AIBU to think not every relationship that starts as an affair is doomed?

[LivelyHazel]

I know this won't be a popular post at all and I’ll get piled on too but I don’t mind I'm genuinely just interested in people's views.

Fifteen years ago I met my now husband through a friend of a friend. We got on well, started meeting up going for drinks, food, dancing and, before I knew it, we were started sleeping together. It lasted about a month.He was married at the time. They didn't have children.

I'll be honest, I never expected it to become anything serious. I genuinely thought it would be a brief fling, we'd come to our senses and go our separate ways.

Instead, after about a month, he told me he wanted to leave his wife. I was actually quite taken aback because I hadn't expected him to do that. He said his marriage had been unhappy for a long time, although obviously I only had his side of the story.

He left, they divorced and we got to properly get to know each other, we took things slowly after that, and we're now married with four children. We've been together for 15 years and have a good family life.

Whenever affairs come up on here, the general consensus seems to be that the relationship is bound to fail, or that the ‘other woman’ never really ends up happy.That hasn't been our experience.

I'm not saying affairs are acceptable or that I feel proud of how our relationship started. I know people were hurt, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But equally, I can't pretend I regret the life we've built together.

Not necessarily AIBU more so discussion based on the previous posts I’ve seen on here

Bet they are proud, or have you glossed over the truth

I don't understand how you can trust him. He showed himself to be untrustworthy before you even got together 🤷‍♀️

You posted wanting people's opinions, and when you get them you complain? Nor everyone is going to agree with you, or see things your way. You claim to be content with your current situation, so why should the opinions of others concern you? Clearly it didnt when you met your now husband 😒

There’s a big difference between an exit affair that happens once and results in a long term marriage and someone who has serial affairs and is just completely unstable. I’ve seen a few exit affairs turn into very stable love relationships. People mature at different rates and there are casualties but it’s too simple to say those people are ‘doomed’.

“Vitriol” oh calm down. That’s the most impassioned you’ve been the entire thread though. With regard to your husband… well, singularly impassioned!

It's premature to say anything for certain about any marriage when both people are still alive and physically capable of an affair, or anything else that could end it.

If her marriage ends tomorrow it'll have lasted longer than a lot of others. A quick Google says that in the UK, the average heterosexual marriage that ends in divorce lasts 12.7 years.

Of course she can't absolutely know, nobody can. At what point is it no longer premature to say she's as sure as anyone can be?

To start a thread about it? After 15 years together and only 40 years old. Well, strikes me as somewhat premature.

Not you

and that’s cool

You just keep saying the same thing over and over.

At what point will it no longer be premature for her to say she's as sure as anyone can be in their marriage?

A little later than 15 years in 😆

Isn't it a bit premature for you to say you won't have an affair?

Did I say that?

How many years in? They've already beaten the average for a UK opposite sex marriage that ends in divorce.

It's a genuine question. If 15 years and four kids is too soon, when will it be?

@LivelyHazel do you hope that your DC will be much nicer people at 25 than you were?

Ah, good - best to be honest with yourself.

Well I can’t say for sure. I don’t think so but who knows. Too premature for me to start a thread about how I’m sure I never would though!

Genuine answer… don’t know 🤷‍♀️

and now I want to watch last episode of Alice and Steve so I will have to put all thoughts of this sadly aside 😊

Did OP say that?

I think it’s fairly normal to reflect on your choices you made when much younger. Here probably isn’t the best place. If you need to process it then therapy might be a good idea.

So what did the husband work so hard at? Or the other woman? What did she work hard at doing? (Aside from another woman's husband) It sounds as though they got what they wanted, and the wife (regardless of the degree of her attachment, I'm sure she didn't appreciate her husband having sex with someone else behind her back, before leaving her for them) was the one who would have to squash her own feelings on the matter in order to protect the children from her husband's wrongdoing.

You can't successfully argue that the perpetrators of a betrayal (because regardless of degree of love, it was a betrayal of their marriage) worked 'just as hard' as the party they wronged and humiliated. That's laughable.

@LivelyHazel people will fall over themselves trying to tell you that your relationship is doomed, that your husband will absolutely and most definitely cheat on you.. and that a 15 year relationship ‘isn’t long’.

in other words.. there is no world in which your relationship can be successful and healthy.

Od course not all marriages after affair are doomed.. my friend is 24 years into a marriage that started with and affair. She’s never worried about him having an affair as a) he adores her and b) they both said the deceit was too difficult.

Sounds like you have gone on to have a good relationship. Long may it continue.