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

I've been married to my AP (he was single) for literally ten times as long as my first marriage lasted and we have three children. The affair, such as it was, only lasted weeks and we never slept together or anything, but still.

Am I proud of the affair? Not really. But I've never had one single second of regret about it. I've also never cheated again and never will. Sometimes the AP is just 'the one' I'm afraid, but I expect these relationships have a similar failure rate to any other relationship, if not more so, and I have just been lucky.

I was the OW and he left his wife for me. We're still together 12 years later and very, very happy. I have no reason not to trust him nor he me.

I know two people who have been having an affair since 2008

The exception she gave there is pretty uncommon. Overwhelmingly it’s ’we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place / I got bored / our sex drives were mismatched etc’ or, of course, the old ‘it just happened’.

It’s 100% not tunnel vision to think incredibly lowly of someone capable of that behaviour.

My exH left me for the OW. They’ve now been together 11 years and have a son. It’s probably a good thing I think otherwise blowing up 2 marriages and upsetting 3 children (one was hers, two are mine/exh) would have been a lot of damage for no reason.

This is true of me too! My dad's first wife took it very badly, took a lot of steps to try to ruin my mom's life (getting her in trouble at work etc). It's strange because I was always used to seeing her behaviour as somewhat vindictive and unnecessary, that it was dad who betrayed her, not my mom, and yet on Mumsnet it's quite common to hear "other women" being utterly vilified, with the idea its valid to hate them....

My dd's dad is also still with his OW, about 7 years on. I never hated her - I am not keen on her but that's more her personality than the fact she got with my husband. I don't hate him either to be fair - we just weren't well suited, but he's a nice enough guy and a decent dad.

In their case she is reaping what she has sown in a way, as he has cheated on her repeatedly too. But I don't think that is the case in all post-affair relationships. Everyone is different, and people do change and grow in the right emotional environment.

OP, the best thing you can do is accept that you and he were not well suited, but that you are a fantastic and unique person utterly deserving of committed love, and, if it's what you want, go out there and find it with an open heart and excitement for the future! I do know it can be very hard, and feelings like you have are very understandable. I wish you the very best.

For those of you who were interested in a source for stats about how many marriages that start from affairs last, this article lists the research that are their sources in the footnotes. It doesn't look good. Says only 5-7% of affairs end up as marriages, and of those, 75% end in divorce. Elsewhere I have seen that is the rate for the five year mark, and it is even higher at over five years.
But it's hardly surprising considering that 67% of all second marriages fail.

https://www.couplestherapyinc.com/8-predictable-issues-in-leaving-your-marriage-for-your-affair-partner/

Anyway, bottom line is that OP is not being unreasonable to suspect it probably won't last. Otoh, they could buck the odds.
I could not find any stats on how happy and healthy those marriages that do last are. Staying together is not proof of that. Lots of people stay in crap marriages.

op asked whether she was unreasonable to think that not all affairs marriages end.

And indeed as has been established on this thread - she is 100% correct to think that not all end.

Sorry about your situation OP.

You can’t generalise though. DH was married when we met and I was engaged. We had an affair and both hurt people we loved in the process. We have been together for 25 years, married for 23. Very secure and happy relationship.

You sound more cross with those who told you it wouldn't last than with your shit of an ex-husband!
Were you hoping it would crash and burn and that he would come back to you?

You say you are 'waiting' for the pregnancy announcement. Why?? What will that achieve apart from eating you up even further than this long-lasting relationship.

I'm never so convinced that it is as simple as just one person meeting another and having a sexual relationship. There are so many people who are unhappy in their existing relationships that meet someone who they fall in love with eventually and hey can be happy without cheating with anyone else. It is sad but its just a fact. It's the lies and deception that cause problems and are just cruel.

The 5% stat doesn't really tell you much here. 'All extra marital affairs' includes short term flings by serial cheaters, and the vast majority of affairs where no one leaves their spouse. Only a few affairs lead to a breakup and to the affair partners getting together, but they obviously include all the ones where the subsequent relationship is long term.

So in the OP's circumstance, the chance of probably much better than 2% or 5%.

I know several 30+ year marriages that started out as affairs.

presumably the studies are based on couples attending therapy for marriage problems

Me and DH left our partners (I was married he was engaged, no children involved) for each other.
We'd been together previously when we were younger for 10yrs and got back together after not seeingeach other for 12yrs. We met again in the July, DH left his partner 2wks later, me the month after. Neither of us have ever cheated before and I don't believe either of us would ever cheat again.
Sorry if this disappoints people but we are genuinely completely happy, married and with 2 perfect beautiful little children. I'm still very good friends with exDH and we went to his wedding to his new wife and they came to ours. Sometimes it can just all work out for the best.

It’s not been very long, really. Move on- find joy in your life- take your focus and energy off those two (I know it’s hard. Been there.)
and eventually whatever issues he had in your relationship will show up In the new one; he hasn’t been to therapy to fix and address things, has he?

just find a good life away from him.

Poach him?! 🤣

That poor unwilling hinted victim and her the mean aggressive powerful poacher!

He has free will and clearly decided he wanted her not you!

He wanted her more, and whether that's because he loves her more, enjoys the sex with her more, fancies her way more than you, finds her more exciting than you...

The fact is he CHOSE her he wasn't taken without his will!

(I'm against affairs totally but also against misogynistic language where the woman is at fault when the man with the family chooses to leave).

Of course plenty of affairs turn into long lasting relationships. They are the same as all relationships. Some go long term and are happy, some go long term and unhappy but people don’t leave, some don’t last long at all. Some end amicably some end in disaster.

However, it’s more likely it won’t. And friends and family are trying to find something to say that will make you feel better. And that is, on balance, more likely to be true.

Sorry, this is still pretty dubious. The article cited in the link you posted is at
<a class="break-all" href="https://sci-hub.st/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1018-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://sci-hub.st/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-017-1018-1

It does not, of course, contain either the 5-7% stat for the number of affairs that go on to marriage, nor the 75% that end in divorce.

Or anything like them.

It seems clear that this is a number made up by one therapist and passed on to all the others.

yes that was my interpretation too

My ex stayed with OW for 10 years. She eventually finished the relationship due to his gambling addiction I think. All that time he continued to beg me to take him back ( she was welcome to him as far as I was concerned) , sure she wouldn't have been impressed.
I do think if someone has poor integrity and cheats within a marriage they'll probably always be that way inclined.It's only really a matter of time

Your friends lied to you OP
Rebounds happen when someone is dumped or a split happens after a big falling out.
If he ended the relationship quietly on his terms he won't have a rebound.

Following someone from thread to thread going 'aww ur mad bubs but its ok cos u bin thru it i sympathise' is deranged behaviour

I think you friends and family were really unwise to push the "he'll come back" idea. Even if affair relationships don't last, that's no guarantee that the unfaithful partner will return to their previous spouse after the affair ends, or that if they do go back that the renewed relationship will be a good one, having been broken once already.
It also presupposes that you want him back, and reinforces that idea as a positive one, without questioning whether it would actually be beneficial for you to ALLOW him to choose that for you.
Seriously what's in it for you? You've been apart 5 years. If someone introduced you to him now, as a stranger, and also told you he'd left his wife and daughter and taken up with someone else so "soon", would you think he was an attractive prospect?

My sibling was cheated on by their ex, who is still with the person they cheated with. Been together longer than they were with my sibling now and engaged for over 5 years. Sibling was devastated at the split when it happened but is happily married with DC now.