I’ve name changed to post this…
DH who I’ve been with for 18 years has cheated on me with my children’s nanny. Apparently they “only” kissed (several times), had been sexting and meeting up secretly a few times for walks, holding hands and talking about the future. The whole thing started and ended within a month.
I’m told she wanted guarantees he would leave me and wanted to be step mum to the kids. She’s struggling to conceive with her DH and wanted my DH to say he would have a baby with her, which he didn't agree to, but also didn’t say that was out of the question. All sounds quite serious for a month fling where only kissing was involved. He apparently also thought this was odd.
I’m told both of them spent their meet ups moaning about their relationships, although he tells me it was mostly her doing this (of course!) and him just not putting her off as he liked the attention. They were talking about booking a hotel and he tells me they were going to but just to “talk”. I’ve seen some messages where they do just say it will be just to talk, but I also find it hard to believe when in the hotel, they would have left it at that…
He says the affair only happened because they gradually blurred boundaries over the years from chatting in the kitchen a lot. I knew they talked when he grabbed a coffee while WFH, but didn’t really think anything of it. She started making comments to him and he was flattered and it moved into flirting.
From what he’s said, it does genuinely sound like she was coming on to him - he could have said no at any point of course! But he isn’t very good at picking up these inferences sometimes. She started sending him songs to his phone each day and then they started chatting on WhatsApp. Eventually this turned into sexting and she sent him some semi naked photos. Some where she removed clothes in our house to text him! Apparently he didn’t reciprocate but definitely encouraged this and the conversation was very sexual in nature.
The times they met up he lied to my face saying he was going on errands. I was sick one day and he just left me to cope with the kids while he went off to meet her.
He downplays all of this because he says he was just down and miserable and liked the attention and it got out of hand. That he was just bored and knew it meant nothing and that it wasn’t a threat to our marriage so because he knows that; he thinks it’s not a big deal.
I am of course devastated. He knows cheating is the one thing I have said is my boundary and I’ve put up with a lot of things from him over the years. I can’t stop picturing them together. She was greeting him when he came home with a hug and kiss like she was playing wife - and the kids were around (but apparently didn’t see). The way he says it all, she sounds quite unhinged but I guess that’s also convenient(!)
He does seem genuinely sorry, saying he’s depressed and crying and saying he loves me and wants to work through this. We have two primary aged children.
As there wasn’t any actual sex would you work at it, or is the betrayal too much?