@FourAndFive
Thank you for starting a second thread. I hope and trust that the support that you get from it will be of great value.
Well, for what it's worth, here's my story.
My late ex-husband and his OW got together when they were both serving on the committee of a youth organisation in our city. At the time we had been married for 15 years and we had DD and I was pregnant with DS. OW wasn't that much younger than my husband, but she had never been married and at 36 her biological clock was by all accounts ticking very loudly.
I endured six years (yes, you read that correctly) of mentionitis, gaslighting, outright lying and even threatening behaviour on his part when I threatened to talk about my suspicions about the relationship to both of their employers (both teachers, but not at the same school). Eventually he went away with an exchange at his school, and while he was away I took the opportunity to turn the house, garage etc upside down, and during the last five minutes of the search came across a carrier bag of evidence (Valentine cards, letters etc, no texts in those days, mid 80s). When he returned from his trip I sat him down and told him quite solemnly that I was going to ask him a question and that I expected him to give me a truthful answer.
"Are you having an affair with X?"
Massive eye roll. "Oh for Christ's sake, not this again."
You can probably imagine the look on his face when I bent down and pulled out from beneath the armchair on which I was sitting a selection of some of the choicest items of evidence from the carrier bag that I had found, and scattered them across the carpet in front of him.
Long story short, I threw him out after ten days. He had spent so much time out of the house with OW that DS (then 6) didn't even notice he had gone.
Paid maintenance for the DC, saw them regularly, but told everyone I was crazy. In spite of my craziness, he landed on my doorstep one day, and said, "She wants a bloody baby now. What do you think I should do?"
Had a DD with OW a year later, married her eventually, was miserable and imo and in the opinion of others who knew the pair of them, never got over the guilt he suffered because of the misery that he had caused me and our DC. Started drinking, made OW and their DC's life a misery. Threatened to kill OW at 4am one night, OW escaped the house and called the police, he was arrested, OW changed locks, divorce ensued.
He finally succeeded in drinking himself to death about a month before Christmas 2022.
@FourAndFive It speaks volumes to me about you as a mother, that your elder child wants to help your husband. Teacosy x