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.

You are entitled to take as much time as you like to make a decision. I have a feeling that a clear decision will come to you.

Forget about the text to OW. It may not have been your finest moment, but somehow I also find it quite satisfying. At least she now knows how delusional she was in believing that she could fix things. After all, no one, absolutely no one, can blame you for those outbursts, given the deception you suffered for 8 years.

I would say to DD that OW did a very hurtful thing to me and that I have decided that I cannot be friends with her any more. It's a bit tricky as you cannot have a full disclosure to a child. Some wise posters may be able to help you on this front.

They really seem to expect you to forgive and forget once you've had a bit of "space".

They have had YEARS to get their heads and feelings around it and none of them were the ones lied to or cheated on

Keep on keeping on, one foot in front of the other.

I think the phrase to use to your in-laws is that their son had an affair before you married and has carried on with it emotionally ever since and told you bare faces lies about it throughout.

Don't be afraid to call it an on-going affair because that is exactly what it was and most likely still is.

What has husband been saying to you whilst he was staying with you? Has he shown remorse and said he will cut all contact with OW? If not I think you really need to scare him and just tell him you want a divorce. I don’t think he is fighting enough for you and clearly thinks you will roll over. His reaction to you wanting to permanently separate and divorce will give you all the answers you need!

I don’t think you BF is helping either. I’m not sure if she is your BF. She also needs shaking up a bit so I’d be tempted to let her know that you are likely to separate and divorce and your thinking of moving away and see if that gains any reaction from the group too.

I only joined MN to give you support as reading your post I couldn’t believe how you had been treated and I’ve been using MN for years now. This is honestly the most heart breaking situation for you as you have been treated so badly by everyone.

I don't think I'd say anything to your DD unless she asks. Even then, I would probably keep it vague. This is not to protect your husband or OW, but to protect your DC. This is adult stuff that shouldn't be on their minds. I think it's okay to say, "me and OW aren't friends anymore," but more than that is probably too much for now. I think if you say she did something mean then DD will have a lot of follow up questions. You could say, "I thought she was a nice person but I changed my mind," maybe. When parents/adults confide in their children it's called 'parentifying' the child, and it's something that can really affect kids' mental health. I know you are keeping your DC out of it as much as possible and hopefully OW also has the sense to keep away, too. It sucks, because everyone is downplaying this and gaslighting it, so the temptation to just tell people the truth must be overwhelming!

Also I would suggest not threatening divorce/moving away as a tactic. But with your bf, I think it would be fair enough to tell her you'd like more support from her. With your husband, it may well be the case that he isn't going to start taking this seriously until you start talking divorce. But I suspect even then he will keep going with the tactic of trying to minimise and gaslight you. He is going to blame you for this, and say he tried to fix everything but you were too stubborn to get over this nothing-thing that happened so long ago. So when I say get things clear in your own mind, that's what I mean. Don't let them pressure you into accepting this horrible situation as though it's normal or nothing.

gaslighting you, not gaslighting it!

Also don’t feel embarrassed about what you text OW. I would have actually said the DD1 that we aren’t friends with OW anymore as she did a very bad thing to mummy and seen OWs face! I’d text OW and say it’s not for the short terms it’s indefinitely and you don’t want her anywhere near either of your kids. You need to make it clear to everyone that if you do get back with hubby then OW cannot be in the picture.

She’s stolen your life enough with your kids and husband! They her adopt if she wants to be a mum, cannot believe how much she has infiltrated your life.

Also, if she’s known her other half for over 9 years why are they only just getting married now. Seems very odd to me!

@kaleidoscope123 EXACTLY OW needs to f right off about in the short term. She should be so embarrassed she goes into hiding. As if. The gall of these people. I actually agree @Sazdun with texting OW what kaleidoscope123 said. Make it clear what you want, otherwise what they are learning is they can do whatever and there isn't much consequences or push back from you. Imagine! She said I'm the short term and hopefully she will see your kids soon. She doesn't think for a single second that you or H will cut her out.

The rest of the group won't cut the OW out and be ok with the OPs husband.

A good point from @Moser85. IF you go down the divorce route, you will end up sharing the custody of the kids. You unfortunately can't dictate who the H will bring into their lives in the long term, unless of course there is a legitimate reason like a risk to the kids welfare etc. It's not hard to imagine who will come to the rescue in looking after the kids on the father's days. You can only hope for H to be sensible, but I am not sure about that...

Response to OW
The space I need, & have needed since my wedding ( and clearly, even before that) is for you to stop honing in on my husband, with the, oh so cosy, little nicknames, squatting in my house and my life and surrogating my children.
You have a husband now, fuck off & live your life, & butt out of mine & my sad joke of a marriage.

How do you know they won’t cut OW if they are given the choice. If it’s one or the other. Clearly they are all wanting to plod on as usual and not need to make that choice but I’d personally want to see where my ‘loyal’ friends actually were. They were her friends first and then OW swanned in and everyone got used to her, she’s been rallying around them all to ensure they still like her and damage limitation but realistically if they pick OW over her is that even a friendship group you’d want to be part of. I’d personally want to know where all these people position themselves now that this is all out in the open.

Id be setting my stall that there is absolutely no going back to how things were. It clearly upsets you when kids see her. If hubby chooses contact with OW over you and then takes kids to see OW if you separate then you clearly know that you were the third wheel and he actually wanted OW. I don’t think he is fighting for you at all!

Did you check his phone before he left for contact with OW? He’s probably deleted it or moved on to work emails that you can’t see though. This will all be choreographed to manipulate you further.

Stay strong and protect yourself.

Please don't send a text like that, OP. You would just be telling her that she has all the power over you and your marriage. Don't give her the satisfaction.

@kaleidoscope123
It's one thing picking sides if it was between the 2 women but cutting 1 woman out of the group while then keeping the man in it who is the more guilty party is just very unlikely to happen. It's like when a man has an affair and then the couple put on a united front and a smear campaign against the OW, it's embarrassing....and the friends would be uncomfortable getting involved in that because then it becomes a question for their own morals!

I suspect for most of the friendship group they feel very uncomfortable about this entire thing and any part they may have unwittingly played.

People don't like to feel uncomfortable, so I can understand why the groupthink is to hope things go back to normal asap. Easier than having to confront their own shortcomings in all this.

Plus, as a pp said, they are used to you as the easygoing one.

But a bomb has been dropped into your lap, @Sazdun, so you take all the time you need to decide what you want, what you need. How you want to be moving forward.
And you're allowed to take your time, to change your mind, to do whatever you damn well want.
The supermarket and following text mat not have been your finest hour. So what! This shitshow has hardly been their finest hours either.

What everyone is failing to realise is that the friendship group includes hubby’s cousin and close friends from decades. No one one liked OWs husband. Why on earth would they keep being friends with OW regardless of hubby’s actions. They were the new comers to an established friendship group!

im still mad about OWs response, I really would respond saying that “this isn’t in the short term, I absolutely could not be friends with my fiancé’s affair partner. I am sure from our past discussions about your concerns about your OH that you too would not want to be friends with any of his affair partners either. I am surprised that you would ever think I could be your friend if I had known about this affair from the start.”

@kaleidoscope123
What you're failing to realise is that by OP even trying to take steps to get her out of the group, that makes it easier on her husband.

It has to be him that takes the steps to cut her out or there is no hope for the marriage.

I don't think there is any hope for it anyway, but OP seems to be clinging onto hope even though it's weeks later now and he's still not saying he will give her up/cut her out.

Let's say the friends cut her out of the group and in a couple of months the OP and her husband are having summer nights with the friendship group, the OW isn't there so OP feels a bit better and more secure.

BUT it's not the husband who has taken any steps at all to try to make her feel more secure or to face the consequences of his behaviour. He was literally happy to just say oh well my hands are tied, I don't want to hurt either woman 🙄

If hubby chooses to remain friends with OW when she isn’t going to be her friend then that’s his decision. I’m not telling her to tell her husband to do that as I agree it’s best he makes that decision himself but clearly nothing has changed. The friendship group and OW need to know her position on this. She was upset seeing her in the supermarket and seeing her with her daughter. I don’t think she needs to keep going through that.

Hubby is another issue, we haven’t heard much on that front about his comments / actions whilst he’s been staying at the house.

@kaleidoscope123
I agree she should tell the friendship group her position, but I am not so sure they'll cut the OW out.
And definitely agree she should tell the OW her position too. There's no way I would want her to approach me and would be very clear about that and that I didn't want her in my life or my childrens lives.

All she said about her husbands comments were he has worked from home the last two weeks and when we chatted at the weekend, he said he could do that for a while but the fact remains they work together, they have mutual friends theg will come into contact with each other and I either have to accept that or be done with it.

The OP hasn't said he's swayed from that at all.

OW was so excited to see her is completely inappropriate behaviour, reeling in your child, telling her she'll see her hopefully soon. That is not distance or respect. Yet again, she's letting you know who makes the decisions in your relationship and it's not you or your husband.

Pfft. Didn't look at his phone. As many have said before there is no point issuing an ultimatium. It has to come from H, for him to realise. It is highly likely if H and I split OW would step in as a friend to help out so I need H to be the one to figure out she has to go. However I am going to run into her and that is tough to deal with at the moment. Even if everyone rejected her Inc. Friends and H she still lives jn my town and why should I move?
BF is stuck I get that, being also part of the family so I understand that if we seperate it is going to be awkward. Like someone else mentioned the rest of our friends just feel uncomfortable I imagine. Everyone else has had 8 years to come to terms with OW and H actions. Over the past 6 years with me being pregnant twice and also saving for house stuff we have perhaps not been as social as OW and H with attending group nights out and weekends away etc so think that is why the group have become closer to them. The loss of her dad and brother, the cancer, the infertility have all got people on her side too. OW's husband was always a bit off with myself and H and was not as part of the group really to begin with but would say in the past 3-4 years came into the fold. With exception of myself and H, he is okay but I just always felt he was rude to H and stand offish with me (despite us two being the closest to his partner) but I suppose that was because he knew what H did and he probably thinks I am a chump for forgiving him. OW and her H had split up when she and H hooked up and she told him prior to them getting back together, he likewise I believed slept with a co-worker and wrnt on a few dates when they were on their break and I know she said she found that hard but she could hardly comment given what she did and then would go quiet. When I think back to those discussions we had now, she alluded to it several times but never came out and said it, that she couldn't get angry with her partner because she was friends with my H and had slept with him. She would then just say 'anyway let's change the subject, it's weird for us to discuss this'. Why did she never just come out and say it? I've ran so many discussions we have had over in my mind and I know she never brought up issues with her relationship when the other girls were around. Sure there would be the grumbles of not doing dishes etc but she never brought up the insecurities about her partner being friends with his ex infront of the other women or certainly when they were not there with me. Not sure what to make of that.
Actually met another friend for a play date today and apparently OW's H was being very much on 'my team' when a bunch of the guys went out to watch the football last weekend he kept calling H a knob and glad the bastard had been found out. Said he always seemed too good to be true but as he has been there 'like a brother' at times for OW he has sucked it up. I do think that might change group dynamics. Most of those guys are uni friends of my H or his cousin so they might choose H over him. I wonder if OW's H suspected I didn't know. I suspect a lot of people did but were too afraid to topple the apple cart. I know H and OW H have had a few tense moments over the years especially at beginning (normally when drink involved) but on one occasion I remember him saying it was 'his issue' when he was making snide comments to H. In fact at one night out he stormed off and OW was annoyed and saying it was rich since he was still friends with his ex. I figured he was just jealous and as per was so thankful me and H were so uncomplicated ( ffs my naivety really knew no bounds).

That was a ramble. Sorry

@Sazdun
The OWs husband will definitely be on your side as no one likes someone being around their partner who has secret feelings for them, or who acts as a friend when there was more to it.

Just goes to show though how selfish your husband and the OW both are, neither of them are willing and able to do the right things by their partners and still want to keep the friendship going no matter what.

Agree with both @kaleidoscope123 and @Moser85 , but v aware none of us are living this, and that makes it easier for us... easier for us to see clearly. And we don't have actual emotional investment

Sazdun, your friend let you down by urging you to hurry up with forgiveness or moving on. I would expect my friend to listen, empathize and support me wherever I am on the path.

H’s attitude is not that of a man fighting to save his marriage. The thread running through all of this is his massive sense of entitlement. His infidelity, long-term lying, agenda to embed OW in your lives for his gratification, failure to now drop her, and expectation that you’ll soon get over it—are all manifestations of his entitlement. He spelled it out in his missive: “I’m hesitant” to separate from OW because “that thought hurts me so much.” He and OW clearly expect you to accommodate them.

He continues to protect their relationship, but you don’t have to. Why have you not firmly set a bottom-line requirement—that until he definitively cuts off his personal relationship with OW, you won’t even consider continuing the marriage?

Sazdun, you have agency over your life, and you can create your own recovery structure. It’s good that you set some boundaries with OW. Now clearly tell H what you require and don’t allow him any wiggle room. With regard to your friends, @Ihearticecreamhas some good ideas re moving forward with them.