Found out he’s cheated

[Whatdoido17]

I’ve just found out my husband has slept with another woman. We have a long back story. When we first got together he was 21 and one of his friends was an older woman with a family, who we used to go and visit which I always found odd. Turns out he’d been having an affair with her before we’d met.. One morning when DS1 was about one I found love letters, songs about their future etc. He assured me they weren’t from when we were together. I looked through his phone bills and he used to phone her over 100 times a month. I made him stop contact with her and tried to move on. I never got over it, I was young, had no confidence or money but I should have left.

We had 2 more children and 3 1/2 years ago I was at my lowest and had an affair with a family friend. It was very intense, and for the couple of months in went on it felt amazing to have someone tell me how beautiful and amazing I was. Then my husband and his wife found out and it all imploded. Me and DH decided to make a go of it, we’d both betrayed each other but ultimately we loved each other.

We went on to have another child. We’ve been growing a successful business, and literally a couple of months ago I thought “this is it we’ve finally turned the corner”. I was so happy, we were having lots of sex and then he changed after a night out. I’ve never liked the woman who was there and he’s always laughed it off. He started being on his phone all the time. Two weeks ago I found a dick pic, he said it was because he had pain in it and he wanted to see where it was 🤔 I’ve been going mental and frantic at him telling him I know he’s lying he’s made me feel like a psycho that I’m unhinged. We’re away for half term with his family and our children and he told me two days ago that there had been inappropriate messages but nothing else. I told him to phone her so I could hear it from her. He acted so weird and just would not stop talking to her so she couldn’t speak. Then he finally admitted the dick pic was for her. Yesterday I said we were over and it didn’t matter what came out but out of respect he should tell me and he admitted to having sex with her twice. What do I do? I’m having to try and act normal in front of everyone. I don’t know what to do. I’m a mess

This is dead. There is no trust

Thank you Dauphinoise. We have both destroyed each other and only time will tell if we can rebuild a relationship. But like you’ve said after this initial phase and after therapy etc the past cannot ever be dragged up. It has to be a new relationship because of we keep trying to hurt each other through words and actions there’s just no point and that’s when the children will suffer if homelife becomes toxic.

Maybe some time apart and individual counselling would help.

With an agreement bit to see other people during this time.

Once you've settled into IC, then you can think about relationship counselling.

You need to reconnect. A type of therapy that would benefit you as a couple is EFT (emotionally focussed therapy).

Much depends on whether you want to work on the marriage.

You can't carry on both having affairs every few years.

Counselling.