I was the OW during an affair. AMA

[PeachesTheFlamingo]

I was single. He was married with two children. We had a sexual relationship for approximately 12 months. Ask me anything...

(Yes, I am aware and understand that this post may attract a lot of flame and "So what?", "Who cares?" comments ......but I've created it for anyone who may want to ask relevant questions.

I think that if you knowingly have an affair with a married man then you are both to blame. Sadly it is the OW that become the focus for all the blame. Women are expected to have decency and behave honourably and not harm families. Men seem to be thought as being too weak to control themselves.

My ex had a vile OW. After I moved out, she was crowing over having won him and was making plans to move into our house. She then send me nasty messages as he'd cheated on her and she thought it had been with me. How dare I go after 'her man'!

One of his OW was devastated to find out about me. She had no idea and thought I was the OW at first and then that she was responsible for splitting up our family. I think she was the one he'd been with when the vile woman thought he was with me.

He's now with a younger version of someone who looks very like me. He got into a bit of trouble for his ways. He now seems calmer and more settled. He blames the women for pursuing him though and doesn't accept any responsibility for his actions. I wasn't fulfilling his needs so he was subject to temptation.

@oiboi

Op - has it changed your view of LT relationships? I think being on either side of an unfaithful relationship would make me very wary of trusting someone again.

Yes. Very much so. I see and hear of so many LT relationships where one or both partners is unhappy or there has been an affair or suspected affair. You only have to read through the relationship thread on MN to get a taste.
That said, I am sure there are also tons of LT relationships where both partners are still happy. I guess we hear about the negative situations more than the positive ones.
I was cheated on by previous partners so had trust issues before the affair, but the affair has probably made my trust issues worse.

Do you believe in Karma? And that you might be in the wifes postition one day?

That’s a good question.

@TheMamaYo

Was this the only time you were the OW?
Yes, this was the only time, and will remain the only time.

How was your parents' relationship with each other?
My parents divorced when I was 7 years old. I don't remember much of what their relationship was like and I've never asked them for details about why they divorced, but occasionally when we've discussed the past, it has been hinted at / suggested that my father was unfaithful.

How do you feel about it all now? Is there shame/guilt, and if so, to what extent?
Now.. I regret it. I am usually a moral person and it was out of character for me. I look back on it now and I am disappointed in myself for what I did because I know it was wrong. I wouldn't like to he on the receiving end of it.

I think, maybe because I had never really been in a happy relationship myself, I didn't understand the value of the family unit/marriage/LT relationship.. I didn't fully appreciate that I could potentially hurt his wife/kids.
Now that I am managing my mental health, have moved on and am in a happy relationship I am able to appreciate what I have and what I would lose if my OH had an affair. It would crush me. I feel awful that I was in a position where I could have potentially been the reason for crushing someone else. Although, I do think that had it not been me, he would have had an affair with someone else.

How did the affair end
I ended it once I realised having sex with him wasn't going to replace the love and intimacy I craved following the breakdown of my 9 year relationship. I thought he was making me feel better, but he ended up making me feel even used.

does the wife know about you?
No. His wife does not know about me.

Why are so many posters completely ignoring that his wife was thought to have had an affair first. So many affairs are retaliatory.

Appreciate your honesty OP. Unfortunately you've set yourself up as a whipping girl for the vengeful.

@Heartbeat3

Is he still with his wife

Yes, he is.

I think, maybe because I had never really been in a happy relationship myself, I didn't understand the value of the family unit,marriage, LT relationship I didn't fully appreciate that I could potentially hurt his wife and kids

This is an interesting point. When I was the OW, I had never had a happy or healthy relationship. I understood what a good relationship was in the abstract, but didn’t have any experience of what it felt like to be in one.

Now, many years later, I have a great marriage and lovely children and I can very easily imagine the hurt and devastation an affair would cause.

In fact, someone in my extended family is having a long term affair and I find it so abhorrent I wish I could go NC. Because I totally get it now.

@KitchenDanceFloor

Do you usually lack empathy with other people?

Actually, no. I'm usually very empathetic.

You only seem to be sorry that your own self esteem got a bashing. You were not a victim in this situation. You were jointly responsible and should own up to it without expecting sympathy

It wasn't the affair that bashed my self-esteem. That was already bashed by my relationship breakdown and unfaithful previous partners.
Ironically, the affair initially made me feel better about myself as I mistakenly believed it was filling the intimacy/love void and made me feel wanted.
I haven't claimed to be a victim and I haven't asked for sympathy and I'm not expecting it. MN is hardly the place the go looking for sympathy following an affair!

I know I am just as responsible and I take ownership of that fact. However, I do still standby the fact that he took an opportunity when I was vulnerable. If I wasn't in that state of deep depression/zero self-esteem, I'm not sure he would have tried to instigate an affair, and I know for sure that if he had - I wouldn't have agreed to it. I'm not trying to make an excuse, I know ultimately at the end of the day I made a decision and now I can fully appreciate that it was the wrong decision.

@leolion1

How long did it take you from realising you were being used to your feelings changing? I'm in this situation now and it's miserable. I don't know how to stop loving him.

You can't do anything, only time will take care of that - and it will, I promise you.

@Leimarel

At least you recognise you have low self-esteem.

I do have low self-esteem. I have done since I was bullied in secondary school. I've had CBT in the past to help try and boost my self-esteem.

He had two children you said. Did you ever think of the effect in their lives if he was found out and the marriage finished ?

[quote PeachesTheFlamingo]@neonjumper

I'm a bit gobsmacked at how tone deaf this post of yours is .
You see this AMA as a bit of personal therapy for you , yet you know there are many people who will read this post and will have been on the receiving end of the devastation of affairs .
Yet you think nothing of the trauma you cause them by posting this self indulgent post .

I'll admit, it has been somewhat therapeutic for me to be able to virtually talk about this. However, that was not my main reason for starting this post. As another poster has pointed out, there have been several posts recently from women who have discovered their husband have been having an affair and they have creating posts directly asking questions of the OW.
I am not forcing anyone to view this post. If it is an uncomfortable subject for someone, they can choose not to read through it.[/quote]
I think it is very good if talking about it all is therapeutic for you. You are a human being who needs to work through this. Plenty of people use mumsnet for this with all sorts of issues. Blimey, somebody else started a thread moaning about the council!

You're right, nobody has to read your thread which I think has been very gentle. You've broken up nobody's marriage and now it is over.

@ivfbeenbusy

1 did you even think of the family you'd be destroying - his wife and his children or did you only think about yourself?
At the time, I didn't think of his wife or children. This was made easier by the fact that I do not know them and I've never met them. I ended the affair because of how it began to make me feel, not because of his family.
It was only after the affair ended when my depression started to get better that I thought about his wife and kids and what my actions could have done to then. I felt awful and I still do. I often think about them still to this day and the affair ended 3 years ago. I don't think of him at all anymore.

2 why are you blaming him? "I was vulnerable" "I was depressed" - what bollocks. You wanted him - he was "the one that got away" - you dropped your pants willingly and knowingly?
I'm not solely blaming him. We were both responsible. I hold my hands up to playing my part.
However, in hindsight, looking back on the situation, I can see now that he did take advantage of an opportunity and I wasn't myself at the time so I was more susceptible to his instigation of an affair. I would have never suggested it myself.
Yes, at the time he was the one that got away and I did want him, but in over a decade I never told him that, I never flirted with him, I never tried to instigate an affair, I left him alone and admired/fantasised from afar. He hadn't pursed me in over a decade but as soon as I became single and fell into deep depression he saw his opportunity to get sex.

3 do you consider yourself of lower moral standards? (like we do?)
When you say "like we do", have you self appointed yourself as THE spokesperson for every other person on MN?
No, I don't consider myself of lower moral standards (like you do). I consider myself a human being who made a mistake. You must be another one of those perfect people who has never made a single mistake in life.

4 would you do it again?
No, I would not.

Why haven’t you blocked him?

Can I ask what your parents relationship was like?

@Gwenhwyfar

ivf - the guy was destroying his own family, if indeed it did destroy his family. If it wasn't OP, it's likely it would have been someone else.

I agree, if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else.
I'd actually forgotten about it until now, but I vaguely remember, after the affair ended, he told me he a brief affair with a work colleague years earlier.

@affor

Months ago I posted on an affair thread about being the OW and got loads of private messages thanking me for being honest, asking questions about it from the other side, wanting to know what had happened. Both from other women in that position and from wives/ex wives who had been the cheated on partner.

This stuff gets silenced too easily and leaves no one better off.

Thanks affor. It's not the nicest subject, but clearly many affairs do happen, which unfortunately makes it a part of life for some of us and therefore we should talk about it, from all sides. I agree, silencing the issue doesn't benefit anyone. It's not going to make affairs go away.

@PeachesTheFlamingo I hope you can put it firmly behind you and move on. I remember the sadness my father's numerous affairs caused in our house, and I honestly hope that you never have to live through that with your own children. To this day I can't really trust as I know I should.

I'm wishing you well, we all learn from our mistakes, of which I have made plenty. Good luck for the future.

@OhCaptain

Why haven’t you blocked him?

Yeah, actually, that’s a really good question.

You stated upthread how horrible you find him now, how he used you etc, and it’s something to ask yourself. Why haven’t you blocked him and removed him from your life, especially as you’re now in a good relationship.

@SoPanny

I find it interesting he said he’d considered leaving his wife for you at one point.
Do you believe him?
During the affair, there was no indication from him that he was considering leaving his wife for me.
At one point when I was particularly low, I was very upset, crying and feeling very sorry for myself. I told telling all men are arseholes and all the good ones are already married/in relationships. I wasn't referring to him, but he must have assumed that I meant him because he said "Sorry". I clarified that I didn't mean him, and was referring to friends/family/colleagues. But the fact that he said "Sorry" gave me the impression that he never had any intention of leaving his wife.
A while after the affair ended, I was having a difficult time with a guy I had started seeing. AP and I were still in semi-regular contact at the time and he told me to ditch the guy I was seeing. He then went on a flatter-bomb telling me I was an amazing person, the new guy didn't deserve me, and this is when he told me that during the affair he had considered leaving his wife for me. It made me cringe when I read that because by the end of the affair, I no longer had those feelings for him and I didn't want him. I'm not sure if I believe him or not. I'm not sure he would have gone through with as I don't think he would have wanted to put his kids through the heartache.

How did you break it off and how did he take it?
As I started to see him in a different light and realised I was just sex to him, I lost interest in seeing him. I stopped being as available to meet up, stopped being as responsive with my texts and answering his calls.. I started to go out more with friends and started to feel better about myself. I was single, so I started online dating. We were still in contact and I was open and honest with him about it. He was disappointed and told me he was jealous.

@jessstan1 thank you for your kindness

@MoveAlongPleasNothingToSeeHere

Well I think this is an interesting thread FWIW. I thought AMA can be about pretty much anything.

Thank you.

Can I ask how did he react when it ended?
He was disappointed. Probably because he no longer had access to regular sex from me. He maintained contact and tested the water but I had made my mind up that it was over. I started online dating and he was very interested in my dates and admitted he was jealous. He would make negative comments about any date/potential new partners but would say it in a joke/banter manner. Maybe I was more to him that he let on.

Do you think he was being truthful about the fact he and his wife weren’t having sex?
Yes, I think this probably was true. I don't think he is very happy in his marriage. He didn't speak much about his wife, but when he did, he was mostly complaining/moaning about her. At one point near the end of the affair when I started to see him for who he really is, he told me he would pretend to go to bed for a nap or pretend to go to the loo and would watch porn and have a wank. He did have a really high sex drive and he said his wife had no sex drive and complained that sex was uncomfortable.

How is your depression now?
I'm in a much better place now, thank you for asking. I am not taking medication at the moment. I also suffer from anxiety which sometimes leads to depression, but I have not had a bout quite as bad as when I was at rock bottom when the affair started. I saw a counsellor after the affair ended, and I am seeing one currently. I've learned
a lot about what is/isn't healthy in a relationship. I've also taken CBT to help boost my self-esteem.

@PuppyMonkey

How often did you meet up?
It varied depending on when he was able to make time. I would say it ranged from once a fortnight to once every 6-8 weeks*

What lies did he tell his family so he could meet you or did you never ask. If not, why?
He would book A/L from work but not tell his wife. He'd get up at his usual time, go through his normal routine of getting ready for work and head off as usual, but he'd come to mine.
He also had a second job which he was a bit sporadic. He would finish his work and come to mine, but would tell his wife he was being kept on for over time. Thinking about it now, if there had been an emergency and his wife was unable to get hold of him on his mobile, she could have called his work to try and get hold of him and they would have likely told her that he was on A/L or had left hours earlier.

He would also use other people's social events as an excuse to get out of the house and come to mine. For example, on old colleague of his had a retirement party. He went along briefly but then left and came to mine for a bit.

He would find a reason to go for a drive so he could call me "We're running low on milk, I'm popping out to the shops".

@sophs29

Do you think this will make you more paranoid in future relationships?
Knowing how easily he could lie and hide it from his wife/family?

Yes, definitely. Although I already had trust issues before the affair due to previously being cheated on by past partners.

I suppose I am now more aware of the give-away behaviours to look out for.