Staying in relationship after being cheated on

[MrsFCastle]

If you have stayed with your partner after being cheated on please tell me your experience. I’d appreciate some insight be it good bad or ugly.

Sorry you're going through this OP, but please don't stay. A whole year of cheating isn't one drunken snog at the office party. This required a great deal of calculation and lying to your face. He didn't give a shit about you. What a complete bastard. Don't believe a word he says from now on, no matter how much he begs and pleads, swears on his life or tells you he did it because he was "depressed" or had trouble at work. It's called the script and he'll use it to gaslight you. Make plans to seperate as soon as possible. If you stay, you will never be able to forget his cheating (I know, I've been there) and every part of your life will be tainted by his betrayal.

Go to the Chump Lady website.

Prepare to be a single mother.

Don't take him back, he put your baby in danger of STIs as well as you.

These posts are not helpful in my view. It might be right for the OP to leave and it might not be. Many decent men and women cheat on their partners. The lying dirty bastard throw him out is just one narrative.
Good luck with whatever you decide OP.

Infidelity involves sustained psychological abuse such as control, gaslighting, entitlement and creates a power imbalance. I think it’s important to call it what it is, which is abuse.

The reconciliation industry is worth millions. There are no other circumstance where a woman would be encouraged to rebuild with an abuser. Cheating is not a shared relationship problem. It’s an abuse of power and consent problem.

Based on what I’ve seen IRL and what I’ve read on MN, I think 90% of relationships where cheating has happened are doomed. I don’t believe “once a cheater always a cheater” and I also think it’s possible to learn from their mistakes and become better people, but I think the odds of song that kind of soul searching, self-development, AND working to rebuild trust while also withstanding the normal ups and downs of a relationship, AND having a partner who is genuinely able to forgive and move past it (many want to but find they can’t) are really, really slim. Where people do learn the lessons and move on, it’s normally a new person in a new relationship who reaps the benefits.

That isn’t to say it can’t be done, but to be realistic about the likelihood. I’m so, so sorry OP, as I know you are particularly vulnerable right now being pregnant, but a year-long affair overlapping with your pregnancy does not suggest the kind of cheater who made a mistake and is capable of reform. 💐

This wasn’t a one off mistake. This was months of lying and betrayal. I’m so sorry, but there’s no coming back from this. If you try, it will eat you alive eventually. What a bastard.

Decent men and women do not cheat. Selfish liars do.

The OP explicitly asked for personal experiences whether they be "good, bad or ugly" and posters are commenting within the bounds of that remit. Most (if not all) have responded negatively because that is the majority experience of staying with an unfaithful partner. She didn't ask if there were any trained marriage counsellors or therapists on Mumsnet to talk through the pros and cons of her situation, did she.

Only in a black and white world. I was giving OP my lived experience. My DH is a decent man who cheated. I know other decent people who cheated. That’s not the same as saying cheating is a decent thing to do.

I stayed. He did it again. repeatedly. thankfully we had no children (but we were trying!) so I had a clean break.

I’m sorry OP, but you and your baby deserve so much better. Can you go and stay with a friend or family member for the next year? Have support as you prepare for your baby’s arrival and during those first few months?

This has been calculated, repeated and in the middle of all of that, he has created a new life with you. How low can one person stoop? He has zero respect for you.

It will be hard, you will need support and to stay strong but seriously, look to the future, and don’t look back.

I think a lot of people take the stance that when he cheated he forfeited the right to be counted as a decent man. Because being decent and cheating are mutually exclusive things.

He needs to be taught a lesson just what it feels like to be really hurt by someone.
Tell him to go(one of the hardest things you’ll probably do)
let him know what it feels like to be hurt like hell Your pregnant (use it) see how he feels not being able to love/hold his child !

Let him beg and beg , use this time to get your head together
If he’s already been lying to you about where/when etc to your face and you just let him stay with above , he will just think he got away with it easy. Basically told you what you want to hear
teach him a fucking lesson
sorry he does this to you

That’s fine this is your view, but I am giving my view too which OP asked for.

Leave, a year affair isn't a mistake. He will say all the right things now but you will always doubt and he will probably do it again that's if he's even ended it...

@Taraaa men and women who cheat are by definition not decent people. They lie with ease to their partners in order to get a shag with someone else. They're cowards who want to have their cake and eat it. Then when the shit hits the fan they transform into Mr/Mrs wonderful ... selfish self-centred bastards.

Which is of course fine and exactly what the OP asked for. However you also stated that other’s views which did not match yours are (in your view) “not helpful”. We will have to agree to disagree on whether a cheater can be a decent person.

I stayed because we'd just got married when I found out. I wish I hadn't.

I believe he was faithful for a while, but fell back into bad habits. I found he was messaging random young women on instagram. He'd send emoji replies to their ig stories like 😍, and then try and engage them in conversation. They clearly weren't interested. Then I found out he was messaging someone I went to school with and had never got on with. He knew all this. He said he was just being friendly with these women, but why wasn't he being friendly and chatting to men? Or sending men heart eye emojis on their gym pictures! Then I found he was messaging sex workers and had dating profiles online. He even booked an appointment with a sex worker, but apparently wasn't going to go. Yeah right.

I was a shell of a woman, didn't recognise myself. Was trying to make things work for our child's sake. Every time he went on a night out I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't trust him at all. Eventually I got sick of living my life worrying about who he was online to and if he was messaging/sexting women. Was he seeing sex workers when he worked away or arranging hookups? Was he seeing someone at work? I divorced him after six years of so-called marriage. I'm not sure if I'll ever get over it.

Three years on and I've still not had another relationship and I don't want one (I don't trust men one bit), but I enjoy my peaceful, anxiety-free life. If I could go back in time knowing what I know now, I would have ended things after that first instance. No ifs, no buts. It's not worth the anxiety and they will do it again.

I hope you're ok OP.

Fair point, I just don’t see how people can be so categorical about other peoples relationships and people they do not know in general.

Leave, love your life with your beautiful baby and then you don't have to keep looking over your shoulder or watching your back.

I understand that you are talking about your H and your experience.

I'm not criticising you. If that's what you believe about your H that is your prerogative.

But I have the right to point out that for a lot of people, including myself, a man who cheats on his wife or partner has de facto proven himself not to be a decent man.

I stayed and I now regret that decision. Too old now to leave as I would find it very difficult physically.

He planned to have a child with you whilst cheating on you. That's cruel and twisted behaviour.

It doesn’t matter to me what you think of my DH (I note that he is my H to you and not my DH).I think what I meant in my previous post was that the “leave the lying bastard” isn’t always helpful. Op needs to work this out herself. Every situation is different and sometimes time is also needed to make decisions.

You don’t need to know someone personally to know their behaviour is cruel and harmful.

You are worth so much more than you're currently giving yourself, and your baby deserves a happy mum too.

Good men don't treat you like this.