Hi all..I've been a lurker on this board for much of this year. I'll try to cut the long story short but the crux of it is, that I finally uncovered my OH's affair last week. We had been together for nearly 10 years.
It was like he followed The Script!
In brief: September last year new colleague started (he's a premises officer/caretaker) she's a teacher. Young, blonde and about 26. Suddenly he starts adding work colleagues onto his Facebook despite previously saying he strictly kept work and social media separate. Over the course of end of October last year and to Christmas Day, she kept messaging him on Whatsapp and I lost my shit at him on three occasions about it. He denied any emotional affair. They were 'just friends'. 'She wouldn't be interested in a caretaker, anyway!'. On the second occasion , she went up to him in the morning at work and said she was sorry for messaging so much the night before.and offered to write me a letter of apology. That really pissed me off!
Then in January this year he broke down crying saying he didn't know how he felt about me anymore. That he still definitely loved me and wanted sex etc, but the 'spark' had gone...mainly because he felt emotionally battered that I'd lost my shit at him about 'the friend'. He allegedly asked her to stop messaging him. In February, I started to see a counsellor, mainly because I felt I was probably in the wrong about the 'friendship'. In all the years we had been together I had never had any doubts about his work friendships before...it honestly didn't cross my mind. But this one just niggled at me. I thought it was my issues/insecurities regarding parental abandonment - I am NC with my mother and my father left when I was 6yrs old, became a dad again and devoted his time to that family.
So over this year, I've wrestled on a daily basis with anxiety and stress. I said nothing at all about the suspected OW and I didn't ask about work for fear she would be mentioned. I used to have a shot of anxiety go through me whenever his whatsapp pinged. We would be fine for a few weeks and then he would come home crying after work saying he didn't know what to do about us. It was like an emotional rollercoaster. I began checking his phone from time to time when he was in the shower, but found nothing from this OW at all. In July this year he had to go to a colleague's leaving meal and before he went out, he was shaking with anxiety. I was perplexed...I asked him why and he said "I always feel like this before going out to a meal with people!"...it was a new one on me. And in hindsight it was probably because it was the first time he would be with OW in a social setting. A week after that, he had a 'breakdown'. I helped him through it and we had talks about whether to split up. We (I thought we..) decided against it. I went away in August for 5 days with my daughter and when I returned he was like his old self, affectionate and looking like he was doing all the right things. One day he was showing me something on his phone and passed it to me to look at...a whatsapp message then popped up from the OW "sorry I was grumpy this morning..." ..that's all I could see. I gave him the phone back and said "you have a message there from ". He was very flustered and said it must be something to do with something she wanted at school. A little later on he was answering another message on Whatsapp and I noticed she was no longer there on his message list. I asked him outright if he deleted her messages to him and he said, he had done that day because "we are getting on so well and I didn't want it to provoke you"
Then September came....he started to be emotionally distant again and picking on anything I said as a slight on him. It was unbearable. I was near to a breakdown myself and one night a few weeks ago we had a massive fall out. I had stress from work at the same time (now resolved) and felt overwhelmed with everything. I slept for the whole weekend, exhausted and he accused me of ignoring him.
Then last Monday (8th Oct) he came home and said he wanted us to end our relationship as it had become toxic. I agreed that it might be for the best, but I still loved him. We then started talking about practical arrangements (pets, living arrangements etc) and he started to sob saying he still loved me. We talked, him cuddling me for a few hours more....I'd said how I felt awful for doubting him in the relationship and talked about where my jealousy must have come from. I'd actually kidded myself that it was all my fault. We agreed to hold fire on a decision as I wanted to wait until my 15 year old daughter was spending the Thursday night at her dad's.
On Wednesday night last week, for the first time in a while I felt compelled to check his phone whilst he was in the shower. Oh what a goldmine! There in whatsapp were messages between them (within work time), terms of endearment, worries about her driving to a course later that day, missing their gorgeous faces etc. It was quite vomit worthy. It was evident that the messages were fresh to her contact that day..so he had been deleting all exchanges between them, but had clearly forgotten to that day. I photographed the messages as I was determined the little shit was not going to gaslight me.
I had a bit of fun confronting him as he was mystified as to how I knew about them and he sat denying it. I was imagining it etc, then he went off to walk the dog. I rang my best friend, the OW (she was a condescending bitch) and his mother. I am cutting all of this short by the way as it would be too long to detail all. It culminated with him returning from the dog walk (with the knowledge I'd called his girlfriend) and getting aggressive towards me. My daughter was in her bedroom and had heard everything. She screamed at him to leave me alone as he was shoving me through the door and slamming it in my face. He then made himself big and intimidating, becoming aggressive towards her! Then his parents turned up!
The upshot is, I left the house that night (stayed with his parents that evening) and went back this week to pack up all of my belongings to put into storage. His dad made sure he was not there. My daughter is staying with her dad in the week (my ex-H and his wife have been very supportive to me) and I am staying with my best friend until I can find my own place. I can't begin to describe how relieved I am now, after (in hindsight) suffering from emotional abuse from this arsehole. They are welcome to each other. He's just another cliché of a man in his 40s having a mid-life crisis with a woman nearly half his age. I have cut him dead out of my life and my daughter and I are feeling very positive about the future. I've encouraged her to talk to anyone about it and we have a very good relationship being able to talk about anything. I've never been afraid to be on my own and have a wonderful network of friends who have been supportive. So I'm living a life now free of that continuous ball of anxiety I experienced each day. According to his mum he is near to a breakdown because I left, but I corrected her and said it wasn't about me, it was his guilt.
I just want to give hope to those women/men out there who have been through or going through similar. Watch out for the signs and trust your instincts. These lying toads are really not worth it and you deserve better! I'm sad he turned into a person unrecognisable to the one I first met, but it happens.