In shock - he cheated

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03/31/2015 10:14

Subject: In shock - he cheated

quote

Anonymous

I am in desperate need of some support and advice. In the past 24 hours, I found out that my new DH has been unfaithful to me, engaging in a physical/emotional fling with one woman and online flirtations with others before we were married. I am in shock, that lucid, unfeeling state where you can't exactly feel emotion. I have no idea whether I should stay or go.

DH (mid-40s) and I (mid-30s) have been together for 4 years. We were long distance for the first 3 years, during our dating phase and our engagement, and have been living together in the same city for the past year. We were married a short time ago and have been trying to have a baby. We've had a very happy, special relationship, and what I thought a very open, honest union.

I found out because the other woman contacted me to tell me that he had had an emotional and physical affair with her, an old flame, while we were long distance. He had portrayed himself as single, and ended things with her last year, telling her he needed to move on. They had not been in touch since. She did some online searching to see what he was up to and discovered he was married. She then was able to locate me, likely using social media, and sent me an admittedly very sincere message with the details and a number of photos that immediately cast no shadow of a doubt that she was being truthful. She had no idea I existed, wants nothing to do with him, and her motivation seems just to inform me of what had happened. From screen shots she sent, I saw that he had communicated with her through an old email address. I logged on to that account and saw more messages between them that further corroborated the story. I also found old flirty messages to a few women, all appear to be old flames or people he has know for a long time, from before we were married that one does not send when committed to someone else.

Last night, I sat down with DH, told him what I had discovered, and the entire story came out. He says he has no words for what he has done, and is remorseful and deeply ashamed. He says that he had maintained flirtations with people while we dated because early days in our relationship we were not exclusive as we tried to sort out if we could make things work despite long distance (which is true), and that after we decided to be together and make a go of it, he just continued the bachelor life and flirtations on the side. He said he has no idea why he did, he felt fulfilled in our relationship, even though it was tough living apart. He said when we relocated to live together in a new city it marked a different life for him. He wanted to leave everything in the past and focus on starting our life together. He swears he loves me more than anything and when he took our marriage vows he meant them. He says he is ashamed of what he has done and wants to leave it in the past and focus on righting the wrong with me and saving our marriage. He said he has been faithful since we married and will continue to be. He asked if I would go to couples therapy. I suggested we each could benefit from individual therapy as well. He agreed.

My instinct, which I shared with him calmly, is to cut and run. Get a quick divorce, divide assets, part ways and never have contact again. While I am obviously devastated, I am a very cut and dry person. It would be the hardest thing in the world to do, but I could make a clean break if I needed to. At the same time, the humiliation and fear of telling family and friends and starting over is overwhelming. And underlying everything of course is that he is my husband and I love him.

We slept apart last night and I imagine will continue to for some time. I asked him to connect with anyone he needed to out of the old email account and then shut it down permanently. I told him to delete any phone numbers from his cell that he might need to delete. I told him if he wanted any fraction of a chance at rebuilding any trust with me, that he needed to think about providing me with unfettered access to his email and texts at any time at my request. I am in the process of making arrangements for marriage counseling, and for individual counseling for each of us. Everything is too new and raw to process at this time and make any decisions about our future, but I am absolutely heartbroken. I truly feel like I don't know this person at all and that everything I thought I knew and trusted was a sham. If I was reading this message on the forum I'd advise the person to get the hell out. But being in these awful shoes I never, ever thought I'd be in, the answer is not so clear.