Having an affair

[imthebadone]

Have name changed. Also can't really believe I'm posting this.

Over the past couple of months I have posted here about my pretty awful marriage. But this is no excuse, I know. About 2 weeks ago I started an affair with a colleague. We were away with a work thing and, completely mutually, it just started.

I have been with dh for 20 years. We have 3 dc. Things have not been good for a long time (I haven't had sex with him for more than 2 years) but I always vowed I would never cheat. I actually quite wanted dh to cheat so that I would have a good excuse to split up. The man I'm having the affair with is also married. He has grown up children. He is overweight, older than me, and not conventionally attractive. But he makes me feel so good about myself. He listens to me, talks to me and we have extraordinary sex. Up until a fortnight ago I thought I had no sex drive. Now I realise that I do have a libido, it is just not directed towards dh.

I'm scared about what might happen. I'm under no illusions that this affair will probably not last, and that the chances of me and the other man having a future together are very slim. I know I ought to stop, but I haven't felt so alive in years and years (decades in all honesty).

Please talk me out of this. Tell me how stupid I'm being. Or is there a chance that the fact I have been so knocked off my feet could also mean that the problems in my marriage are too big to sort out? I don't know if I'm coming or going at the moment.

You can't have met that many people who have affairs if you think they all follow the same script.

If you are at the point of having an affair then you are at the point of finishing your marriage. I've been cheated on, and I resent the fact that my ex blames me for causing him to have an affair. If he had the balls he would have left the marriage before meeting someone else.

I didn't have an affair for any of those reasons, NilentSight.

Cronullansw, the OP is possibly about to end her marriage and is having an affair with a married man. There will be fallout, people will get hurt. Hardly a "self-esteem boosting" scenario, I'd say. That's not to say she shouldn't end her marriage. Children or not, no-one has to stay in a relationship they don't want to be in.

Wanting to be out of a marriage, when there are three kids involved, simply because you don't like your partner as much now as you did once is appalling behaviour - to the kids.

Once you become a parent, your wishes, dreams, little fancies are secondary to the needs of the children. And if one can't see that, then one is a selfish git. :)

And the affair doesn't have to have fallout. plenty are conducted secretly.

Children 'need' a mum and dad that actively don't like each other? Have you actually lived in a home where two parents are barely tolerating each other? Do you know how upsetting and damaging it can be? Even toddlers can pick up on a bad atmosphere and be so unsettled as to exhibit behavioural problems.

why stay in a rubbish marriage, leave!!! you kids deserves a happy man. we are not in the dark ages.. women can now earn and look after themselves and their kids. once you have left find a nice boyfriend who is not someone else's

I don't blame you at all for wanting out of your marriage. It sounds dead in the water and although I'd guess a marriage always seems worse when compared with a new relationship, we have to accept at face value what you are saying about your marriage being very unhappy before you embarked on this affair.

I do blame you for having an affair with a married man though. It's obvious that if you'd been single, you wouldn't have got involved with him and the same might be true of him. You both just happened to be available for an extra-marital relationship. He's probably not in an unhappy relationship, but if he's got grown-up children he's probably been with his wife a long time and you're his midlife crisis bit of fun. He probably likes the fact you're married too, but would back off at a rate of knots if you left your husband and asked to make your relationship public.

This is just an exit affair, in that it showed you that you can't put up with a loveless, sexless marriage and even more importantly, that you shouldn't. The good things that can come from this is that it teaches you more about yourself and your needs and gives you the confidence to see the possibilities. Learn the lesson well and leave your marriage once and for all.

But learn something else about yourself and about life. Being unhappy and miserable is never an excuse to bring misery and pain to the door of people who have never harmed you. That demeans you as a person and points to a selfish streak in your personality that needs to be re-directed into your new life.

It's not selfish to leave an unhappy marriage and stop showing your children an example of an unhappy relationship. It's not selfish to assert your sexual and emotional needs.

It is selfish to stay in a marriage for your own convenience, while getting your needs met elsewhere secretly and it is especially selfish to do this at the expense of another family's happiness.

The answer is clear: end both relationships and start a new life.

Yeah, I'm wrong.

LTB.

The kids will cope just fine with being shuttled around from house (yours ) to flat (ex hubby's) and parents barely able to converse with one another, and out of school care. It's great for kids. So long as the mother is happy and putting herself first.

Kids can and do cope fine with two-centre family arrangements as long as the parents manage the shared access sensitively and sensibly and as long as the children feel loved and secure in both homes.

Kids do NOT cope fine in homes where the adults under the same roof are barely able to converse sniping at each other all day, emotional/behavioural problems, treating each other disrespectfully or forcing the children to take sides.

Agree wholeheartedly with cogito and anyway have you seen the research on the effect of divorce on adult children cronullansw?

here is never a right time but drawing it out makes it bloody worse and I say that as a person whose parents are "still together for the kids" (i have younger siblings) it's fucked up and could be quite damaging on the children's learning about "normal" relationships. Would you want your daughter to think it was normal to stay in a grumpy, unaffectionate marriage? The kids see more than you think!

Cogito is right about kids and I have had proof, unfortunately. My h was unfaithful behind my back for 5 years of our 20 year marriage.

Our relationship was pretty poor during most of that time and particularly the final three years. Once it came out we went to Relate and started the process of mending our relationship.

At that stage .once things started to look BETTER, a heap of crap came out with the kids and the 15 year old failed all but 2 of her Gcses with D grades. Turned out that during the last two years she had been smoking dope with mates in order to feel happy, as home had been so miserable. She was only able to volunteer that after we began to resolve our problems .

I think some posters are getting distracted by the poster who's hijacking the thread with his own axe to grind, against women. Search for his posts to see where he's coming from - he's not here to help this OP, that's for sure - and is best ignored in my view.

fivnthree - sorry to hear about your daughter doing so poorly at her GCSE's and shock horror, smoking weed, but I honestly don't see it entirely as your husbands fault, equally, i'm not saying he's blameless.

scapegoat - I'm not anti women at all. I'm not pro or anti either gender, unlike most posters on this board who are anti men, which is sexist obv.

My view on this is thread simple and was stated earlier, parents, of both genders, need to suck it up and deal with it until the kids are old enough to understand AND cope.

My siblings are my proof, one's darling wife left him for another man, the the two kids struggled for years, and still do to an extent. The others partner has not left and three high flying, well balanced, charming ,lovely, positive kids are the result. (And I know for a fact that affairs took place in that marriage.)

We three were brought up unconventionally and have all struggled.

OP it sounds like you want strangers on the internet to tell you to leave your marriage. The same way that you say you wanted your dh to force the same decision.

I actually quite wanted dh to cheat so that I would have a good excuse to split up

You know what you want. You do not want to be in this marriage anymore. But you feel guilty about that, so you want others to persuade you that it's the right choice.

You will probably not take that step. It's more likely that your dh will 'find out' about the affair from some text or email. This will bring it all into the open and, if you're lucky, your dh will end it. If not, you will stay in this unhappy marriage until the children are grown up. How many more years will that be for you?

cronullansw the examples of one or two families aren't really enough to be 'proof' that justifies sweeping statements. Why not look at the thread someone started on here recently about the effects on people who lived with arguing (but together) parents.

There are an awful lot of examples on there that are 'proof' that your simplistic views are bollocks.

I could have almost written your post: bad marriage (but dh not a bad guy), no sex, 3 dcs, unhappy.

I wanted out but have never been brave enough to do it. Thre months ago, a long way from home, I also started a relationship with a work colleague. The difference is that I have lost my heart to him. I believe he also wants me. He is in a toxic relationship and our friendship intially grew through talking and talking about wanting out but Kids etc etc.

It has been the catalyst for both of us to end our relationships, something we should have both done a long time ago regardless of our relationship. We have both been happy to carry for kids etc and for fear of the future. Now we see that there is the possibility of a better future.

We ar not ending our relationships for each other but for ourselves. Our relationship has been the catalyst. The physical side of the relationship barely started but has been put on hold until we are both free (tbh, the om's insistence, not mine). However we text all the time and are positive about the future. Even if it doesn't work out, I recognise that I don't think I could have ended my marriage without it. His support in getting me through this is essential. When we start 'dating' there may be nothing there, however I will have got through the shit separation period whilst feeling optimistic about my future.

So my advice is dont pin too much on the om. Recognise that yours is a marriage that needs ending and if you need the om to help you through this, then do it. But recognise it for what it is.