Supporting each other after affair discovery

[ettiespaghetti]

Hi is there anyone else out there dealing with the aftermath of discovering an affair ? I’d appreciate support from people that are experiencing the same awfulness !

Yes me unfortunately. Discovered a few days ago that my DP of almost 2 decades has been exchanging x rated pictures and messages for over 12 months through a hook up site. Slightly different in that he claims nothing physical has gone on and he doesn't know the people IRL.

It feels unbearable at the moment truth be told. He's spent most of the day in tears and it feels like I'm almost consoling him?! He can't go elsewhere for various reasons and our children are on school holidays.

What's your situation? Hope you're ok OP.

Yes. I have a whole sad little thread on it. I asked him to leave and he’s been gone now for about 6 weeks. It’s still awful. I’ve spent most of tonight crying and have just got in to bed a bottle and a half of wine deep. I wish to god I had never found out…. But at the same time am so thankful I did before I wasted another 10 Years. I’m sorry you’re in this boat. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone

To be honest, I feel for my ex, if as and when, about her dh, unfaithfulnessis.

Yup. Me too. A part of the club no-one wants to be in. Although mine is a re-discovery where he had promised contact had been cut. It's rubbish but I keep telling myself that at least it won't be me worrying about who he's with or texting in the future.

TBH one of my major concerns is the OW developing a relationship with my children. I literally want to scream at the unfairness of it. They get to swan off into the sunset after their lies and deceit but oh no, that's not enough. On top they'll get to play happy families with my children... How can this be fair?

I’m about 9 weeks on and it’s been horrendous

it has triggered PTSD breakdown and I got very unstable for a while

DH is still at home and is putting extreme efforts in but I’m completely traumatised

It's shitty isn't it. Happened to me - out of the blue in a really unpleasant way. I just wanted to say that the gut wrenching sickness feeling does subside, eventually. Clichè I know, but I'm a few years on now and I'm glad he left. He showed me who he was and I believed him.

I was 42 ish at the time. Life isn't over.

I discovered days ago that my husband of 12 years has been having an affair since December last year. I'm broken. 3 kids together. He's moved out but I'm ashamed to say I called him drunk last night and he came round for sex. I don't know what to do. How can I ever trust again? The pain is literally worse than when I lost my parent.

He told me yesterday am. Over 30 years together. It was a bolt out of the blue. Long term EA. It's all over, he's made the decision and now I'm dealing with the fallout. Had no sleep last night and can't eat. I Know it will all be ok but right now it's shit!

Sorry there are so many of us in this horrible boat - it's the most painful experience I've ever gone through.

Betrayal seems to have so many layers and for me has triggered all of my existing sexual trauma, abandonment etc

I am in the same position myself. Found out 3 weeks ago.

It was the 2nd time with the same woman who he said he'd cut contact with over a year ago. He had an affair with her while I was pregnant. It shattered me to pieces and I do not know how I survived. Probably because of my other child to be honest.

This time around, I actually saw that she had attempted to call him at 4am int he morning of FT, obviously drunk. She had messaged him too.
Initially I was shocked because he had said he blocked her, which he obviously didn't. He had just deleted her number and the message threads they had.

As mentioned, I was the one who discovered the communication from her on his locked Home Screen from previews in whatsapp. I could have deleted them because I have his password. However, I decided to leave the so he would discover it all and see if he would tell me she made contact. He didn't, and he messaged with her secretly for the whole day.It was international mothers day of all days. He had snuck out to FT with her and when he got back he had started sending her sexual photos. I had a look at his phone and saw it all.

I HIT THE ROOF!!! I was convinced that he would make me aware if she ever came back into his life.

He intially showed remorse, begging for firgiveness but since he has resolved to say that he thinks he should be with her and that she MUST be the one, or he wouldn't have entertained her. So now here I am, 2 kids, single mother again for the second time in 18 months. Life is really tough and I cannot see how it will get better.

Sorry for us all and sorry for you OP! Have you reached the anger stage yet @ettiespaghetti ?

I'm in this to.
Emotional affair in our case, I discovered it and think that stopped it progressing further, we're trying to get past it but I'm struggling tbh. Mostly because he claims the feelings he had for her have gone but they're very much in almost daily text contact and it feels like ongoing torture.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't said anything and waited to see how it would pan out, he claims it won't have gone further but who knows, I hate the thought that he has only remained sexually faithful because of my discovery.

I hope you're a OK, it's a shit club to be a member of.

@HighlandCowRose

Why are you tolerating the ongoing contact?

Different perspective, it's been years, but I can still relate:

He told me one day that he was attracted to men more than to women. He didn't even ever fully confess - but the entirety of that "you and your best friend are different than him and his best friend in comparison to any other relationship I've ever been in before" situation made sense all of a sudden.

I wish I could say "we divorced, amicably [we did], and him and his partner have been living happily ever after [they didn't]".

I'm not even sure it's the cheating that I still fret about, years later. He is gay, I am female - this wasn't going to be a thing! It's the fact that he went on to marry another woman and have two kids with her - and that I know he and the OM are still an item!

I feel guilty both because I haven't told her (we've met twice, we're not close) and because I haven't been a better friend to him (I should have done a better job letting him embrace who he is rather than letting him get married again after he and I broke down over his affair with another man!)

This is such a mess! She's such a lovely woman. He's so definitely not into women. It's not on her (and: it wasn't on me, either).

But he's such a coward! And he's doing such untold damage! I am, literally, the only person (apart from his lovers) who knows he is gay. I am so sorry for his current wife. She probably has no fucking idea. I love him, but he's just being such a dick!

Ropesdope

A good question, he claims a perfect storm of events led to the affair, (I feel a fraud calling it an affair because it never became physical) and those events have been resolved for want of a better way of putting it. He has checked back into the marriage and things are better than before the EA, he claims her to be no more than a friend now and his 'feelings' for her have gone. I've seen the ongoing messages and they seem friendly rather than flirty etc

It doesn't seem like enough to walk away from what has overall been a good 2 decade relationship.

My most pressing problem is they stopped working together due to office changes but problems with dh new site mean he most likely will be back working with her and I don't feel like I can cope with that but it throws me back to breaking up our family for an affair that was never sexual.

Sorry if I'm rambling, I've had a hard day with it and sometimes it just comes tumbling out.

From experience, I'd really recommend that you insist on them completely cutting contact. If he won't, it shows a complete lack of care for your feelings or genuine remorse for the hurt he has caused you. I've been like you - too scared of him actually leaving to lay down rock solid boundaries and IME it makes you feel more insecure and reinforces his feelings of superiority.

I can completely relate. If's just horrific. It's so hard trying to stay strong for the children when you feel like the world has ended. I really do wonder what I've done so wrong in life to deserve the upset and anguish I've been put through. But then the world doesn't work like that and bad things happen to good people all the time. Try and stay strong (I know how hard that is of course).

Thanks @Likeairirise you stay strong too.

Those who have never been betrayed really underestimate how damaging the experience of intimate betrayal is. I think I have sustained serious trauma issues from the hell he put me through. I was so mentally and emotionally wounded when I found out about the affair at 6 months pregnant, I cried everyday, whenever I could find a minute and hide from my older child, until the baby was born. Then 2 weeks he left us and went to the OW. I was alone with the two children and it turns out the baby had seriously bad colic and cried non stop until he was 4months old. I was such a wreck in this time. I luckily had my mother around to help me with the children though, but my health suffered a lot and I ended up in hospital a few times.

Within 6 weeks it fell apart with OW, and he begged to come back, reluctantly I let him, very slowly and cautiously, but somehow, within a year, he has managed to stab me in the back yet again. The actions that I have forgiven him for in the past are too cruel to even tell anyone, so I would have thought that this las time he wouldn't dare hurt me again. But actually, I think this is why he continues to show me such contempt and disrespect, it's partly my fault for not setting boundaries and allowing him back into my life after he wronged me so terribly.

This time there is no going back, and as bad at it sounds, I really struggle to wish him well. No one that cruel should get to walk off into the sunset and have a nice life after what he has done. However, as we have the kids together I have to maintain some kind of contact to facilitate their relationship, and I guess I can't do it with hate, so somehow I have to forgive him. As broken as I am, I have to still put on a brave face and not show him how badly I suffer from his actions.

There must be better to come after this. Has to be.

I'd like to join too, I have an ongoing thread on here.

My Dh of 12 years had an affair with his 22 year old secretary. He moved out to live with his friend while running around taking her to hotels.
Me and the children were absolutely devastated. We still are, my 10 year old DD still cries 3 months on and I don't know what to say to her.

I tried to stay friendly for the sake of the children but fuck it's hard.

He looks like my husband, he sounds like my husband, but the old him is totally gone.

This new person is completely self obsessed, vain and quite frankly a turn off. But I still fucking love him.

@statementstate there are so many similarities between our situations and emotions.

It's so maddening that having been treated the way we have, we are then expected to immediately be civil and adult about moving forward. Well perhaps that would have been easier if we hadn't been lied to and betrayed.

Like you, I really should have been stronger earlier but I was so desperate for him to stay and to keep my family together. But like you say, they don't respect you for it and think they can treat you like that and you'll just continue to accept it. It makes me feel so pathetic when I think about it what I have put up with.

And as for the OW - they deserve no sympathy IMO. And I hope karma bites them on the ass. They don't deserve to be happy off the back of their immoral behaviour.

Unfaithfulness is a weird and horrible thing.

I knew my husband was up to no good but had no proof. I ended the marriage for other more awful reasons but found out years later about things he had done and it still hurt even though I had moved on and have a happy life

Five months post DDay and trying to reconcile, although don’t know if it’s possible after multiple affairs throughout my entire marriage, and then the latest he seemed to be in love with, but won’t admit it…
we fight all the time. I feel like he is ‘managing’ me, emotionally speaking, and that because he has decided to work on the marriage it’s all fine. Ie I don’t need to be ‘scared’ he’s leaving, although half the time I don’t know what I want. I think still in denial and shock tbh.

Ok.. your probably not going to want to hear this but 4 years ago I was floored by the lies I uncovered. I don't know who said it but I came here for advice and someone said you doubt have to do anything now.. I remember those words (thank you wise woman whoever you were) 4 years on I'm done. Diagnosed with ptsd and on medication for my own good, me and my children are moving on. Do yourself a favour and don't put yourself through anymore pain. If your own partner can hurt you like this, they are worth no more of your time. Sending strength, love and happiness your way xx

@Jolie654 I absolutely get your desire to make things work but TBH it sounds like you're long past that point. Have you considered telling him it's over? Absolutely no shame if you haven't or can't for whatever reason but I just wonder? It sounds like he'll never change.

My family been telling me

Sorry, pressed send too early...

My family have been telling me for years that my husband will never change and that I either need to leave or accept it. For some reason, I've always had hope that he would change but I'm slowly coming to the realisation that they are right and that I deserve better.

I'm almost 6 months on from him leaving and 3 months from discovering the truth behind why.
I am still recovering, I wish I had never forgiven the first time.

His lying and betrayal have fundamentally changed who I am.

An affair is the most selfish thing you can do to your spouse and children.

I'm not sure I will ever recover or even manage to be civil