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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Last straw - Married Man - TMI

572 replies

heartshaped · 15/04/2014 18:50

I'm so sorry, I am in an affair (myself single). It is loving, I love him and he says the same wholeheartedly (I know the script, i've read up, I can't recognise it at the moment). Only recently have I pushed him to consider leaving his wife, though I previously thought I was okay with things as they were - loving attentive guy, real kindred spirits in every way but I have fallen deep so pushed things. Last night he came over, I thought to stay, we had anal sex (sorry for tmi) which I have never done, and then he left me on my own to go home to his wife. I'm feel so so gutted and used. He's texting all day please can we meet up, why aren't I talking to him but I feel dreadful, drained and dead.

OP posts:
GarlicAprilShowers · 17/04/2014 13:01

Good advice to meet outside your home, I agree.

Chunderella · 17/04/2014 13:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/04/2014 13:08

OP doesn't really have anything to lose. OW/OM are not as 'scorned' in RL as they are on MN. This is a fact. Most people are pragmatic about it outside of a chatboard, because they have to be. It's only behind a keyboard that people can state so categorically, how things are.

Nobody on this thread has said that affairs are a good thing, nobody at all. There are other things though that some people find more devastating.

Gen35 · 17/04/2014 13:10

He sounds vile op, do you really want a bloke that gets off on hating his wife so much he wants to get one over in her by sh*gging you in her house? Sounds like a misogynist and a coward to me. If he was a decent bloke trapped in a loveless marriage, he'd have left her ages ago. I really hope you leave him for yourself. You ought not to want this piece of excrement and if feel you don't deserve better than this, you need therapy to understand why.

Chunderella · 17/04/2014 13:12

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

heartshaped · 17/04/2014 13:16

Thanks you garlic and Lying. I am here. I am listening. Your words and thoughts are not lost on me.

OP posts:
Msdj · 17/04/2014 13:22

I have sent you a pm heart shaped

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/04/2014 13:23

Chunderella... OP won't feel any kind of loss regarding this affair because to her, losing her married man is the only loss she cannot stand.

One of the reasons why I have empathy for OW is that my friend was in a long term affair with a much older man and she was besotted. I did all I could to persuade her out of it, to end it with him and she wouldn't - and she was heartbroken. THEN she felt loss. She didn't care that I was annoyed with her or whether anybody around her would have shunned her because she simply wouldn't have noticed. She LOST the man she loved and that's all she cared about.

Quite honestly, people who 'shun' don't interest me either and I'm NOT an OW. I just dislike labels and judgements from people who aren't qualified to do either. It's everything to do with their own issues. We don't shun our children when they do things wrong much as we hate the behaviour the dint of age doesn't mean much more - people do things that are hurtful and wrong and they get punished but we don't have stocks and we don't stone here in the UK either. Everytime I think of somebody being 'unaccepted' for want of a better term, I think of my friend and it makes me cry. Her behaviour was horrible and selfish but I'm not going to treat her as some kind of a lesser being because she isn't. I don't do that... and people I consider decent don't do that either.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/04/2014 13:24

heartshaped... Shall I send you the thread I did when I was out of my mind worried about my friend? It would send shivers down your spine and it may help or it may not. You're welcome to it - pm me your e-mail address if you want it.

Chunderella · 17/04/2014 13:27

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

heartshaped · 17/04/2014 13:28

Is she okay now Lying? My friends are out of their mind, don't recognise me. I have isolated myself from them completely. Don't know how to get back.

OP posts:
Gen35 · 17/04/2014 13:29

I do think in real life we do have to be more balanced. my sister was in a long term affair with a married man. It ended badly, he refused to leave his wife but he enjoyed several years of free b&b meanwhile. my sister didn't have the mental strength to see he was worthless and has generally very poor judgment re men. I feel sorry for her and for you op.

Chunderella · 17/04/2014 13:35

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DenzelWashington · 17/04/2014 13:44

Op, do you not think it likely that monogamy is just not on the cards with this bloke? You can be his mistress or his partner/wife, but in all likelihood what you can never be is his one and only.

If that were the deal he spelled out to you tonight, would you take it?

For what it's worth, I knew a woman whose MM did the whole sex in the marital bed thing. He treated her abominably when the affair came to light. Dumped and denigrated, the works. Please beware.

rabbitseverywhere · 17/04/2014 13:47

From what you are saying OP, it sounds as if you feel powerless in this situation.

In terms of ultimatums, remember that choosing to end a relationship is far easier to cope with than having it forced upon you.

Agree with other posters, if you want to test his commitment toward you, move the goal posts a bit and see how he reacts. Different place (not his as it's fulfilling his fantasy), different time etc., and see how willing he is to accommodate you.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/04/2014 13:55

No, heartshaped. She's not ok. I don't know whether your friends will support you; I suppose if they are true friends they will. The difficulty is that YOU have changed. The ethos of the person you were has evolved into something that you've made acceptable to yourself. I think that causes damage to a person, to you.

Ask yourself if you're avoiding your friends because you think they won't accept you? If you can't answer that question ask them because you have nothing to lose. If you won't end it with this man you're setting him up higher than your friends - higher and of greater importance than even yourself. You may love him to the moon and back but... how much does he love you? Don't answer that on the board - answer yourself because you'll get a true reflection of the answer that way.

I asked the same thing to Sarah (my friend) and she thought about it - and got angry (with me)... and I knew what the answer was because she did.

You're in a 'bubble', just like Sarah was. It distorts reality to such an extent that you can't recognise things for what they are because your affair is all encompassing, it's the only thing that matters to you right now if you're honest. That's why all the posters telling you to think of his wife and his children are wasting their time. People will always focus on the thing that is most important to them and they are inherently selfish - all of them.

Sorry to ramble... to answer your question. Sarah is still my friend; it's nominal really because as much as I'd love to get back to where we were beforehand, she's not the same person anymore; I am. I still love her, she's my friend but she's like a shadow. She still only wants to talk about HIM and it's two years after break up. That's how I know that 'shunning' by the general public makes absolutely no difference to her. She's joined an OW forum... I sent her the link to say, "Look Sarah, these women are in the grip of a horrible obsession, you don't want to be there, look how desperately unhappy they are?". She's joined them. Oh and him? He and I work together sometimes. I can't change that. I can't bear to look at him, happy and smiling and content. I don't know if he has a replacement, I suspect not because Sarah went to his home, had a bust-up outside in front of his wife and laid down in front of his car. It was my worst nightmare at the time.

Affairs are a CULT. You have a window of escape and if you go through it, it will be painful, but though that window is freedom and eventual peace and recovery.

With every ounce of persuasion I have, heartbroken, I'm urging you to find those window locks and GET OUT NOW. Not for him or his wife, his children, random people on a chatboard, but for you. Walk away and never look back.

gobbynorthernbird · 17/04/2014 14:07

Lying, I'm not saying it's right, but I have seen it happen to a friend of mine. It affected my relationship with her because she had lied to me. Lots of people did shun her, and I found it very difficult to be sympathetic because she (and he, obviously) had caused the issues. I also felt somewhat of a hypocrite when she turned to me for comfort and reassurance because I knew his wife was the one who had had her world ripped out from under her and it was the wife I empathised with, even though I didn't know the wife well.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 17/04/2014 14:11

We're all different, gobby, we draw from life experiences but i'm always astonished by the sheer number of assumptions that are made here by posters 'filling in the blanks'. Nobody knows what somebody's relationship is like, only the two in it, and the OW/OM has no idea what the marriage partners' relationship is like either.

Regarding the shunning, I'm disdainful as popular anecdote leads me to believe that in prison, murderers shun elderly person robbers who in turn shun paedophiles who shun drug dealers who shun murderers...

Vivacia · 17/04/2014 14:15

Ready for tonight, I'd have some lines in the sand. I'm afraid I agree with those predicting he says things you want to hear so you both end up having sex. Judge him on his actions, not his words. Remember last time he told you what you wanted to hear (he'd spend the night), he got what he wanted (in a spectacularly unloving and disrespectful manner) and the his actions (left).

Pasithea · 17/04/2014 14:20

Not all men in loveless marriages leave. Sometimes they will do what they think is the honest thing and look after they're wife's as they promised. Some men also do not know any different than the marriage they are in and are surprised to find out that all women are not the same. Ie. sexless , selfish, attention seeking. I am not defending all men but some are just a little sheltered.

Chunderella · 17/04/2014 14:22

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BeCool · 17/04/2014 14:29

What I didn't want was for MM to show me in glorious technicolour how microscopic I mean to him.
He has done you a massive favour here ^ - believe him, pick your self respect up off the floor and end it without further contact. Protect yourself and cut him off.

There really is nothing to talk about and he will def want a "farewell fuck" after your "talk" if he can get it.

MyLatest · 17/04/2014 14:29

OP a lot of people are putting time and energy into advising you on this thread and although I had some sympathy for you initially I am beginning to feel like you are enjoying the drama and soul-baring of it all. It annoys me when I see really well-intentioned posters sharing very personal stories which you ignore, thanking only posters who seem to be offering you unconditional support.

The truth is that although some people were unkind to you early on in the thread a lot of people have expressed genuine concern for you and given you advice which you don't seem to want to hear. Your complete insistence on continuing this affair leads me to agree with the poster upthread who said you just needed people to bleat to until MM returned. So I guess we'll hear from you again next time he uses you and leaves you alone.

MyLatest · 17/04/2014 14:32

Pasithea Hmm at 'sexless, selfish, attention seeking wives'. Is it selfish of a woman to want attention from her own DH? Because if my husband ignored me I wouldn't be feeling like having sex either. Some men really are so dumb that they can't see the connection between the two.

Phalenopsis · 17/04/2014 14:33

I just wanted to add something which Buzzardbird touched on obliquely: OP, you don't know this man. Yes, I'm sure you think you do: late night tete-a-tetes, pillow talk, sharing your most intimate thoughts and so on but this isn't real.

A real relationship is going round Sainsbury's on a Saturday afternoon and snapping at each other because if one of you had got out of bed that bit earlier there might have been some bread left; It's sleeping in separate rooms because one of you has a cold and is resembling Ivor The Engine when he/she is asleep; It's putting the bins out. Yes, there are lovely moments, romantic moments, pillow-talk moments but when you have an affair OP, you are living in another dimension which isn't real. You only see the good bits.

Sadly the reality comes when he leaves. For his wife, it'll be the mopping up after one of the children has come down with something and has projectile vomited all over himself and his bedroom; It'll be parents' evening and rictus grinning at the in-laws.

If you want a mantra this about this: when a man leaves his wife for his mistress, he creates a vacancy. You might want to be with him but the chances are you'll get fucked over too.

From what you've posted, it seems to me as if you're in Walter Mitty territory.

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