I am (38)f and my husband is (41)m.
Discovered a few months ago he was having an affair that had been going on for nearly a year. But he had also cheated with multiple women throughout our marriage whilst financially supporting them, and had a couple of flings even before we got married. Appeared to be mainly for sex. Even whilst I was pregnant. I was devastated and still in complete shock.
We have two children under 5. Married for 7 years together for 11 years.
I never suspected about the others, feel like an idiot now, but he had been preoccupied, spending less time at home, suddenly started going to the gym etc etc and emotionally distant for a while before I discovered the most recent AP, and so I went looking, found evidence although he’d been pretty good at covering his tracks!
He confessed everything in terms of the facts but tried to protect the most recent AP. Found out who she was though and she is younger and as much as I hate to admit, extremely attractive and I just feel completely worthless in comparison.
Found out later that he bought her a gift worth tens of thousands of pounds. He ended it with her when I found out but because I told him to essentially, I was in a panic, I think he was too, but they had been in contact before then after I found out. Don’t know if he would have necessarily done otherwise. He’s now doing and saying the ‘right’ things, going to counselling. Says he wants to stay, but just don’t know if it’s for the right reasons.
He admitted it was very different with her, won’t admit he loved her, but the evidence suggests otherwise IMHO. I don’t know what to think. Sex is one thing but I just can’t get over this. She clearly has deep feelings for him too. They’ve been NC as far as I know, he has at least given me access to everything now.
I think he is only staying with me for the kids. He just seems emotionally shut down, for obvious reasons I don’t feel like he’s staying out of love for me! And obviously he’s now feeling guilty, but clearly there was a reason why he went looking for this. Admittedly our marriage hasn’t been great, hardly any intimacy for years but I thought generally we were making it work and we have young kids. He works a lot.
I don’t know what to do. Did he love her? How can I live with it. I just don’t know right now if I can cope with being a single mum. But also wondering if he’s missing her and would have been with her otherwise and just feels trapped.