We've got two young children together and I thought we were happy but his cheating has torn our lives apart
Dear Coleen
I’ve been married for seven years and we have two young sons. The other night my husband came home, sat me down and told me that he’s got a 19-year-old girl pregnant. I can’t believe I’m even writing these words.
My husband works and I’m a stay-at-home mum. I thought we were happy.
We hardly ever rowed and I just always felt so secure and now he’s torn that apart. He told me that she’s the younger sister of a bloke on his football team.
Apparently she’s been going to a few of the football nights out and several months ago they ended up in bed together. They slept together five times in total and never used any protection and now she’s pregnant .
My husband is absolutely distraught and says he’ll do anything to keep our family together but I just don’t know how that’s going to be possible.
We’ve been together since we were 16 and I just can’t imagine not having him there in my life. But I can’t imagine being able to forgive him and putting this behind us either.
She wants to keep the baby so there’s going to be a constant reminder about what he’s done. What should I do?
Coleen says
What a mess. I’m going to be really honest with you here – he told you because he had to.
She became pregnant which forced his hand. Ask yourself this – why didn’t he tell you after the first time they had sex? Would he have continued to sleep with her if she hadn’t got pregnant?
Secondly, he also put your health at risk by having unprotected sex with this woman. He didn’t even have the grace to use a condom. And he didn’t do it just once – he did it five times. It wasn’t a one-off drunken mistake.
It happened again and again. And it’s this that would cause me the most pain.
It’s all very recent and raw right now and you can make rash decisions based on anger, pride and hurt. Sometimes that’s OK – anger fires us up and helps us make strong decisions.
But then we calm down and the sadness hits. So wait for that calm until you make a decision.
I think to begin with you should have counselling to help you work through what’s happening. Ultimately only you can decide what to do.
One major factor to consider in all of this is that from now on, your husband and this woman will be in regular contact, both through the pregnancy and afterwards.
She’ll be calling him for support and at the very least he’ll have to make regular payments to her. After all, having got this woman pregnant the least he can do is support the child who isn’t to blame for any of this.
Then there will be the question of access during childhood – he may want the child in his life.
If you do decide to stay then you need to ask yourself whether you can you really forgive him when you have this constant reminder of his betrayal. The very foundations of a good relationship – trust and contentment – have gone from your marriage so it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work to get over that.
I’m a bit horrified by what he’s done to be honest but ultimately only you know what to do next.