I have been with my partner for 9 months. I was married for 25 years and separated and then divorced 5 years ago when my ex informed me out of the blue (to my utter horror and complete shock) that he had slept with multiple women including at least one of his exes (who I considered a friend of mine) and with several women I knew. The divorce was brutal (him not me). I moved away and have not seen him since the separation 5 years ago. I had to make a new life. I did not know who to trust. Life as I knew it had ended. It was tough and lonely. I had a lot of therapy. I didn’t date.
i have always valued fidelity and honesty and my ex knew this. It was one of the reasons he married me he said. I have always said that I could never be with someone who cheated and even my friends I have realised are all faithful types. I suppose like attracts like. Famous last words.
My new partner on our first date told me that he had cheated on his wife 10 years ago and that they had recently divorced (married for 20). He said he was ashamed of his behaviour and regretted what he had done. So I decided to give us a chance. He was loving sweet tender to me.
I then found out that this affair lasted a year and that his affair partner had herself had several affairs during her marriage. The first man involved with her was absolutely “cut up” apparently by their affair ending and he was the second. She has been with her new partner for several years now. His wife found out a year after the affair and he chose to stay with her and their children.
Then he told me over the next few months firstly that he had cheated on his first wife who he was with for 10 years with a random woman who threw herself at him. He also had a fling with someone he met in a pub during his second marriage.
Lastly, I now know that he is still in contact with the affair partner who works for the same organisation as him though in a different office. I thought at first that they saw each other only every so often at the odd social event but it now transpires that last year, they both signed up for a voluntary project (with about a dozen others) and saw each other several times through this. Some weeks after the project was over the two of them then went to a blues club that they had gone to during their affair (her suggestion).
He then started to date me.
Then this summer they both signed up for another voluntary project. I was upset. He told me that she had moved on with her life when I asked what was going on. He said that he had the utmost respect for her in her professional life. He said I was the most important woman to him. He said he needed me to trust him. They saw each other (together with the rest of the team) two or three times a week for this project and there was a lot of socialising in pubs also. On the final very intense day of the project (there was a party afterwards), he didn’t text me at all and not even to say goodnight.
For the last few weeks I feel as if I have been on a choppy sea. He knows this and has said that it was a difficult time for me. He also said that just because I don’t see my ex and the people who betrayed me in my previous life, doesn’t mean that he can’t see her. I said to him that I do not mind him seeing his wives of course not. It was just that I was concerned about the affair partner and that I felt that she was a third party in our relationship. It seems to me (though I didn’t say this to him) that this woman was exactly the sort who my ex husband would have slept with. I don’t want her in my life. My partner told me some ugly details of how they conducted their affair which made me want to cry.
I wonder if he is less loving to me since the ending of the project (doesn’t use my nickname) and the tone of his texts seem to have changed though I could be reading too much into this. He says I am judging him and that he has changed. Do cheats change? Perhaps for him she’s the one who got away? What about the project next year? There’s other stuff but I have gone on enough.