Doesn’t ever work out with the OW

[Wishiwasjapanese]

Just that really. When your husbands have cheated and left you for the OW has it ever worked out?

I was engaged to another man when I met my current husband. After a brief affair I left that relationship and my husband and I have been happily married for almost 35 years.

So while I am not proud of myself for cheating and acknowledge that I was wrong to do that, I actually have no regrets. I adore my husband and we've been very happy together and have a lovely family.

Same here

I know people that were married to other people when they met , and went on to have / having a long term relationship.

Well presumably the first marriage was that too…mine was.
He’s been with the Law ever since (about 27 years) and has children with her. They are more suited than he and I were, but I don’t think love was the difference.

I've said this on other (similar) threads but I remember my Gran once saying to me something along the lines of "life isn't perfect, we don't all meet who we're meant to be with when we are young, free and single sadly".

I don't know if she was referring to herself, to her parents or just speaking in general but it always stuck with me.

We're very quick to brand people "serial cheaters" or "once a cheater always a cheater" but it just isn't the case. As another poster has said, people are complex. Life is complex.

I agree to a certain extent. I do however think there’s always going to be a level of mistrust to some degree - than if the couple had got together as two single people.

My ex cheated and married the OW. They are still together 30 years later.

The two couples I know that started out as affairs are still together after 20 and 10 years respectively but neither seems particularly happy. Both have considered splitting up more than once and don't appear to be very compatible. From the outside both look like they are still together either out of financial necessity or because they fear singledom.

A lack of mutual respect underlines the relationship, each knowing how low value and morally corrupt the other is. If there is further cheating the guilt is not there or much lowered as the other person did it themselves.
Clean break and marry someone else but affairs involve cheap people and at a cellular level people know.

‘I mean King Charles seems a lot happier with relationship number two doesn't he’

Well, they don’t live together, and don’t seem to spend much time together. When he had chemo and she ‘accompanied him’ she was flown back to her house immediately afterwards and he went back to Highgrove.

So he is obviously happier with a long distance marriage.

I think a lot of cheaters underestimate how much of the attraction is the "naughty only-we-know sparkle" and when that's gone, it's all a bit tedious and pairing socks reality...

Yep.

We split up 12 years ago due to his affair with OW. They are such better suited than he and I were!

They married a couple of years ago and are very happy.

All this 'once a cheater, always a cheater' and when a mistress marries, she creates a vacancy nonsense is exactly that. Nonsense.

I think alot probably depends on whether either of them have form for cheating in general.

If my DH had an affair now and left me for the OW, I'd probably except that it was truly for true love because he's not a man who is in pursuit mode 24/7. I think it would really take something for him to walk away from our lives and I don't think he'd do it on the giddiness of a fling. I think he'd fall first, physical second, leave third - or he may leave on the basis of depth of feeling.

Rather than cheat, get caught, leave, call it true love.

I think the guys who were caught rather than left are perhaps statistically less likely to be in line for a happily ever after. Whereas the guys who leave before being caught are possibly statistically more likely to do it for their happy ever after.

But what do I know? Doubt there's any actual stats to support one way or another.

A former team leader of mines ex husbands subsequent wife worked in the same - small office.

As she left him before they became an item it wasnt an issue

While there wasnt another party in my ex and I's break up the fact that she was seen beating up her subsequent partner in the street who she wrecked the divorce settlement for and hasnt managed to maintain a relationship ever since allows me a quiet if expensive chuckle

My mum had an affair whilst still married to my dad and is still with the other man 30 years later. They are right for each other and I genuinely can’t think how she and my dad ended up together in the first place, they were incredibly wrong for one another.
Sometimes people marry the wrong person and it doesn’t become apparent until they meet the right one.

same!

I think that's why it became an affair, in many cases they genuinely fell in love. They should have ended up first relation first obviously, but in all these cases, it wasn't a quick fling, it was serious - and still is 10 , 20 years later.

It's probably more hurtful for the first partner to hear, but the OW is often not just a cheap affair. It also means it's not on the first partner, they won't right for each other.

Serial cheats exist, of course, but in a way it's good that many people just fell in love.

Same with my parents although it was my dad that had the affair. But he was far better suited to my step-mum (who is lovely and I get on brilliantly with) than he ever was with my mum. And even my mum said that!

This. My first husband had an OW. Once we'd split and I was out the picture, she was no longer forbidden fruit and it fizzled out quite quickly

My marriage started as an affair. I was technically still married but had been separated for over a year. He was married. No kids on either side. Both still in our 20s. He left her very, very quickly after developing feelings for me. It was just a matter of a few weeks.

I think it's working out, but it's only been 34 years so far, so I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Yes it has. Some people are better together than others. 🤷‍♀️

A friend of mine started her marriage with both of them with other people and it interested me how much she regrets it. She still feels bad about the other people (well over a decade on) and guilty about the whole thing. And bad juju or whatever the word is! They are happy together and have two kids and life is fine, but I find it interesting that there is still quite a splinter in the whole thing.

My mum was the OW and it worked out for them. I wouldn't exist if it hadn't (or my sister). My parents had an affair which broke up my dad's marriage, he eventually left his wife and married her and they remained together (more or less happily) until my mum's death.

It's one of the most enduring myths on here (and elsewhere) that relationships which start as affairs always flame out. People tell themselves this to make them feel better and some affair relationships do come unstuck but its no means universal.

Affairs certainly do cause a huge amount of pain and I don't recommend them at all. My relationship with my half siblings has always been troubled as a result of the trauma caused by the way my dad's marriage to their mum ended. No doubt it caused devastation.

But it simply isn't true that it never works out.

I think it really matters to her that their "origin story" is shit. eg when her kids ask how she met daddy, she'll either have to lie or have a pretty bleak chat. I was surprised how affected she was by it literally almost two decades later.

My father gained a 30 year marriage with the other woman, but lost all his relationships with his children and grandchildren (his choice). He's dead now. I wonder if she was worth it.

Stepdad was the OM he and mother was together 36 years until her death.so yes it worked out.