Needing support for those days after first finding out about husband's infidelity

[Sazdun]

Okay third time lucky. Unfortunately some of you will have followed what happened to me yesterday and finding out my husband of 8 years was unfaithful. There have been super kind people who have reached out and from the bottom of my heart I thank you. I wish j could buy each of you a well deserved wine or chocolates. I still can't find it in me to reach out to my IRL friends or find the words but I am meeting my friend tomorrow and lets hope I can by then. My original thread has been put up so I can get some of the helpful info people posted but no more replies can be made. My follow up thread has since been deleted because it is a thread about a thread. I did not know this is not something you are supposed to do. Anyway I have started this to keep anyone who is helping me stay updated or for anyone going through the horrible or similar same thing to get some helpful advice. Some people have questioned if I am infact real. I am. I am a 38 year old mum of two who has been with her husband since she was 23. I was concerned about his relationship with another woman but while I came on here yesterday thinking I would get feedback on how to approach my feelings and deal with my husband, I got angry and stood up for myself. I never ever thought it would lead to this. So if you doubt me or what to pull every little thing I type please don't, predictive text is a bitch. This is my life, my girls lives and I just need support and help.

If only he could understand that you need demonstrative actions that would make a difference for your marriage going forward.

But once again he mentions his hesitancy and hurt in potentially ending the friendship with this woman and it’s something that he needs to work through. Why can’t he see how damaging this all is, especially after everything that has recently happened?

If the boot was on the other foot and you were the “guilty party” in all of this can you honestly imagine that he would be ok with these types of words being spoken about another man and your reluctance to sever the close and loving friendship that you have with said man?

I can understand how you take comfort in lots of his words, which he seems to mean. But he still seems unwilling to forgo his bloody relationship with her which is at the crux of the whole situation.

It still reads as though he loves his life with you and his girls, but needs and wants her friendship as part of his life as well. He just doesn’t seem to realise how much his needing her in his life as well is destroying his marriage. Surely no friendship is worth that is it?

I would ask him what he's prepared to do to save your marriage. Throw that ball straight back into his court. He's caused this mess so he has to clear it up.
It's very early days @Sazdun you're still in shock so none of this will feel real. You've already proven what a lovely woman and mother you are so don't torment yourself. Hope you sleep well. We're all rooting for you.

I want to know if OW has been in touch with him. How do I word it?

Assume he has.
You shouldn't have to ask. Just like you shouldn't have to ask her to give her up.

He should be trying his very best to reassure you or let you know he's not in contact etc. so that you are not left wondering, but he's leaving you in a position where you have to ask for all these details cos he's an absolute arsehole.

I am so angry but reading him call us his girls and talking about loving the girls looking like me and our wee bits, makes my heart flutter.
It's intended to make your heart flutter.

With the exception of all the events in recent days I love my life, my house. Things I have worked hard for. I don't want to lose them. I suppose it feels like a failure. Part of me wants to win. But what am I winning?

That's the thing, the old life is gone and can never be the same. Many people choose to forgive because they want so badly for it all to work, but even though they want it so badly most of the time they cannot forget even though they have forgiven...and it causes so much more misery and pain. Future happy moments are often bittersweet and everything is tainted.

@Rainbowpurple

Ugh he is still saying he is hesitant to cut OW off his life even though his life with you and the girls depend on it. This will be it for me I am afraid. He wouldn't hesitate if he knows he is about to lose the most important thing in his life.

Same here.

Sorry OP, you sound so lovely which makes this even worse.

You still refer to him and you as "we". You don't want to be the divorced family. You want your daughter to go to the good school ,and in time, presumably your younger daughter as well. You are already a stronger woman than I have already been. Do you think you can put aside or at least to the back of your mind,the betrayal by both of them ? The manipulation by your husband, the infidelity ?. If you could make absolutely certain they would see each other only at work (or if she had the decency to leave) do you think you could see yourself letting him come home to you ? Or would the knowledge of what they did and all the anguish he has caused you niggle and fester and eat away at you ? You need to be very honest with yourself and you need to be 100% straight with him. IF you let him come back he has zero chances left to fuck up. He has zero excuses to text or otherwise communicate with her outside work or work hours. I would say you could be certain that if you take him back your and his friends wouldn't tolerate him trying to pull the wool over their eyes again. IF you let him back will you trust him ? You and your daughters have so much riding on these decisions, is he worth it ? I hope you can clear your mind and see a clear path ahead and to hell with what anyone else thinks you should do.

And what does he think will happen now?

You obviously won't go back to being mates with her yourself.

So his vision is to further compartmentalise you both? See her without you there as it would be too painful for you to see... so see her in private making you feel even more insecure about their relationship? Seeing her with your daughters as they love auntie OW and having to think up reasons to tell them you aren't going?

If he genuinely couldn't imagine losing you and losing the chance to still live with his daughters versus sharing custody, he would have said one simple thing. That he understands their friendship is now over. And that he is happy to give it up for you and start trying to rebuild your trust.

That's all he had to say. And he couldn't.

He isn't putting you or the girls first.

God he's a pathetic tortured soul type.

You sound so lovely and so, so out of his league

If he genuinely couldn't imagine losing you and losing the chance to still live with his daughters versus sharing custody, he would have said one simple thing. That he understands their friendship is now over. And that he is happy to give it up for you and start trying to rebuild your trust.

That's all he had to say. And he couldn't.

He isn't putting you or the girls first.

God he's a pathetic tortured soul type.*

Completely agree with this. He's acting just as tortured about the idea of losing her as he is about you OP.

You deserve so much better

Just read his message.
He thinks he will get away with this. He is hiding behind "not understanding his feelings."

I suggest counselling. He's not showing any self awareness here. If you are going to work this out you'll need to have some external support. Alternatively it will help you to break up cleanly.

I'm so cross reading his excuses.

If he wants to get you back he needs to be incredibly passionate about it and actually follow the saying of actions > words.

He needs to stop with the essay text messages which are designed to pull at your heart strings and start doing stuff to fix it. Ie telling this OW to fuck off in such strong terms she never would even want to speak to him again. Blocking her on every single app, social media account, number etc possible. Actively looking for a job and getting with a new company, even if it’s a job he won’t enjoy, just to get away from her. He needs to come up with a plan regarding the house and giving you the option of moving if you wanted to.

A big soppy text and a basket full of breakfast materials doesn’t fucking cut the mustard here. It would work if he forgot it was your birthday, but not for something like this.

My advice is to text him in very clear, plain terms, outlining your conditions of even possibly considering to give the relationship a second chance. A bullet pointed text with clear demands of what he needs to do within the next few days, or the divorce is going ahead. And don’t phrase things like “please stop seeing her”, “I’d like it if you wouldn’t see her” etc. Be blunt as fuck and to the point, do not waste your politeness on this asshole.

Once he’s got the text he cannot then turn around and pretend he “didn’t know what you wanted him to do” and play the victim, as he is doing now. You’ll soon know who he wants by the actions that occur.

Do not set your standards low for him. He has to exceed your demands to even potentially be given a chance (this is important, make it evidently clear that the ball is in your court even if he does do x, y and z. If he loves you as much as he says then he won’t care about anything else other than getting you back, or at least trying to).

You deserve so much fucking more than this. If he can’t step up now and go above and beyond, he isn’t worth it.

Oh, and one final point. Tell his fucking man child if he ever uses the phrasing of “please don’t give up on us” after he’s the one with his tongue down some woman’s pants, or similar, the divorce will be started immediately the following day. How fucking dare he try to put the burden of this situation on your shoulders when you’ve been nothing but kind, trusting, considerate and loyal. What a fucking slimy bastard he is. Don’t let him get away with any of that shit. Pull him up on every thing he says, the cowardly lying bastard.

I actually cannot get over the cheek of this man that he still hasn't said he'll drop her as a friend.

Having cheated with her, stayed friends with her, encouraged a friendship with the OP and the OW all the while letting people believe that the OP knew and was ok with it....

He now wants to keep his wife and still keep the OW as his friend...and this time everyone would know that the OP knows about it and was deceived the first time around, but he still wants everything to carry on as normal!!

He's delusional.

Hi Op I would get rid of the self-absorbed, self-pitying fucker for his texts alone. Nine-tenths of which are about the OW and how they both feel and how much they connect. He’s talking about you pissing in a bucket but putting her on a pedestal. I don’t know how you are able to read this drivel and consider having him back even for the sake of your daughters. Everything, and I do mean everything, is about him and how he feels.

Sazdun, you are correct. This man is very stubborn. HIS wants/needs are front and center.

He is obsessed with OW and is scrambling to keep her and maintain the status quo. The purpose of his self-serving missive is to manipulate you into accepting OW in his life forever. He is NOT taking you seriously. If he were, he’d have definitively ended his personal relationship with her.

My Ballsy Girl. When he met OW, you’d been together 7 years and were engaged. Where was this adoration of you when he was, at the very least, spending 2013-14 bonding, flirting, kissing, sexting, and going down on OW, at the very least? He actually downplayed your relationship so he could “see where her and him would go.” He refers to the cunnilingus as a stupid, impulsive mistake, but he was clearly cheating with OW for a good while prior to that night.

I don’t want to have sex/an affair. He appears to only consider physical involvement to be infidelity. He is not accepting/admitting that their deeply intimate connection, which he is desperate to sustain, is an emotional affair. And he is lying by denying their physical attraction. Sazdun, I strongly advise you to order Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass for you both to read.

Seeing things that weren’t there. He is absolutely gaslighting you re his broken-hearted response at OW’s wedding. You know what you saw and what he said in the immediate aftermath. Trust that. He is re-writing history.

I too am disturbed that he lamented hurting you and OW in the same breath. I also agree that he has made a public mockery of you by keeping you in the dark for years while everyone was privy.

He had an EA/PA pre-marriage, and later restarted an emotional affair with OW under her terms, conducting it in your orbit and creating space to act on their deepening intimacy. They’ve had the best of both worlds. H enjoyed his marriage/family, and OW basked in the validating glow of your family and friends. Both of them have been hugely gratified by their emotional bond, sexual frisson, KISA/Damsel dynamic, and flirty, intimate banter. They will fight giving it up.

Sazdun, you have no marriage until H cuts OW loose.

Whoops…too many ‘at the very leasts.’

@Malibuismysecrethome
It's like he's concerned the OP might pass on what he says to the OW so he just gushes about her.

I agree it's all about how he feels. He says I am paying for being a wanker putting my short term desire above being a good man.

He's paying for it?? Sounds like the OP is paying for it a hell of a lot more.

I have destroyed the trust and respect of my partner in life and a friend and likely lost your trust if not more in the process.

He's lost her trust and respect...who suffers more there? The OP. She's the one who would have to deal with the pain, trauma, paranoia, insecurity etc. that goes along with this kind of betrayal from a partner.

and what the fuck is this? I want her like the rest of them in my life but I know why moving forward that may now not happen. My hesitancy to do this and why the thought of it hurts me so much, is something I need to work through

The fact that at this moment he's worried about the hurt he might have to face giving up his 'friend'. He's unbelievable!!

He needs to stop with the essay text messages which are designed to pull at your heart strings

Totally agree with this too. He needs to cut that crap because it's manipulative. If you are communicating with him because you want answers to questions then he should give you them without a big introduction with memories and nostalgia.

I totally understand that that stuff will be giving you comfort right now and it's probably the stuff that you are aching to hear (extremely common in your position) but when he starts off a message like that it tugs at your heart strings, then you read the bad stuff and you're sad and upset and so you re-read the top bit again to feel better and don't dissect all the other stuff properly, the gaslighting is harder to spot etc.

Why should you have to ask HER to stay away? He should be making that call himself. I notice that there has been no hint of this. You need to remind yourself that he has always wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

I think as hard as it is, it’s important to remember when speaking to him that yojr husband is a skilled liar. He has lied to you since before your wedding (when they were involved in the emotional and then physical affair), lied after the wedding and for 8 years, lied to her (tho fuck that bitch she knew deep down), lied to his friends and has continued to lie lie lie

He’s a liar and you can’t trust anything he has said, is saying, and will say. Mr “I love my girls” isn’t actually taking any action to put his “girls’” feelings first in any of this - he’s too busy “clearing his head”. What a liar.

The opening of that gross message made me feel a bit sick OP. The "you never fail to smile... you make the best of everything... " is a subtle message that your sadness and anger about this are unacceptable... He wishes you would just give a "smiling capiche" about this just like when you get mad at him over the dog towel or the dishwasher. But if you MUST get angry (reminder: he likes the smiley ballsy girl, not the angry woman), he knows how to perform. He knows to say how much he hates himself, how he would kill anyone who treated you the way he's treated you. How confused he is and he doesn't understand ANY of it.. .so how could he POSSIBLY explain it to you? All he knows is that he doesn't want to lose you, so you can't give up on the marriage. Actually it's easy really, all you need to do is forgive him (oh - and while you're at it, give us a smile - there, that's better! That's my girl!), he doesn't need to do anything except tell you that he's sorry and maybe go to counselling to revel in his unique, special, irresistible feelings about OW, and it's all good.

Extra gross points for invoking his dead grandmother.

It's REALLY telling that you said this OP: " I know I have spent years being the cool gf/ wife and being smiley and jokey when I have sometimes been annoyed or not happy because I wanted to not lose him to someone else if I nag or go on. Over time i became that person it is no longer an act. It has happened less since I had my daughter's because I just did not have the energy to be so easy going but I now think if I had been 100% me from the start would we have lasted."

He's telling you as much - smile about this, be ballsy about this, tell him all is forgiven, and he can go on as he was without any disruption to his nice life.

(Are you the OP that poured his whiskey collection down the sink? If so, kudos... If not, does he collect whiskey?)

@Fraaahnces

Why should you have to ask HER to stay away? He should be making that call himself. I notice that there has been no hint of this. You need to remind yourself that he has always wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

Oh yes! This is cake-eating in its purest form. Suggest you look up Chumplady's cake-eating archives OP (can't link from where I am).

In everything he has written, all you need to pay attention to is this paragraph:

I want her like the rest of them in my life but I know why moving forward that may now not happen. My hesitancy to do this and why the thought of it hurts me so much, is something I need to work through

Let those words stand out: I want her in my life.

He is not in the right place now to receive an ultimatum. You should only consider taking him back when his words change to "I only want you in my life."

Sazdun, your marriage has never been a mutually equal one, and that letter is a prime example. If H was serious about taking responsibility for the recovery of the marriage and helping you heal, he would have drawn a line under OW days ago.

I can’t get over his massive sense of entitlement. He is a master manipulator who is pulling out all the stops. After all he’s done, he is pushing you to deny your boundaries and swallow your great hurt to please him and let him keep OW. He clearly cherishes her and cannot bear the thought of losing her.

His equating his relationship with OW with those of his other mates is ludicrous. They do not have mutual sexual chemistry and history. He has not kept sexual secrets with them. He has not invested his emotional energy on an intense level for years. He has not woven them tightly into the fabric of your family. Importantly, you have not felt unsettled and threatened by H’s other relationships, but if you had been, he would have stepped back.

I too think he’s being ‘counseled’ by OW.

I would ask what he intends to do to try and keep the family together. I agree with others that it's all about him, and that he should have already said he'll cut all contact with OW. But I wouldn't want to always wonder if it could ever have worked out.

You know he is lying because his lips are moving. I have experience of being manipulated and never saw it for years until someone pointed it out to me. His texts are so incredibly manipulative and he did not just become this person. I am sorry Op that you have been anywhere near this excuse for a man.

I would be sending him a message along the lines of this:

You destroyed what we had and what it could have been and despite this, you haven't made any real practical effort to try and set things right even if it's too late. Your words right now are just empty words. Actions speak louder and I will be judging you by your actions, what you have done and what you will be doing from now on. Your laterst message was all about you, your wants and needs. Nothing about what I want and need right now. Oh and by the way, my hellos to OW, I hope you have been thanking her for proof reading and editing your messages to me. She is in her honeymoon afterall.