At first on discovery, you need to accept that there is no relationship safety. It’s gone.
As bleedin’ obvious as that sounds, if you didn’t see it coming and had no suspicions. In your shock you are still seeing your partner through the lens of being the guy you thought would never do this, so you think he’ll react to discovery from that standpoint ie honestly and truthfully, logically……you think that because you know, that there’s no way he’ll now look you in the face and continue to lie about it. Not my Nigel. He wouldn’t do that. Newsflash, he’s not the Nigel you knew. He would and he is.
The painful truth is that he’s been lying for some time by the time you find out, you are playing catch-up with this different version of him. It’s very, very hard to accept initially that he’s lying (partly because you absolutely don’t want it to be true) and on discovery he will definitely try to lie better and harder, not as you logically think (because you still see him as basically honest) : “oh God, I never lie to Wookie, game’s up, might as well confess.” This never happens. I never say never but in this scenario I’d bet my house I’m right.
It feels like the end of the world as you know it, you’re nowhere near ready for this shock. You’re blindsided and decision making is impossible, because you are reeling and don’t know what is true, what isn’t, what your reality actually is. You don’t know whether this is the tip of an iceberg and whether instead of making dinner when the kids get home from school tonight, as you thought you always would be, you’ll be telling them where Dad has gone with his suitcase. It’s shocking and bloody mental.
In this situation I decided that I was the only one to create safety for myself and my kids, Dad had gone to LaLa Land so there was only one adult with integrity here to protect them. It didn’t matter what he said, whatever he said protesting that it was over and he wanted me was meaningless, he was currently back then being a proven liar, so why on earth trust that?
So, after the initial shock wore off, I had to dig deep and accept the truth of what had happened and stick to evidenced facts, I knew he was having an affair and I knew I could t currently trust him. You don’t need more than that.
Everything he said after that fact was from him and could be totally bollocks, so I had to accept that in this scenario I could only ever rely on me.
That was scary to accept but once I had it made me get advice and plan for the worst. It was out of character for him (wayyyyy out) and he was desperate and wanted to stay, we had a good marriage and huge great history together so I hoped for the best and set my stall out and built my conditions and boundaries, but I planned for the worst.
I ditched being afraid of being alone, (I wouldn’t be, my family and friends are fab) and sought proper advice as to where I stood re divorce. I ditched any shame of being divorced, it was his bad, nothing to do with me. Although I had feelings of “I’ll see her in hell before she takes my husband and my life” I knew that if he wanted to leave a fabulous, loyal and honest woman like me, (and yes, I bloody am) who had loved him warts and all for thirty five years and worked hard with him to build our wonderful little family, for a woman who would cheat on her partner, knowingly help a married man with kids betray them, encourage him to ditch us just before exam season started, saying with a shrug “They’ve all got to be upset sooner or later so why not now? What’s the difference?” and let him spend a fortune on her without ever contributing or offering to pay for anything, he could have her and good luck, pal. I still feel like that today. If you don’t want our life, which many people would kill for, you can sod off out of it, your loss.
OP you have to do all you can now to plan for the worst, even if you’re staying and hoping for the best. It creates your own safety and gives you a sense of calm. The planning and accepting and facing reality hurts, it’s hard, you never wanted it to happen, but fear keeps you stuck, clouds your judgement.
You want to know that your reasons for staying are because you love him, think he’s worth another chance and because he’s showing you he wants that too and will do all he can to try to fix it. There are no other reasons for trying to rebuild. Staying for kids and for financial reasons for a while is fair enough, but it’s miserable and temporary and just avoiding the inevitable.
Once I had created my own independence plan and safety, I could act rather than react. It took months of him proving himself to start to trust him again.
Only he can create relational safety and it takes time, OP, a lot of it, so create safety and confidence just for you first. The triggers were awful and can even pop up years later and still make you feel the panic and the fear, PTSD is real in infidelity, but they are not present reality, just shadows of the past and you can learn to deal with them and not let them affect trust.
Get safety by protecting yourself and your children first, then let him prove that he is reliable again evidenced by his hard work with no rug sweeping or hurry for you to ‘get over it.’
As the shock wears off you’ll start to see clearly, you will know whether you are staying out of fear, or because the mountain of change feels too high.
You have to be brutally honest with yourself, if you can’t handle what he did and weather the anxiety due to lack of initial trust that’s fine, no shame, you tried, but you leave.
Both staying and leaving are hard work, both are worth it once you know what you really want. Initially it’s best not to throw yourself into staying or leaving, let the shock wear off so that you know you’re acting from your own truth, not your fear.
Over time you’ll know your own truth and you’ll have the strength to do whatever needs to be done. Create your own safety net first, then if you still want to rebuild, he has to prove that it’s safe to trust him. My sense of safety even now probably comes far more from my confidence and knowledge that I could cope without him if he ever fucked up again, but he’s done a ton of work and is brutally honest about his flaws and weaknesses now, as am I, and I’m as sure as you ever can be about anyone that he won’t.