So, here I am at the age of 37, hoping that a married man is going to leave his wife for me. How did my life come to this? :-(

[ThunderHeart]

I've been married since I was 19, and have 2 primary school aged children.

Dh is a decent enough man, but he is pretty rubbish as a husband. He's hurt me very deeply several times over the years, and each time I stayed in the relationship because I have always been utterly besotted with him and could never imagine my life without him (especially once we had children).

However, once my youngest child went to school, I gradually started to detach from dh for the first time in my adult life. I started finding time spent not with him more enjoyable than the time I did spend with him. It was a totally alien feeling, but I loved it. I finally felt free. None of his selfishness or thoughtlessness could hurt me anymore, because I was finally getting to a point where it didn't matter to me.

It was around this time that I met someone else. Someone who is so so different to dh in every way. We've been 'together' now for nearly 4 years.

When it first started, I had NO intention of leaving dh whatsoever. My life was quite nice, and new man, whilst lovely, was just my way of feeling better about myself after all the years of being let down by dh.

But it didn't turn out like that. New man is everything that dh has never been, and I feel more loved by him than I ever have by dh. He adores me, he doesn't need to tell me - I just know, and I've never felt that before.

He will also ALWAYS make his children his absolute top priority in everything. Providing them with a stable family background is very important to him. At first I was glad of this, as I felt equally determined to do the same for my children. Our relationship was conducted entirely separately to family life, and that was just fine.

It's been so long now though, I'm starting to feel that everyone in this mess is living a lie, and that we are now robbing our current spouses of a fairly significant chunk of their lives

I'm possibly ready to start thinking about leaving, but I very much doubt that he will even consider it.

Cannot believe that bit by bit, this is where my life has ended up.

What about your husband? Are in no rush to leave him either?

Think long and hard about what you are doing. Fairy tales don't always have happy endings in RL.

Dnt leave ur husband have u talked to him I understand where ur coming from but may be he does love u he just needs reminding maybe he has work pressure or watever just sit down and talk to him
My husband isn't as sexually active as I am and he offends me most of the time but I still know he loves and even though I fantasize abt other men I won't leave him

U2 - " I don't think I have read one post showing the OP sympathy. Not ripping her to shreds does not equal sympathy."

As it happens I think there have been. I thought my post was. It was meant to be. But being sympathetic to someone's situation doesn't not mean telling them they are doing the right thing. DH had an affair and whilst I had a lot of sympathy for OW (assuming everything she said about her life was true and that she was expecting H to leave me to be with her ) it hurt ME like hell and threatened our marriage. I am not going to tell her it's alright and it doesn't matter, because it does.

Only time will tell whether my husband goes on to have a great time with his mistress, but having read his emails to her I'd certainly say he's in love with her and much more passionate about it than he ever was with me. She is admittedly ten years younger, willing to please in a way she might regret later and has evidently not noticed some of his more annoying flaws, or seen him in his favourite baggy vest licking soup out of the bowl, but I could imagine them staying together.

But because he was so infatuated, he wasn't able to keep her out of our life. It was obvious after about 2 months of their affair that something very odd was going on with him. (I just didn't know what, and thought it was something else.) You both seem remarkably unaffected by anything going on around you, as if you couldn't care less about anything, really. Doesn't sound like either of you is at all passionate. Maybe your affair would turn out like the others described here. Or do you actually have deeper feelings about other people than you are admitting here?

I've not read all of the posts here but get the just.

To the OP, whatever state your marriage is in, stop using your husband and end the marriage with some dignity. Then see whether you & the OM have a future. The 2 things are separate & have to be treated as such - I know from experience.

It's despicable the way people in affairs lie to their spouses, friends and family & think it's OK. They carry on for years thinking they can have their cake & eat it whilst conveniently forgetting the others involved. Bear in mind OP that you only have MM pov re the state of his marriage - his wife will have a whole other story to tell I'm sure.

My exh actually thought he could have both the professional career wife & the hideous OW - he was very much mistaken on that front & once I knew where he'd been, she was welcome to him. He lost a lot more than i did over this whole affair.

I've read a few times on here if they can do it with you, then damn sure they can do it to you.

I'm, just delighted to be out of it.

Well OP all I can say is - with that comment about not being in any hurry for him to leave his DW and their children I can only assume that if and when he does (for you) you are going to either need to:

put on a great, but lacking in any real depth of meaning, show of feeling for all those who will be affected by your actions

OR

just say it like it is - you don't really give a shiny shit about anyone else but yourself.

Good luck with that then.

Op has your perception if your situation changed since reading the thread?

I feel sorry for you OP because clearly you have no idea what is coming your way. We are all where we are in life, often through no fault of our own, but only WE can change the path we take in the future. The problem is that we don`t see that we have made the wrong choices until it is too late to go back, or we blame others (your husband) for forcing us to make these bad choices. Consequently we continue on our destructive way, eventually hurting ourselves and always others.

So what is your husband like?

What are you expecting from this forum? I suspect you are already aware that what you are doing is wrong, no matter how you try to pretend otherwise. We all know, deep down, what is right and what is wrong.

This is not an attack on you, but you are being challenged to look into your heart.

op leave your h

get your own plalce and just see how things pan out

no one can say it def will not work out with mm

im sure we all know couples that have met in these type of situations
but I bet we all know people how have stayed together with their mm

whatyou have done is vv wrong

you ghave to stop deciving your dh it really is not fair on him

just leave him

It's been so long now though, I'm starting to feel that everyone in this mess is living a lie, and that we are now robbing our current spouses of a fairly significant chunk of their lives

That's because this is exactly how it is.
From what I can gather your DH is a nice enough man, but a bit of a shit husband. You put up with this because you've been with him from a young age and couldn't imagine life without him. I make the following observations without any judgement as you're here looking at how you can sort out your future.

You and the OM have been supplementing your married lives with each of you filling in the gaps.
You've now decided that actually OM is the man for you, but you have no idea if he feels the same.

FWIW it doesn't read as though he does and I think you know that.

I think the emotional side of your 'relationship' with him has made you want more from your life partner, but it doesn't sound as though either of these men will be able to provide it.
It also sounds as though you're still afraid of being without a man.

I think the OM may well have been a crutch for you and it might even be more of an EA than a potential long relationship. I don't see any future with him and if you end it, I imagine he'll just move on and find someone else to be his missing piece. Sorry if that hurts but it's how I see it.

*op leave your h

get your own plalce and just see how things pan out*

But, if OP does that, then she will lose the safety net of her husband's money. So really, she is using the poor sod (DH) as a safety net.
Almost as despicable as OM using OP in a 'having his cake and eating it' kind of way.

OP, is your husband a good earner?

It is an affair and to claim it isn't is absurd. It's also a fairly typical affair with the typical rationalizing and justifications , especially about his children.Your husband probably meets approximately 80 per cent of your needs , security , shared parenting , financial security and domestic assistance. ect. The om probably offers a measly five per cent , and vice versa. Between the two of them you probably get most of your needs met.

You said yourself that you have detached emotionally from your husband , which now leaves you looking to om to meet more of your needs. I think after four years he is unlikely to trade in and is unlikely to want to have a full relationship with you.

You've now decided that actually OM is the man for you, but you have no idea if he feels the same.
She says that she feels he's the man for her - but if she is not in a rush to be with him, where's the passion and longing? She's in so little of a rush that she's happy to wait another 10 or 15 years until the children have flown the nest. Doesn't sound exactly keen to me.

For the last 4 years, we've both been very happy with the way things are.

And how happy have your partners been? How happy would they be if they knew?

Leave your H and set him free to start a new life with a person who isn't going to shag someone else.

It's an affair plain and simple, stop trying to dress it up as anything else.

You feel that the OM is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with? On what are you basing that, because from what I can gather you haven't spent much time with him so how can you know the real him?
Maybe you only know the shiny version of him that is very different from how a person behaves everyday through the drudgery of life - the real version of him that his wife knows.

Maybe you should think about what you want in life that doesn't revolve around a man making your life and how happy you are in it.

I think projection is inevitable, as it is difficult to view someone's life and messy relationship circumstances through an unbiased lens, especially if you've been betrayed by someone you love. FWIW, I've been on both sides of it - my first love was a cheater of pathological proportions and I had to call off our wedding after finding out about his collection of other women, including two serious "girlfriends" that he'd been carrying on with through most of our five year relationship. I have never in my life felt pain like that. It took years to work through and left deep scars.

With my exH, I had left my home country to live with him in his, and then we had made a second move abroad together. He lost sexual interest in me about 2 years into the relationship, and was controlling, verbally abusive, frequently used physical intimation and had a drug problem. Not a single one of these things were apparent when I married him. He was a charming, successful older man who I was besotted with. Both my job and visa were dependent on being in his good graces, so walking out without plans in place wasn't an option. Cheating on him, and ultimately leaving, felt liberating.

There's been some great advice for the OP on this thread, and I hope that it might prompt her to examine her life more closely and decide to live honestly and do the right thing. Straight talk is good, and hopefully some of that might get through. There's also been a lot of name calling, shaming and verbal abuse here. Telling it like it is is one thing, but calling someone a disgusting, pathetic excuse of a human being is something very different, and I'm surprised that MNHQ is ok with this.

it's OM I want to spend this period of my life with. It's him I'd like to grow old with

Cast aside the rosy images of heading off into the sunset with a wrinkled and greying partner at your side for one moment and consider the financial nuts and bolts of growing old with someone.

All of the children will perhaps be heading to university. This is going to cost money. The bills are going to start piling up just as you and your hunny gird your loins for the trip into the sunset.
There are pension considerations - for you, for your H, for the OM and for his wife. In all likelihood, the wife has made decisions upon becoming a mother that have affected her career, her current earning power and her future prospects, all of which will have an impact on her future pension. Hers is the career that has been trimmed to allow for childcare, in all probability.
It is possible if they have a house that she is looking forward to selling it, downsizing and benefitting from the equity and her husband's pension as she grows older.
In all likelihood she has made important financial decisions for herself as part of a couple without full knowledge of the designs you have on her husband. Should she be allowed to continue to make financial plans based on the completely mistaken belief that she is part of a couple who will be together as they grow old?

Does nothing about the plight of the wife who is sitting aboard a slow motion financial trainwreck right now move you at all?

Is even the teeniest bit of your conscience being pricked at the idea of a wife being led up the financial garden path for many years (perhaps another ten or fifteen years?) only to have everything she counted on reduced by 50% at the time when she is in no position to ever get back to where she was on the day you and her husband made a huge decision and decided to keep her in the dark about it?

Math how interessting that this was the phrase that you picked out - I was just reading the OP's last post and it jumped out at me too.

"It's him I'd like to grow old with"

Hmm

That phrase rang a bell with me. It's the phrase that my DP's OW used to me to justify why they had to be together. They had planned to grow old together. It lasted 2 years. My heart trashed all over the floor for what turned out, when they were together full-time, to have been just a meaningless fuck.

There's much more to infidelity than the physical aspect and I think math has summed it up really well.

In all likelihood, the wife has made decisions upon becoming a mother that have affected her career, her current earning power and her future prospects, all of which will have an impact on her future pension. Hers is the career that has been trimmed to allow for childcare, in all probability.
It is possible if they have a house that she is looking forward to selling it, downsizing and benefitting from the equity and her husband's pension as she grows older.
In all likelihood she has made important financial decisions for herself as part of a couple without full knowledge of the designs you have on her husband. Should she be allowed to continue to make financial plans based on the completely mistaken belief that she is part of a couple who will be together as they grow old?

Well put, Math,
It reminds me of an aquaintance of ours, who put her own career on hold (for years) and worked all the drudgy jobs going, so that her husband could train for a career.
When he finally qualified after years of study, and they had the potential to greatly increase their income and live comfortably for the first time in years,
he buggered off with another woman.

How can a man repay his wife in this way? A woman who has stood by him in thick and thin?
Beats me.

Yes, anyone can warble on as much as she wants about love or lust, can justify or minimise or delude herself about the nature of things, but in the end it doesn't matter.

What matters is the difference between a nice assisted living facility for someone else when she is 88 and infirm and a true shit hole. That's what it boils down to.

I don't get why someone having a relationship with someone else's husband is willing to contemplate that as a reasonable price for the wife to pay for her fun and attention and misplaced affection.

Another example of fallout from an affair is that I always wanted two children and for DC to have a sibling some day. It really riles me that OW has two children whereas I have only one and we have to be separated on a regular basis to facilitate quality time with ExH and OW. If I took on more hours at work (not that any are available), I would barely see my child at all.

I get what your saying math , but a person who thinks her own children should pay the price probably hasn't even considered the price to the wife.