Worth staying together for DC after an affair?

[Moppitymuppet]

Been with DH for around 14 years now. We have 2 primary aged DC.

Been trying to recover from the discovery of DH’s multiple affairs for 3 years now. Several OW spanning over a decade. Our entire marriage, essentially. And even before.

I can’t say it’s been easy and I still think about it most days. But I was determined to stay together for the DC. I also still loved him but as time goes on I am less sure. Probably because after a while of trying to fix things, and him making an effort, life falls back into how it was before. For a while things seemed better, in a weird way. I think they still are in that I feel at least all of that is now behind us. But sometimes I sense that he is just going through the motions. Maybe I am too. I don’t know.

I know there has been no further infidelity on his part. I still suspect he had lied about the extent of emotional involvement with the one I discovered. The others he told me about he swore were just sex. But I’m obviously not convinced he truly loves me given what he’s done, despite him promising he wouldn’t leave and wants to keep the family together. I expected him to leave for a long time. I’m only just starting to relax again, I suppose.

Is it feasible to think we can carry on mainly for the sake of the kids? Things are stable now. I finally feel more in control of things, and we’ve managed to get through three years since. I wouldn’t say I’m desperately unhappy. DH works a lot. I’m a SAHM. I can’t imagine breaking up the family when things are, for all intents and purposes, working. In a weird way I think things have improved but maybe I’m just deluding myself.

Anyone been through similar? I guess after infidelity there’s this frantic trying to fix everything and you have that to focus on as a team. So in a weird way after a while we felt closer. And now it’s like this new normal, and it’s good, he’s not cheating. He has done all the right things. We both want to do what is best for DC. I just don’t know how sustainable it is after everything because it will always be the elephant in the room, I suppose…

thanks for your thoughts x

The thing is if your life isn’t dreadful and you feel that you have processed what he did then you need not change things at all.

However you are here so I think on some level you are still wondering if it’s all going to be worth it - only time will tell

I find it interesting how he said he was unhappy with himself and that made him cheat - so does that mean that his therapy enabled him to become happy and resolve his issues? Do you believe this?

You have mentioned the kids being important to your decision to work at this but what happens when they do go to uni and it’s just you and him?

What if his unhappiness with himself returns? What will he do then?

I think you can stay
your eyes are open it does sound miserable and transactional it purely depends on what you can put up and get past everyone’s bar is different
if it works for you it works for you that’s all that matters
theres 8 years before the kids are adults how will you feel when it’s just you and him

Part of me does wonder if he might think his ‘duty’ is done once they get to be teenagers or adults, but then also given it’s such a long time, he surely can’t think that’s a practical solution if that’s the only reason he’s staying.

It's not really a long time for him when he isn't holding off from anything he wants. If he wants to have sex with other women in that time period then he will, plus all the benefits of being married. He's not losing any time in that regard.

Are you?

I was trying to work out how I felt for you after reading all these comments and it’s actually pity, which is pretty awful. This is not meant to be a mean comment at all just the honest truth. I hope you manage to feel better about the situation and find a way to feel happy with him. He was actually unfaithful to you before you got married which should be the honeymoon stage. He also carried in with multiple women the last 10 years😔I’m sorry to say I think he’s done all the councelling because he’s in shock at it all coming out and doesn’t want to loose his family set up. Once it’s all settled down no doubt he’ll cheat again

He may well be doing just that, staying until the kids are older or that might be his aim if he can.
I don't know how old you both are but it's a different ball game for men in terms of moving on later in life. He could probably stay with you for another ten years and maybe even stay faithful although that seems unlikely. And then he could leave and do it all over again with someone else if he wanted to.
There's no biological clock ticking if he wanted more kids and older men seem to find it easy to attract younger partners.

I know you probably think I am projecting and your situation is different.
Maybe I am, but please, please don't make the mistakes I did. Our relationship was just like yours, it was "ok", we rubbed along, it all seemed fine.
Until it wasn't. And he decided the time was right for him for it to end.
I wasn't properly prepared financially or emotionally, I had kept my head well and truly in the sand and it was horrible. It has taken a long time to get past it too.

Please think carefully and rationally about the future and, whatever you do, work on your independence then if things do go wrong you will be able to handle it. Learn from me.

how can you not be financially vulnerable? There’s no scenario where the divorce settlement sets you up for life. If I were you I’d be studying for a better job, demanding rhat cheaty mc chesty face fully support me including doing a bit more parenting even though he has a ‘Big Job’, if he were divorced if he ever wanted to see his children again he’d be picking them up and looking after them at least one night a week. Get qualified, get a decent job. Have the capacity to be independent, because nothing would make me believe a man who’s been sleeping with multiple other women for years will stop that.

What @Codlingmoths said.

Your DH has been having affairs since before your 14 year marriage? Having stayed all this time, your self-esteem must be rock-bottom.

I could not stay in this situation for the DC; you are effectively teaching your DC that this behaviour is what women should accept.

Leave and spend a long time in therapy, as this man does not love you or perhaps even like you, to be disrespecting you so openly.

I don’t know where to start with this without massively projecting. But I’ll try.

Your posts are laden with ‘he’ and his actions to which you seem to be a passive respondent. I’m not seeing your upset, hurt, feeling oh betrayal, anger or any of the reactions that I would consider normal.

You seem to be ignoring the warning that financial institutions make that ‘past performance is no guarantee of future returns.’ How can a man who has betrayed you be trusted to now be someone you remain tethered to?

His behaviour is a pattern, and one that I believe will inevitably end up with him leaving you. Do you want that to be at his instigation on his terms at his choice of time, or do you want to take control if your own future?

Do you have your own sense of a line in the sand, and if not, why not? What if next month he said he had met someone else? Where is your ‘enough’ line?

You are very vulnerable. You sound very passive. Please think hard about your possible life scenarios, and take back some control and decision-making.

If I were you I’d get yourself on surviving infidelity. They have a reconciliation forum and it may be helpful to post there.

On that website what you’re describing is called the ‘plain of lethal flatness’. You struggle to feel anything; it’s exhausting healing from the trauma so this is your minds way of protecting itself.

FWIW I am several years down the line now and very happy I stayed, we honestly get on brilliantly, laugh a lot and are good together, we always were, his issues caused his affair not our relationship. But I had to work on ‘acceptance’ not forgiveness and I will not forget. I’ve also reframed my understanding of love which hasn’t been a bad thing. I get that it is a verb, action based and that he shows me that every day. I’ve also knocked him off the pedestal I had him on and put myself up there. There’s power in being your own hero.

It might be helpful to hear from other people who have gone through this and come out the other side so surviving infidelity is your best bet.

Huge hugs, this stuff is hard and even though you’re three years past you are still healing.

It probably seems shocking to read and I get that, but I may be coming across as quite passive because for me, the discovery was a few years ago and the point of the OP was not really to bring up the original hurt and betrayal. It was kind of to see if others had been through it and found the situation to be sustainable even though the whole landscape has changed. It just was not what I expected.

I can’t predict what he will or won’t do, clearly. I’m basing my thoughts on what I see now. I think once you know someone is capable of that you can’t not know it.

I doubt he would leave his children suffering so if we were to split that is why I am confident I would be ok financially. So would he - it’s not a factor in us staying together. As I said, I had always planned on getting back to work and I think that may help give me some more clarity.

I guess I sometimes just feel that things are still ‘off’ sometimes. Tiny little things. And I don’t know if that’s me going into overdrive because I’m now hyper sensitive to it. He has given me all the assurances and access to everything I want. So it’s not intentional on his part.

I don’t know if that’s a post infidelity thing or just part of normal long term relationships. As other posters have said - I clearly have no true benchmark for what is normal in this marriage! Because he was never faithful.

I doubt he would leave his children suffering so if we were to split that is why I am confident I would be ok financially

Haven't you read the countless threads on here from women who thought the same and their husbands completely change once they leave? He was happy enough to risk his wife and his children's suffering multiple times when he was cheating, I'm really not sure why you have this image of him as a decent human being? He's proven himself to be selfish and deceitful, putting himself first, NOT his children. And you're way down the list.

Please, please get some therapy, work on your self esteem, and find the anger. You and your children are worth so much more than this.

I would like to reiterate what @Bumblebeestiltskin said.

Right now your marriage is kind of toodling along. Both of you are treading water. There is a VERY high risk that at some point he will decide to bail out. And, as has been shown time and time again, he will do so only once he has a nice warm bed waiting for him.

At which point all his promises and commitment will evaporate. And you'll be left holding the babies. You will be a single mother on close to minimum wage, inadequate child maintenance and (maybe) universal credit. Don't persuade yourself that this couldnt happen because your current situation seems so far removed from this scenario.

Get back to work and put everything into building your career. It's what he has been doing all along. Invest as much in your future as he does. I can almost guarantee it'll stand you in good stead.

He's likely in the future to leave for a much younger woman. Please don't assume he'll play fair financially.

I do appreciate your concern and hear what you’re saying, but legally I know I would be entitled to far more and he wouldn’t be able to just abscond without paying anything. He is employed, not much risk hiding money in businesses or offshore etc.

In terms of high risk of him leaving… I don’t know, as I said, I suspected there was more than he was letting on initially emotionally with the last OW but because he was so adamant he couldn’t lose us and made such a concerted effort to do all the right things, and he’s stayed, it can’t have been that serious. As I said, as time has gone on I’m not as worried about that, but I was for a long time afterwards… which was silly as obviously I was also simultaneously furious at him and disgusted by what he’d done. But these things aren’t logical I suppose.

This is exactly what i was going to say. Your children will find out, maybe not when they're young, but when they're older. And what the other poster said is true, you are showing your kids its either ok to put up with someone cheating for the whole marriage or teaching them its ok to teach women like crap

I live in a small-ish place and have seen the fall out of kids finding out when they are teenage about affair(s) a parent has had. People talk...

I think it depends on the affairs whether people find out or not. My ex worked away from home a lot and the affairs were carried out hundreds of miles away from where we lived. It's not a given that people find out. I only found out because he fell for one of them and left me for her. Then I did some online sleuthing and found indication that she wasn't the first.

If the OPs husband has a job that comes with travel, then there's lots of opportunities that aren't on her doorstep.

Presumably they will talk anyway once it becomes common knowledge...would they not talk if the kids were younger?

You can stay together if you want to but don't kid yourself it's in your children's best interests.

Your husband will do this again. He will because he wants to and because he can. He's shown you this time and time again and he has a permanent green light. If you're ok with that knowledge and can fudge/pretend then fine but your children will know deep down that things aren't right.

You both have a duty to look after your children but that doesn't mean you have to stay together to do it. If you think that maintaining your lifestyle is a worthwhile trade off then do it. It's up to you.

Know though that he will do it again and if you are humiliated in the process then he will not care.

I'm really sorry to read your post. You and your children deserve so much better than this twat.

I think S00tyandsweep's post is also something to consider if you really want to maintain status quo, put it on a 'commercial' basis with divorce being the result if he steps out of line.

Definitely bolster your own self-worth though, OP, make yourself feel secure and confident, it's good anyway - and it will be invaluable should your position change.

You are rightly concerned about your children, OP. But you don’t know how they may react to being kept in the dark.

A woman I know, a friend of the family, put up for many years with her husband having an OW. She kept quiet as he was prominent in their community, and exposing him would have humiliated her and DC too.
He left her, and their town, to move in with OW as soon as he retired.
His adult children were furious with him. But what shocked us is that they blamed his wife too, for letting them grow up ‘living a lie’. One son and his wife have cut off all communication with his mother. She has never seen her grandchildren since then.
Her son is bring terribly unfair and self-righteous, in my opinion. But you may be letting yourself in for this, OP. I hope not.
(Edited for typo.)

I don't really know what you came on here for OP because you don't seem to be listening to anyone's advice and you appear to believe everything your husband now says even though you know he first cheated on you before you were even married.

If this was a one night stand story I might understand it but you are married to a serial cheat. It's staggering really how you constantly make excuses for him.

But maybe you will be the one story where it all works out fine, he never cheats again and you stay married into your golden years. I hope so for your sake.

I think the OP can't accept her husband's a scumbag. A bit of snobbery at play.

Snobbery??