He's definitely restarted the affair

[Allthegoodonesareg0ne]

2 years ago my husband had an affair and we reconciled. All was going well. He left his job for a bit and then had to go back. In March he went on a trip where she was, first time since. He came back off. I suspected, he denied. Then he said he hasn't been happy, rhe effort of dealing with my triggers from the affair was too much. He was worn out. He was planning to stay until after my hysterectomy this week and then move out. Since then its been a roller coaster. Warm some days, cold the next. In amongst it i filed for divorce. Some days he wanted to try and some days he was like an imposter in my husbands body. Over and over I asked about her he said he wasn't talking to her.
Today I got forwarded messages between them from her husband. He's been at it again.
He says he wasn't cheating, he'd already decided it was over between us he wouldn't tell me so I'd let him look after me and rhe kids through my surgery.
So now I know. I already suspected it shouldn't be a shock. I'd already said ir was over but I suppose some part of me was hanging on.
No point to this really except maybe to warn others and to get a bit or a handhold as this feels bloody unbearable.

I'm so sorry you went through it too.
It is interesting how they repeat things like that.
My husbands ow was the same age when they had the first affair as I was when we got together. She worked in a similar position within his company as I'd had in the company we worked for when we got together. Many of his messages were copies of things he'd said to me at the beginning and they were planning a trip to the place we got engaged. It's all bizarre and utterly grim

I could weep for you. Why on earth is he telling you that shit? I wouldn’t know what to say to a family member who was crowing about an affair with a married man with kids. It would probably be an uncharacteristic short reply from me. Two words only required. Unbelievable. No, the affair is an irrelevance compared to the level of betrayal and total shittery that’s been going on. And yes, ‘shittery’ is now a word. Who does this and broadcasts it? “In love”? Give me a bloody break.
What was real was your life together before this shenanigans originally started. The rest was fake and I’ve lived through unpicking that crap and that was how I saw it. None of the affair days were real, they were a gaslighting headfuck and every card and gift I received during that time got binned. I’m a sentimental soul and usually keep stuff like that (Stacey Solomon would have a field day with me) but it was no problem chucking out stuff that was part of a deception, props in a play that nobody told me I had a part in. Giving those things was part of the maintenance of a pretend normal to avoid suspicion, nothing more.
Don’t unpick your whole time together, it’s tempting to write it all off but it was your life and had meaning because it was real. From the start of his affair, no. Nothing was real at that time and it makes the room spin thinking about it. The details don’t bother you any more because him telling you the truth doesn’t matter any more as it did in reconciliation.
All that matters now is you and your children. The pair of them can go to hell.

@Allthegoodonesareg0ne and @leopardandspots I’ve got pilloried many a time for saying this, but the more people that tell me and the more I read on here the more convinced I am: vast majority of affairs aren’t to escape a ‘bad wife/ bad marriage’ or run to a specific individual, they’re an attempt by the man to be able to escape himself.

The OW is rarely a new ‘soulmate’ (loathe that word), the OW is just the new, making themselves available, blank canvas person. They are the screen onto which the man’s shiny new persona is about to be projected. Old persona is explained away with a history rewrite and the glowing attributes of new persona are proclaimed as being all down to the fabulous saviour OW.
Except the lying fake new persona is actually the worst version of themselves they ever came up with.
Most OW could be anybody they fancy, or at least not too off-putting at the time, who is willing or desperate enough to go along with it all and lap up the new movie.
How long the game of charades goes on for, is how long it takes for his habitual old version to break through in a penny-dropping fashion to a by now disillusioned OW, or new version discovers that his saviour actually can’t be all she was cracked up to be, because she never was the answer and never stood an earthly’s of being able to save him.
She was a small cork in the side of the gaping void in The Titanic.

@Thewookiemustgo I’ve got pilloried many a time for saying this, but the more people that tell me and the more I read on here the more convinced I am: vast majority of affairs aren’t to escape a ‘bad wife/ bad marriage’ or run to a specific individual, they’re an attempt by the man to be able to escape himself.

i completely agree with this. OP it is not you, or the family life you offer that is being rejected. Believe me, I know it feels like that. What these men are drawn by is the chance to reinvent themselves.

The biggest red flag I had but didn’t realise at the time was an early chat I had with exH when we were dating. We were chatting ( as you do) about favourite children’s tv programmes. He said he loved Mr Benn. You are too young to remember it, but it was a BBC programme in the 1970s where a man tried on a costume in a magical fancy dress shop and when he stepped out of the changing room he had a new costume which gave him a new persona.

In retrospect it gives me chills as I think that was prophetic. Some men ( and some women I guess) just want to escape from themselves, even if they mask it, deep down they are rejecting themselves. However hard you tried OP, and however brilliant the marital and family life you offered they would look for something new to fill the chasm inside. You and the DC deserve more .

@leopardandspots I’m old enough to remember, great analogy.

Yes, it’s not just an analogy though, that TV programme really resonated with him.

He did have an unhappy childhood, kind mother but bullying dominating father.
I now think the reason that programme stuck a chord with him, was that as a child he was forming the inner unhappiness, that feels momentarily fixed by reinvention. Although it’s more complicated than that, because they feel bad inside anyway the actual distress of ditching your wife and family sort of helps them as it masks the inner troubles, giving them a justification, an external reason to feel bad.

I have also noticed a pattern that once he’s changed relationships, he stays in it for a while but before long he seeks to change something else, either, job, house or hobby. So he got OW. Still felt unhappy, couple of years later he moved house. Still felt unhappy, couple of years later moved jobs. I knew what coming next, the writing was on the wall for OW. I do have some limited sympathy for her.

I wouldn’t read too much into it. Mr Benn was one of my favourite TV programmes and I’ve never had an affair. It must have resonated with a lot of children, otherwise it wouldn’t have been on TV. Fancy dress at parties is also extremely popular.

True. I remembered it too, but with him it resonated very deeply!

Sending love. I’ve experienced all of these sort of things myself too and knowing it’s so hard. The worst is the crocodile tears.

Great advice as always thank you.
I hear a lot of their plans through her husband. Their divorce is vicious but he's very close to her parents so he's hearing it all. He's such a lovely man and it's been such a help in orienting me, though I'm not finding that I want so much information at the moment. He's going and that's all I need to know.
I get bits and pieces from my stbx. He's downplaying their relationship more often that not. Today he's being super attentive to me, by this evening he'll be different again I'm sure.
I'm just focusing on getting my peace back in a few weeks. It'll be so nice to feel my stomach drop every time he picks up his phone and walks out the room or feel triggered by his work trips etc.

Spot on. Its absolutely that they get to be the new version they want to be.
My stbx lost a lot of weight and started working our a year or so before his affair. His career took off about the same time and he started to get very full of himself. When we got together he was quite over weight, didn't have anything and was just starting his career. I adored him at that stage of his life. Didn't recognise the newer 'improved' version who was so cocky and focused on what he looked like. He wasn't pulling his weight at home or with our marriage and it was frustrating. Obviously shiny new knickers was part of the work world and thought he was the bollocks. This time around we'd had a row about him taking on more travel at work a week before he went on the trip she was at. Guess he liked his reflection in her mirror more than mine.

I’ve experienced all this too, regarding looking forward to not feeling your stomach drop each time he picks up his phone, you need to be aware of a possible odd response, though it may just be me …
When he has gone and everything is peaceful, there’s a sort of odd chemical reaction. It’s like your body gets used to the Adrenalin/ cortisol up and down emotional responses- so normal calmness feels good, but also disorientating, it almost feels as if your body needs to adjust to losing the extreme chemical highs and lows.

I can quite imagine this. Over the last couple of years I've found it very hard to relax. I imagine it will take a while to get adjusted to just being able to be level

Yes it does. I’m a few years down the line now and found a nice kind honest widower. However sometimes it can feel flat. I have to remind myself that the highs and lows, the anxiety around exHs business trips, the treading on eggshells, the relief when he appeared to be open etc was not normal!

I just can’t imagine what this must feel like. How dare he get his phone out and leave the room no doubt to talk to her, whilst you’re in the same house together. He can contact her privately when you or he is not there or in different rooms. Insensitive git.
No, I agree, you need peace now with no more triggers and wondering what he’s up to. Her poor husband too. Some friends of ours split up after almost 30 years together and the one who initiated it was the wife. She’s been an absolute train wreck of a person since and I don’t recognise her. She’s like a selfish teenager off the leash. They have three children. Some of the things they have said to her have been very telling but could be outing so I can’t quote them. I supported her initially as many friends ghosted her after what she did, but it’s been two years now at least and she’s getting worse, not better. I have slowly distanced myself because I can’t condone any of it now and don’t feel I can be authentic with her. I know she won’t like the truth so I’m bowing out unless she has a total crisis, I wouldn’t abandon anyone then.
Her older teen and young adult children must be cringing, she pastes her antics all over social media with unthinking comments that must be so hurtful but she just can’t see it. They don’t enjoy spending time with her and two of them actively avoid her. It’s very sad but it’s all about her now and she is in denial about the impact.
Whatever your husband and this woman think is new and exciting now, has come from a relationship which was never fully formed or played out in the real world. It provided excitement in the form of cheap illicit thrills and secrets and it fed off lies. A bit of daylight and time will prove this pudding or rot it to the core.
Your life is about you and your children now, so plan that and let the eternally deluded skip off into what they might think is a sunset, but is in fact a succession of burning bridges.

It's honestly the hardest thing I've ever been through and I thought the first affair was the worst.
I know, logically, that he is not just bad for me he is actively acutely harmful.
But he's also still right here caring for me and rhe kids at rhe moment.
I've lost over 4 stone since rhe first affair, 2 stone since March. He's seen me break these last 8 weeks and still cracks on while crying with me sometimes, crying that his life is falling apart, saying he loves me and that me and rhe kids are rhe important people in his life. And simultaneously refusing to end the affair, planning moving out, and sneaking about to contact her. Its hideous.

Quite simply he is a mind fuck and it’s really damaging for you. Once he goes, invest in solo therapy.

It’s a big contradiction in your mind that he’s hurt you so much emotionally yet physically he’s looking after you like a devoted husband.
But don’t give him credit for looking after your boys - his 3 weeks of care vs your lifetime of it!

@Allthegoodonesareg0ne my H ( still together) followed that too, lost weight , suddenly got very bothered about his appearance and his career took off , the one I had helped him build as we had a business.i didn’t see it at the time and this was 20 years ago now but he did develop an ego, whereas he never had one before and he also had opportunity - lots of work trips away etc - enter the bright young thing flattered by him as he now looked relatively successful and had confidence and a new ‘look’ - it happens a lot - in my Hs case it also coincided with other things going wrong, business difficulties, mother dying and it was I think a mental escape from dealing with reality , it had absolutely zilch to do with a bad marriage or me as a person - it was kind of running away from the realities and using some else Asa deflection -not dissimilar to the way people who are practically skint often book a holiday .

I've been having solo therapy since before the first affair thank god for that.
My therapist has seen it all!
I am having to get my head around the reality that this man I thought loved me can destroy me and still keep going. I thought when he came back it meant he meant he really loved me but he was just afraid to change his life.
He's having his own therapy the last few months and has discussed our marriage with his therapist but not the affair as he said its unrelated 🙄
It's just taking time for my heart and nervous system to catch up with my head!

I'm so sorry hear this.
I hope that life worked out brilliantly for you?

Jesus! So his therapist is trying to help him while being completely unaware of the affair? He's a massive bellend! (Your DH, that is.)

Yep!

Makes me think of talking to your therapist about being scared of dying, but without telling them you have terminal cancer 🤪

🤣 exactly!