Advice on how to truly be happy for my (still) husband and his girlfriend for my own good?

My husband of 9 years (at the time - June 2022) cheated on me with his coworker and left me and our 2 young daughters who were 3 and 8 years old. It’s been 2 1/2 years since then. It was a traumatic experience. I’m hurt and appalled at the capability of the person I trusted with my life. I was in a state of shock and denial for the first year. I pathetically begged for him to stop what he was doing and to come back to us, but he said he was unsure of what he wanted and wasn’t able to make a decision. After a year of his uncertainty, I decided I was done waiting around and filed for child support and temporary spousal to be able to leave. So much happened in that first year. He cleared out our joint account since I stopped working a few months prior to him leaving and it was just his income being direct deposited into our account. He told me I would have to ask him for what I needed and he’d see if he could "swing" it. He left me with no car. We also rented and he stopped paying the rent which then put me in panic mode. I notified the landlords right away of what was going on. Thankfully they were understanding, but rightfully wanted their money. It was the push that led me to file for child and temporary spousal support to have control over some of the money to pay the bills. I wound up having to move from our rental home since my support didn’t cover the rental expense. It was a nightmare. And it was all my nightmare to "figure out". Thank God I had my pension that I cashed out. It wasn’t much, but it allowed me to get myself a used car and pay the remainder of the rent and come up with a security deposit on a place that cost less money a month. I’m now living in a one bedroom with my daughters in a place of squaller because it’s all I can afford.

I just started working again now that our youngest daughter is 5 and school aged so I’m saving the money I’m making for the actual divorce portion (that’s right, we’re STILL married legally). He never divorced me, just left out and went on to be with other people. I will need a lawyer to determine the alimony portion that will be permanent, among other things like a parenting agreement, where I’m able to relocate once I get better on my feet, etc. I can already foresee him making it hard for me to move back to the city where we were living when he left us (he already told our 10 year old that’s not happening when she told him we’ll be moving back "home" in a couple years) since he decided to shack up with his girlfriend 2 hours away, so he will fight for me to have to live closer to him if I ever do move.

I’m not sure when his relationship ended with the coworker I caught him having the affair with (she’s never been around my kids) but last month he informed me that he will be moving in with his new girlfriend which is the other female coworker on his team. I used to always see pictures of him sandwiched between the two at company dinners and events. They all know about me. They know who his wife and kids are. Again, didn’t think my husband was capable of not just screwing with one coworker, but now the other one. He would always call them his "work family" and tell me all things about his workday. I even felt like I worked there because of how invested he was in his job and how much he talked about it when he came home. The whole thing is just so bizarre and perplexing to me. When my girls told me the name of the woman they were with one weekend he had them, my head spun. That was how I found out. I asked him about it and he ignored me, but kept bringing her around our girls each time he had them. I asked again, I’d get ignored again. I eventually went outside one evening he was dropping our daughters off and said, she’s okay with the fact that you were with the other one and that you’re STILL married to me and never divorced me? He said no, she’s not happy about me still being married to you, but I’ll start working on it now. I still feel a sense of devastation, but disgust at the same time and STILL. He has already moved in with the coworker (she’s 8 years younger than him, but has her own home) and my daughters are already staying at her house. My daughters like going there because they get their own room, not a shared room with Mommy. "It’s big and nice and there’s room to run around and play." I know it’s completely out of my control and something I have to just deal with. Makes me sick to my stomach, but nothing I can do about it.

So all this to say - how do I completely shift my emotions to feel happy for my soon to be ex husband and his girlfriend? How do I just truly feel joy for them and wish them the best so when my girls come home each weekend and tell me about all the things they do as a "family" - outings, game nights, they make pasta together, even all go grocery shopping together, I can just feel happy that despite my husband walking away from me and our girls, he’s at least happy now in his new relationship..and from what my daughters say, they’re enjoying it all too?

Just to say, currently as of today after all that’s been done, he doesn’t even see my face anymore. After all that’s transpired, I completely cut any contact with him. He tried in the beginning to make small talk with me or make a joke like all was normal and cool, but when he saw that I had a stone face reaction to him, he backed down. I kiss my girls goodbye right before they walk out the door and there’s really no need at all to talk about anything since they go with him every other weekend. He takes them at the same time/drops them off around same time so text messages are just basically - "I’m on my way to get them" or "I’m on my way to drop them off" and I’ll either give a "👍🏼" in response or nothing at all. Our daughter had a minor surgery a couple months ago. We were both in the same waiting room for her, but didn’t say a word, just remained silent - he sat across the room with his eyes closed like he was taking a nap, maybe he was, who knows. I was secretly dying inside wondering still how this is my reality. I thought my husband would have atleast asked me once during these past 2 years how I’m doing or WE’RE doing. How we’re adjusting or if we need anything. It’s clear when he picks the kids up I now live in the slums with our girls, but nope - nothing. To his credit, he did tell me a handful of times over text message that he was "sorry for this all." Guess maybe that counts for something.

4 comments posted: Friday, February 21st, 2025

Husband moved into his newest girlfriend’s house and it’s where my kids now sleep when with him.

My "husband" that is still married to me (left 2.5 years ago after I caught him having an affair with coworker #1) moved into his girlfriend’s house recently (coworker #2) - so that’s where I must release my children ages 10 & 5 to be on his weekends. There’s something very strange and unsettling about handing your kids off to a person that feels like an absolute stranger and his gf - a literal absolute stranger. Then it’s all a mystery from there! A double life my girls live that I’m absolutely clueless about. I feel like my resent for him just continues to grow seeing the dysfunctional way my daughters have now internalized what being a "family" looks like. Dad just leaves us and you stay with him and his newest girlfriend every other weekend ~ yippee! They’re view of what is considered "normal". I’m still traumatized by everything that has occurred and how the rug was just pulled out from under me. I feel like an absolute fool of a wife and the laughing stock at his job since he was able to bag both women on his team. Can you imagine the level of embarrassment I feel that that’s what my husband is capable of? No shame in the least. He always expected for me to remain his "friend", small talk, laugh here and there at something he thought was funny after everything he’s done because you know, that’s what’s "best for the girls". I’m just a stone wall when I open my door to release my children to him and any verbal communication (which is ALWAYS through text message) is very robotic, matter of fact and to the point. I have no respect for him AT ALL. He will never be my friend and I will never pretend to do so.

I guess I’m writing on here because my almost 11 year old is very secretive about her weekends. Especially since she’s now staying in this new women’s house (they were introduced to her mid-November). This will be their second time there and when I ask her how her weekend went, she just becomes very avoidant. She’ll say good and then just dodge me and leave the room. I leave it alone from there, but I will say it makes me feel bad and also uneasy that there’s this entire separate life that my kids also have that’s "none of my business". I don’t know why but it feels like sort of triple a betrayal, from him and kind of from my kids that are so hush hush when they get home. I feel like I no longer matter in so many ways. Like who am I..my 5 year old doesn’t talk about anything either when she comes home. All I know is she has a house and they have their own room there now. And what makes me feel bad is after he left, I had to move from our home and downsize to a one bedroom apartment in a depressed area with them because that’s all I was able to afford. And yes, that’s with me receiving child and spousal support and in addition, cashed out my pension to survive on that. I finally went back to work now so my plan is to save for the actual divorce portion at this point since he does absolutely nothing about it on his end.

There’s not a day that goes by, where I don’t wake up wondering if this is all just a nightmare that feels so real 🥺

3 comments posted: Monday, February 3rd, 2025

Why can’t I just cut my losses and move on after 2.5 years?

I don’t know why I can’t just cut my losses. We’re two years in since the day I discovered my husbands affair and we’re no longer together. I’ve been in therapy heavily for this. Here’s the short of it—

My husband of 9 years cheated on me with his coworker. Devastated seems like an understatement. I’ll never be able to put into words how hurt, disgusted and betrayed I felt and CONTINUE to feel, even though I feel at this point I shouldn’t since life has gone on. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around how a person could do this to their wife and two young daughters - now ages 5 & 10.

When I initially discovered the affair, my husband told me he was "done with me" and wanted a divorce. That’s all I got. He then packed a bag and left. There was no discussion around anything. No empathy. He refused to answer any questions or talk to me. I begged and pleaded for answers and over the course of the next 8 months, he would just breadcrumb me with reasons he was so unhappy in the marriage. One of the main reasons he said is I never bettered myself and that turned him off about me and stressed him out. This really hit me to the core. I always worked full time jobs throughout having our two children. I have a Bachelor’s degree and dabbled in a few different areas of social work over the last decade, but no, they weren’t my "forever" or "dream" jobs. I was still trying to find my path and what was fulfilling to me, but life gets in the way and I just didn’t have any vision or clarity for where I wanted to go in my career. He on the other hand, has been at the same job since high school, no degree and wound up working his way up the ranks. So in hindsight, I can see how to him my path of "finding myself" in a career was unattractive in his eyes.

He wound up saying for a year after leaving that he was confused about if he wanted to go through with the divorce and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He asked if I could ever get passed their affair and I told him I really didn’t know because he didn’t even show remorse, I caught it and there was no work that he was putting in to show that he wanted to fight for us. I told him working with her still wasn’t going to work either. It was absolute hell seeing him head to work every single morning where my mind would just spiral wondering what they were doing every waking minute of the work day. He told me that they’re just friends now and that felt like such a slap in the face. He told me he had no plans on leaving his job and I would have to just come to terms with it if we were going to stay together. We were both already in therapy for years prior to this (what prompted that was his weight loss surgery and therapy was a requirement, but he remained seeing the therapist for years as did I). I felt so disconnected from him throughout our marriage, that I wanted to speak with a therapist too, so I went to the same one in hopes of doing marriage counseling, but he always refused to go together with me. So separate is what remained for years.

4 years prior to him cheating on me with his coworker, I discovered him sexting back and forth with his ex girlfriend and I forgave that like an idiot. But I never felt the same about him and didn’t trusted him anymore. His reason for doing that he said was purely due to "boredom" and being "selfish". He said he was very sorry and that was the end of that. I had a hard time grappling with his actions vs the fantasy of who I always thought he was. I never in a million years thought my husband was capable of being so disloyal to me. Although in hindsight I never really felt he was loyal to me to the extent I longed for. What I mean by that is there always seemed to be boundary issues between him and other women and so I never truly felt safe in a relationship with him, ever. At the very start of my relationship, it was brought to my attention that he was "best friends" with a former lover of his. It made me very uncomfortable that they’d hang out and talk on the phone even though he was in a relationship with me. She’d even call him while he was in my presence and he’d become upset by me not feeling comfortable with it. He wanted me to hang out with her too. He would tell me they’re always going to be in each others lives and I needed to learn to accept her if our relationship was ever going to work. He even went as far as to have her message me to relay the same memo. It made me feel very underminded and small. Then there was a "special relationship" between him and his brothers wife. Throughout the years I’ve dealt with odd situations where they would drift off together if they were around one another, she would apparently make plans with him to come to my house when I wasn’t there and I only knew when I called my husband and then he mentioned that she was over the house..they would do errands for one another, sometimes when she was around he’d pass by her while grazing her lower back. It all made me uncomfortable and he would become annoyed if I ever mentioned these things from over the years and just walk away from me like I was an annoyance. There were several other things that went on between them that I just felt was very strange, but this post is already long enough. I would just tell myself, I was overreacting. She clearly didn’t see anything wrong with it either that there were boundaries being crossed so I felt like it was a me problem and I was just in the way.

So here we are today. I just learned a few weeks ago from my daughters that are ordered to go with him every other weekend, that they’ve met his girlfriend from work and it’s not the one he cheated with. They told me her name and it’s now the other woman on his team. I remember all the coworkers that he works with because he used to talk about his job to me all the time when he came home from work. After a few weeks of them being introduced to her, he told our daughters the other day that he’s moving into her house so that is where they will be staying going forward when it’s his weekend with them. Again, I just feel like the rug keeps being pulled out from under me and I feel devastated. I can’t believe he’s now with someone else from his job, has clearly moved on and is now residing with them. I feel like such a fool for a wife. These women always knew about me and now they’ve each had a relationship with him over these past 2 years and he’s moving in with the latest one now? I found out she’s 10 years younger than him too. No children, lives on her own. I feel like life is just working out for him lovely while I still go to therapy and am trying to process this all. I just continue to receive new information that feels like it furthur opens the wound. I had to up route myself and my children, move into a one bedroom apartment so I can afford rent and get back on my feet. These past 2 years he refused to get a place of his own despite his salary that’s 100K and lived in a family members guest room where him and my daughters all slept on a full size bed together. And yes, the judge approved of this a while back because he told the court that he would sleep on the floor while giving them the bed, which was an absolute lie and that he had an apartment lined up already, was waiting for it to be renovated — which was another lie. The girls would tell me. They had no space of their own and this went on for 2 years until just last weekend when he told me he will be moving into his girlfriend’s home.

I can’t even bring myself to look at him. When he comes to get our children I start to get panic attacks from everything I’ve endured. I don’t know why after all this time I still feel this strongly.

How do I cut my losses and let this all go? How do I no longer care and become indifferent? Why do I feel so deeply hurt and furthur betrayed?

7 comments posted: Wednesday, January 29th, 2025