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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

How to deal with partners affair during lockdown

78 replies

Fierywhenhot · 03/04/2020 22:49

Hiya,
This is my 1st post and I really need some advice so please be kind.

So, I have been with my partner for over 12 years. 3 years in, we had a break and I regrettably started a short relationship with someone else. We got back together and life was good.... or so I thought!
Something didn't feel right so I checked his phone and there were messages from another woman!! I confronted him and he eventually confessed they had been having an affair for around 5 months and had slept together "a few times".
She's married with a toddler. He was their plumber and pushed together by his boss- whom himself has affairs with married women. Obviously I am absolutely broken and torn to pieces but I really dont want to give up on our family just yet, and still love him. I just still have so much anger, mainly towards that slag and his boss. I feel like a way to help me get past it is by hurting her like she has me!! I have a message in my drafts ready to send to her husband (who supposedly knows) with juicy info. Do you think it's a good idea? Has anyone had a similar situation and stayed with their partner after an affair? Now I'm stuck with him during this lockdown.
I have a child from previous relationship and we have one together.

OP posts:
fuzzymoon · 04/04/2020 20:58

It's easier to move your anger towards the OW but deep down your situation has nothing to do with her.

Your H has choices which are the ability to be respectful to you and to put his family first.

He has done neither of these. He may be regretful but that is since you caught him out.

How can she contact him if he has blocked her on his phone and all social media or hasn't he?

You need to decide whether you can move forward, draw a line under what he has done and trust him.

The other woman has nothing to do with what has happened to you as far as your situation is concerned it is entirely down to your H.

flippityflobberty · 04/04/2020 21:34

I am sorry you're going

APageInTime · 04/04/2020 22:01

I've never understood why people defend the OW. Off course you should be aiming your anger at your husband but the anger you aim at her is very warranted. She's knowingly taken part in causing you severe emotional pain, how does that make her blameless?

Absolutely agree. I don't get why those knowingly enter affairs with married people knowing there's a family who will be torn apart get defended and it's not their fault at all... Ridiculous.

Life just isn't that black and white

No, life isn't. But affairs are unless you love making excuses for dishonest people that have them. It's really simple for those with any morals. But many on here don't seem to have those.

and we're not 5 year olds

Good attempted insult, but totally irrelevant to the situation. 5 years olds are even taught to be kind and common courtesy.

copycopypaste · 04/04/2020 22:04

Your dh the affair, not the ow. Your dh is the one that's shit al over you and the relationship.

Tbh I'd want to know if I was her dh, but if you're going to do it, you need to be prepared for the fall out and do it factually.

copycopypaste · 04/04/2020 22:06

To add to my post, my now exdh had an affair, I never did tell the ow dh. It's one of my big regrets in life. She got to carry on her nice life with her dh and son. My relationship limped on for 3 years before I left and divorced him. Looking back I wish I'd told her dh.

Laurenxx12 · 04/04/2020 22:07

@izzywizzygood why is her husband a slag but the OW isn't? They're as bad as each other. How does the OW being in love with him mean it's unfair to call her names? She's sleeping with someone else husband for God's sake! What does it matter if she's 'in love' with him or not? She's a cheat regardless.

BumbleBeee69 · 04/04/2020 22:13

You sound to angry to be making any rational decisions right now... including contacting anyone... Did he forgive your indiscretion ? Hmm

Laurenxx12 · 04/04/2020 22:16

I'm honestly shocked at the amount of people on this thread that have no problem with women that cheat with other women's husbands. It's no wonder so many men cheat.....there's so many equally moral less women about. If a woman knowingly has an affair with a married man, she is as complicit in causing pain to others as he is. I would not like myself very much at all if I had an affair with a married man and inflicted pain on his wife and/or children.

SharonasCorona · 04/04/2020 22:22

@CakeAndGin

are we really still calling women ‘slags’ in 2020?

To be fair @Lucyccfc68 called OP's H a slag, not the OW.

Although I'm not sure slag crosses over to men very well. Even if the word manwhore needs the 'whore' bit to give it sting. 'Womaniser' doesn't have the same sting.

APageInTime · 04/04/2020 22:33

why is her husband a slag but the OW isn't? They're as bad as each other. How does the OW being in love with him mean it's unfair to call her names? She's sleeping with someone else husband for God's sake! What does it matter if she's 'in love' with him or not? She's a cheat regardless.

Agree. As bad as each other she is not blameless.

why is her husband a slag but the OW isn't? They're as bad as each other. How does the OW being in love with him mean it's unfair to call her names? She's sleeping with someone else husband for God's sake! What does it matter if she's 'in love' with him or not? She's a cheat regardless.

Same. I don't get why people defend them but I guess some people let their true morals show when the defend such dishonest, disgusting behaviour. Sometimes I think it's the whole "we women should back each other not tear each other down" which I agree with when other women are descent, honest humans. Cheats don't fit that category regardless if they're the OW or the person cheating on their partner.

But same goes for OM... all are trash.

VodselForDinner · 04/04/2020 22:34

I know it is his fault too

There’s no “too” in this. Your relationship broke down because your boyfriend repeatedly had sex with another woman. He’s the one who chose to leave you to go to her. She didn’t force him. He’s the one who damaged your relationship, not her. Absolutely, she has very questionable morals, but he’s the one who has joint responsibility for your relationship, not her.

Are you still sharing a bed with him?

Bluntness100 · 04/04/2020 22:56

But he’s forgiven enough that you wish to stay with him op? Are you married, your phrasing would indicate not.

Why is she such a slag, but his forgiveness is not “ yet” indicting it’s coming, but there is none for her? You’ll forgive him enough to live with him, have sex with him, but she would never get forgiveness, even though he’s the only one who cheated on you and did you far more wrong than she ever did?

And his boss isn’t to blame for introducing them. That’s batshit.

Op, stop lashing out at everyone but him. He’s to blame. It’s on him. Your anger will never go away if you continue to try to deflect it onto anyone but him.

He had an affair and lied to you because that’s what he wished to do.

Bluntness100 · 04/04/2020 23:07

She has also been trying to contact him even after he told her to leave him alone

What a catch he is. A regular prince amongst men, having an affair and then telling the woman he was so intimate with ..to leave him alone.

Lovely. You have to ask yourself what he Was telling her to get her into bed. What was wrong in her marriage. For a married woman with a toddler to become involved with him.

What if the husband is told and he hurts her, what if she suffers domestic abuse. Does she deserve the smacking she will get if her husband finds out.

And what about if her husband comes after your partner. Beats the living shit out of him. Does he deserve it?

Do you even know these people and how the husband will react? How your partner will react?

It really is best to focus on your own relationship and only your own relationship.

AusFrosty · 04/04/2020 23:32

I’m a bit confused. Did this all happen 9 years ago ?

You separated- you started seeing someone else and he started seeing this woman as well ?

Is that what happened?

You say “regrettably” - why ? Did you commit to not seeing someone else when separated?

You put this stuff in the post - so I’m assuming it’s relevant somehow...

TheStuffedPenguin · 05/04/2020 00:53

I hate what he has done to me and my family, and he's definitely not yet forgiven sounds like you are just creating a fuss but already know you will stay with him . Good luck with that !

AgentJohnson · 05/04/2020 09:32

I hate what he has done to me and my family, and he's definitely not yet forgiven sounds like you are just creating a fuss but already know you will stay with him . Good luck with that !

This

CandyLeBonBon · 05/04/2020 20:19

@APageInTime there was no insult, attempted or otherwise. And You completely ignored the context. My point was that people who wish to cheat will always justify it to themselves. That doesn't mean it's ok. It does mean that whatever he said to this woman has given her cause to think that he's available.

bitteroulbag · 15/04/2020 20:59

Clearly many people on here who haven't been through infidelity. It is pure unadulterated hell - the gaslighting, the humiliation - and yet we stay. Of course we stay. My kids, teens at the time, begged me not to kick their faithless father out, begged me not to make them move from pillar to post on a weekly basis. I am in his country, with a pathetic retirement - I'd be struggling financially on my own. He was forced to be penitent when the shite hit the fan (broken leg, stuck at home - don't get me started on hysterical bonding) but it took a couple of years, and there they were, back at it again. Colleagues, of course, and still working together. 10 years on, stuck in lockdown with this fucker, I wonder what I would have done if I had the dosh to kick him out. I hate the (21 years younger than me - argh, the cliché) OW with a passion (she knows everything about us, and still she went ahead. And she calls herself a feminist! Some fucking sisterhood...) & wish her only ill. If you can afford it, OP, get out. You think you still "love" him, but unless his behaviour changes radically, and he gives you all the love and respect you deserve, and for the long haul, you will end up despising him. And don't listen to those Nelly Know-All PPs. Don't listen to anyone unless they've been there. Give yourself the chance to meet someone who admires and respects you. I wish I had.

Qwerty543 · 16/04/2020 07:58

Slag is such a horrible word Hmm.

So to make yourself feel better (it won't), you want to send the potentially poor unsuspecting man a horrible message with juicy details and rip his life apart. And their child.

You sound bloody awful. Keep out of their relationship and sort your own out. Your H cheated on you. Not her. She owed you no loyalty. He did.

bitteroulbag · 16/04/2020 08:43

@Qwerty543

Have you ever suffered from infidelity?

SadSausage44 · 16/04/2020 11:08

Can people please stop sticking up for the OW?
My husband had an affair and she knew he was married, she came to my fucking house, so yes, she is a slag, slut, bitch, whore, arsehole, twat, motherfucking wanker. I'm going to call her every name under the fucking sun if I want to!
I imagine everyone sticking up for the OW have never had their world blown apart and lost everything whilst having to watch the OW smugly waltz off into the sunset with your husband.
It's utterly shit and takes two to tango.

bitteroulbag · 16/04/2020 11:42

@SadSausage44

Hear hear. I know exactly how you feel. Those who don't know, and are lucky enough never to have suffered through this, please get off the moral high ground and have some compassion for your distraught sisters. Consensual polyamory and open relationships are fine, but betrayal and deceit are not. Sleeping with a man in the full knowledge that he is another woman's husband is unforgivable. It is not feminist. It is woman-hating and the hurt and humiliation and the pain of duplicity is like no other. Even in this country where these things ("shrug") just "happen"...

Qwerty543 · 16/04/2020 18:55

@bitteroulbag I have no proof but strongly suspect this has been the case. Why? It's not relevant.

bitteroulbag · 16/04/2020 19:15

@Qwerty543

I believe it is entirely relevant for reasons stated previously. If you prefer to turn a blind eye to cheating, that's your choice. (Actually, I would have preferred that, but the gaslighting made it impossible.) Is there an excuse for telling someone in pain that "they sound bloody awful"? Well, possibly if you have no conception of what they're going through, but it sounds like you just might?

Frankola · 16/04/2020 19:49

You need to blame your husband. He's the one responsible for hurting you and your marriage. Not the OW and his boss.

You say you want to fix your marriage, but what does your husband want to do?

Other than you telling us he has had an affair there's no mention of him and what he wants...