9 months after I was told about husbands ‘affair’

[MyCosyTraybake]

My life turned upside down 9 months ago and honestly I have no idea how to move on from this…
This is a really long one!

I’ve been with my husband over 15 years, children, house etc.

Last year a man turned up on my doorstep telling me my husband had been having an affair with his wife who was my husband’s colleague. I knew of her but only by name. I was in total shock, we had a young baby at the time and my MH was all over the place (I had support in place for this and I was doing a lot of work on myself) he’s always been a very hands on Dad and a very loving husband, some might even say to the point where he is just totally obsessed with me. It was just all so confusing, there had been absolutely no signs and I never would have suspected anything. His phone was always around, not that I ever looked, we spoke on the phone daily when he was at work as we always have done, worked from home for majority of the week.

I was shown emails from my husband’s work email but never any from her until later down the line. There were notes in my husband’s handwriting and a photo of them together on a train going to a work event. I was told at the time that he didn’t think anything sexual had happened only emotional.

The story unfolded and it turns out a lot of things had happened in the run up to the guy turning up at my door. The guy had been turning up randomly when my husband was at work trying to confront him, kicking his car in etc. My husband then discovered he had a tracker on his car in the April. I found out after that the female colleague had tipped my husband off as she was being tracked too. He’d also rung another male colleague at some point accusing him of an affair too.

My husband had kept everything from me, apparently to protect me as I had other things going on. The police were called that day as the guy had followed my husband to our daughters school where he verbally abused him in front of our child and then followed him back to our house which is when I turned up.

I got sucked in to what I was being told that I ended up contacting the woman she said everything was true and they had in fact been intimate multiple times (which her husband knew but just 2 days before he told me it wasn’t sexual) Their stories kept changing and it just got more and more confusing. I saw more and more emails, he’d written her a song / poem, a long love letter. By the time this had happened she had resigned and in her exit interview she told them it was because of the affair and apparently they carried out an internal investigation. From that no emails were found and no evidence of an affair. The guy ended up getting a caution for stalking as they were able to trace the tracker to his address etc. He’d lied to the police at first but ended up confessing apparently.

My husband still 9 months down the line says it absolutely isn’t true, he’s denied everything. He says they are both crazy and the female colleague had gone off the rails at work. Other colleagues have told me the same story about her. But there has been such a huge deceit from my husband, affair or not, and I just cannot get over it. We are still together but I can’t take anymore ups and downs. I love him but the resentment towards him builds and builds.

I asked him to take a lie detector, stupid I know, but i’m out of options. He won’t do it and says I need to forget about it and move on…

Where do I go from here…. I will never ever know the truth and I don’t think I can live like that 😔

@Scrollbreadroll everything you’ve said, I agree with and is what i’ve been thinking. I just want him to say it, or find a way to know for sure! There are so many uncertainties that I can’t make sense of.

I would get counselling for yourself and slowly work things out with the therapist. You sound very confused, not surprisingly. I agree with a previous poster that it feels like your gut knows that he isn’t entirely being truthful and you desperately want to believe him because you don’t want a “broken family”. That’s something complex best explored with a third party.

I feel sorry for you. It must do your head it.

@WalkingaroundJardine I had therapy for a while. I was already in therapy for myself before this, I had PND after our last child. Generally a very anxious person anyway. The last therapy wasn’t that helpful unfortunately. We didn’t get anywhere. But I know I need to try again to help myself.

@MushroomStamp i’ve gone over everything I could 100 times. I’ve contacted whoever I could without pushing it too far. Partly to protect him.

We tried couples counselling. It was pointless. He’d just sit there pleading his innocence. We went to therapy separately which seemed to have helped him more than me. I don’t think there will ever be closure and maybe I just to realise that and figure out where that leaves me.

@MyCosyTraybake It sounds like the husband of the other woman knew she was having an affair but wasn’t certain with who it was at first. I remember when we found out my sisters partner was having an affair but we just didn’t know exactly who it was. We suspected one woman at first but eventually found out it was a different woman he worked with. Sounds like the other husband was going through the same elimination process and eventually found the right guy - your husband. It’s highly doubtful your husband will admit it 9 months down the line when he just wants it all to be forgotten about. You already have the confirmation though, you don’t need it from him. You also know he’s done this type of thing before. Unfortunately the betrayed partner usually never finds out the full truth and the parts you do know are usually the watered down version.

I know lovely. But he won't admit it. You must make your peace with that.

When you found out about the first emotional affair did he try to deny or did he only admit to the very bare minimum that he had to ie. the stuff you had found?

@Scrollbreadroll Yes I see what you mean. I never thought about it like that, I just thought maybe he was paranoid. He called the first colleague and my husband was next to him, 2 minutes later he called my husband. Apparently my husband never answered because he wasn’t going to get drawn into it. Then they all just avoided her. Turns out they were a ‘friendly’ bunch, whatsapp groups etc.

@kkloo just the stuff I found out about. To this day I don’t know if it was sexual. I just know he spent hours on the phone to her while walking the dog. Honestly I was just too busy with children to realise. He still denies it was an affair, they were comforting each other after the loss of a parent.
pretty sure i’m just stupid!!

@MushroomStamp thank you x
we have honestly tried all of that. I still end up in this state! But I definitely need to make peace with it for myself.

There is too much here for it to be untrue IMO.

Put yourself in the position of someone who’s been accused of an affair, with loads of weird shit as well. You’d be absolutely beside yourself, offering every possible piece of proof you could that you didn’t do it. But he isn’t. He’s just telling your to move on - which is evidence that he is very guilty. When adults have affairs, they often move to sex very quickly.

if you decide to leave him, then you could tell your kids that you don’t love him anymore. Rather than say that it’s over this woman. As it’s actually true that you don’t love him - it just happens to be because of what he’s done.

He sounds like a liar to me. There’s nothing to compel him to confess, so he’ll just keep lying. If you have the means and opportunity to leave him, and support from family/friends, then it’d probably be a good idea.

@MyCosyTraybake It’s so unfair you are the one left with the emotional turmoil. The more you say about your husband the more I think he’s a bit of a knob! Sorry 😬Seems deny, deny, deny, is his motto…! Hours on the phone with another woman whilst walking the dog, very convenient. He’s got away with it twice now, so I hope you find the strength one day to leave him. But in the meantime I hope you find the peace you need.

@Scrollbreadroll thank you x
i’d think the same if I was reading about someone else’s husband. Sometimes you just can’t see it for yourself when you are in it!

I just want to ask is this the kind of life you envisioned for yourself...

Remember you don't have to live this way. Your kids will get over a separation. I could never trust him again ever. I also do not believe a word he says.

This man will make you ill, your life will be spent in confusion and mistrust.

You are unwilling to accept facts because he is such a practiced deciever, this man lies.

I honestly think he's pretty dangerous the way he's completely engineered ludicrous explanations, denied anything in the face of facts and has you backing down and denying your own reality.

This is how narcissists operate.
The beautiful liar.

Personally I would run.

Oh love. How horrible.

Unfortunately I think it’s probably true. He’s done it before.

Liar liar pants on fire.

I'm sorry. I had evidence, proof my DH was cheating. When confronted with the facts, he lied. And lied. And lied. Literally looked me in the eyes and lied...

Some men are incapable of telling the truth. I don't know why!

OP, there is such a thing as folie à deux, which is two people (usually family members) sharing a delusion. It's incredibly rare, but it does occur.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux
Having said that, I don't understand what happened with the wife's exit interview. If their employer carried out an internal investigation after she had resigned wouldn't they have been looking for evidence of harrassment? Either sexual harrassment that led to a relationship she didn't really want, or evidence that he harrassed her to resign and leave the company. I don't think an employer would bother investigating to find out if co-workers are having a sexual relationship if one of them has already left the team. So them emailing him to say they didn't find evidence of misconduct on his part doesn't mean they didn't find evidence he had a relationship with his co-worker.
Based on what you've said here I don't think the couple are delusional - I think your husband did have a relationship with the wife. But that's only based on reading things from you on the internet. Can you find someone you can talk to about it in person? Someone emotionally safe so that you can face the worst things, if they turn out to be true.

So them emailing him to say they didn't find evidence of misconduct on
his part doesn't mean they didn't find evidence he had a relationship
with his co-worker.

You can't even be sure the workplace actually emailed him, this could be fake.

I wouldn't trust a word he says.

'he’d written her a song / poem, a long love letter.'

But then you write -

'I will never ever know the truth '

So a song/poem and a long love letter isn't enough evidence that he cheated on you?

Even his colleagues noticed how close the pair of them were at work!

You were cheated on.

Priceless! And yet he's got form, he's done it before

He had an affair. A second affair, either emotional or emotional and sexual

No doubt in my mind

And he's gas lighting you and manipulating you

He sounds quite awful to me

He's 100% cheated. From what you said i think its more than emotional. Don't listen to a word from him.

You know the truth. He's lying to you. You could maybe get past it if he told the truth but he's lying which shows how little he respects you. I could never trust him again

The emails, letters are very much his style. To the point where the poem / song are lyrics that I know he has written before.

What was his explanation for that?