Is he up to something? If so, what?

[wasabipeas]

What would you make of someone who has always been very attached to their phone (taking it to the loo, never letting anyone else use to to google/watch videos) suddenly leaves it lying around without a care in the world? Goes for a 2 hour run leaving the phone in the house...

Whatsapp profile pic has also changed from one of us + DCs to one on his own.

For context, he has an incredibly busy work week, with verifiable times in the office, and is always home in evenings and weekends

What a horrible update OP.
I'm so sorry you've discovered this.
Please reach out to friends and family.
Look after yourself.
Keep busy.
What is your 'D'H saying at the moment about the affair?

What a knob.

The exit fee might be portable if you move to a new house ?

at least you know now so he can’t drive you crazy with that. Get a shit hot lawyer now and screw down any funds. And collect all paperwork

I am so sorry OP. How awful and the lengths he went to to hide their conversations. So calculating and deceitful.

You may not feel so now but you will come through this. Allow yourself to grieve, cry, be angry. You need to let the feelings out as suppressing them will delay your healing.

He clearly wasn't expecting to be found out when he agreed to lock in your mortgage for another two years. The hide of him. So sorry OP I hope you have lots of support from family and friends.

I spoke to the bank today, and they might let me ‘port’ the mortgage to a new loan on a longer term at our house but we both need to do the application which means bank statements etc, which is going to get complicated if he won’t disclose his in case they show the spending on OW

But, that brings the monthly payment down enough that I can stay here with DC and he can rent

I’ve phoned around solicitors today but they all want £200+ for the initial consultation- sadly the mythical MN half an hour free appointments don’t exist around here..! So that can wait for now

I’ve also booked us in for some counselling this week so we can ‘unconsciously uncouple’ with a bit of help, because I don’t want this getting nasty.

Beyond that, I don’t know what to do. He is spending the rest of this week with some friends but literally no one else will have him and I don’t want him rinsing money being in a hotel or Airbnb

His friends are our friends, and they don’t want anything to do with him now they know what he has done, so I don’t know what will happen after Saturday which is the limit for him staying with the only friends who will tolerate him
His family are abroad so can’t help

What else do I need to get sorted in the immediate?

Well, if you want him to save money then you need more friends who are neutral. Perhaps work on the consciously uncoupling line with some that would help if you gave the say so?

I am very impressed with your phone skills, he must have been shocked. Good for you.

I haven't got any advice but I just wanted to say how amazingly you've dealt with all this. You followed your instincts, you quickly solved how he was hiding things, you're right on top of sorting out the house... he's going to regret this so much, he's lost one smart, strong woman xx

He’s clearly not as clever as he thought he was, so sorry op 💐💐

Also changing your what's app photo means nothing.

Sorry, came to this conversation late, but totally disagree with this advice.
Little changes like changing WhatsApp pics are always motivated by something in my experience. Most people don’t even pay any attention to their own WhatsApp pic as you can’t even see it most of the time - it’s never in your thoughts.
It only becomes a thing when you’re trying to get someone’s attention.

One small (lighthearted!) moan, if I can...

I’ve barely eaten since Saturday. Probably not more than 400 calories a day.

And I’ve lost no weight. Nada. Zip.
I was hoping that would be the only upside of this whole situation

that is crap OP. The least one could hope for as a small consolation in all of this is to lose a few pounds. Bloody unfair. How are you holding up otherwise?