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 😔

@DoubleTime I was told his manager went to HR but again this is all hearsay. I spoke to the manager and he knew what was going on both being tracked etc. but yes, they are pally so he could be covering although i’m not sure he is that type of person from what I know of him.

He only knew what she had said at the exit interview because the investigation started (and ended quickly) so probably BS!

Why not ask him OP, not about the affair, but why he didn't contact the police when a man who was persistently harassing him at work for no reason then progressed to showing up at his home when your daughter was alone.

Ask your husband why all he did was send an email to say 'if he didn't stop' (ie room for another home visit!) he would go to the police. (And while your at it ask how he got the guy's email address).

It was your denial that told you not to believe her because you didn’t want to. You’re simply looking for ways to doubt her.

Why would she have dates? Why would her story tally with her DH’s who wasn’t actually there and received everything second hand (in a more palatable version as she wants to save her relationship)?

@MyCosyTraybake I can understand you feeling confused by it all with all the different stories but this is also very common in these situations. I just think back to my sisters situation, we knew her husband was having an affair and we were trying to piece together the information, but it was like a jigsaw where the pieces wouldn’t fit. My sister would speak to him, his friends, people she knew at his work and also did some digging of her own and things were changing and stories didn’t add up but when you take all of that away; the fact remained that he was having an affair. And I think that’s the same here with your husband.

Obviously the husband of the other woman had his suspicions and wasn’t the type to take it lying down - he was trying to figure out who it was and wanted to catch them out! Yes he went to extreme measures and was wrong there but just remember you are asking your husband to take a lie detector test which is also quite extreme. When you are being deceived and just want to know the truth, we all probably do things we never thought we would. Your husband probably never told anyone he was having an affair and has sold this story to his work mates that this woman/her husband is crazy. I know my sisters partner had not told any of his friends the real truth so they were covering for him thinking he had done nothing wrong.

Also, with you saying that some of the stories from the other woman and her husband differ, she is probably also not telling her husband the full truth. She might have said to him there was no sex but wanted you to know there was. So he said there wasn’t but she said there was. Did you get yourself checked out by the way for STIs? I would definitely get a full check for peace of mind when you feel able to.

It sounds like your husband has form for being overly friendly and forming connections with females. Major red flag there.

I think you will drive yourself crazy trying to get the real truth, you never ever will. Even if he admits to some things he will never tell you the whole truth. Just think of it this way - you might not be able to connect all the dots but you already have the answers to the main questions;

• Did he have an emotional affair - YES
• Did he lie to you continuously- YES
• Did he lie to cover his own back - YES
• Has he had an emotional affair before - YES
• Did he write love notes in his own handwriting that she had - YES
• Is there a photo of them together - YES

It’s up to you now if you can turn a blind eye again and make peace with it like you did 10 years ago. But how many times are you going to let him do this to you? 😞

Honestly I would want a divorce and try to get on with my life.

The affair partner said they had sex “multiple times”. Why would she lie? How would that benefit her?

Why are we going with this “emotional affair” nonsense?

Oh I absolutely believe they did have sex and that it was a full blown affair. I just meant that an emotional affair as the minimum is undeniable really.

Op can you answer why she would lie?

and the ‘she didn’t want her employer to think her husband was crazy’ makes no sense. Especially since she was leaving and left immediately.

Them creating this whole lie, makes no sense. Going through his old YouTube videos? What do they gain from it?

Why would you husband lie? What does he gain?

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo I couldn’t say why she would lie. I don’t know her at all. I can only go off what people have told me, that they were friendly, she wanted more etc etc.

I just don’t know where he would have got the time to have sex with her. I know that sounds so stupid but he did every morning school run, every afternoon school run. Worked at home etc etc. He has a very noticeably tattoo which she would have absolutely seen if they had sex, she could never ever answer that.

when I first spoke to her, she said the physical affair was over in Feb. Then all of a sudden it was a specific date in July. I know where he was that day because I spoke to him most of the morning and then he came home. I don’t think it could get any more confusing, the unknowns now are so much worse than finding out he’d done it.

Thats the first thing I asked… his answer was never good enough. He said he panicked, thought it would all go away, worried I wouldn’t believe him because of previous stuff.

He sent the email to the OW work email address, i’ve seen that! OW husband then replied on his personal address.

It certainly does sound confusing. I think the only certainty is that something clearly went on and neither of them are being completely honest. He has a tattoo she would definitely have seen if they had sex but she can't describe it. She also said she had to say something otherwise her husband would look crazy. So obviously he was right then, something was indeed going on.

Oh I see.

Happy spouses very definitely DO cheat.

Men who walk around all smiles with a loving spouse and a happy home still stick their dick in strange for no apparent reason.

If a reasonable, decent person is unhappy they talk about it, tell their spouse they plan to cheat and give them the same options, or leave, or find another mutually acceptable solution.

Decent people never cheat.

So you know it's true then?

If he 'thought it would all go away' he wouldn't have sent any email saying he would go to the police. Did he show you the email ? Just thinking how he had went to lengths to show you how you can fake emails......

OP, if she made up the affair that would have to mean that she, or her husband (with her consent), created the emails, that she stole the notepad from work (with all the notes still in it ?) and that she resigned from her job for no reason. It would also mean that she and her husband were targeting your husband, and then also you, for no reason other than MH issues.

All this would be really serious stuff if that's the case - did your husband tell the police that in addition to the husband harassing and stalking him, that this man's wife had invented an affair and was telling his own wife about it, with details ? And had told his employer too?

@DoubleTime yes he went to the police with everything. The tracker, the emails that he said he didn’t send etc.

It’s a theory I had about why she left work. Close colleagues knew some things, and she panicked and made up an affair with her husband to make it look like her husband wasn’t just a pyscho who puts trackers on cars, gets colleagues phone numbers and threatens them etc. It’s just a theory and quite extreme for a couple to do that I know!

Now I am not sure either OP. I thought you were going to say that he left out the OW's part to the police.

@DoubleTime thats what probably makes it worse. He wanted it all to be looked into by the police. He said he had nothing to hide and he thought they would find that the emails etc were from OW husbands devices. It never went that far with the police, so I never had an answer from that.

Given there is evidence that the other husband is a stalker (admittedly possibly of his wife's lover) it seems possible, although not likely, that she confessed to an affair that didn't happen, because it was better than being continually accused and tracked by her DH. Further more @MyCosyTraybake wasn't allowed direct contact with the woman, only with her husband.

However, what she did reveal during the one conversation that was allowed was a lot of information about OP's DH and their family. He's admitted writing a story to send to her DD. It's not hard to see why the other husband thought there was an affair going on.

Can you be sure that he did take the emails, and everything ? Did the police ever ask you about her ? About her telling you she had an affair with your husband?

It’s really obvious something has gone on. He has crossed boundaries. Which makes it at least 2 times.

Let’s be honest, if you have found twice, chances are he has don’t it more times an has got away with it.

If you are only bothered about it if he slept with her, then you need to drop it and move on. You won’t ever know. If you are happy to accept the emotional affair, you need to move on.

You seem to really want to believe it wasn’t physical. So I think you might need to find away to believe him and move on. Every time you get a thought about it, you need to find away to get it out of your mind.

If the emotional affair doesn’t bother you and you won’t ever get proof of a physical, you can’t keep letting it impact you to this point. If you choose to believe it wasn’t physical and accept the test, you can’t hold it over him for the rest of your lives.

Actually they are becoming more and more common as licence conditions for registered sex offenders and high risk DV cases.

@DoubleTime I saw the emails to and from the police officer. They never spoke to me because I didn’t have the tracker on my car, I wasn’t the ‘victim’ in that. But they know the whole story but it wasn’t really pointed at the OW it was at at the OW husband.

A few times OP, you seem to rely on 'type of person' to try and assess the truth of things. However, your DH has form for an affair, done it before, he is the type, though you don't seem to want to acknowledge that.
What you usually find in opposing stories is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Your DH is lying somewhat to minimise, but also the OW and her partner are also lying at various time, which muddies the water.
I don't see how you can move on from this while your DH keeps up the pretence that it was all them and he has done nothing. He is creating a brick wall that you cannot get through and not acknowledging his part in it. He just doodles feelings of love, hmm?
Look at timing's of when, and if, he took any action and if it was the behaviour of an innocent or guilty man? Any police, HR involvement instigated by him, and when? You'd report it asap if innocent rather than be reactive to an investigation. The damage of his car - what did he do about that? How long did this circus drag on before you found out from her partner, rather than from your DH?
Your DH has gone down the total denial of everything route, it's a hole that's hard to climb out of and is not helping you.

I don’t think it does sound confusing. OP is intentionally confusing herself as she doesn’t want to face reality.

DH and OW had an affair. That is a million times more likely than a “psycho” woman at the office pretending she had an affair to cover up for her DH who also happens to be a “psycho” who targeted DH for no reason.