AIBU to think that not all affair relationships actually end that quickly?

[Angela101x]

Wondering what other fellow mums-netters opinions are on whether all relationships that start from affairs actually do end up working out in the long run?

My exH left me & my DD some 5 years ago now, (albeit he still sees DD) and got with a woman barely 4 months later. The same woman he was messaging who was 'just a friend' during the end of our then marriage of 11 years. He has never admitted having an affair and left me of his own 'free will' apparently as he hadn't been happy for years 🙄. This affair woman was also married at the time of their 'friendship' and she split with her exH very rapidly too after exH left me. They moved in together ASAP and have been together ever since. They bought a house, got married last year and it feels like I'm just waiting on the news that she will be pregnant anytime soon.

All the people around me at the time of our split said 'oh she is just a rebound', 'it will never last', 'you will be laughing at him down the line when his life has gone to shit', 'you're better off without him', 'don't take him back when he asks (which he will' they said.....blah blah blah. All the usual spiel your friends & family tell you at the time to try & make you feel better. And tbh it did and I believed them. However time has gone on and obviously this didn't happen and their life seems perfect, madly in love, DD loves going over and I'm just left picking up the pieces. It makes it all the more harder to deal with. I've had 3 failed relationships and miss the life I had. It makes me cross that I was given this spiel back then as I felt like that it held me back moving on and each year that goes by that they're still seemingly happily together & it knocks me back again.

I don't really know what I'm asking here. I guess to hear other people's opinions on if affair partners really end up working out in the long-run? It's what you hear all the time on mumsnet how men give 'the speech' about not being happy as a justification to cheat and leave and then come crawling back....but only the former has happened to me....

Not really an AIBU but:
YABU - Yes they can work out
YANBU - No they can't

100%. Of course all the cheaters and OW posting here are absolutely sure their cheating partner has been faithful to them, because they're so special that they can somehow reform a shitty human being. 🙄

did you read that?

this doctor quoted the statistic in her article

with no source

😆

@XChrome

how long ago did your husband leave you for OW?

I think people like to believe the APs will get their comeuppance and it will all end the same way the first marriage did, with infidelity, and I'm sure it does sometimes, but also there are different kinds of infidelity.

The serial philanderer is unlikely to settle down and stay faithful to one of his OW, but I don't think that's what the majority of cheating is.

I do think the exit affair, where an affair is a reason to leave a failing marriage is a real thing. I do think affairs "just happen" to good people making poor decisions in difficult circumstances, and I do think a close friendship or EA can make someone disatisfied enough to realise there could be more to life, without there necessarily having been a physical affair. Those people won't necessarily go on to repeat.

Of the two people I know who left for AP, one has just had their 2nd child after 8 years of what appears to be successful marriage, the other has a tempestuous marriage and regularly "leaves" her husband.

I think believing the feel-better karma stories suggesting that affair-born relationships are doomed and likely to end quickly is harmful, particularly to women. They end up waiting in the shadows hoping that one day their ex will come back. I’ve seen this happen to my friend who still hasn’t moved on or dated and it’s been 8 years since he left. Her ex has remarried with no obvious signs of relationship trouble or an upcoming divorce but she believes the statistics and her life is on hold.
What is the chance that the statistics are accurate anyway, so many people hide the fact that their relationship started as an affair.

My Mum is still with my Stepdad after around 15 years now ... he was the other man. I couldnt look at her to start with. All so messy. But they are much better suited and unfortunately I'd say he is the love of her life after all

😂Bitter much?

I know three relationships that started out with affairs and all ended spectacularly badly. 5 years is not having made it! Before ending, they were at one point admired and held up as amazing couple goals and proof that you can take unusual roads to your ‘soulmate’.

Lengths =
-One lasted 9 years, 7 married. One child.
-One lasted 7 years, 4 years married. One child.
-One last on and off 3 years (live in relationship with kids from marriage they left sharing the home).

To be fair, your friends and family weren't wrong to suggest those things because mostly it doesn't work out. Unfortunately in your ex's case, karma seems to have taken the day off. Just focus on the positives of your life now and work towards the things you want in the future.

It depends what the goal is. If the cheater wants illicit sex and not to leave then if they get caught it's unlikely the new relationship will last or he'll stay with someone he only saw as a bit on the side.

If their head was turned and they meet someone they prefer to their spouse and leave for them - well why wouldn't that last?

Oh, not the old "bitterness" trope. Give it a rest. Like most people, I don't like cheaters, liars and domestic abusers of all kinds. Cheating is regarded as emotional abuse by many people, because that's exactly what it is. It's also sexual abuse by deception, since your spouse would not agree to sex with you if he/she knew you were fucking somebody else and risking his/her health. Therefore there is no consent, because consent must be informed. Most people despise domestic abusers. Deal with it.

I go by facts, not the words of faceless people on the internet, and the facts show only 2% of relationships which start as affairs last more than five years. Deal with that, too.

literally all over mumsnet talking about how disordered, deranged and inhuman people are who have affairs

you haven’t posted “facts”!

you posted an american articule referring to a stat, but not providing the source!

Cheat much?
Grow up. If you don't have an argument to make, shut it.

Years ago I was discussing affairs with my (late) Grandma and she said "Do you really think that everyone meets 'The One' when they are single? The world just isn't that perfect unfortunately". I wasn't sure if she was referring to herself and my Grandad or just speaking in general but she was right...

No matter how much we would all love to be trotting along quite happily single, and meet another single person, both ready and able to commit to each other at the exact same moment in both of their lives, have a wonderful relationship, great sex and live happily ever after.... As almost every person on MN knows, that pretty much is NEVER the case!

Sometimes we get into LTR / marriages when we're young and don't know what we want / people change / life changes around us. Then we may meet someone else who is much more suited to us at this point in our life. Do we stay with the person we are with and have grown apart from (and both be unhappy)? Or do we leave for a chance of happiness with someone who wasn't even on the radar when we were single? One option is the decent thing to do but in both versions there are people who are unhappy!

FWIW I have actually never had an affair or left a relationship for someone else but I am a realist and I know that life is never as simple as we would like it to be.

And yes I know two couples who got together as the result of affairs and are still together and happy 10 + years on.

Of the dozen or so situations I can immediately think of amongst mine or my parents' friends, the man is still with the OW decades later. However, in at least three of these, the man has had another affair or, in one case,
multiple affairs and with some of the others, I'm not sure how happy they are. Four or five of them seem blissfully happy though and one of my friends often comments how the OW is much better suited to her ex than she was herself and is much more careful herself about the type of person who she dates.

My sister , who was single had an affair with a married man , he left his wife and went back to her once and then left for good , got divorced , married my sister and they have been together for at least 36 yrs ( I’m not sure when they first got together exactly) .

My DS dad cheated on me when we were together years ago. He had been having an affair with a woman who came from an affluent family with a lot of money. He refused to move out and would to go out after work and on weekends and take her on dates to fancy restaurants all the while still living with me and telling me how he still loved me and expected me to play housewife and cook his meals and wash his clothes for him. He was controlling and very mentally abusive. She obviously had no idea that he was still living in the flat we were renting and after about 8 months with help of my HV I finally got him to move out.

He used to brag about all the new things OW and her family had bought for him and how they had paid for several holidays abroad per year and he never had to part with a single penny. All the while paying me a third of the maintenance payments he should have paid me by lying about his job promotions and always claiming he was never any better paid than the last job and it was just “more experience based”. I was naive and desperate to keep the peace for DS sake. OW was also dreadfully spiteful, condescending and just generally a smug bitch who just lived and breathed to rub herself and her wonderful life in my face. They never had DC but they bought a house together that they owned but was paid for by her parents.

I was absolutely heartbroken and devastated and for about five years after it had a hugely detrimental affect on my mental health.
Turns she had discovered after he’d given her an STD that he had been having an affair with another woman for five years of their relationship. Once it came out about each other both of them dumped him and he’s been miserable ever since. That was about nine years ago now. I couldn’t help feel like karma eventually came for him.

I am now in a relationship with a wonderful man who couldn’t treat me better if he tried. Ex DP has tried to crawl his way back in several times over the years as they usually do and I have taken a lot of pride in rejecting him every single time because I’m much older and wiser now and finally learned my worth.
The moral of the story here is as old as time. If they’re willing to cheat with you, then they’ll be just as willing to cheat on you.

Happily married for 25 years... I'm not he bitter resentful one dissing everyone else.

So which scientific journal posted this study you are referring to?

I know two couples who started out as affair and have lasted decades...and still going. Like any relationship, some last and some don't. Karma doesn't exist but we kid ourselves it does

it’s laughable isn’t it

a source less stat

you seriously know a dozen marriages that have broken down due to an affair?!

I didn't know her at the time but a close friend had an affair with a colleague, both married, he had a teenage child. They were happily together for nearly 40 years until he died.

His ex went on to marry a wealthy man!