Article about a pair of cheaters in The Guardian

[Time40]

... what a pair of utter self-deceiving knobs (I mean, if this isn't actually fiction). It's OK because it happens "in a different universe" from his marriage. God.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/07/this-is-how-we-do-it-my-life-with-my-lover-exists-in-a-different-universe-to-my-marriage

Theoretical physics, my arse. More like Marvel films.

So interesting how she claims not to feel a shred of guilt, and they both feel nothing is being taken away from his marriage by this, yet they're keeping the relationship a secret. Perhaps because it's a mythical relationship there's nothing to tell or perhaps he's worried his wife wouldn't believe him, a bit like Narnia.
If his wife had an affair, I wonder which universe that would end up in?
This article poses more questions than answers, unfortunately.

I wonder who his wife thinks he is messaging up to 60 times a day.

"Because multiverses" is a brilliantly post modern excuse.

If I knew Sebastian I might find I believed in a parallel universe where his car / the contents of his wine cellar belonged to me. I'm sure he's open minded and enlightened enough to understand.

They haven't seen each other for 2 years?

As soon as he retired he moved 300 miles away?

Oh maaaaate...

He loves her so so so much but won't leave his wife for her so they play out their sacred, starcrossed, non-sordid relationship in the multiverses. Us mere mortals can never understand such a connection.

Christ, what a pair of insufferable pricks.

Yes it absolutely is, but the least we can do is not complicate it further by acting unwisely in such circumstances.

I agree, despite knowing your feelings are reciprocated by the third party, self control should win out.

On the flip side is the overwhelming guilt and shame and having to bottle it all up for fear of causing untold emotional suffering to multiple people. And you still turn into a puddle of jelly when they say hi.

Before I even opened the link I knew it would be full of wanky bollocks like this: the first thing I’d do is press my mouth to his, not to kiss, but to breathe in one another’s breath. The sex that followed felt like an extension of that strange, intimate breath: there was always a sense that we were psychically, as well as physically merged.

I did wonder if it was written by one or two pissed-off Observer journalists as a scheme to undermine the Guardian.

But as far as the marriage goes... I believe it makes a relationship happier if the participants have separate hobbies. I wonder if it gives his wife a quiet giggle that they haven't had sex for 2 years. I bet he is hard work in daily life, perhaps she appreciates the break. Moved 300 miles away indeed.

Can you imagine if your friend, of either sex, confessed this to you?

You'd be looking at them like this 😬, saying "Oh yes, yes, sounds very difficult" and desperately trying to think of why you had to leave Right Now.

If you've got a decades-long crush on someone in your inner circle, you're making a choice to stay close and nurse it. Affairs, both physical and emotional, don't just happen to passive people. They are choices and can be avoided.

these type of affairs happen often

they get something from this that they do not from their partner or they can be someone else that they are not in their relationship

of course no one wants their partner to be this sort of person and it’s very hurtful but I do believe there is real love in these type of relationships

I didn't choose it though, I would love to wake up tomorrow and for it all to have been a bad dream.

Ewww… is she sure it wasn’t just their dentures getting stuck together?

You choose to engage, feed it and try to justify it. You need to choose to break up with them and move on with your life. Or you need to choose to leave your current DP.

Literally just read this and wondered if anyone would have posted about it. I hope to God it’s fiction because if not, idiots like this really do walk amongst us!

When I read the headline I thought it was going to be quite a good explanation of how people compartmentalise in their head.

Unfortunately it was some crazy people who don't have 100% grip on reality!

There's nothing to break up, I haven't had an affair.

God this is tragic. He’s behaving terribly and she is completely deluded! I feel quite sorry for her tbh as she sounds really really naïve. I hope his wife can find peace whatever she knows or doesn’t. x

Are you always this ageist?

They sound like arseholes

I've literally just read that piece, shuddering at the entitled ick of the whole thing.
So his wife probably thinks he spends so much time on his phone reading about his "theoretical physics " whilst he's actually exchanging a constant stream of of ghastly messages with another woman right under her nose. Charming.

The physics may be theoretical but the cringe is very very real!