WWYD?? Happy marriage+ just found out "DH" cheated at beginning of relationship.

[IntoTheNightToSaveTheDay]

I am floored. Been married 8 years, together 10. 3 little DS together, 2, 5, 8 plus a DSS, 22

Back story. Met DH a few months after he left his first marriage, His XW wanted him back but he didn't want to. I kept asking him if he was sure it was over as I didnt want to get in the way if there was a way back. But he was adamant it was over. I was 24 and a bit naïve tbh, At my age now I would have steered clear of a newly-ish separated man with a child

Things moved quickly and we were head over heels. He moved in with me after a month (I know it was too quick) we were talking marriage, children, neither of us felt like this before etc. He was seeing his DS (who was 12 at the time) fairly regularly too although things weren't good with his EXW she wasn't happy he had a new gf constantly cancelling access and messing DH about. I didn't meet DSS as wasn't appropriate.

Then 8 months in he walked out after a minor row. I went to work as just thought would blow over but when I came home all his stuff was gone and his key through the door and a note saying it was over. I was devastated, he wouldn't answer his phone or anything, I had no idea where he had gone. I rang his work and they said he had rang and quit that morning. I was so worried as was just totally out of character.

After a few days he got in touch and asked to see me. He said he had made a mistake but that the row had made him panic he would lose me and could we take it slowly and see each other again. He said he was staying with his brother. I hadn't even met his brother so just had to take his word for it. So he was texting me all the time and coming over most nights still staying over sometimes but going back to his brothers. I realise how mad all this sounds btw and how much of a twat I was for accepting this but I just wanted him so much. Pathetic ay. Anyway for about a month this shit behaviour continued until I had had enough, he was clearly messing me about and to just F off and leave me alone even though I was devastated.

A week or so later he got in touch again begging for one more chance, saying he couldn't stand to be apart from me, that it was killing him and he wanted to move back in once and for all and have a proper relationship again like before. Something made me take him back and it was just like it was in the first few months again, better if anything.

DSS wouldn't see him or speak to him for a whole year. DH ended up having to go to court to gain access etc again. It was v difficult at first and my step son wouldn't meet me at all until about 5 years ago. We get on great now and he adores his brothers. He lives away at Uni but often comes home to either his mums or our house. DH and I got married a couple of years after we got back together properly and have had our 3 boys and have been very very happy.

This weekend DSS was at our house. DH was working but me, DSS and DSs were at home. I was getting annoyed because step son was winding up his brothers, it was a silly disagreement but he just suddenly started saying he fucking hates me, I ruined his life, he will never accept me, and all this just completely out of the blue. Then he said that there are things I don't know about DH, that he is a liar and a cheat. Anyway it turns out that the time where DH was messing me around he was seeing his ex wife again (DSS mum). He says he was all excited as he thought his dad was coming home but then his dad left again and got back with me and that is why he refused to see him for so long. A big part of me felt absolutely terrible for DS :( I just somehow stayed calm and waited till later to confront DH.

DH's side of the story is that DSS mum wanted him back and said if he didn't come back he couldn't see DSS. So he pretended to his EXW that he was willing to get back with her and they were meeting up and going out as a family etc because he was so desperate to see DSS. He says he didn't sleep with her but I just think that must be bullshit. He says he only stayed one night which was Christmas eve as he wanted to see DSS open his presents. This actually tallies with what DSS said, that he slept over on that night. DH claims he slept on the sofa that night, what absolute clichéd bullshit . He says it was true he couldn't be apart from me and he told EXW that he didn't want to come back and that he just wanted access to DSS and not see her in any way other than DSS mum. This explains why DSS was so angry with his dad and wouldn't meet me - I am the reason (in his eyes) that his mum and dad aren't together.

I don't know who or what to believe. If he had have been straight with me at the beginning about where he had been and why he was acting like such a dick head I would have been angry but I probably still would have taken him back! Its the lies that have just completely killed me. That in those few weeks he was texting me all the time and coming to fuck see me while secretly playing fucking happy families with his child and EXW who he had sworn he was over

I told him to get out yesterday and go to his mums. I don't want to see him. I don't know who he is. TEN YEARS of so called happiness and I find this shit out.

You got together on the rebound and moved things along very quickly. On that basis it was always going to unravel at some point because a relationship which starts out with that much passion so soon after a separation is almost always fraught with difficulties at some point when the reality hits home.

Truth here is that even if he slept with his ex, you will never know. So you can end your marriage on a what-if, destroy your children's family because of something which happened before they were even born and without any consideration for their happiness, or you can accept that the timing of your getting together was horrendous, and that it took time for things to settle down between you.

This is no longer just about you there are your children to consider here as well. Is it really worth giving up 50% of your time with them, watching them become part of another blended family with their dad and potential new partners, potentially having more siblings, all for something which happened years ago and which happened out of desperation?

And this is not going to be popular, but to all intents and purposes you were the OW. Not in so much as that you cheated with your H, but because he was married. And while he was married he could still have gone back to that marriage at any point.

I think as women it's impossible to know really how desparat it is to feel when being threatened with loss of access to our children. Because generally this doesn't happen to women. It does happen to men though, and far more regularly than we give credit for.

And this is not going to be popular, but to all intents and purposes you were the OW. Not in so much as that you cheated with your H, but because he was married. And while he was married he could still have gone back to that marriage at any point.

*
^ This*

Update: I agreed to meet up with H last night.

He is still saying that he didn't really want her back that he was pretending so he could spend time with DS. He says what we had was the best thing he'd ever experienced, he'd never been in love like it, never fancied anyone so much and never had such good sex (and still feels that now). That our relationship is the best one he's ever had. He also said he felt like it was too good to be true, that I was too good for him, It made him insecure because I am 12 years younger, he couldn't believe I wanted him, he thought I was too beautiful to want some one like him older and with a failed marriage behind him. He says he had fancied me from afar for 2 years even before we first spoke (we met at work).

He says his marriage wasn't right from the start.:: they got together young and he got married at 21 not really considering it, she wanted to get married more than he did and he just wanted to make her happy. I know that doesn't paint him in a great light and I said so.

I asked him again if he slept with her and he swears that he didn't. He says he didn't fancy her anymore and I said well didn't she want to have sex and wonder why you weren shagging (I said that if I was trying to get Someone back I'd sure as hell be shagging them blind) but he said their relationship hadn't been "like that" for a long time neither of them were that interested.
But I only have his word for that don't I as I wasn't present in the relationship obviously.

I think another thing that I am so angry about is how I just absolutely let him walk all over me during that time and accepted his shit behaviour cos I just wanted him so much. 😰 I'm ashamed of that.
But I can't change it can I.

I need to take DC to school and childminder now so I will come back and write more I just wanted to get it all down x

Thanks for all the words of wisdom and I'm sorry not replied individually ATM

Now online looking at polygraph testing

I think it's time to put down the bunny and step away from the pot. You are throwing away a good marriage here.

You seem so determined to not believe him - why so? From yr last post it seems to be related to anger at your young self for how you allowed the relationship problems/ breakup to derail yr life eg dropping out of uni (I do hope you managed to complete yr course later). I feel a bit cross at myself that a relationship breakdown in my 50s knocked me off track for longer than it should have. But I have learned from it & would get through better next time.
I agree with all posters who are aghast that you appear seriously to be thinking of leaving your marriage over what you imagine could have happened. As a parent, your husbands attempts to keep contact with his son seem very plausible. Also the non contact could have been due to DSS attempts to cope with his mother's grief or could have been actively instigated by her - I don't see 12 yo as able to maintain a completely independent relationship with a NRP. And yr DH probably fe!t he'd have made it worse y turning up at school as suggested upthread.
I'm wondering about the nature of the argument between you & DSS that day. Do you genuinely accept him as part of the family or do you treat him as 'other' to the children you share with yr DH (& does DSS sense this)? My SM (& her family) has always treated me differently /as 'other' eg spent 10% on my presents compared to my Dsister & at times that has really got to me.

"He says his marriage wasn't right from the start.:: they got together young and he got married at 21 not really considering it, she wanted to get married more than he did and he just wanted to make her happy. I know that doesn't paint him in a great light and I said so." and? We all do stuff in our twenties which in retrospect doesn't reflect our finest hour. After all, you got together with and moved in with a man who was newly separated yet you moved him in within a month of being together. That doesn't paint you in a great light either in isolation, but life is not built on isolated incidents.

"I asked him again if he slept with her and he swears that he didn't. He says he didn't fancy her anymore and I said well didn't she want to have sex and wonder why you weren shagging (I said that if I was trying to get Someone back I'd sure as hell be shagging them blind) but he said their relationship hadn't been "like that" for a long time neither of them were that interested.". I'd imagine that if you've had a sexless relationship for a while, even returning to that relationship would mean that there were certain things which would take time to return to normal iyswim.

Given your insistence that you won't believe him and wanting to end this marriage over it, I'm wondering whether you've actually been wanting out of the marriage for a while and this has now given you the optimum reason to leave without looking like the bad guy. Except that if you leave over this you will be the bad buy. This is historic stuff. Your children deserve better than to have their family torn apart over something which happened before they were born.

Oh god I absolutely never wanted to end the marriage this is not an "excuse" still don't as our marriage up to this point has been so great. but I'm just so angry and I'm also worried that it will just ruin the marriage anyway cos I'll be constantly thinking of what he did and wondering about it.

I now actually can see my reaction is disproportionate but I can't help it I wish I didn't feel like this I really do 😩

If I am honest when we were first together I felt a bit jealous of his first wife and I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I also had really shitty relationships up to that point with men, well, boys really who dramatically affected my self esteem for the worst. It's not an excuse, I had just basically had never had an adult relationship really.

As for DSS I love him so much. He is a wonderful young man. And of course he is definitely part of our family and I see him as such. I am not angry with him at all for him saying what he said. I do feel bad for him he's held it in and clearly he still has anger at his dad.

As for my uni course sadly I never picked it back up. It was nursing. My tutors knew I had quit due to personal problems and wanted me to return at some point. And I always intended to after I had completed my family but it was funded when I did it, but unfortunately you don't get that anymore you have to pay and we're not well off so couldn't afford it.

Wow I can't believe how understanding some posters are about this I don't think I could forgive being fed a pack of lies and cheating with an ex , but then I would feel if I was cheated on the entire marriage was a fake and meant nothing how could you call it a marriage if he's been lying and being with another woman, perhaps I'm a bit harsh but if I found out I was cheated on 10 years ago or 10 days ago it would be over as I would see it as the marriage meant nothing to him, a marriage where one of you is with an ex an lying is not a marriage IMO. It's not even as if it was a drunken one night stand that meant nothing (although that would still be it for me) , he cheated on you with a woman he has history with and a child with I don't blame you at all for feeling like this.

I understand the feeling of jealousy towards previous wife & its very probably a lot to do with yr feelings now. But its 10 years on & you have a happy marriage & 3 DCs so it really should have subsided now...
Shame about the nursing degree - they only recently started charging for NHS courses. You could look into APL (accreditation of prior learning) which would take into account the credits you got plus experience since. Friends who have done a degree this way usually needed a year/120 credits or less to get their degree.

I can understand the insecurity towards the ex at the time, especially as you got together so soon after their split. But what you also need to consider is that this was ten years ago, he moved away from the ex and came back to you.

jojo2916 it's not cheating in the traditional sense though. Bearing in mind that he initially ended the relationship with the OP, it's entirely likely that he patched things up with the ex during that time because he knew that now he was single he had to preserve his relationship with his DS at all costs. And then he and the OP started seeing each other more casually again, I imagine his emotions were all over the place at that point. When you have history with someone it's just not that simple to walk away from them when they're threatening to remove your child, especially if, given days before, you had decided to try to make things work given your position has changed iyswim.

Clearly he felt unable to walk away from the OP though and did eventually walk away from his ex. What is important is the relationship they have now not what it was before they sorted things out after the breakup.

This is why it's never really a good idea to get involved with someone before they have sorted out their divorce, even though many of us have done so. But the reality is that the marriage could essentially be picked back up at any time. It can be messy, and appears that in the OP's case it very much was.

FWIW I know someone who has recently found out that his wife had an affair eleven years ago, but IMO that is different because they were already married at the time so she definitely cheated on him, and I would tell him to leave her as their marriage since has been anything but happy anyway, and it seems there is now also some question over the paternity of one of their DC.

But the OP's situation is not the same as that.

I'm the most jealous insecure person in the world and even I would forgive him if what he is saying is true.

As long as he didn't sleep with her or want to, then surely you can understand his position?

I know it's hard and must be very difficult to overcome the anger but from an absolute jealous psycho insecure anxious mess - it's ok, he hasn't technically cheated

I think you need to accept your own responsibility in this relationship and then forgive yourself. I'm serious. It's obvious that you harbor so much regret and shame for how this relationship started. But you are dealing with it by trying to put it all on your DH. Making it his fault as a way to deal with it. You can't deal with it until you own it.

The truth is that you were 24, not 18, and you were a grown adult who decided to get involved with a not divorced man with a child in a messy situation. Your choice. You chose to drop out of university (at 24?). These are all your choices. You may be angry at your younger self but you could only do what you could do. Your DH didn't force you (did he?) . Take responsibility for your life and for the life of your children. The fact that you don't seem super concerned about causing them the pain, upheaval and unhappiness that you've seen in your DSS is concerning. Frankly, it sounds like you have a bit of an adult child dynamic in the relationship. That probably won't age well so I'd think hard about it.

Yeah Apple I was definitely naive I don't think I was even a proper adult tbh. I hadn't been married, had children. The 34 year old I am now would absolutely run a mile from anyone who was still married even if they were separated.

I guess I "justified" it to myself because at the beginning I said (knowing he'd only been split up a few months) was he sure it was over because I wouldn't want to stand in the way if there was any way back. Also he already had his own place separate from his old house he lived at with his XW (well he did at the beginning, Obviously he moved in with me after a few weeks 😳) So I dunno.... in my immature mind he was single and "fair game"

But you weren't in a stable long term relationship then.
You were in a shaky, on-and-off relationship with a recently separated, still married man. By the sound of it, more off than on at that point. Anything could have happened, you weren't properly committed to each other, regardless of what he was saying at the time. 'Taking is slow' = not a proper relationship IMO.

So you met at work and he admired you from afar?

Then left his marriage

And you two didn't even as much as glance at each other whilst he was still in that marriage

You reap what you sew

If he were 'pretending' to his ex and their child that he was getting back with her he has effectively made you the OW.

If if they were separated when you met.

*even if

I wasn't the other woman. I knew him by sight but hadn't spoken we worked in different departments. He moved into my department when he'd already separated. It was office gossip he was newly single as quite a few women at work fancied him. He only told me that he'd fancied me for ages when we'd been on a few dates.

I think at some point you need to talk to DSS, in the end your children are his siblings and you need to make it clear to him that you want him to see them regardless of his outburst. He probably thinks you hate him right now.

If you weren't the other woman and they were already split perhaps DSS needs to know that too. Life is not like that film.

The parent trap.

I had a really deep conversation with DSD once, she has a picture of DH and her mum on their wedding day, and she told me that she wishes they could get back together but she knows it's not going to happen. I feel so honoured that she can say that to me even though it's sad in a way that she wishes I wasn't here. I wasn't involved with DH until after they split btw for those that would assume.

Totally uncalled for to imply that OP had an affair with him or 'sewed' [sic] anything.

I would feel exactly as you do OP.

Your feelings are valid and I'm not sure why everyone is reacting to your thread like this is no big deal

I understand the point that most people would do whatever it takes to see a child. But the devoted dad excuse doesn't really tally with how much his brief return return to the home devastated his child and how he let that child carry the secret from you for so long. That is not the way love works.

I would be devastated to know that all the time I had seen my OH as a good guy going to the courts for access with my support, that there was a fundamental part of the story that had been kept from me.

If he is a genuinely good guy who did a bad thing for good reasons then surely he would have explained it all to you when he came back? Or when you decided to get married or when his son didn't want to see homecoming? This is not just one lie, this is 10 years of keeping you in the dark about something that continued to affect your family.

He also lived with the knowledge that his son has been aware and could have dropped this bombshell at any time. That is actually horrible parenting and must have been a cause of stress? Or would be to most people. How did he live with that? Why wasn't he motivated to get it out in the open for his sons sake at least?

You are right to protect yourself. What else could he be hiding?

10 years and an otherwise good relationship is definitely worth getting some counselling to move forward but I can't see how you can just get over this and move on without a lot of work on both sides.

I wish you luck

Him not homecoming. My autocorrect is a little eccentric.

But 24 is an adult. It's not even a young adult. I'm sorry but it's just excuses, excuses, excuses. You are acting like a child (now and then). You were a grown adult who let a married man move in with you after a few weeks. You also dropped out of uni over it.

You seem like you had similar maturity levels but you hold him to a way higher standard. It's not his job to save you from yourself. Take responsibility for your own side of the aisle.