Tale as old as time. I’ve seen this debate played out before.
But I’m in a situation, it’s hard to tell people in real life.
we are early 40s, married 13 years, three primary aged kids. Parenthood hit us like a ton of bricks. Child number 1 didn’t sleep. We were exhausted, I felt resentful about lack of support (in hindsight he did do a lot, there wasn’t really much more he could have done). We just didn’t get on and there was no sex. We had always wanted a sibling for DD
so had sex once and this miraculously resulted in a twin pregnancy.
So, by the time our eldest was 6 and twins were 3 we had had sex once. So once in 6 years. I know now how bad that was.
At the time I was struggling with postnatal depression, 3 non sleeping kids, and working shifts in a demanding job. We barely shared a bed, we just slept wherever. And we had no family to ever babysit.
DH eventually addressed it, asked if we could go to councelling. I shut this down as I felt I just needed more support and maybe then I’d have the energy for that. I felt like he was just one more person making demands on his time.
He then shouted that it was fuckn shit (true) and I kind of realised it couldn’t go on like that.
So we had sex. And it was fine. And it became easy to just continue to have sex. So that’s what we did. All good. We were back in the saddle.
I found out a few months later this the prompting from DH was due to him confiding in an ex girlfriend about our lack of sex life. Not somebody he sees as she lives abroad, but they have kept in very sporadic contact over the years. She told him to speak to me. Also apparently recounted some of their raunchy moments from their past and told him to recreate them.
I found out about this as hears him listening to a voice note from her (didn’t hear the content). He denied denied denied at first, then told me this is what is was. Said it was her that suggested councelling etc.
I was not happy. Asked if they had been sending nudes etc. he swore not.
Life was fine for a couple of years when I snooped and found some messages / photos. They had sent nudes. And worst off all, had planned to meet up for sex. She would catch a flight to our city and book a hotel. I saw the dates she had proposed, and checked back my WhatsApp / photos and he was here. I then found what I think was the final agreed date. I queried why he was doing his hobby on this date when I had an important event the following week, and he said “ok, no bother, I’ll cancel it.”
He was here on that date, so I know it didn’t go ahead.
He says he never had any intention of going through with it. He said when it started it was a bit of excitement and we hadn’t been intimate in so long he just enjoyed the attention. He is quite a shy person and he said that because it was through a phone screen it didn’t seem “real” and he would be too much of a shitebag to go through with anything like that in real life.
Contact between them just dwindled apparently and that does seem to be the case from what I can see from his phone.
She has now been blocked and deleted.
This has all absolutely broken me.
On seeing his phone I can see he looks at some porn as well. Nothing extreme, doesn’t seem excessive use. I don’t particularly like it but I can’t get on my high horse about that. I watch porn myself occasionally and I understand that it’s a real disconnect to real life - some of the stuff I watch I would have absolutely no interest in in real life.
But the ex gf situation.
He swears it was just messages and he never met her and had no intention of doing so. I know how lonely he must have been during that time because I was too. And I enjoyed when men from my past would comment on my fb or whatever, because it was nice to get a little bit of attention. But that’s as far as that went. This girl was obviously a step further than that.
There was never any intention to leave me and be with her. She is married but in an open marriage. And in another country and seemingly very happy. Just enjoys shagging other people’s husbands.
I feel sick at the seediness of it all the complete disrespect that of the 4 people involved, I was the only one with no idea what was going on. Like it just didn’t concern me.
i’m struggling to forgive or forget and not sure how of if I’ll get over it.
But the thought of splitting my family up over messages is hard to take.
He is a good dad, a hard worker, we get on well, and our sex life is back on track and very good.
The thought of being single doesn’t appeal. There’s hardly any decent guys out there and I wouldn’t bring a new man into my kids lives anyway. Financially I would struggle and have to move areas to a flat in a different school catchment.
But the thought of living my life constantly wondering if it’s happening again is not good. And just the images of the photos and texts I’ve seen.
it just seems so, so stupid to have thrown away a life and a family over this.