Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If you were married and fell in love with someone else...

176 replies

longnightie · 05/03/2022 15:00

Would you...

A - do the moral thing and stay with your spouse and cut off contact with other person

B - leave your spouse and be with the other person

C - stay with spouse and have an affair with other person

Assume that there Are no children are involved in the scenario on either side.

OP posts:
HeyItsPickleRick · 05/03/2022 18:17

Am I still in love with my spouse? Do I have kids? Do I like and respect my spouse?

A or B but who knows really unless faced with it

Blossomtoes · 05/03/2022 18:20

Why is A the moral thing? It would be dishonest.

Janeyjacke · 05/03/2022 18:21

Yeah leave and get straight with the person they'd been having an emotional affair with

OMG12 · 05/03/2022 18:23

No one will admit it on here but most people would choose c first then decide on A or B when C became untenable.

MichaelAndEagle · 05/03/2022 18:30

@Blossomtoes

Why is A the moral thing? It would be dishonest.
Only if you don't love your spouse anymore. You could cut all contact with new person with the hope you'd forget about them eventually.
jytdtysrht · 05/03/2022 18:32

How would you know that you were in love with person number 2 if you had not really been with them?

It's definitely simpler with no kids as the break can be clean and there are far fewer consequences to a split, with fewer people hurt.

But I would still question really how easy the comparison between person 1 and person 2 is. If you are married to person 1, then that relationship is withstanding the drudgery of life. Whereas person 2 is like a shiny new person, whose relationship with you has not had to tackle the shit that life throws at you. It's like comparing your experience of going to a friend's house for an evening (they might cook for you, tidy up for your arrival, pay for everything etc) vs staying with the friend for 6 months (you would need to pitch in with housework, bills, whatever). The evening out is very different to day to day life.

Just be careful if you are about to leave someone that you definitely want to leave them.

TidyDancer · 05/03/2022 18:33

@OMG12

No one will admit it on here but most people would choose c first then decide on A or B when C became untenable.

Broadly, I agree with this tbh.

DrSbaitso · 05/03/2022 18:36

@OMG12

No one will admit it on here but most people would choose c first then decide on A or B when C became untenable.
This is probably true.
TrickyD · 05/03/2022 18:43

B

I did it 53 years ago. No kids then, no regrets since. All worked out well with DH, XDH remarried, I believe happily.

Blossomtoes · 05/03/2022 18:44

Only if you don't love your spouse anymore. You could cut all contact with new person with the hope you'd forget about them eventually.

It’s still dishonest. Would I want to be married to someone who’d done that? Absolutely not. Sleep with someone who was thinking about someone else all the time? No thanks.

Coasterfan · 05/03/2022 18:46

I chose B, no kids involved. I have been with the other person 16 years this summer and we have 2DC. I have never regretted waking away.

OkThenJustChill · 05/03/2022 18:49

It's a tricky one. My sister had a LDR with a DP that she loved, they had spent two years in an normal relationship and were doing one year LD due to his work. During that LDR she became closer to a friend she was at uni with and her feelings grew for him. Towards the end of the year her partner said that he didn't love her as much as he used to because of the strain being LD put on the relationship. This almost made Dsis leave the relationship for her friend. In the end though, she was watching a film with her friend and put her head on his shoulder and realised that it was all wrong and messed up. She ended up staying with my now BIL. After a few years of cutting her friend out of the picture she was also able to reclaim that friendship. They are both married and have children. I don't think BIL had any idea about the feelings she had for the friend though.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I think you can end up in situations where you're in love with two people. My Dsis was a bit stupid but I don't know that either decision A or B would have come off badly for her. She could have been happy with either man, but morally she was in a grey area and needed to make a choice.

Begrateful · 05/03/2022 18:59

The OP knows what the right decision is for him/her...why ask a bunch of strangers online who are all going to give you slightly different responses, which may cause even more confusion!

Search your heart and make a decision that you can live with and go to bed feeling at peace... A,B or C?Smile

SquirrelG · 05/03/2022 19:02

It would depend on all kinds of thngs, but not C, never C, that is completely against my moral code.

bigfatmeerkat · 05/03/2022 19:08

Fell in love sounds so dramatic - surely it's either an attraction that you want to act in, or an actual affair? You don't "fall", no control, couldn't help it, can't help who you love blah blah.
Should you leave if you're not happy? Yes of course. But don't pretend it's something outside of your control, it's a choice you made.

bigfatmeerkat · 05/03/2022 19:10

"Moral" code is a personal thing. Truth and honesty is something everyone deserves.

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 05/03/2022 19:10

How would anyone know unless they had been in the situation

Proudboomer · 05/03/2022 19:19

If you have fallen in love with someone else even if you haven’t physically cheated then you have probably crossed the line and are having an emotional affair.
If you get to that stage your marriage is already dead and you should end the marriage for everyone’s sake.

TAKESNOSHITSHIRLEY · 05/03/2022 19:28

i would pick A but B actually happened to me ,the other woman was my best friend he left us for ,we have 2 disabled kids as well that needs/needed 24/7 care.

he left our kids for me to care for so he can look after a new disabled(physical not mental) girlfriend and her disabled(asd and more) 5 kids. they are now expecting a baby that's got 99% chance of having asd as well

girlmom21 · 05/03/2022 19:30

@Blossomtoes

Only if you don't love your spouse anymore. You could cut all contact with new person with the hope you'd forget about them eventually.

It’s still dishonest. Would I want to be married to someone who’d done that? Absolutely not. Sleep with someone who was thinking about someone else all the time? No thanks.

100% this. If you've fallen in love with someone else during our marriage then I don't care if you love me because you sure as shit don't respect me and that's a bigger issue.
TabithaTittlemouse · 05/03/2022 19:33

Why do you ask op? What would you do?

Ori18 · 05/03/2022 19:37

This happens all the time. It’s entirely possible to live two people at once & not even realise the depth of your feelings. People aren’t black & white, & whilst it’s really easy to narrow this kind of human experience down to 3boxes, in reality sometimes it might be all of those options, in a varying order, or none at all. Some people accept they love someone else (if they’re self-aware enough) and just continue living with that realisation, whilst having the person in their lives, plus a loving, healthy marriage.

And I think a lot of people are probably somewhere in the realms of option C more than they realise at different points in their lives.

Ori18 · 05/03/2022 19:38

Sorry - I meant to say it’s entirely possible to “love” two people at once, not live!

3luckystars · 05/03/2022 19:39

Not C.

I’d do D: be on my own for a while

All the best.

Landedonfeet · 05/03/2022 19:41

@Ori18

This happens all the time. It’s entirely possible to live two people at once & not even realise the depth of your feelings. People aren’t black & white, & whilst it’s really easy to narrow this kind of human experience down to 3boxes, in reality sometimes it might be all of those options, in a varying order, or none at all. Some people accept they love someone else (if they’re self-aware enough) and just continue living with that realisation, whilst having the person in their lives, plus a loving, healthy marriage.

And I think a lot of people are probably somewhere in the realms of option C more than they realise at different points in their lives.

Out of interest How do you know “this happens all the time”?