WWYD? Persistent other woman!

[ElizabethCM]

Recently moved to new city to be near my family. DH found it difficult, initally, to get work and was feeling quite low and isolated. He eventually got a job and a woman he worked with developed a crush on him.

Anyhoo, one drunk night DH had a one night stand with the woman. Silly man!! I was so hurt and angry but we have a ten month dd and i forgave him ... he was very contrite, and we are, generally, a very very happy couple. I told him that if he wanted to be with the OW he could, and he could see dd whenever he liked. I didn't want to beg or blackmail him to stay. But he was adamant it was a crazy mistake and that he loves me, dd and our life. He was, he say's, temporarily insane.

I just want to forget the whole thing. He has some lovely friends from work and OW is in the group, so I have not made a big deal about him seeing her. A couple of times I have been out with the group and have always been nice to OW. Noone else knows and I don't want to make someone feel ostracised for one mistake.

BUT she is continually texting and calling DH trying to start a relationship. She "can't understand" why they can't be together.

So last night we met his friends for a drink and she was there. I behaved around her as I would around anyone, bit shy but polite. Half way through drinks she texts DH "I still love you". Argghhh!!!

WWYD?? I am so angry at her for trying to ruin my life, but just don't know how to deal with it. I don't want to give her fuel to hate me, I don't want to make the situation worse. Should I just trust DH and move on or should I ask her to leave us alone?? It is stressing me out....!!

'Once you have kids you owe it to them to give it a try, no matter what your principles are before (and probably why I have such trouble dealing with it). '

I completely disagree. I think that once you have kids, you have all the more reason to get some self-control if you don't already have it or get out of that relationship before you do (have kids).

I see no reason why I should have to deal with such a breach of trust and disrespect of our family from my spouse just because he couldn't keep it in his pants or have the common decency and maturity to tell me it's over or he's thinking about screwing someone else so we can at least see a counsellor.

As far as I see it, my marriage was here before our kids came along, would still be here if they hadn't, and will be here after they fly the nest and start homes of their own.

Fair play to those who agree to be open. And there are some instances, where suddenly one partner has decided he/she no longer wants to have sex with his/her spouse again and refuses to do anything about it, where there's at least some understanding as to why someone would go and do something otherwise so totally disrespectful and stupid as to jeopardise their whole life and family for a two-bit piece of ass.

Again I only speak for myself. Others are free to do as they please, no doubt.

What would I do, well I would take DHs phone off him and smack her to the floor with it.
Has your DH told her to Feck off, I think you are being to polite about it.

Does she know you know, I think it is a real piss take to text your DH while you are sat there.

Abedelia, I agree with expat on this one

"Once you have kids, you owe it to them to try....."

I know it is too late once the horse has bolted (as it were), but shouldn't that sentence read...

"Once you have kids, you should keep your dick in your pants, unless you want to shatter your family into a million pieces"

You owe it to yourself to do what you need to do, whether that is to forgive and move on, or decide he has wrecked your trust forever and fuck him off. Your kids would not thank you later, if your marriage is a hollow shell, to know you stayed together for only them.

THe OP should do what she wants, for her

I am another person who has forgiven an infidelity. Great for you if you have those feelings on the matter expatinscotland but the OP didn't actually post asking everyone their opinion on her forgiving her husband for a one night stand. She made it clear her and her husband are working on their relationship. I don't think telling someone (in a subtle way) they are a doormat for trying to make their relationship work is going to help someone in this instance. Just my opinion of course.

To the OP, I would definitely recommend some counselling for the both of you, individual and as a couple.

I hope that she has finally got the message and stopped contacting him. The first step following any infidelity should be no contact between the adulterer and the person they cheated with. This might be difficult if they work together but they should never be alone together. If I was you, I would ask my husband if he can commit to that. The fact he didn't reply to any of the communication made by her is a good sign, IMO. Any contact she makes with him, you should be made aware. If she carries on then I would ask him how long he's going to let it happen and see if he understands that the only way to stop ALL contact would be to find another job. He doesn't have to leave before finding another one, but how hard he tries to find a new job will be an indicator of just how much he wants it all to stop. Plus, he should just change his number.

I wouldn't put myself in a situation where we were socialising with the woman though. It's a horrible situation to be in and yes, you're husband was a grade A knobber but the other woman is by no means an innocent party in it all, especially someone who finds it acceptable to text a married man she slept with, when he is sat next to his wife in the same room as her, even after he has told her to stop contacting him. And I think if something were still going on between the two of them she wouldn't be texting him then. She wouldn't want to risk you finding out again and it ending. It just appears to be a way to keep reminding him of her and to cause trouble between the two of you.

I love it when people launch into me and my posts and ignore the dozens of others that are in agreement. It's most flattering!

or that basically say the same thing, often even better (i heart custy on such threads).

Please accept my apologies, I didn't read through the whole thread as I would be here for hours, yours was the name that stuck out. I shouldn't have put a name in my post. ;)

No worries, but OP was asking if she should contact this hussy herself, and people all started saying NO and that she was too polite about it and it might come back to bite her later.

Again, I think she needs counselling definitely and my initial response said this.

If he won't go, OP, then go yourself.

My former marriage ended because he didn't want children. But I got so frustrated and sad rowing about it that, when an acquaintance whom we'd known re-surfaced, we started to form a relationship that I knew was going to end in a sexual one and had to tell my ex (we later divorced over the children issue) point blank: I'm thinking of sleeping with someone else.

That was a hard sentence to say.

At the time, it was horrible, and we did separate and start living apart.

But later, he thanked me for having been honest and we were able to divorce amicably.

Some people just feel that there is no need to end a relationship after one mistake. Neither of those opinions are wrong.

I would confront the other woman. I think the latest socialising event would have been a perfect opportunity for your husband to confront this woman with you, tell her in no uncertain terms that she is to stop contacting him, nothing will ever happen between them again and she will not break up your relationship.

Oh, no, some don't see it as a reason to end the relationship, but even those who don't have expressed shock at his even wanting to continue socialising with this person at all.

Perhaps I have been unclear. He does not want to continue socialising with the OW. He was not even sure the OW would be at the evnet we went to. The other social gatherings he went to were work ones that I did not attend. One of them resulted in the one night stand/ emotional affair.

Am I young? Thirty? Is that young or middle aged?! I feel middle aged at the moment!! DH is 35. And, as I have kept reminding him over the last month, IS BALDING!

But I love him very much, he is a wonderful person. I also feel very loved by him, he is a fantastic partner. I'm not sticking my head in the sand, he has some very real faults and I think we would benefit from counselling. I must say I think HE (the nutter) would benefit more than me .

I don't "accept" such betrayal, but, when i weigh it all up, our life, our baby, our future I chose to forgive him and move on.

Anyway, thanks so much for your responses everyone ... especially those wot didn't paint me as some kind of stepford wife!! I have spoken more to DH because of them.

for some reason i just imagined you to be younger (not that 30 isn't young )...

i understand your decision to forgive and move on but i find it hard to imagine being able to do so with her looming in the background.

counselling sound like a good idea.

out of curiosity, how did you find out about the affair?

Elizabeth, just my own perspective on this, from the opposite point of view.... DH and I have been together for 12 years (married for 4). In the first year of our relationship I got very drunk and slept with a work colleague. Now I know drunkenness isn't an excuse but I genuinely wouldn't have done it otherwise, or even thought of doing it. I didn't tell DH and over the following month further things happened with the work colleague, though we didn't actually sleep together again.

When DH did find out after a month (I couldn't keep it to myself any more) he was devastated and I thought the relationship was over, which I deserved. However he did forgive me and we stayed together. I continued to make some stupid and insensitive errors of judgement (continuing to socialise with work colleagues including the other man, including a couple of times with DH) which in hindsight made it all so much worse, though at the time I thought I couldn't give up my other work friends and social life. Looking back I'm ashamed of myself and also can't believe DH stood for it - I knew he wasn't happy about it but he didn't stop me.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I don't think you're wrong to give your DH another chance, but he is wrong to think he can continue socialising with the other woman - it's just not fair on you. He needs to start applying for other jobs (even if he's unsuccessful, at least you'll know he's trying), and avoid her as much as he can in the meantime. But you are not being a doormat - I think you're acting with real composure and dignity.

If one "good" thing came out of my stupid mistake, it's that I learned a very hard lesson about how horrible cheating and affairs are, and I honestly could never ever do anything like that again. In a way I'm glad I learned that lesson sooner rather than later when it could have caused even more hurt. I know in a way my behaviour was less serious in that we had only been together a short time, but that would have also made it even easier for DH to end things and walk away. I'm so so grateful he didn't and so glad of what we have now.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, but if you decide to stay together, it doesn't make you a doormat as long it's on your terms and you make it clear this can never ever happen again. x

Oops - words seem to have been taken a bit out of context because I put it hurriedly and wrongly last night... Staying together 'for the kids' is yes, very soul destroying (not to mention a complete waste of a life) and entirely wrong / never likely to work.

What I should have said is that once you have kids, seeing everything in very black and white terms is no longer possible, really. Hard to describe unless you have been there, but you do owe it to everyone to sit down and think whether this was a stupid one-off mistake / crisis in a special set of circumstances from which the person has learned that they value you above all else, or whether it's revealed that their underlying personality means they always had it in them and just jumped at the first chance they had (and so will probably do it again, given the opportunity). It isn't the time for knee jerk reactions - that's what I meant.

'Hard to describe unless you have been there, but you do owe it to everyone to sit down and think whether this was a stupid one-off mistake / crisis in a special set of circumstances from which the person has learned that they value you above all else, or whether it's revealed that their underlying personality means they always had it in them and just jumped at the first chance they had (and so will probably do it again, given the opportunity).'

I disagree. As AnyFucker said, in such a situation you owe it to yourself to consider IF you wish to carry on with a person who has, for whatever reason, chosen to betray your trust and jeapordise his/her family by having sex with someone else and if you want to live with someone who's proven him or herself untrustworthy.

Some can.

But for some people, the answer is and always will be an automatic 'no'.

You don't 'owe' a cheater anything, tbh, even if you had children together.

Yes, people make mistakes, but some mistakes have long-lasting consequences and sometimes, that can mean the end of a relationship or marriage.

expat - I agree - you owe it to yourself, not them! God, you owe them nothing... they didn't consider you when they were being selfish, so their feelings don't matter a hoot. At least, that's how I saw it.

This really is the OP's chance to be selfish and say what she wants and needs, and what she can live with - hence the need to be honest. It's up to him to move heaven and earth to sort all that out, if he is serious about making this up. In my case, I think I have ended up with a better partner who nowadays doesn't think so much of himself and never takes the fact I will always be around for him for granted as he knows he has been found severely wanting.

Abedelia, now you have clarified it I sort of know what you meant.

Sorry - bad day for communication!