We All Make Mistakes

[MyMistake]

I have done something silly. Had an affair with a married guy (no DC's).

I should have known better. I did know better logically but let my heart take me into it somehow.

I have been on other side of something like this in the past so feel pretty knowledgeable on the subject. But I still did it.

And now I feel rubbish. I am in a position where I will see him about quite frequently and need to get over myself. He is a good person - appreciate that many will dispute this but I do believe this to be the case and this is really the reason that it ended. Need to get rapidly to the point where I can look back on it fondly and be peaceful - but right now I'm nowhere near there.

Posting for a shoulder and hopefully to remind others that however you feel an affair is generally never a good idea.

Yeah, I said he was a player but, of course, he isn't necessarily

The only way I could think of him not as a player is if he'd fallen head over heals and walked away from the marriage to be with the OP.

I know affairs happen way more frequently than we all like to think and that there are a whole host of reasons why any one of us might cross the line but, in my experience, the hyperreal hysteria that needs to surround any affair can't be based in honesty, integrity and sincerity by it's very nature. Everyone gets lied to in infidelity. Everyone. Not least the adulterer who is living a lie.

When you say he 'works in the community', is he the milkman? I do love a cliche.

I am old enough to know better frankly ... and I guess I was foolishly carried away by attraction and flattery etc.

We did something wrong here. We both know that. I have never done it before and know that he has not either. Of course he could be lying on that but I think it is extremely unlikely.

To take something positive from this, I do think that we have both totally been put off ever doing something like this again.

He is not a milkman

I don't fancy the milkman

I really am trying still to understand how on earth this happened from my and his perspective.

There is of course a tendency for everyone to believe they are good and honest. Apart from what he has done here he seems a very straight and honest person to me. And that is why all along I simply couldn't understand it. And in the end it not 'sitting right' is why it has ended.

I would have thought you would have been put off doing something like this when your H did the same to you.

Adultery hurts whether there are DCs involved or not.

What do you want here - retribution?

His poor wife.

I can understand that he must be selfish and weak. That rings true. And I guess the same for me.

I could say the same thing about XH.

Not that 'selfish' and 'weak' is an excuse.

I do find it odd in a way that I have come to terms quite easily with my XH's affair. I don't really understand that. But he did something far worse in my than having an affair and so maybe that is why I have come to terms with it.

I don't want retribution.

I am essentially trying to learn from this and welcome other's input.

Your subject title turns me cold quite frankly. I make mistakes but that involves putting darks in with the whites in my washing machine, or writing your instead of you're.

As someone who is now having to start divorce proceedings against my H who I loved completely, for his affair and the physical and mental pain it causes, I am surprised you wish to look at this fondly in the future, especially if you say you read the threads on here where you can feel the pain of posters who are on the other end.

Lollypop man? Window cleaner? Traffic Warden?

Seriously, I don't think you should beat yourself up overly. In my experience, affairs are like little bubbles of insanity. It is relatively easy to find your feet leaving the ground. It's only when the bubble bursts that reality seeps back in and you come down to earth with a bang.

The trick is to give them a good poke with something sharp the minute they float your way. For some reason, you didn't this time and it's clear you wish you had. It was a mistake but one you should be able to move on from without being branded a scarlet woman.

I don't fancy the milkman either.

I understand your perspective totally Handfulofcottonbuds and am very sorry if my posts cause offence.

Perhaps I feel differently somehow because of how I viewed my own XH's affair and came to terms with it. And I appreciate that I maybe have an odd perspective because of this. Not a good thing I know.

Yes a bubble of insanity. That does ring true for sure.

Ah you old silly billy. Hopefully this 'hurting bit' will go really, really fast and you and his wife can have a little chuckle about it. Bless.

Your posts don't cause me offence, this is an open forum for anybody and I don't know you to judge.

I'm glad you came to terms with your XH's affair, it just breaks my heart when another post pops up with a wife who suspects or has found out about an affair.

I'll leave others to give you the advice you need.

Was there an element of wanting to understand what your XH might have felt during his own brush with the temporary insanity adultery brings?

I could sort of understand that.

To be honest, whilst I am feeling rubbish at the moment (and I appreciate I only have myself to blame) one positive I see is that I have left him and his wife to get on with their lives.

Rightly or wrongly I think he had a wake up call and realised that he was doing something wrong / should be focussing on wife. I don't feel proud at all but feel good that I have left them to be happy. And feel glad that it stopped before it went too far.

That's an interesting point Tinsel.

Not consciously but maybe sub consciously. Although I'm not that interested in understanding XH's affair to be honest so unsure. Whilst my XH had an affair one of my DC's was very ill and so for me I have always been more angry with XH's treatment of the DC than about the affair.

Handfulofcottonbuds ... in my case I came to realise that I had been very unhappy with XH and so nowadays to be honest am glad that he left. Not glad about the affair bit glad he is gone. He was weak and silly and could have left another way. And also his actions did impact my DC's health.

Had it been a good marriage which it sounds very much like yours has been then I'm sure I would feel very differently.

I find it very strange when people judge others more harshly for not falling in love and leaving a marriage and children, as if 'love' is the only justifiable reason for an affair.

I think it's entirely possible this man's never had an affair before which is just as credible as you saying you have never been involved with a MM before.

I find your thread valuable and interesting because I think a lot of posters on Mumsnet have very fixed views about why affairs happen and about the 'types' who have them (MM/MW and OW/OM). It's often assumed they occur in terrible marriages and that the MM always disparages his wife to the OW.

Whereas the truth is there are no 'types', affairs happen for lots of different reasons in lots of different relationships, to lots of different people.

It's refreshing to see someone who's been involved in an affair telling the truth about that.

Looking back fondly on shagging someone else's husband?? Yeah...prob not the best place to post.

It never went that far

OP I sympathise. I am in a similar situation to you - a single woman who had a short but very intensive affair with a married man (except that mine did get physical). I'm feeling awful, too. I have made a mistake. I haven't cheated on anyone but I was complicit in his cheating.

I also believe that 'my' MM is a very decent person who had his moment of madness. He never said a bad word about his wife. They will have to sort out their marriage one way or another but it cannot have anything to do with me.

Splitting up was a joint decision and difficult for both of us; we had developed strong feelings for each other. I am still heartbroken. (I don't know about him, we have had no contact since ending it.) While I feel bad about my mistake I am also relieved that the deception is over. It really got to me at the time.

Same as you I'm still struggling to understand why I took the decision to get involved with him. I knew from the outset that it could only end in tears (he has always been very open and honest with me, no promises etc.). Or rather why I didn't take the conscious decision not to get involved. Moving on from this will be impossible until I've figured the reasons behind my behaviour.

I hope you'll soon get over the affair, OP. Don't beat yourself up too much.

Familyscapegoat - I do think that affairs happen for all kinds of reasons.

Obviously they are wrong. Having said that they seem to happen all over the place and nobody is perfect. One of my best friends has been married for over twenty years to the man she left her XH for - I didn't know her during her previous marriage. I honestly cannot see her as a bad person. She is married to a lovely man who left a partner for her. They are two of the happiest people that I know.

To be frank I am very confused about what I have done here and why I did it and I really want to learn from it. I know we were in an insanity bubble, I knew that it was wrong and so did he. I knew always that it would never go anywhere and so did he. We completely got carried away with our connection and mutual attraction and that seems to be it. I think that somehow it became a way of life and a habit.

Isthegrassgreener - you sound exactly like me

Isthrgrass....I'm thinking selfishness is why you didn't stop it.

'Your mm' was decent?? Because he didnt bad mouth his wife. Oh do fuck off.

Women like you make me sick. Read the other thread I'm posting on at the moment where the bottom of a woman's world has fallen from beneath her...

Shocking how people make excuses for their behaviour.