Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

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

Woman just called to say she's sleeping with my partner

324 replies

ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 03:49

Hello

I'm 38 with a teenage son (pride and joy) and my own business which I love. I have a lovely partner, who was on a temporary work post overseas when Covid struck and to cut a long story short he has been quarantined, so we have been unable to see each other for 14 months.

He was due to move back home permanently in the summer and he took the job because it was huge money and we are saving to buy our home together but we speak every day, usually for hours so the relationship was going very good.

Then I got covid in March and was seriously ill, hospitalised with pneumonia and then had 4 months at home in bed recuperating which was a very long road and a lot of days and nights of not being able to breathe very well. My partner was really supportive throughout.

I started to get back on my feet by the end of July, then a few weeks later we found out my son has a tumour. We had to go through a long period of tests and thank God, it is benign, but it was about 6 weeks of the most unimaginable stress and he also needs quite significant surgery still.

In the background of all that stress, as well as the general stress of covid and being locked up without my partner here, my business, which is in the hospitality sector has collapsed because events are banned for so long and because I am a small company director I was one of those excluded from financial assistance.

My savings are exhausted but I wasn't worried because my partner has plenty.

So it's been stressful to say the least.

Then tonight a woman called me and told me her friend has been having an affair for months with my partner. I was so shocked you could have blown me over with a feather.

She was tearful and seemed drunk but cryptic and said it had been going on for ages. I asked how she got my number and she wouldn't answer.

I called my partner, and he admitted he slept with someone else a couple of times and now she is stalking him. While I was on the phone she was trying to smash down his door and in the end he called the police.

Then the woman who called me started texting me and calling more and was quite incoherent. She then added me on Facebook. I accepted and there's pictures of her with my partner that makes clear they have been spending time together for a few months.

So it's her he has been seeing. She is about 20 years older than me.

I didn't anything unusual, my partner has always been lovely, but he was withdrawn for a couple of months so probably feeling guilty?!

Partner says he loves me and she was a huge mistake.

I know it's over, my I am finding it hard to process that this man who is meant to love me was shagging someone else while I was laying here nearly dying and being frightened to my bones for my son.

Can anyone chat to me so I don't feel so alone. This woman keeps calling me ranting and I am not sure what to do.

Thanks

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 13/11/2020 21:42

God op, this is just awful now she’s trying to protect him and reverse the damage she caused, she even was spending nights with him, so now they are both lying to you.

I feel dor you, it’s just awful. I’m not even sure it’s the cheating and lying, the forming another relationship and lying to you on the phone, when he’s just been with another woman,

For me it’s the fucking off and not coming back at any stage

Bluntness100 · 13/11/2020 21:44

He wants me back and says he will quit his job tomorrow and come back if I will work through it with him

How’s that going to work then? When he’s been unable to get back for nearly a year and a half ans was planning to stay till the summer?

ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 21:47

You think she's lying to protect him? I got the feeling she's overstated when she was pissed and was cleaning up her mess because she's worried about being called a bunny boiler. Ugh, this level of intrigue is way over my brain capacity. Something just feels off with her. I feel like she's done this to get rid of me, but that's just the vibe.

Yeah, I think a lot of friends IRL (as well as him himself) raised today that him taking the job was a bad decision. Overseas posting would have been fine, but choosing somewhere so remote it's almost impossible to get to each other might have been a message he was resisting settling down. He denies this, but says he wishes he could turn back time to last July and turn down the job offer.

OP posts:
ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 21:49

The situation has always been that the only way he can leave is if he quits. He can't go back once he has left. They have closed all domestic flights onto the island for covid safety. They are only doing military repatriations for people who want to return to Britain. So he can leave, he just can't go back.

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 13/11/2020 21:52

Op, he’s already told you he was regularly shagging her and she used to spend the night.

What more do you need to know.

I

youvegottenminuteslynn · 13/11/2020 21:57

I would assume he's spoken to her, been angry with her and told her he can't believe she told you everything etc and because she (as they have both admitted) has feelings for him she's panicked and tried to make him look slightly less shit in the hope he won't cut her off completely.

This sounds very specific but I've had similar happen - my ex cheated, woman told me everything, he verbally and emotionally abused her (as he always did with me) to the point she felt compelled to call me again and say she had lied because she wan upset etc.

Absolute headfuck.

The bottom line is - you've had the year from hell with your boy and survived it. You need to go into a positive, healthy and happy future and you can't (IMO) do that with someone who you know in the best case scenario shagged someone else repeatedly, hid pictures of you so they could get in bed together, lied to you and let you down.

You deserve more than him and so does your boy Thanks

ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 22:03

Please don't get cross with me. I'm tired and confused and strung out and trying to piece together what really happened for my own sanity. It's not easy on me and I can only judge based on what I think correlates and sounds true during the conversation. During the sober conversation with her there were contradictions and subtle word slips that seemed to indicate to me that she wasn't telling the truth and the picture I initially had doesn't seem to fit the revised information. Thanks for trying to help, I know this is tough love, but I am just being honest with my perception

OP posts:
ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 22:04

@youvegottenminuteslynn

I would assume he's spoken to her, been angry with her and told her he can't believe she told you everything etc and because she (as they have both admitted) has feelings for him she's panicked and tried to make him look slightly less shit in the hope he won't cut her off completely.

This sounds very specific but I've had similar happen - my ex cheated, woman told me everything, he verbally and emotionally abused her (as he always did with me) to the point she felt compelled to call me again and say she had lied because she wan upset etc.

Absolute headfuck.

The bottom line is - you've had the year from hell with your boy and survived it. You need to go into a positive, healthy and happy future and you can't (IMO) do that with someone who you know in the best case scenario shagged someone else repeatedly, hid pictures of you so they could get in bed together, lied to you and let you down.

You deserve more than him and so does your boy Thanks

That sounds possible, but my mind would never come up with anything that devious so it didn't occur to me at all. Ugh.
OP posts:
RantyAnty · 13/11/2020 22:06

Just read the thread.

Did you live together before he left?

If he offers you money, definitely take it. You've been through hell this year and the money will make it much easier to get back on your feet.

ohmanseriously · 13/11/2020 22:12

No, we were discussing getting a place together when he was offered the job. Maybe he took it to get out of it :(

OP posts:
Imagiraffe · 13/11/2020 22:19

I'm so sorry for you but that woman did you a massive favour. Now you know the truth, its a terrible truth to learn but you can move on with your life. Sounds like you have a good family and a lovely son to focus on. Why do good women like us fall for the wrong ones💐

Hawkins001 · 13/11/2020 22:22

Apologies for your current situation, human nature and psychology can be tricky at the best of times, hope you can put events into perspective and that you begin to make positive progress, as for the islands is it Fernando de Noronha, Brazil ? Or more alaska way ?

Rangoon · 14/11/2020 01:53

Anybody who is drunk, screaming and attempting to batter down the door of a man she had drunken sex with a few times is not a totally rational person. This is after her attempts to destroy his relationship with you. She eventually got taken away by the police becsuse she kept it up for so long. I do believe he told her about you. I think he hid the photographs because who wouldn't feel a bit weird cheating with your face beaming at him from the bedside table. I think he had drunken sex with her because he was lonely and worried though that's still cheating.

Shortfeet · 14/11/2020 02:15

“He can love you wholeheartedly while also being weak and stupid, which he has been. Sometimes people also turn to affairs when they are feeling stressed and anxious or when they have to support someone else. “

I agree with the above

Mamanyt · 14/11/2020 03:13

In the end, while she may have been no better than she should have been (and far less, truth told), she made you no promises. Your partner did. I do not know the laws governing partnerships in the UK/GB, I suppose it varies from place to place, but here in the USA, separating non-legal partners can request "palimony" if the incomes are disparate, and the union has gone on for a considerable time.

NettleTea · 14/11/2020 08:13

so is he planning on coming back and moving in with you??? or does he have a job set up and his own place, so you can take things very slowly and see how it progresses.
If he is just planning on coming back and moving in, where does that leave your boy, who only yesterday could see how much this man upset you?

RainingBatsAndFrogs · 14/11/2020 08:53

He wants me back and says he will quit his job tomorrow and come back if I will work through it with him

So his coming back is conditional on you giving him a reassurance.

He hasn’t put all his eggs in one basket and hopped on the next flight possible in order to try, come what may.

Trumpyouredone · 14/11/2020 09:07

@Rangoon

Anybody who is drunk, screaming and attempting to batter down the door of a man she had drunken sex with a few times is not a totally rational person. This is after her attempts to destroy his relationship with you. She eventually got taken away by the police becsuse she kept it up for so long. I do believe he told her about you. I think he hid the photographs because who wouldn't feel a bit weird cheating with your face beaming at him from the bedside table. I think he had drunken sex with her because he was lonely and worried though that's still cheating.
How does that explain all the photos of them together on FB if it was just a few drunken ONS?

I'm sorry op for the terrible year you've have. Only you can decide if he's worth forgiving and taking back. I personally think you are worth more x

micaschist · 14/11/2020 09:13

It sounds like she has revised what she said after getting a bollocking from him.

You've already done the hard part, you've been living without him for 14 months and got through hell, don't let him worm his way back. He's not someone you can rely on. He's cheated on you, he didn't support you when you weren't well and he was happy buggering off to the other side of the world early in your relationship. Fuck that!

ohmanseriously · 14/11/2020 09:16

I won't be taking him back.

OP posts:
randomer · 14/11/2020 09:50

Best of luck OP, you have had a rotten time. He is a fool.

SandyY2K · 14/11/2020 10:11

He wasn't so drunk that he had the sense to hide your photos away was he. Alcohol is a convenient excuse...it may have loosened him up..
But he was well aware of what he was doing.

ohmanseriously · 14/11/2020 10:12

Do you think people who cheat have a reason beyond sex?

I'm struggling with the idea of someone throwing away a happy relationship for sex with someone they don't even seem to like much

Am I underestimating men's need for sex? Or are some people just capable of bad things and don't care as much?

OP posts:
Hazelnutlatteplease · 14/11/2020 10:24

Your real physical life's were really entirely seperate for 14 months. You may have had a relationship but everything bar the platonic had been stripped out.

It's not surprising that after a while the relationship doesn't seem very real to him or to anyone he is physically with. Just a close friendship really.

If you believe he didn't like her very much you are deluding yourself. You don't spend the amount of one to one time together they did if you don't like the person you are with. Long hikes with someone you don't like? Nah not a chance. Youve got to get on well with them.

Yes of course she'll lie to you. So will he.

SandyY2K · 14/11/2020 10:30

Do you think people who cheat have a reason beyond sex?

For some people its just for the sex..others for the emotional side...could be for affection....neglect in their primary relationship. These are all excuses really.

Anybody who is drunk, screaming and attempting to batter down the door of a man she had drunken sex with a few times is not a totally rational person.

I agree

She eventually got taken away by the police because she kept it up for so long.

Exactly

Her behaviour is of the bunny boiling type.

I've inadvertently been the OW over 25 years ago...I didn't know he had a long-term GF...I just told him to get lost and never contact me again when I found out.

I have more self respect than to go banging on his door and screaming like a fool.