A
female
age
51-59,
*tephncarolina
writes:I have been married for 19 years. I just found out that my husband has been cheating with his ex girlfriend. I don't know what to do! When I ask him why he says, "he don't know". He was seeing her for about a month when I found out about it. He says he loves me and wants to work it out with me. But I don't know what to do! If I didn't find out about it would it still be going on? What should I do?
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male
reader, Red Green 0289 +, writes (20 January 2010):
agree with the others.... work it out if that's what you want, leave him if that's what you want. If you don't know, go to therapy and figure it out. I'd recommend that either way actually...
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 January 2010): Give yourself some time to think this over, you don't have to make a decision right away, just because he wants it! This will make him very uncomfortable, but what does he expect? He wants a quick decision to make himself feel better, I think you should let him squirm while you think long and hard about weather or not you wish to move forward with him in this relationship. He has already told you that he wants you, so you needn't worry about that. If you give in too quickly, it will be too easy on him and he might do it again.
I do believe people can recover from infidelity, but it will take a lot of work on his part to regain your trust. You need to set ground rules, when you are ready, to help you with your feelings of insecurity that are natural in this type of situation. You need him to be truthful and honest about how this situation manifested and in the future he will need to be accountable for his time, pretty near to 100%, until you regain trust in him. This could take a couple of years.
Seek the help of a professional counselor...
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A
female
reader, rose the relationship solver  +, writes (20 January 2010):
 if u both want to stay together and work through this then try counceling and open up 2 1 and other. get him to say wats wrong with this relationship , why he cheated on u..there has to be a specific reason...find out good luck
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2010): I found my husband cheated after over 30 years of marriage and up to that point I know it had not become physical from one of her texts.
I would have put my life on the fact he had finished it as he was soooooooooo full of remorse and promises.
8 months later I found that it was still carrying on and caught him out with a secret phone because he'd promised to show me his phone bills to prove he was no longer in contact.
I am as sure as I can be that it's over now especially as I rang her to give her an ultimatum (she's married too and that put the fear of god into her).
Like you I always wondered if it would have still been going on if I hadn't discovered. He swears they were just 'friends' since my first discovery as he was devastated to have hurt me but still 'HAD' to keep in touch over confidential work business (her boss was off with a nervous breakdown and had attempted suicide and my husband was responsible for keeping this other business afloat).
This contact also included forwarding her sexy jokes by text and email and photos of his new car before I saw it myself (nice touch). Again it was all explained away as just sending jokes to a friend and he also forwarded them to his male mates.
It is nearly 2 years since my first discovery and nearly a year since my second. It has ruined my trust and belief and although my husband is full of remorse every day I CANNOT forget what he did to me knowing full well what it would do to me. His answer is it was never meant to hurt me as I was never meant to find out..duh.
I don't know what to advise. It depends if you are like me, a black and white person, our marriage vows have been broken and that's ruined everything or if you are more able to accept and try and forgive.
I will never accept or forgive,I imagine the worst case scenario as I can't trust anything he says. I know they were very emotionally close but can never be sure it didn't go beyond that.
I hate and resent the time and emotion he gave her instead of me, huge amounts of texting, phoning and some meetings he admits to.
We do love each other like mad but this has caused terrible heartache, arguments and damage to my mental health. I am too scared to split up and neither of us wants to.
I don't know how much you love your husband but be prepared for endless wondering and uncertainty and how can he prove he is telling you the truth unless what he's told you is so bad it couldn't be worse?
Maybe you're stronger than me and don't dwell on the past like I do. You need to ask yourself could you accept the worse case scenario of his cheating because you'll never know the truth.
I've tried to accept it was 'only emotional' but will never know and that's bad enough anyway thinking another woman had your husband's heart.
My only lifeline is that he says I showed him no affection at that time and she started off as someone to talk to because they had quite a bit of contact through meetings etc at work. I admit I didn't show him any love or sexual desire (which in retrospect I put down to the menopause) but what devastated me was carrying on after we were back to being blissfully happy again.
Do you know any details of the depth of their relationship and if he loved her or anything? Is she married too and is she youger like my husband's fling? My big regret is not phoning her at the very start. Also, I wanted to phone her husband but mine threatened I might regret it which I now take to mean he didn't want her upset (bless!!!).
I think that phoning her husband would have got some of the resentment out of my system.
I am very sorry you are going through this, it's a hell nothing else compares to because the one person you rely on most has betrayed you x
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A
male
reader, CaringGuy +, writes (19 January 2010):
First of all, you need to think about whether you want to work it out. If yes, then you both need to go to counselling and you both need to tell each other how you feel. The excuse 'I don't know' is a cover. The truth is he probably felt something was wrong with your marriage, and rather than talk about it, he jumped at the first chance to get into bed with an ex. Chances are if you hadn't found out, he would have continued with it. That doesn't mean this can't be worked out. It means he has a lot of explaining to do, and unless he goes to counselling with you and opens up to you, you won#t be able to move forward.
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