Angry and needing a safe space to let go

[Ell099]

DH was out last night on a staff do. He’s messaged his mate saying he was flirting all night with the “hot girl from work,” and they told each other they fancied each other.

This girl can’t be older than 25, DH is 40. He’s her manager. Ick. Ick. Ick. What a fucking sleaze.

We have an 18 month old, of course I was left to look after him all night and this morning.

I’m going to have to hold it together until I figure out what to do but I am so, so angry. I wish I could chuck him out tonight but we have family staying and I need to work out if I could cope on my own.

@Whereismyfleeceblanket i disagree. It’s perfectly possible to be a good dad and not so great husband. Mothers also have affairs ( and so far op ex hasn’t but is caught up in flirting most likely for an ego boost )and that doesn’t make them shit mums

Surely family will notice that you can’t look at him let alone touch him?

Do you know any shit sleazy husbands who are also great fathers @millymollymoomoo

As someone whose mother had an affair, that is not my experience.

This is how I feel, he hasn’t even had the respect to do it in private. Feeling very low today.

And sharing the same space as him, making coffee alongside him, talking about DC - must be all but impossible?

Anyone, whilst they are engaging in the affair, is being a shit parent. I am not saying that people who cheat are shit parents, but whilst they are cheating, during the affair, sometimes even during the aftermath of the affair, they most certainly are.
People in affairs conveniently forget that aren’t just lying to, presenting a fake reality to (which is gaslighting and classed as psychological abuse) and deceiving their partner, which is a terrible role model for their children if they find out what happened anyway, they are also doing all of that to their children at that time too.
They pretend to everyone that home life is as normal, not at risk. They pretend that it’s stable, everything is ok, not threatening to go tits up at potentially any minute. This is gaslighting 101. And it’s psychologically abusive.
Putting a third person above and before their partner and children for their own selfish gain, is risking the other parent’s mental wellbeing, which will affect that of the children, plus the stable security of the family unit and family life as the children know it.
When the shit hits the fan all hell can break loose at home and life as they knew it before might be gone forever. House moves, loss of financial security and quality of life for the family, school moves….all risked by the parent having an affair.
Yes, if the marriage was going to break up anyway then all this would happen affair or not and yes, sometimes their home life would be better if their parents were apart but in any case, if they find out, they know that one parent lied and betrayed, in order to do something that benefitted nobody but that parent and hurt everyone else with an unimaginable pain.
And what if the unfaithful spouse’s unhappiness could have been addressed within the marriage and sorted out with honesty and support and without the dishonest selfishness of an affair? They’ll never know.
Nobody is driven to an affair or forced. It’s a choice. You don’t have to choose to live dishonestly with no integrity, no matter how unhappy you are. The affair, with all its attendant risks and potential painful discovery shitshow, are a choice you could stop at any moment.
Whilst engaging in an affair you are being a shit parent. No matter how attentive and caring you present yourself to your children, no matter how good you are at faking reality at home, no matter if they think everything is fine, the damage to their psyche when the shit hits the fan will be huge, even if they don’t know an affair caused the shitshow between mum and dad. They’ll will still have the horror of that plus the shock damage of a total lack of trust. They trusted that what they saw at home was what they were getting and when they learn that it wasn’t, it’s terrifying because if adults pretend like that, if everything can look ok when it isn’t, then how do they know they are safe and life is secure? Who and what do they trust? This part is hard enough for an adult, but a nightmare for children. They might already be destabilised because they could tell something might be wrong but didn’t know what. Children are intuitive and certainly not daft.
I have worked with families and children in distress and seen it first hand. You’ll never convince me otherwise.
No decent parent models to their children that it’s ok to treat your partner in this terrible way.
No decent parent models to their children that it’s ok to choose lies, dishonesty and cowardice instead of honesty, integrity and resilience.
No decent parent models to their children that it’s ok to lie to those who love you to get what you want and put your own needs above your children’s.
As my dear departed mother used to say, “They don’t ask to be born.”

@Thewookiemustgo What a great post - I think many of us here need to read it several times! xx

@Thewookiemustgo , your post should be pinned somewhere so any one who has cheating partner has the chance to read it. Thank you for taking the time to write it out.

he has previously confessed to messaging women on Instagram when he was ‘lonely’ after DS was born. All his friends and their wives knew

’All his friends and their wives knew’

☹️

Thank you. I make Ronnie Corbett look precise and succinct, however, so thank you for sticking with it.
I honestly wish I could write short posts but I’m known for my essays and word salads. (Prefer this description to ‘rants’) Sorry to those I genuinely must bore the crap out of. 😂

In the words of Virginia Woolf, “Apologies for writing you a long letter, I didn’t have time to write you a short letter.” She was bloody amazing too!

This is all, completely and entirely, true. A horrifying read, but fundamentally accurate. What I don’t quite get is how people who do have affairs…don’t understand this?
I am faithful fundamentally for myself, in a lot of ways, that is actually quite selfish. I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day and I literally couldn’t stand to look in the mirror and see a liar or a cheat. I would….shrivel and the shame would choke me. No amount of “ego boost” or thrill or whatever could make it worth it, for me.
But I also don’t shit on other people because I look at my life through a kind of 360 degree mirror. I can’t do anything without automatically, instinctively, looking at how it will affect those I love around me? Husband and children of course, but even anyone else at all? How is it that so many people do so many awful things and seemingly……just don’t think about how it affects others? Particularly those who they claim to love? It baffles me!!

Another man who's ruined his family life and his wife's trust because he wanted to chase a younger woman at work.....AND he's her manager. What a cliche.

There seems to be no shortage of men are likely this - they get a decent job and because they're bored or feel quite kingly in their authoritative position, they make a fucking fool out of their little wifey at home who's busy looking after their children. All for a bit of an ego boost. My university had them. Male tutors getting involved with young female students.

I agree @Thewookiemustgo . Gaslighting and lying like that is psychologically abusive. So many stories of poor women on here who've felt like they were going mad, or were accused of being jealous, possessive, or insecure harridans when in fact their partner was cheating or behaving badly the entire time.

Lying to themselves.
Infidelity involves complex lies, not just to their spouses and affair partners.
They need to create an internal narrative which justifies their behaviour and reverses victims and offenders, otherwise guilt and shame become intolerable.
Also affairs usually happen incrementally, and it gets easier to cross each ‘worse’ boundary as they tolerate the guilt and cognitive dissonance created by crossing the first one.
They are trying to hang on to their self-image of being a good person/ good parent, so they need to be somebody who has very justifiable reasons for doing a bad thing.
The level of self deception can shock even the most usually level headed person who is telling themselves it’s actually ok to lead a dishonest double life, once they are forced to face the reality of what they have done.
They are shocked by witnessing the true level of the impact of their actions on everyone else, when in order to escape guilt and shame, they have minimised everything they are doing to normalise it to themselves. Cheats do an incredible brainwashing job on themselves, until they can’t sustain it in the face of the truth. It’s not that they don’t get it, they either don’t want to because it blows up their internal narrative and they start to feel quite rightly terrible, or they run away from it and stuff down the truth, because who they have become and how low they have stooped is intolerable to accept.
I know of a suicide by an unfaithful person because they couldn’t stand the pain of what they had done to their spouse and children, their teenager was the one who found their burner phone by accident and found out.
Knowing what you are doing and what it might cause, but not wanting to know, is batted away by:
“they’ll never find out” “what they don’t know won’t hurt them” “ I deserve to be happy” “They take me for granted/ make me unhappy so it’s not my fault” “This makes me happy so this makes me a better parent if I’m happy” “Children are resilient and will be ok and it’s their mum/ dad’s fault anyway for making me unhappy.” “I’m a good person really who had no choice, because although I’m unhappy I don’t want them to go through a divorce so this solves everything. My family are together and I’m happy.”
Add anything else you like. Bottom line is that it’s dishonest, it’s abusive and incredibly destructive.
No, you’re not even being a good person, let alone a good parent, whilst you indulge yourself with an affair partner. It doesn’t matter how good the bullshit you tell yourself to justify or excuse it is.

Well we”ll have to disagree on that

anyway op partner hasn’t actually had an affair. More like stupid flirting for an ego boost. Not saying it’s good or that op needs to put up with it but no where near what has been said upthread

I avoid dating now because men like this are such a disappointment. Always after something abit younger.

@Ell099, I’ve been thinking of you. How are things going?

How are you holding up op? @Ell099