Throwaway because I’m ashamed… I found out 10 days ago that my husband cheated on me while on a trip with 3 of his friends on the last weekend of February. The girl he slept with contacted me through instagram because this dumbass gave her his username when she asked for it and she found out he‘s married with kids. He nor his friends (they’re no better than him imo) didn’t tell me. When I confronted him he owned it and apologized, he said he would do anything to work through this.
And here I am, having no idea what to do, I still can’t believe it, I feel humiliated knowing what he did and that his friends are all aware of it. I trusted him so I feel so hurt. I also feel like I have a part of responsibility for it for the lack of intimacy since the birth of our second son.. He said that he’s deeply sorry and he was drunk and immediately regretted it and he’s willing to do anything. I do want to try to work through this because he’s or at least thought he was a good husband, very supportive, really good with the kids and he’s present for them and love them very much.
But the thought that he slept with someone else disgust me I just feel sick when I look at him or think about it and even more when I think he would have never told me himself and just pretended it never happened. I feel so damn broken when I see him with our babies, all the things I thought we had, I thought we were happy even though it wasn’t the best time of our life as a married couple because having a toddler and baby is hard work and I got lost in mom duty and I neglected our relationship but he said he was understanding.. Now I don’t know what to do to get past this.
edit: also I’m wondering if it’s really the first time it happened because how I suppose to believe him? His friends covered for him so maybe each time he was away with them he cheated on me.
34 comments
I know that this is an unpopular opinion here, but infidelity is a deal breaker for me. I could not come back from it, as it would constantly be in the back of my mind. I know you have kids, but can you live with it and him “for the sake of the kids”?
I honestly don’t know what I would do in your situation, but I do think that there’s a difference between someone cheating, feeling remorse, and confessing, as opposed to someone who cheated and got caught. If she hadn’t told you would he have ever come clean? How can you know that this was the only time, maybe he’s just never been caught yet? I don’t know how you can trust again after something like this. Wishing you strength and wisdom going forward.
I’m really sorry. The betrayal is devastating.
Take a look at r/Asoneafterinfidelity
Is this the life you want? medication, anxiety, depression, you become a police woman with monitoring his phone and location. His friends that were there he can’t be in contact with, will he resent you? The marriage you thought you had is over and the man you married never existed.
Has he done it before? Will he do it again? He made choices the whole time and each moment he could have chose you and his children. But he didn’t.
Trust is gone. Get a lawyer. Separate finances. I would get STI tested as well.
Question? Had they been communicating after the infidelity.
What else did she say?
There’s a ton to absorb only 10 days out… you won’t honestly know what you want going forward for quite a while. Firstly, you have to sort through your feelings, fully accept what’s happened, and then decide your intentions. It’s best to do this separate from the cheater, so if he can stay elsewhere it helps a lot. If you share a home he has a legal right to stay, but if he’s being truthful/sincere about remorse he’ll listen to you and stay somewhere else.
If and only if you decide you truly want to gift him a second chance, then move forward. He should be fully remorseful (research what this looks like) with actions, not words… and not just in the short-term, but 2 years from now when you break down sobbing too. Reconciliation is a long and painful road, one that the vast majority of couples do not survive long-term. I’d feel more optimistic if he’d come clean on his own accord…
I’m so sorry. Take some time to consider how you want to handle this. A therapist would help with processing your feelings.
Everyone is different and there are marriages that survive cheating.
If I were you, this would be a deal breaker. He not only cheated, but he hid it and didn’t come clean on his own. This shows a lack of remorse.
He also justified it by blaming alcohol and or your lack of sex due to a baby. Yuck.
I could never trust this man again. Even if I wanted to make it work I would know that he is capable of lying to my face and of rationalizing his infidelity. How could I ever rely on him or depend on him again knowing this? I couldn’t. It would be over.
I’d be surprised if this is the first time he has done this when away. Prob a regular occurrence. His friends are probably cheats aswell. He didn’t tell u and would not of told you if u had not of found out. Maybe try marraige councilling if u want to try and save your marriage but it ok to just walk away aswell. Do what’s right for u whether that stay and try to works things out or walking away.
The only way this can possibly work is with counseling. It concerns me that you have a gut feeling that this may not be the only time. He needs to be open and honest with you and counseling can help that. I’m sorry you are going through this.
I, personally, couldn’t get past something like this. How often does he go on these trips with his friends? Is it possible he’s been doing this all along but just now got caught? Are his friends also married? Too many questions.
If you’re wanting to process your feelings around this, then working with a therapist can be helpful. He should also get into individual therapy. I’d consider couples therapy with an infidelity specialist.
From the way you described your husband in the second paragraph, it seems like you see him as a good parent. I didn’t see anywhere how you described him as a good partner. Cheaters always say they’ll do whatever you want so as their life isn’t disrupted, even though he already disrupted your life. Where was this same energy before the cheating? You’re a mom of two young children. He should’ve been stepping up instead of stepping out.
I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to “move past this.” But some things to help would be to rebuild trust in the relationship. You and him need to learn everything you can about betrayal trauma. He will need to put in a lot of sacrifices to repair what has been broken. No more privacy, open phone policy, the whole raw truth and not just trickle truth- no sugar coating, no more boys time as you will wonder every time he’s away, and definitely counseling from a specialist who deals with infidelity. Some hard boundaries will have to be put in place. I’m sorry you’re going through this 💜 you will have to battle this together as a team in order to come through the other side.
I agree with your edit. This was likely just the first time he was caught. I wouldn’t forgive this. We’d be divorcing. Please don’t blame any of this on you. A good partner doesn’t say he understands busy mom life and the lack of sex and then turns around and cheats openly in front of his friends.
That said, if you choose to stay, you need to speak to an attorney to get your options. Then you need to make a list of things you’ll require to move forward. For me, no contact with those friends would be in the top 5. They will only further encourage and cover his infidelity and he should not be around people like that. He clearly felt very comfortable cheating with his friends knowing and knowing they wouldn’t tell you. I truly believe this is just the first time you caught him.
Therapy would also be on the list. Individual for him to figure out why he so easily threw your marriage away. What underlying issues are there that he felt so comfortable cheating on you?
Marriage counseling as well.
Open phone policy. You should probably look through his phone now before even thinking of reconciling. You may find evidence this was not the first time.
Tracking. No biys trips.
I’d also ask for the absolute truth with this being the only time you’re going to give him the possibility of reconciling. If you find out later he lied or there was more, immediate divorce. Ask if it was the first time. Ask everything. Make notes or record it. I’d want to make sure the story never changes.
If his friends have girlfriends or wives, you should probably tell them about this whole thing. They should be aware the type of person they’re with. The should probably do their own digging.
r/asoneafterinfidelity is a good place for support. Also, r/supportforbetrayed
r/suportforwaywards if you want to see what other cheaters are doing to earn back trust
ETA you also need an STI test. And save all proof of those messages from the other woman.
Do not blame yourself. He cheated. He made a conscious choice to fuck another woman. Stop the self-blame now!
It sounds like you are pulling the heavy duty in this marriage, especially in regards to the childcare. Stop minimizing your effort. Women do this too much. Speaking from experience. You have to relearn/trip your brain to halt that process.
Based on your feelings and his disrespect of your marriage, stop trying to fix a problem you DIDNT CREATE!
Is it horrible yes, but you can co-parent. Many have and do well. You will become neurotic worrying if he stepped out again and if you have STDs because of him.
Don’t say anything else to him, he was happy to lie to you until the other women contacted you. Hire a lawyer to work out the divorce and custody. Work in healing because self-doubt and lack of trust will continue if you stay married.
I would want to know how deep his infidelity goes. Has he cheated before? How many times?
I couldn’t forgive it myself, but everyone’s circumstances are different.
Transparency is the only way forward.
For me, my biggest concern would be the fact that all of his friends knew and covered for him. And that he and all of them were perfectly content to keep this secret until confronted with irrefutable evidence. I just don’t know how you rebuild trust with someone who’s already shown such lack of scruples and who is surrounded by enablers. I wouldn’t be able to believe this was the first time, nor would I be able to believe it would be the last. And the ability to regain trust is probably the biggest factor for rebuilding after infidelity. I would be a nervous miserable wreck for the rest of my life with this man, no matter how much I loved him.
Dear OP
I’m someone who can’t live with infidelity. For me , even having a crush is infidelity while i have seen people here saying that having a crush is ok .
But let me tell you something about this sub.
While almost everybody is recommending you divorce, there was another post recently where a wife cheated for a very long duration , still continuing but the recommendations mostly were for reconciliation or counselling.
I don’t understand the bias here. I leave that for you to decide
I’m giving you the link to that post.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marriage/comments/12b7qkd/wife_cheated_didnt_tell_claimed_lost_connection/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
OP if he regretted it ‘as soon as it happened’ why didn’t he come clean was soon as he returned? If you hadn’t found out from the person he slept with would he have told you at all? This is a dealbreaker for me, for a man to cheat, hide it, apologize and move forward pretending like nothing happened, he doesn’t seem mistaken or remorseful.
All of your feelings are valid. Having children absolutely takes a toll of your sex life, so please don’t take the blame for not having frequent sex. Moms get touched out.
Also, women have sex when they aren’t stressed, where as men have sex to relieve stress. Kinda how I explained it to my husb when we were going through it. (We still are) Being a mom is stressful, you can’t blame yourself for his infidelity.
As hard as I would try to get over it, if my husband cheated, I don’t think I would be able to. And if that’s the case for you, he is the only one to blame for the marriage ending.
Just curious-can you elaborate on your statement about the lack of intimacy since the birth of your second?
So if the girl didn’t reach out, you would never know. Does your husband even feel bad about what he did?
If he immediately regretted it, why didn’t he tell you the truth right away? Also, never ever blame yourself for a spouse’s infidelity. If he was struggling, he should’ve talked to you, tried to get couple’s counseling, or had the balls to be up front with you rather than going behind your back. Cheating is such a cowardly thing to do, and I’m really sorry you’re going through this. I don’t know what I would do in your situation either, but you have to decide whether this is a dealbreaker for you. Some people are okay getting counseling to work through it, but others aren’t. My husband told me that if I ever cheated he would leave immediately and never look back, and as much as that would suck, I can’t blame him.
I’m so sorry! Please get an STD test, and make him get one too.
Check out [survivinginfidelity.com](https://survivinginfidelity.com). they have a great Healing Library and ChumpLady,com.
You do not need to make any drastic choices this moment, but take time to figure out what you want and what is best for you and your children,
At a minimum, he needs to seek individual counseling, open device policy and no more trips with his buddies. They are not friends of the marriage.
Please feel free to message me if you need support. I’m also a BW with little kids. I’m so sorry that happened to tou.
You are not responsible for him messing around.
That said. You could try to work through it but it will take a very long time (years). And he has to want to do some very uncomfortable work. You don’t have to know what you want to do right away. Let the dust settle before making any major decisions.
Time to respect yourself and put yourself first.. you’d never do it to him honestly I’d leave
I’m so very sorry.
Let me say this. I just read it. At this point, you are the preist. He has confessed his sins. Grant him absolution or deny it. BUT there is rightfully supposed to be penance given. Not punishment, but he has broken the trust. You have every right to every feeling you are having.
How does he work to rebuild that trust? That’s up to you. You know him best. The book said it’s time for tough love. He needs to know the hurt you are feeling. He needs to know the plan you have to fix it. He must agree to it and put all effort into it or leave …..
So do your part. Present your wishes and then it’s back on him.
Best wishes. And best of luck.
I doubt it was the first time 🙁
Not sure if this was already suggested:
Try reposting on r/AsOneAfterInfidelity. It’s a support subreddit for people trying to reconcile.
Unfortunately infidelity is very common, so many, many couples out there have experienced it and many of them are able to work through it and save or even improve their marriages in the aftermath. It’s a lot of emotional work but very much possible if you both want to try.
I’m sorry for what you’ve been through and hope you find peace and healing sooner than later.
Best wishes.
Getting past this will be extremely difficult. It may not even be possible, but some couples are able to do it.
A quick couple of things here. You need to make sure that he’s being completely honest about everything. Also, the burden is completely on him to re-earn your trust. For example, no more guy trips until/if he’s proven himself trustworthy.
And finally marriage counseling is an absolute nonnegotiable. You can also look at r/survivinginfidelity for more detailed advice and support. Whatever you decide I hope you are eventually able to find your peace.
Tbh not worth working through. Cheating is a massive violation of trust. He does not deserve another chance. You also do not owe him intimacy at any time, least of all postpartum, if you are not interested or comfortable with it. No responsibility for this transgression falls on you.
I think first and foremost as you should ask him to move out, he can go stay, or live with one of the friends that he cheated with. Two alcohol is not an excuse for infidelity. Three take the information you have go talk to a lawyer at least get an idea of what it’s like, if you decide to file. I’m really sorry but what you said is also true who knows if or when this is happened multiple times he’s now shown his colors or you know you know his colors and you can’t trust really anything that they say, or do. Actions speak louder than words.
Well first things first, these friends are no friend to your marriage. You do you, but if there was even a chance to reconcile, my hard line would be him ditching the influences around him that are willing to cover for him.
NOPE! Imagine if this woman never contacted you! Neither your husband or his friends would have ever told you.
Consider this: For two months he has put your health at risk if you two had sex. He was “drunk”? Then he didn’t use a condom. But if he swears he did use one, well then he planned to cheat and was coherent enough to buy condoms. So either way there is no way to make this better at all.
Please get checked for std’s and please inform the gf’s and/or wives of his friends because they absolutely need to know this. It is a hard pill to swallow but I bet they all cheat during every one of these guy trips, and that being the main purpose of them. Just this time is when one of them was careless enough to get caught.
He is not who you think he is and no he is not a good father either. A good father respects the mother of his children, he does not risk her health (mental and physical), he does not risk losing his family for a damn orgasm with some other woman. If you stay he will do this again and take every precaution not to get caught again.
Adultry is 100% a choice and 100% the cheaters fault.
She didn’t know he was married? So he took his ring off, did think of you when he did, and took it off just in case she wouldn’t have sex if she knew he was married. If you take a detailed inventory of it, there are alot of steps one has to go through which proves it is not just a quick mistake. I left another comment a few min ago about how he prob didnt use protection. If so, he had plenty of time to go buy condoms.