Help, My Husband Cheated on Me & Now I’m His Mistress

Dear NWSO,

I’m in a curious situation. I was the stepmother of two beautiful kids, ages 3 and 6, for the past three years. Over the holidays, my husband of seven months left the house and came back three times saying that he had to think about our future because I was not as good a stepmother as he expected me to be. We ended up spending a few days together as a family for Christmas and then he left. I saw a shrink to help me out with the kids during that period and read up on everything I could to get through my issues.

Dec 31st he came back home to "continue our last discussion.” He was really there to end it with me, but somehow he changed his mind. We talked about things that hurt us and he ended up telling me that he had "met someone" about three weeks prior and had sex one afternoon with her. He fully expected me to leave him, because I had told him many time during our three-year relationship that I had no patience for cheaters. Somehow, I decided to take him back. He cried, thanked me for taking him back, made me put his wedding band back on and then proceeded to tell me that he had to go get his stuff over at HER place.

He ended up leaving me officially by email the next day. He couldn’t face the consequences of his cheating. I was (and I still am) destroyed. He moved in with her a couple of days later, because he does not have a place to go, and seems to enjoy her company for the moment. But after two weeks, we secretly went for a coffee and talked like adults for the first time. We ended up going for dinner and he texted his "girl" to let her know he needed to be alone for a little while and we ended up at the hotel, where we cuddled and had sex (we’re good that way). So I’m now my husband's mistress, while he is living with this girl and I’m in our huge empty house with our dogs, hoping for a sign from him.

He is still quite confused, doesn't know what he wants. We still love each other—love was never the issue—he just felt like an inappropriate father because of my "shortcomings" with the kids, started to believe that nothing would change and when this girl showed him empathy, he jumped the fence. We work together, and with this girl, everyone knows that he cheated on me and that he lives with her (not about our "affair"). This girl also has done this to at least four couples in trouble at work, and has never had a relationship longer than eight months with any of them. I’m at home, feeling so horrible because he lives with her, but he thinks of me all the time. We both hope that, with some time, we can forgive the other; believe in the other and that we can mend our relationship. I miss his kids tremendously... Please help.

First of all this is a crazy scenario but here are my thoughts: After three years of dating it's kind of late in the game for him to be saying he has to "think about" your future together and how you're "not as good a step-mother as he expected (you) to be." He had plenty of time to gauge whether or not you were not only good mother material but wife material as well. I'll go out on a ledge and say that no one forced him to marry you, so if at any point during the past three years he didn't see qualities in you that he needed for his family then he shouldn't have asked you to marry him and he definitely shouldn't have gone through with the wedding. Some people make the mistake of thinking that marriage will change people's "flaws" when the fact of the matter is people are who they are. Furthermore, you're supposed to love your spouse for better or for worse. I doubt that after three years the “worse” can come after just seven months of marriage. Honestly, this all sounds like excuses for some bigger issue on his part. What that is I can only guess.

From what it sounds like you're trying to keep the family together. While some may think it's an extreme, but you went so far as to see a shrink so that you could have an outside perspective on the relationship/situation, you read up on it and even reached out to this forum for some advice. For all intents and purposes you're fighting for your marriage. Unfortunately, I've heard no evidence of him doing the same and a marriage, or any relationship—platonic or romantic—can survive with only one person trying.

Not only did your husband leave but he’s already shacking up with the next woman and has his stuff at her crib. Then, to add insult to injury, he breaks up again over email?!?! I read an article recently that said that 10% of relationships end over text but that's some real cowardice for you.

Now this is where your letter really starts to get crazy.

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