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

[ohmanseriously]

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

@Hazelnutlatteplease

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.

It wasn't platonic.

We spoke morning, lunch break, evening mostly every day. We Facetimed, we planned the future, we had dates over facetime, we shared emotional intimacy, we sent each other gifts and provided emotional support. It takes effort long distance, but we were doing it.

If you were married with kids I would say he should quit and come back immediately to have a chance to work it out.
However, you were dating and he cheated, so, it would be very unwise to progress further.

I’ve read your thread in disbelief at times, what a complete rollercoaster. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and your boy has an amazing Mom. I know you will come out the other side of this stronger and such an inspiration to both your son and others close to you xx

@ohmanseriously

You ARE underestimating men's need for sex, her role in it (you don't blame her at all but she's not an innocent 18 year old with no life experience, she probably at least subconsciously for vanity and loneliness reasons put a lot of effort into making it possible) and you are underestimating his loneliness there.
Even if you spent ages talking every day, your partner can't and isn't supposed to fulfil all of your needs for friendship, and having people round you in RL is important, he was cut off from everyone he knew in RL while you still had your family and friends. I believe he just wanted some RL friends to spend time with to start with.
I don't know if I could forgive it but I wouldn't completely rule it out.
However there's no point giving life together a go if you'd resent it forever or the memory of it would potentially eat away at you for the rest of your life.
If you forgive it's because you want to, without any conditions attached. Basically listen to your true SELF, not some people with personal projections and agenda on the internet, and choose whatever makes you feel better, to forgive and give it another go or break up. Don't break up just because of your wounded pride though. Yes, you think turns out he can't be trusted, but really nobody human can be trusted if pushed and tested far enough, it's just everyone would have different weakest spots where they would fail faster than others. It's better to accept that humans are fallible.
All that said, I am terribly sorry it happened, poor poor @ohmanseriously, I wish you all the best 🤗

I've thought about it a lot, and I don't think he cheated just because of sex. We were very intimate emotionally and all his needs on that front were met. I know going without physical affection, sex and company is hard but I don't believe that is enough to make him throw away a relationship he was 100% committed to.

I think that he wasn't ready to settle down, and I think that's why he took the job in the first place. At the time we discussed the job offer last summer, I remember having mixed feelings.

On the one hand he was telling me he wanted to spend his life with me, and it would be a good way for us to get money to buy our house and build his CV for future jobs.

On the other hand, I thought it was weird timing to meet someone, fall in love and just as it was getting serious, to make the decision to be separated for so long and to a place that was close to impossible for me to visit.

I mean, if he'd gone to New York or something he would be far away but at least ACCESSIBLE. This place is SO remote, it's four flights from London, costs £2000 to get there, and the transport systems there and back are so disjointed and irregular that you need a week to get there with various layovers and there's only one route a month. So if I ever needed him in an emergency (even without covid) it would potentially have taken weeks to get home anyway.

He reassured me he'd be home for a month every six months, but I remember asking him how he'd get home in an emergency and asking what would happen if one of us got sick or something big happened and then surprise, surprise everything went bonkers.

I'd felt a few times before he went away like he compartmentalised life too much in a commitment-phobic sort of way and it took him ages to open up and get settled so I remember feeling a bit like when he took the job part of it might be avoiding committing.

Those fears were allayed a lot in me because when he was away, he did just seem very committed. He did all the right things, heaps of attention, reliable as clockwork and met all my needs. He was happy to plan the future with me and move in when he got home. But I wonder now if TALKING about it from the other side of the world is different from actually doing it.

I think it was a way of sort of "getting out of it" and he'd never fully mentally committed. Not in the sense that he wanted anyone else (I really don't believe he did), but in the sense that going there meant he could have this relationship with me, but where it was only "face to face" for a month every six months.

I think that's probably why he chose a life path the way he did, and also probably why he didn't have my photos out. I think he sort of went there and created a separate life where he was a different person almost. Not to try and have sex with people (as it sounds like he was repeatedly rejecting that) but just so no one really got to know too much about the person he is back in the UK.

He's hated the job anyway. And he's missed his daughter and me and he was gutted about not being able to come home so it was all a mistake in the end. He should really have just left but he thought it would be humiliating in some ways. Especially to his parents who he is really dysfunctional with.

He texted me this morning that he should have celebrated being with me and I think he hit the nail on the head really. He has this thing where he tells himself he's just "private", but he has a habit of being secretive in general by not sharing his inner life and it's a weird psychological thing with vulnerability.

But I think, anyway, that he did this because he wasn't 100% committed and so maybe he didn't think he had as much to lose.
I think it's easy for him to say now how much he wants to marry me etc and how he'd leave tomorrow because he doesn't actually have to do it. I think if I said "ok" he'd probably panic because he's a person who chose not to be there and live everyday life with me, and who chose not to arrive there and tell everyone he had a partner back home.

All that is weird, and probably why he cheated. I never paid too much mind to his weirdness about privacy and compartmentalising but I think in the long run it shows a person might not be living fully honestly or might have some issues.

@Cassandrainthenight

Thank you. I know. But over the same period I was in isolation with Covid for nearly five months and the only person I saw or touched in the flesh was my son and a couple of medical people at the hospital. I couldn't even see friends and family when I wasn't able to breathe. He's on an island going to barbecues and on hikes and to karaoke nights and work and pub quizzes and the beach. I just find it hard to compare the two.

I don't feel like my pride is wounded, I feel more like he disappointed me and isn't the person I thought he was.

I will forgive him, but I think as per my post just above that he has some issues that led to this chain of events and that me being supportive and understanding probably just allowed him to be in a situation where he was on an island where almost no one knew about me.

The cheating bastard

You know. As I was reading your second last post. I was thinking this woman isn’t fooling herself and is insightful and intelligent.

I then I got to “ill forgive him” and my face fell. I’m sad for you op. That you’ll let someone treat you so appallingly. And go back for more. Because there is more.

Do you not feel any sense of humiliation especially since your son knows, and he will be watching you desperately take this lying piece of shit back and be wondering why? What sort of lesson are you teaching him? That it’s ok to abandon someone, lie to them, cheat on them, and you just sit up and beg for some more.

@Bluntness100 sorry "I forgive him" means forgiving, not taking him back. I just mean I won't hate him or harbour ill will. I will not take him back though

Is your OP correct that you haven’t seen him since Sept ‘19? Why has he not come back at any point?even before C19.

The fact that the OP has said she won’t ever take him back but will forgive him shows just how amazing she is @Bluntness100!
Just because you forgive someone does not mean you are a push over or stupid. It means you’re able to emotionally detach and move on without holding on to triggering feelings.

You really do sound a pillar of strength OP, there’s going to be ups and downs but you’ll get through this even stronger than before.

One thing that shocked me is you mention he has a daughter - how old is she? That would tell me a lot about a man who’s prepared to be so far away from their child (age dependant)

He was meant to get one month home every six months, but covid happened before his first trip home. If it hadn't happened, he would have been home for the month of June and the month of
December this year. We decided on that so he could be there for Christmas / our anniversary and his daughter's 18th.

I really doubt he spends as much time thinking about you and analysing your actions and feelings as you do him. He has had it all his own way and erased you from his mind while he cheated on you for months, but still you are understanding? Jeez. Honestly, you sound like a pretty amazing person and you've been through a lot this year: ditch his flaky arse and find someone who is willing to give you their all.

@Namechangedforthisoct2 She is 18. I found this weird too, but he is a really good Dad generally. He takes her on holiday every year just the two of them, helps her with her studies, spend a lot of time and effort on her. I remember wishing my own Dad had been more like that. But I still felt it was weird that he was prepared to do it because I could NEVER do it myself.

Thank you so much. I wouldn't forgive him, but in the circumstances I feel like he has issues and made serious mistakes and that he's got life-long consequences to pay for those mistakes now.

I don't believe he was fully committed to me, but I know he loves me more than he's ever loved anyone, and I know he is suffering too now so I don't think me hating him helps. He is still a person I loved really deeply and who did a lot of good things too.

I just couldn't get past this.

Ah, ok I thought you meant you’d take him back when you said you’d forgive him, generally that’s what folks mean when they say it, good for you in not doing so and not harbouring any bitterness or grudges over it.

@Bluntness100 even if I could move past what he did (which I can't because it will never leave my head that he shagged someone else while I thought my child had cancer), I think him doing it is a symptom of something not being right. I think losing it is the only healthy and natural consequence for us both.

I think he has these vulnerability issues where he always seemed to approach relationships (and life) at arms length because he didn't like risks. I always told him that a much bigger risk than being hurt or picking the wrong person is letting the wrong person go.

He's hopefully learned that from all this.

He should never have gone to the bloody island and left me behind. He should have moved in here and be sitting next to me right now instead of being locked in the middle of nowhere with a woman smashing down his door and it's all his own fault.

I agree op, I think when someone cheats it is always a sign of something isn’t right, be it with them personally, the relationship or both.

What he has done is hard to comprehend, it’s appalling. But I don’t think he should be sitting next to you. I think someone much better should be.

Because no matter how you try to understand his behaviour, or even justify it, the bottom line is he walked out. he lied, he cheated,

Men who love you don’t do this.

I'm going to buck the trend here and say he has been away from you for 14 months. It's not unusual in that situation to get close to someone else IMO. If it had been a couple of weeks I would LTB but 14 months! I don't think that means he's an utter bastard and I would forgive him personally

I know some people could forgive but I know I definitely couldn't get past it. I just don't see him as the same person. I picked him because he is quiet and kind and loyal and he had never cheated (even in awful relationships) and he always told the truth.

I disagree that people who love you won't cheat, it's just that their capacity (of damaged dysfunctional people of which I was one myself) to love might not be great compared to people without similar issues, and also people sometimes cheat to punish themselves and not allow themselves a chance of a good life.

@ohmanseriously,

Judging by your later post about secretiveness and dysfunctional relationship with his parents it was pure self sabotage on his side. He doesn't believe he deserves to be happy or he's copying one of his parents behaviour or something like that. To be honest, as a person with a formerly dysfunctional relationship with my mother before therapy myself, I was the one who was secretive, comparmentalising, incapable of totally opening up etc etc...due to the armour built up due to being separated from my parents and institutionalised for a big part of my childhood. Did he go to a boarding school as a small child by any chance?
Anyway, your life together would have been very challenging in the end. People like him can be incredibly charming because they need to project this "love me, love me" message but usually relationships crumble because they are looking for a partner to build them up and nurture them in a way which only their own mother and father could have done when they were children :(

I always told him my number 1 red line was infidelity. Being separated for 14 months is hard, but his choice. I didn't ask him to take the job. I put my life in many ways on hold on the promise of someone returning and I think the least he owed me was to not allow me to waste my time. I also said to him that if he was unfaithful on the island I wanted to know immediately so I wasn't left waiting for someone without the facts. He was too cowardly to even tell me and I had to find out from the other woman.

@Cassandrainthenight This sounds exactly like him. He was always secretive and compartmentalised and he'd get quite panicked at times especially if pushed to open up. He can do so with me now, but it took a very long time.

He said last night he sabotaged himself and he needs to fix himself. I doubt very much he will though. I told him early on into the relationship that I thought he had attachment issues and bought him a book. He still has it, unread on the shelf :/

It was sadly probably easier for him to be on an island with nobody than be in a normal every day relationship with someone he loved. I feel like that's less stressful for him in a weird way.

He didn't go to boarding school but there was extreme parental neglect to the point he has almost no connection to them at all but yet still always seems to be trying to impress them with his achievements. They barely saw him as a child and his mother, in particular is very cold and he can't recall ever hearing "I love you". I don't think he loves them or feels loved by them and I honestly don't think he understood love at all until we were together.

He left and got married at 17 and that was very dysfunctional (she was a mother figure as you say) and when things turned bad she upped in the middle of the night and took his 3 year old daughter which he found really traumatic as I think his daughter was the only person he'd properly ever loved. It was a struggle for years to see her, which was hard on him too.

I do think the "armour" thing is why he doesn't let people into his private life at all and I think he has a general sense of pessimism that things won't go well. I'm the opposite way completely.

I never found like he needed me to nurture him or anything. We looked after each other and it felt pretty healthy, but I do feel like sometimes simple things were a challenge and obviously in the long run he made decisions that weren't good for us. It would have been really awful to wait two years for someone and then have them come back with commitment issues though!

@ohmanseriously

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?

Sex/companionship/validation. He's a complete arsehole for doing it, but some men or women can't deal with being alone for a long time.

Crap partner. Crap father. You sound like a fabulous woman, Op, and a great mother.

Thank you x