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.

Two cheaters marry one another…gross.

I hope you’re eternally unhappy.

I have tried to answer questions in a straightforward way, although I fully accept people won’t like all my answers. I have definitely responded to your two questions about the quote and concerns about cheating. What wasn’t specific enough for you?

I suppose I do think of him (and myself!) and susceptible to temptation, although I don’t have the negative self-talk to think of it as “weak morals”! I guess it doesn’t matter as much to me as it would to you. Interestingly, my ex was definitely someone who would have said they had “strong morals” and despite his general behaviour I don’t think he would have cheated in the way I did - far more likely to get drunk and have an idiotic one night stand. I found the black and white thinking his “strong morals” engendered deeply tedious, and that was long before the affair!

His ex wife definitely did not dump him, I know how their split went down through mutual friends. Tbh it’s never occurred to me that it mattered either way.

You hope that people raising kids are unhappy?
You've actually spent your time and energy hoping that some children you don't know are brought up by unhappy parents?

That's dark.

Married for tax benefits? Love’s young dream

So you don't believe in a soul mate as it were ? Often when you read about men cheating, people say the OW is irrelevant as it could be any woman. I'm getting that feeling with you / that it could have been any man you settled with in the end. If he had not left his wife then this would be the case I assume - obviously any man that was attractive to you.

That's an excellent observation.

Very interesting thread, no questions from me but my friend has similar story- she was married (2 kids) and fell in love with her daughter's teacher (who was engaged, in long term relationship). It took them 2 years to plan an "exit" but it was worth it. Sometimes you just fall in love like never before. 7 years later- they are married and have 2 more kids.

I don’t believe in soul mates in any mystical sense.

With hindsight, I was absolutely primed for an affair. Miserable, frustrated, lonely, angry, scared about the future, in a sexless marriage with a man with multiple mental health issues who withdrew from both the relationship and the rest of life. Looking back I’m almost surprised it took so long for an affair to start, but tbf I didn’t have any other offers! I think I would have left ex-H within a year or two regardless of an affair, we were in couples counselling and the writing was really on the wall. Some people have commented that I don’t seem regretful. I do regret not leaving my ex sooner.

On the other hand, it became apparent very quickly that DH and I were great together, which led to the affair spiralling out of control. We were genuine friends before the affair started, I’d always really enjoyed spending time with him, and been disappointed if it turned out he wasn’t at an event. We are very compatible in a lot of both big and small ways. I think if we had been single when we met all those years before, it’s totally plausible we would have got together then. Within weeks of it starting, we were lamenting what could have been in long messages late at night. I absolutely love being married to him now, he’s a great husband, dad and co-parent. I’m truly grateful I get to live out what felt like an impossible dream. And yes, I’m fully aware how teenage it all sounds!

When it looked like DH wasn’t going to leave his ex, I was absolutely prepared to go off and meet someone else, and indeed, did. My priority was having children, and I believed - and still do - that there were plenty of men who would make decent husbands and fathers. I’m aware that sounds a bit cold and clinical - from one extreme to the other I guess!?

That’s fascinating, I’d love to know how that came about. I can’t imagine many things less conducive to starting an affair than parents evening 😂

It was an instant crush for both of them. They had 121 parents evening, she was after work so booked the last slot, they spent 50mins talking.
He messaged her on Facebook the same evening, she replied.
He did an additional training and master degree so he could teach at secondary school, moved jobs.
She planned divorce .
There was zero gossip at school as no one had any idea about it.
However, it was a very big drama after he left his job and she had to move her kids too- his ex was a teacher at the same school and she went "nuclear " when she found out.

Or at the very least, the ex wife deliberately forced him into doing the dumping. I don't see a man, with the character the OP has described, who won't leave his unhappy marriage with his childhood sweetheart for the willing woman crawling all over him and begging him to be with her, just up and leaving to be alone and single only around year later, entirely of his own accord.

Perhaps the ex wife, who had been tormented by suspecting an affair, forced his hand so that he 'technically' ended it. Whatever he told the 'mutual' friend group (who all but one abandoned the ex wife and sided with the cheating husband) doesn't really count – it seems like they'd all happily keep secrets or tell lies for the husband.

It's interesting but really very pathetic and slimy to see someone trying to justify carrying on in failing marriages for around a year, lying, deceiving, and cheating (and if they were still having sex with their husband/wife, it really is a form of rape, ethically if not legally, as there is NO WAY their husband/wife would've consented if they'd known), instead of doing at the start what they did in the end, anyway!

Just say it's over at the beginning, and begin the process of separation. Marriages end without affairs all the time. THEN you can go shag each other like rabbits. There's absolutely no excuse for cheating, especially cheating that carried on for around (over?) a year, all the while their marriages were floundering and dying. It shows a total lack of any moral integrity, sense of responsibility, or compassion for others – its an incredibly self-centred, emotionally immature thing to do, and given neither of them regret it, I imagine they (or the OP's husband at least) will find it easy to justify to themselves the next time it happens.

Obviously all those people piling on the OP are perfect!!!! 😡

You don't have to be perfect to have a modicum of decency.

You have ignored a couple of key points to fit your narrative - at the point they broke up, the affair had been over for months and I had started seeing someone else. DH and I weren’t even talking. After I made it clear I wasn’t going to prop him up emotionally, DH had also started therapy, which can sometimes help people alter the patterns in their lives and make big changes, even against the grain of their personality.

I’ve got no idea why you think our friends, who didn’t know about the affair, would lie to me about his wife, who also didn’t know about the affair, chucking him out 😂 quite the conspiracy theory you’ve concocted there.

In all seriousness though, I’m guessing from your investment in this thread that you have yourself been cheated on - perhaps in a fairly similar way but you did indeed chuck your ex? - and I’m sorry you’ve been through that. I fully accept it’s a horrible thing to do to someone and it would be much better to break up and leave relationships without cheating first.

Were you or your husband ever tempted to take accountability for your actions and tell your ex spouses the truth and apologise?

Gosh that does sound like the thunderbolt! Beware the last slot at parents evening 😂

Interesting that like in my case, the serious “error” if you wanted to prevent an affair was the post-thunderbolt message. Easy to kid yourself that it’s innocent (although risky for a teacher!!), but allows for ongoing communication which makes space to fall in love. It was slightly complicated for DH and I being friends and already in some contact, so we spent weeks telling ourselves that total honesty about how we were feeling would help us not be too crazy 🤦‍♀️😅 obviously had the exact opposite effect. I do think that if nothing else, I’d be more self-aware about my own actions in future. After many years of therapy, I’d hope so anyway!

Truly it’s okay, I knew this would trigger some people. Lots have asked very good questions and/or talked about their own experiences of marriage after affairs too, which has been interesting ❤️

Not a conspiracy theory, just what I think sounds more likely. Of course, this is just based off what you've said, so who knows. I do think that basing your knowledge on what his friends have said is a little too trusting, considering your situation, but it wouldn't actually make a difference so doesn't really matter to you (hence why I said it to another poster, not you).

And no, actually. I've never been cheated on – that I know of – and have been happily married nearly twenty years. The closest I've come to infidelity in a relationship was when I was tempted to cross a line as a teenager in an abusive relationship, an anecdote I've already shared.

But I will admit I find infidelity both fascinating and abhorrent because my father cheated on my mother, and left us for the very unpleasant affair partner. Mostly though, I just find it really interesting to see someone trying to justify something that is undeniably wrong (that could be the autism).

I answered this upthread 😊

Are you criticising these people?
And you personally believe that someone must be perfect to criticise others?

Sorry must have missed it didn’t mean to double post, thanks

That does sound miserable to go through as a child and must have been very formative in how you viewed affairs. At least cheated-on adults can move on with their lives, you were just stuck with a horrible step-mother!

I do think there is a meaningful difference between justifying and explaining something. I find exploring “why normal people do bad things” is really interesting and simply reframing the question from one end “they can’t be normal” or the other “actually, what they did wasn’t bad” (which some people in this thread have done) is dismissing the reality and complexity of the normal human experience. Affairs are very common. Normal people take part in them everyday. You likely know several people who either have had, or are having affairs.

I absolutely accept that what DH and I did was a bad thing. There are reasons and context which explain why it happened but - as some have said - I could and should have got divorced first, rather than allowing myself to get swept away. I wasn’t chained to my ex. We didn’t even have kids. I left without much logistical difficulty just over a year later. But I didn’t leave pre-affair. I did the bad thing. I’m a (fairly!) normal person - certainly other people think I am. People think of DH as a super calm, dependable, normal person. And yet.

My ex partner left after an affair 12 years ago married her and had a child. Now he’s miserable as sin and very recently tried to engage me in flirty conversation - we have kids so need to talk from time to time. I’m married wouldn’t entertain it would rather eat road kill. Those who cheat with you will cheat on you and all that.

Well, yes, of course normal people do unethical things all the time – and they always have a reason ready to justify it. Explanations, I think, aren't particularly insightful when it's the same cliches that everyone is already familiar with. And people tend to offer them out of a need for validation and acceptance, rather than because they're useful.

I would hope most people understand that doing something unethical doesn't make a person a monster, but I suppose a lot of people don't. I know several people who have had affairs – I tend to find they're often self-absorbed, emotionally immature, and melodramatic, so very easily sucked into believing the fairy tale they tell themselves. They can be a good friend, but an untrustworthy and deceitful romantic partner. It does, however, say something more generally about the person's character, their moral integrity, and their values.

It's certainly not something I'd try to explain and defend.