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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Boring myself with the predictablity of this...

70 replies

GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 15:17

Been with DH for 10 years. Two children. Very happily married.

Discovered last week while innocently (promise!) looking on his computer (which I had mistaken for mine - we both have the same laptop) a photo of a young woman in a bikini, open on his desktop. Did a search and came back with a dozen or so emails between him and this woman, spanning back to when DH and I were first together (there were obviously others he had deleted, referred to in the emails he hadn't bothered to get rid of). Some were sexually explicit, all incredibly flirtatious. The last one was sent a few days ago. It seems he had a one night stand with her 11 years ago (before we met) while on holiday in the country she comes from, and that they have kept up a sporadic but definitely sexual email contact ever since.

Confronted him and he swears he has not seen her since - I think I believe him, as she lives hundreds of miles away and there were no references to meeting up in their emails - and that it was a one night stand and the emails were 'stupid fantasy'. He is obviously mortified and doing the whole 'you are my life, I love you, what can i do to make this up to you' thing.

I feel sick. I thought we had such a good, fair, trusting relationship, with no bullshit. How can you get someone so wrong? And I just cannot understand why he would do this - keep up cheap, dirty emails with a woman he shagged once on holiday 11 years ago. He has completely shattered my trust in him, as now I am wondering if I know him at all.

What the fuck should I do?

OP posts:
ThatVikRinA22 · 09/05/2010 15:56

talk. talk and talk some more until you get to the bottom of it.

it seems really odd to stay in touch with someone for 11 years who you only ever slept with once....

id be digging.

Jamiki · 09/05/2010 16:07

IMO (or rather Dr Phils) if you are doing something you don't want your partner to see you are cheating. But that can be ambiguous, apparently porn is ok with many MNers.

I would be shattered, would consider it cheating. How would he feel if it were you doing the same.

10 years and two kids (and happily married) is too much to throw away. Have him get counselling til he appreciates how wrong his behaviour has been.

good luck.

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 18:34

Thanks for your replies, ladies. Will be back later.

Bumping for more opinions and advice.

OP posts:
Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:15

saddo bump again

OP posts:
Chandra · 09/05/2010 19:18

I would ring Relate and get in the waiting list for marriage counseling.

Let him beg in the mean time.

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:23

The thing is, I cannot play games. We have had two big 'talks' since this happened last week and he knows I am extremely angry and upset and hurt. We also have a lot on our plates at the moment in other areas of our lives, and this just seems so fucking trivial (I don't mean unimportant, just petty...I just feel he is so pathetic to have indulged in this sort of nonsense).

I honestly don't know what to do about it all. I feel so angry.

I don't know about Relate. We had a brief run of counselling about 5 years ago - I had PND after the birth of our first child and it affected our relationship for a while - and to be honest, it didn't help. I am also 6sick^ with rage that he was exchanging emails with this woman at that time. Gah.

OP posts:
halfawake · 09/05/2010 19:25

Agree with Jamiki, 10 years of a good relationship with 2 kids is too much to throw away over this but you do need to try and get to the bottom of it.

In all likelihood he probably saw it as a harmless fantasy, more harmless than emails like that with a workmate or friend he sees all the time... but I can see why you feel hurt and lied to if he has been keeping up this correspondence behind your back. He obviously knows he was in the wrong too if he immediately apologised and didn't try to justify himself or anything.

Not really sure what to suggest apart from try to talk to him about it.

I have no experience of counselling but maybe it would be good, as some others suggested.

Hope you work it out!

GypsyMoth · 09/05/2010 19:26

would be a deal breaker for me....in view of how long this has been going on

halfawake · 09/05/2010 19:27

Oh I didn't see your last message about counselling before and him emailing her even during this time

TBH it is slightly weird if he has been in contact with her throughout the entire relationship. Has he tried to explain why?? What did he say when you talked?

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:31

Thanks halfawake.

The thing is, when I really tried to get him to reflect on why he had kept up this contact - was it boredom, dissatisfaction with us/his life, just sexual kicks, what? - he just kept saying he doesn't know, it was just stupid, not 'real' etc. I find it hard to understand this explanation. Well, it's not actually an explanation, is it? I would have more respect for him if he was brutally honest about it.

I don't know what else we can really say to one another about it

I love him. I love the kids. I have never been in this position before (have been properly cheated on only once before and I walked straight away, but that was pre-kids, not as part of a longstanding marriage). I am not leaving him.

Am I a mug?

OP posts:
Doha · 09/05/2010 19:32

Totally agree with TBB a total deal breaker for me.
"10 years of a good relationship" sorry it's not bee that good for him if he has been continuing emailing her.
Trust would be shattered for me and to keep it up for 10 years must really mean something to him.

I would be digging--he IS a cheat

AnyFucker · 09/05/2010 19:35

Dealbreaker for me too

Sorry

If they really have not been in physical contact in 11 years, I would dump him for being such a fucking saddo, tbh

Why did he need the illicit "thrill" of this pathetic, ego-stroking, emotional affair

Because emotional affair is exactly what it is...time and effort taken away from your marriage ....for what ???

If I am being completely honest here, I would have more respect for him if he had at least shagged her in the last 11 years...

what is she ??? Some fucking paragon of untouchable feminine perfection that no man, once touched, can ever escape from ?

pathetic

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:35

He said it has been sporadic contact (which it has, I suppose) and he doesn't know why he didn't stop it. He travels a lot for work and he seems to have sorted out cheap flights through the agency she works for a few times over the years (not for them, but for football trips with friends etc). To be honest, it is baffling to me. It isn't 'him'. But then, I obviously don't know him as well as i thought I did. isn't that the case with all muggins wives

I am wondering if it was simply a case of getting his ego stroked and thinking I would never find out? Twit.

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 09/05/2010 19:37

yes,you're going to continue to be a mug....he's not going to let go of this relationship easily is he? she means too much to him

please,find your dignity....years down the line your children will know about this (most likely)what are their thoughts on you going to be?

oliviasmama · 09/05/2010 19:42

Deal breaker for me too, sorry.

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:42

I do have dignity. Please don't attack me. This has come as a complete shock to me and I am trying to process it.

This morning he deleted her numbers and emails from his phone and emailed her in front of me to say that their contact had to end and that he had stupidly jeopardised his marriage and could no longer speak to her.

He hasn't seen her because she lives in the former USSR, in a country he visited once for football.

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 09/05/2010 19:45

well you may need to accept that even if he doesnt need this woman in his life....he's rid now you say....he may need another one to fill the void she has left

dont mean to upset you,but after 11 years i think its a possibility he's become reliant on a third member of his marriage

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:48

This is my fear, ThreeBlondes. And I am not defending him, btw - just trying to process this all and DO NOT want to be cast as the long suffering victim wife.

I am 13 years younger than him, attractive, intelligent. He is luckly to have me.

It's the fact that he can compartmentalise and cut off from me - from us - so easily. Some of the emails were sent two months after we got married. Some of them around the time our children were born. I mean, that's pretty unforgivable isn't it?

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 09/05/2010 19:48

He got caught, GG

Of course he will delete her numbers.

You couldn't expect anything less, surely ?

Now for the hard bit...he has to get to the botom of why he did this...and felt he was justified to do this.

If you forgive and move on now, a line has been crossed and I guarantee this will come back and bite you on the bum in the future (if not with this bint, then with another...)

If you decide (I stress the the you) to stay together, I would be putting some pretty stringent time-limited conditions in place

oliviasmama · 09/05/2010 19:53

He's been caught, he's bound to delete numbers, e mail her etc. I would echo your worries about him replacing her with someone else, how can you trust him again? Can you?????

Original poster
GoodGolly · 09/05/2010 19:53

What sort of conditions, AF? this is the thing. He keeps saying 'what can I do to make this up to you? how can I get back your trust?'. I haven't got a fucking clue.

What sort of conditions should I be laying down? What should I be asking him for? because right now all i want to ask him is why the HELL he would put our marriage at risk so casually?

OP posts:
oliviasmama · 09/05/2010 19:54

sorry AF said it too

GypsyMoth · 09/05/2010 20:00

It's something you will mull over forever and a day

I think the marriage has been over for a long time. From what you say.

Do you think you will ever forget this? It's too easy these days to dabble in this sort of thing. I would be worrying that the next woman will live closer than the ussr.

GeekOfTheWeek · 09/05/2010 20:06

Deal breaker for me too.

Only thing I would be asking for is a divorce.

Magaly · 09/05/2010 20:14

I agree with Anyfucker (as I often do!) When married women deal with their husband's infidelity (or just plain ol' crap behaviour) with the default starting position of 'I will not leave him' then he holds all the power.

You'll just bend his ear for a bit, and then it'll all be forgotten and he might do it again but be more careful not to get caught.

The 'you've been married for ten years you can't throw it away' angle is crazy... question everything as though 'the contract' were up for renewal. Don't be paralysed from fear of the future. If you wouldn't stay with him if you didn't have children then don't stay with him.