Dear all, Judith had had a strange feeling for some time, but when it turned out that her husband really was having an affair, her world still came crashing down. You can read the whole story here:
Dear Judith, your second child had only just been born when you found out your husband was having an affair. How did you view your relationship up until that point?
Exactly, our second child was nine months old and we were on holiday when I found out my ex was cheating on me. I woke up in the middle of the night whilst on holiday and realised he wasn’t lying next to me. After a while, I got up to check if everything was alright. I went looking for him and found him outside on the phone. He’d been drinking and was speaking quite loudly, so I could hear everything.
In fact, I’d been asking him on and off for a while whether he might be seeing another woman. He was very distant, both physically and emotionally, and had suddenly started paying a lot of attention to his appearance. Whenever I asked him about it, he would just tell me off, saying I shouldn’t be so jealous. But I want to stress that we both really wanted a second child; our eldest was four years old at the time.
But it wasn’t just any other woman…
That’s right. So I caught him on the phone; he only noticed me when I was standing right next to him. He hung up very quickly. When I asked him who he was on the phone with, he said straight away: „Melanie“. Melanie was a good friend of mine. I stared at him and said: „You’re having an affair with Melanie?!“ He didn’t deny it; there was no point, after all, as I’d heard everything. I then went back into the house and was completely stunned.
What happened next?
The next morning, I booked a return flight for the children and myself to come home from our holiday and told him to use the time to think things over. And that he should decide for himself what he wanted. Because for me, there were only two options: either he stays with us and never sees Melanie again, or he leaves us. I just wanted to go home and think things through too… I was deeply hurt, sad, angry, helpless, felt overwhelmed, unloved and alone. It was truly awful.
So he cheated on you with a friend of yours. How did that make you feel, and did you confront her about it?
Naturally, I felt doubly lied to and betrayed . That’s a massive breach of trust. It was immediately clear to me that she didn’t deserve a second chance; I cut off contact and didn’t confront her either.
Did you want to give your husband a second chance?
I thought about it a lot on my own at home, and I also spoke on the phone with Melanie’s husband. The two of them had already been separated for a few months, and he said that the affair had probably been going on for over a year. Another shock, because that meant my husband had also cheated on me during my pregnancy.
What did your husband say about it?
He denied it and kept saying that the whole thing had only been going on for three months. When he came home, I asked him to pack his things and leave – I couldn’t bear having him there. He did move out, but told me he wanted to save the marriage and would never see Melanie again.
We stayed in touch and wanted to see if we still had a chance. But then I found out that he was still seeing Melanie. For a long time, I held out hope that he was just ‘saying goodbye’, but eventually I couldn’t fool myself any longer and knew that things couldn’t go on like this. So I pulled the plug and told him I wanted a separation.
How did the children cope with it?
It was hard for the eldest. She could tell I was feeling down and that I’d been crying. And she missed her dad. It was important to me that he saw the children regularly, but of course it’s different from living together. My ex then officially got together with Melanie. This was followed by our divorce, which was tough and nasty and involved a lot of money. I couldn’t afford the house anymore, so I moved out and my ex moved in with Melanie. The two of them have since got married.
How are you today?
It was hard for me that my ex moved into our former house with his mistress, who is now his wife. He became completely absorbed in his life with her, saw the children less and less, and eventually the children also lost interest in a dad who didn’t stick to agreements.
I’m happy again today – without a man at all. I’ve definitely learnt from the whole experience that you should always listen to your gut feeling. You just know when something’s not right. I’ll never let anyone convince me again that my gut feeling is wrong and that I’m being hysterical.
