance, but it is possible!

My Dfather had an affair but my mum forgave him. They spent another very happy 20 years together. I also have a fiend who forgave her Dhs affair, they too are now very happy. I'm sure there are loads of examples of couples not making it after an affair, but it does happen. Life isn't as black and white as some on here seem to think.

Op.
I kniw it sounds as if people are just expecting you to simply call time on your marriage but it's more about getting you to get the full facts so that you can make a decision based on the truth.
It would be far worse I the long term to simply accept what he's claiming to happen then find out more later on after you've worked so hard to move on.
There is a huge difference between forgiveness and compromising your integrity imo.

I don't think his story is plausible, and I couldn't trust him again - do you really think you can?

It is okay to stay and try to fix this, if that is what you truly want . The thing is, you can only know that for sure if you are in possession of the full facts.

I don't know if this is the first time or not, but I suspect not. Usually it turns out that there is more to the story and you have to scare the shit out of your husband to get anywhere near the truth. I don't think you have dug deeply enough yet to rule out previous cheating.
I recommend that ypu look through all his fb chats - these things are often archived and forgotten about, so a thorough search might throw up something. Look at his friends list closely. Dityo Skype.
Go online and look up his phone bill. Print off the last 6 months and see what turns up. Cheaters who have bern getting away with it for a while can be shockingly sloppy about covering tracks.

I hope nothing comes up, but you do have to investigate properly because he cannot be relied upon to tell you the truth. Do go ahead with sti checks.

He needs to genuinely feel the fear that he will lose his family and have to tell his children what sort of man he is.

It's possible this wasn't planned and it's equally possible that it was. He may have deleted evidence.

But what's important is what you want to do now (not him). If you want him to move out to give you some time and space to think then that's ok, and something he should be more than willing to do if he wants to make it work. Instead of him hanging around asking you to trust him again. He should worship the ground you walk on and do whatever it takes. Under no circumstances should he ever brush it under the carpet or make you feel like you should be over it.

Have you asked him why it happened? Why he 'forgot' he was married with three children? Being drunk is no excuse at all, lots of us get drunk, I don't try and shag other people. Plus you weren't going to find out, he was fine until you did then all the guilt and crying came out.

You have to realise and he has to know that you might not ever trust him again. It may not happen. His actions may have destroyed everything. I'm not sure I could trust again, even if the relationship continued. A little piece of me would never be the same again.