Dh messages

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I feel physically sick.

Been with dh for 7 years now, married for 3 and have ds 1. This last year has been rocky as we've adjusted to ds coming along.

I noticed a while ago that a woman added dh on fb (he was sitting beside me at the time) and there was something about his reaction to it that felt off. That was about a month ago and today I had the chance and curiosity got the better of me. I've never snooped before, he's never been anything but a wonderful partner and I've felt really secure in our relationship up to recently.

There were messages back and forth to this girl, some really run of the mill chit chat about their families (she's also married with a little one) and then in between, really inappropriate and flirty messages. Even discussed our sex life (which has been almost non existent for the last few months) and talking in detail about the last time we did anything and what we did. Her telling him when she had a wank etc.

I feel so humiliated and betrayed. I confronted him about it, he went grey, took responsibility immediately and said it was a stupid flirtation and never progressed to real life (messages also read like they never met up and he never goes out so I believe that). He said he doesn't really understand why he did it, and that he understands why I'm upset and he'll block her and never have contact with her again. I don't really know what the next step is. Obviously we need to work on things between us but I've lost trust in him now and I think if it was just me I'd walk away but I have ds to think about and I couldn't stand only having him half the week. Dh is a great and engaged father so he'd want joint custody and there's really no reason why he wouldn't get it. I'm just off mat leave and it's depleted my savings and I don't earn enough at the moment that I'd afford to set myself up somewhere new.

I want to work at things- we've always had a brilliant relationship and felt rock solid but lack of sleep and more demands and no time together as a couple has really taken its toll. So I want to get back to where we were before but equally I'm scared that's the foolish option and that I'm going to be left looking like a mug further down the line.

I'm scared I haven't been angry enough, but it's Xmas day, we're due to his parents house for the whole day which I now couldn't see far enough and I don't want ds to hear fighting in the house and I think I was just so shocked by it. I never ever in a million years thought he'd be like that.

What should my next steps be?

I'd take my time to really think about this. He might not have met her yet, so where did the connection come from for all the messages etc? Why did he accept the friend request in the first place - he must have known her in some way? If from the very beginning you say his reaction to the request was different then Id say there was some intention from that moment, and he should have declined it.
As for today, Id do whatever I wanted to do. Do you want to go to the in laws? It wouldnt be you ruining christmas if you decided to stay home - just remember that

She's a girl he knew from OLD they dated for a while then that ended (as far as I know he ended it, don't think they dated for very long) and then we met. So he knows her from before we met. Sorry I thought I put that in the message my head is all over the place. From his attitude and her name I guessed it was her.

He needs to block her on social media and block and delete her number in front of you and moving forward allow you open access to his phone until you are totally reassured.

You may have a little one but time has to be put aside for your relationship too.

Would counselling help?

You don’t have to decide anything now.

Tell him you need to think things through and decide what you are going to do about the text messages. Tell him you’ll carry on for the next few days but will be thinking and after Xmas you will need time alone with him to talk and decide step forward. I was suggest he does the same.

I dunno op. I’m not sure I could forgive. It’s the inappropriate sexual messages but also sharing your personal sexual info. That’s disgusting. I think you do need to feel some anger about what he did.

If you do choose to stay….what does that look like? For what it’s worth my uncle cheated and my aunt stayed. 20 yra later it is forgotten and they honestly have the most fab relationship. I’m not sure I could have moved on from it though.

I am angry, I think I'm just a bit in shock and i do have a tendancy to just shut down in crisis moments so I just feel sick and numb really but I think I will get angrier as time goes on. The whole thing disgusts me but then part of me feels conflicted over whether it's actual cheating. If he'd met her then we'd be done 100% but it never got to that point so it's absolutely a betrayal but is it marriage ending? I'm not sure how to feel about that and I guess everyone's boundary on that will be different. I do think you're right that I need to think about what I need from him now going forwards and seeing him block her is a good point. I told him I wasn't going to snoop again but actually that maybe isn't realistic and open access would be better. I always just felt like if you needed to snoop regularly then you'd no trust so what's the point. So maybe need to rethink that.

I think if things hadn't been so hard this past year and a bit I'd have been less understanding but it has been really tough for us both, I just never thought he'd go looking elsewhere

Besides the PP I would have some frank convos with him about how life is now that you have a young child. Because it is different and he needs to be willing and able to adjust to it and be committed.

What’s happened this year? Just the birth of your child or other things? Thing is this is possible the worst time to cheat, when you have a new child at home. If you can’t rely on his loyalty and trust when you have a baby at home then when can you?

I just feel a lot for you op. You sound very reasonable and he’s lucky that he’s got a partner that is giving him some grace and not just throwing him out. Be kind to yourself too though.

The whole thing disgusts me but then part of me feels conflicted over whether it's actual cheating

Your feelings matter. Official definitions of 'relationship mistakes' don't. If you'd told him you couldn't bear watching him eat yoghurt, and he ate yoghurt in front of you, he'd be disrespecting you by dismissing your feelings. Could it be labelled 'cheating'? No. But who cares about the label?

I'm just off mat leave and it's depleted my savings please tell me you didn't only use your money to fund mat leave/the baby

I think we've just both struggled to prioritise each other as well as ds. I had a very rough pregnancy and was very ill for most of it, it was really touch and go whether ds would ever even be here. Then I had quite bad ppa and I think that's made me quite hard to live with at times albeit for good reason. He's picked up a lot in terms of home and life admin etc to allow me to focus on ds and feeling better and it's probably taken me up to about 3 months ago to really feel like me again. I felt like we'd both been quite good at talking about what was hard and that we both wanted to work at it etc so I didn't expect to be blindsided by this. He's generally more of a stress head and pessimist than I am so I think that all on top of his job stress and money stress (there was talk of me being made redundant for a good while but its all OK now thankfully) has just hit him harder than it hit me. So it's been tough just as a couple. We don't have lots of family nearby so it's hard to get a babysitter and ds wouldn't settle for anyone until maybe a month ago. We left him a few times with my in laws and we left to him screaming and collected him still screaming, having refused to eat or drink or sleep. So that made it really difficult to feel like we could leave him and have time to ourselves.

No, he used his wage to cover all our bills etc while I was off and then I saved what I could while I was still getting some money to take me through the last few months of no income but it was really tight and with everything going up in cost it ate into our long term savings. Plus we've just redecorated our house getting ready for ds coming, dh car packed in so needed a new one etc so savings for us both were already lower than what we normally want them to be.

Have you, at any point during all of this, considered inappropriately texting another man? How inappropriate do you feel it would have been to do that? How many moral boundaries would you have to break through to even consider doing that?

No of course not which is what makes it all the worse. Because I've really relied on him. I'm normally so independent and this is the first time I've really needed him so it is just so extra hurtful that this is how he's handled himself. Heading round to the in laws now, don't want ds or them missing out so hoping I can make it through the rest of the day. He's still being very apologetic and I can barely look at him.

Get through the day with your ILs and have a decent chat this evening when DC is asleep, OP. A really honest and candid chat.

In your position I’d POSSIBLY be prepared to forgive, with certain provisos, but you’re not me. Physical cheating would not be tolerated by me for example, but there are plenty on here who have managed to forgive it. My point is that we are all different, with different lines in the sand. You need to make your own mind up.

In a similar situation with DH I went pretty nuclear,
, made him sit and read all the messages with me (which was pretty excruciating for him) and then we arranged counselling which he paid for.

We worked through it and although it has left scars I am glad we worked through it

I'd say, it's down to him to do the heavy lifting to fix this. and down to you to make it clear there won't be any more chances

I'd be divorcing him in January if it were me

Sounds like a man who's suddenly just realised what he stands to lose through his own sheer stupidity. Only you can decide where you go from here, I'd just advise taking some time to process this, then doing some very candid talking with him. That'll be the time to make decisions.

He got caught. He'd still be at it if he hadn't been.

Discussing your private details is disgusting.

I wouldn't want a relationship with someone who could so easily betray me like that.

@lapsedbookworm thanks for sharing, I'm sorry you had to go through that.

@ChateauDuMont that's my big worry, where would things have ended up if I hadn't caught him out. That in itself makes it hard to know if his remorse is real or a reaction to getting caught.

I just can't believe he'd be stupid enough to risk only getting to be with his child half the week. We have the best wee son, he's an absolute dote and we're so lucky. I just can't get my head round it that he'd be so fucking stupid as to jeopardise that.

Why can't these blokes just be happy with what they have. Is it the thrill of the chase? He dated her before and ended it and now the stupid twat has risked his family to flirt with her over messages?? It's mind boggling.

@Shiningout that's the thing- I think many of these blokes 'are' actually happy- they just enjoy the thrill and ego boost of the extra buzz on the side. It's rarely because they are unhappy

Yes that's what I think too!! Ridiculous and happens so often.

I don’t think you need to do anything now. And what you do might be different to all of us.

We can only speak from our own experience. It would be the end for me. Mainly because, in a long relationship there’s ups and downs. When you have another down period, will he do this again.

Not sure I would believe this woman randomly added him on Facebook added him, you happened to see and clock his reaction was weird and it happens to be the one women he then starts messaging inappropriately. There’s a lot of coincidence there.

Personally, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t the only time. I would always be thinking it’s the only time I caught him.

as well as, what you say, where would it have ended if you hadn’t caught him.

I think my immediate reaction would be to find her husband on social media and if he has it send him the screen shots. Not suggesting you should or that it’s the right thing to do.

But long term, take your time to make a decision. You may feel sure that his remorse is genuine. Rather than just being sorry he was caught. You may 100% feel he hasn’t done it before or won’t again and be able to move on. You may need counselling alone and/or together. You may decide to try and make it work but eventually decide you can’t. Or decide it’s over. But those decisions don’t have to be now. You need time to think things over when not in complete shock.

It’s never a good time to find this out. But finding it out at this time of year is even worse. Take your time and be kind to yourself for taking the time.

This is my exact feelings. It's so unbelievably stupid and short sighted.

We spoke when we got home from the in laws. He's blocked her, said he knows it was a mistake and stupid. Said that it was never going to go anywhere other than a stupid flirt and sexting, that he would never have met her in real life and he just wanted the attention. He said he did it because he'd been feeling really sad and alone (I know this is true, his friends are shit and he hasn't seen them in years, he's been low a few times and I got him doing a hobby with other men in the area which did really help initially but he stopped going to try and save money and his mood has noticeably dropped since then). I was clear with him that that isn't an excuse and he should be coming to me with those feelings or taking healthier steps to address those needs than turning to some random ex.

He said he wants to earn my trust back and that he only wants to be with me and ds and I've told him this is massively triggering for me given the experiences I've had with my ex. That I did so much work on myself at the start of our relationship to make sure I wasn't carrying that baggage into our relationship and being mistrustful unfairly. And this is what he's done with that.

I've told him we're both going to need to take a few days to think seriously about what we want/ need from this relationship and what he needs to do to rebuild my trust and that there is no guarantee he'll be able to do that.

I'm just so fucked off at the two of them. Her messaging him as if she gives a shit about how I'm doing with my mat leave ending and going back to work, and how our son is getting over his chest infection then messaging my husband two seconds later to let him know she's had a wank. And him happily going along with it all, actively encouraging it and her probably thinking we're both idiots. It's just so humiliating.