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Can an affair ever have a happy ending?

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  • But you stayed with him, you put up with it!! You could have walked away and had the moral highground, kept your dignity intact and said no, I'm worth more than this, but you didnt. For whatever reason you stayed with your husband. That doesnt give you a green light to go and cheat on him now! You either forgive the past and move on - and not throw it in his face every time things get tough, or you walk away from your husband and into the sunset and into the arms of your lover. You can't have it both ways.

    I say it again, there is NEVER an excuse for adultery. Ever. Do people not mean their marriage vows anymore?

    Just to let you know I have never ever thrown anything in his face for a start he denied the first for 11 years and the second for 2 years and when I mean denies I mean you do not ever ever ever meantion it !
  • kazmc
    kazmc Posts: 428 Forumite
    edited 14 July 2011 at 12:57PM
    i have been following this post due to the situation i found myself in.

    Bit of background

    Going through a divorce
    3 children

    I had been with my husband for over 20+ years when end of last year, he announced he dont love me know more and was leaving. he didnt leave that night as he didnt know how to tell the children. about a week later the phone bill arrived and there was a number i didnt recognised that he had been contacting from the time he got up till the time WE went to bed, for months. When i confronted him he told me it was a woman from work who was a close friend. he told the children and left that night.

    He moved into his parents and within a few weeks he was sleeping with her. At first i had the support of his parents but that soon diminished. As obv they stood by their son.

    Roll on too now. i cant describe to you the hurt and humiliation that you feel. that everyone knew and was laughing at you, to watch my children crumble before your very eyes, the man they used to look at with such admiration they look at with contempt. i dont slag him off in front of the children or refuse to allow him contact. he chooses not to see them unless he can be bothered. to listen to your kids crying at night as they have been replaced by her children. Yes he is still with her. Are they happy i have no clue.

    He tells the children he lives with his parents and his parent keep this up he infact stays over every night at her house. The children do not want to meet her under any circumstances. so he has to live a lie im not sure if the kids will ever meet her or be told the truth as to where he his living.

    We have lost family members that we were very close to how can those trelationships ever be put right. I try my best to keep going and hold my head up high and keep letting the kids know that they are loved. but you end up living on your nerves as you are never quite sure whats going to be thrown at you next.

    My husband had never been unfaithful before she knew he was married with children as she had met us. I suspect he has told her he was unhappy etc. Maybe he was BUT we were still intimate right up until he left (do you think he told her that). We had plans for the future and were discussing how to make those plans a reality. So for all you know he could be doing the same to his wife. I was totally devasted and to some extent still am. Would i have believed that he was capable of causing so much hurt and devastation. Never. He is now not the man i was with for all of those years i dont even recognise him or his actions. It makes you wonder if the whole of your life has been 1 big lie.

    So yes his wife has the right to know i wish someone had told me that he was flirting with someone else whilst making promises to me. then i wouldnt have felt that he had ripped my heart out of my chest and stamped on it. I would have been prepared for the whole of my life and my kids lives to be turned upside down but most of all i would have had a choice in the outcome.


    Purpletoenails - read that post above and really take in the pain this ALWAYS causes and be ashamed of yourself.
    A married man is out of bounds and YOU should have walked away double quick, NO excuses.
    Women like you disgust me.

    and I know this because my ex ripped my heart out the day I gave birth to our beautiful little girl. He moved out and in with her whilst I was in hospital. Roll on nearly 10 years and they got married, had a baby and now he has done exactly the same to her and is living with the next victim.
    Be warned...

    (and I think I'll duck now before I get shot down in flames!!)
  • Scoflo
    Scoflo Posts: 329 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Person_one wrote: »
    If he didn't leave pretty much immediately, he probably won't at all.

    I agree with this. It also has to be his choice to leave.

    The relationship can work out and often does. Its the reason the marriage is unhappy that needs to be addressed or there is a good chance of repeating the same problems and being unhappy all over again.
    :hello: Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want:hello:

  • Scoflo
    Scoflo Posts: 329 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    GlynD wrote: »
    Yes it can, no denying that, but people get hurt as a result of affairs.

    people get hurt for all sorts of reasons and my experience is genuine people dont embark on an affair in a foolhardy fashion it is done with care and consideration of everyone involved. They slip into it and dont run into it and it happens because they are not happy in their marriage. Some people look to repairing the marriage and some people cant. Blame doesnt help.
    :hello: Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want:hello:

  • SaLoGo
    SaLoGo Posts: 1,025 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    kazmc wrote: »
    Purpletoenails - read that post above and really take in the pain this ALWAYS causes and be ashamed of yourself.
    A married man is out of bounds and YOU should have walked away double quick, NO excuses.
    Women like you disgust me.

    and I know this because my ex ripped my heart out the day I gave birth to our beautiful little girl. He moved out and in with her whilst I was in hospital. Roll on nearly 10 years and they got married, had a baby and now he has done exactly the same to her and is living with the next victim.
    Be warned...

    (and I think I'll duck now before I get shot down in flames!!)

    Are you my auntie Shirley by any chance? The exact thing happened to her
    :beer: Been smoke free for 4 years!! :beer:
  • Bold-girl
    Bold-girl Posts: 23 Forumite
    I'm still not sure what good it would do her to know? If, as most people on here assume, he is only using me and will never leave her, then whats the point in her knowing?


    The point of her knowing is that she is part of his marriage (for what it is - poor/unhappy or not - because you only know what you are told), and if the marriage is an unhappy one, then it may be that she knows something is not right and may even suspect an affair but does not want to lose her marriage. She may not be a strong woman in wanting to face up to her cheating husband, for that is exactly what he is.


    When I found out about my OH's affair I decided to fight to keep him. There was obviously something wrong in our marriage otherwise he wouldn't have strayed, and so if your bf has strayed, then he must be unhappy. To say his wife is unhappy is not for you to say, nor her husband simply because he may think she is.

    I wasn't unhappy at all, I thought all was ok in my marriage, but it took the knowledge of the affair to see that for my OH it wasn't. Once I know, then we did our darndest to fix it because we decided that our marriage was strong enough to stand the affair.


    The OW in our case was, and is, a lovely person. I never actually met her and only contacted her by email, so she could have been lying to me about how they felt about each other (didn't really want to go into the nitty gritty of it!), but she did apologise and realised that they were totally wrong to go down the route of cheating on their partners (whether they were happy with them or not.)


    You say you are single, but I assume, seeing as you have 2 children, that you were in a relationship at some point or other. I know it's not our place to know why, but your relationship broke up, whether by mutual consent or through an affair, but perhaps you were upset over this and perhaps your childen were and may even still be, even without your knowledge as they are keeping their thoughts to themselves.


    Neither of our children, nor any other person (as far as we are aware) have any knowledge of my OH's affair. His OW was not local to us and the scenario was similar, albeit shorter in time, than yours. And to all intents and purposes, all assume we have a happy and successful marriage.


    I hope you had a successful day with your bf, and that you have got answers to your questions. The hard part now is to act on them.


    Good luck, and I do wish you happiness for your future.
  • kazmc
    kazmc Posts: 428 Forumite
    SaLoGo wrote: »
    Are you my auntie Shirley by any chance? The exact thing happened to her

    Ha ha, no I dont think I'm your auntie Shirley, how funny :rotfl:
    However, I wish I had known her at the time it happened as I felt like the only person in the world this had happened to and I felt like the lonliest (sp) person on the planet.
    The day I came home from hospital to an empty house with a 2 day old baby was the most heartbreaking, terrifying, overwhelming experience :(
    and that was only the beginning of the hurt and pain they caused me.... I lost my home... everything. And for what?? He has moved on from her as well now.
    I could NEVER trust a man who I had started off by having an affair with.
  • mithuthecat
    mithuthecat Posts: 37 Forumite
    I agree with scottish flower that nobody goes looking for an affair or whatever,we meet people in all walks of life and who is to say that those people having a go at the OP might one day find themselves in the same situation as the OP,life throws up these situations wether we like it or not,if it did not there would be no heartache,no hurt and no divorce courts,yes we can give advice but every body takes advice given in a different way,as I said before a good friend of mine is in the same sort of situation,and he will follow his heart as to the outcome,not advice,but do what he thinks is right for all concerned.Love is a very hard word to describe
  • euronorris
    euronorris Posts: 12,247 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper PPI Party Pooper
    people get hurt for all sorts of reasons and my experience is genuine people dont embark on an affair in a foolhardy fashion it is done with care and consideration of everyone involved. They slip into it and dont run into it and it happens because they are not happy in their marriage. Some people look to repairing the marriage and some people cant. Blame doesnt help.

    Sorry, but anyone entering into an affair is NOT doing it with care and consideration. They may believe they are, but actually entering an affair shows a lack of care and consideration for their partner. What is actually happening is that they have decided that they are doing it, and are then simply trying to minimise the damage they are causing.

    If they were really unhappy in their marriage, the most caring and considerate thing to do is to speak to their partner and try everything they can to resolve the issues. Only after they have tried that, and decided to split (and are therefore single), should they be entering into a new relationship with someone else. Unless, of course, their partner is happy for them to have another romantic/sexual partner.

    To do anything else is completely disrespecting their partner. Whether they deserve it or not is irrelevant. Two wrongs do not make a right. Essentially, entering into an affair is deciding that your wants and needs are more important than your partner's feelings.

    I do not see why people can not look into repairing their marriage. It may not work, but that is no reason not to try. And if it is not salvagable, then it should be ended before any new relationship is started.

    Blame doesn't help anyone, I agree. But people shouldn't be blind to their faults and the mistakes they've made either. If they don't recognise them, and own up to them, how are they ever supposed to learn from them and truly move forward? What's to stop them from repeating the same mistakes again, if THEY are aportioning all of the blame of the breakdown of the marriage and the subsequent affair onto their partner? When they hit a rocky patch in their new relationship, will they simply just stray again?

    I just don't think saying to someone 'oh, there, there, these things happen' is healthy or helpful for them. Because they don't 'just happen'.
    February wins: Theatre tickets
  • justmel
    justmel Posts: 264 Forumite
    I agree with scottish flower that nobody goes looking for an affair or whatever,we meet people in all walks of life and who is to say that those people having a go at the OP might one day find themselves in the same situation as the OP,life throws up these situations wether we like it or not,if it did not there would be no heartache,no hurt and no divorce courts,yes we can give advice but every body takes advice given in a different way,as I said before a good friend of mine is in the same sort of situation,and he will follow his heart as to the outcome,not advice,but do what he thinks is right for all concerned.Love is a very hard word to describe

    No i will never be in the same situation as the OP and that is because i like everyone else can control my actions,i am mid 30's and have never and would never become involved with a married man,nor would i cheat on my husband,i would rather leave him than stoop that low.

    Life is short and like heck would i waste any of it waiting around for someone to love me enough to commit to me either.

    It's not just about the wife (although she is the one currently living a lie when she should have the right to know so that she can choose to walk away) but also about the OP too,this could go on for years and she might be happy to drift along with it now but in a few years when she looks back and nothing has changed that is a huge chunk of her life that she has devoted to this man with very little in return,certainly not what she wants anyway.

    I wonder how he feels about the prospect of her seeing other men? Does he expect her to put her life on hold even if she meets someone who can offer her so much more whilst he continues to live with his wife?

    I just think it is an incredibly sad situation for both women involved and if he really is that unhappy in his marriage he would have left it by now.
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