AMA My marriage started as an affair.

[LavenderRoseBush]

I’ve been contemplating this post for a while and been hesitant for obvious reasons. But I’ve seen a few posts recently making the assumption that people who have affairs are somehow a breed apart, rather than a significant proportion of the population. So here goes!

To pre-empt the most obvious questions: we were both married, and neither of us had kids.

'Sets your self image on fire' – this reeks of childish justification, and the romanticisation of something deeply unethical and harmful.

As to personal experience – as a teenager in a very abusive relationship with a guy who was several years older and treated me horrendously, I did skirt the line of cheating with another guy, but immediately tried to break up with my abusive boyfriend. At no point did I think it would be acceptable to just carry on with both of them, and if anyone would've deserved disloyalty, it would've been him. But it doesn't matter how someone makes you feel, what matters is keeping your word and behaving with integrity – and at least having the decency to feel remorse if you don't.

You're also portraying your husband as a very pathetic person by saying that he was too spineless to leave his wife, but simultaneously he was willing to have sex with another woman for months, betraying his wife, letting her feel racked with suspicion and worry, and potentially exposing her to STIs via you. He might not have ever broken up with someone before, but that's not an excuse to cheat!

It does sound like a lot of your marriage framework revolves around trying to make sure that you both don't cheat again. Do you think it's normal to have to work so hard, and put so much thought, into actively preventing that?

And I see a post on Mumsnet practically every week where a woman who thought they were both too happy and exhausted by young children to cheat, discovers her happy, tired husband has been somehow finding the time and energy to cheat on her. The statistics aren't great for people who marry affair partners, from what I've read, but maybe you'll be the exception.

You certainly have all the answers - answers which reflect where you are now in your life. I'm guessing though that these were not the same thoughts as you had at the time. People often construct a narrative to justify their decisions especially in these situations and in fact seem to end up believing them. You made a very jokey response to my previous comment which I'm sure touched a nerve. Anyone who is having an affair and leaves their partner then the AP does not reciprocate must think WTF. I'm good enough to have an affair with but not to leave his wife for. The fact that he did do eventually does not take that away. You were considered an option at the time. It has to sting. It's interesting that you have chosen to do this AMA.

Are you happy @LavenderRoseBush?

Are your exes ok?

I agree, but its not something many want to hear.

My own marriage started with an affair. I was single but my dh was in a long-term, cohabiting relationship. It was a messy and horrible situation. That was almost 30 years ago and 3 children later we are happy and still together weathering the ups and downs of life. I have no reason to think he's been unfaithful to me and I've not been unfaithful either (which up until I met him wasn't a given in my relationships).

That said, I do think it puts a different slant on things if children are involved.

You have to put the past behind you @LavenderRoseBush and get on with living your life.

She can't answer for her exes.

Your last sentence made me wonder, just out of curiosity – does OP's husband know she's doing this AMA? Is she sharing the thread with him?

OP says she was prompted to start this thread based on other posts on Mumsnet that made "the assumption that people who have affairs are somehow a breed apart" – to me, that seems like perhaps recent posts have hit a nerve for her, and she's hoping to justify her affair and have people validate her choices. I suppose it does make for an interesting AMA.

Yep this, lots of people dont stay faithful, men and women, Im afraid its human behaviour, all over the world, in every culture, over every single timeline in history. Not nice, its happened to me but its extremely common

So did he eventually leave her or did she throw him out?

True

I think my thought was is she doing this to justify what she did.

It sounds like you were in a bad marriage and the affair was an escape affair. I can understand that. There is a logic to that. Of course you could have ended first etc ... but I understand why it happened like this. I am l less clear on his marriage. Was he unhappy? Sorry if I missed that.

Have you listened to The Affair podcast? Your story reminds me of one of the episodes. You might find the podcast interesting.

I think the same.

I nearly cheated once. Never in a million years thought I’d even contemplate it. It had nothing to do with DH or how I felt about him and everything to do with how I felt about myself at the time (which was not good).

Thankfully I didn’t cheat, but it was an effort not to. I chose to work on myself and do some therapy instead.

But that close call made me much less judgemental about cheating. I can really understand what might make someone vulnerable to it happening. I don’t believe anyone is immune.

Of course you also have your serial shaggers and liars who are opportunists and just can’t keep it in their pants. They’ve probably always been like that and will never change.

Something being easy, or tempting, doesn't mean we shouldn't pass judgement on people who do it, though. Some people find physical violence very easy to reach for, or very tempting to use, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable when they do so, and it doesn't mean their actions don't cause harm.

I never thought of him as pathetic, but I was very angry with him for a long time after the affair ended. Hence it taking 18 months to get back together!

I don’t think it’s normal to put as much effort into making sure a relationship stays happy and faithful, which partly explains why so many marriages end, affair or no affair. I think a lot of people make assumptions about themselves, their partners and their relationships. I try not to. Of course there is a base level of trust that has to exist - if I ask what he thinks about an issue, he has to trust that I’m going to consider his response objectively, and I have to believe he is telling the truth. Many people never even ask the questions.

The vast majority of people never marry their affair partners (as I repeatedly told myself throughout the affair) so we’ve already beaten one set of statistics. Who knows how it will go on? We can only try our best.

I can’t find your previous comment I’m afraid.

I was very angry with him for a long time, and part of why I refused to go out with him sooner after he left his wife was essentially punishment for the reasons you said. We’ve talked about that period a lot though and couldn’t have got back together if we had held onto it. I think I can honestly say that particular aspect is behind us.

I’m very happy.

Obviously don’t know about exes, but his ex-W is remarried with kids and my ex-H is in a long term relationship. My ex stopped drinking and apparently is in a much better both mental and physical health. On a surface level at least, they seem to have moved on with their lives.

He left.

This was me too OP. Had an affair while married with two kids. Been very happily married for 21 years and together for 24. Luckily irl people have nuance unlike on MN. Neither of us has cheated, it hasn’t all been easy of course but it was the right thing to do. I’m always surprised by the total kneejerk responses on here - life is messy and complex. My DH has been brilliant- we share finances and there is none of this separation of paying for children etc. Worth pointing out that the standard MN narrative is not necessarily the truth.

Why were you angry with him?

You may be right about why so many relationships fail, but your framing is telling of how your relationship began. I always see the time and care my DH and I invest into having a loving, respectful relationship as simply being about us both being the happiest we can be together, not as 'affair prevention '.

What questions about which particular issues are you asking each other, where you say you both have to trust in each others' honesty, but which you believe most couples don't even ask?

Funnily enough, I asked him a few weeks in to the affair why he was doing it, and whether he was happy. It didn’t make any sense, they seemed happy, didn’t argue, none of the insanity that was going on in my marriage.

He basically had a nervous breakdown for the next few months as he realised he had been suppressing all the highs and lows he ever felt since a traumatic event in his family in his teenage years (sorry I can’t say more about this as it’s very outing). But he basically shut down emotionally at that point until the affair jolted him out of his complacency. They should have split up many many years before simply for not being right for each other, but because neither ever did anything wrong, it didn’t occur to him that he should end it. I’m certain he would have carried on for decades like that, possibly until a mid-life crisis or another affair had the same effect.

I haven’t heard that podcast, I will look it up. I love the Esther Perel podcast and her two books Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs are brilliant!

The point is you think you know yourself and your morals and values and then something can blindside you and make you really question or lose touch with that. It’s not a nice lesson to have to experience. But it’s a human one. And I don’t think you can equate it with deliberately setting out to do harm. Thats a different animal entirely.

People lie mainly because they hope they can get away with not harming anyone. Of course the lies themselves cause harm if discovered. But I am sure there have been millions of times when lies have protected people from harmful truths successfully and no one is any the wiser.

Did you feel angry/disappointed when you left your husband but it wouldn’t leave his wife?

Of course – but then we generally feel regret or remorse as part of the acknowledgement that we did something wrong, which helps ensure we won't repeat it, and signifies our growth. OP has said she doesn't feel any regret or remorse.

Additionally, in having an affair you are harming someone whether they find out or not – you're taking away their ability to give informed consent during sex with you, and you're potentially exposing them to STIs.
Someone who has an affair is deliberately harming other people, and they know that.

Lies have protected people from harmful truths? Maybe? Quite often people would rather know the truth, no matter how harmful it is, and no one else can decide that for them. You seriously can't argue that, by lying to their significant others, OP and her affair partner were actually 'protecting' them. No, they were trying to have their cake and eat it too, doing something they knew was deeply hurtful, and which took away their significant others' ability to give informed consent to sex, and hiding it because it suited them for it to remain a secret.

Aside from very rare situations (which OP was not in) there's no justification for behaving that way.

Didn’t talk for a week, then a phone call “to clear the air” which instead turned into “of course I love you”.

This is the most crazy part about the entire thing 😂😂

I’m guessing you have some sort of attachment disorder?

Whats the longest you’ve ever been single?

You only left your first marriage to be with your now DH, when he didn’t leave his wife you then got with someone else until you knew for a fact he had fully left her and come be with you.

It sounds as though you can’t be single and I’m wondering if you truly were in love with your new DH or if you wanted to leave your ex but needed a safety net there before you did.

I was angry with him for choosing her, and what I perceived as a terrible marriage, over me, and what we could have. I also thought he was nuts to think his marriage could be improved.

To be clear, I don’t think of the work we do to keep our marriage happy as “affair prevention”. I think of it as preventing our marriage falling into disrepair, one of the symptoms of which could be an affair, but could also just be a bog standard divorce. It was hard enough divorcing the first time with no kids, no mortgage and a lifetime ahead of us. I’m very keen to not go through that again, in far more difficult circumstances!

We have scheduled conversations every three months, usually over a couple of evenings, where we methodically go through the topics of: money; sex and desire; mental and physical health; kids, wider family; friends; leisure; house and home; work. Maybe another I can’t remember. We can share anything, and the rule is the other person has to listen in full before responding. We have question prompts if we get stuck for something to say. There have been some really hard conversations come out of this, but also some great ones - we decided to get married in the middle of one of these sessions.

Especially now we have kids, I can really see how easy it would be to simply ignore an issue because “who has got the time or energy to address that?” Provided we both approach the session in the spirit of honesty and open communication, it massively helps us not to let things fester or brush anything under the carpet. Obviously we do talk about issues as they come up too, and we have a separate monthly finance meeting. I appreciate this would all seem bizarre to some people, but fortunately it’s one of the ways we are very compatible!