Husband had an affair for a year :-(

Mojisola

nora_nora said:

So what if he says no & won't leave? 

Then that would confirm that he doesn't care enough about his wife's feelings to give her the space to deal with his lies and cheating and would send me straight to a solicitor to start divorce proceedings. 

nora_nora

Mojisola said:

nora_nora said:

So what if he says no & won't leave? 

Then that would confirm that he doesn't care enough about his wife's feelings to give her the space to deal with his lies and cheating and would send me straight to a solicitor to start divorce proceedings. 

I think that was confirmed about a year or so ago. 

Pollycat

One thing that struck me from the OP's first post was that she didn't say she loved him.

She did say, however:

wellthisisawkward said:

He is begging me not to go, but I have no where to go,

I can’t leave I have no money and I can’t scream because t will upset the children. Lost doesn’t even describe how I’m feeling. What do I do

I've known women who have found out that their partner has been/is being unfaithful and thought the same thing.

Some have - after research - found that actually, they do have the option of ending the relationship.

wellthisisawkward said:

Thank you everyone. We took the dog for a long walk to talk away from the children. He has offered to stay with his mum for a few weeks, but that would mean talking holiday for work which would be difficult to explain away. I’ve asked him to move into the spare room until I decide what to do. (He snores terribly so can use that as an excuse for the girls). My gut instinct is to tell him to never darken our door step again, but we’ve had an amazing marriage until the last year, and even then we’ve had some good moments. He’s an amazing dad. I just keep remembering a quote I read that even good people do bad things. I don’t know if we can survive this, right now I’m leaning to no, but I guess for me I need to understand why this happened and I’m far too raw to listen to anything he has to say at the moment. I want to scream from the rooftops what he’s done, but what would that actually achieve, just everyone knowing my business. But I want to thank all off you who’ve replied. I feel a bit less lonely tonight 💕

To put this into perspective, he fooled you into thinking he was faithful and every time you had one of those good moments, he was probably thinking about someone else.

[Deleted User]

wellthisisawkward said:

Embarrassingly i sneakily logged onto his computer and downloaded his iMessages. Saying how he couldn’t stop looking at her picture and how he was losing the will to live being apart :-(. I then messaged her. She thought I already knew, he’d told her we cheat on each other all the time. (I have never been unfaithful) You couldn’t make it up. We all work together so I have to see her when we’re in the office later this week. 

This for me is the awful part.  You both have to work with this lady!  For me the first step (after separate rooms) is for you to find a new job and get yourself out of this awful situation.  Otherwise you will have no respite from what is happened at either home, or work.

Best of luck.

L9XSS

Depending on the level of seniority (work) they could move the husbands OP or mistress to another branch, work area etc.......
It’s not unheard of.
obviously work would need to be aware of the situation which the OP may not want to do.

L9XSS

Edit. Move the OPs husband or mistress..........

AskAsk

Pollycat said:

One thing that struck me from the OP's first post was that she didn't say she loved him.

She did say, however:

wellthisisawkward said:

He is begging me not to go, but I have no where to go,

I can’t leave I have no money and I can’t scream because t will upset the children. Lost doesn’t even describe how I’m feeling. What do I do

I've known women who have found out that their partner has been/is being unfaithful and thought the same thing.

Some have - after research - found that actually, they do have the option of ending the relationship.

wellthisisawkward said:

Thank you everyone. We took the dog for a long walk to talk away from the children. He has offered to stay with his mum for a few weeks, but that would mean talking holiday for work which would be difficult to explain away. I’ve asked him to move into the spare room until I decide what to do. (He snores terribly so can use that as an excuse for the girls). My gut instinct is to tell him to never darken our door step again, but we’ve had an amazing marriage until the last year, and even then we’ve had some good moments. He’s an amazing dad. I just keep remembering a quote I read that even good people do bad things. I don’t know if we can survive this, right now I’m leaning to no, but I guess for me I need to understand why this happened and I’m far too raw to listen to anything he has to say at the moment. I want to scream from the rooftops what he’s done, but what would that actually achieve, just everyone knowing my business. But I want to thank all off you who’ve replied. I feel a bit less lonely tonight 💕

To put this into perspective, he fooled you into thinking he was faithful and every time you had one of those good moments, he was probably thinking about someone else.

people stay together in a marriage because there is no alternative, especially women.  there are a lot of unhappy marriages out there.  i think if the government said that anyone who are unhappy in their marriage and want to get out would be given £500,000 grant to help them, we would see the divorce courts flooded with petition and overwhelmed.

TBagpuss

You've had a possible shock and it is reasonable for you to take some time to decide hat you want.

Don't minimize what he has done. He lied to you over a long period of time, over something fundamental to your marriage. He gad-li you to the extent that you started to doubt yourself. Now he has been found out, he doesn't want there to be any consequences for him.

I think that therapy, for you and for you as a couple, would be helpful, but I think you need to be considering what reason you have to think that he is going to change? Because there would need to be a fairly huge change in his behavior and attitude towards you and the marriage - him saying sorry and trying to go back to how things used to be isn't enough, you need to be able to see that he has understood and accepted how serious his behavior is, and to feel confident that his underlying approach has changed enough that you can trust him not to do something similar next time he gets bored or fi ds someone willing to flirt with him.  You also need yto decide whether you actually want to put in all that work and emotional labour - feeling you can't afford to leave is not a good reason to stay in a bad marriage, and staying together 'for the sake of the children' is almost always a terrible idea, all you do is model unhealthy patterns of behavior and relationships for your children.

You say that you had a great marriage but stop and look at it in light of what you know now about his willingness to lie to you and manipulate you. 

It's reasonable to tell him to move into the spare room. It would be perfectly reasonable to say to him that yes, you need him to take a week or two of his holiday and go somewhere so you can have time a space to decide what you want to have happen next. And maybe use some of that time to get some legal advice for yourself so you have a clearer idea of what your options are

If you decide that you are willing to give him the chance to work on repairing things, decide what you need to be able to do that. For instance, does it involve him looking for a new job so he is no longer working with her (difficult in this climate, but he could make a start) Or supporting you financially if you do so, if you can't continue to work with her.

Pollycat

AskAsk said:

people stay together in a marriage because there is no alternative, especially women.  there are a lot of unhappy marriages out there.  i think if the government said that anyone who are unhappy in their marriage and want to get out would be given £500,000 grant to help them, we would see the divorce courts flooded with petition and overwhelmed.

My point was that there is - maybe not always, but sometimes - an alternative to staying together.

Not right at the beginning when your head is all over the place but later, when you've had chance to think about the depth of the betrayal.

Talking about giving someone £500k is a bit silly, but there are benefits that may make the difference between seeing no option but to stay with a cheat and starting a new life without a cheat.

AskAsk

i think the OP should ask her husband to go and stay with his parents for a while to give her space to think properly.  with him still in the house in the spare room is not the same.  it will be better if he is gone altogether then the OP will be able to see how life is without him for a few weeks at least.