Husband had an affair - advice needed!

[Strawberrina]

I found out last year that my husband had an affair with a work colleague who is 25 years younger than him. The affair was emotional as well as physical. He was and is her manager at the workplace. The difficulty is that they continue to work together in a small office consisting of 4-5 members of staff, including them, and see each other almost every day. The town in which we live is a small regional town and there are limited jobs available for someone with his level of experience. We have reconciled and are working through things, but I'm at my wits end about what to do! I'm not happy that they work together and see each other almost daily.
Any advice would be welcome!

I hope this post is a troll or something . I honestly hope no woman has this little self respect . No wonder misogyny is rampant with men getting away with this . I can’t grasp why anyone would ever forgive this

I think your options are

• separate, sell up, keep your job get yourself an apartment
• stay as you are and your husband have a girlfriend too.

Can't see how by keeping him away from her, him breaking up with her it will make your relationship with him any better ? At the moment you are annoyed with him for having girlfriend but content to stay married. If changed and he no girlfriend he may not be as content.

Your family are adults, you have a job ... I think separate and enjoy your years without him

I guess this comment will go unnoticed but I'll try: OP, just stop. Stop trying to make the pain go away. Take your time, be quiet.
Sit with the pain.
You can't save your marriage. It's your DH's job to try to fix it, you've done your part. But you're not ready to see it yet. It took me several years to get out of my unhappy marriage. Other people, from the outside, can see clearly what we can't see from the inside.
It's very obvious for everyone but you.
It will be great if you can not do anything and just feel the things you're feeling. Process these feelings, digest them. Give up trying to solve the problem for now.
Good luck.

I think this is really wonderful advice.

OP, you have a lot going for you, and I hope you come to realise that soon and shift your thinking. Your children are grown, you work, you take care of the house/admin and you have assets. I think in time you will realise that you don't actually need him, and this will make you much stronger and happier.

If you are going to stay with your husband, I’m not going to judge. It’s your life, your choices, your reasoning and you will have to live with the consequences of your decisions, nobody else here will. Your eyes are open now and you know what you’re dealing with.
However know this: you have a choice between gaining slightly more peace of mind but living in materially reduced circumstances, or he stays in that job and continues his affair right under your nose.
There’s not a chance in hell that this is either a) over yet (it’s still going on but turned into a waiting game until they think you’ve accepted what he says about it being over and believe him)
or
b) ever going to be completely over whilst they still work together or are in any kind of contact.
How you are supposed to get through your day knowing they are together at work I honestly don’t know, it would kill me.

The only chance this marriage stands at all is if he’s on his knees begging you to forgive him whilst at the same time resigning and leaving that job permanently asap.

You’ll have no peace if he stays working with her, he’ll carry on doing this until
she chucks him an ultimatum and he leaves you for her, I can guarantee it, or as long as you both let him.
Five months is nothing without going no-contact, if they stay in touch in any capacity it will drive you crazy, even if the affair were to be over. I bet he can’t believe his luck, waiting five months for it to look like it’s over then back to work and back to her, unless she’s fed up of waiting for him.
He’s got this exactly where he wants it, there should be no obstacles in the way of him going full, permanent no-contact with this woman, including losing his job, that shouldn’t matter if he stands to lose you.
It’s you or nothing, OP. It is his burden of proof that he no longer wants anything to do with her.
You need a huge life changing gesture from him to prove he means it, he didn’t last time.
I’d rather live under a bench eating beans out of a tin than stay wealthy with a man who goes to his mistress in his office every day.
Sorry is not enough by a long, long way.
Affairs rarely end cleanly, some people daren’t just cut contact in case of reprisals and OW threatening to tell all. No excuse, of course. It should be over for good. He needs to prove this and accept it’s his own fault that he’s ruined his job.
Also, has he says he still has feelings for her? Until that nonsense stops he can take his mooning about elsewhere and see how much he loves that. You’re nobody’s second best, OP. Don’t allow him to treat you like you are.

@Strawberrina I'm was just thinking about his popping back to the office to get some things. Did he explain why he needed to do that at that time, given his leave isn't for a while and he's not changing jobs?
I hate to point it out but I suspect the ow wasn't best pleased about his romantic weekend away with you and he had to pop in to see her and smooth the waters.
I suspect that's why she was on your street - he'd told her that you were heading home earlier than him and she was checking his story was true..

This thread has been ongoing for 2 months and nothing has changed.

• You've not even sought legal advice.
• You've not considered your husband is remotely accountable.
• You've not taken any advise from readers and only make excuses.
• You've got every excuse under the sun to stay.
• We know you have 2 grown children and it's not easy to leave someone after 30 years.
• You're livid she drove down your street, but you don't sound remotely livid that your husband put his penis in another woman's vagina.

What is it you want from this post?

I don’t think anyone else is going to be as outraged as you are about her driving down a street. You’ve completely forgiven your husband so feels a bit hypocritical to still hate her. Slightly ridiculous, even.

Christ you are completely delusional and a complete doormat. Where ever you buried your self respect I suggest you dig it up fast

I don’t understand why you keep updating this thread as it is quite clear that you are neither going to leave him or force him to make any major changes in order to prove that it is over with her and he is serious about recommitting to your marriage. What advice are you looking for?

Is the idea of only owning one house so hard, or is it fear of being alone (which I do not underestimate). Does his conduct not make you feel alone already.

Perhaps you could focus your energy elsewhere, start a new hobby, meet people… get some distance from it all for now.

I would bet he went to her house and she was home. He had to make it up to her for going away with you. He had his fun and then brought home the belongings he had at her house, all his ties and jackets. Wonder what else he has there. It has been months and you still expect the OW to just disappear. He doesn't want her to disappear. He wants to keep fucking her. OP, you are being a doormat and you are letting him make you a fool every single day. If that is what you choose to do then you should not expect sympathy from those around you. You are choosing to lie with dogs.

Exactly. Reading this post is like drinking cold 2 day old tea.

It's pretty obvious that she gave him that stuff which he'd left at her house. Going to the office out of hours simply to pick up his things, when he'd be in work on the next working day, doesn't make any sense at all. If he went to her house and she didn't answer, he'd come straight back home again, not go into a deserted office to pick up some old clothes.

I'm hoping you are a troll, too, OP, because if you're not you really really need a good friend to talk some sense into you.

As for you saying that if he loses his job you'd have to both live on your income - sod that! No way - he can go to live with her and live on her income. (He wouldn't see her for dust if he did that.)

@Strawberrina, I have written several posts addressing your H’s abuse of you via his infidelity, dishonesty, false reconciliation, etc.

My take: Your H’s affair is ongoing. OW was very likely on your street to check if you were home from the trip. You spotted her, and when H returned you insisted that he drive to her house to read her the riot act. He probably couldn’t believe his luck that he actually had a pass from you to go there. She was there and he did go in, but not to chastise her. The clothes and bits were almost certainly things he had left at OW’s that he can now claim he retrieved from the office — a convenient cover for the time he actually spent at hers.

You wrote on 5/4 that he had made new efforts — coming home for lunch some days, arriving home from work at 5:00, more contributions at home, open access to phone, transparency re office goings-on, a 3-day getaway — and I assumed that those began after DDay 2. However, when a poster asked, you acknowledged that these actions actually began between DDays 1 and 2. He was putting on a charade to fool you and then showed up smelling of OW’s perfume. He had not ended his lying and cheating then, nor has he now. He is still putting on a charade to fool you.

So many of us have encouraged you to be proactive and assert effective consequences and strict requirements [send him away, must change jobs and go NC with OW, attend IC, among others], just as a counselor would advise. You won’t do it and you continue believing H, a practiced liar, manipulator and adulterer. He and OW are still together and they will absolutely find a way to continue meeting up with OW during his leave.

Your words from 5/6 are tragic: I’m also concerned that if he leaves current job, he will feel resentful towards me as I (in his mind) made him leave the job he likes and the OW which he admitted to me previously, he loves. If he cherishes you above all else, was truly devastated that he has hurt you, and valued your sense of safety, he would have already changed jobs and cut off OW on his own volition. He would feel zero resentment because it was he who trashed his job and marriage.

If you don’t prioritize your worth and peace of mind, you will eventually be diminished beyond recognition. I wish you well, @Strawberrina.

@Strawberrina there is another way. You don’t want to change your life and you seem capable of staying in denial, so you can just accept what’s happening as long as he is discreet.

You don’t want him to give up his job, leave or put in any consequences in place so the other route his accepting his infidelity as long as he has no intention of leaving you.

However there will always be the risk that she will demand more from him and he will be forced to choose so you should be savvy in the background to make sure you are financially secure if that were to happen.

Ultimately if he never leaves you she will get bored or move on eventually. She will want a partner not someone who just has sex with her on their lunch break. But I would be making him get a vasectomy!!

I would be worried the OW will get pregnant.

Start again OP with a clean slate and as many of the marital assets as you can get. Don't just sit there getting older and sadder, waiting for him to leave you, waiting for her to get pregnant, waiting for the next time she drives past. That is a bit pathetic, come on, pull your socks up and have some respect for yourself.

Oh OP. Nothing has changed, has it? You’re still playing the pick-me game and feeling superior, while this guy is strutting around with two women, one twenty years younger, fight for his attention. 😩

This is a depressingly real option that you may find yourself in@Strawberrina. How does it make you feel? This poster has summarised it well. As has another who’s suggested an ‘unexpected’ pregnancy could turn up.

This man has done literally nothing to make up for what he’s done. Nothing.

@Isthiswhatmenthink 25 years younger! What is the OW thinking to be with a man so much older! Awful.

Stay with this excuse of a man and you are in for a lifetime of misery for the remainder of your life.
At your age many women have a new lease of life.
I think in your shoes I would want to divorce him and report him to his place of work for abusing his position of power. Forget forgiving him or rose tinting the last 30 years - I would leave him with nothing but a disgraced reputation.
Otherwise you might reach retirement age and then watch him set up home with this (or another) OW and you will be the one left with nothing. Get out now when there is chance for you to build a new life for yourself.

Are you scared if you kick him out he will move in with the OW? Because if he decides to do that, clinging onto him won’t stop him. It’s just delaying the inevitable.

1. There won't be no contact - there are chat apps that can be pin-coded that look like some boring app that you'll never see or find.
2. There are so many ways he can see her without you having to know - meeting in the diary = afternoon in a hotel room.
3. She has no loyalty to you at all; plus, he could be telling her anything about you. She has mental health issues so i have to bide my time to leave etc.
4. Like others have said, he is only staying at home because it is easy, and maybe OW doesn't want a full time relationship right now.
5. Even if OW went away, he would still be thinking of her (or calculating how to find someone else)... i like chocolate, i might have an apple instead of, but it doesn't make me want the chocolate any less.

OP, do you still believe that the OW didn't open her door to your H on Monday and that he then drove to his office to pick up some things? Do you think it's perhaps more likely that the OW did open her door and that she and your H were together in her house for a while, and that your H's clothes, documents etc were there and he came up with the 'driving to the office to get them' story to explain his absence to you? Did he bother to explain why he drove to the office on his day off when he could have just picked up the stuff the next day when he was back at work? Or do you still believe every single thing he tells you, even though you know he's repeatedly lied to you? You're covering for him and filling in the gaps in his tales, and explaining his motives to yourself in ways that fit in with what you want to believe, like the way you're telling yourself he picked up some personal items from his office on his day off because he'll be getting another job soon. Even though, as you've admitted, he hasn't made the slightest attempt to find another job. You seem to think that all will be well if only the OW would conveniently disappear and go and live in another town, as though it's all 100% her fault and her responsibility and your H has had nothing to do with their affair, and as though her absence will make your marriage strong and happy again. Your anger is all aimed at her, rather than at the man who's lied to you and cheated on you. And despite the 18 pages of posts in this thread, you don't seem to have taken on board a single piece of advice you've been given here.

Are you actually going to do anything about your cheating husband or are you going to sit back, let him do whatever he likes, just like he is still doing, and you just keep updating this thread and accepting his behaviour? He’s still shagging her, there isn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind.