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?

@Thescornedwife I know that you are trying to understand the reason why this happened- truth is it happened because he wanted it to. Your husband made a CHOICE, he weighed everything up and decided that his lust was worth more than his wife, his children, his career and his home.

You are the mother of his children, YOU deserve so much better, you deserve respect, he has shown you that he doesn’t respect you through his betrayal and lies and the audacity and contempt is glaring by his continued disrespect- how dare he enter your home whenever he feels like it- where is your anger?
seek legal advice about legal separation and/ or divorce- have frank discussions with your children about what your future could possibly look like and set firm boundaries with this man!

So basically he sees you as a stepping stone as a way bank into getting his old life back and pretending the last two years hasn’t happened.

He's lost everything for a cheap thrill - the slate can never be wiped clean. Don’t be the pick me girl for this lying cheat

OP, he's been grooming both you and the OW for 2 years. He's an expert at it.

You can't let him into your head right now. So block all forms of contact, tell him to contact the kids directly and let yourself think this out without him whispering in your ear. Because he only has one interest, and that's getting right back into the life he had before. Only for you, that life is blown out of the water and in a million pieces. That's one fucking big jigsaw to put back together - or put in the bin.

Lovely, your husband only wants to come home because he has lost his job, the other woman doesn't want him, and he doesn't want to be living with his parents. Essentially, he sees you as a financial liferaft.
I would stand firm in your choice to not allow him to come crawling back. Start the ball rolling and get decent legal advice about where you stand financially if you divorce. Can you buy him out of the marital home? If not, can it be sold so you can each get your own place?
Definitely get your own counselling and therapy to work through things and regain your self belief if that's wavered. Use it to build strength to know that your decision is the right one for you and your children.

Oh are they? I thought I remembered her describing them as young adults. Maybe it was someone else, and they were getting it wrong. Either way, it's definitely time for the OP to get a bit more hard-nosed about this and worry less about what goes on in her pathetic ex's head, and more about how and the DC are going to keep their home (or, failing that, A home, which is suitable for them all), irrespective of what he wants or does. She should consult a lawyer about the options regarding the house.

Thanks that makes sense.

@MrsLizzieDarcy it's not even a jigsaw at this stage. I's been trampled into tiny shards of china. All you can do is bin it.
Agree completely that he's just trying to worm his way back in. All about the optics and him. No regard for the trauma and damage he's caused to his wife and kids.

You need extensive therapy to determine why you would even consider allowing this man back into your bed before you even consider letting him anywhere near your home.

If he’s such a good father he can continue being one from wherever he lives now. His relationship with his children is not dependent on you rolling over and accepting his abuse.

Edited to add you need to block him. He has said enough. The least he owes you is space and his constant guilt tripping you into o make decisions is only continuing his abuse and manipulation. He is in the wrong and if he feels bad, he should. Let him sit in it while you find strength from the people who truly do actually care for your wellbeing.

Being asked to resign may well constitute constructive dismissal. It sounds like no proper process was followed. So technically he probably has a claim for wrongful dismissal which he would likely win and he may recover a few instalments of salary. But it may well be too late for him to file any such claim (am a lawyer but not sn employment lawyer and employment law is very technical) and obviously he would look a complete arsehole for pursuing a claim.

I feel so sorry for your children.
The enormous and permanent damage they have been subjected to.
Their father cheating scum and they know the details and a mother who still "luvs" him.

Neither of you are putting your poor children first.
You are both putting yourselves 100% first.

So awful for your children.
The damage this complete shit show has done to them an continues to do because you are so desperate for him.

He's utter cheating scum.
Put your children first and never allow him home again.

Yes, the OW had mentioned the constructive dismissal thing and said she wouldn’t pursue that if my husband left also.

If you take him out you’re risking a huge risk in the family. You could end up estranged from your uncle and family, maybe even your parents.
Then there is the example you’re setting your girls. They’ll blame you for being weak eventually.
For what? A guy who will cheat and leave again.
He’s not sorry for the hurt, he’s sorry for himself.

I would be more upset if he blew up his family life for some exciting but meaningless sex. He betrayed you and your daughters for a cheap thrill (lasting two years though), with such a lack of judgement that he had actually had sex at work when he was employed by a member of your own family.

Whatever his motivation, his actions were inexcusable. Please don't try and blame it on some pseudo scientific bullshit like sex addiction. He's just a common or garden adulterer who didn't care how much he hurt you and his children.

This.

Sorry OP. But if you add gambling, trashing your dad's pension and lying about money into the mix it takes everything to a whole new level. He is a con man, a self confessed "pathological liar", and that makes him a threat your whole family's financial security, and this could have a lasting effect on what your children will be able to do in future, education, housing, training etc. And all of you will suffer if that happens.

How much more damage will he inflict on you, your children, your parents, and even your extended family because he might succeed in persuading you that he might still love you or guilt you into thinking that you owe it to him to try to save him?

This is why you need space from him right now to process what's happened and therapy because it can't be easy to shake off years of someone influencing you like this.

Admittedly you are so close to this and its easier for us as outsiders to see it, but when you add the threats he has already inflicted and still presents to, not just yours, but your whole family's financial security - "love" stops coming into the equation because this man has damaged virtually every close person in your life.

You are his route back. He probably thinks if he can manipulate you enough, he can get back to his comfortable base and you will lean on your family to re employ him in his cushy job and then after a spell of good behaviour he can get back to doing exactly as he wants ... with no consequences for the damage he's already caused over the last two years. As a pp said, he's a gambler and a risk taker. This is what he's betting on if he can just line everything up the right way.

You need to protect yourself, your children and parents or this whole toxic cycle could be reset. Your children need to know that its possible to stand up to guilt tripping, emotional manipulation and financial abuse, and still be a good person, and that they are allowed to put themselves first and say no, even if its family, so that they can guard against it when they are fully adult.

I know this is an awful situation for you to have to go through. You don't deserve it in anyway. But at least take the time and space from him that you need now to process what's happened.

You have said the words "cruel and calculated". Listen to your own words.

There is not one post on here saying ‘get back with him’ you need to really think about that and unpick it in counselling, just you, not him.

• he left the family home ‘to find himself’ 6 months ago he does not get to come and go as he pleases. He texts - asks to see DC’s and if it’s convenient he comes. They are old enough for him to take them out. If he sees them in the home you go out - you go and do something for you. Stop being available.
• You only respond to texts when you need to and it makes sense too.
• You need to stop and be clear that it’s over before he ‘worms’ his way back into the DC’s affections. May of us have seen the outcome of parents trying to make it work post affair - it makes us question ourselves and our own worth. Just don’t do it, stop it - show them what confidence and self esteem looks like. Show them what a healthy response to his god awful, shitty behaviour is.
• He stops sending you information you are not ready to receive, he does not get to redeem himself by telling you all the detail right now. HE IS STILL IN CONTROL- you are still not stopping him from hurting you. He is only telling you because feels guilty and HE wants to feel better. Come on, what about you, take some fucking control back - block his texts/ calls or whatever until YOU are ready, not him.
• He didn’t care when he was shagging OW did he? He only cares now because he got caught.
• He did love her in ‘his own way’ (I am sorry to say) he would not have put it all on the line if he hadn’t.
• He embarked on this affair - knowing it could end your relationship, and mess up his kids. He didn’t care though did he?
• He has form for lying/ gambling etc now this?
• You need to build your self esteem and self worth, none of us can contemplate why on earth you would take this piece of shit back. I have been there and perhaps a one night situation would be doable - but this is a 2 year affair, with photos, texts, I love you’s - this is something else.
• You need to see a solicitor straight away - you need to know where you stand, and what you need to get in place.
• If he states he will commit suicide, you just say I am calling the police for a welfare check. This is not on you. This ALL on him, all of it.

Your priority is you and your girls - not him and his bullshit, his crying is only because he got caught and his world has imploded. Take away the sympathy crap he is trying to pull your H is

• a lying, unfaithful piece of shit
• a master manipulator
• putting you at risk of STis
• playing you, and taking the absolute piss out of your kindness and grief
• still in control
• hated (quite rightly) by your family for the way he has treated you and them
• telling another woman he loves them

Please take control back today and safeguard yourself from any more of his crap. While YOU think about your next steps. But please do not take this man back.

ps.
You are the gatekeeper, who can let his man back into your whole family's lives. You have to consider his effect on them as well.

Also consider, if you let him back to continue his old ways - he will never have a chance to face the consequences, which might thinking about changing for the better and as @MissDoubleU said

"If he’s such a good father he can continue being one from wherever he lives now. His relationship with his children is not dependent on you rolling over and accepting his abuse."

Oh Lord. If you've been reading that stuff, no wonder you're second guessing yourself. A good counsellor should be neutral and should not advise or judge - they should provide a space and sounding board for you to reflect and decide what you need and want.

Please read this on the hour every hour. Take your time.

PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME

I don't know if you're still reading @Thescornedwife but one thing that may not have been mentioned is that when your life has been utterly turned up side down, one of the most difficult things about it that is unspoken and often unrealised that is that it's incredibly hard to cope with the fact that all our structure and expectations have been destroyed.

Everything you knew, everything you relied on, has gone.

Of course you are going to want that back. The readjustment, especially such an appallingly negative one, is something that anyone will want to run away from and restore the old status quo.

But as time goes on, you -will- adjust. You will get through this massive period of destruction (caused not by you, which makes it even harder as the power was taken away from you) .. and you will slowly establish new norms and new structures.

The decisions you make now will form what that new normal is.

Either on your own with your daughters, and missing him (or the man you thought he was) but with the dignity and self respect that comes from making decisions that actually are in your own legitimate best interest, having been severely betrayed.

Or with him, missing him less but with that knowledge that he fundamentally is deeply dishonest and really wanted to be with someone else rather than you. (That, btw, is dreadful for self-respect).

You're at a stormy Y-junction and you can go one of two ways forward, but what you can't do is go back. If you choose the solo route, the practical and emotional difficulties may be worse at first but i the long run will die down faster and you will have much, much cleaner air to breath. If you choose to stay with him, it avoids the difficulties of divorce but the air you share with him is (objectively) now permanently poisoned.

(You know he only wants to come back to you because it's easier right? you know that all the oh-so-convincing protestations that he loves you are exactly the words of someone who comprehensively lied to you and took you in for the last two years? Be wise, lady, fast.)

@Thescornedwife back with his parents, who probably gave him an ultimatum to leave, dumped by OW and surprise surprise he is back begging you to take him back. He has treated you appallingly! Do not fall for this crap OP! You deserve better. He has no respect for you.

This post is amazing! And I appreciate more than I could ever tell you about what reading this means to me

and to all of you for helping to guide me in a way I never thought I’d get. The internet is a scary thing to delve into when you ask it for help. All it’s done is try and show me that my husband was in limerance, that he does love me, that it can be repaired. I’m shocked at how much that almost swayed me into even thinking about that instead of the colossal amount of damage that’s been inflicted. Trying to see him for who he is rather than who I thought he was for all these years is going to break me further but I have to try for mine and the girls sake

Sorry, but you’d be absolutely nuts to take him back. There is no way you can rebuild this.

Every time you waver op and feel like you should take him back please re read this thread. He does not deserve anything from you. Please do not let him worm his way back in. He’s found out the grass isn’t greener and is crawling back because he thinks you’re weak and will let him. He does not respect you at all.

@Thescornedwife "he took a massive massive risk for this OW"

No, he took a risk for HIMself.

Tbh, you're still projecting yourself on him, thinking that would would/might motivate you is what motivates/motivated him.

Btw it's normal that we do this, but it's important to question our assumptions about others when they are grievously hurting us and our kin.

He took all those risks because:

(a) the risk taking ITSELF made him feel good,
(b) the excitement of the limerance and new pussy made him feel GREAT, top of the world,
(c) he thought he'd get away with it,
and (d) if he got caught, he was sure he'd have you to fall back on because he was convinced you love him so much you'd take him back, and you'd fix everything for him.

You mentioned that he's had problems with gambling. He gambled here too, it excited him as much as sitting at the horse races.

It sounds like you've been propping him up and being his Fix-it-Girl for years.