"My (40f) husband (39m) admitted to me that he has been cheating on me with his cousin for a majority of our marriage."

My husband’s cousin recently was killed in a car accident three weeks ago. This has made my husband visibly depressed and a lot less like himself lately. Tonight when I got home from work he had our two kids go spend the night at his mother’s place and had made us dinner. After dinner he sat me down and told me that I needed to prepare myself for what he was going to say.

He then proceeded to tell me about his affair. To sum some things up he essentially had been doing things with his cousin since she “seduced” him when they were teenagers. This affair went on through their adulthood up until he started to date me.

After we got married things didn’t happen between them until around 4 years into our marriage when she supposedly convinced him to engage in an affair. We’ve been married for a little over 15 years for context. This has continued up until 3 weeks ago as you can imagine.

He told me to take it as I will and he’ll accept anything I choose to do considering our marriage. His cousin apparently was a lot more than just some fling. I never would have expected my husband to be cheating. He never did anything that would give it red flags like coming in late or leaving hair of another woman around. I’m at a standstill and not sure where to go from here.

I haven’t been able to say anything to him after he was so blunt about it. I’m still crying some now, I don’t know where to go from where. Any suggestions are welcome.

Commenters weighed in and they did not hold back:

DocSternau said:

Your husband is a major a$$hole. Not only for cheating but also for not keeping his mouth shut after the affair would never have been found out. His 'coming clean' is not about you but about him. It's not about saving or repairing your marriage because your marriage would never have been in trouble without his 'confession'.

This is your selfish husband wanting to get consolation for losing his 'second wife'.

In all honesty: Get a divorce from that a$$hole.

dude-of-earth said:

He married you because he couldn’t have her. He’s not the guy you married. You need to respect yourself enough to kick him out of your life.

[deleted] said:

I don't think this marriage can saved. Those are a lot of years of deception and with a family member. My advice: Tell him to leave immediately. Plan a co-parenting schedule. Divorce, get the house for you and your children. Don't let him take anymore than he has already took from you, years of your life.

Don't let him play the victim card. Let him wallow in his shame. He has been struct with the biggest lesson of life, Karma. He dug his grave, let him dig his way out. With time and being away from him, you'll heal and move on. Don't let him slither his way back in, remember this isn't a small indiscretion it's a decade of deception.

OP responded:

I think this might be the best piece of advice I’ve seen. I don’t really know how he’ll deal with divorce though.

A few days later, she shared this update:

I want to first say that I appear all of the support I’ve received after posting my first post. I have thought a lot on the suggestions that I’ve been given and decided to go forward on some.

I’ve talked with my mother about the situation and she’s agreed to take in my children until this situation is dealt with. I’ve also approached my husband about divorced and put my demands about wanting full custody of our children as well as the house and other things. He hasn’t put up a fight regarding any of those and has agreed to it.

It’s been really hard into swallow all of this and I’m looking for a lawyer now to help with the divorce. My mother has also suggested to keep the real reasoning of our divorce away from our children as long as possible, especially my eldest daughter (14).

This’ll be my second and last post of this matter. I again want to express that I really appreciate all of the helpful comments and suggestions. Thank you all for the support.