DP's bombshell

[AuntieMaggie]

DP has just dropped a bombshell... he slept with his female friend about 8 months ago. Now around this time we argued because I said he was spending too much time with her, didn't understand why he didn't want me to go shopping in the village she lived and found doodles of her name in his briefcase.

Well, I just feel numb. Don't feel angry, upset or anything to be honest.

Is this normal or am I just a mug?

He says he wanted to be honest with me as we've been tlaking about getting married. All day I've just been going thrugh the motions and not really sure what I should be doing. DP is going out later which I can't wait for because he keeps apologising.

Not really sure why I'm telling you or what I'm expecting you to say!

He felt so terrible about sleeping with his friend that he did it twice?

Knowing that you'd been cheated on in the past makes it even worse.

I also notice that the texts with the photo woman only stopped when you intervened and did it for him. It sounds as though he's waiting for you to make it all better for him this time too.

Malficence I know you feel this way and I respect your right to hold that view - you and I agree on so much when it comes to being honest and we seem to share a hatred for deceit and keeping secrets. And like you, I would always condemn infidelity as a behaviour choice.

That said, before my H had an affair, I knew lots of people who were not evil or "bad" who were having/ had engaged in an affair. So while it shocked me to the core that my H had done this, it did at least allow me to understand how and why it happened - I didn't start the recovery process from a standpoint that he was now a "bad" person and was able to see that he behaved very badly, for a while. I'm pleased I was able to do this, because had I not, it would have meant throwing away a long, mostly happy and enriching relationship for one terrible mistake.

There are so many reasons for why affairs are likely to happen at some times more than others Mal, but I'm afraid depression is right up there - people often talk about the "alive" feelings an affair brings and since depression induces opposite feelings to this - a kind of flat deadness - those "alive" feelings are particularly intoxicating. So I don't think it's a cop-out, in fact I understand why depressed people are more vulnerable to being "weak" as you put it.

I honestly think we can only know what we ourselves would do if tempted by an affair. We might believe our partners would never have an affair, but really we cannot know this with any certainty. I hope it never happens to you Mal, but if your H had an affair now, or even disclosed an earlier indiscretion, the danger of your standpoint would be that you would walk away from what sounds like a wonderful relationship. And that might not be the best thing for you personally - we all have to weigh up whether an affair defines the person or whether this was a terrible choice they made once.

Repeated (discovered) infidelity is rather different though - and in the case of the OP, it sounds as though the man in that case saw the hurt and pain caused by the text messages - and then chose to do something even worse. What I and lots of others on this board can be certain about is that if our Hs were unfaithful again, we would withdraw from the marriage, because our Hs would have seen the pain - and chosen to inflict it again.

Malificence: there are times when good people have affairs which are in fact totally justified. People who are in abusive/dead relationships often only find the strength to leave when someone else becomes involved, and this is a good thing. Because people who are abusive to their partners (and this included people who make a unilateral decision that there is to be no more sex in the relationship and won't discuss it or make any effort to accommodate the other person's feelings) deserve to be cheated on and dumped, they have brought it on themselves.

If the timing of the relationship coincides with you not getting on well together and they were at a texting/flirting stage for a while this probably indicates that he was withdrawing from his relationship with you to feel more comfortable about carrying on with her. When people are ripe for affairs for what ever reason it seems to be one of the main things they do at home - whether consciously or sub consciously is to distance themselves from partner or jsut cause arguments and rows.

Malificence here
Interestingly she advises against admitting affairs.

whenwill - i do often agree with what you have said but i too struggle with the fact that 'good' people have affairs. Do good people commit other crimes??

Whilst i have done a lot of research and reading around the subject of affairs - i do think at the time the person having the affair must accept that what they are doing is 'bad'. They however justify it with lots of 'reasons' and at the time i am sure they do not really think about the consequenses of their actions.

My h has really struggled with coming to terms that he must have been 'bad' during the affair. Which actually he was.

For me it is about learning to forgive someone for something they have realised was so wrong. He is having to forgive himself too - and being able to see that actually makes our relationship stronger in many ways.

Jesus, that's some scary twisted logic you have there SGB!

i think it depends on whether we judge people by their actions or not.

Are they a good person who did a bad thing or does the bad thing make them a bad person?

Is a murderer a person who killed someone - or does their crime define them?

SGB - when people are having affairs they always find a reason that their needs are not being met - whether sexually or emotionally.
As i have said many times before it is not the actual having sex with someone else it is the web of lies that such affair create.
Allowing one partner to carry on whilst the other has their needs met is morally wrong - whatever the circumstances.

Just for clarity - I believe very strongly that people behave very badly when they are having an affair - but that doesn't necessarily define them as a "bad person".
They did a bad thing - and if they did that bad thing once and have regretted it enormously since, there is hope for recovery. If on the other hand, people keep doing bad things, in full knowledge of the pain it causes, that suggests that their default position in life is to be cruel and abusive to others.

If I actually thought my H was a bad person, I wouldn't be able to continue a relationship with him. I therefore look at all the good things he did before and since and conclude that this man, who as a general rule is kind, empathetic, nurturing, loving and respecting - behaved very badly for a while.

I didn't read the book that VCAU linked to. I remember seeing it advertised when I did my reading - and I read some excerpts. Frank Pittman and Shirley Glass resonated much more with me, perhaps because they also acknowledge that good people have affairs and that secrecy about affairs damages intimacy.

I also hate the notion of infidelity being used as a punishment, although I do accept that refusal to engage about deal-breakers such as withdrawal of intimacy is more likely to end a marriage than prolong it. I'd prefer for people to leave their partners ethically and then meet someone else.

Sometimes, when a person is being psychologically abused by a partner (not just lack of sex, but the sort of stuff we see all too often described on here, constant put-downs and insults, controlling behaviour etc), the abused partner becomes too ground down and miserable to be able to think about leaving. It is sometimes only the appearance on the scene of someone who treats that abused person with kindness and restores his/her confidence a little, that makes it seem possible to leave the toxic, abusive situation. And I would argue that a person in such a situation is not a bad person for cheating, and that being dumped does serve an abuser right.

SGB - I'm with you...

whenwill - i do agree with you and of course my h has lots of 'good' qualities, and i do not really see him a bad person. But i do struggle with the notion of good people have affairs - maybe i dont really believe any of us all 'good'.

Solid you are right and of course we can meet people who fufill our needs at various times.
What i find difficult is that once this has happened the said person does not end their abusive relationship.

Using the fact that they have been 'abused' is in my view just another way to justify what they know to be 'bad'.

HW: affairs in this sort of situation are usually a spur to ending the bad relationship but there's often a crossover period.
Dittany: I do know what you mean about rescuing yourself (hypothetical 'you') from bad relationships but sometimes the initial impetus, at least, needs to come from someone else telling or showing you that you are not, in fact, a horrible person who should be grateful to your abusive partner for putting up with you because no one else would have you, etc.

I also agree that the OP's partner, for example, is a twat.

"His motives are that he wants to put the burden of this on to you. Rather than admitting that he shouldn't be getting married because he can't stay faithful, he's telling you so that you'll make the decision for him, then he can marry you and feel his conscience is clear. A double win. Meanwhile you've just married a cheat, and it's quite possible you'll spend your married life insecure wondering when he'll cheat next and keep you in the dark about it."

Dittany, you are so right. There are worse things than being in a house with negative equity. Or trying to sell a house with negative equity. Throw his stuff out on the side of the road. He's not worth the effort -- once a cheater, always a cheater. And he was nasty to you when you were suspicious of him earlier. You deserve better.

Thanks girls - I'm ok still numb to be honest sure that will change.

Just trying to get on with things until I can deal with it.

Ok so those of you whose partners had affairs - how long did it go on? And was it just once?

I know there are worse things than trying to sell the house and being skint - I won't stay with him because of the house but I need to be sure what I'm doing before I do call it quits because it won't be easy (I'm in a financial mess - I'm thinking about me here not him - I couldn't care less that his family all live miles away).

I haven't decided what I'm going to do but I know that I need to think about it carefully. It would be so easy for me to throw him out on the street and to be honest I think he was worried I would because of how I reacted to the text messages and kept asking me if I was sure I wanted him to go out last night. Mind you at the time I didn't know she lived at the other end of the country, or what had happened. I have since met her (I was very dignified) and found out what a malicious cow she is that chases after any attached male she can behind her poor husbands back. And that the photos were very forgiving!

I've ordered the Shirley Glass book off the internet.

I haven't committed to anything with him - he knows that I don't know where I want to go from here.

He is "kind, empathetic, nurturing, loving and respecting" but he has done something that is so bad I'm not sure I can get over it.

a malicious cow she is that chases after any attached male she can behind her poor husbands back.

Yes, but your DP didn't have to jump in the sack with her did he?

He didn't with that one

AM, although you have every reason to hate her, don't start to fall into the trap of blaming the nasty OW

good luck x