This is going to be long and complicated, apologies. I have been reading this forum since this happened, and many posts have rung true with me - but I've now got to the point where I don't know what to do, and would appreciate any thoughts the collective minds of Mumsnet might have.
So, I have been with DH for 14 years, married for 12, we have 4 kids aged 1-7. DH was in the Forces, and has deployed three times, for 6-7 months each time. The last time was when our youngest was 3 months old. He's now left the Forces.
Just before Christmas, he told me that he'd been offered another overseas job, but this time it was in a safe European City (rather than a war zone) and so we could all go. That is something we have always talked about, and so I was quite excited about it - a chance for us to go and have an adventure as a family rather than him going away and us being left behind all the time.
At the same time, things hadn't been right between us since he came back from the last deployment - we couldn't seem to reconnect emotionally or physically. One of the hallmarks of our relationship from the start had been fun and silliness, and we did manage to keep an element of this even when the kids turned up, but it suddenly seemed to be gone. Sex was very different - he was rougher and less considerate with me, and I felt like I could have been anyone to him.
This time was complicated because we had moved house while he was away - unfortunately didn't manage to exchange before he went away so I did that on my own. It must have been very strange for him, coming back to a new house where we were all settled and he didn't know where anything was. I thought partly it was just taking us longer to readjust than previously, combined with the usual fatigue and stress that goes along with 4 young kids.
Christmas was nice, and then it all went wrong. He told me that he'd had an affair with a colleague during the last deployment - she had a long term BF, and they mutually agreed to end it after a few weeks. DH says that it 'meant something' but can't clarify what that means. On further questioning, they tried to remain friends, meeting up a number of times for coffee after they got back to the UK. Eventually in November they decided they couldn't be friends and he said that they didn't see each other again.
Then I asked him if it had happened before that, and he said he'd had 2 one night stands with 2 different women. The first was while he was living away from me on Base before we had kids (but while we were actively trying for a baby and had had 2 miscarriages. I was also very low during this time due to career choice and not knowing what I wanted to do). The second was 3 years later while on a residential course. The first he basically went on a date (was invited to a woman's house for dinner on his own and one thing led to another) and the second was following a drunken evening.
So it appears that all 3 happened in quite different circumstances, and DH says that the reasons he did it include him never having a relationship before he met me, us both being young when we got married, being apart so much (we've worked out that we've been apart more than we've been together for the last 7 years), lack of intimacy between us, him feeling guilty about wanting more/different sex from me.
I told him to leave, and he lived with his sister for a couple of months, coming back often to see the kids, and we've both had individual counselling and been to couples counselling too. I've been through various stages - not believing it, sadness, and now am mostly very angry that he would do this to me and us and the kids. We talked a lot, and decided that he should take this overseas job for 6 months and come back every weekend to see if we could gently get to know each other again. I feel like we had something really good, and if I don't try to rebuild then I will always regret it. That's partly for the kids, but mostly for me.
But I just don't know how to have a 'new relationship with the same person' as the books say. I would be walking open eyed into a relationship with someone who I know is a cheat. There is no mystery or excitement - he's seen me giving birth, I've squeezed spots on his bum etc etc. We are surrounded by physical memories of our past relationship - the kids, photos, all the stuff in our house that we've collected over the years, that were our wedding presents. Hes also tainted my good memories of our time together because now i can only think "was this before or after? Was he acting? Pretending to be happy? How did i not notice?" How do we create something new out of that when we have very little time together as a family and even less as a couple - basically 3 hours on a Saturday night when he's home.
And how do I, personally, get past the anger to forgiveness? No matter how many times he says sorry, it can't undo what he's done. And I also have to make the leap of faith to trust him when he says it's never going to happen again, even when he's working away from home and travelling lots.
I do believe that he's told me everything, which might sound weird - he had nothing to gain from telling me about the one night stands. The reason he told me is because when he saw how excited I was getting about us all going away as a family, it broke his heart that I was preparing to do that without knowing what he'd done - he wanted me to have the facts in order to make the right decision for me. I think he's immature and naive, a people pleaser and a risk taker, and these things have all combined together. He seems to hate himself for what he's done, although he is also emotionally blunted - he says he can't feel anything. He's not cried, no matter what hurtful thing I say to him he responds with a very measured, reasonable voice, which is infuriating. However, he's also not saying that he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me - he says he doesn't know and wants to have time getting to know each other again so that we can decide that together.
I'm not even sure if I've got a question to ask you all - my situation doesn't seem to fit many of the other ones on this board where people have caught their OHs out rather than the OH admitting it out of the blue but not actually having a OW.
Any thoughts would be very gratefully received. I'm so confused.