SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm 5 months post DD when I found out my WH cheated with his best man's wife for 2 years (sex 6 times whilst she was pregnant and after the birth followed by 12 months of sexting).

My WH had previously had sex with this woman 3 times a couple of years before we got together and when he was in the army with her husband. He went on to be god father to one of their kids and had he BH as best man at our wedding and witness on our wedding certificate.

We are trying to reconcile after I found out about this betrayal 13 years after the event and while there are mitigating circumstances in that I struggled with emotional regulation due to unresolved childhood trauma, he has ADHD and we had a lot of financial, work stress and SEN kids.

What I'm struggling with is the following:

1. He lied to me from day one, he knew how I felt about cheating and never told me about this woman. If he had told me it would have been a red flag as I now know he cheated on his ex girlfriend 3 times. However, if he had told me I could have seen past it if he showed remorse and cut them out of his life. Because he didn't the affair restarted the moment life got tough in our marriage.

2. I was pregnant with our third child when he cheated and then breastfeeding him and he had unprotected sex with this woman despite knowing she was having sex with multiple AP including threesomes and he husband was cheated (all army). When I found out in January he took four days to admit it was unprotected and then booked an std test but the fact he risked my newborn baby catching a serious std has enraged me!

3. He lied to me about this for 13 years and even when the AP told me he denied it and trickle truthed then went to work and my 17 year old son had to comfort me whilst I lay on the bathroom floor vomiting on shock because he was to weak to face me! He has also lied about lots of silly little things over the years and I now realise (through therapy) he is a conflict avoidant people pleaser

My questions are: can any waywards explain how he could not think of the risk to his children's health by having sex with a very promiscuous woman? How can a parent who loves their children do this?

And secondly, he is extremely remorseful, in counselling and says this is the only time he has cheated on me and has been faithful for 13 years. How can I trust him when he swore on my kids lives he hadn't cheated several times over the years? Can he change his conflict avoidant, people pleasing, selfish, lying ways? I know he wants to, I know he is remorseful (now he has finally faced his shame) but is he capable or is he a pathological liar?

I love him, he loves me and we both love our family and our love together but I don't know if someone who has lied so extensively can change or if I'm better loving him from afar and saving myself.

Any advice welcome, thank you

Hi-

Question 1- it’s very common for no condoms to be used in cheating situations. A lot of times what a cheating person does is dismisses reality for whatever fantasy they are carrying out in their head. There is this compartmentalization that what they are doing will not have an effect on their "real life". Affairs are throwing caution to the wind, a lot of justifications and selfishness.

Question 2- yes I believe people can and do change. I do believe I have changed a lot and would never put myself in a position to lose my marriage again. Also, I don’t want to be that person moving forward anyway.

Whether your husband has will take some time for you to determine. He will have to intentionally rebuild your trust. It’s understandable that you do not trust him right now, it will take consistent effort over a long period of time for that to be repaired.

Thanks Hikingout...I know he has changed in so many ways in the 23 years since the infidelity...he used to be reckless in so many ways and he is so much kinder, more considerate, less selfish etc. now that his infidelity is out in the open he is doing counselling and we realise how much his own upbringing and mum's affair affected him.
I think my biggest hurdle has been the lack of condoms as in my mind it feels like playing russian roulette with mine and the kids lives! I don't get this fantasy world but I want to understand it

Thanks Hikingout...I know he has changed in so many ways in the 13 years since the infidelity...he used to be reckless in so many ways and he is so much kinder, more considerate, less selfish etc. now that his infidelity is out in the open he is doing counselling and we realise how much his own upbringing and mum's affair affected him.
I think my biggest hurdle has been the lack of condoms as in my mind it feels like playing russian roulette with mine and the kids lives! I don't get this fantasy world but I want to understand it

I can understand what you are saying. I can tell you my husband did the same thing, and it’s amazing there also wasn’t a pregnancy.

The best I can say is that often people cheat to escape their own mind and life. When my husband did it he was carrying around a lot of pain, and sometimes what that does is creates this weird barrier of entitlement that they deserve to do what they want. We ws in general have this belief we are in control, that nothing bad will happen, we won’t be caught, we believe what we want so we can do as we wish. I am going to say it probably was not at all weighed or considered at the time.

Hikingout - thank you for your reply.
My husband's AP was pregnant when he had sex with her (the baby was her husbands) so there wasn't so much a risk of pregnancy but still STDs and it's gross he had sex with a pregnant woman who wasn't his wife.

Through counselling and endless conversations we have worked out he was feeling pretty down/depressed at the time. In the space of 4 years we had had a miscarriage, then twins, bought a house, there was a financial crash that suddenly meant we were in negative equity with the house and we were really struggling for money then I pushed for a third baby as I was broody and that was the trigger it seems for his affair. He hated my pregnancies as I had severe anxiety from the previous miscarriage, we weren't having sex and we suddenly had to find room for a third baby when we only had a two bedroom house as we couldn't afford to move and then I was going to be on maternity pay do money was even tighter - I get that all of this was incredibly stressful, add in the twins started exhibiting behaviour issues and were diagnosed autism/ADHD and we had zero family support and my husband worked permanent lates doing 14 hour shifts with a 2 hour commute BUT I don't get had cheating helps any of this? Especially as 90% was sexting...I get an alcoholic drink can be destressing but don't get had an affair can? Surely it just adds more stress to your life?

It’s escapism.

Alcohol can be used to escape feelings.
Gambling can be used to escape feelings.
Drugs. Sex. Porn. All can be used to escape feelings. It’s distraction , a way of forgetting.

Ll of these things also cause stress, and all can truly f up your life.

That’s why recovery really looks similar for my one who uses these methods.

Thanks Hikingout...I guess it makes sense it was escapism...it just hurts so many people. My husband says he struggled being a father, struggling for money etc and the new identity that came with it. After his affair ended I left work and was able to care for the kids full time, our financial situation improved and our life got easier and every year since he has got better as a husband but I'm angry and resentful that when times were tough, he bailed while I did the hard work then showed up in the marriage again when things got easier.

That's a struggle for me, I hope we can get through it but there's a lot of resentment/anger/disgust from me at the moment especially as I seem to get triggered by the smallest things!

My H confessed to cheating 3 yrs after the fact.

There were a total of roughly 8 kisses, 3 of which included sexual contact and there was an incident where he went in her house and he kissed her and ran off.

On DD we had defensiveness, TT, lies etc, one thing I don’t understand is my H opinion and thoughts then (close to DD) and now, 6 months later.

He never had a bad word to say about AP, never called her a bad name etc, when I’d ask what she was to him etc he would say ‘nothing, just someone at work’ now he’ll say ‘she was just a slag who would let people talk to her about anything’.

Sometimes it seems like he is talking about a different person when he speaks about himself back then, eg I don’t know what I was thinking I just did it, then when we kissed I thought what the hell, how have I ended up here. He looks just as confused as I do when he says these things. In therapy he said I’m still confused myself because I didn’t even want her, didn’t particularly like her even, she was just there.

He can very comfortably accept responsibility for everything he did, he will tell me that what he did is disgusting behaviour, he should have known better, he was supposed to be the responsible one, he should’ve never even been speaking to anyone let alone giving a young woman a lift home knowing full well she had a crush, he tried to manage the whole thing and did it very poorly, he’ll admit that he was weak, a coward, stupid and naive.

Is it normal for a WS to have sort of a ‘waking up’ period after DD? I find this absolutely terrifying, my H seems so philosophical too, he never was. Our therapist said he was very foolish, immature, naive, weak and stupid, and it seems like he’s just landed in the next life stage. he’ll say ‘I’m awake now’ or ‘I’ve been burned, I’m not putting my self or my family through this ever again’, or ‘I’m not that man anymore’.

The biggest kicker is he said to me in therapy he’s just realised that everything he has in life is because of me, he said that I built our family from the ground up, he said the only thing I did really was go to work and come home and it was even you that got me the job. Everything else is because of you, you are my everything, my world and look how I repaid you. He said he can’t believe he was so stupid, but he’s awake now. Welcome to the world dumb ass.

Is this normal?