Can a marriage recover after repeated kissing and flirty messages?

[UdderlyBaffled]

My husband has cheated on me. I don’t know if it constitutes an affair exactly but it’s definitely cheating. I’m really grappling with whether or not I can past it.
For context we have been together for 16 years and married for 8 of those with 2 children under 4.
He has kissed a coworker on 2 different work nights out. They were both very drunk but leading up to the first kiss and in between that and the 2nd kiss they had been texting and calling each other. I believe leading up to the kiss they were friends. The messages weren’t sexting or about meeting up or having feelings but they were still I feel very flirty.
i think I’m still in shock as I truly thought my husband would be the last man on earth to do this.
on one hand I KNOW I’m not overreacting to be considering divorce but on the other hand is it worth throwing away everything and breaking apart our family and otherwise happy marriage for this?
anyone had similar experiences? How did you cope?

Similar happened with my ex husband when we were in the trenches with young children.

We did get past it. We separated 13 years later when he got too close to a friend of mine, and the marriage had been failing this a couple of years prior to this.

I've since found out that he tried it on with another couple of my friends in previous years, who slapped him down but didn't tell me. His behaviour didn't change with later partners and our adult children no longer speak to him.

However, this was him, not your husband and you know him best, so it's entirely your decision to make once you've had time to process this and know what you want to do.

@UdderlyBafflednot entirely when reflecting back, however like you, young children bubble. He said just kisses when I saw all the messages and they confessed reg meet ups. I still believe it wasn’t just kisses.

My first thought was this would be very difficult to put behind you without a lot of help. After I read your final update my thoughts changed. You mentioned you have been living like housemates & taking it for granted you would reconnect when your youngest child was less dependent on you. This scenario is never an excuse for cheating but do I think it contributes to reasons for looking for a connection elsewhere, absolutely. Marriage takes a lot of work. When either of the couple begin to take each other for granted & make no effort to keep the marriage alive that's when problems arise. You say you still love him OP. In this instance your DH does sound remorseful & has suggested counselling. I agree with this & suggest you both see this a wake up call & start paying more attention to each other.

The problem is you never thought he was capable of doing it, he has and now you think he’d never do it again….
For me I could probably move past one drunken kiss, I wouldn’t be able to move on so easily from the messages, plus another kiss and then lying when he was caught out.
Personally I would be thinking very hard about the future, not making any rash decisions but for the sake of a few sneaky snogs, messages etc he has jeopardised his family unit.
There will now always be a question at the back of your mind every time he goes out, has too much to drink or a message comes through.
I’m not sure I could live like it, but many do, but I’d rather be on my own than be with someone who has no loyalty.
Its easier for me to say that though because my children are slightly older 6-13 and financially I would just about manage on my own.

Nothing excuses cheating, what i will say though is partners that are usually trustworthy and reliable (not d**k happy players) usually seek comfort elsewhere when something is missing from their own relationship, if you can get past it and you're confident that he is genuinely remorseful and won't do it again then i would try and find out what it is that's missing from your relationship that made him look elsewhere.

Not sure i could forgive though, i've been there a couple of times and in my experience once a cheat always a cheat...not saying everyone is the same though i may have just been unlucky ;-)

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I want people’s honest thoughts but it’s definitely nice to read at least one message with a glimmer of hope

Actually really proud of you as a
woman for telling him YOU DONT NEED HIM.
He knows it. And please don’t forget this with whatever you decide in the future. Make him go to the counselling .make him get a new job. If he means it he will do everything in his power to work with you. But it’s only you really who can make the decision and that’s the hard part when it you making the call. All you can do is give it time and see how your feelings are. Please don’t even ever stay in a marriage for the kids.

I know two couples this relates to, one had "light cheating" and the other had an affair, but both separated and got back together, I think they both still are. At the very least I would ask for a separation so he knows you are serious that you can/will leave him.

I would not be able to move past it, and I wouldn’t try. Trust is the absolute bedrock for me, respect a close second…and he has crapped all over both of those. He did it repeatedly and knowingly. There’s no question, for me - I wouldn’t be able to view him with anything but utter scorn.

It worries me that you say this has made you realise that you love him. That sounds a lot like trauma bonding to me, and it may well cloud your judgement.

The best thing I ever saw, that really summed it all up for me, is Emma Thompson's beautiful scene in Love Actually, and particularly the part where she confronts Alan Rickman about his infidelity. We are never shown that he has actually physically cheated with the secretary - but there has clearly been a lot of flirting and he's bought her a special gift.

Emma Thompson tells him that he's made a fool of her and made her life foolish too. The line where she asks him what would he do if he were her "Would you stay, knowing life would always be a little bit worse? Or would you cut and run?" really stuck with me.

And when my ex DH did it, I left. I did not want to spend the rest of my life knowing it would always, always be a little bit shit, thanks to him.

Take care of yourself. Observe his action, and don’t listen to what he says. You don’t need to decide now. Also be aware, he has more power over you. Don’t have the delusion that it is up to you to decide, just because he cheated.
These are the mistakes I made. Hope can be useful for you. The betrayal bind is a good book. The script is the other good book.

I stayed after something similar. I won’t lie, hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s more than 5 years ago now and I don’t regret staying. He’s done the work, and, like you, I realised early doors that I didn’t actually need him. That scared the shit out of him, he went, and still goes, to weekly therapy to understand how and why he could have been such a massive, utter twat (huge childhood trauma).
It totally changed the dynamic of our relationship (I’d always had him on a pedestal. That crashed and burned the minute I found out). He is a different man now and I’m a different woman but I’m happy, we both are.
My advice would be frankly…..fuck him. Tell him to sort out his own shite, and that includes working out why. “ I don’t know” is NOT good enough. He needs to sort that immediately whilst you focus on you. And watch his actions not his words.

There used to be a long-term prolific MNer who basically became the poster child for staying and “working through” marital infidelity. She was passionate about it being the right thing to do, so rewarding, coming through it with a deeper and more honest relationship etc. It was all framed within a Christian conception of marriage as indissoluble and unbreakable if you care enough to do the work and get through the hard times. Of course he did it again, they eventually split up, he broke her heart and treated her and her children abominably afterwards. I often think about her and wonder how she’s doing.

Don’t be her. Give yourself time and space to get past the shock, and really think about what you want your future to be.

I have bean there and we split up and now divorced

Thank you for sharing your story and I’m sorry that it happened to you to. Do you mind me asking how early on you knew you wanted to try and work through it?

I have bean there if you ever.want to talk

Probably about a year? For that first year, I moved regularly from despair to utter, utter rage, I am not and have never been a violent person, but my god, the rage was real.
Year 2, I got back to myself a bit and realised none of it was anything to do with me. His problem, his choice, end of. I sent all the shame back to him, where it belongs. I realised it didn’t “happen” to me, he did it, by choice, knowing what it would do to me. I had to accept that, but he did too. That was far harder for him than for me. At the end of the day I had done nothing wrong, he had, and could sort it out, or not. I wasn’t bothered either way. I was focused on me and my getting back to being myself.
We improved after that!

We’ve been in the typical young children housemate routine for a while. Just always thought we’d reconnect when our youngest was a little less dependant on me

Your marriage has been in an unhealthy place for some time. You were fooling yourself thinking you'd reconnect when the kids were older. You've grown apart and there's so much distance between you your husband made a choice to pursue another woman at work and start a relationship with her with flirting and texting and likely more in person and he cheated. I don't know why you think this won't happen again. Your marriage wasn't a priority to either of you, so it was bound to break down at some point. You only found out by accident. He didn't come to you and come clean and I bet there's more. He tried lying about the kissing. There's more. If I were you, I'd be getting full STI testing and not having unprotected sex with him. He's lied to you for some time.

Was her in any way her manager?

If you divorce him, he stands to lose a lot.

I personally would be getting my ducks in order. He's a liar and I wouldn't believe his story. Your marriage wasn't in a good place before he cheated and I wouldn't have stayed in a housemate type marriage anyway, much less thinking things would be better years down the road. You don't always have the luxury of a future.

Were they still flirting after the drunken kisses ? Because that tells me there was intention there to carry it on beyond those two kisses and more drunken kisses could possibly happen in the future and who knows how far they would have gone if they got brave enough, I mean If they were brave enough to drunk kiss each other on nights out possibly in front of other work colleagues more than once then he/they clearly had no regards for who saw them or for you and like I said If they did carry on with the flirting after those kissing then in my mind there was no remorse until he was found out which is typical behaviour for cheats . Ask me how I know ? I forgave my cheat multiple times over our 15 years together and I couldn't see the woods for the trees in the end but 11 months ago was the final straw , I'm now free of that cycle and building myself back up .
But none of us here can tell you what to do with your relationship only you will know what you want to do , we can only share our experiences and advice but whatever you do decide to do make sure it's the right one for you 💜

Ooof I expected a bit of a battering on number but I think that’s far too harsh. Our marriage really wasn’t in a terrible place, we still took time to be together but no life is not as exciting when you’re both working full time with 2 pre-school aged children. We use to
communicate about it a lot. It certainly wasn’t a loveless marriage and I quite frankly resent the accusation that we’d moved apart. More just a lack of date nights as all our family childcare is used for work commitments.

I'm sorry, but I think you're massively down-playing this. Something has gone seriously wrong if he's kissing and flirting with another woman behind your back with two kids under 4 back home waiting for him. He has absolutely cheated on you, and more than once. He should be focused on his young family and instead he's off on the pull like a horny (single) teenager. I honestly can't believe you're thoughts are on making it work. Has he got somewhere to go? His parents? A friend? I would kick him out tomorrow and give yourself space to think without his puppy dog eyes in your face. If you're worried about him running to the OW then honestly, good riddance. If he doesn't, then it will be the best thing for him- to sit alone in his childhood bedroom or his mate's stinky basement. He can think about what he has done and what he is at risk of losing.

If you forgive him too soon and talk about 'making it work' he'll feel he's got off easily and won't do the work he needs to do for himself. He will then cheat again. This wasn't just a 'mistake', he's got deep issues.

You mentioned he said he will look for another job. Does he actually mean that? This absolutely needs to happen if your relationship has even shred of hope surviving this.

So he hasn’t answered all your questions and won’t tell you why?

He’s not sorry he hurt you, he’s sorry he got caught.

He’s answered all of my questions. All 25,000 with the exception of why. He just keeps saying he doesn’t know why

Hi OP, be careful not to listen to too much of the negativity on here about how others would LTB immediately and he's got deep problems and he's not sorry. Those things are possible, but there may be other reasons. See below.

I've heard a lot of mums say they would have more time for each other when the children were older, but that's a unilateral decision made that affects two people. If the other person isn't content to be left without romance and connection for an extended period with no clear end in sight, then problems develop. I have a close friend who thought they would have time for each other when older, and they never had sex. Her husband didn't sleep with anyone else - confirmed by the OW when she messaged my friend on FB - but he went out looking for the emotional connection and romance that he couldn't get at home.

It's hard to advise, because only you know how disconnected the two of you have been.

If it was me, I wouldn't be able to get over cheating if we had a good relationship that included romance, emotional connection, sex, and date nights. If he cheated when things were fine, there's no fixing that.

But if I KNEW I had neglected his needs for emotional connection, romance, and sex, I wouldn't be so quick to LTB. People are only human and they do need some reason to live, someone to pay attention to them, closeness and fun that makes life seem worth living. And people vary hugely in how much they can take of a lack of connection. And also in how much connection they need.

Your husband seems to be doing and saying all the right things. However - and I know this will probably stick in the craw - you have to be willing to own whatever the extent of your neglect in the relationship is. I don't think this has to be the death knell of your relationship, but it's a warning that it's on oxygen. If you want it to work, you can't cast him in the role of villain long-term and you have to be willing to admit your own faults and commit to making changes. I would strongly suggest trying to get to the bottom of what made him step out, and for that, I think you need counselling. He says he doesn't know what he did it. He does know, but for whatever reason, he doesn't feel safe expressing his needs. Maybe he would in counselling.

He needs to commit to expressing whatever his needs are and in asking you to meet them, instead of looking at other people. And you need to be willing to hear him.

This is about communication.

I would absolutely do counselling, and I would not give up just yet on your marriage and family.

I can already tell nothing will happen. You’ll move past it as you don’t want to break up your whole life for a couple of kisses.

I think part of you will die a little inside. Resentment will set in, you’ll start to hate him and you will never see him in the same way. You’ll either end up in a bitter unhappy marriage or he’ll probably cheat on you again, or you’ll be arguing so much you’ll break up in another ten years.

That’s what often happens in these situations sadly.