rebuilding marriage after affair & move abroad?!

[sonnig]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, just found the group by chance while looking for help. I'll jump straight in, shall I?

My husband and I have been married for 9 years and have 3 children, aged 3 - 7. We moved abroad when I was pregnant with 2nd child, both equally keen too, with husband's job.

Found out a few months ago husband having affair with colleague. It'd been easy for him,as business travel part and parcel of his job, has business phone, so there we no clues lying around. Andway, I did find out, he initially wanted to keep contact with ow, I said if we were to make it work he must not have any more contact with the (she's also married with 2 children, and has left the company before the affair ended).

We agreed to try to fix our marriage, but
- I can't sem to get over the affair, am filled with doubts and suspicions, eg when he's late home, has he been with her, has he really stopped contact etc. And I oly have his word for it and he's shown me how shockingly a good liar he is.
- Everything reminds me, i go into a sports shop & see skis & imediatels am reminded one of their secret love weekend was a skiing trip.

- I am shocked to find they were both prepared to dump their children without a backwards glance. To feel that we 4 are dispensible is a bad, sad feeling.

And now, he has got a new job, in another foreign country. I don't want to leave my home where I have only just got a job after being at home for so many years bringing up our children, the eldest 2 are happy ina lovely school.

We said at first we'd try teh comute, with him working their and coming home at weekends, but with this affair, I am still not coping well and am now very scared our marriage won't survive.

Unfortunately, at this time, for the last 10 weeks, his mother has been & still is critically ill in hospital, so he's often returning to UK to visit and we're already under tremendous strain.

Any thoughts? Many thanks for listening.

[callow]

Hi Sonnig

I am really sorry that you have found yourself in this situation.

I think that to rebuild your relationship you need to be together. However, I can really understand your reluctance to make the move and then find that he has been unfaithful again.

I was in a similar situation. I moved several time for my husband's job and I felt I could really never settle down as I never knew when he would change jobs. I was happy to do this when we had no children.

A few years back my husband's company were making lots of redundancies (telecoms) and so he left and found a job in London. As he was commuting for the week he got into a crowd of single and divorced men. I was really happy for him as he didn't have many friends in Devon. However in the end we drifted more apart and I think the single lifestyle gave him the courage to start an affair.

My husband had no understanding of the effects on me of these moves. They get involved in work and then the wife has to set up a whole new friendship circle. I know this is not too bad if you are an expat in a foreign country, as I found it easy to make friends. I found it very difficult when I moved to Devon as most people have a circle of friends already and it is hard to break in.

He wanted me to move to London but I just found it didn't want to move. I had good friends, the children liked school in Devon. I am glad I didn't move because I would have been stuck as a single mother with no friends or family around me.

I also found it a relief that if I wanted I could have job and not have to leave because of his job. I felt I had control over my life again.

You are in a difficult situation and I don't envy your situation. I think I would stay were I was. I would be too frightened to move and then find out he was having another affair. The trust would have disappeared. However, the down side would be that the marriage would probably end.

All the best

Sally