In shock - he cheated

[Anonymous]

I am not sure what I would do, but I would not make any hasty decision right now.
I also question this woman’s motives for contacting you and telling you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. He maintains that once we relocated to live in the same city (end of our engagement) he ceased everything. I of course am not 100% certain he is being honest.

That's a good sign, IMO (assuming he his being honest).

I think that he may not have truly bought-in to the relationship as the Real Deal until you were with him. That doesn't excuse him from seeing other women when you thought he was exclusive, but I'm on the side of taking him back if this is the case.

I agree, tentatively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm usually the first to say cut and run but I'm not so sure it's that simple in this case. To clarify - once you lived in the same city, got engaged and then married (or did this happen while you were engaged?) he has been faithful?

We became engaged when we were still long distance, and relocated to our current city and moved in while still engaged. We were married a short time ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the same time, the humiliation and fear of telling family and friends and starting over is overwhelming.

OP, I just wanted to address this one other point. You've done nothing shameful. If you end up needing to leave, or otherwise want to discuss this with friends and family, do not take his shame on yourself. As is abundantly clear from your original post, you're not responsible for his behavior.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I don't think I could get past the fact that he was still screwing around at the same time he was proposing to you, right? Why did he ask you to marry him if he was enjoying a life where he dates around?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the same time, the humiliation and fear of telling family and friends and starting over is overwhelming.

OP, I just wanted to address this one other point. You've done nothing shameful. If you end up needing to leave, or otherwise want to discuss this with friends and family, do not take his shame on yourself. As is abundantly clear from your original post, you're not responsible for his behavior.

That is kind of you to say. Thank you. I do feel deeply ashamed and humiliated that this happened. I know it is not my fault, but I feel conned and wronged.

I put all of my faith and trust in someone who was extremely cavalier with my feelings and absolutely selfish with theirs. It makes me feel like I can't trust myself and my decisions. We have been married for such a very short time. I have just finished the process of changing my surname to his. All I think about is that if this is done, I will have to back through this entire painful process of changing my name back. Professionally, I honestly feel that I would need to change jobs if we divorced. I'm still receiving congrats messages from coworkers seeing I am using a new sender name/email address. I couldn't face my coworkers and everyone knowing I was in a marriage that was over before it began. I dread facing family and friends. I wonder what I would do and where I would go. I was able to transfer my job when we moved to our city (we moved for his job), which is fortunate, but I am still new to the city, have only a few friends here, no family, no other ties. Where would I go? Would I stay here where I could run into him and where we have all these memories? Do I return to where I used to live, a place I enjoyed but was happy to leave behind for a new start with him? I don't want to talk to anyone in my life about this because I don't know what I am going to do and I am so horribly humiliated.

[Anonymous]

Stay in the other bed. It is over. His behavior that will ever change. And since you knew nothing about it until now, he was relying on you never finding out, which also means he entered in to this marriage with fraudulent intent. In fact, he was untruthful to all parties...he is a player. They DO NOT change.

You have every reason to be heartbroken, but he portrayed himself very well as someone he was not. You did nothing wrong. You were a victim. I'm sorry. I agree with previous posters that it is time to reassess your life, your goals, go to a therapist, find out who your close friends are and start over. He is not worth it- it will be a life time of paranoia and something different than what you expected- and deserve. Do this in a business like fashion....no drama. Call him out to his family, his friends for who he really is, but not in a dramatic way. (We are divorcing and here's why- I was looking forward to being a part of your family,but I cannot.I want to start my life over w.ith someone that I trust and have a family. This scenario is not acceptable to me or my future. I want to have kids with a man that I fully trust to be my husband that their father. That will never happen now that I understand some things that I did not when we married)

You will have a great life in the future, and I wish you the best of everything, honey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I don't think I could get past the fact that he was still screwing around at the same time he was proposing to you, right? Why did he ask you to marry him if he was enjoying a life where he dates around?

This.

he is not an honest person-in any way. Sorry- but this is not a personality attribute that changes. Ever. Deal with it now and cut your losses while you are young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure what I would do, but I would not make any hasty decision right now.
I also question this woman’s motives for contacting you and telling you.

Her motives were very clear. She also did not know, either. Yeah- she is trying to get back at him, but letting the wife know something she clearly did not was actually a good thing.

[Anonymous]

This is not the time to be cut and dry about your situation. The easiest thing is to cut your losses and run, but I suggest (as one who has been in your shoes) that you take some time. While making a quick decision feels good and allows you to move on, this type of thing takes some time.

Take all the space you need while you let this sink in. You don't have to make any decisions right now -- and you shouldn't.

My other advice is not to tell your family and friends until you know whether you are staying together. It will be hard for them to accept what he has done to you. Share this with one or two very discrete and trustworthy friends. You need the support. Wait until a little later to tell anyone else.

[Anonymous]

OK, I am going to take a different tack here. I think the OW did this to eff with your husband because she lost him to you. Please look closely at the time line. PP suggested it. When did all this happen with her? Had he proposed to you? Does she have anything from after you were engaged or after you were married. While it may hurt if he had relations with you before you were married, he did not break his marriage vows. It may be schematics, but it is worth considering.

He married you, not her. He is trying to have a baby with you, not her.

I say let this play out first before you completely jump ship.

[Anonymous]

relations with HER before you were married. sorry for the typo.

[Anonymous]

I would leave. You're not at fault here OP. Your husband perpetrated a fraud. Think of it this way: if you found out he had cheated before you got married, would you have walked down the aisle? You're in your 30s which leaves you just enough time to get divorced/annulled and find someone worthy of you and worthy of starting a family.Thank your lucky stars you didn't have a kid with this one. Walk away with your head held high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would leave. You're not at fault here OP. Your husband perpetrated a fraud. Think of it this way: if you found out he had cheated before you got married, would you have walked down the aisle? You're in your 30s which leaves you just enough time to get divorced/annulled and find someone worthy of you and worthy of starting a family.Thank your lucky stars you didn't have a kid with this one. Walk away with your head held high.

I disagree.

If you read closely, they were still in a long-distance relationship when they got engaged, which is unusual (not necessarily wrong, just unusual).

I think that, even though he said he was committed, he really wasn't until after you were physically with him. It was wrong for him to say one thing and then do something else, but I don't think that this is quite the same as if he cheated after they were married, or at least together. It's still cheating -- don't get me wrong. And you have every right to be questioning him. But, as another poster mentioned, he says he knocked it off after they were "really" together. Now he is trying to have a baby with the OP. I think there is reason to believe that he is in a different place now.

I question the other woman's motives, especially if she knows that all of this took place before you were physically together. What would motivate her to "ratting him out" under those circumstances? I think OP may be giving her too much credit.

I wouldn't recommend starting over at this point, if he is otherwise good. There will be a million people here blithely telling OP to kick him to the curb, but it's easy to say that to an anonymous person on an anonymous message board when you have no skin in the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the same time, the humiliation and fear of telling family and friends and starting over is overwhelming.

OP, I just wanted to address this one other point. You've done nothing shameful. If you end up needing to leave, or otherwise want to discuss this with friends and family, do not take his shame on yourself. As is abundantly clear from your original post, you're not responsible for his behavior.

That is kind of you to say. Thank you. I do feel deeply ashamed and humiliated that this happened. I know it is not my fault, but I feel conned and wronged.

I put all of my faith and trust in someone who was extremely cavalier with my feelings and absolutely selfish with theirs. It makes me feel like I can't trust myself and my decisions. We have been married for such a very short time. I have just finished the process of changing my surname to his. All I think about is that if this is done, I will have to back through this entire painful process of changing my name back. Professionally, I honestly feel that I would need to change jobs if we divorced. I'm still receiving congrats messages from coworkers seeing I am using a new sender name/email address. I couldn't face my coworkers and everyone knowing I was in a marriage that was over before it began. I dread facing family and friends. I wonder what I would do and where I would go. I was able to transfer my job when we moved to our city (we moved for his job), which is fortunate, but I am still new to the city, have only a few friends here, no family, no other ties. Where would I go? Would I stay here where I could run into him and where we have all these memories? Do I return to where I used to live, a place I enjoyed but was happy to leave behind for a new start with him? I don't want to talk to anyone in my life about this because I don't know what I am going to do and I am so horribly humiliated.

OP, I understand all these racing thoughts. Your life, as you believed it to be, has been turned upside down. You have every right to your anger, worry, fear and every other emotion you're feeling.

A few more things though. First, please, PLEASE don't isolate yourself from your family and friends. I'll repeat: you did nothing wrong or shameful, and while I understand the feelings of humiliation - this did NOT happen because of something you did or did not do. You have done nothing worth feeling humiliated about. I'm not suggesting that you should run out and discuss this situation with every co-worker and facebook friend, but I would urge you to confide in at least one or two close family members or friends so that you can have their support as you work through this. You know who the people in your life are whose overriding thoughts will be concern for YOU, and wanting to support YOU, rather than judging your husband or your relationship or your decisions. Those are the people you should talk to and lean on emotionally right now.

Second, please do give yourself some time to process this. I know everything feels so overwhelming, and the racing thoughts about every last aspect of this situation are really, really hard to control. Try, where you can, to give yourself breaks from those thoughts. Exercise, a nap, a mindless movie, a drive with good music, baking something, whatever it is you normally do to de-stress. You will, in time, be able to see some of the answers to the questions in your post above more clearly, or be able to determine that some don't apply at all and others are more important. Know that it will take time to work through all of this, but that you will, and things will become clearer to you as the shock wears off.


I don't want to burden you with my own story, but I'll just say that I went through something somewhat similar recently. By similar, I mean that I uncovered years worth of lies by my spouse (that also related to infidelity). The first thing I did after confronting my husband with the discovery was to call my mother (at 11pm, and hysterical), because the shock of the situation was far, FAR too overwhelming for me to cope with alone. The next day I talked to a good friend, and contacted an old therapist to set up an appointment. Those three people have continued to be three of the four key supports for me as I've worked through my situation. When I first saw my therapist, she told me what others here have told you regarding the separation/divorce/what-do-I-do question: "It's too soon to know." And for me, that was absolutely true. I agonized over it, all the time, but when I finally did make a decision on what to do I felt much more confident that I was making the right one.


Again, I am so, so sorry you're going through this. I will honestly be thinking of you, and hoping you choose to talk to someone in your life who loves you and who can help support you through this.