Husband has been sexting

[FairyGal]

Hi, I haven’t posted on anything like this before but I’m too embarrassed to speak to anyone else. I found out last night that my husband has been sexting another woman for over 4 years. Sending explicit messages and pictures to each other. He’s sworn it hasn’t gone any further and I believe him but just feel so betrayed. I could maybe accept a one off but it’s the secret that’s hurting the most. I don’t want this to be the end of my marriage, we have a one year old and I want to be able to move past this. Any advice please?

Thanks Roobr. It may have been more occasions, I don’t know but I really don’t believe it was physical. We haven’t discussed that yet Angelwendy.

I suppose if your decision has been made, your husband knows that you will not leave him over this. You should seek professional counselling to see if you can forgive him, and move on.

However, I think you should not dismiss all the comments on this thread. There is a pretty big consensus that your husband may not be telling you the truth. You may forgive him sexting, but would you forgive him for lying to you over and over and over again? I know I wouldn't be able to. Relationships are based on trust. You can't trust him.

I think you need to see how real this is, and this sounds like total trickle truth!

Ultimately op, believe what you want. As a lot of others have said, he’s minimising and lying to you and frankly he’s already rocked the foundations of your marriage or you wouldn’t be posting about it!

Good luck to you whatever path you take

If worst comes to worst, feel free to join our support group post “does it get better” lots of people that have been through this scenario

If you had done this he would likely not be so forgiving. And what would warrant divorce in your opinion if not this behaviour from him?

He gave up on your marriage vows when all this started. Who he sexted is an irrelevance; he chose to act as he did because he wanted to do so.

If you are not prepared to go Scorched Earth on this ....show him the door, show him how his life will be with EOW contact, paying CSA, running two homes, living on his own in a hopefully grotty flat, doing all his own housework/laundry ON HIS OWN then he will see your acceptance as a green light to continue his "sexting" and will at best continue if not progress.

He will think that if you are prepared to endorse this behaviour it means nothing, and worse WILL follow.

Is this how you see the nest 5 years of your marriage??

It started when he’d been drinking so I’ve told him that’s the first thing he’s to stop doing. Maybe I am minimising but it’s still pretty raw. He did admit it to me but only because she threatened to tell me.

Oh so why is it that she threatened to tell you?
If it was mere titillation
If he H is aware about it and encouraged it
If nothing else happened

I would want to speak to her because I suspect he hasn’t told you everything.
Otherwise she wouldnt have pushed him to speak to you.

Also worth noticing he was FORCED to speak to you. He didn’t do it by choice.....

And YH about looking at his phone but I suspect you won’t find anything. Not now because if I was him, I wouod have deleted any risky texts by now.

She thought he was texting her because he was interested in her but she found texts between her husband and mine with him asking to text her and what to say etc

I really don’t believe it was physical

Apart from understandably not wanting to, can I ask what reason you have for not believing this became physical - bearing in mind that this is a woman who is clearly very sexually liberal and who's own husband is said to have encouraged her?

God it's fucked up. You can either open your eyes and leave... or close them and stay. It's up to you

I don't believe his story at all that she was threatening to tell you because she found texts between your husband and hers. That sounds so far fetched!
I bet she was threatening to tell you because they were hooking up and she wanted a proper relationship with him.
I would ask to speak to her if I were you as I guarantee he's bullshitting

Happy men, don’t cheat.

He’s not happy & is sticking two fingers up at you & your relationship. Kick him in to touch

Puzzled- I don’t believe it for several reasons which I’m not going to go into. If I did I wouldn’t be looking for advice on here.

Do you have access to his phone / ipad?
That's what you need.
Total transparency.
Look at photo's
Deleted photos's
Look at the battery usage and find out how much he's been on certain apps.
Check his internet history.
I ended my relationship because of this.
Porn addict, sexting, pics, videos.
He definitely cheated on me.
I know that for a fact now.
It took a good few months to find out the full extent of his deceit.
But I didn't have a child with him and we weren't married or financially tied to each other.
So it was easy for me to walk away.
I can understand how hard this is.
My ExH also cheated on me.
Again, I ended it.
But that was me.
I always believe that staying and working at it is the far far harder path.
You'll never trust him again.
If he has no consequences for his actions he'll do it again.
Because he can, and he knows you'll forgive him.

I don’t believe he has cheated

Really? My definistion of cheating is behaviour you have to keep secret because you know it isn’t something your partner would approve of.

Do you honestly believe he ‘hit gold’ with his first go at finding people to interact with in a sexual way.

You are both minimising his behaviour. More fool you

OP; go onto a website called fabswingers. Sign up on the sly and search for him under the filters of his name/age/etc under your general postcode area. Unless he’s deleted it, you’ll probably find your husbands profile as this is prob where he met this woman in the first place (most swingers tend to have success with that particulate site).

I agree that what he’s told you is probably the tip of the iceberg. Sorry OP...

ok... this is a weird one....

I'm really sorry you are going through this.

You infer that you don't class what he's done as cheating. Everyone has their own personal boundaries in relationships.

I haven't experienced this myself but what I do understand from the numerous threads on MN is that it is important that your DH is completely open and honest about what has happened. The full truth must be made available to you so that you can begin to work through your thoughts and feelings.

First of all I'd be asking him how the contact with a swinger was originally established. Did they meet online? If so, how; in a chat room, on an app?

So....
They're swingers
Her husband encouraged her to sext your DH
Your DH responded over the past two years
......and you don't think anything else happened?
Wake up op! He's a cheater, a liar and he's telling you what you want to hear yet more bloody lies

I think he needs to earn your trust again. But also if you are willing to forgive that's exactly what you have to do and not bring it up in every argument.
Make him aware that you believe in 2nd chances but not 3rd and 4th and so on...
Good luck.

OP - you do know what swingers actually do....
It’s not ‘tantalising’ by other people, it’s actually seing their partners with others; while also engaging in the same.
So - it’s not at all possible and likely that this was just on/off texting.
Why would swingers actually want to do that?
They have clubs where they can go and do all of that.
So - just ask yourself that. And then ask again and again, until you see it.

I am now saying that that means that you need to leave. Just start with seing your reality clearly and then decide what you want.

My advice is that you will never ever trust him again, whether you paper over the cracks and bury your head in the sand.
He is lying and you will never know the truth.
And the fact her husband was encouraging it all is weird and you will never know what he is up to.
Leaving is an option, the only option.
This may sound harsh but comes from experience.
Wake up and really acknowledge what he has done.
Do you want to live with second doubts over everything.
He broke the trust and ended your marriage, life really is too short for this shit.