Hi everyone, looking for some advice and support from those who have been cheated on and how they managed to work through things if they decided to stay with their OH’s.
I’ve been with my DP for coming up on 4 years, and around 6 weeks ago, I discovered that he had kissed a woman that he used to work with from his second job. He quit that job towards the end of last year, but he remained close with the colleagues that he worked with and went out drinking with them a few times.
However, one particular staff member messaged him a lot.
From the end of January through to March, they spoke online very frequently, it was flirty and definitely crossed the line. They made sure to only message during his working hours so that he wasn’t talking to her when he was at home with me (I also feel it’s important to note that all whilst they were messaging, he would read my messages but not bother to reply to me).
They went out drinking together several times (whilst the other colleagues were there) but on two occasions he came home late as a result of ‘enjoying being out with her too much’.
On one of the nights out in which he came home late, he’d told me he’d ‘run out of money for a taxi’ and instead chose to walk home, but half way home, realised he did actually have money, so got a taxi the rest of the way.. The pub he was drinking in was close to our house, and DP isn’t the type to jump in a taxi once he’s made the decision to walk somewhere, so I knew something was up when he fed me that bullshit lie. I told him that it sounded as though he was lying to me, and he looked me in the face, with a weird smirk, and assured me it wasn’t, I however can read him like a book, so knew that something was up.
Two days after that incident, the whole thing still wasn’t sitting right with me and it kept playing on my mind that pieces simply weren’t adding up, so I found an old phone of his that was still synced with all of his social media, and discovered that he had in fact cancelled his pre-booked taxi which would have brought him home on time to me and his two young babies (at the time, our youngest was 10 weeks old, eldest was 15 months), and instead chose to walk her home. She lives even closer to the pub than we do, so he didn’t have to walk her, but instead chose to do so instead of coming back to me. On the walk back, they kissed.
The day after they’d kissed, they were still messaging, joking and flirting, she was sending him texts saying ‘my god, I just wish we’d had longer x’ and asked to see him again (I should also mentioned that this woman is married and also has a two year old daughter) - this continued for two more days before I eventually found all of this out.
Upon discovering it, I immediately kicked DP out for two days before realising I needed to sit him down, talk it through and get all of the answers. DP mostly said that he simply ‘didn’t know why he did it’ to the majority of all of my questions. When I asked him why he didn’t wake up the following day and immediately call things off, he said he didn’t know. I asked him how long things would have carried on for had I not caught him out, and he reckoned ‘reality would have kicked in before long’. Nice.
Anyway, we agreed to remain together and try and work through it, however it’s been tough on me. I asked a few more questions a couple of weeks after finding it all out, and he, in a roundabout way, told me to just ‘drop it and move on’. I can’t do that as it’s playing on my mind, day in day out. I still don’t feel like I have all the answers I need, but he just won’t give them to me. He just wants to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.
I now have good days and bad days. I mostly get by just fine, but every so often, thoughts of him passionately kissing her and agreeing to see her again completely take over and I feel awful. I find myself wondering how far things would have gone if I didn’t catch him out and it makes me feel physically sick.
We went through the hysterical bonding for a few weeks, but now that the dust has settled and things are ‘back to normal’, I’m finding it more difficult than I did at the beginning.
He’s handed over passwords to all accounts, but other than that, I can’t shake this feeling that it’s like he’s totally gotten away with this, whilst I’m left here still feeling heartbroken wondering how he could do this to me and his young children.
He’s cheated on girlfriends in the past, as far as I’m aware, he does it every time, though he’s told me that he usually cheats as a way to end the relationship, but he doesn’t want this one to end. I’ve spoken to his sister about all of this, and she isn’t convinced that he won’t do it to me again, and I just feel at a loss.
I don’t want to lose this relationship, but ultimately, I don’t know how to trust him again. I don’t know if I ever will. He’s like a different person to me now.
Anyone that has any tips on how long I can expect to feel this way for? Is it normal to experience random bouts of sadness over it that seemingly come on from nowhere?
I just don’t know where to go from here.