How to leave long term marraige

[Pussycat02]

Hi iv been married 22 years and although my husband is a good man , over the past year and half iv fallen in love with another man , the om is divorced and we want to be with each other open lye instead of secret meetings. We haven't slept together as the guilt of being still married is there but we have such strong connection I can't be with out him. My kids are in there twenties , has anyone ever been I this situation not sure whether to just admit iv fallen out of love or confess to seeing another man

Be honest.

Be honest and be prepared for him to be very hurt.

Be sure it's because you don't want to be with your husband, rather than because you want to be with the other man.

Be honest.

Talk to your husband, split your marriage and assets, then think about whether you want to make something real with the other man.

If you have any respect for your husband whatsoever, if you don't consider your marriage vows to have been a complete fucking joke, and if you have any appreciation of the many, many years you have spent together with this man - you will do things in the respectful way.

That is to say - STOP SEEING THIS OTHER MAN UNTIL YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY SEPARATED FROM YOUR HUSBAND.

Separate from your husband FIRST. After that, if you want, go ahead and see if you can have a relationship with this other man. Be prepared for the fall out from your children. You have already betrayed them by betraying their father, so don't expect for them to be you biggest fans anymore.

I basically have zero respect for people who - like you - like to "test the waters" with another person before they leave their partner. It is arrogant, selfish, shitty behaviour.

There is no shame at all in leaving a marriage because you are unhappy, or no longer love the other person. There is a metric ton worth of shame of getting involved with another person beforehand.

I think your husband is better off without you.

You need to be careful.
How do you know this is not just infatuation?
Why did you put yourself in a position when you allowed yourself to meet and fall for another man when you were married?
Were you looking?
Are you just bored with your DH?

It's easy to think the grass is greener and a new man will be everything the old one wasn't.

You ought not to jump ship like this because it's not good to go from along marriage straight into something new. You need first to decide why your long marriage isn't working- you show no signs of trying to save it. why is that?

Then if you decide to end it, you need time on your own to assess what you want- not using this new man as an escape route from your old and boring marriage.

Hi I didn't go out looking to meet someone it just was something that built up slowly from a friendship and now has turned my life upside down , the om won't get physical with me until I'm separated but has admitted deep feelings for me and when we are together it just feels right, I just wondered if anyone else has been in same situation

I was on the receiving end of this situation, unfortunately. My exH left for someone else who he had developed deep feelings for. If your marriage is irretrievably poor then bring it to an end, work out an exit plan and break the bad news to your DH and DCs as sensitively & decently as you can. It's going to be horrible for all concerned but there's no short-cut with that one.

Agreeing with the others however. Do plan to spend some time as an independent woman rather than leaping straight our of the frying pan into the fire. The 'OM' might appear to be a decent bloke because he's holding off shagging you.... but he could just prove to be a big old sleaze who loses interest once you're available. Don't pin your hopes of future happiness on someone like that.

My best friend was in this situation.
I'll tell you her experience without commenting on your own because it's for you to make your own mind up.

Friend had been SAHM for 20 years. Lovely home, two children, ok marriage but no excitement. Met another man and became absolutely infatuated, started an emotional affair which became physical without going all the way. She became giddy, somewhat reckless and completely carried away.

She confided in me and I told her straight that while I am her friend and always will be, I was disgusted at her behaviour, concerned for her DH and for her children (younger than yours, still at school) and also worried for her as, from what she told me, it was no way to happiness.

Fast forward. The marriage ended despite her DH's willingness to forgive and forget. She had a clean break settlement and bought a house, had to find work and also look after the children. The relationship with her ex broke down totally as it did with the DCs. The relationship with the OM also broke down, messily and ended.

Can't give away details of how things are now but I can tell you that she feels like a bomb went off under her life and she can't quite believe how things have turned out. She's constantly stressed, doesn't seem happy and is very concerned about the future. Her husband was also a 'good man' and she thinks she suffered a 'mid life crisis' which has left five people devastated.

Omg hen15 your friend sounds like me, it's so difficult though as om really wants me

When you say it like that it sounds as though you're principally flattered by the fact that you are wanted/desired, rather than you've thought this through. If you're getting no attention from your 'good man' at home and feeling unloved/rejected/bored etc that's reason enough to seek a separation. However, it is also very easy to get swept along in some kind of romantic trance, bridges burning merrily behind you, and find the reality ends up being no better.

Have you thought about why your 22 yr old marriage no longer makes you happy? Why do you want to end it? why didn't you end up before this man came on the scene?

If this OM wasn't around, would you even try to save your marriage?
Was it dead in the water before OM came along?
If you can imagine being on your own, with no DH and no OM, is that something you'd like? Because there is no guarantee that relationship will work.

At the moment it's a thrill- it's secret, there is all the sexual tension- you don't even know if you are compatible in bed!- though I suspect you have dipped your toe in the water without 'going the full way'.

This Om might want you because you are unavailable.
You need to think how he will be as a step-parent to your DCs- they may be adults but they are still part of your life and would be part of his.

You aren't telling us very much really about the state of your marriage, why it doesn't work, why you encouraged the OM ( you aren't passive in all of this- even if you knew him already the relationships has clearly moved on from being friends to being something else.)

Pussycat if you feel like saying, do your grown children still live at home? or is it just you and DH?

How were things in the marriage going back 18 months? were you feeling neglected, taken for granted and possibly surplus to requirements?
Do you have a job or career outside the home? if not what do you spend your time doing? and if I might ask, what kind of things do you do when you have your secret meetings with the OM?

I don't ask those things to be nosy, just to get a better picture of how your life's been this past couple of years and what lead you to seek out attention elsewhere.

I might be in danger of judging by my friend's experiences, but yes, you do sound in a very similar situation. She now knows that she was bored, felt undervalued, neglected by her DH and enjoyed the attention and thrill of the new. She also agrees that with hindsight she can see that she didn't stop to really value the things she had, she simply concentrated on what she felt she was missing in life.

"it's so difficult though as om really wants me"

So what? What HE wants isn't the issue. What you want is the issue.