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 😔

So OW’s DH knew she was shagging a colleague he just didn’t know which one. He tried the other guy first before he realised it was DH.

He found out the full extent of the affair in July as he’d been on the trail since April but didn’t have proof until then. Or that’s when his wife admitted it, or some of it.

Personally I wouldn't believe a word he says.

Just how many of these explanations and conversations with the police, work colleauges and other married couples have you actually been fully present in person with. ? How many are hearsay, what he has told you, or conversations on the phone with who knows who? E mails and texts from whoever ?

Master manipulator comes to mind.

These types often have financial secrets aswell, do some credit checks on yours and his name. I think if I were to employ a PI, it would be to find out who this man is who you are married to.

The lies are just too convaluted to believe he's a good person and usually these types whilst trying to spin plates and pacify you with outlandish excuses are already spinning another web of lies with another adventure, meanwhile you're occupied with this particular drama.

He screams narcissist to me, has to be the victim, people love him and cover for him and you are the only one who can see none of this adds up, he knows you are onto him, he has to make you believe him otherwise the whole pantomime falls to bits and then you don't want to see the real version of him.

You will be back in a few years with similar confusing mindfuck senarios.

Who knows, and I can see why not knowing is torture for you OP, but just as 'there is no smoke without fire', also there are definitely a few people out there who get obsessed/begin to believe their own lies/like drama in a relationship/attempt to blackmail others/are just totally deluded etc.

Part of me can sympathise with your husband not telling you, once he made the first decision to manage it on his own assuming it would go away... Have you watched Baby Reindeer? (Much as it disturbed me, I found it compulsive viewing, because I was a victim of stalking when a young woman and the situation which evolved - everyone else's take on it - was so difficult to extract myself from and next to impossible to prove myself innocent of... I ended up having a nervous breakdown and moving to a different country and I am sure the rumours follow me still, but I did not encourage that chap romantically AT ALL. I have no doubt he believed otherwise, but his perspective was totally, totally warped. In hindsight, I think he was grieving and probably not coping very well, although he projected a very upright image. He was totally self-deluded, but everyone except my housemates believed him, because I was known to have made a very stupid mistake two years before... It was that which totally broke me, to be punished twice for the thing which I regretted so much the first time around).

If the OW & her husband live in the vicinity, is there anyway you can get a little more info on their background? Does either one have history or form for false accusations etc. They both sound slightly unhinged to be admitting to all sorts of things and yet still be together.

its not the actual doing of it, its the husband's reaction that will be telling

His story sounds like rubbish and if you believe it at all then I think you are very gullible and naive.

Do you trust him?

Really, truly, actually trust him?

If the answer is no then the relationship is now over.

OP. DOES THIS RING BELLS?

Mr. Sensitive is soft-spoken, gentle, and supportive—when he isn’t being abusive. He loves the language of feelings, openly sharing his insecurities, his fears, and his emotional injuries. He hugs other men. He may speak out about the absurdity of war or the need for men to get in touch with their feminine side. Perhaps he attends a men’s group or goes on men’s retreats. Often he has participated extensively in therapy or twelve-step programs, or reads all the big self-help books, so he speaks the language of popular psychology and introspection. His vocabulary is sprinkled with jargon like developing closeness, working out our issues, and facing up to hard things about myself. He presents himself to women as an ally in the struggle against sex-role limitations. To some women, he seems like a dream come true.
So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing obvious yet. But this is exactly the problem: Mr. Sensitive wraps himself in one of the most persuasive covers a man can have. If you start to feel chronically mistreated by him, you are likely to assume that something is wrong with you, and if you complain about him to other people, they may think you must be spoiled: You have the New Age man, what more do you want?
The following dynamics are typical of a relationship with Mr. Sensitive and may help explain your feeling that something has gone awry:

1. You seem to be hurting his feelings constantly, though you aren’t sure why, and he expects your attention to be focused endlessly on his emotional injuries. If you are in a bad mood one day and say something unfair or insensitive, it won’t be enough for you to give him a sincere apology and accept responsibility. He’ll go on and on about it, expecting you to grovel as if you had treated him with profound cruelty. (Notice the twist here: This is just what an abuser accuses his partner of doing to him, when all she is really looking for is a heartfelt I’m sorry.)
2. When your feelings are hurt, on the other hand, he will insist on brushing over it quickly. He may give you a stream of pop-psychology language (Just let the feelings go through you, don’t hold on to them so much, or It’s all in the attitude you take toward life, or No one can hurt you unless you let them) to substitute for genuine support for your feelings, especially if you are upset about something he did. None of these philosophies applies when you upset him, however.
3. With the passing of time, he increasingly casts the blame on to you for anything he is dissatisfied with in his own life; your burden of guilt keeps growing.
4. He starts to exhibit a mean side that no one else ever sees and may even become threatening or intimidating.

Mr. Sensitive has the potential to turn physically frightening, as any style of abuser can, no matter how much he may preach nonviolence. After an aggressive incident, he will speak of his actions as anger rather than as abuse, as though there were no difference between the two. He blames his assaultive behavior on you or on his emotional issues, saying that his feelings were so deeply wounded that he had no other choice.

It’s from Lundy Bancroft ‘Why does he do that?’ I was pointed towards it on here after describing my DH’s behaviour. You have written that you talked a lot about his feelings in counselling and it made me think of this.

The first ‘incident’ was the OW husband calling the other male colleague. They were abroad at the time. On that phone call he threatened to kill him and tell his wife. 2 minutes later my husband phone rings. He didn’t answer.

Why not?

@MyCosyTraybake I have to say I think the other couple are batshit and OW was likely making stuff up to make her H jealous. It is definitely possible to have things like this happen. I know because I got harassed by a bloke at work and had done absolutely nothing to encourage him and it got totally out of hand. It would have been easy for my partner to believe the crap that was going round the office - thankfully he didn’t. In the end, because he did something really stupid, the bloke harassing me got dumped. Apparently this was my fault too (had no idea, didn’t socialise with him etc). Thank God I spoke to my boss early on and warned what was going on. I also know that I wanted to protect my partner, not because I felt I had anything to hide but it was just horrible. Anyway, in hindsight I should have told him but - hindsight is great.

Only you can decide if you can move past this, whether he has or hasn’t had an affair you feel what you feel. It’s possible to forge anything these days. It’s also possible to scan someone’s notes, fake email content and anything else they want it to look like. I think OW is an attention seeker.

I’m sorry to hear that happened to you.

I’m just to drawn in on both sides, had I not seen anything emails etc there is not a part of me that would have believed it even if the OW had told me. It’s a very complicated situation… but I don’t know whether i’m defending him and just being a bit naive.

I don’t know the OW just basing my thoughts on what others have told me about her character at work. Being up and down, storming out of meetings. Not wanting to marry her now husband. Seeing an ex in the office and making a big deal about it. Husband turning up randomly. Going to male colleagues for support etc.

A strange tale .

You can’t just ‘do a lie detector test’. You would require a trained operator, and a number of sessions to establish physiological responses. You would never know how well-trained the operator was, and hence how reliable the result. And it would cost £000s.

You will never know the truth.
You will never know all the details to your satisfaction.
So you have to learn how to live with that.

Take a step back.
You don't trust him.
Whether he did this/that/anything with this woman, you don't trust him anyway, because of the first event years ago. It is not about whether he did or didn't do stuff, it is not about whether he "deserves" to be trusted. It is not about who is right and who is wrong, it is about your feelings.

Your feelings don't need to be justified with "truth", your feelings don't have to be "right", your feelings just are what they are.

It is about whether deep down you want to carry on in this marriage, knowing that you don't trust him, and never will be able to trust him.
You don't need an excuse to end it. You don't need proof, or a reason, or to be "right" to end it. If you can't cope with the feelings, you can just end it.

If he had nothing to hide he'd take a lie detector to put your mind at rest

If you honestly want a completely separate review of this you need to go to a company that specialises in personal investigations. They do a lot of reputation / sourcing / reference stuff for both individuals and companies. They can make independent enquiries and find ways to get into social networks of the colleagues/couple to get a version of the story which is untainted by the internal review at work or any information that was given directly to you by the people involved.

it costs money but it might be worth it for your sanity

The evidence is there that he had an affair. I can understand it being doubted/denied by colleagues as they know him and it may go against the impression he gives to them. However, from an outsider view there was an affair. You have seen handwritten love notes, the woman admitted it, he failed to tell you that he was being harassed.
He is a coward for not admitting it and letting you feel this way. Sorry you're going through this 💖

I think you have summed up there why it is so hard, that’s the whole problem with broken trust, it makes people around you second guess everything.
It is possible that the woman had a huge crush on your husband and lied to her husband that she was having an affair. It isn’t the most obvious situation but it is possible. Her husband sounds jealous and paranoid, and people can do deeply weird things. My brother had a female stalker who was obsessed with him, and I had a woman I came into contact with through work, write letters to my boss with all sorts of strange made up stuff about me . So sometimes people do fantasise and lie. Your DH may not want to add fuel to the fire by continuing to examine it all if he is innocent. I can imagine if I was wrongly accused of an affair I would start to get annoyed and want to move on from it .
The problem is that you can’t know which answer is correct, and I don’t know how you get to that point. Yes maybe a forensic examination of his computer and emails, but do you want to go that far ? The thing that makes me think he may be telling the truth is that one of the messages was from him to a male colleague. So the other woman must have got hold of that somehow, which makes everything else very suspect. Also the stuff produced seems quite strange, if you’re having a full on affair surely you would have texts and emails that were far more conclusive than the ambiguous stuff you have seen, the song lyrics etc. I fully expected to think he was having an affair but it doesn’t sound at all obvious to me.
Horrible situation for you though, as you might never be able to prove it either way. Lie detectors are unreliable, it would be crazy to do that.
If you need to be able to prove the truth to move on, then you need to think about what would make you feel convinced, so perhaps having all his emails retrieved would be the thing, but I think if there were more definite emails then the woman would have shown you those, not sing lyrics.

The woman in question says that it is true - for me that's the clincher. They at least had an emotional affair but tbh I believe it was sexual, I think deep down you do too. Of course colleagues will say they can't believe it. Perhaps they didn't know, or they are covering for him. I suspect the reason that you feel stuck is because deep down inside you believe its true but don't want to face it. So you are going around in circles trying to find more evidence that will nail it for certain. I'm sorry that this has happened to you, it sounds awful.

I agree with this ^^. First and most obvious thing which came to my mind is that the OW's Husband is a controlling, possessive and paranoid individual, who suspects his wife of cheating and is going OTT in his behaviour and suspicions. If that is indeed true, then @MyCosyTraybake He is causing major problems in your life and destroying your happiness without any of it being true. There are individuals out there who behave exactly like this with no justification. OW probably has her own problems and maybe not always being truthful because she is trying to get back at her DH.

I can't say for sure, of course, which doesn't help you, but I hope you can figure it out

@Silvers11

Not many women who have a nuerotic, paranoid, controlling, verbally abusive, car vandalising maniac would voluntarily admit to having an affair with someone, as she did with op.

I think I would vere to the ow falling in love with op's husband, her husband caught wind and pieced together it was someone at work, his first accusation was wrong and the accused man gave ow's husband the number, he called and op's h didn't pick up, I think the colleage/friend knows full well the story.

Chat at work probably involved a smear campaign started by op's husband to discredit this ow, she has taken the brunt of the blame and has left work due to gossip, heartbreak, and her own h wanting her away from him, her breakdown suggests this.

Everybody's in on it, except op, that is the worrying thing about this, that he has no empathy or concience regarding op being out of the loop with everyone.

This man will do nothing for your mental health.
He protects only himself.

So why would the husband’s wife admit to OP that she had an affair with her DH???

Why wouldn’t she say “my DH is just paranoid and jealous there’s nothing going on”.

Right.