SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My fiance and I have always had a very trusting relationship. We have each other's email passwords etc. I have never felt the need to check up on him. On Friday I got home early from work. I wanted to use the computer and saw he did not log out of his business email account. There was a open chat with a women - I presumed it was a client. I skimmed the last message out of pure curiosity what I read left me devastated. The messages was very intimate and sexual. He told her he loved her. He also mentioned how she was an anchor to him in a difficult time.

I was completely shocked. My hands went numb I couldn't think straight.

I sent him a text to ask who this woman was and what the hell was going on. His first reaction was to say she was "just a friend" Well I have many friends but we don't send each other those types of messages!! He said they never met in person and that the whole thing was pure fantasy. It meant nothing. So my hart got broken over something that "meant nothing" Just great.

Our relationship has been going through some difficult times lately. We have been struggling financially, because of this we have not set a wedding date. (we have been engaged for a year) At the end of November a childhood friend of his passed away. Het took it very badly. I tried to support him as best as I could. He is not someone who is very open with his emotions or feelings. I offerd to go with him to the funeral but he declined saying it would be more difficult for him if I was there. I gave him lots of space. At this point our relationship was not doing great. We were not really connecting I felt neglected but because of the circumstances I thought we just needed some time and I did not want to pressure him. At one point I did tell him that I was unhappy and I felt we needed to work on our relationship. I didn't really get any reaction from him. Then just before Christmas a dear cousin of mine passed away suddenly. Things have just been crazy and emotional since then. My fiance was a wonderful support for me during the funeral and I felt a deeper emotional connection with him again. After the funeral he became distant again. Considering what he went through with his friend so recently I once again gave him and our relationship space. I am also going through the grieving process so things are not exactly "normal"

It turns out the woman he has been chatting to is an ex girlfriend he saw again at his friend's funeral. He said they started to chat innocently, just reminiscing about their friend and then things got carried away. Besides the day of the funeral he says they have not met in person. He says he won't talk to her again and that it is over. He claims they would have never met up with each other. I don't know what to believe.

I have asked numerous questions and want to ask a million more. He feels he has explained himself and we should not talk about her anymore.

I feel so lonely, I can't talk to anyone about this.

So, he hasn't even made it to the alter yet and he's already cheating... and he feels you shouldn't talk about it anymore. What's in this relationship for YOU???

It took my WH more than 30 years to work up enough angst and resentment to physically cheat on me. And hand to God, if I had known he was capable of it, that there was ANY way he could twist his values and beliefs up enough to stick that dagger in my back, I'd have never married him.

You've been given something most of us didn't get before we were caught up with children and mortgages and decades of sunk costs... insight. This guy handed you a crystal ball, and lucky you, he did it before you chained yourself to a cheater. My advice is be smart and use it.

You 100% SHOULD ask more questions! If you’re feeling this way before you get married, it probably won’t be much better when you do get married. Your fiancé shouldn’t be making you feel lonely or insecure. He’s being very unfair to you. The way he talked to her sounds very inappropriate and the fact that he didn’t want you to go to the funeral makes it sound like he thought they might hook up. This situation just doesn’t sound good to me.

Thank you for replying. I feel so lonely and unsure what to do. We live together so it is not as simple as just leaving.

He says he wants to stay with me but I don't know how to trust him anymore.

You shouldn't. Cheating isn't a relationship problem. It's a character problem. Marriages don't cheat. People do.

I'll be real honest with you even though it's probably hard to hear right now... but most people don't change. I'm not saying that change is impossible, but it is RARE. When there's a gap between a person's stated values and their real actions, that's poor character. It's ground-up work to fix that. The cheater who sets out to do it has to learn honesty, not just with other people but with himself. And the introspection is brutal. It's a complete tear-down of ALL their former programming in order to find the source of the problem and then continuous and sustained attention to adopt new behavior. They've got to want that change more than anything, with you or without you. They have to crave it, long for it. And here you are with your cheater already telling you he's tired of talking about it.

I'm sorry for that. And I do suspect you're on the receiving end of copious crocodile tears and snot-bubbling promises to change. But... he's already telling you he's tired of talking about it so what do you figure the odds are that he'll follow through with anything like what I've described above?

Don't waste your life on a cheater's potential. No matter how difficult the logistics might be for freeing yourself, I promise you, you don't want to be thirty years down the pike wishing you had made a different choice.

((big hugs))

It’s likely that he knew he was going to meet her at the funeral. It is also likely that he was chatting to her before that. Think very carefully before you make a commitment to him because it could be the biggest regret of your life. He doesn’t want to talk about it or provide you with answers and transparency. Funeral + booze + ex = probably sex. He is just lying through his teeth in all likelihood. Seriously, just break up with him.

[This message edited by Smillie at 12:25 AM, January 20th (Monday)]

He is not open with his emotions TO YOU, but he is open TO HER. What is this? Is he in a relationship with her then???

I'm so sorry, OP.

The time when he went distant and your relationship went cold is probably the time he hooked up with her. He was cheating on you way before they met at the funeral, this is why he did not want you there.

Think very clearly if you want to be with someone like him. If he cheats on you before you are married, do you think he will be faithful when children and mortgage problems arise?

Move on.Find your own place to live.Your trust is broken and can't be fixed. It takes years to recover from infidelity. Rather than waste them on him, use the future to find a decent man.

And please do the STD testing. It is unlikely they did not have sex, especially that he is professing his love for her.

My WS’s affair was similar. His AP was going through a rough time and they had a “friendship”. He could talk to her...but not me. Our rough patch when he was disconnected was during his 3 year affair.

If he has already stated he loves her, there is likely much more going on than what he has told you. Cheaters lie. To protect themselves.

Like it was said earlier, you have been given a gift that you found out now and not years down the road.

I am so very sorry this has happened to you...it has been the worst experience of my life. Ask questions until you get answers. You call the shots, not him.

You have already had rough times in your relationship.

He chose to cheat.

He does love this ex-GF and I.believe they would have met up had you not found the email. They can write all they want and try to dismiss it. That just doesn’t work for me. He wrote it and he meant it. There are feelings here. This is not a “sex only” type of situation.

I hate to tell you this but every single one of my friends who were cheated on before the marriage was cheated on after the marriage. I have more than 10 friends this happened to.

You are worth more than this. You deserve better.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 6:11 AM, January 20th (Monday)]

Hi, welcome to SI. Sorry you find yourself here.

I agree with another poster, he probably didn't want you at the funeral bc he had already been having some type of affair with this ex girlfriend.

Cheaters lie and lie and lie.Right now you cannot trust a word coming out of his mouth.

He used his work email to hide the affair from you.

Ask him if he's willing to take a polygraph.

BTW, you ask every question that comes to mind, several times over if you have to.

Please don't sweep this under the rug.

You might have dodged a bullet here. You were lucky enough to find out the truth, what you do with it is up to you, but honestly, if you were my daughter, I'd advise you to move on without him.

Don’t be my neighbor. Her husband of 25 years went to a class reunion. Reunited with his hs girlfriend, came home, shut down his business, packed his bags and left. It took him a week to wreck a family emotionally and financially. For some reason hs romances seem to have a pull on some people.

He was able to connive against you DURING A FUNERAL! There is no way this wasn’t planned out. He was just waiting for an excuse to go see her and some poor soul conveniently died and, bingo, he had his chance. This was long in the making.

Dump him.

Don’t be my neighbor. Her husband of 25 years went to a class reunion. Reunited with his hs girlfriend, came home, shut down his business, packed his bags and left. It took him a week to wreck a family emotionally and financially. For some reason hs romances seem to have a pull on some people.

He was able to connive against you DURING A FUNERAL! There is no way this wasn’t planned out. He was just waiting for an excuse to go see her and some poor soul conveniently died and, bingo, he had his chance. This was long in the making.

Dump him.

Muurblommetjie I’m so sorry you’re now part of this club. However, this is a great place to be honest and you’ll find lots of great advice & support. Keep sharing and updating, you are welcome here!

As soon as you can, please get STD testing. You’re the only one in your relationship you can count on. Your health needs to be your priority, so try to eat/stay hydrated/sleep to keep your body working.

You’re not married yet, count this as a twisted blessing! He is not waiting until after you’re married with babies to reveal his enormous character flaw. Of course he wants to keep you in the relationship, you gave him love & attention and those feel nice. But at the end of the day, he does not respect you. Maybe he’s hoping you don’t respect yourself, either. He is telling another woman he loves her and it’s very likely that he has already had sex with her. I’m sorry you had to read that.

He is not safe for you. He needs therapy and A LOT of work (btw that is his responsibility to figure out, not yours). Because it is so much work, many cheaters don’t do it. It’s too difficult to face, too painful. All that hard work and therapy can take years. And there’s no guarantee because even after all that, whatever is broken inside him that allowed him to cheat in the first place might not ever be healed.

I also lived with my cheater, which made it difficult to leave right away. I didn’t have a plan B, so I had to save money for ~4 months before I could finally leave. I allowed him to believe whatever delusions he wanted as I saved my money. Maybe you won’t have to do that, maybe you have friends or family you can move in with. Or maybe you will need to do what I did and sell some things, work extra hours, quietly stash away every spare dollar all without telling anyone until you’re ready. People on the forum here call it “getting your ducks in a row”.

Muurblommetjie you deserve better!

You know what's a lot less simple? Divorcing with young children because he did it again or left you for an OW.

Murr, life does not get simpler after marriage. You will still have periods of financial stress and people close to you will keep dying. If he can't lean on YOU and only YOU for support now, he will continue seeking it elsewhere after you're married and clearly that support includes cheating. Is it worth staying with him, feeling this pain that will now fester without resolution, only to go through it all again and end the relationship anyways later on? Whatever you have to do now, breaking your lease, finding a new apartment, moving back in with family, changing jobs, is still going to be so much easier than upending your entire family you've built together in the future and spending months/years in and out of court over it.

Thank you all for replying. Yesterday was a really tough day. Trying to keep it together at work, dealing with grieving family etc.

Reading all your messages was hard because I know there is truth to it. I find the thought of breaking up with him so overwhelming with everything else that is going on.

I at least had a good talk with him earlier and he answered some questions. I still don't know what to do though.

We are luckily already in the process of getting out of our lease to move somewhere more affordable.

Some advice please if anyone is still reading here.

When I discovered the messages on the computer I didn't read all of it properly, obviously I was kinda freaking out at the time. When WP got home after I confronted him via text he deleted everything.

There is a possibility that I can retrieve the messages. Do you think I should? Or will I only be picking at the wound upsetting myself more?

You are only picking the wound.

You know what needs to be done.

I pray for you to find the strength to do it.

He deleted everything to hide the truth from you.

I’m sad to tell you this but I think you would rather hear how “experienced” betrayed victims view that move.

I’m the one who posted that every one of my friends who were cheated on before the marriage were cheated on AFTER the wedding day. And they all regret not listening to their inner sirens 🚨 that told them NOT to marry their cheating fiancé/fiancée.

Can he change? Absolutely. If he is committed to making amends and changing he can. Will he? Who knows. Only time will tell. But if times are rough now and he cheats, what will happen later in life if you have a special needs child, he loses his job, you face more deaths in your family, you become seriously ill, your home is destroyer by a hurricane etc.

All of those things happen in real life. Cheating is an escape. And it’s a coward’s excuse as well.

If you have access to his business email, check the deleted mail box. There’s other investigative techniques like putting a VAR in his car for example but you know enough already...

When I read that he didn’t want you at the funeral, that was a red flag to me. I think he planned to meet his XGF, and didn’t want you in the way.

Listen to the1wife story. Cheating before marriage means cheating once married. Marriage is built on trust and there is no trust in your relationship.

He deleted his emails to hide the affair from you. How can you trust him?

The best thing for you is to detach from your fiancé and seek support from friends and family.