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Original poster

How do people find out about partners affairs long time afterwards

35 replies

CaramelMacchiatto · 01/03/2022 19:00

I'm genuinely interested as I always thought they're more likely to find out when it's actually happening rather than months or even years after. I often read people mention it here without providing details how this was discovered. Anyone experienced this?

OP posts:
11stonesomething · 01/03/2022 19:15

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This post has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

Roxy75 · 01/03/2022 19:30

The other woman wrote me a letter to my place of work. He'd split up with her and she felt I ought to know. He'd been with her for 7 years!!

Original poster
CaramelMacchiatto · 01/03/2022 20:02

11stonesometing - did you suspect during the affair or after it was finished? Did he behave differently? Did you confront him and hid he admit the affair? I also wonder why the OW reach out to you. Was it because of the issues with him or did she genuinely felt you needed to know?

Roxy75 - are you saying their affair lasted 7 years while he was with you???

OP posts:
11stonesomething · 01/03/2022 20:40

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MermaidEyes · 01/03/2022 20:59

@Roxy75

The other woman wrote me a letter to my place of work. He'd split up with her and she felt I ought to know. He'd been with her for 7 years!!

Woah! 7 years?! Did you ever suspect anything?

My auntie always suspected her husband of having an affair with her friend but could never prove it. Eventually they got divorced and he remarried. He also stayed friendly with the female friend and her husband. Years later it came out that they were having an affair while he was married to his second wife. My auntie is still convinced he started the affair while married to her.

Bettalife · 01/03/2022 21:08

I was looking for the password to his online banking as we were working through issues related to his gambling problem that had recently come to light. I noticed an unusual email address and password - logged in assuming it was a secret account he used for gambling. And discovered messages, photos and videos between him and multiple other women dating back 13 years to just after we got married along with details of his profiles on a couple of no-strings dating type websites.
I kicked him out that night and filed for divorce by the end of the week.
Looking back, I came close to finding out a couple of times, but he was very convincing with his stories and I didn’t think I had any reason not to trust him.

Original poster
CaramelMacchiatto · 01/03/2022 21:34

Oh so a coincidence really... How did you cope emotionally?

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Roxy75 · 01/03/2022 21:58

I always kind of thought would he but he always gave me bullshit about how he hated cheaters. We split in August 2012 and she wrote to me in October 2013. She gave me her number to call her. I did and I listened to her. She had been dumped for another woman and wanted me to help her exact revenge. I told her really kindly, they never leave their wives. We split cos he got on my last nerve! Find yourself your own man, not someone else's.
I was hurt that he gave some woman the my wife don't understand me crap but I'd moved on by the time she wrote to me.
My ex and I get on great now which is fab for our daughter. I totally forgive him and never thought I would x

Bettalife · 01/03/2022 22:27

@CaramelMacchiatto I mostly felt relieved because suddenly a lot of things made sense and it made me realise quite how much he’d gaslighted and lied through the entire 16 year relationship.
I’ll never regret our time together - four amazing kids that wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t been together.
And I’m a firm believer in things happening for a reason. I’m a much stronger person now and I wouldn’t be the person I am now without going through what I did.
And I probably wouldn’t have met my current boyfriend if we hadn’t split when we did and then had a couple of years sorting my life out and healing first.
I don’t know- I guess I’m quite pragmatic - everyone goes through some sort of shitshow in their life at some point. That was mine. And I chose to count my blessings, deal with it, learn from it and move on (as much as you can when you still have to deal with the idiot because he’s my kids’ dad). Maybe there’ll be more rubbish situations to deal with in the future, maybe there won’t. But I know whatever life throws at me, I’ll make the best of it that I can.
Does that make sense?

whirlygirl · 01/03/2022 23:09

I got a vitriolic and very articulate and detailed email from a woman scorned one evening. She also simultaneously sent postcards, letters and emails to various members of the family, colleagues and friends. It was spectacular.

By then I was divorced and well out of it all. Caused a few waves with his new partner, who he'd cheated on me with. It was proper karma in action.

HamstersAteMySandwich · 02/03/2022 00:42

In my previous relationship I actually found out thanks to ExDP not deregistering her phone number from iMessage when she switched over to Samsung!

Long story short she cleared out data on her iCloud account, attached it to the shared iPad as she still had time left on her Apple Music subscription plan, and a message from this woman popped up while I was watching something on Disney+ talking about how she missed her and then some sexual stuff.

highlighta · 02/03/2022 05:19

One of his work colleagues told me.
Thought I needed to know what was going on.

I was 99% sure he was with ow anyway, but colleague only told me about a year after. By this time ex had moved out( for some space and to clear his head) and was living 'alone'. Except he wasn't.

So he went from moving out to shacking up with ow straight away. When the DC went to visit for the weekend, she'd go to her sister and take all her belongings with her! It then made sense as to why when ex wanted the DC for the weekend they would go away somewhere and book into accomm elsewhere.

To this day he will not admit to having an affair with her. I am grateful to his colleague though. He took him a lot to tell me what was going on behind the scenes.
It affected my DC with all this hiding and cloak and daggar stuff. Some years later now, they are married and my DC have gone NC with him. He lied so much about an awful lot of stuff.

Hesheweeshe · 02/03/2022 06:57

Anonymous email over 2 years after the event. Assume it was from the ow, although she claims it wasn't. But weird that i sent her a message thru fb messenger and she responded immediately like she was sat waiting for my message. All of a sudden all her cryptic weird sm posts about karma and why does a man awaken ur heart when he has no intention of loving you etc. lyrics from songs about knowing he was someone elses man suddenly all made sense 🙄🙄. My dh must have be cringing when i used to say who the hell is she posting about!!!

PermanentTemporary · 02/03/2022 07:07

I think if my [relative 1] ever finds out about my [relative 2's] affair with a mutual acquaintance, it will be because post divorce relative 1 puts the worst possible construction on everything relative 2 does whereas before the divorce 1 gave 2 the benefit of the doubt. I think 1 and 2 had a fairly awful marriage tbh and I'm glad its over though 1 obviously didn't deserve to be cheated on.

Hesheweeshe · 02/03/2022 07:28

@Roxy75 classic! She felt you had a right to know after he dumped her but was quite happy for you to have no clue and him deceive you for 7 years whilst it suited her.

The ow always feels the wife has a right to know what a disgusting rat their husbands are once they get dumped and the affair is over. But not before the affair starts and they realise a married man is getting a bit friendly to them and crossing lines or whilst they are having an affair with the wife's husband. For some reason during that time it's the wife's own fault if her husband is straying!

HaggisBurger · 02/03/2022 07:49

@PermanentTemporary

I think if my [relative 1] ever finds out about my [relative 2's] affair with a mutual acquaintance, it will be because post divorce relative 1 puts the worst possible construction on everything relative 2 does whereas before the divorce 1 gave 2 the benefit of the doubt. I think 1 and 2 had a fairly awful marriage tbh and I'm glad its over though 1 obviously didn't deserve to be cheated on.
Eh? 🤯 are they married to each other?
Hrpuffnstuff1 · 02/03/2022 10:15

A friend told me 5 yrs after it'd happened.
I'd not seen this friend for a long time, bumped into her in a bar.
She just said, 'I think you and your girlfriend need to talk'.
The day after in the morning I confronted her and she confessed. It was only the week before whilst out for a meal she claimed how happy and lucky she was.
Men and women are lying deceitful fuckers when they want to be.

Original poster
CaramelMacchiatto · 02/03/2022 13:02

Hesheweeshe exactly what I thought too! How funny they only remember the sisterhood after being dumped...

Another thing that really strikes is that the DP/DHs deny despite the evidence! Shocking they can't admit any wrong doing , not to mention to apologize

OP posts:
Original poster
CaramelMacchiatto · 02/03/2022 13:06

Hrpuffnstuff1 so what happened afterwards? Did she come clean? Are you still together?

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Original poster
CaramelMacchiatto · 02/03/2022 13:07

Sorry just read she confessed...

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DisneyMillie · 02/03/2022 13:14

Went on computer looking for something else and stumbled across messages from his affair with a work colleague backed up automatically from his iPhone - he didn’t realise it did that - had been over for 3 years by then (with him ending it) which is probably the only reason we’re still together. Looking back I can see clues from her fb posts suddenly all being things he is into etc but I had no idea he’d been unfaithful and if I’m honest would have preferred the blissful ignorance.

thethreemuskateers · 02/03/2022 13:32

Myself and my ex of 18.5 years seemed to have drifted apart I put it down to lockdown. I asked him to leave and very soon after my close friend who also lived next door started going out every Friday she didn’t have many friends so was very unlike her. They were always on what’s app at the same time. She started leaving her kids and going for 6am walks. Eventually 7 weeks after he left his google search came up on my phone as I had his old phone searches for hotels, Sunday lunches the very place she claimed to have started going out, around 25 miles away. They’ve always denied it never started until after he left but I’m not certain! They thought the were so clever but never underestimate the power of a women who knows there is something going on!

Hrpuffnstuff1 · 02/03/2022 13:36

@CaramelMacchiatto

Hrpuffnstuff1 so what happened afterwards? Did she come clean? Are you still together?
Oh yes she came cleanish, I didn't need to know the details though. She met him on a night out had a fling, then a full blown affair. I packed my bags and left within the HR. We'd been together 10yrs plus, no mortgage, plenty of hols, great social life etc.

We're not together it's was over 13 yrs ago now. Although her grown up daughter messaged me this week to say hi...

I was having a drink with a friend, he told me he thought his wife became close with a colleague. He thought one mistake wasn't too bad in 20 yrs of marriage.

I dunno, I just think flings are rife, I don't trust anyone 100%.

Hopefullyoneday12 · 02/03/2022 14:08

I found out on Facebook.
He had been cheating for several months about 4 years before I saw the messages on there.
They would argue, she'd block his number and then he'd contact her via FB message until she would unblock him so I never saw any of the sexting stuff just the arguing and him chasing her side of it.

Those messages were deleted and I was using his FB when suddenly a happy birthday msg from her came up... and with it their whole chat history on there. If she hadn't of wished him happy bday that day I would have been none the wiser. BUT a lot of other things then made sense with hindsight... like that one time I came home and he was changing the sheets. Or the time I couldn't get in the house because the keys were in the door from the inside and he wouldn't answer or pick up the phone. And the impromptu nights out with random friends I didn't know and had hardly heard of.

meadowrye · 02/03/2022 14:49

This is an old one from over a decade ago, and I found out after we'd split up. I received a letter for him, which I opened, from the CSA.

There were no details, and for some reason I thought it must be concerning a new baby, but it turned out to be a child a few years old, in between the ages of our two children! I'd never have had another child with him had I known. He said he didn't know about the child (he was a habitual liar so who knows) but he certainly kept an affair secret.