My husband had a 2 year affair and I don’t know whether to take him back

[Thescornedwife]

This is a hard question to even write, I am
crying while writing it that I can’t even see properly. My DH has been having a 2 year affair with a co-worker, the last year of it being physical and the first year emotional. The OW left her husband and my husband left me however neither of them said why, just that the marriages were over and they didn’t love their spouses anymore.

This was 6 months ago and I have been in turmoil as to how he can leave me and our grown daughters in limbo, not coming on holiday and living away from home etc, but I have just found out it’s because of this other woman. He has slept with her countless times and in contact with her day and night for 2 years constantly, pledged his love for her, visited her at her home and played happy families with her all in secret. Been her support system, had his own shower gel etc at her house, took her a birthday cake on her birthday, helped her with DIY in the house, the list is endless. The lies have been colossal! I only found out because he told me before she did because she had had enough of him not making a fuller commitment to her and she wanted to leave him and leave her job, and I also think work and work mates were becoming suspicious and the jig was up basically. I can’t help but feel he would have continued if she hadn’t got cold feet.

Now he all of a sudden wants back home and is sorry and it meant nothing and she was more into it than he was and he loves me and wants to go to counselling blah blah!

He has lost his job, his reputation and my DC can’t look at him and never mind my extended family! He was afraid the OW would tell me everything because I contacted her also so he told me every single gory detail that I now can’t get out of my head! It’s sickening! Very sickening!

I love him still and he’s all I know, can this be repaired? Did he love her? He took the biggest risks to be with her, what the hell does that say about me? And everything else we created together?

And yet, you are still considering taking him back!

Do not take him back!

He's betrayed and lied to you for 2 years. Then got cold feet and wants to come back, like a lot of these awful shit men do, because he's probably realised the actual consequences of leaving his marriage and divorcing. Having to split assets, his children being angry with him, etc.

Make him experience the consequences of his behaviour. Don't let yourself be the fallback option. He's played you and he's played the OW too. Both of you need to tell him to do one.

I think that occasionally (with a lot of work), short affairs can be worked through but honestly, this is a betrayal that I would personally not be able to recover from.

I was in a long relationship with a man who did similar for 18 months. I thought I loved him and I attempted to see if it could be fixed but the clincher for me was remembering time after time after time where he’d lied to me in order to cover his tracks. I’d suddenly be hit afresh with a memory of a time he said he’d be late home as he needed to fill up the tank. He was nearly an hour late and then the following day when we were out together, the orange light came on…so where had he been the night before? It was like that constantly and there was no way I was willing to live like that, stuck in repeated memories of times he’d lied.

Ultimately only you can decide but I’d be extremely wary of a man who has lost everything and now ‘miraculously’ wants to reunite.

All the work perks are now gone also

How you act NOW is what your daughter's will remember...
Lie, cheat and humiliate me and I'll still let you back in my bed.
Is that what you want them to learn from this?

Or... I am strong enough not to allow you to humiliate me any more.

With all the comments and support on here I’m not sure at all, it’s just so hard when you have loved someone and been with someone since teens and have so much of a life together before all of this, I wish I didn’t know about it, I’m angry, I’m angry she ended it and then threatened to tell, I’m angry she would hurt kids being a mother herself, I’m absolutely bereft

I think this is really important. He knows he has behaved badly but instead of being grateful to you if you took him back he will resent you because you remind him of how badly he has behaved.

You deserve better. It will also be a good example for your Dd's if you move on.

That's the thing - he didn't just cheat on you, he cheated on his entire family. He took the risk of blowing it up for all of you. Keep your dignity, keep the dignity of your children. He's a piece of shit.

I can't understand why you are even thinking about this for a nano second - he has treated you like shit! Don't allow it to happen ever again - it really is that simple.

And he's playing you now for his comforts. So sorry OP, the betrayal is immense.

So, your H decided part way through a long marriage to give someone else a go, and to keep both you and her as options for a while. Then he thinks for a while she's the better bet. Then changes his mind and decides she's not that great after all, so he'll have you back? That's the charitable interpretation. The more cynical being that the OW decided she didn't really want him and he's turned back to you as being better than nothing.
To live with either of these possibilities would require you to be getting huge amounts of benefits from the marriage as compensation. Because the way it would eat away at your self esteem, confidence and peace of mind would take a lot of compensating for.
Few people offer so much and are so unique that they make living with this a sacrifice worth making. Even if in your natural desire to have things back to 'normal' you believe they do.

your anger is at the wrong person.

she was there, she had lots of sex with your husband.
however, she did not marry you.
didn’t vow to be faithful.
didn’t have children with you.

HE DID.

I wouldn’t have him back. The trust is gone and you’d know in your heart his loyalty to you doesn’t exist. If things had worked out with OW he would not be coming back. I am so sorry he has done this to you.

Strangely I am currently watching on Netflix an old series called Life Begins with Caroline Quentin. Her husband ups and leaves her for another woman and then later tries to come crawling back when his gf leaves him and he loses his job. If you have Netflix give it a watch, I know it’s only fiction but it portrays a real life scenario for many women.

💯

2 years is a no from me

be strong

he has burned his bridges

it will get better, you will feel better

you deserve more

Agree with this!

You say that one of your reasons for considering taking him back is that he’s a good dad. Well, that’s good that he has the ability be a good dad, because your daughters will still have a relationship with him I expect (even though of course they’re upset with him now). He’s not been a good partner. So OP, sending strength to you but you can’t trust him anymore. You can find the strength to carry on without him as your partner. Help your girls to be as unscathed by this as possible, then hopefully they can try to maintain a father-daughter with him in their future. You, however, can find a new partner in the future - one who treats you with the respect that you deserve. x

OP he wants to come home because that is better than being on his own. Hard as it is to hear, you don't fall back in love with someone. If you allow him home he will start looking for another woman to provide excitement. He has proved that he feels you are not enough for him. You are worth more than this. You deserve someone in your life who puts you first and loves you to bits. That is not this man. Take no notice of his crocodile tears - because that's what they are. Take one day at a time - it will get easier - but please don't let this man back in your life.

You cannot allow yourself to be drawn in by his lies anymore.

He treated you like dirt. Imagine how many lies he would have told you, totally disregarding everything you built together. Folliwing his cock has lost him everything. The most precious thing he has lost is you. And it serves him right.

please listen to the women on here who have been there. Your life is going to be 100% better without this loser who doesn’t even have a job. He wants you to mop up the mess and mother him. Fuck that. Have some respect and leave this loser where he deserves to be.

if you take him back you help to build him back up at the cost of you and the dc’s wellbeing. You will be back on here within the year crying because he’s left you again.

He wants back into his former home because he's lost his job and place to live and comfortable life and found out it's a tough world out there for a jobless discarded affair partner. He thinks you're dumb and he can play you.

Tell him to get individual therapy for a year or two to see what's so broken in him that he could abuse you like that. But he gets nothing from you for that length of time. Let him pick up the pieces of his life that he broke by himself. Do not go to couples therapy until he's had lengthy individual therapy.

If you take him back, the same thing will happen again. This was a long term affair and he's only back because it didn't work out how he wanted.

Especially with teen daughters in the home, show them that what strength to move on from cheating and the abuse of a life ng affair looks like.

Yes, that's exactly what he wants. Remember that.

No. It's pretty obvious he's on his uppers and wants some familiar territory.

If you still love him then he has to prove it and that means setting up a life for himself, in his own place, getting a new job and working on himself. Pure effort and you'll see where things lie in a year or so.

But not just begging to come back so you can soothe his brow.

You're angry at her? Why not him? This 'man' took a sordid affair at the office - probably banging his side piece in the loo, over his marriage? He put your physical health at risk for a bunk-up on a desk? Disrespected your home, marriage, children, wider family and their business, for what?

You are worth so much more than being his back up plan. The safety net in case she binned him off. The message you're sending your children if you take this selfish, worthless 'man' back, would be that all of the above is acceptable.

He made his bed, let him lie in it. The fact you're scared of being bullied into letting him back speaks volumes. You have already built a life without him - live it in the knowledge you can, and will, be perfectly okay without him.

Please don't take him back. Even if you decide to forgive him, the humiliation inside of you will be destroying you. You will be thinking daily of his betrayal, even if you resolve not to think of it and let it go. You will be torturing yourself and despising yourself. And what an example to set for your daughters! Please don't.

I greatly agree with this.