Just cancelled the wedding

[sirmione16]

4 month old baby. 5 weeks until the wedding. Discovered he's been cheating. Have told him there's no way I can marry him in 5 weeks time, so cancelled it. Will sort logistics tomorrow/this week

He started a new stressful job last October, baby came January, wedding looming and claims he's had a breakdown, not wanted to show or tell me and he just reached out to this girl as a confidence boost.

Can this ever be moved on from? Will counselling be beneficial, if he is emotionally down as much as he says? Or would I be stupid to try and save this?

I'm mortified at being that girl who cancelled her wedding, I feel like he's stole this from me... I've got to be strong for my baby boy but my god do I hurt

Because you've cancelled the wedding you feel like you've 'done something' (which you have! A very admirable and brave thing!) - just be wary of thinking you can now sort of carry on as before because you've done something. It doesn't erase it.

@sirmione16 please don't take him back so easily. This is what he's banking on. He needs to realise long and hard what he has lost. By all means let him see the baby but keep your distance, emotionally and physically, for a while.

My reasons for giving him his first second chance - I was packing up the car to go home to mother. He cried and begged. I loved him so bloody much. I didn't want to give up what we had because it was so good, and I'd been so proud of us, and we'd just got married and dd was so little - and I was scared of being on my own with a baby.

Do I regret staying? Well, not wholly, because I wouldn't have my other dc, and they are both the light of my life.

And I don't view those years as wasted because we had good times and what's the use in looking back and thinking that? But my god it was hard, and I turned myself inside out trying in that relationship, and into someone I wasn't, and we went round and round in circles. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

He was arranging to meet another women on your hen night. He's let you down, your baby and all your friends and family. And he'll likely do it again.

Don't let him worm his way back in.

Can you get some counselling for yourself?

Op, we all do what we have to do. No-one should think less of you for that.
Just a word of advice. If he knows the OW through work (apologies, I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned how he met her), be very wary. He may say it’s over but if he sees her every day it will be all too easy to pick up again.

OP, please give yourself the gift of going to counselling alone before even thinking about thinking about taking him back!

You don’t even have the full truth of what went on yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t meet her with your baby. I have known more than one man do that.

This is the reaction I'm dreading. People thinking I'm stupid for trying. seeing me as lowering my self worth for trying.

I don’t think you’re stupid, but I think it’s desperately sad.

He’s done a number on you and I feel like your self-worth must be pretty low anyway to even consider it.

I know it’s not easy. But I feel like you think you’ve taught him a lesson by cancelling the wedding. When all he’s going to have lost is a party, and if you’re a SAHM, you’ll have lost your dignity, trust, self-respect AND the security a marriage would have brought, financially and legally.

He didn’t “risk it all” @sirmione16 - he threw it away for a cheap thrill while you were celebrating becoming his wife.

He threw away you and your child. And it’s obvious that he knows how to manipulate you and push your buttons.

So yeah. Not stupid. But very sad.

Has he even said sorry? I also think it’s key if he told you or you found out and then he confessed. The 1st one you might stand a chance, the 2nd I think it’s doomed. That’s talking from seeing a friend go through that. She wasted years on trying to make it work. It didn’t and she found somebody else and now regrets those second chances.

I think all the things people are saying to you about your husband are right ..... but we aren’t the ones with a four month old baby, watching our world collapsing

I first found out my partner had cheated when our first DC was six weeks old .... he’d actually met someone else from the internet a little under a year before, so essentially while we were planning our child. I don’t know what happened for sure but at the very least intent was there .... but I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on everything with such a small baby. So I stuffed it down and carried on but I never ever felt quite the same way about him ever again and it festered.

Like Category, I don’t regret staying in as much as it means I have my much wanted second child, but after my DS was born my partner began at least one other ‘affair’ (although obviously he claims it wasn’t) by which point I realised I couldn’t continue living in a relationship where I felt like I was never enough

Of course, my ex still feels like it’s all
My fault we separated - I didn’t try hard enough, I wasn’t supportive enough blah blah blah. The simply truth is he is the one that couldn’t keep his pants on, be it sexually or emotionally - I never got to the bottom of it all and I don’t actually care because he was cheating and that was his decision, not mine

You need to take things easy, be kind to yourself .... I know the temptation to carry on like normal is so strong, it’s exactly what I did but don’t ignore how you feel

The problem is that he deliberately sought out another woman, deliberately messaged her when he knew you weren’t around. Knowing u had a baby. While planning on marrying u and making vows. he does not care

it would be different if u had been having marital problems and he had an EA with a colleague and a random ONS. Still immoral but less intentional. I would get wanting to work on that.

But ur partner has shown u even when ur relationship is at its best or even just rather good will hurt u. He’s show he has a major character flaw.

Obviously it’s your relationship but I honestly would be surprised if day 10 years from now u weren’t on MN sobbing about how ur husband/partner has left u for a much younger woman leaving u leaving u and your three kids in a property he’s refusing to pay the rent on.

Just going to interject here - you don’t need to fight for him. What are you fighting for? The right to be treated with respect? He needs to fight for you and show you he’s deserving of your respect and trust again.
My xh once said to me after d-day that he thought I should be chasing him! And showing him how much I wanted to be with him 🙄. In reality, I didn’t feel like being with him since he’s left me home with young DS to go off on fun trips with his work girlfriend in secret. if it was going to work he was going to have to pull out the stops to show he changed and why he should deserve me.
Also read chumplady - her book is a good read and also outlines all the things you shouldn’t [have to] do (pick me dance etc). Helps you understand that if you don’t want to, you don’t have to reconcile.
And ... just to answer your question - for me, I regret staying and trying to make it work. I stayed because DS was 2 and I also didn’t want him to have a broken family but in the end it was the wrong decision and I should have followed my first instinct that it was irrevocably over. Xh also predictably says it wasn’t his fault the marriage ended, plus still trying to screw me over marital asset wise, and barely visits DS. Unfortunately the affair was a manifestation of his true selfish character.

Just last week he was arranging to hook up with OW just as soon as you were out of the way. Cold...calculated...entitled.

You know that he is a liar and a cheat. Now he is proving to be a manipulator with his crying and claim of ‘life stress’ as his reason for cheating and making a mockery of your relationship.

Why sentence yourself to a life full of anxiety and uncertainty?

I will be brutally honest & agree that if this was a friend or relative I would probably think less of them for cancelling a wedding but not breaking up afterwards. It would just be so painfully obvious the relationship was all sorts of wrong & doomed, especially as infidelity had played a part. Cancelling the wedding just means less rights for the woman & now less commitment from the man so he’s free to continue his infidelity without the weight of an impending wedding looming over his head. I think you may find it difficult to play the happy couple now with friends & family, with that elephant in the room. Like who cancels a wedding but just stays together? It isn’t usually heard of because it so rarely happens. The shame, anger, embarrassment is more than enough to kill a relationship.

I mean, way to make you look/feel like a fool while you are celebrating your hens night he is trying to hook up with other women. Really says it all right there.

As someone who is bipolar I find it offensive that cheaters will often use depression & anxiety as an excuse for hurting others so badly.

You sound desperately sad & I hope you are able to build up your self esteem again & drop this loser.

He will he wanting to get back together to prove to family and friends that he isn’t that bad because you’re still willing to be with him.

That feeling will last a few months, maybe even a year but the urge to cheat will be back.

Once you’ve shown you’re willing to forgive him then the incentive is there to try his luck again.

I gave my now exH a second chance.

Big mistake. It encouraged him to believe I was a fool who would put up with anything.

I suppose I'm trying to identify how our dynamic is now, and whether in my heart I can move on or not - and I'll only know that by spending time with him and seeing what transpired over the coming months.

You would be better able to see how you are and where you are if you were to stay separate and limit contact over the coming months.

Some of what is motivating you here is fear of change, fear of the unknown.

You need to grasp that nettle.

Please go to counseling alone to figure out where you are right now, what you are afraid of.

I gave a 2nd chance, and things worked for us we are happy and he was remorseful. In 3 weeks time this will be an old MN thread, but in 3 weeks time is still your RL. I admire those that try to resolve issues rather than walk away.
Talking to him and spending the day together is a good thing. You have plenty of time to decide on what you want,
Is he very sorry. Does he answer your questions.

MintyT Are you sure? 100% sure he’s not doing it again or will never do it again? If yes how?

Op - I’m so sorry he did this to you. But yes, like a pp, I’d wonder what the point of cancelling the wedding was if you were just going to stay with him. What message does that send him? You’ve basically allowed him out of the ONE legal security safety net you had, leaving you ever more vulnerable to him than before!!

Men like him are all remorseful now as people know and he's having to face up to things but give it a few months and he will be back in contact with the other woman.

I can't get past the timing OP.

You were excitedly planning your vows and preparing to commit yourself to him for life, he was working out how he could make the time to shag his mistress while you were on your hen do. If he can't love and respect you at what is supposed to be a happy time (new baby and a wedding) then what's he going to do when things get tough?

Sorry if this sounds harsh OP, but what exactly are you fighting for? The image you have of him and what you had in your head? Or the reality of who he is? Because this is a man who cheated on you, betrayed you and your child in the deepest way, broke your trust for a cheap thrill, THAT'S who you're fighting to keep in your life.

Please have a bit more respect for yourself. You deserve better.

He’d give you the world right now but it won’t last.

What he did was exceptionally callous: right when you were the most vulnerable as a new mum with a new baby, he was screwing around. He didn’t make a mistake, he was deliberately planning a malicious subterfuge. He’ll pretend it was something else (mistake/depression/stress/she gave him support/baby took up all your time) but really when you were on the ropes - tired, hormonal, dealing with mothering - he didn’t see this as a chance to pull together but as a time to take advantage.

Normally I’m of the opinion that relationships can survive infidelity, but in this case I am not sure why you would want to. Because the one thing a relationship should bring is security in the tough times and he instead saw it as an opportunity to screw you over.
He’s upset and humiliated at what he’s losing and dressing it up as distress about you, but he didn’t give a shit about you. The hen do thing is just so calculating.

I realise that I am crapping all over your decision right now and that this will probably make you feel worse than better, and I am so so sorry about that, but getting back together is the temporary easy way to comfort and ease. But keep in mind that when you should have been building your family team, new baby and about to celebrate marriage, he chose not to be your soft place to fall.

My mum discovered my dad was still married to a woman who lived at the other end of the country. He was living two lives. She kicked him out when 8 months pregnant. He tried to weasel back after I was born and she was so tempted. On her own, struggling financially and emotionally and he came back with the whole world on offer. She said no despite saying how unbelievably hard that was and some tempting slip ups (going on holiday with him, sleeping with him at the christening). He went back to the wife he had half left and has spent the last 30 years treating her shabbily and, when he was younger, cheating on her with younger women.

It is hard to detach and you’ll fall a few times, but take some time properly separated (6 months or more) and talk to a counsellor on your own. If you are going to get back together, make sure it is after he has done some proper work on himself, alone.
Good luck op xx

Don't do it OP. I get the young baby concern and your loving him like crazy. I do. But he will break your heart again and keep breaking it until there is nothing left of it.

If you take him back now, you're effectively saying he can do whatever he pleases and you'll forgive him. Those may not be your literal words but IT IS WHAT HE WILL HEAR.

I have been in your position. Good luck OP.

Don't give him another chance. The trust has gone. It will never be the same again. Please dont waste your life being cheated on.

This also happened to me, with a four month old but after the wedding. OP I would say if you can stick to your guns here and keep to your decision it will serve you well. I can hear some glimmers of sympathy in your mind and these are the fault lines that he may work on. I made him move out and it was the best thing I did, but I suffered a charm-/sympathy-/help- and anything else he could think of offensive, off and on for the next few months. It was hard to stick to my correct decision, though I did. I was also given the line that 'nothing actually happened' and they 'didn't actually have sex'. I hope you can find a network of women friends and family who can help, so you don't have to turn to him for anything. Wishing you strength and resolve.