Cheating husband - 10 years of marriage

[Angryconfused]

Help! What’s bothering me is not just that he had an affair but what he did.

So we met this woman at a conference last year Nov. they hit it off and as he was voted onto the conference committee she told him about an upcoming conference March 2020
And I said no problem at the time...kicking myself there.

Then i noticed she started messaging and phoning him constantly!!! I asked him if I should be concerned and he said no. I get upset as it continues.

Fast forward to Feb 2020 I find out that she came to our home town and he didn’t tell me. She posted photos on her FB account and they looked like a frigging couple!!! I confronted him and he of course lied and said he knew how much I didn’t like her that is why he didn’t tell me she was here. Those photos came down very quickly.

March 2020 he goes up to the conference and i couldn’t sleep cause my sixth sense was telling me something was wrong.

April with Covid he is still constantly talking to her...he even messaged her next to me in bed at 1am to ask if she was still up!!!! I blew up and said he had to make a choice between me and her. He said I was being ridiculous and they are just friends and he isn’t doing that. I begged him saying he was hurting me. He says he stopped but then find out he sent her a balloons for her birthday.

Anyways found the evidence to prove I wasn’t craZy like he said I was, that I was seeing smoke where there was no fire

Found out:

1. Feb - he rented her an Airbnb 10mins away from our house!!! He said she stayed with a friend on the other side of town.
2. naked photos of her in his phone
3. photos of them kissing
4. what’s app chats where he said if he leaves his wife he wants a proper relationship with her and that he loves her
5. bought her not only balloons for her birthday and said it was for her son but a cake
6. a Kate spade bag which he told me and the husband was for my birthday (July) which i never got
7. dress and god knows what else
8. emails where he told her he could speak to her and then was emailing her to say he loves her and misses her and wants her to be happy
9. Pinterest/Instagram they are sending photos of engagement rings and wedding dresses!!!
10. I actually thought our relationship was getting stronger than ever
11. we were still intimate while he was having this affair

Call the woman’s husband who had found evidence the day before of lovey dovey messages he sent to her.

Confront him without the evidence he denied and even gets her to write WhatsApp message to me saying she was happily married and not to put my problems on her.

So confronted him with the evidence. He said they only kissed nothing else.....the one day and that the felt guilty for it so messaged me afterwards yet it seems he wasn’t feeling too guilty to fool around with her in the car.

Then I find a long love note from her saying how she remember their first kiss and when they first made love...she confessed to the husband that they had sex constantly which my husband still denies.

She also sent photos of love notes he had written to her the day he left....

I’m angry
I hate him but love him
I look at him and just think of what he did with her
I look at him and want him to hurt as much as I am
And what gets me is his ex wife and his girlfriend before me both cheated on him multiple times!

I don’t know how to move on
I don’t know how to stop thinking of what he did.
I had already accepted that they slept together despite what he says I know they did and the evidence supports.

We both are trying but I can’t keep thinking about it.

Who looks at engagement rings unless it was really serious right?!

Thanks!

@Worried74

Hello, I was in a similar position to you 5 years ago. In the last 5 years my husband has done nothing but show his remorse and strive to make things better. However our marriage is not the same, I don't love him the way I once did and I certainly will never fully trust him again. I am constantly hyper vigilant and waiting for the next time. Do not underestimate the long-term impact on your mental and physical health of staying. I function but am not the person I was. Take care of yourself and take time to think what you really want.

This

What a web of lies. There would be no forgiveness and staying for me. How would you ever trust him? If you want a committed, loving partner, leave this one. Personally, I'd leave for my own self respect.

@Angryconfused

my husband told her he was choosing his wife and family

When men are caught with their trousers down they very seldom choose the affair partner over the wife. They opt for the security of the home and the steady marriage partner because they know that this is where their best interests lie long-term and they're terrified that the rug might be pulled from under their feet. He is thinking of himself, and his future and his wellbeing by "choosing" you.

Fuck that shit. Give him his marching orders. As far as I'm concerned he took a calculated risk when he decided to put his penis in another woman. He made his bed - he can lie in it.

OP has he been honest with you yet? From what I am reading even though it is still out in the open, he is still lying to you about it...
Being a good husband and a good father are two very different things. He can be a great father and provider but a terrible partner. The counselling may help get the answers you need to make a decision on whether he is capable of being a partner.
It would be sensible to set boundaries now. Change sleeping arrangements so that you are not staying in the same room to give you space to think. If the mortgage hasn’t gone through I would suggest you don’t proceed given the current situation and uncertainty.
Start to get a handle on what the financial situation is, how much you both earn, equity in house if you have any etc. So that you are making an informed decision (FWIW I wouldn’t suggest finances being a reason to stay long term as you will be working non-stop if you can’t trust your partner)
The kids welfare is very important but as others have pointed out if you choose to stay they will learn from that too and base their self-esteem off that.
I understand this is not how you envisaged life going and it is so unfair to have to deal with this. You don’t have to make a decision instantly, you can take some time to get information and set boundaries. Good luck OP, I hope you find the way forward.

I'm sorry but I could never trust my husband again after that! He's done it once, he'll do it again. Can you honestly say you could trust him again

I am so sorry you are being put through this hell, OP.

From experience, the single most important thing you can do right now is to hold onto your sense of self. You are no doubt experiencing conflicting emotions. You sound like a kind and trusting person so don't let these arseholes take these positive traits away from you.

Fundamentally, the reason arsehole-husbands do this type of thing is because they have a narcissistic sense of entitlement. They lie through their teeth to both the wife and the other woman. At the moment, it will seem to you that he must have been in love with her to spend money on her and send her those messages. In time you will begin to understand the lengths to which some men will go to live these pathetic fantasy-lives because they are not man enough to live in the real world.

Keep posting, OP. It helps.

If you stay please do so in the full knowledge that this is your life now. If you are comfortable with his sexual relationships with other women & many are then thats your perogative. Just dont stay if you believe he is in love with you & will not continue cheating, or if you mind. By all means the money & young kids matter & you may not even be having sex with him, & ok with him having sex outside the marriage.

Because the way it works for men is if you stay, regardless od what you or they say, it to them is you giving your agreement that its ok. Because their rationale is 'She isnt happy but she didnt dump me so I got saway with it & she will put up with it'. They condsider a bit of grief if found out to be a small price to pay.

He’ll do it again. You say his previous girlfriend was unfaithful - are you sure he wasn’t the one who was unfaithful. If he hadn’t been looking around, he wouldn’t have noticed this other woman. She’s probably not even the first. He was unfaithful and lied and lied and lied. I’ll be she’s the one who finished it. You deserve better, so do your children and you need a shit-hot solicitor.

This wasnt a one night stand op
This was months and months of lying and deceiving. And they were talking about marriage etc.

There is 5% this marriage COULD be saved
But there is 0% this marriage SHOULD be saved.

You still love the idea of your marriage. But the man you once fell in love with and married has checked out. And so should you. Your marriage is destroyed by lies and infidelity. It has been stripped back to the bare bones. And even those bones have been set on fire and deceased.

The man you married is gone. It is time to start leaving.

I’m so sorry. You need to leave this man, he sounds horrible

It takes time to realise that the man you married is gone. That's what the OP needs - time. Trouble is, arsehole-husbands tend to hang around, re-infecting the wounds with their pathetic lies.

A good counsellor would help you to see it more objectively, but they tend to be pricey.

Wish I could give you a hug, OP

I am sorry you are going through this OP.

I just wanted to come on and give another perspective. I was the child of a marriage like this. My dad cheated on my mum had a full on affair for over 2 years, my mum only found out because my dad left his phone at home one day and she read a message from the other woman that came through. She never left him because of having children and she had no job he was the sole earner.

Anyway long story short he continued to cheat on her until 6 years later he finally left us for another woman.

It completely messed up mine and my brother perspective on relationships. My dad had no respect for my mum after she took him back, why would he. My mum is still to this day a broken shell of the woman she was. She has never met anybody else. I have never trusted a man 100% because of it. I made sure I was financially independent so that if it ever happened to me I could leave. My brother has cheated on every girlfriend he has ever had.

Now you know his capacity for deceit. He's telling you a different story, what makes you think he's not still lying?

Personally I'd kick him out, if he still remains remorseful and wants to make amends in 6 months time then maybe you could think of it then. If he gets nasty or moves on you know it was the right move.

I stayed with my, now exh for a further 3 years following his affair, but I could never get past the deceit and the relationship failed anyway. Wish I'd not wasted a further 3 years on him

It's not forgivable.
He had a relationship with this woman...talking about marriage and so on, did he forget he already had a wife? .

He won't get over her easily. Do you really want to stay with your husband while he pines over another woman and gets over the break up of their relationship?

He didn't care how much he was hurting you and all of the negative feelings you were feeling and how that could have impacted your mental health.

The men who can continue cheating even though their partner has guessed something is up and try to convince her she's being paranoid are the lowest of the low.

I wanted to say LTB and give you a big hug

Op I’ve read all your updates and just can’t understand why you would stay with a man who told another woman that he loved her. He fucked her for sure, don’t let him lie to you about that. But for me it would be that he said that he loved her

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

I completely recognise your 'I love him but I hate him' sentiment.

I am 5 years down the line of first finding out about 4 years of cheating and 3 years since he cheated again and we separated then.
It has been difficult and I did not sleep for a year. We had 25 years of joint finances and young kids to consider. We are just about to reach the point of divorce.
And you know what? I am a new woman - I am devastated that the man I though I had married and I had fully committed to is not the man I thought he was (with hindsight there were lots of signs of his weaknesses) and that my marriage was not what I thought it was. But - I can see the silver lining of making my own decisions.

People tell you who they are - we just have to listen. And I certainly did not listen for years.

V best of luck

Your H lacks integrity and empathy. He treated you with contempt and allowed you to suffer. He even enlisted OW to help him trick and manipulate you.

His dishonesty prevails. He is still making a mockery of you by refusing to come clean. This fundamental disrespect is a malignancy that makes rebuilding impossible. Why are you tolerating his utter contempt? He seems confident that he will suffer no real consequences for his devaluation of you and the children.

Couples counseling would be futile, as he would manipulate the sessions with his lying and minimizing.

I’m sorry, OP, but he is a very bad bet.

We both are trying

Incorrect - you whilst he doesn't even have the balls and respect for you to be honest about how far it went.

Realistically there isn't much hope in this being resolved as he is still mugging you off and expecting it to be brushed under the carpet.

Sorry OP.

*you are trying

He doesn't want to tell the truth about how deeply he feels about the OW. He wants to keep the secrets and fantasy to himself and not have to expose it to real life.
Sorry OP, he seems half hearted.

Everyone, thanks so much for your responses and words of encouragement and love.

Have a time now to respond with more details.

1. her husband is very rich and she doesn’t want to leave himself. She told her husband that the “affair” was fizzling out and was ending when we found out.
2. she lives in a different state than us
3. we had 3 days of fighting and me asking questions about what he did and he was crying and begging me to not leave him
4. he says he is very remorseful and has lost his self esteem and self worth he had
5. I want to try because that is who I am, I want to be able to look back and can say with a clear mind that I have it a try

Crying and begging is cheap. Of course he doesn't want to split up, the ow doesn't want him, where's he going to go?Somewhere far less comfortable.

My ex did the crying and begging, didn't stop him cheating again.

I'm sorry but I don't see how you can come back from this.

The amount of deception, gaslighting and level of seriousness of this affair (they were talking about marriage)...mean that there's no way forwards. He was trying to get you to think you were imagining it... That's some messed up shit.

You need to be kicking him out ASAP.

@ToastyCrumpet

He’ll do it again. You say his previous girlfriend was unfaithful - are you sure he wasn’t the one who was unfaithful. If he hadn’t been looking around, he wouldn’t have noticed this other woman. She’s probably not even the first. He was unfaithful and lied and lied and lied. I’ll be she’s the one who finished it. You deserve better, so do your children and you need a shit-hot solicitor.

True. I don't know how you can trust anything he has told you about the past, knowing what you know now.

I'm sorry but you can't trust him at all.

If she had left her husband and he had somewhere to go, he'd be leaving you in a heartbeat. How can you stay with him knowing this.