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.

Please get some real life support too op sending

I'm really sorry OP. What a horrible betrayal. I can't believe she be-friended you afterwards. Your head must be spinning and you won't know which way is up.

What you're feeling is completely normal.

It's so hard to wrap your mind around the betrayal that has been going on.

Show your friend the thread, if you can’t find the words to tell her yourself? Once you have some real life support around you you’ll feel better.
Are you managing to eat? Often you’re so shocked you don’t want to. When I had a nasty, shocking break up I found melon was all I wanted. I could also use HelpDirect through my job, which allowed me to speak with a counsellor over the phone (and later two face to face appointments) which helped me get my head around things.

Nothing to add. Read the previous thread and just wanted to express how sorry I am how everything unfolded yesterday. Please look after yourself - right now, just concentrate on you and your girls. Sending

Just read the updates on your other thread and sending you support

Of course it’s normal to flip flop and your emotions are all over the place.

There are no easy answers but speaking with a close friend will give you strength and comfort.

I read your previous thread and commented. But one thing that the keyboard warriors on MN do that drives me nuts is post stupid comments about leave, throw him out, divorce now etc etc. However life is far more complicated than that and it takes time and consideration to make decisions for the future.

It may well be that your marriage is over due to your husband’s continuing feelings for this woman that have been in place for quite some years. But you have to deal with each day at a time firstly and come to your own conclusions.

Take each hour, each day and see how you get on. Small steps. Small plans and thoughts. Gradually the mist will clear and you will be better able to see what to do.

I can’t help but think that this is something that has troubled you for so long that you’ve almost learnt to live with it. But now you have been presented with different facts it’s going to take a while to process the information that you have and what you want to do with / about your new found knowledge.

Life isn’t black and white, but do hold uppermost in your mind what the actual title of your previous thread was as it was very revealing. I can understand how in some ways you wished you hadn’t been told the truth (or however much of the truth that was revealed yesterday) but your thread title was written before your husband actually confessed more to you. Deep down the whole situation has made you uncomfortable for years and this is what you need to constantly need to remember in the days and weeks to come.

@Sazdun I’m about a month down the track from where you are now. It’s been the hardest month of my life. I totally get the flip flopping emotions or roller coaster as I characterise it to myself. What I would say is don’t make any irrevocable decision right now when your head is all over the place. Take some time to think about what you want, maybe go ahead with counselling as the clarity you gain could be beneficial whether you decide to try to fix things or split. Feel free to pm if you want some support from someone who’s very recently been there.

I think I would advise making an appointment to see a lawyer. Probably a good idea to know with relative certainty where you stand. It commits you to nothing. But will help maintain the fear. For that you'll need all your joint and individual financials.

Tell those you need to tell.

Book counseling or tell him to. Pass the job of clearing up the mess to him.

I think counselling would help you. In lots of places you can self refer. It's a huge shock and betrayal from both people close to you. It will take time to talk through and process.

Please do tell a friend. Good idea to show this thread, perhaps.

Going forward, trust your instincts. You've been denying them for years but now you've learnt that they were absolutely spot on.

I’m so sorry op.

Please tell your friend so you can get more support. Tbh I would tell his mum and sister if you are close. Sometimes when their own mother confronts them does the reality fully set in. If everyone he knows and trusts around him is sickened by this and tells him so then he can’t pretend that she’s just a friend etc and that you are over reacting.

I am sorry to say that I expect his Mother will say, he was having a last fling, he wasn't unfaithful as you weren't already married.."Its water under the bridge."
Blood is thicker than water

So sorry about all this. It's just unbelievable what the two of them have done.

I commented on the other thread but not sure if you're still following there. I wanted to say, please don't throw/give your daughters' things away - you will be hurting them and it's not their fault. My suggestion is that you buy them lovely replacement things and then gradually "lose" the things given by the OW.

I totally understand your anger and wanting to get everything gone. But your girls won't understand that and will be hurt.

Sending lots of love to you. I haven't been in your situation, so I really can't even imagine how you must be feeling right now. However, I have been in a similar situation. My husband left me completely out of the blue when I was five months pregnant with our second child. The months that followed were filled with emotional abuse and manipulation. It was such a horrible, heart wrenching time. I remember feeling like the person that I had known and loved for 10 years had died because the person he was and still is now is a completely different person than what I thought he was. And I suppose over the next few weeks and months you will just learn to come to terms with that. The man you loved doesn't exist, because the Man you loved would never of done this to you.
Those early days of any heartbreak are so lonely, so dark, so confusing. I remember walking down the street one time in tears just completely poured out of my eyes unexpectedly. I didn't even know that they were coming but I couldn't stop them.
I suppose I'm sharing this with you because I just want you to know that you are not alone. I don't want to take away what he's done to you, because it is the complete lowest of the low and I admire your strength through these last couple days. But I just really want you to know that you're not alone. There's lots of people on this forroom and lots of people in real life who are available to speak to you and to speak to people. It's hard telling people what happened. I was exactly the same. I was so embarrassed because not only had we only been married for one year but I was pregnant. I felt humiliated. But once you break the ice and tell people it really and truly does get easier. So much more support will be available to you. And that really is what you need right now. If you don't feel like you can tell people in real life, just do it over text message. That's what I did and then once a couple people knew I just asked that they told other people. Saying all of this I didn't rush to tell everybody. I told my close circle of people who needed to know but I didn't tell work or anyone else until I was ready which was about a month later.
I hope you're feeling a bit lighter today, but if you're not do come back here because myself and I'm sure plenty of us are here for you to talk or listen if you need it.

Thinking about you this morning.

I haven’t been in this situation but I wanted to post to let you know I was thinking of you and sending you strength.

It really broke my heart to see this unfold, if I were you I would have some serious questions regarding whether the OW (having known he had lied to her in the past about you) really thought you knew about them or was actually turning a blind eye. What wife or gf would knowingly befriend a OW and certainly without discussing what happened (given he had said to her you were angry when you found out). It obviously benefitted her and it benefitted your husband. I wouldn’t trust her and she will be protecting her own marriage and ‘good name’ now so I suspect if anything did go on since you have been married when your husband was comforting her all those times you will never find out the truth (high chance there was physical at least kisses but it was certainly an emotional affair during that time).

I wouldn’t be able to trust my husband if this happened to me, I wouldn’t let him back into the home or my life in any capacity and I would clearly explain to him that he has clearly chosen her over you all these years by bringing her into your family.

Could you go and visit your sister in Australia? I think you need to get away from him and the OW for awhile.

Don’t let them manipulate you.

@Wednesdayafternoon I am so sorry. I hope things are better with you now. At 5 months pregnant as well! You are spot on with it feeling like some one has died.

I just cried on the way home from dropping D at nursery. One if the girls innocently said. No daddy this morning as he normally does the drop off and it immediately had me thinking oh what's he done with you. I hate being that person.

Escaping from all of this would be great but just cannot afford to go anywhere. Even if I could I don't have that sort of relationship with my sister. I love both her and my mum because they are my sister and mum but we were never that sort of family. My mum was always so bitter and angry at other people's success and happiness. She is just one of those people that always has to find a negative and moan. I almost feel she would revel in this given my dad was a cheat and strung her along for years. It is why I loved my H's family so much, this massive friendly family who just made me one of them. I was so desperate for that and for my kids to have that. All our friends were aunties and uncles. It is why for a while I accepted OW as being another auntie and when her step dad and mum came on the scene just as i went back to work four years ago, i appreciated the help as I found working and a baby that never slept so hard. Having some older people to step in and be the grandparents my parents are unable to be was nice. H'S parents are good but just don't live close and have lots of other grandkids too. I never had any grandparents and an older neighbour became an adopted granny so to speak when I was a kid and I figured those two could be the same especially as they had no grandchildren of their own and given OW infertility and her brother dying it was unlikely they would. What a mess.

Start to prepare yourself now for his family not being as supportive as you might expect. Don't rely on them. Rely on your friends.

Hang on. She can't have children? So he's basically manipulated you into 'sharing' yours with her?
That adds another layer onto this, doesn't it?
I'm so sorry

It's such a terrible set of emotions that come and go all the time. Overwhelming thoughts and feelings. So many triggers.

I'm so scared of that @IncompleteSenten and these key people disappearing from my daughter's lives. The baby won't know any different by my older one will and she doesn't deserve that especially as she got so upset during lockdowns etc about not being able to see people. She is such an outgoing wee thing who chats to everyone and loves having company.

She had cancer and there was a high risk of it spreading/getting worse if she went through hormone treatment so between that and the chemo/radio therapy can't have kids. Fucking idiot here was the one that told her even if she can't have kids she can still be the best auntie to all her friends kids and that adoption is always an option. She was around before all that though and seems to love kids more than my friends who are also childless. As mentioned before very generous to ours in giving them her time, attention and gifts and similarly with our other friends kids too. Sometimes it was awkwardly generous like she didn't grasp spending that much and turning up with 4-5 things is just not what you do. We had a superheroes and princesses party right before Covid struck for my daughter's 3rd birthday and she came as Elsa from Frozen and ever since then my daughter and her wee BFF have been obsessed by her and adore her which if I am being honest I hated. Now I am wondering if everything she has and H have done has been a thought out manipulation to get into my family or if she really thought we were all moving on and she was just for example wanting to come as my daughter's favourite to make my daughter happy. Pff so many thoughts!