Woman Urged to Dump Cheat Husband Who Spent 'Tens of Thousands' on Mistress

A married mother-of-two has been told to "take back some control" after discovering her serial cheat husband previously spent "tens of thousands" on a gift for his mistress.

While women are not immune to infidelity, studies do suggest that men are more likely to cheat. One piece of research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 saw 364 adults aged between 18 and 62 quizzed on their experiences of cheating.

According to the results, 39 percent of men polled had cheated on a partner compared to 20 percent of women. More damning still, the study concluded men placed greater importance on physical attractiveness and had higher sex drives than women.

But while some are able to rebuild relationships after infidelity, for others once the trust is broken, it's very difficult to find a way to mend it.

One such example came to the fore on Mumsnet where a heartbroken wife of seven years with two children under 5 took to social media to share details of her own husband's infidelity, which amounted to significantly more than just a one night stand.

According to the post, she found out he had been having an affair "for nearly a year" a few months ago. However, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

She also learned he had cheated on her "with multiple women" both before and during their marriage and was sleeping with other women while she was pregnant. On top of that, he was even "financially supporting" some of these mistresses over that period.

"I was devastated and still in complete shock," she said. She said she discovered his infidelity after growing suspicious at the fact he was "spending less time at home" and, after searching through his things, found proof of multiple affairs.

When confronted, she said he "confessed everything" yet it's the details of one mistress in particular that have proven especially distressing. According to the post, she found that he had been seeing a younger and "extremely attractive" woman and bought her a gift "worth tens of thousands" of dollars.

It's a development that left her wondering if her husband "loved" his mistress and is only staying with her for the sake of his family.

"I think he is only staying with me for the kids," she wrote. "He just seems emotionally shut down, for obvious reasons I don't feel like he's staying out of love for me!"

She added: "Admittedly our marriage hasn't been great, hardly any intimacy for years but I thought generally we were making it work and we have young kids."

Torn over what to do and terrified at the prospect of being a single mom, the woman turned to social media to ask what her best course of action was.

The response was to the point: Leave your husband.

"Surely you deserve better than this," friendlycat said. "Even if you are a single mum for a time, it's got to be better than living this quasi life and you have years ahead of you to form a proper relationship with someone who values you."

Rainbowhit commented: "Take back some control. He's cheated multiple times, why would he stop now?", while Zemw added: " You should have left when you found out he'd been sleeping with multiple women."

Newandnotimproved, meanwhile, warned: "f you choose this toxic sham you'll need monthly STD tests, and some kind of fund for your kids, to ensure he pays for them while he's funding his various lovers."

"He isn't staying with you for you. It's for him," badnomad said. "Maybe because he doesn't want his kids to hate him. Or he doesn't want to get divorced. Or he's just lazy and doesn't want to have to do all his own cooking and cleaning and child-rearing."

Newsweek was not able to verify the details of the case.