AIBU to think that just leaving is no better than cheating?

This!!

Exactly this

Touche. Not sure how you came to the conclusion that I contradicted myself but you carry on in your own little world

I thought from your OP that he ended up with her! Well, he's now reaping what he has sown isn't he?

I hate to say it but nobody can ever fully know another person. A person can tell you anything they want at all and not mean a word. Chances are, he was struggling with the relationship for some time but hiding it well. Or he did give some signs he was unhappy but wasn’t explicit enough.

It doesn’t matter, he met someone else and felt like that was his way out. I think people are mostly peeved here (including OP perhaps) because he met someone in a bar and decided to leave. Would it be better if he’d met someone at work, fallen for them over a matter of months, perhaps even had an EA and then left?

I actually think the way he did it would make it easier for most people to handle because he wasn’t deceptive for months or years.

I think everyone's interpretation of his behaviour is based on their own relationships. For me a lot depends on whether he had 'fallen out of love' BEFORE seeing the other woman or whether meeting someone new caused him to decide that he had fallen out of love.

My XH was happily (as far as we were both concerned, and yes, we talked about it) married to me until he met a woman he decided was more to his tastes and left me. Unfortunately for him, she didn't feel the same way and he ended our marriage not even to move on to a woman he felt he would be happier with, but to live alone.

So my view of OPs post is that it's unlikely her DH met, fell for and decided to be with the OW in the space of a week, but if he did then he has been extremely, almost supernaturally, lucky that she felt the same way...

It doesn't matter what you or I mean, does it?

What matters is what the OP said.

"He said he still loved me but wasn't in love with me."

Having to go through a long marriage with someone you're no longer in love with, rarely ends well (as I said in my previous post).

'Staying together for the sake of the children', isn't always the right thing to do.

What matters is the co-parenting relationship from the time of the split.

How have you managed to contradict yourself within the same shitty post? Jesus Christ. Very definition of delusional there. Seek help.

As you admit - he can decide the relationship isn’t right for him and leave…which he did.

I think his tattoo must be ironic. How the fuck did he show any loyalty to his family? Loyalty means sticking together not running off with a random woman at the bar.

There’s a nuance here though. It depends why someone is giving you the ick - are they thoroughly selfish? Abusive? Not willing to work on the marriage? Then yes, I cannot see any road forward. However, what the op describes is a basically normal, albeit flat, marriage which probably needed some life breathing into it. I don’t mean extremes of 1940s staying together no matter what, but I also don’t believe in todays societal message of “if it ain’t doing it for you anymore, scrap it and move on” otherwise why bother getting married?

My exh maintained it was a total surprise when I finally left after some years of us both being unhappy. Anyone else could see it coming a mile off.
Sometimes you can't see what's right in front of your face.

Hope you're in a better place now.

He didn’t cheat if he didn’t have a relationship with her. Yes he might have realised he’d be happier with someone else and then left his spouse and then told the other person. Thats not cheating. Sometimes people fall in love with someone when they are in a relationship - it happens and it can wake people up to how unhappy they are. If they end their current relationship before starting the new one that isn’t cheating and is surely better than going behind the existing partner’s back.

I do think sometimes you meet someone and things just change

you might have been checked out but willing to stay for the kids and keep your head in the sand. Or be ok with not being madly in love or mildly unhappy.

it may even feel noble to sacrifice personal happiness for your family set up. Until you meet someone that actively makes it feel like you are missing out.

better to be without someone who resents being there. It’s no way to live

YABU
Leaving is always better than cheating.

If you ever had any respect for your partner, you would leave if you’re unhappy and not lie and cheat behind their back.

But he did cheat.

Even if there is the smallest possibility that he didn’t have physical sex with her - he still had her lined up and left you for her - I’d definitely say that’s still cheating.

The physical act isn’t the worst part about cheating, it’s the lies and deception that go along with it - all of which he did and so him ‘not having sex’ is irrelevant when he’s still a lying twat.

I've said this on here before but my Grandparents got together when they were dating other people (way back in the 1940s!). They went on to have 6 children and were married until my Grandad died 15 years ago and were truly happy. But my Gran once said to me "you'd be naïve to think that every couple in the world were single when they got together. That would be a perfect world and we're far from that."

My grandparents went one step further than this by actually meeting at my nan's engagement party! That was in 1934 and they were very happily married for well over 60 years until my nan died.

I don't know what happened to the man she was engaged to, but my grandad had brooding good looks and a motorbike so clearly Fiance No.1 didn't stand a chance.

This.

Wanker.

No of course you shouldn’t. It’s not 1950. In those days women stayed because they had no other option. My grandma loathed my grandad and they shouldn’t have been together but stayed because it was the done thing. They bickered non stop, no love between them whatsoever. Good for absolutely nobody least of all their children who all turned out pretty dysfunctional. Happily we live in a time when we don’t have to stay with someone who we don’t love.

My family wasn’t broken when I left my ex-husband. Please don’t categorise divorce like that.

as to the ex who I was talking about - I fell out of love. All the small things he did that annoyed me gave me the ick and made me feel rage. I couldn’t bear to have him touch me. Should I really have stayed?

I think it's far better than cheating:

1. He didn't lie
2. He didn't potentially expose you to stds etc.
3. He didn't sneak around behind you back
4. He didn't have other people know the state of your relationship before you did
5. He didn't expose you to gossip behind your back

None of that makes him a great guy but I'd always prefer someone to be upfront, honest and leave rather than stay, lie and cheat.

You’re saying “loveless” but it depends what you mean by loveless? If you mean loveless as in “i don’t really fancy him/her anymore; I don’t get excited to see them or feel that romantic feeling. However, I still really care about them, they feel like a family member to me” then yes, it’s a teenaged view. That’s not “loveless” - that’s “my brain chemicals have settled down. I don’t feel high anymore. I need someone to make me feel again. I don’t want to have to put in the effort required in long-term relationships to keep the emotional intimacy and spark alive, when I can just meet a newbie and spark the excitement without any effort whatsoever. Who cares if my kids are in a broken family now??”

But people usually say to cheaters “you could have just left the marriage/relationship, you didn’t have to cheat”. What do you do when you meet someone else and realise you’d be much happier with them? Either cheat or leave your current partner and we’re told leaving is superior to cheating. Or is the answer that we stay unhappy and stay in the relationship at every cost?

The wolf tattoo with Loyalty 😂😂😂😂😂😂

What a dickhead.

I think people really can’t win if they decide they don’t want to be in a relationship with someone. The other person will usually take it badly and react with anger. I actually think sometimes cheating can feel easier because you can label the person a cheating scumbag and they become the villain whereas you are the victim. Where someone says they’re not happy and leaves, it’s much less clear-cut.

At the end of the day though, we have free will as humans and we don’t have to stay in relationships we are not happy in. Chances are he’s been unhappy for a long time. It hurts but he’s allowed to end it, even if you objectively have not done anything wrong.

What do you mean?

Are you advocating people stay in loveless marriages for the sake of the children?

It's not really clear from your post but if you are, it rarely works out well.