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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

9 months after I was told about husbands ‘affair’

246 replies

MyCosyTraybake · 15/06/2024 22:39

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 😔

OP posts:
MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 08:43

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo i’d say they definitely used work email, OW said they didn’t look into it properly because she’d left, no point etc. The letter from his boss to say ‘no evidence of an affair’ i’ve never been sure about but 🤷🏻‍♀️

OP posts:
PinkLemonade555 · 16/06/2024 08:45

If you’re wondering if you might be crazy it’s almost guaranteed there’s a narc on the scene somewhere.

you’re second guessing your intuition. This is crueller in some ways than the actual affair. It’s hugely destabilising and it’s designed to be.

I think you will gain clarity once you leave him. You need to trust yourself.

KomodoOhno · 16/06/2024 08:46

Staying for the children isn't good for the children. If you have sons you are teaching them this is acceptable to treat partners. If you have daughters you teach them this is perfectly fine, to suck it up and put up with it.

ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo · 16/06/2024 08:46

MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 08:43

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo i’d say they definitely used work email, OW said they didn’t look into it properly because she’d left, no point etc. The letter from his boss to say ‘no evidence of an affair’ i’ve never been sure about but 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well then he is an idiot.

OW could be right. But the fact that your husband thinks that proof that there wasn’t an affair, is weird. Because he knows as well as anyone, you could just not use work communication.

You know deep down he did this. The fact that he won’t admit it, seeing how much pain it’s causing is another betrayal.

IBelieveInFerries · 16/06/2024 08:49

It seens that your H had a flirtatious relationship, emotional affair or affair.

The letter that says no misconduct just means they are not going to discipline him, not that he is innocent.

In not coming clean, your H has put you in limbo, he hasn't given you the information you need to make an informed choice. Worse, he has gas lit you, so you feel you can't believe your own gut and what you can see with your own eyes.

My dad was a "hands on" dad, he was also cheated on my mum and subsequent partners and had emotional affairs. The persona of "the hands on" Dad or the "rational one" helped him justify his actions to himself and others.

Sending you 🌷and ❤️.

dottiedodah · 16/06/2024 08:50

I think hes cheated and you know he has deep down as well .ATM you feel compromised and want to believe he hasnt .Look all the signs are there .He wont admit it as he doesnt want to lose his security ,You are there to "fall back on" so to speak.Thing is how long you can live like this and how soon till he does it again.We can all tell you to leave but its up to you in the end really

MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 08:52

kkloo · 16/06/2024 07:10

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?

The only thing he’s tried to explain is the song - they must have got the lyrics from youtube (his songs are on there somewhere from years ago!)

OP posts:
gamerchick · 16/06/2024 08:58

How many people have been dragged into this? I'd be mortified to have all my work colleagues pulled into my life.

You either need to let it go or leave him OP. Those are your choices, he is never going to admit it. Never. This isn't a really healthy atmosphere for kids to grow up in. Even they have been pulled into it.

Your husband is weak. It's just a case of accepting that weakness or not.

OohCookedPerfectly · 16/06/2024 09:06

Your husband is lying through his teeth. Sorry.

whyhavetheygotsomany · 16/06/2024 09:07

MyCosyTraybake · 15/06/2024 23:15

@kkloo one just says I am so in love with you, with doodles all around. One says, you’re sad - you want us to be together.

Thats the one i’ve always struggled with - the whole notes thing is just so stupid and school like as it is!

Ok so if this is his handwriting I'm not sure what more roof you need. Of course his had an affair with her. He needs to admit it The lies would bother me more tbh.

Ihatemyinlaws · 16/06/2024 09:09

Op... sorry to be so blunt but can I confirm something? You're family think YOU'RE being stupid for not believing a man who has all this 'previous' lets say??? Wow you need a new family!

Jennyjojo5 · 16/06/2024 09:14

MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 08:28

@DullFanFiction the speaking on the phone for hours was the previous work colleague 11 years ago.

I think you are right about the counsellor, we talked about his feelings a lot (as if he was innocent) which probably confused me more!

My friend and her partner went to counselling after he had an emotional affair a few months prior. During the counselling sessions he was swearing down blind he was sorry, wouldn’t happen again, loved her and their kids , wanted to make it work etc

turned out that throughout those counselling sessions he was already shagging an entirely new woman. He was sat in the sessions swearing his undying love for his partner whilst secretly shagging someone new !

some men are just born liars

MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 09:18

@Ihatemyinlaws - is essence yes. my parents had my husband’s back from day dot. I’m quite used to that so it doesn’t surprise me.

Thankfully I do have a very good friend that has my back entirely and has spent hours talking things through with me trying to make sense of it all and to try help me work things for me!

OP posts:
tribpot · 16/06/2024 09:28

It sounds like an incredibly distressing situation, and for me the most telling bit is that your DH now wants you to stop talking about it and 'move on'. How convenient.

I feel as if you'd be better spending the money with private investigator, if nothing else to help you sort through the categories of evidence you have and how reliable that evidence is.

1 The police have been involved because this woman's husband was convinced she was having an affair with someone at work, but suspected both your DH and another man. He put a tracker on your DH's car and followed him to your child's school.

I think this is your 'top tier' of evidence.

2 The woman in question told you on the phone she had been having an affair with your husband. But she seems to have MH issues, was living with an obsessive who was stalking people, and both her and her husband's stories kept changing.

I think most of the evidence you have about what happened in the workplace, as opposed to the stalking, comes from this?

Either the husband or she sent you screenshots of emails, not the emails themselves. So you had no way to verify if the header information had been changed (unlikely on workplace email that the end user can change the display name themselves, but the screenshots could have been doctored).

3 You also saw screenshots of things in your DH's handwriting, which he claims to have been writing in the office (bizarre) in his own notebook, and which she then stole. These were presented as attachments to emails, but you don't have any of the actual emails. He seems to deny having written out the song lyrics of one of his old songs and claims they got it off YouTube but how did it end up in his handwriting in that case?

So the notes are real but the proof of them having been sent to her is more flimsy. However, enter:

4 Other work colleagues - you mention someone else has told you directly that your DH was sending handwritten notes to this woman and she to him? Other work colleagues have also said the woman in question had some kind of breakdown before she left.

5 The work investigation - who actually told you about this? What evidence of it do you have, if any, that isn't hearsay? As PP have said, it would have been an investigation into sexual harassment rather than just 'did they, or did they not, have an affair'. If it was based on reviewing emails, an automated scan of emails will not have looked at handwritten images attached as PDFs to emails, just the emails themselves. But you wouldn't expect an investigation into harassment would have just been a review of emails.

So all in all a highly confusing set of evidence, and nothing actually provable beyond your DH being the victim of stalking. But you have some weird facts that either your DH has admitted or a workplace colleague has confirmed:

  • he was handwriting non-work stuff in a notebook at work
  • he was sending handwritten notes to this woman.

I think it is also telling that, in the counselling, all he did was protest his innocence. I suspect that he knew if he strayed from this one line he would eventually trip up on a lie. The purpose of the counselling was surely not to debate the facts but to talk about how the situation had made you feel, and by just saying 'but I'm innocent' he could shut that down and make it about him. (But mysteriously he also didn't want to talk about how he had been the victim of stalking?)

Add to all this your DH's obsessive behaviour around you (monitoring you?), the previous emotional affair, the isolating you from your friend to ensure that you would have no-one to validate your concerns, the fact he is now trying to shut down any discussion about it and telling you to move on. None of this points to a healthy relationship, whatever happened with this woman. But there is an awful lot of smoke here for there to be no fire.

I would focus on some more counselling for you alone, to reflect on your marriage and what you want to happen next. And probably also to come to terms with the fact you will never truly know what happened as too many people have told too many lies. But that you should find a version of it that makes the most sense to you, and act on that.

TescoDriver · 16/06/2024 09:33

MyCosyTraybake · 16/06/2024 08:43

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo i’d say they definitely used work email, OW said they didn’t look into it properly because she’d left, no point etc. The letter from his boss to say ‘no evidence of an affair’ i’ve never been sure about but 🤷🏻‍♀️

What is it about the letter you've never been sure of? You obviously know it doesn't stack up with what you've seen. Believe me, something like this would bring a company into serious disrepute. There is no way they didn't look in to it properly just because she left - especially when the other party (your DH) didn't leave.

Sadly I think it won't matter how much people spell it out to you, the reality of accepting it is true is just too much for you to bear and the relative safety of denial feels the safer option. The company investigation found no evidence of any emails but you've seen the emails. There's just no way you could be faced with all the evidence you saw, which you know was from his email address and in his writing, and still not be sure.

It seems he has done a sterling job in damage limitation and convincing you they just got into his notebook. He must be breathing real sigh of relief. I think this is one of those awful cases where he has used your poor mental health to bamboozle you so much you don't know if you are coming or going anymore.

You need to understand that you are never going to find peace with this because your intuition knows it just doesn't add up and will always keep questioning it in the background, and that will eventually drive you insane because you won't be able to trust your own judgement anymore. Surely separating is a better alternative to a lifetime of always knowing but never being able to stop questioning in your mind because the evidence you saw doesn't match the explanation?

JeepJeepJeep · 16/06/2024 10:12

I think you need to look at this from another angle.
You're not ready to accept the end of your marriage so you need to manage your circumstances.

You need to make peace with how it is for now. He isn't going to tell you anything else.

Start to build up some savings and keep your friends and independence.

You can decide to see how you feel in a set period of time ( a year? ).

Clue: if you then still feel confused/unhappy you'll be in a stronger place to ltb.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 16/06/2024 10:14

Maybe i’m just going along with that theory and I can’t bare to believe any of it?

This is understandable while the trauma lasts, but you said it yourself in your OP with "I will never ever know the truth and I don’t think I can live like that"

In brushing aside one "emotional" (and probably more) affair he's received a green light to continue, and now his only option is stubborn denial because you've not yet reached the point where more truth dribbles out and he switches to it all being your fault anyway

My own advice would be to at least get some legal advice and go from there, and I wish you only the best with it

Seaoftroubles · 16/06/2024 10:20

OP So sorry you are going through this and especially that your parents haven't got your back.Your deceitful husband has obviously done a number on them too, unless they have never been supportive.
You've had some good advice on here though, and all l can add is to put yourself first and listen to what you really want and need. Get more counselling if it helps, but don't diminish your needs for the sake of keeping the status quo. Separation doesn't mean your children won't adjust if you co parent well.
Read and re read the excellent evidence presented by @tribpot and just think what makes sense to you going forward. You need peace from the confusion and anxiety this whole drama has precipitated and l hope you find it.

BarbaraWoodlouse1 · 16/06/2024 10:21

No smoke without fire.
Know your worth. Look after yourself.

vincettenoir · 16/06/2024 10:23

I wouldn’t know what to make of this either. Certainly this other couple sound pretty troubled.

NC10125 · 16/06/2024 10:26

I think that in your position I would work from the starting point of they did have an affair. There is so much here which feels dodgy or unlikely, and so much that he’s lied about, that I think on the balance of probabilities he has been seeing this woman.

Working from that starting point. What do you want to do? Could you stay with him? Do you want to separate? Is there a way that you could move forward?

You don’t need evidence to leave him.

grapesstrawberriesplease · 16/06/2024 10:30

Sorry to be blunt, but he’s cheated and you both know it. What he’s doing now is bordering on, if not absolutely is, coercive control and abuse.

All I’ve got to say is affairs disgust me. It’s one thing to have one in the first place, it’s cruel. But to lie about it when the game is up? To make the person you took vows with, the mother of your children, question their own sanity and doubt themselves? Beyond cruel.

Dery · 16/06/2024 10:34

@MyCosyTraybake - 1 key point: it is wrong to say (as a few posters are saying) that happy people don’t have affairs. Some people are just greedy - they just want more than what they have - or more of what they have - even if it is happy. Many people wouldn’t have affairs even if very unhappy. It sounds like things were a bit tough but that’s when a healthy couple pulls together. It’s not an excuse for an affair.

DoubleTime · 16/06/2024 10:42

So OP, why would you think the 'other woman' didn't leave her husband for going around harassing her work colleagues and accusing them of having an affair with her ? Or for getting himself charged with stalking your husband?
If the affair hadn't happened, I mean.

How did this woman guess that it was your husband (out of all her male colleagues) that she needed to 'tip off' that he might have a tracker on his car?

I would be very surprised that any workplace - 'apparently they carried out an internal investigation' - when colleagues had an affair. It happens all the time. Did your husband tell you this, perchance ?

His phone was always around - you don't think he could have just had another phone ?

And........why do you think it was that your husband didn't contact the police when 'trying to confront him, kicking his car in etc. My husband then discovered he had a tracker on his car in the April'.

I'm sorry OP, but it looks like he had an affair. He only contacted the police because you saw the husband harassing him, and he had no choice.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 16/06/2024 10:47

All I’ve got to say is affairs disgust me. It’s one thing to have one in the first place, it’s cruel. But to lie about it when the game is up? To make the person you took vows with, the mother of your children, question their own sanity and doubt themselves? Beyond cruel

I agree with you, @grapesstrawberriesplease, but as said before I can see why they try it ... seen from their POV, if they tell the truth now they risk the partner leaving, and if they're going to leave anyway there's no point in having told the truth and giving them more ammunition

The sensible option of course would be not to have cheated in the first place, but sadly that seems beyond some