If you stayed after infidelity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did he know this person prior, a friend, co-worker? Or was it just some rando he met at a bar?

^^ or did he get online to find sex. Was he alone or out with friends that know what he did?

So many things I’d need to know.

[Anonymous]

I stayed. I thought I owed my kids to try to see if we could work it out so they could have an intact family.

He begged me to stay when I confronted him with evidence of cheating. He seemed remorseful. Did therapy, answered my questions, agreed to stop drinking and go to AA.

Over the course of the subsequent 2 years, it became clear to me that almost nothing he said about the affair was true. He made up huge lies that he thought would be palatable to me. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined he was doing the things I ultimately found out about (by closely monitoring car mileage, financial statements, cell bills and putting a key logger on my laptop which he used regularly).

Staying with him was my biggest single mistake in life and it hurt me and our two absolutely great kids. While I love them dearly and don’t regret having them, I do deeply regret tying them to such a crappy dad. He has been a major source of pain to them their whole lives.

I would have been much better off kicking him out the moment I found out about his infidelity and investing my time building my own career and friend/family network for me and kids. That also would have been FAR better for my kids to have been more insulated from him with a greater number of other family and friend ties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stayed. I thought I owed my kids to try to see if we could work it out so they could have an intact family.

He begged me to stay when I confronted him with evidence of cheating. He seemed remorseful. Did therapy, answered my questions, agreed to stop drinking and go to AA.

Over the course of the subsequent 2 years, it became clear to me that almost nothing he said about the affair was true. He made up huge lies that he thought would be palatable to me. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined he was doing the things I ultimately found out about (by closely monitoring car mileage, financial statements, cell bills and putting a key logger on my laptop which he used regularly).

Staying with him was my biggest single mistake in life and it hurt me and our two absolutely great kids. While I love them dearly and don’t regret having them, I do deeply regret tying them to such a crappy dad. He has been a major source of pain to them their whole lives.

I would have been much better off kicking him out the moment I found out about his infidelity and investing my time building my own career and friend/family network for me and kids. That also would have been FAR better for my kids to have been more insulated from him with a greater number of other family and friend ties.

You sound like you have a lot of regret over this but to me it sounds like you made a very reasonable choice given what you knew at the time, and that you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. I hope that you are taking care of yourself and loving yourself because you deserve that too, not just your kids. They deserve a mom who is at peace. You sound very thoughtful and like a great mom and I hope one day you will have all this misery with your ex totally 100% behind you. He never deserved you.

[Anonymous]

OP. It was a work acquaintance who works across the country and is also married with young kids. She is leaving the company, moving abroad, this was a final work event she traveled for. He said it wasn’t planned, there had never been inappropriate communication (they’d met once before and never worked together). They were with a large group and were socializing but not spending time just the two of them talking, left separately at the end of the event, ran into each other at the conference hotel after had left. Talked in the hall and she invited him for a drink and he stupidly agreed and then ….

He swears on the lives of our children that it was one time, he’s never so much as flirted with anyone before, it was stupid and he regrets it and is deeply remorseful. Cries daily and is in therapy, speaking with clergy. Wants to make it work if we can but also says he knows if he loses me it’s his fault.

While I have NO reason to trust him since he broke my trust, maybe I am an idiot, but I believe he is remorseful and this isn’t something he has done before. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stay with him.

[Anonymous]

OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

I think you are way over reacting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. It was a work acquaintance who works across the country and is also married with young kids. She is leaving the company, moving abroad, this was a final work event she traveled for. He said it wasn’t planned, there had never been inappropriate communication (they’d met once before and never worked together). They were with a large group and were socializing but not spending time just the two of them talking, left separately at the end of the event, ran into each other at the conference hotel after had left. Talked in the hall and she invited him for a drink and he stupidly agreed and then ….

He swears on the lives of our children that it was one time, he’s never so much as flirted with anyone before, it was stupid and he regrets it and is deeply remorseful. Cries daily and is in therapy, speaking with clergy. Wants to make it work if we can but also says he knows if he loses me it’s his fault.

While I have NO reason to trust him since he broke my trust, maybe I am an idiot, but I believe he is remorseful and this isn’t something he has done before. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stay with him.

This is a red flag. This is an extreme overreaction to 1x cheating and would make me concerned he had been having a legit affair for an extended period of time. He’s probably crying because he got caught and lost his AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

I think you are way over reacting.

Ok- maybe you're fine with someone taking a med they're instructed not to drink on, trying to drink on it for the first time while driving your kid, but I'm certainly not. I specifically asked him if he would be drinking at this party and he said no. I asked him before they came home- have you drank? No. An hour later pics on social media with him holding a whiskey. It's the intentional lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

I think you are way over reacting.

Ok- maybe you're fine with someone taking a med they're instructed not to drink on, trying to drink on it for the first time while driving your kid, but I'm certainly not. I specifically asked him if he would be drinking at this party and he said no. I asked him before they came home- have you drank? No. An hour later pics on social media with him holding a whiskey. It's the intentional lying.

DP. There’s a lot of room between being okay with this and divorcing someone who you’ve been married to for 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

I think you are way over reacting.

Ok- maybe you're fine with someone taking a med they're instructed not to drink on, trying to drink on it for the first time while driving your kid, but I'm certainly not. I specifically asked him if he would be drinking at this party and he said no. I asked him before they came home- have you drank? No. An hour later pics on social media with him holding a whiskey. It's the intentional lying.

DP. There’s a lot of room between being okay with this and divorcing someone who you’ve been married to for 20 years.

That room was removed with the cheating and subsequent inappropriate coworker relationship.

[Anonymous]

My marriage survived a co-worker infidelity. I wasn’t sure it would, but I was willing to try. We spent thousands of dollars in therapy. DH had a lot of issues to resolve (and our marriage was far from perfect). He did the work/we did the work. We also committed to regular date nights and “open” phones/laptops meaning we could check each others any time.

For a long time it feel like work/going through the motions, but then at some point, it got easier. It didn’t feel like work, we looked forward to date night and spending time together.

This happened 7 years into the marriage and we just celebrated 20 years. We are much closer, having done all that work with a therapist. We still have the open phones/laptop policy but I don’t feel the urge to check and haven’t in a very long time.

Just throwing it out there to say, it’s possible for a marriage to survive.

[Anonymous]

My exDW affair started as something similar but went to be a mind f$$k of repeated attempts of being faithful but failing. In the process I started snooping etc and focused on being a detective. I think both our reactions to the initial event probably contributed to the demise of the marriage. Obviously she had the bigger role because they couldn’t/ wouldn’t stop! I know some couples can accept this sort of thing in a marriage and that it was a one off - but so it’s up to you. Because you have to be willing to believe them and it’s not going to be the same again going forward.

[Anonymous]

I left, but in a situation like yours I would have stayed.

I lost custody to and pay child support to my former husband, who was financially abusive and cheated on me. This is a worst case scenario, but tread carefully. Family court is not your friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I was you. Exactly. Almost exact situation, response, and timeline. Then at 5 months post DDay, dday 2 came in the form of him secretly confiding in a female coworker about what we were going through which was teetering on an emotional affair. Then at 7 months post dday, he started on depression meds, was very clearly instructed by the doctor to not drink on them at least for the first 6 weeks. A week after he started them, he was at a family party with our young daughter, had 2 drinks, and drove home. I'm filing. I was with him for 20+ years and don't even recognize the person in front of me. It's terrifying.

I think you are way over reacting.

Ok- maybe you're fine with someone taking a med they're instructed not to drink on, trying to drink on it for the first time while driving your kid, but I'm certainly not. I specifically asked him if he would be drinking at this party and he said no. I asked him before they came home- have you drank? No. An hour later pics on social media with him holding a whiskey. It's the intentional lying.

It bad but to jump to divorce is crazy.

[Anonymous]

I want to answer this question even though it may not be from the side you are asking for. Why did I stay after infidelity?

I stayed because I care about my kids, because my anger / hurt needed to be taken care of (within or without a marriage), because my spouse loved me regardless.

I'm not sure it was fully the right decision. But at the same time I don't fully think it was the wrong decision, either. My family is intact, my children older, and if we were to divorce now, they'd be past the middle/high school high drama time.

My answers really are the same as those above, I think. But it was me who was unfaithful.