Is this just what I deserve?

[lessthanwise]

Please bear with me, I'm trying to cut a long story short: I had an affair with a younger man from work (11 years younger). At the time we were both married; his wife found out about it and we decided to end the affair. However, they still ended up separating (about 18 months ago) and somehow he and I ended up sleeping together again on and off even though I was still married. This is all done now so I don't need to be told how wrong it is. Anyway, whilst I was still with my husband I found out that I was pregnant with the other mans child. Obviously I had no choice but to confess what had happened to my husband and he and I separated. Since then the younger man and myself have tried to take things slowly but make things work (in so far as one can take things slowly on a 9 month deadline). I moved in shortly before Xmas and thought things were going well. Of course the situation is less than ideal but I thought we had made the best of it. Here's the problem. Due to being so heavily pregnant (I'm due this month) I'm usually in bed significantly earlier than he is (around 9 or 10pm). One night last week I woke up at 1am to use the loo and he still wasn't in bed so I went downstairs to see where he was (I thought maybe he'd fallen asleep on the sofa) and he was just sat on his phone. After he'd come to bed and fallen asleep I decided to snoop to see what he'd been doing that was so absorbing until 1am and he had been texting someone else. Another woman. There were so many messages going back to before we'd even gotten together so I couldn't read them all. They seem to talk all the time but he's never mentioned her to me and they seem to only talk when I'm not around. Some of the messages I scrolled through were just friendly chat, some were quite personal messages about me and about our situation and some were quite sexual. Well, very sexual. From what I've read they haven't slept together; this woman is often talking about how I've trapped him and he's ruined his life and how she wishes they could "fuck", that sort of thing. He replies saying he can't change the situation now as much as he wishes he could, he's "stuck" with me but that he does want to make it work for the sake of the baby, she'll just have to imagine he's there. Then it usually ends up with the very sexual talk about what they would do if things were different. I was reading the messages and they had sexual conversations (to varying degrees) most nights last week (which is when this happened). I don't know what to do. I tried to talk to one of my close friends and her attitude seemed to be along the lines of "well, what do you expect?". She talked about how we barely knew each other when I got pregnant and that this is what I should have expected from a relationship that started out with two people cheating and other really hurtful things that I totally didn't expect from a good friend. I know that affairs are bad, but do I deserve this? I thought we had just fallen in love at the wrong time. I know people got hurt along the way... I haven't discussed it with him yet because I just don't know what to say, where to begin or what the outcome would/should be. I'm about to give birth and I don't want to do it alone, I don't want to leave him but I can't just leave it and let him stay up late sexting this other woman! I feel like I don't have the energy to confront the situation right now. I just want it to all go away. I've been tearful and emotional a few times this week but I keep telling him it's just pregnancy hormones and nerves and I'm not feeling well etc. A part of me does feel like I deserve this... What can I do?

The past is done. You need to move on.

If you're senior you should have the means to rent a place and get yourself set up before the baby arrives. Do this now.

Ignore what people say - they'll respect you far more for acknowledging that the situation is a mess and trying to resolve it than they will for you stating with a serial cheat.

Your Relationship was born out of an affair.

Maybe as far as he was concerned you were only a bit of fun on the side. He came back to you for sex when he separated from his wife and for all you know was seeing other women as well, which as you were married he had every right to do.

He may well feel trapped by the pregnancy. But ask yourself this, if you had not got pregnant would you still be married and cheating? Had you envisaged a future with him?

I think you have to end the relationship. I doubt he loves you and if you are honest with yourself and remove the emotional baggage of the pregnancy do you really love him?

Really sounds to me like you came on here to have everyone reassure you that he’ll be faithful and you’ll live happily ever after and prove the naysayers wrong.

He’s showing you he’s a cheat.

I think you need to think about how you want your future to proceed, do you want to wait till he cheats ‘properly’, do you want to hang on and hope he ‘changes’ and remains faithful and always be suspicious each time he’s on his phone at weird times, or do you want it be proactive, decide how to live your life with your baby and make it happen, planning without your partner and you being together. It looks like he will cheat given the opportunity and is cheating now.

And I can see your friends point.

This isn't what he signed up for when he started an affair with you. He wanted sex with no strings, and he's ended up in another domestic situation saddled with a woman and a baby he doesn't want. Even your own OP admits you are "making the best of it".

He doesn't want this. You, or the baby.

You need to be prepared to go this alone.

Yeah sadly he told you who he was when he cheated on his wife

Can't be surprised by this now if you chose not to listen.

No one deserves to be cheated on and I’m sure there are couples out there who have started off as an affair and it has worked. Sadly this guy sounds like a serial cheat. He’ll try and talk his way out of the messages but honestly I’d walk away. Yes you might be the subject of gossip for a while but better that than being stuck with a cheating partner. Could you rent elsewhere? Even a one bed property for a while? But I’d walk away. He’ll end up destroying you.

Good luck with your pregnancy and little one.

It also doesn’t sound like you’re completely sure you want to be with him anyway, even before this happened. It sounds very much like it’s only because of the baby.

If you don’t split now then you’ll have to do it when you have a baby or worse a child that will miss the parent that lives out or grow up in a hostile environment.

It is not what you deserve.
Start to build a life with you and the baby without you being in a relationship with him.
Do not stay with him--he is already having an emotional affair and, eventually, it will become physical. Most likely when baby is born, when you are at your most vulnerable.
Cut your losses and get rid. Fuck what friends, family and work colleagues think. Not their business.

And she didnt tell him who she was when she cheated?

Regardless of the background, the bit that sticks out for me is that he says he's "stuck with you".

That's the sentence that would make me leave. Fuck that noise! You've obviously been successful in your career and and are attractive enough that at least two men have been happy enough to sleep with you.

Get rid and stay single until you meet a man who will choose you instead of being "stuck."

You will be on maternity leave so you’ll have some time away from the workplace which means the gossip will have died down. You need to start new chapter of your life.

I dont think your friend is in the wrong.
She could have sugar coated it for you to try and help you feel a bit better, but is that what a good friend really does? Or do they just tell you exactly how it is?

Unfortunately, you are in this position and are facing the consequences to the actions. It is a shitty situation but you can only make the best of it from now and that starts with getting yourself in the best position to raise this child, and if that means going it alone then so be it.

I am sure your friend will help support you, she has after all given you full honesty. You cant say the the same for your bf.

Whats done is done, embarrassment about this is not going to get you anywhere.
Focus on you and baby now

When a man marries his mistress, he creates a vacancy.

People always wheel this cheesy quote out and really seem to love the opportunity to do so. James Goldsmith said this and some sources say the quote was actually job opportunity not vacancy which is probably true given the time and place in which it was said. James Goldsmith an extremely shady bloke who had his fingers in all sorts of unsavoury pies and was a pretty unpleasant individual by all accounts. I'm not sure why we all continue to quote the word of such a man so avidly. From what I see in RL serial cheats are the exception rather than the rule.

Dump him OP, you don't have to worry about money, have a good job etc and I sense you feel you deserve this treatment anyway and may be in danger of just swallowing it. You don't deserve it and your child certainly doesn't deserve to grow up with that relationship as their background and main example.

Nobody deserves to be betrayed in this way, but if it has to happen to someone it might as well be someone who was quite happy to dish it out to others.

Op, you really can't be surprised that this man - who you knew was capable of lying, cheating and betraying - has now lied, cheated and betrayed. He signed up for illicit affair sex and is now in the same sort of humdrum relationship he had with his wife.

Stop worrying what other people think, that's no reason to stay in a terrible relationship. Make plans to leave and go it alone with your baby. It's not the future you planned, and some people will enjoy your downfall, but it's a lot better than a lifetime of lying in bed wondering who your dp is texting now.

I think one of the things I wanted from this post was reassurance that I wasn't overreacting to "just" texting. Am I right to think that it's totally unacceptable to be texting another woman the way he is texting her even though he's stated he won't meet her? I think I know the answer from the responses I've gotten so far but knowing that he's said he won't meet her and that he hasn't met her up until now, is it still totally unacceptable? Do you really think I need to get out of the relationship? I had hoped it was salvageable. I'm hoping he's just horny and that it doesn't really mean anything? We've not been having sex as much as we usually would and the sex we have been having hasn't been as fun or as adventurous... I think he does love me. I know it was probably the worst start to a relationship but I think it is real. Or I thought. This thread does seem to be giving me more doubts. If anything I was worse than him in the beginning. After he left his wife (and he did see other people, I know that) i was the one still married. I wasn't sure what the future held... and now I'm still not sure

I don’t think it’s salvageable. He’s too young and he’s not a decent man. He will forever believe you trapped him and be looking for something else. The relationship was never built on solid ground to begin with. I think he will just bring you endless heartache and stress tbh. He’s not loyal. You can’t do anything with someone who isn’t loyal.

Did you think it was totally unacceptable when you were cheating yourself and probably doing the same?

I think your friends could have worded it better, but I see where they are coming from.

Yes he texting and all of that is completely unacceptable.

Take away the previous scenario of how you and him met etc.
How would you respond if a friend came to you and asked your advice for the same thing?
Adding in the previous scenario of how you two got together though brings about a pattern of sorts. Although you edge the other way of never wanting to do anything like thst again, doesnt mean he actually feels as strongly about it as you do, even though he said the same. He has proved this with his texting.
From what i can read from all of this - you would never put yourself in any kind of position to cheat again. He has flung himself straight back there.

Imho i dont think this is salvageable, but that is just my opinion. It is your life and you know him

Tell him you know he's a Player... and your leaving.. and he'll be hearing from the CMS

You don't deserve it but it's hardly a shock that a lying cheat cheats and lies is it? As someone said earlier this isn't what he signed up for - he wanted some extramarital kicks, not a baby.

We've not been having sex as much as we usually would and the sex we have been having hasn't been as fun or as adventurous... Soon you'll be having even less, you'll be exhausted from looking after a newborn, you'll be bickering with each other, you might develop PND - how supportive and loyal do you think he's going to be?

I’m sorry but he says he’s trapped with you not that he loves you.

I think even if he isn’t snagging her they are discussing the fantasy of fucking each other.

We don’t know what your day to day life is like but it’s a new relationship. It shouldn’t be like this.

The only reason you two are together seems to be because you got pregnant.

You really need to sort this before the baby comes. Sure, you can stay with him,subs he won’t fuck anyone else but it won’t change the fact that he feels trapped and the reason you two went from an affair to a relationship is only that you got pregnant.

Paragraphs?

Im curious, OP. Did he ever tell you the reason why he was having an affair with you was because he felt trapped, or that he wasnt getting enough sex ect?

Is he coming out with similar shit to this sexting woman as he did with you when you two first started this?