OH Cheated on me :(

[AmyB13]

Please someone talk to me. I found out yesterday my OH of 8 years had a one night stand on Friday whilst I was away for the weekend with my DD.
The woman in question is someone I know from the pub me and my OH socialise in and she is actually supposed to be gay, so I'm extra confused about it all!
I found out because I couldn't get hold of my OH all evening and when he finally called me back he was being super shady. We have a joint phone contract so I checked the records and saw he had called a taxi about 15 mins before I spoke to him yet on the phone he was pretending he had fallen asleep and just woken up!
I returned from my weekend away yesterday and he couldn't continue his lie and told me what had happened. How he had gone out, got really drunk and that his woman had no way to get home so she came back with him as neither of them had any cash on them for a taxi and there was cash at our house. He says he doesn't really have a proper memory of what happened and he was very remorseful when he told me. Bordering on a panic attack, begging me not to leave him, saying he will do anything to fix things etc.
I really don't know what to do. I love him and can't imagine not being with him. Part of me wants to forgive and try to get past it, I can see what a huge mistake he thinks it is... but the other part of me feels sick to my stomach. I'm going in and out of shock with it atm, crying one minute, then angry, then numb. I don't want to be in my house because that's where this happened, I want space from him but I also want him to stay. I have a 12 year old daughter who isn't his but she thinks of him as a dad. If she knew what had happened she would be absolutely devastated. I don't want to put her through him leaving.
I also don't feel like I can talk to anyone about this. My family and friends will tell me to leave him and hate him, and then there's our joint friends who I'm not sure whether the advice would be for me or him.
I'm sorry for the long post, I'm hoping someone can offer me some comfort or advice? Thank you for reading x

Honestly, I’m not sure I’d get over that. You’re going to see the woman around your location I assume?

He needs to leave while you decide how you want to move forward.
It doesn't have to be the end of your relationship if you don't want it to, but it will need work - mostly on his part if he's truly remorseful.
Give him a taste of what he could lose by asking him to move out, while you 'think'.

OP I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I echo what others have said, he has brought another woman into your home and cheated, which I do think is totally unforgivable. And it always irritates me when men use the “I was drunk” excuse, as I think if after 8 years together he was SO drunk he forgot he had a girlfriend, he would have been far too drunk to do the deed!

My advice would be think of your daughter. If she came home to you in 10 years time heartbroken that her partner had cheated on her, what would you say? The relationships we see as children in our home life massively influence what we see to be normal in our adult life.

Do you want your daughter to grow into adulthood thinking it’s normal that dad can’t go to the pub without mum (although we understand why that is- she won’t)? Do you want your daughter to grow up thinking it’s normal for mum to worry when dad is out drinking/out of the house (which even subconciously now you will, this will stick in your mind)?

Would you be content if in 10 years time you see your daughter with a partner who won’t let her go to the pub alone but she believes thats normal as “thats what mum and dad were like”? Or what if she comes home in 10 years and confides in you that her partner has cheated, if she made the excuses for him that you are making now, would you not want to tell her she deserves better and to leave him immediately?

The reality is, drunk or not, if you love someone truly, no amount of alcohol makes you forget that, and you don’t hurt the people you love.

OP are you absolutely 100% certain this isn't an ongoing thing? You said he goes out regularly. His lies do seem to come rather easily.

I also wonder if he only told you because it was already out of the bag. He had lied earlier in the day. Presumably someone said if to him - if you don't tell her I will. He didn't tell you, so they did. Then miraculously he told you all about it.

Most happy men don't fall into bed with the nearest girl the minute their partner is out of town.

I don't want to upset you further but there is something very fishy about his behaviour. He didn't really have time to get that drunk for a grown man.

And how terribly unfortunate that he got caught the very first time he did it, isn’t it? The stars must have aligned against him last night to have had such a terrible run of bad luck in one evening.

It’s your decision whether to stay or leave. You’ll largely be told to leave on here, with people saying they 100% would leave if it was them. Only they don’t know that, it’s obviously very different when it happens to you and isn’t a hypothetical scenario. I do think he should go and stay elsewhere for a few days / week whilst you consider the future of this relationship and consider if you can forgive and move on.

He needs to stop getting shitfaced if he can't control his cock

Are you sure it was her? Her being gay, may somehow make things easier to take, in his mind… Can you ask her what happened?

He’s done this before so he’s learned the right things to say 🤷🏻‍♀️
OP of course you are making excuses for him. You love him and you want to believe him. But I honestly think once your relationship involves some sort of bargaining or restriction - like not being able to go to the pub alone - it is over. This is because you then become hyper vigilant, checking to make sure he hasn’t, worrying about doing normal things, like going away without him. You might also find yourself avoiding ”stressing him out” so that he’s not triggered to go to the pub. You will take on some of the responsibility for his behaviour. One day, he might go to the pub and you’ll be stressed and confused about what’s happened and what the appropriate response should be. After all, you can’t leave someone just for going to the pub once, not when they’ve been doing so well, and honestly, nothing happened this time, can you?

if you split now, you only have to get over the upset once. If you stay together you’ll have to get over it every day for years.

He doesn't remember what happened and you thought the woman was gay??

Is there any chance he was drugged?
Was he using birth control?

The behaviour is so irresponsible to you that I would never trust him again.
He needs to be tested.
He needs to stop drinking at pubs without you because he wants that change for himself.
Your choice. Set rules that you can accept. If you can give it another go it might work out for another eight years or more.

Thank you so much for all of your replies, I do appreciate you taking the time to read and comment, this thread is really helping me a lot to organise my thoughts. I've gone through all of the comments and noted down points that I really need to think seriously about before making any decisions. I'm going to write down all of my thoughts around it and then I think I might get OH to do the same to really see whether he understands the differences there will be in our relationship now. It has really hit home the comments around my DD - I've only been considering the impact of him leaving on her, not the impact on him staying.

Haven't read all the responses but I think you should leave him. You will get over the pain of a break up in time, but if you stay with him the pain will be dragged out over years, possibly forever.

I could get over it if it wasn't someone I know. But it is. She will tell someone, there will be whispering when you come in the pub. People will think you are a mug or a doormat or condone it. These are the feelings I had when it happened to me with some woman from the local as my oh put it

He will always cheat and you deserve better.

tell him to Leave - get counselling for you alone and go NC with him - please he doesn’t love you, he didn’t tell you because he wanted to or felt guilty - he did it because someone else would tell you.

tell him to go and get his keys - get rid - I get drunk I don’t have sex

I appreciate it is an awful situation for you OP, but I do think if nothing else, think of your daughter. Painful as it may be, you can use this to show her that no matter how long you’ve been with somebody, no matter how much you love them, you always put yourself first and you do not stay with someone who has hurt you.

You want to teach her what it looks like to love yourself enough to put yourself first, teach her what a healthy relationship should look like, teach her that somebody who truly loves her would never hurt her.

So that in the future when she comes home in tears after a boyfriend has done the same to her (as it will more than likely happen at some point, young boys can be cruel), you can be the mother who can wipe her tears away and be able to say that is not love, walk away, and you can have the courage of your convictions.

Unless you’d be happy to see your daughter stay with a man who had cheated on her, don’t stay with this man.

Someone who truly loves you would never hurt you.

This.

He sounds like a binge drinker, like he has a problem with alcohol, regardless of how often the binges happen.

He also appears to have a problem with fidelity while drinking.

The convenient amnesia doesn't really tally with the level of "togetherness" it takes to actually have intercourse etc when you're a man.

He was single because he's like this. His relationships broke down because he's like this. He's inadvertently done you a massive favour by letting that slip.

You're DD deserves better of a step father, of one of her male role models.

And someone that drunk coming home to her home regularly is not good either. (Presuming he stays at yours after these sessions).
Now he's shagged some silly, low integrity cheater kindred spirit in her home too (if I e got that right?).

You both deserve better.

Like many men, he's circulating trash.

The machinations of why she 'needed" to come back to your home with him sound like BS too.

I'm sure both of them could have made other arrangements, they chose to head home together, knowing what would happen/knowing they both up for that. I wouldn't believe otherwise.

Most happy men don't fall into bed with the nearest girl the minute their partner is out of town.

Faithful men don't.

His happiness is another subject entirely.

Lots of cheaters are perfectly happy in their main relationship.

This. You would think a call from you would have jolted him to his senses, but no, he wanted to sleep with OW and lied to you to do so and to rub salt in the wound in your own home, probably in your bed. I don't know how you can get over that ever. I'd be asking him to leave for a month whilst I got my ducks in a row.

We have a joint phone contract so I checked the records and saw he had called a taxi about 15 mins before I spoke to him yet on the phone he was pretending he had fallen asleep and just woken up!

Even potentially confused, sloppy etc. did to alcohol, he went straight to lying to your face (as it were). Very deceptive, disengenuous person.

Sorry to be so harsh but his previous relationships apparently ended because he's like this, he's trashy. A drinker and ubfaithful. He wasn't good enough for them, so why would he be good enough for you.

I'm also a bit puzzled about how he would reference acting like this in previous relationships, then be totally faithful for 8 years, then do this - totally out of the blue - di you think it's possible you just haven't caught him before?

How he had gone out, got really drunk and that his woman had no way to get home so she came back with him as neither of them had any cash on them for a taxi and there was cash at our house

There are no cash machines anywhere near where they were drinking?

No shops that could do cashback.

No taxi firms that would take. Google pay Apple pay, PayPal etc payment?

No-one either of them knew could lend them cash, or share a taxi?

No-one either of them knew, like her partner, could give her a lift?

How were they planning to get back from this cash machine less place when they went there??

It gets worse. Teach your DD not to tolerate cheaters or she will think it's ok because Mum thinks it's ok. In a small village everyone will find out probably your DD in time. If the OW is pregnant what would you do then?

If he's a binge drinker and cheats while drunk, he's more likely to be sloppy about using condoms.

Anyway condoms don't totally guard against eg have, HPV etc so he's risking your health.

Hsv, that should have been