Still pining after OW?

[Owlet99]

DH and I have been together around 15 years, married for 8 of those, now early 40s with 1 DC primary school age.

I discovered DH was having an affair around 3.5 years ago. That one had lasted nearly a year. But he also confessed to a ONS before we even got married. Said we couldn’t move forward unless he was ‘completely honest’.

I don’t want to make this too long but I was absolutely blindsided, not ok for a long time. Ultimately we tried to reconcile for DC.

It has not been easy. I was convinced he would leave me for over 1.5 years afterwards, and I know it seems like he should have been the one worried about me leaving but honestly I was all over the place, not strong enough.

Anyway, found out recently he has been looking at the OW’s socials. No communication. Just looking at her picture / posts. Three and half years later. I am in shock, this amount of time on and I honestly thought she would be a distant memory by now. What am I supposed to do or think? Just idle curiosity or was he completely downplaying how he felt about her to me?
Trying to gauge how worth it it is bringing it up because he will just minimise it won’t he? But it suggests to me he is still thinking of her and am honestly just devastated.

I know the standard advice is to just leave but I have been through hell trying to make this work for so long and I felt we were on the right track. Or am I just delaying the inevitable and ultimately he won’t be able to stay away from her, or anyone else for that matter…

For me, the issue here is that you straight up asked him if he ever thinks about OW. He looked you straight in the eyes, and lied. With ease. Several times, until you gave him proof that he was lying.

Then his response was to turn it around on you and minimise.

These are not the actions of a decent man, OP.

I think you’re in a Sunk Costs Fallacy marriage. And you’re the one putting in all of the work.

Behaviour is a language, and you are ignoring what he is telling you with his.

Realistically. There’s only one reason why he’s searching her up.

Don't listen to his words. He lied to your face.

Look at his actions. He looked up his old affair partner multiple times. And then lied to you. This isn't just curiosity.

@Owlet99 from what you say, you sound like your stake in the relationship overall is very fragile. You say you were terrified he was going to leave you & your finding out he’s been looking her up online is almost like you’ve got to head off any potential threats or possibility that he might want to leave you again. Fear of abandonment & rejection are normal human emotions but it feels like this is an overriding concern for you & causing you to distort the way you view what’s really going on here. Instead of feeling like he’s the one in the wrong, you seem to be taking responsibility for it & are investing (& prob have done) huge amounts of emotional energy ensuring that he doesn’t do it again & potentially leave you again. So you’ve probably spent the whole time since attempting to be the perfect wife, partner, lover, mother etc. While the prospect of abandonment & rejection for somebody else is not great it’s not because you’re not good enough. It’s not your fault that he is a liar & cheat who has no empathy or respect for others & is happy to hurt women he says he loves & lie. Of course the prospect of splitting up your family is terrifying but why do you feel so desperate that he might leave you? What have you got to lose? Are you extremely reliant on him financially? Is your whole identity tied up on being his wife? You can survive alone & live elsewhere & still be a wonderful mother & parent to your DC. He should be terrified that YOU are going to leave HIM!! He stands to lose so much more - is he prepared to carry all the mental load, do the majority of the domestic work at home & childcare as well as work??
He’s the one in the wrong & you should be thinking that if anything you should be the one to tell him he needs to leave. Of course you become one person almost in a marriage & can’t conceive of yourself without him. But he’s not who you think he is & you’re far stronger & capable of being independent than you realise. He just wants his cake & eat it. How is that fair on you?

I would imagine that’s pretty common when affairs are discovered rather than just fizzle out.

I think we like to hear the things we want to hear in these situations like “it’s you I love” “she meant nothing to me”. The reality in many cases is probably very different. He probably did love her and she probably did mean a lot to him. That isn’t what we want to hear though and they know that so downplay their feelings and hope they just go away. Like someone else alluded to though, it was probably very painful for him but he couldn’t show that or talk about it.

It might just be curiosity but who knows. There is obviously some kind of candle being held for him to even look.