How do I save my marriage?

[MargaretfromtheHeed]

I went away on a girl's weekend over Easter, bumped in to a work colleague, got very drunk and ended up having sex with him. I deeply regret what I did and tried to keep it a secret as I was so ashamed of myself. One of the friend's I went with told her husband and he told my husband who is a good friend of his.
My husband went off it, threw me out of our home and took all of my stuff to my parent's house. They are upset and angry with me. I have met with my husband for a coffee since then and I have never seen him as angry. He called me awful names. He says if there is any chance of sorting this out, I have to resign my job and give him the name of the man I was unfaithful with. I have a good career with a great company and don't want to give up the job I have worked so hard for.
My mental health is in decline and I feel awful. I have started washing myself down with soap and bleach in the shower and still feel unclean. I've been for an STI test too.
Any suggestions how I make my husband see reason about my career and still save my marriage? I made a mistake and at the moment my husband seems full of hell and unforgiving.

'My mental health is in decline' - aye. Your morals are in decline, dumb arse.

Possibly because OP wasn’t aware of the rule of not shagging other men whilst she’s married to him?

Troll. Reported

I have to say I love it on posts like this when somehow people make it ok and paint OP’s DH as the bad guy. Whichever way you look at it, OP shagged someone else and, given that they don’t appear to have an open marriage, that’s not ok. If this was the other way round the pitchforks would be sharpened, flaming torches out and massive LTB banners would be fluttering in the breeze. Yet somehow here it’s absolutely fine for OP to carry on as she was. I’m with her DH, to be honest I’d be binning her off and finding someone who actually respects and loves me but perhaps that’s just me.

To put the boot on the other foot.

My exH cheated with a female at work.

I told him straight off he had to get a transfer from his dept to another one (same company) if he wanted to save the marriage.
He gave every excuse under the sun why he couldn't do that.

So I knew we were done.

@MargaretfromtheHeed if I was your dh I would be asking the same . You put you both in this situation and now you have to make a choice.

Please stop washing yourself like that . You made a mistake many people do but this isn’t good for you and you don’t deserve to feel like that and punish yourself in that way . You are already suffering.

Don’t make any decsisons until your head is clearer and the emotions have died down .

Was your marriage happy before this . was it lacking something that made you do this ?
Is your dh a good man and partner ?
Does he treat you right ?
Don’t give up your career for a man who doesn’t treat you right .
Do go for Counseling for your self first so you can think clearly .
If you have a good man and marriage then you will have to work with your dh to make things right .

It’s a very reasonable boundary. Something similar happened to me (although it was during a massive psychotic episode, I’m not sure if I could move on from something as trivial as “I got really drunk”) and my immediate boundaries when I eventually accepted trying again were: quit that job and everyone associated, even remotely associated, with it. Everyone. Including work colleagues who knew and said nothing.

I’m surprised at people being sympathetic and saying “you’ve made a mistake, stay in your job”. A man would be flamed for this lol.

How is it disgusting? It's what the OP did after all.

If you have to ask then you need help. Let me explain in the meantime. Yes absolutely op has done wrong by sleeping with this man , but this does not mean it's free for all to write toxic unhelpful messages to someone who already sounds very low. Ops not here boasting about what she's done. She's clearly in a low place and no her husband doesn't now have the right to cheat. He can end the marriage if he can't get over it.

You broke his trust. He has a right to be angry. He may never forgive you. Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our actions and no amount of making up for poor behaviour will make it OK. Sometimes there is no other option than moving on.

The washing yourself down with bleach etc. is a worry, OP. Do get some counselling. You did something stupid but it really doesn't have to define the rest of your life.

I am so sorry, but if I was your husband I would not take you back. You seemed to have sex with the other guy so easily. I couldn't trust you after that. Sorry.

What is particularly disgusting about people like OP (men and women) is that they never take responsibility for being vile individuals. The mental health trope comes in immediately, and being drunk. I always want to ask when they say 'I don't remember/don't know/did not realise what I was doing', 'you did not jump in front of a car/did not pick up a fist fight with a cage fighter, did not set yourself on fire' - amazingly, for scum like they never forget about self-preservation, they are always intact, no matter how drunk they were.

“Sleeping with this man” like it’s all good and normal!

It was a dirty one night shag, it’s a disgrace and she should be ashamed. She’s upset she’s been caught, that’s for sure!

She would’ve appeared to have used no precautions, hence the STI check.

Of course she’s low, she got caught.

Her friend was right to tell her husband who was right to tell his friend, who had the right to know.

If you can’t see that the OP is 100% wrong and now can’t blame anyone else for her “mental health” decline, then you need help.

How about her husbands mental health, for what she’s done.

Many people are telling the OP her marriage is over due to their own view on what she has done.

However, her DH is clearly thinking about ways in which they could mend things, otherwise he wouldn’t even be talking about her leaving her workplace.

OP, away from MN I know three couples where one dropped the infidelity bomb and all went on to have long happy marriages after a lot of hard work.

If YOU want to fight for your marriage, fight for you marriage. But don’t do it if you will let him down again,

But you are probably long gone from this thread.

When did I say its normal . I did not. You just want an excuse to rant 🤣 . Stop harping on about what she did. My point isn't that op hasn't done anything wrong my point is for ppl to stop being nasty to her. If you understand words and can read then you'd understand that's my point.

Don't forget the friend is to blame too.
Anyone but the OP.

Seriously?
You’re simply an apologist for excusing someone’s appalling behaviour. Just blame it on something / someone else as per usual.
No concern at all for
her dh or the reality of the precise thoughts that will be going through his mind.

You’re downplaying what she did, you’re acting like she is in some way the victim, she’s not!

She’s caused her own mental health issues, including washing with beach? Why is she doing that? For attention. Deal with the issues, stop drinking, don’t shag workmates and if she wants to save her marriage start listening to her DH.

Although I wouldn’t trust her ever again, but he might!

If you were drunk and now you are feeling unclean, were you able to consent to what happened with the colleague? People are being very quick to condemn with very little information on what happened.
Either way, counselling to help you give your husband the information he needs.

I despair in Mumsnet at times. The double standards are shocking.

If a man cheated, the woman would be told to leave or tell her husband he needs to change jobs. When a man tells a woman who has cheated to do the same, he's a bully, and she's not to beat herself up over it as it's a mistake and we all make mistakes. Now we have people suggesting it wasn't consensual.

She would have happily kept it from her husband. That's not the actions of someone feeling guilty.

Why can't women take responsibility for what they have done?

No, it’s all the OPs fault, trying to blame, OM, friend for telling husband, husband for telling man, all wrong.

You will both need individual therapists to work through this. Regardless of if the relationship can be save.

You partner can't demand things of you that's not healthy, although completely understandable. What he can do is with support invite you to understand what would make him feel safer remaining in a relationship with you whilst you rebuild trust. So finding another job would make him feel safer. He might feel you was prioritising him and the relationship over yourself and to his eyes a potential affair partner. If you want to save the relationship then that right there is a gift to you. That's a black and white thing you can do. Building trust is earnt in tiny droplets and thrown out in gallons. It will take a lot of time. It will take you being in the one down position for a while.

What you must understand is you've changed your partners reality. There is a lot of grief in that. He now doesn't know you. Doesn't know what you're capable of. You've flipped his entire world up and I imagine you might of said I didn't mean to or it meant nothing. Without truly understanding. Everything you now do is under scrutiny. Who are you texting? Are you where you say you are...
It's your job to reassure constantly in a manner that you partner wants. Being open and transparent. Open phone policy. Sharing locations. Again opportunities for you to show your partner. Not demands from them and you dont have to do anyhrhing you dont want to.These can be things that once trust is established can change.

You will need to work on your integrity. You chose to lie and hide instead of come clean straight away. You will need to put in the work to understand why you did all of this and made the decisions you did.

I'd reccomend helping couples heal podcast you might have to treat if like a buffet and take what's helpful to you and leave the rest. Its primarily about betrayal but also sex addiction/multiple affairs. But the principles are all the same once trust is broken it's broken.

There is hope. The couples that build a new relationship out of the wreckage of betrayal, many have the most wonderful relationships I've ever seen. There is so much trust and vulnerability. They both learn the skills to become true partners.

@Renabrook I was actually using the word ‘vulnerable’ in the sense of susceptibility or having a weakness. She has already shown that alcohol lowers her inhibitions, so is vulnerable (or susceptible) to that happening again.

I fully believe that she should take responsibility for her actions. If you read my first post you will see that I am actually suggesting some quite radical behaviour changes (quitting alcohol for one) in order to minimise the risk of reoccurrence.

@K8ate I’ve been in her husband’s position so I know exactly how it feels.
Despite my personal loathing of infidelity, I would never write anything to deliberately hurt anybody, even my worst enemy, especially a person with clear mental health issues.
You can disapprove of people’s behaviour online without resorting to writing posts like yours.
The fact that it got removed says far more about it than I ever could.

@MellowCritic
“her husband doesn't now have the right to cheat.”

What? Are you mad? OP cheated and the husband has thrown her out. If he wants to regard the marriage as over and find a new partner that is his choice. Are you suggesting that he is not allowed to have sex with anyone else until he gets all the paperwork finalised on the divorce?

If you cheat and blow up your marriage you have no right to place any demands on your spouses sexual activity when you separate.

You sound very controlling, expecting to be able to control the sexual activity of other people who you have made clear don’t have obligations to you.