Affair - should I stay or should I go?

mossstar

Do you really need either of these two people in your life??? I've just read lots and lots of lies, manipulations, lack of respect and childishness, frankly.

You've already been through the hurt - i'd draw a line under that if I were you and walk away now. Yes it'll be really hard, yes you'll be heartbroken (as you already are) but in a year or so you'll wonder what on earth you nearly got yourself in to.

When you marry someone, it should be the happiest, most content, most SAFE feeling in the world - will you feel like that if you marry this man?

The fact that it was a 'one night stand' makes it sound even worse to be honest - he was willing to sleep with someone he didn't even know or respect despite his engagement - ooh, it's making my blood boil!

!!!!{hugs}}}

paddy's_mum

Ye Gods! Your OH was going to tell the husband himself? I would have liked to be a fly on the wall during that conversation - the mind boggles!!! The husband would have been a saint not to have retorted 'so you can't keep your zip or your mouth closed - you despicable b*****d'.

pinkshoes

If you were 100% happy in your relationship, you wouldn't cheat.

RabbitMad

Its SB's choice and its all very well and good that we're offering advice but we don't have to live with the consequences.

Personally I don't think SB should tell the hubby, but I don't think she should be feeling guilty about keeping the scanky hoes' secret either. She's not keeping her secret she's moving on and forgetting about it all.

What is the hubby going to do when he finds out? How is he going to take the news? Should SB worry about this?

I've only skim read most of the comments but has anybody consider what would happen if the hubby turns violent?

Personally if somebody came and told me that my missus had been sh*gging around I would like to think I'd be able to remain calm and take the news with some british stiff upper lip but in reality I'd probably either breakdown or get really angry and loose my temper.

Kimitatsu

Re OH and I, not sure what's happening. We're off on a week's break next week to talk and relax and just try and get away from everything, to be honest I know that I'm too numb to make a decent decision right now and any reaction is all emotive at this point in time.

Whoa girl!! What is love but not an emotive point? Its not a contract where your head decides that this man is a good proposition to live with this is about your heart. The bit in your body that can be broken in two by the person that does not care or respect for it, or alternatively it can be nurtured and kept strong by the man that loves you for what you are (especially all of the bad bits!) Love is all about emotion it can make the world look rosy or drab - to everyone else it looks the same but to a woman in love it is different.

At this point in time you need to take time out to heal yourself not worry about him, and not worry about if this is a "decent" decision or not, go with your gut feeling and know that the decision is right for you, not anyone else.

As for you telling or not that is a decision between you and your conscience (sp) but again put yourself first.

Curious_George_2

whatever you decide to do beth (and i really do wish you good luck with what ever you choose)
you both need to properly break contact with this woman,
you and OH need to change mobile numbers, email addresses, whatever now.

tell her if she contacts either of you again you wont be held responsible for what happens, if you want any chance of reconsiliation with your bloke, she needs to be SO far out of the picture...
you need to be able to spend your days not wondering wether they have been on the phone together.... and hang on.
what the bloody hell is he still doing talking to her anyway?
forget taking his sim card... i would have removed his knackers by now!

Dustykitten

Sportbeth hugs to you, you must be feeling so awful and the lack of sleep/food not to mention emotional torture over the past months must have worn you down completely.

I cannot find a post where you say how your OH knows this woman or if he has met her husband (I am guessing you have never met either).

The reason I ask is looking forward if they can be removed completley from your life I would say there was slim chance that in time you might slowly start to move on. If this is not possible then the constant reminder will always be there.

I have friends who are in a hideous position; one woman had an affair with her best friend's hubbie. The friend found out and issued the ultimatium and the woman told her hubbie. The fall out is awful - they all have kids and live very close. One couple have split, one are trying to work it out. The thing is they all know each other and the friend felt a duty to let the other husband know, he was a friend.

If you don't know the woman's hubbie I would say there is less 'duty' to tell. He will not know you and therefore could take your reason for telling him in various ways, whilst this may not worry you it could bring problems to your door. He may seek to get revenge on your boyfriend and you could be in the firing line.

Finally, I agree with the other poster, November is far too soon to be getting married after this, if nothing else it will taint what should be a wonderful day for you.

Wishing you luck in whatever you do.

duchy

I wouldn't tell her husband.
1 You're giving her the message that she is important in all of this
2 You're giving her the excuse to talk to your OH
3 You're running the risk that your OH will feel sorry or sympathetic towards her and you'll be the b*tch who hurt her kids

And why is your OH accepting her texts anyway. Tell him you want his phone and YOU'LL deal with her calls or texts

TJH_2

I am so sorry Beth, but in reality this woman had no tie whatsoever to you, its your other half who cheated, its him and his behaviour that has made you feel like like this. If it wasnt this woman ,it would have been someone else. Do you really want her husband to go through what you have??
If you are going to forgive your OH do so, leave the woman be and get on with your lives. Its just not your problem.

esthomizzy

Hi Beth

I'm really sorry you have been having such an awful time. A similar but not quite the same (not quite as awful) thing happened to me. My partner was spending a lot of time with one person a friend of his from work. I had met her and her boyfriend and we often all went out together over a few months. When we did it seemed more like they were the couple and me and the other guy just the aquaintances. Well I had a bad feeling about it but there was no proof of anything and also I don't think my boyfriend could really lie to save his life so I suspected he fancied her and was a bit confused about it and didn't know what to do. Well over a couple of weeks I started to feel more and more horrible as I suspected they were sneaking off and meeting for drinks in the evening before he was coming home as they both had flexitime. I looked at his email to confirm my suspicions and it they were spending lots of time together and not telling me about it (no idea what she was telling her boyfriend). Eventually I asked him directly and said he'd been spending a lot of time with her and did he fancy her and had he thought about what it would be like to go out with her instead of me. I was hoping he'd say don't be silly we are just friends but he owned up and said he did fancy her and he had wondered what it would be like going out with her, that he felt his life wasn't going anywhere anymore and that we didn't have anything in common. I was gutted and I said if he didn't love me or didn't know if he loved me he should leave. He said and I 90% believe him that he'd never kissed her they'd only talked about what it would be like to go out with each other. Well he left and went to stay with his brother for his few days while he thought about things. I said we should treat the time as being broken up but that we may get back together. At that point I asked him to think about whether he'd like to be with me and that I was very happy with our life together until this happened. During this time as it happened she'd gone on holiday with her boyfriend. When she returned they had their chat and she'd come to the opposite conclusion and wanted to stay with her boyfriend. I knew then that I would never know whether or not I was second choice. We split up for a few weeks but during his time away he rang me and said he'd been an idiot he knew he loved me and that he was just having a wobble as he knew I wanted to get married and he wasn't sure he was ready (we'd been going out almost 6 years so I don't think the idea of marriage was that unreasonable). I let him come home as long as we went to see a counsellor and that he never saw her or spoke to her again except in a work related capacity. He didn't like that but he agreed and he came home. We tried but he clearly still wasn't sure whether he'd made the right choice, he wasn't devoted to me, he didn't really care about things I wanted to do, he didn't want to visit my friends and was often cross if we had to do anything I wanted to do. I often used to visit my friends/couples alone because he didn't want to go (this had always been happening I just put up with it before and didn't really realise it was a problem). Well during the time we were back together I still suspected he was seeing this girl as a friend so I looked at his email again and he was so I said I was leaving (I didn't say that was the reason) and it wasn't the whole reason, I still didn't feel that I was his number one priority. If he couldn't cut this girl out of his life to make me happy because he'd been a bit daft and had a bit of a wobble and needed to massively make it up to me to make me know I was the most important thing. Then I clearly wasn't the most important thing. I left and during that time he begged me to come back but I refused. I left it a few more months then I asked him to move out of our house (It was split 60/40 tenants in common to me) and eventually I bought him out at great and almost unmanageable expense. Since then we have got along very badly because even though I should have left in February when I first realised he didn't love me as much as I loved him and I should have demanded we split the property straight away rather than being patient to give him time to adjust to the situation. By the time we finally did split the property it was worth a lot more than it would have been in February and I had to pay out an awful lot more money. It was very touch and go that I was able to buy him out at all and he insisted on the valuation at that point even though the only reason we stayed together for those extra few months was because he begged me to. He's still wanting additional money for furniture from me.

Anyway my post mortem of my situation is. I am the sort of person who could never get over not being the number 1 priority of my partner. If they don't love me or don't know they don't love me then I can't deal with it. Therefore me being the person I am there was no point me trying to make it work with him when I couldn't forgive him for not loving me first and foremost. Of course my angle is not helped byt he fact that he never really changed his attitude at all he never even tried to make me believe I was the most important thing. I was sorry in some ways at first that I asked such direct questions because if I'd never heard those words "Yes I've thought about what it would be like going out with her instead of you" then perhaps he would have come to his senses at some point and realised it was me he wanted without any of this pain. That of course is to imply that it is better not to know but it wasn't really because I was already on tenterhooks because he was spending lots of time with her so doing nothing for longer wasn't really an option. I'm glad I left, I'm sorry I didn't leave sooner, I'm sorry I tried to do things so's not to hurt his feelings when I did wait before talking about dividing the property etc. Ultimately he's an idiot he didn't deserve me if he wasn't going to appreciate me. This was all a few months ago. I've met someone else (actually someone I've known a really long time but who like me only just became single again a few months ago) he treats me like a princess and I'm not at all sorry things turned out this way now. In fact I'm sorry I wasted 6 years on someone so selfish but you live and learn. If I ever doubt someones love for me again, I think I'll be even quicker to walk out of the door.

With reference to your situation, if this happened something was wrong. The something that was wrong was probably in his head but whatever it is it probably hasn't gone away and it certainly wont if he doesn't dump her from his life. He should cut off contact with her if he wants to make the point to you that he is serious about making a go of it. He should ask for help in a harrassment sense to stop her causing more trouble. I personally wouldn't dream of even staying with him never mind marrying him and I probably would tell her husband. I dropped hints to my ex's partner by email before I knew what the situation was fully, given that they weren't having a full affair as it happened that probably threw a spanner in the works but as far as I was concerned people are responsible for their actions, she shouldn't have been having cosy chats about what would happen if they were a couple if she wasn't willing to justify this to her partner.

If you really do want to stay together. Get him to resolve this issue. The work is not for you to do. He should get her to stop harassing you both, he should tell you the full truth and you should point out that if you spot a lie in what he says it's over immediately. He needs to understand that you have not let this go and that ultimately you'd accept it if a little indiscretion (that's probably how he thinks of it) like this were to happen again. Apparently people can forgive and get over it and become stronger. I can't and I know I can't, in future I wouldn't even try if I end up in that situation again. If you can lay it on the line and get him to be honest and sort all this mess out (he should make all the running). If you can't then decide how to best get out of this mess, he's not the only guy out there. If you split up you will hurt for a good while but eventually you will feel a bit better and eventually after that you'll meet someone else. If you are lucky the someone else will make you realise that everything you went through turned out for the best in the long run.

Also don't stay for any other reason but that you love him and want it to work. If you stay for financial reasons or to keep a roof over your head you are just putting off the day of reckoning and the longer it goes on the worse it will be.

Sorry if this turned into a massive long me centric message. I feel really awful that you are going through an awful time. Whatever you decide I'm sure it will be ok in the end.