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.

Can you actually hear yourself OP? Can you not understand what devestation this will cause?

It is all about you and your feelings. What about MM wife, your DH and all the children.

They all don't matter though as long as you are happy.

I tried not to be judgemental previously but after your recent posts I'm afraid you just sound self absorbed and incredibly selfish.

My mother had a long term affair like OP describes.

She finally left my dad (leaving me, sister and brother aged 12,10 and 4) after several years.

Her affair partner was my dad's best friend.

That was 31 years ago. I'm still in therapy with Borderline Personality Disorder, my sister has burned through relationships and has addiction issues, my brother has little contact with our mother.

I only began to recover when I went NC with my mother - years after this all happened.

Secret affairs send shock waves through families for years. My mother chose an affair, which in the end has meant she has 3 gorgeous grandchildren she will never see again. There are no more family events bar her own funeral that I might attend. I'll never see my mother again.

Luckily, my dad met a fabulous woman and my stepmum is the real mum in my life. I also have a great MIL.

Don't ever pretend this won't affect your family.

I'm sorry I have upset so many people on this thread.

I do realise how I have come across. Everything I've been posting has just been my point of view. That doesn't mean that I haven't considered all the impacts on everyone else. Just that, in writing my posts, I was focusing on my perspective.

I can only hope that some of you may feel slightly different about the whole thing if you knew all the background story that had somehow led to this.

For me, this behaviour is a result of years of pain, whilst always putting everyone else's needs before my own.

That, coupled with the fact that myself and OM 'just clicked', in a way that doesn't happen very often has proved to be a recipe for disaster.

So, tell us the background story then.

You keep referring to it, and yet won't say what hurts your DH has caused you over the years...

Probably because you've built them up as justification for what you're doing to him. And deep down you know you're hugely in the wrong...

I'm a 'betrayed wife'. I've been where your DH has been (although he doesn't know it). I'm working through things with my DH.

You know why?

Because he freely admits now that anything he thought wrong with our relationship was him trying to justify the crap he was pulling.

That was after a month of seeing the OW.

You can't see that after 4 years.

Whatever...

Thunderheart... There is absolutely NOTHING that justifies what you're doing. Nothing in your background, however tragic gives you the right to do this. You're behaving in a cowardly fashion - keeping your husband in reserve whilst you and your affair partner bolster each other's egos. You're not special, you never will be, you're like every other person who decides that it's ok to do this.

What you don't know is that your time is marked. There's nowhere for this to go that will leave you restored to the position you were in before you started this affair. That's a sad fact. There has been damage done to your marriage, his marriage and to the person you are inside. You've basically acknowledged that your values are compromised and you'll make the excuse of 'your past' to blot out the reality of that. It won't work.

So, what will you do now? He's not going to set up home with you. That's a good thing if you did but know it. Your days are numbered as a couple and the best thing you can do is try to step outside yourself and consider your options for the future. You can carry on until discovery and try to keep your marriage ticking along till then. You'd better get your 'ducks in a row' to deal with the outfall of that discovery though because your life is going to change and how. At that point you may well be kicking yourself that there was a window, a small window, through which you could have gone and prevented the misery that you've contributed to. Your children will not be exempt from it, you will have shattered their worlds as they knew it. They won't understand, they'll just about grasp that nothing will be the same again and they'll crumple. Know that because that is the reality of what you are doing.

That window I was talking about, it's here, it's flapping in your face - and it's open. Going through it means that you end your affair for good. Whether you stay with your husband or not, your affair partner no longer figures. Upshot is that you may well get away with what you've done, you only have to carry it inside and, if you've managed to keep it secret for four years, there's no reason to suppose that you'll need to blurt it out now. Taking that window of opportunity means that you can work on an authentic relationship at home - whether that's as a wife or an ex-wife. You can work or your marriage or legitimately end it and be happy alone.

You DO have the right to be happy; you don't have the right to sneak around and risk other people's happiness and what they thought they had, what they built up with you and your affair partner.

I don't know if you're a coward by nature or not, OP. I'm usually quite disposed to understanding towards 'other women' but you seem so hell-bent on a course of destruction - no matter what, no matter who you drag with you - that I'm just saying it how it is. There is no happy ending for you with this man. He may stay married, he may not but the actions you two have taken preclude your having a happy relationship together. It is NOT going to happen as much as you may wish it right now, it won't.

As you have children to consider, start there... decide how best to proceed and stop being passive waiting for married man to take affirmative action because he won't... he'll drift along and so will you, wasting each other's time and wasting your spouse's time also. Don't do that, it's very wrong.

Years of pain?
Get a solicitor and divorce.

Years of deceit?
Hurt, endless hurt, for everyone you deceived.
Poverty in old age for an innocent party who is as we discuss this trainwreck probably putting everyone else first.

Adultery is one thing, and anyone can get over the fact that their spouse is a selfish jerk, and live with that fact.

It's the sense of being humiliated that comes from knowing that two and possibly more people (colleagues and friends perhaps) have deceived you for years, the feeling that you have been a complete fool and that your life and choices have been stolen from you that can break a person.

Why do you think this woman and her children owe you your happiness?

This woman has only one turn at life too.

In other words, I do not care what your rationalisation of this is.

The wife doesn't owe you anything.

Its not fair to present such a truncated story. You've got so many people riled and genuinely hurt because your shit awful attitude rubs salt in so many wounds. But hey, you aren't fair, and you don't care who you hurt, just as long as you get what you want.

You may have suffered terribly but the answer isn't to say fuck everybody I'll do what I want for a change. It doesn't work like that. Its just more of the same.

I and no-one here knows your situation - the one that currently gives you no choice. But you have form for keeping secrets and not being open and honest. I (genuinely) can't imagine what could have you trapped - but if it's money then you aren't trapped. Money is a shit reason to stay in a shit situation. Seductive, certainly, but not a good enough reason.

Make an honest woman of yourself for god sake op. As things stand, what you are doing is repulsive. How does that sit with you?

mathanxiety... you've written awesome posts on this thread, very thought-provoking, to-the-point and, in my opinion, absolutely correct.

Thunderheart, I know that you're hating reading these posts but gird your loins and do it anyway; their bald statements and commonsense are the key to your understanding the position in which you have put yourself - and innocent people around you.

OP I'm going to really, really curb my response and try to be fair.

You've caused such a mess, I can't see anyway of resolving it other than ending it with the OM and DH. You're clearly not happy (why else did you start the thread?).

Please think of how this is going to affect your DC. I'm sure you held them as babies and promised to love them and protect them - what happened between then and now? Is it worth it?

If I could say 'no' to him, I would have a long time ago.

Actually you could say no OP. The reason he makes you happy is he's propping up your unhappy marriage. He's the elastoplast that makes your life bearable.
If you were with MM full time I suspect you'd find out characteristics about him that you've overlooked in your snatched moments, things you only really notice about someone in an open full relationship.

Why the reluctance to tackle the real issue that is your marriage - You've been married since you were a kid, are you scared of being alone for a while...

Adulterers always say they have justification for what they are doing to sooth their conscious.

I don't think there could be a more selfish person, it's all me me me. No ounce of thinking of the children of the spouses that will get hurt.

You reap what you sow.

Your history with your spouse is irrelevant. There are options for dealing with that any of which would be better than this.

If you had spent the length of time reading around affairs and their participants and the justifications employed, you would see that more often than not they 'embroider' their marital relationship to ensure they aren't the only bad guys - 'I may not be perfect but he/she did that'. So what? Having an affair because of poor marriage is like eating a cream cake because your house is on fire - quite nice but not actually fixing the problem.

And regardless of how caddishly your H might have behaved, what did MM's wife do to you both to deserve this? Having been where she is (thank god not for 4 years!!) I wouldn't do it to someone I hated worse than poison.

I'd cry "troll" if I didn't know from my own experience that a breathtakingly thoughtless justification of unreasonable behaviour is typical for adulterers.

I'm kind of trapped in my marriage for various reasons right now, and I'm not prepared to let what's left of my youth waste away, when I have a chance of happiness here.

How are you trapped? Are you in a foreign country, and he's taken away your passport? Or is it more of the "I wouldn't have my lovely house" kind of trapped?

And how are you not letting your youth waste away, when you are spending it in a loveless marriage, unable to spend time with the man you love so much that you're happy to live apart from him for a decade?

OP - are you a little scared that if you leave your husband, your OM might panic that you no longer have the "exactly the same to lose" situation that is currently meaning you want it kept quiet and not pushing for more and so he ends it?

Start a plan for leaving your H, think about seeing a solicitor, finding out what you realisticaly could have financially, if you don't work, start looking for a job, you don't have to leave your H today, but if you want to give yourself 6 months-a year to get yourself into a position where you can leave without it being a terrible transition for your DCs then you might start feeling more positive.

Right now, your posts sound very passive, having the affair is the only action you've taken for youself, perhaps if you start taking other action towards being independent, even if you don't put the plan into place straight away - you will feel more positive about your life.

OM might be part of your future, he might not, but do you want your H to be? Start working towards a new life. If the OM really cares about you, then he'll support you and help you with that.

You know who disgusts me most here?
The posters who have not a shred of understanding for the OP and who have no compassion for someone who has got herself into a mess.

OP- you are right to know that you have to get out of this. There is no future and no happiness for you here. You say this man won't 'allow' you to stop things. That is silly because unless he kidnaps you are holds a gun to your head then all you have to do is not see him or speak to him.

You need to decide if your marriage is salvageable. For 4 years you have not put any effort into it, so now's your chance to decide if it's over or you can make it better.

Maybe you can come back and tell us what is going on there and if there is some hope?

If not, then you need to start planning to leave it.
How can you do that?

I'm not sure how a 4 year long affair equates with getting in a mess!

And it's not as if the poster has any guilt about what she's done.

She's not said she feels bad about what she's done to her DH or the OM's wife.

It is just about her and her selfish attitude to being happy at the expense of two other unsuspecting adults and several DC.

I can sympathise with someone who makes a mistake and regrets it, but the OP is not regretful, and it's hard to feel compassion for someone who's so resolutely determined not to even try to clear up the mess she's "got herself in".

I've name changed back for this.

Thunder you've posted 9 times on this thread which now has 218 messages on it (including mine which won't be the last).

For me math and Lying have really summed it up. I wonder why you posted in the first place. Was it because you have nowhere else (and no-one else) to talk about it with? I'm not sure the future you imagine will make you happy.

Gifting the marital home to the DW in this scenario, should MM decide to be with you, won't nullify what he has done to her and their children (over years and years if this pans out the way you want). Happiness is more than a tidy sum in the bank, a pension fund and the ability to swan off on holidays knowing that at least the DW has a roof over her head (I'm assuming that's what's keeping you in your marriage right now). It's about more than great sex, good conversation, snatched moments of joy, a great career, possessions and all the trappings of 'success'. The casual way in which you say he would give the family home to his DW belies the lack of empathy you have for her and his children. You have children. What advice would you give your grown-up children if at some point in the future they come to you with the same dilemma (from any of the many perspectives there are in this situation). Would you encourage them to lie, deceive, plan another persons future for them whilst they remain ignorant? Would you tell them to stay in a marriage which they're clearly not happy in for the sake of financial or other security?

Happiness is about being with yourself in those quiet moments and knowing you behaved ethically when really you wanted to do what's most desirable. You know what the right thing to do is and whilst I think timing is a red herring for you - it's absolutely crucial for the DW and her children because it's they who are going to suffer the most, even as I believe this won't end the way you imagine and hope it will.

No shred if understanding? I'm sorry but the OP has shown no shed if understanding for the 'innocent' parties in this situation. This includes children.

The fall out from affairs can be catastrophic. People on this thread have been cheated on/witnessed the fall out from affairs.

As I said earlier I did try to be fair but by using language such the OP not wanting to leave his wife yet then what kind of a reaction do you think you are going get.

If the OP was male and posting on here there would have had a lot tougher ride.

The casual way in which you say he would give the family home to his DW belies the lack of empathy you have for her and his children

^ this. Are you also prepared to give your family home to your DH or are you expecting him to move out and not see his children every day as a result of your actions?

When I started picking up my adulterous husband on his behaviour, asking why he was hiding texts from me, spending 30 minutes at a time in the bathroom all of a sudden (presumably texting), or not looking me in the eye any more, he denied what he could or turned it around ("How can I look at you normally when you keep saying I'm looking at you funny?"). He had to answer as we were talking, but if it had been on an internet thread he wouldn't have answered my questions either, as they were unanswerable. He wrote to his girlfriend that I was "quizzing" him, as there was "no winning the situation at all". Of course there was no "winning" if by that he meant "coming out looking good". I can totally understand why the OP is not answering any questions. To her they probably look like trick questions, designed to make her look bad however she answers.