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.

MyMistake do whatever feels right for you. If a final conversation can give you some closure then do it. My feeling is that the least painful way (in the long term) is to avoid speaking to him.

You are right, my affair felt like 'more' at least in the sense that we knew it would be impossible to just go back to being the people we were before it started. It was a hugely out of character thing for both of us to do. Maybe it felt even more intense because of that.

I agree that I am romanticising it. It's all very recent though so understandable I think.

I am trying to discuss it elsewhere - hence the reason for posting here.

I need to think about it.

I've learned a lot BB - frankly more positive things than negative to be honest. Over time I may change my opinion.

The married man is the one who is guilty here, not the single woman who is free to see who she likes. MN is always like this, I find it so 1950s to castigate scarlet women or whatever. Nobody forces married men to cheat, they are adults and they choose infidelity all by themselves.

Blaming women for men's sexual morality ought to be consigned to history imo.

Do you believe you would do the same thing again?

No. It's not something I thought I would ever do and it's something I've turned down before. The difference here is that we developed a pseudo friendship first because of something we had to work on together and so we already had a connection through that. The boundaries became fuzzy, largely because of an approach he made on IM that I went along with and that was it really although actually I can't identify a real moment that it started.

Previous approaches have been from 'dodgy' friends' husbands who are players.

BB you asked earlier about what I had learned.

When I say that there were a lot of positives those were not to do with the situation at all but more to do with the connection we established and the fact that 'affair aside' he is an extremely nice guy. A real shame that we met in this situation.

I agree that the married man is MORE guilty but it's still tacky and immoral to have an affair with a MM.

I would say exactly the same if the sexes were reversed. I would also say the same if one of the parties was in a committed relationship with someone else.

Nobody on this thread has blamed these women for the Mm's choices. At all.

It is possible to fully blame a cheating spouse but also think a person (male or female) who knowingly chooses to get involved with a married person is of dubious character. Weak self esteem? Desperate? Selfish? Low standards? Who knows but not the type of person I'd want to be.

What footie said ^

I agree Footy.

Nice guys don't have affairs. Nice guys can fall out if love with their partners and can end relationships but they don't cheat and play games.

OP, you clearly misjudged your exH personality, why do you feel confident that this sleezeball married man is such a nice guy.

'Shitting all over someone's marriage' is a blame free statement? This thread is rammed with blame. The OP has even been criticised for calling her actions a mistake.

What should she do? Punch herself in the face? Arrest herself? The married man had commitments, she didn't. She isn't a criminal.

So, it crept up on you rather than a conscious choice would you say? I get that from the fact that you turn down friend's slimeball husbands who have made passes? Maybe you didn't think anything was happening other than friendship?

Did you fancy him before anything happened?

Life is complicated IMHO I actually think that both MM and XH are nice guys.

XH is nice but weak and easily led

MM is straight, intelligent and lots of things that I won't share here.

Who said she was a criminal?!

Yes...shitting all over someone's marriage. If you become involved with a person, male or female that is married you are shitting over a marriage. Explain to me how they're not? Don't give me that old 'the ow didnt say the vows' rubbish. We're human beings living in a civilised society, we have a duty to behave by an acceptable moral code. Just because you're not the married one doesn't mean you can knowingly start relationships with people that ARE married.

This isn't a gender thing either. I would say the same of a man cheating with a married woman.

We worked on something together that meant that we had to communicate, mostly by email.

I barely spoke with him or saw him face to face at that time.

We formed a bit of a bond through what we were working on and banter started. He certainly was just friendly at the beginning for sure. It just seemed to develop by email over quite a long period of time.

I didn't fancy him when I first met him face to face - we irritated each other.

Of course nice people can sometimes do crap things. Hopefully they learn from them and don't do them again but it is naive to think that only truly bad people ever commit adultery.

well said MZ

Perhaps you were both a little alike? People like me always irritate me

Possibly so BB

People always say they'd say the same thing about a man involved with a married woman but I've never actually seen that, anywhere, ever.

Which is it? Do you think she is to blame or not? People seem to be expecting her to atone in some way for her sins, as if she was a criminal.

I think coming on here admitting to her mistake is probably the equivalent of a hair shirt.

In a past existence I was seduced by a MM while in denial about the state of my marriage. He never lied, just wanted no strings sex with me and always told me he loved his wife and would never leave her or his DC. First off I refused him but when he persisted I broke all my moral beliefs and descended into a form of insanity.

I think it was a classic exit affair on my part as when MM came to his senses and ended it I told my DH what had happened. I went to counselling for two years to try and understand how I had broken so many strongly held beliefs. I went to Relate for a year with DH until it became clear that I was acting on years of anger and resentment over the way our marriage had turned out. DH had forgiven me and wanted to make things work but I had recognised the abusive dynamic of our relationship and decided to leave. H tried to convince me that I was justifying my awful behaviour by saying our marriage was unhappy. I tried over and over to make this true but couldn't.

For me it was a huge wake up for me over how disconnected I had got from my authentic self living with a controlling bully. I left to live on my own and recover my self. It has taken five years to reach peace and some form of self-forgiveness. Even now I shudder at how I reached that low point. It is good to reflect and have self awareness and I am a much more humble and forgiving person than I was five years ago.

I would never ever go down that path again. I have had no contact with him since the end of the affair. Nor would I wilfully blind myself again to the reality of my primary relationship but try to address problems how ever painful it proves.

You are doing a brave thing with this thread OP, and I hope it brings you some peace of mind.

MorrisZapp but blaming people is fun (apparently). MM isn't posting on here (to our knowledge) so he can't be publicly blamed.

What I have learned from this experience is that I shouldn't judge how people behave in certain situations unless I have a very good understanding of that situation. We can all sit back in our chairs and dish out advice (me included) but actually being there is very different.

I would have never thought I'd be in this situation. Ever. Yet here I am. I am obviously weaker than I thought. I still haven't quite figured out the reasons for my behaviour. The same applies to MM - it is hugely out of character for him too. Thus all sorts of dilemmas open up - would I do it again? I'd firmly say no, but then I would have said that five months ago. Would I consider marriage in the future, given that even very decent people appear to be unfaithful? Does that mean I could potentially be unfaithful to my partner? (Have never been, by the way.)

Which is why I will need lots more time to think things through. Only time will tell. I have become much less confident in my ability to plan my life and accurately predict my actions at every turn.