He bought her diamond jewellery

[Spikyseason]

So 5 months into trying to reconcile after DH’s affair, which lasted over a year (so he says) and I discovered after going through credit card statements recently that he bought her a £20k diamond necklace. Twenty fucking thousand pounds.

I am beyond furious. He said he wasn’t in love with her. It was a tiny glimmer of hope in trying to reconcile for the sake of DC. At least he never loved her. But he has never bought me a gift like this ever. Even my engagement ring isn’t worth that much. We are comfortable financially but even so this is pretty eye watering. Not insignificant money.

I’ve been kidding myself haven’t I? And he’s lying about his feelings for her. I don’t know why this is somehow worse than the sex but it is. AFAIK no contact with OW since but I just don’t get it.

You said in an earlier post she is out of his league.
Do you believe you’re in his league? No. No. No. You’re way above him, especially now.
He should be so humble, falling over himself to make it up to you, utterly mortified by what he’s done but he’s refused your request for the necklace to be returned. Who the F does he think he is? “His motivations for wanting to stay”? He wouldn’t have that option if he were my DH as all he promises is uncertainty and doubt freely occupying his wife’s mind.
You don’t indicate how many children you have but I’d follow @Elektra1 ’s suggestion of making him invest £20K for each of them (to redress and to remove from the marital assets) then immediately divorce him.
Like the necklace he’s soiled goods and worth very little second hand.

Are you sure he broke up with her, OP? Not the other way around?

He wasn't putting himself in one of those "Sugar Daddy" scenarios was he? Ugh.

Does he know you are aware of this yet? I'd sit on the information while I decided what I wanted to do with my future. (after I'd transferred £20k to a savings account.)

What do you want to do OP?

Continue to be seen as the practical one, or jump off this bandwagon and be yourself?

I have always wondered about this "it meant nothing". He risked his family, his marriage, causing untold hurt to wife and kids, for nothing? Isn´t that worse? I think I could respect someone more if they had fallen head over heels in love with someone else...but that isn´t what you want to hear when you want this reconciliation, so that is what he is giving you. I am gobsmacked at gifting 20 thousand of his family´s money to some bit of fluff, it says it all.

OP, as the wife of a HNW divorce lawyer, I can tell you his motivation for wanting to stay and work it out, and it isn’t because of the love for his children and you.

He is staying because it would cost him a fortune to divorce you.

My DH has regular initial meetings with potential clients who change their mind about wanting to leave their wife for their mistress as soon as my DH outlines the amount of money they should anticipate having to hand over to their wife. One guy even threw up in the wastepaper bin of my DH’s office once.

You said yourself that you hadn’t quite realised how much your husband earns. I bet when you tot up all his wealth including earnings, assets, investments, pension, it comes to a pretty tidy sum and he didn’t fancy giving at least half of that away.

So the women do no wrong. I think your reply is nonsense.

Get him to buy you something while you mulle things over. A nice lovely house in only your name. Because you do need to think thoroughly. It would be much easier to do it in somewhere that only belongs you. A practical gift that will serve you well should you come to the conclusion of divorce, because of his cheating. If he can spend £20 000 on a wimp and then refuse to return it. What do you think? Or would a gold/ diamond tiara do the work?

You deserve a good extravagant gift op. Don't cheat ourself out of one. Because he says so. It is normal to want something nice.

Yep £20 k is 2 years of uni fees for one of his kids. Doesn’t matter that he could ‘afford it’, it’s family money he’s spent on OW and not his children.

I’m not very trusting, but as the wife I would always feel that he only stayed for them, not me, and that in ten years’ time when the kids are settled at uni/in jobs he will leave me for someone else. And then, being 10 years older with no kids at home, my ‘rights’ to keep my home of 20+years are no longer as strong as they are now - and making a new life/finding someone new for myself would be that much harder.

I think this arrangement serves him and not OP.

I wouldn't lower my dignity by asking for the necklace back. As you say what good would it do? He very wrongly, stupidly ext ext gave her this madly expensive gift when he was having an affair with her. He did it. He is the one married to you. He is the one who betrayed you. The ow owes you nothing. Move on if you can but never again be unwatchful or ignorant of his finances or what and where he is spending. He has lost st that level of trust, probably for ever. Don't tell him that as it gives him a warning to he ultra careful if he ever goes down this route again.

If you want to try give it a reasonable time ...maybe a year then if you can't get past this awful betrayal you can move on with all your ducks in a row as they say on mumsnet. I wouldn't make the decision straight after you have found out this devastating information. Good luck going forward. 💐

I read posts like this & it never ceases to amaze me the lack of verbal disdain wives have for the women involved in the affairs

I completely disagree.

(And It's pure speculation what the ow did or didn't do).

What matters - the bottom line : is that it is the op's husbands responsibility towards her.

No-one forced him to get into an affair, no-one forced him to cheat, no-one forced him to do anything he did during the affair.
It was his choice
It's his responsibility.

He chose to betray his wife and family. He chose to spend huge amounts of money on his affair partner.

The ow is an irrelevance.
If it wasn't her, it would be someone else, at some other time

The op is being incredibly level headed in not focusing on and blaming the ow.

Which would play right into her h's hands incidentally.

Cheating men benefit hugely from their wives and partners focusing on the ow.

No women should be encouraging other women to focus on them or criticising them for not focusing on them.

(There are not nice women in the world - big shock. Your husband doesn't need to be anywhere near one of them. That includes up their vaginas in hotel rooms, that includes dropping big money on luxury days out and extravagant gifts for them; while they should have been at home with their life partner and kids).

Definitely copy the statement right now op.
So you can claim it back when you LTB.

Absolutely no intention of making excuses for your husband here but from your point of view, as this is causing you so much pain, some alternative thoughts -

• I assume you have been together a long time? Could he have afforded this when romancing you? What my husband could do if he was wooing someone now would be very different to what he could do when he met me. More situational than love?
• Completely stupid but clearly he WAS totally swept up, and clearly he could afford to do it. It really isn’t any different to romantic fancy hotel stays, spa days etc in terms of both disrespect to you and a public show of them being all loved up. I think you’re attaching too much weight to this/too little to everything else.
• A necklace doesn’t mean he loved her. A necklace he could comfortably afford doesn’t mean he loved her. If he loved her, he loved her. But really, if he ended things with her after a year and wasn’t moping around mooning after her, logically I would say be probably didn’t. Heartbreak is visible and if he ‘lost’ someone he loved, I think you’d have seen that.
• If he loved her, I very much doubt he would have ended things- much more likely he would have left. The longer he stays, the more of his money/pension etc you’ll be entitled to if he does leave. It would actually be better for him financially to have just left. He didn’t. I think this also tells you something.

For what it’s worth - I wouldn’t and couldn’t have stayed, but you could and did and you seem to be drowning in an additional pit of despair. Either, you’re attaching significance wrongly to this item (be more practical and think along the lines of the above) or really this is just a very understandable projection and actually nothing was ok, you hadn’t come to terms with it at all but this is just another ‘reminder’ of it all. I think the latter is far more likely - it’s not really about the necklace and it’s not really about whether he did love her (love and lust are notoriously confusing and I suspect he did have them confused - you finding out has dropped his rose tinted glasses and he realises it was all lust), it’s about the far bigger picture of what he did to you. He deceived you, he was unfaithful for a year. Buying a £20 necklace, a £20k necklace or never buying a single gift makes no difference to that. I think it’s just something you’re clinging to rather than look deeper and accept that maybe you actually (completely understandably) can’t forgive him, as much as you wanted to for the sake of your family life.

Personally, the infidelity would have been the death knell for me. Stuff is irrelevant. Loyalty and decency are far more important.

I am so sorry you are currently going through this. Although some very helpful comments and opinions on this thread about the hows, why’s and maybe’s, I think you will send yourself mad trying to make sense of it all, whilst quite understandably still in shock. I do understand that crushing chest feeling, which is awful.
I think you need some space, and the best thing would be to ask him to leave as soon as possible.

What you decide to do further on down the track depends on a lot of things, but for now the last thing you need is him in your space, get him gone.

Absolutely this.

I’m so sorry OP, you must be hurt beyond words, and yes, bless your heart you’ve been kidding yourself, it is clear he is lying. No one buys an item of jewellery for another woman, let alone a diamond necklace of that value unless they have very strong feelings for them.
It sounds like he wants the best of both worlds, and he’d rather lead a double life… have his cake and eat it so to speak.
You deserve better, I’m afraid he’d have to go if he was my husband, I couldn’t stand having him near me or sharing my bed, and I know you have DS to consider but what kind of role model is he for your DS?
Affairs happen, some are just a blip and couples can work things out, it can be a turning point in some relationships to initiate a fresh start, but this man has gone beyond any of that. Get rid, file for divorce, and make sure he pays up, because it is obvious that he will still continue this affair regardless of what he tells you, his actions demonstrate that his feelings for her are too strong not to.

I know couples who have been in similar situations. After marriage guidance they remained together having found out the reasons& motivation for the affair. I'm not saying the OP should remain in the marriage but I do believe she is right not to jump to as they say here LTB. It is obviously more lucrative for a divorce lawyer to have every marriage in crisis ending up in divorce. It's not always what's best for a family if the couple can work it out.

I'm surprised you don't know the extent of your H's wealth though, tbh. That's a high credit limit for a card, especially if he had also been wining and dining her that day on the card's dime. Suggests private banking? Sounds like he is being secretive about other stuff too?

Yep, sadly, this very much sounds like the case here. He hasn't been honest with you at any point and very much sounds like the type to cover his ass and protect his assets.

But why does him loving her or not matter? Ask yourself this:

He was willing to throw away everything for just sex then - we’ll, surely by that reasoning he’s more likely to do that in the future then if it’s just carnal desire?

By reconciling bc it’s just sex means your kind of telling him you’re ok with that.

Also, I was (unwittingly) an OW once. These men lie and lie and lie some more to get what they want, which is to have their cake and eat it. So to me, his marriage was over, she was mentally unstable and would try to kill herself if he left, then he did tell her and she took an overdose etc.

(Meanwhile she actually knew nothing and thought they fine)
She found out and he then told her a pack of lies about me. I was a mentally unstable sex-mad nympho who had chased him, offered sex on a plate and then threatened to kill my self when he tried to end it (er no mate, you were crying down the phone that you were in love with me and sending me poems and flowers when I tried to break it off with you!)

He was a complete narc and pathological liar I realise now - wouldn’t be surprised if your dh is too.

Why do you stay, in honesty? Is it for the lifestyle? Bc if he’s that well off you’ll surely get a decent settlement anyway and can protect yourself emotionally from the damage this will do to you, chipping away at your self worth every day and ultimately affecting your MH.

'Also, I was (unwittingly) an OW once. These men lie and lie and lie some more to get what they want, which is to have their cake and eat it. So to me, his marriage was over, she was mentally unstable and would try to kill herself if he left, then he did tell her and she took an overdose etc.'

But why did you fall for it, are you a bit embarrassed now in hindsight? Anyone still living in a martial home whilst seeking om or ow are cheats.

He's told you her worth and your worth, in his eyes. She's a 20k necklace and you're a £400 coat. I think that tells you everything you need to know OP.

I think he's stayed with you because he doesn't want to look like the bad guy. He doesn't want everyone to know him as the guy who cheated on his wife and left her and his kids for the other woman. You said it seems like he wants you to end it and I think that's probably true. He's too cowardly and pathetic to do it himself.

Excellent post

@Spikyseason I would be tempted to stop focussing on whether or not he loves/loved the other woman and start focussing on whether he loves YOU in the way that you need and deserve to be loved. Personally I don't believe that someone who truly loves and cares about their spouse would spend a year lying, cheating, and stealing from the family.

Yeah, it sounds like he’s just sorry he got caught.

If it was me, I’d say to just pack up your bags and leave, go be with ya £20k necklace bint 🤣

I’d rather preserve my dignity and self-respect.

The only gift I’d give him would be divorce papers 👍