Hubby’s cheating drove me to affair with his pal

He treated me appallingly and it broke me

Dear Coleen

I have been married for 15 years and my husband cheated on me five years ago. I was never allowed to talk about it and just had to continue with the marriage. He has never shown remorse and I wasn’t happy, but was scared of being alone so that’s why I stayed.

He really treated me appallingly during that time and it broke me.

Due to his constant lying I ended up having to communicate with a friend of his over a property we bought from him. This led to us speaking a lot and, eventually, we confessed we had feelings for each other.

We started having an affair and he really wants us to be together. He’s also experienced infidelity, although he wasn’t married.

He makes me feel so good about myself and helps me forget about all the day-to-day stress. He is in a position to offer me a nice life compared to what I’ve had to put up with from my husband. I asked my husband for a divorce recently, the night before our 15th anniversary, and he was angry and sad, but the next morning he acted like nothing had happened.

Maybe I won’t end up with this friend as we’re still getting to know each other, but I know I want to get out of this marriage. My children are 15 and 13 now and I supposed I stayed with my husband partly because they were young. I know I am wrong for cheating, but what do I do now?

Coleen says

I think it’s almost impossible to move on from an affair and have a good relationship if those reasons for the affair haven’t been confronted and worked through. For you, resentment has built up as a result and you can’t think of the marriage in the same way again.

As a last resort you could seek relationship counselling to discuss those issues that haven’t been addressed (visit relate.org.uk). But if you want to end it, you have to take the next step and seek some professional advice.

You deserve to be happy, but having a revenge affair is never the answer – it’s a toxic cycle and it doesn’t actually solve the real problem, which is your marriage. So I’d cool things with this friend for the time being to focus on finding a way out of your marriage. Ultimately, you can’t just stay with someone for the kids, because they grow up and leave – and then what are you left with? They also deserve to be in a happy home. If either of your children were in an unhappy marriage, I’m sure you’d be advising them to leave.