Can an affair ever have a happy ending?

euronorris

Pollycat wrote: »

You're beginning to upset me, euronorris - what about chocolate muffins?

I'm so sorry, how forgetful of me. There will of course also be chocolate muffins, and cookies for that matter.

I might put out a bowl of fruit too I guess. Better be healthy and all that. :rotfl:

ETA: And Cheesecake for PoppyOscar. As we're adding cake, and I don't like cheesecake, I'm also offering homemade chocolate cake, with chocolate butter icing in the middle, chocolate icing on top, with smarties too Cos, you know, only Smarties have the answer.

Pollycat

EthelBloggs wrote: »

She needs to know because her whole life is based on a lie. He and you are witholding important life changing information from her.

You can bet your life that he's probably moody and snappy with her, critical of trivial things and she's probably thinking he's stressed at work or something and breaking her neck to try and make things right, not realising that she's wasting her time because nothing she does will be good enough while he is juggling both women. You might think she has no idea that he's having an affair but she knows there's something wrong and she's probably driving herself mad trying to figure out what it is.

Their children will also be being affected by the odd atmosphere at home, the tension. Don't fool yourself that it's having no impact and no one knows anything. Unless he's a robot there's no way he can be completely normal at home with such deceptions whirring through his mind all the time.

That isn't fair and she deserves better than that.

I'm not sure that I agree with your certainty about what is happening in PTN's lover's life with his wife.

Maybe she is fully aware of the situation.
Maybe it suits her for her husband to see somewhere else - maybe she is secure in the knowledge that he won't leave her.
Or maybe she hopes he will leave her.
Who knows whether it's the first time he's done it?

I'm not saying this is the case, but we don't know for sure (and never will) that there is an unhappy atmosphere in PTN's lover's household.

Pollycat

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

She didn't respect our marriage, and I will never forgive her for that. It could have gone either way, and it will be years before I am fully confident again, if ever.

Bogof_Babe

it sounds like you had a truly dreadful experience (and still are to a great extent) but to be fair your husband didn't respect your marriage either - and he had greater reason to do so than the 'other woman'.

POPPYOSCAR

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Mine swore he still loved me, and that he didn't love her, but it was the way he spoke about her and mooned around in a sort of trance that gave the lie to that, along with not-so-subtle clues like writing her long sloppy Christmas cards when everyone else at work just got "Merry Christmas" :mad:. I think he did/does still love me, but "this thing was bigger than both of them" - at least in his eyes. I rather think there was a calculating side to her input, given among other things the 22 year age gap.



I suppose my views on this are that you can't always help your feelings, but you can help what you do about them. If he fell in love, then did the decent thing and told me he had found someone else and wanted a divorce, I could hardly accuse him of adultery in that situation.

The horrid thing is that realisations are still coming back months later. I just woke up today and for some reason remembered that he suggested we cash in our investment portfolios last year, even though the market was doing really well and it would have been a mad time to do it, particularly as we are still in the "charges for cashing in" period. The penny has only just dropped that this would be because half of his investment was put in my name for IHT purposes, so he must have been planning how the finances would be sorted out if/when we did split. Grrrr :mad:. Or maybe he just wanted to bail her out of her debts .

It's horrid watching your partner in the grip of something that you can't do a darned thing about. I asked him what was wrong with me, and he always said "nothing, you're gorgeous", but she had got so far under his skin that he didn't know what he was doing. I do blame her for not respecting that he wasn't available, and playing on the fact that he was obviously going to have his resistance broken down eventually if she kept laying on the pressure. Flattery and neediness are a toxic combination.

She didn't respect our marriage, and I will never forgive her for that. It could have gone either way, and it will be years before I am fully confident again, if ever.

I understand that you blame her for not respecting that he was married but it does sound like you are making excuses for him a bit by saying that he had is resistance broken down by her laying on the pressure.

He chose to stay with you so she could not have had that much hold over him, could she? Would you not be feeling a lot worse now if it had gone the other way?

Bogof_Babe

Pollycat wrote: »

Bogof_Babe

it sounds like you had a truly dreadful experience (and still are to a great extent) but to be fair your husband didn't respect your marriage either - and he had greater reason to do so than the 'other woman'.

You are right of course, but just to add a bit of elaboration... he never got in touch with her, it was always her phoning him. I was there once when she rang, when she thought I was away, and he was positively squirming while all the "yes" "no" "yes" "no" preamble was going on, then after a few minutes she came up with some trumped-up question about work.

When it all came out eventually, I asked him if he wanted her, and he said no. I said did she want him then, and he said he didn't know. I asked if he'd made it clear he wasn't available - he said she knows he's married, and he was "dealing with it in his own way". Obviously not very effectively as she didn't seem to get the message!

I agree he was probably thoroughly enjoying the attention, but I actually think he never intended it to become a threat to our marriage, so more fool him for not realising that it inevitably would. We've been round and round the houses trying to get to the bottom of what he thought would happen eventually, but he doesn't seem to know. He was just being carried along on a wave, and if she had backed off I think he would have been relieved in a way.

For a man of his age he has always been somewhat naive, and doesn't "do" emotional stuff particularly well. He was terrified that I might actually leave him over this. I hope he has now learned an important lesson - you don't mess with what you've got unless you don't mind losing it.

Edited to add that I wrote this before seeing Poppyoscar's further post, which I will now address in a separate post!

euronorris

BB, has you husband explained why he was so taken in by flattery?

Sorry, I know this is probably hard to read, but, we all love being flattered, but we don't all start up relationships with those people.

For me, neediness is a turnoff, but I understand some people love nothing more than to be needed.

Errata

An away match with sex is adultery; without the sex it's faffing around.

Bogof_Babe

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

I understand that you blame her for not respecting that he was married but it does sound like you are making excuses for him a bit by saying that he had is resistance broken down by her laying on the pressure.

He chose to stay with you so she could not have had that much hold over him, could she? Would you not be feeling a lot worse now if it had gone the other way?

I'm not sure what would have happened if I hadn't found out when I did. At that stage it was retrievable, but who knows how much deeper he might have got drawn in.

When we had an accidental confrontation (in a supermarket car park of all places) I found out what sort of person she is. Suffice it to say she shouted and screamed a lot, rather than talking rationally. I was calm throughout, and started by asking her if she thought it was a good idea to keep phoning a married man when she thought his wife was away. If she'd kept cool and said sorry, she hadn't realised it would upset me, it was only about work etc. etc. I would have said I was sorry for being suspicious and walked away, but from her manner it was evident that she thought I was the one in the wrong!

If she was that "aggressive" in her attempts to get what she wanted, I know my OH would have been completely dragged in and felt helpless to take control of the situation. She has a reputation at work for being in the middle of anything that flares up. I was told this by their boss, when push came to shove and I wanted him to leave work but the boss didn't want to lose him.

But no, I mustn't make excuses for him. He let me down hugely and seemed reluctant to accept that his behaviour was unacceptable. He knows now that if I ever get one whiff of anything like this again there will be no third chances.

In one way she did me a favour though - I was taking things for granted and I don't do that now, so thank you OW!

euronorris

It is shocking that she was shouting at you!

I wonder what justification she feels she had for that???!! The mind boggles!

Bogof_Babe

Errata wrote: »

An away match with sex is adultery; without the sex it's faffing around.

I don't think 18 months of emotional turmoil and almost breaking up a long term marriage quite counts as faffing around.