Another lying bastard. Help me play the long game.

[WellWTFisthis]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

To cut to the chase I have found texts on my husbands phone to a male friend of his that effectively end my marriage. My spidey sense has been in overdrive recently although the actual signs that all was not well were/are fairly subtle. Small but noticeable changes to his mood (short with me and our child frequently), more distant but not by much and always easily explained as tiredness, work stresses etc. Unfortunately for him, my intuition has always been very strong and my bullshit radar is unmatched.
He was out with work colleagues this week and fell asleep with his phone unlocked and in his hand. I woke up in the middle of the night and went through it which I'm not even a tiny bit sorry about.
Anyway, hes had a friend from adolescence who I have never liked. He's a pompous, arrogant prick and I keep my distance. The friend is also married with children. My raging spidey sense made me check their WhatsApp conversations and of course, I was right to.
Interspersed with every day life sort of chat are links to porn. Some of its your typical stuff but there is also a huge amount of gay/transsexual - basically a total penis fest. Now. I could ALMOST get my head around this. Human sexuality is complex and I know that its normal for people who identify as heterosexual to fantasise about sex with someone with the same body parts as them. However, what I cannot get over is the sexually charged nature of their discussions. Its not just discussing the content but discussing how theyre wanking, how hard they came. These messages go back months and probably longer but I'd seen enough to know that this is an established pattern between them. More recently the messages are of my husband discussing wanting to buy a sex toy and has shared with his friend all the things he has shoved up his arse. Again, if this was something my husband broached with me and pitched it as something he wanted to try in the bedroom, great. We have a good sex life and I am by no means a prude. However, no mention of this has ever been made to me. Things appear to have escalated around a month ago when they were exchanging messages of a wildly graphic nature about my husbands excitement at being abroad with work and nothing to do but pleasure himself in the evenings. My husband has also mentioned an upcoming work trip I have where he will be alone as his mother is watching our child due to the nature of his job and him not being able to be available in the evenings quite often. There doesnt seem to be any plans (yet) for him to have sex with anyone else but he makes mention of basically wanting a dick to enjoy and it almost reads as testing the waters to see if this friend takes the bait. He didnt but the sexualised chats do continue.
Obviously my marriage is over. Theres no coming back from this as far as I'm concerned. Even if he's not in denial about being gay and this is all fantasy, the deal breaker for me is the sexually charged conversations with someone who isnt me.
Our financial position isnt the worst but its not the greatest either. All of our money goes into the one account and everything gets paid from that. I have no separate money or finances because I genuinely never believed I would need to. More fool me. We jointly own our home and have a high number of outgoings. As it stands, I cannot buy him out of his share of our home nor can I afford the mortgage. My parents are financially well off and I do think there is scope for them to bail me out so that our child doesnt have to leave the only home he has ever known but that's not a right now problem.
I took pictures of all the messages and have them in a password protected folder on my phone. I plan to start quietly getting information together such as his pension stuff, important documents relating to our home etc. I would like to have as many of my ducks in a row as possible before confronting him and telling him that I want a divorce.
How on earth do I "play it cool"? I am incandescent with rage as well as trying not to think about the betrayal, my entire adult life being a lie and the lasting impact on our child. I cannot go there as I will fall apart and I need to be strong. I dont want him getting even a hint that all is not rosy.
If anyone has been in a similar situation I really would welcome any advice or words of wisdom on how to muddle through until its time to confront him.

You always give the best advice and support on here. You must be a great friend to have in real life ❤️

Em nothing? If you had basic comprehension skills you would have deduced from my post that there is no ambiguity on my part about ending things.

I am sorry you have had a similar experience but my god you sound like a force of nature! Thank you so much for your words of wisdom. I hope you are living your best life - it sounds like nobody deserves it more.

Holy Christ this is absolutely bonkers. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope you are thriving now. What the fuck is wrong with men!!!!!

Yeah its defintely the friend, there are other clear indicators that it is actually him. Fucker.

Im so sorry, what a horrific thing to be navigating at this stage of pregnancy no less.

Thank you so much 💓

I have a lot going on at work so will just use that as an excuse as to why Im not wanting to have sex I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this. I’d invent additional stress at work and a change of birth control as well if I was you. That covers you if you’re quiet, or having a cry or you snap at him out of character, as well as not wanting to have sex with the lying shit.

There’s no need to be so rude!!
I’m wondering why you feel you need to play the long game? You said your parents could bail you out.
It seems like many people in this situation wait for more ‘evidence’, hence my question.
I have been in a similar position, and did wait, and it was awful.

Cash would be better than a separate bank account.

Someone on here prepped by buying all her DC's winter clothes for the following year. Can you do something like that?

Go and see a few lawyers to find one that you like. Then you won't be scrambling to find someone.

Does your work have an EAP? Counselling to support you in this life change would be useful.

If you don't already, start doing things to benefit your mental health. Yoga, gym, walking, journalling. Find what works for you.

Focus on strengthening your bonds with family and friends.

Remind yourself there will be good days and bad days. But you can and you will get through them all. Wishing you all the best.

I'm not quite at the place of my best life yet, but pretty damn close. And I do know that the light at the end of my personal tunnel is not an oncoming train.

I op, you sound sensible and you’ll get through this and flourish the other side I promise

@Grossmensorry you are going through this I have been single since 34 weeks pregnant! Now thriving single mum. choose whatever you need now to survive, if you feel you’d be better supported by your mum than him then go to her now or move her into yours. GIVE BABY YOUR SURNMAME and dads as a middle name so he can’t take you to court to make him change it. Do this whether or not you confront him or leave him, as it’s likely you’ll break up at some point in the future if not now over this. Put yourself and baby first and never ever blame
youraelf for this grim behaviour from him. He is an ick. You are a goddess.

There would be no coming back from this for me, either. Its all so seedy and just…nasty.

It must have been awful for you to read all of those messages. I felt quite nauseous reading just your synopsis , and he’s not my husband. I’m so sorry.

Do you really have to ‘get all your ducks in a row’? I know it’s MN wisdom, but I am never sure about weeks and months of seething and holding everything in. personally.

I’d see a lawyer as soon as possible, tell your parents (and ask them directly about the possibility of financial help)…and then tell him you want a divorce. It’s OK to be angry and undignified, btw. For fuck sake, you are married with a child and he is spending whole evenings wanking over gay/trans porn and talking about it with his mate? I’d tell him exactly what I thought of him, the absolute creep!

Not much help I appreciate, but it’s one thing having secret fantasies about transexuals, as a straight man.
But to have deep conversations via wassap with a friend is quite strange.

If I had this type of fantasy, I’d keep it to myself . I certainly don’t know any male friends that do or would ever talk about this sort of thing.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It’s just awful and such a betrayal. My marriage also came to an end and my partner had lied (not this lie, but another whopper) Get your ducks in a row, see a solicitor and keep what you know in your back pocket until you really need to reveal it. I’m sure (like me) you want to challenge now but it will service you so much better to keep your cool and hold onto it secretly until you’ve sorted finances / housing x

Honestly, I suspect your profession has inured you to things no wife would or should happily accept.

Lots of lovely support on here, just wanted to add..make sure your devices aren’t connected or tracking in any way. Change passwords etc..

Take some time to sort out your digital security

I agree. If he was sharing sexual fantasies with a woman you wouldn’t be OK with it. It’s also beyond stupid bro culture stuff, it’s very much him getting off on a certain sexual connection with this friend, not just the content they’re sharing. I feel like I’m very open minded, but I’d be out.

i only worked in sex therapy briefly as I now work in relationship counselling & just wanted to understand the issues clients might have over their own sexual limitations & it never injured me at all - it was insightful & eye opening & I thought I knew a lot already before I took on that role yet I realised there was lots of kinks I wasn’t even aware of - didn’t mean I wanted to try them nor did it make me think my partner is up to no good or is hiding things from me - actually it made me have honest conversations about things even he had not known about either.

Im a bit tight for time this mornjng but wanted to say I played the long game to getting out of my marriage. I had a shock revelation one day where I discovered his prolific long term cheating on hook up and bdsm sites and his secret life with a woman living less than a mile from our family home. It was a horrific revelation.
Things I did.
Gather pension and other financial info. Scanned/copied all documents.
Searched for anything that could be hidden, my thinking being if he could lie/be deceitful then what else was he hiding. I wasn't looking for more evidence of cheating but finances etc. Unfortunately I did find a suitcase full of sex toys and ladies underwear in our garage. However, in his car hidden in the boot panels by the rear lights was a bank card for a secret bank account.
Sexual health check.
Booked a solicitor appointment and got some advice/heads up.

Changed my workplace pension/death in service/nok to my children(who were 22 and 19 at the time) and removed him.
Started getting cash back at supermarket (dont know if this is a thing since covid) but allowed me to build some small kind of financial cushion.
Opened a separate current account ready for leaving.
Nearer to leaving I would add more items that wouldn't go off too quickly to the weekly shop from the joint bank account...washing detergent, loo rolls, teabags and even a few bottles of spirits ( that was more out of spite than need). I even started a "bottom drawer" in the same way, new towels, bedding, odd mug, casserole dish etc....all ready for my new life. I even started to sort through shit in the attic, making sure anything sentimental or 'mine' was all stored together on case o needed a quick exit.

I also got my car serviced and few advisories sorted on it from joint finances.

I worked butcearnt significantly less than him, so i was worried about coping after leaving so tried to future proof as much as I could. He deserved it for being so deceitful.
Some of this was just a coping mechanism and probably not necessary. I kept a journal under lock and key and vented my emotions in there to help me not blow playing the long game. I only recently binned that. I found it recently and it was a tough read to look back on.

Hope some of this helps.

Jesus OP that sounds tough. MN can be a great outlet to verbally explode if you're really set on playing the long game.

Honestly though, it might be the most practical choice but I'm not a fan of doing it that way. It's mental torture for you and if it's going to drag out for a long time I think sometimes it's better to just rip the plaster off and move on.

Having to live a complete lie can be unbelievably damaging for your mental health when you're a good human being. What a shame it comes so naturally to the arseholes of the world.

From my position of experience I will say that how you approach it with him may make a difference to how easy it becomes to end things. He will be shocked to learn what you have seen and feel betrayed and defensive.

When you confront him see if you can manage to keep it to a theme that you accept he wants to try sex outside your marriage and obviously needs to move on as you are personally unable to live with that. Keep the blame and shame out of it. Then he can go and try his fantasies without a difficult divorce and fighting over finances and children. Let him want to end it as much as you. For your sake.

You need sexual heath clinic not the doctors postal kit might be quicker if available in your area