Staying after an affair.

[houseofcommons]

I know this thread will have a lot of mixed comments but I'm mostly looking for advice from anyone who has experienced this or similar.

8 months ago I found out my partner had an affair. The affair was already over (apparently) and I got conflicting stories from my partner and the OW. I didn't know who to believe and quite frankly didn't believe either of them was telling the whole truth. She said it was 4 months he said it was a month and only once physical contact the rest was phone/text. I mean probably bullshit.

I was set on leaving with our 2 children but needed to find somewhere first and within that time my partner grovelled enough to make me give him a second chance. He did everything to reassure me and answered any questions I had. Anytime I wanted to ask he was happy to oblige, he was constantly trying to rebuild the relationship and 8 months on is still doing so. He's very open with his phone etc although I don't look at it as the trauma was too much.

The OW harassed my partner for weeks after the end of the affair making account after account on social media as he blocked her from contacting him. She begged him to see her again one last time even though he had told her to never contact him again. He showed me if he ever got messages and even now if someone he doesn't know messages he will show me and explain so that I don't ever worry.

8 months on and the relationship is great, he is a fantastic partner and great father. He makes me feel loved and cherished and reassured. We are in a good place and i am happy with how it's going so far although I have told him it takes years to rebuilt a bond that was broken like that.

I just can't shake the sadness of it. He very rarely goes out to see friends but when he does I still feel a bit anxious. I think about the OW every day and the day I found out and the pain that I felt. As good as things are I just wish I could erase it from my brain. I don't know what I can do to let go of it. It's still very raw and early days I know but I just hate that I still think about it.

Has anyone been through this and has any advice? I don't want to leave after we have worked so hard to get to this point

It helps to take control. You choose to stay but things will be different. Keep your boundaries and know yourself. If you are choosing to stay it must be on your own terms. Look forward but don't forget. See if you are making a good life and if not forge your own.

I’m 18 months down the line and after lots of counselling I still feel raw - I hope you can move past it but it’s the most difficult thing to do - I obsess every day about the OW and what they did I lie awake most nights and I cry most days - like you I wish I could have my memory erased - it’s really shit and I hope you’ll be ok

Guys you will be fine but expect it to ease off around 2 year mark. Stop worrying about it. Past is anger future is fear peace is at present. You don’t have anything to fear. You’ve just done another 18 months of his pension that will have to shared should he fuck up again. Chances are it’s too complicated for him to contemplate it as it would be the end. So he’d be cheating himself out of a good retirement if he chose anything but you. So chillax. Pursue your interests. Live to the full. Stuff his past choices. Just enjoy yourself right now and be calculated as to what he would lose financially and family wise. Tell the kids too that daddy had a girlfriend. Set the scene so that the shit does not fall on you. Let him squirm but you enjoy yourself and forgive yourself for having wasted precious months on thinking about someone else’s fucked up emotional state. It’s him and not you. You knew what you wanted, he didn’t. Let him try, should he forget milk out every cent you’re entitled to and more.

How is that healthy?

Oh it is when you discover your relationship is not what you thought it was but can not face destroying yr kids lives with step family and dating bullshit. It’s basically whatever gets you through at the time and then after a while you can be totally fine. But it gets you out of feeling sorry for yourself or having to press the explosive button of imploding yr family. That’s of course unless you like to remain in the feeling of being hard done by and separating and causing trauma for yr kids. You’ve got to smarten up, become more calculated and think of a way through at each stage of healing.

That is a very very sad existence.

But telling your kids ‘your daddy has a girlfriend’ and leaving your kids in that situation, is perfectly healthy for them?

If you choose to stay in a relationship, the shit does indeed fall to you as well. Especially when staying includes fucking your kids up.

I couldn’t live with the anxiety everyday thinking my partner was up to something. You can’t put a price on your mental health and being free of a person who could possibly do something like that to you. And it really doesn’t matter what is going on in your life, what happens the next time something stressful happens they go and sleep with someone else. Sack that, be free!

I got conflicting stories from my partner and the OW. I didn't know who to believe and quite frankly didn't believe either of them was telling the whole truth. She said it was 4 months he said it was a month and only once physical contact the rest was phone/text. I mean probably bullshit.

The only person not being lied to in an affair is the person having it.

He had massive reason to down play it. Yes, it's very likely he lied.

The OW harassed my partner for weeks after the end of the affair making account after account on social media as he blocked her from contacting him. She begged him to see her again one last time even though he had told her to never contact him again.

I will first say - because I'll be accused of being an ow/ex ow instantly as soon as I show the slightest empathy for an ow - I'm not and have not been an ow .....

But people should use their brain when it comes to thinking about what attached men say to women to get them to have sex with them. If they said "I'm not unhappily married/coupled up, I have no real intention of ever leaving my partner, I just want some strange, some extra, I'm bored shagging the sane one woman, I want the ego boost too" etc etc. .... How much sex with OW do you think they would get. Very very little.
They know they have to lie and misrepresent their relationship in order to schmooze the ow into sex. They lie and imply instinctively. Whatever their relationship status, they will say and imply whatever it takes to portray themselves as not technically single but actually single.

They are, in essence, scammers.

They are emotional & intimate fraudsters, for sex and attention and ego.boostd.

When people get scammed, when fraudsters use them, when they have sex or a relationship with the understanding & expectation of a relationship (that the attached man has either implied or outright said) .. . They get v angry and go crazy. Completely natural and understandable.

No matter how the victim of a scammer behaves when they realise they been n scammed and used and their "boyfriend" is going nowhere and there's no future relationship there; what matters is that the man is a scammer, a user, and a cheater.

Not trustworthy, lacking basic integrity, disloyal etc.

*She begged him to see her again one last time even though he had told her to never contact him again.

He's formed an emotionally and physically intimate relationship with a woman over months, she likely experienced "withdrawal" and heartbreak when he got discovered and threw her under the proverbial bus. What dies anyone expect?

It's funny how ppl concentrate on the ow acting "crazy" and use that against them ...... Well, they had a bit of help being driven crazy, by "your" man.

Oh and just to say that the very act of engaging emotionally and physically and essentially starting a relationship with someone when you're in a relationship..... Gives the other person the entirely natural impression that you are not & could lot he committed to your relationship. So again, don't wonder why (naive) ow think he's leaving.

I reiterate - I am not and have never been an ow; just before the boringly inevitable comments about me being one start.

Just to add - when it comes to admitting to and potentially paying a price for their behaviour; the person minimising the most is generally lying.

Sadder still is trusting unconditionally and not understanding the human condition and that is - that we are all capable of betrayal. Disney princess 👸 existence if u ask me. And yes it’s much healthier to let the kids know you have problems, clarify they are not the problem, identify what it is and show them that you are willing to work and that problems can resolve. That way you teach them not to capitulate and remain emotionally strong.

Sadder still is trusting unconditionally and not understanding the human condition and that is - that we are all capable of betrayal.

I fully understand. I've been cheated on and I've cheated.

I mean OP it’s true they shagged and it was exciting at the time but not in real real life. Main thing is not to be triggered by it. If you decide what you want out of life and what your actual plan is, the two wannabe misunderstood little shits are literally irrelevant. Do you want to keep yr ‘family’ till kids grow up? It’s understandable. Do you want to kick him to the kerb? More than understandable. Do you want to exact revenge by playing along for a few yrs and getting more benefits since it’s all doomed? Everything is fair game. Working out what makes you happy matters the most. There is no simplistic solution once you’ve been trampled on and yr DH knew this at the time his pants flew off.

How was this experience for you?