Have discovered that the man I've been dating is actually married! Any advice?

[Greene1]

I haven't posted here before and wondered if I could ask some advice. I'm sorry but this is long.

I am completely devastated as on Friday the man I have been dating for 9 months confessed that he is already married and has children. I don't think he was actually going to tell me but a chance encountered forced him to.

Some background. We dated back in my mid twenties, very happy, passionate fun relationship and we were together for nearly 2 years. Kept our own flats but he was reluctant to commit as he felt he was too young. We split amicably but I was very hurt and took me ages to forget him and he told me later that he was moving abroad. I moved on too dated and then was in a long term relationship which finished at the beginning of last year.

On Christmas Eve 2013 I received a message out of the blue from married man. Very friendly wishing me a happy Christmas and asking what I had been up to. He told me he was living back in the UK working in town and was single after a relationship he was in had finished. Said he wished he was spending Christmas with me and that he had always viewed me as 'the one that got away'. I'll admit I was hugely flattered.

I was abroad for New Year and when I got back we arranged to meet for a coffee and a catch up. I'll admit I was wary as obviously I wasn't 100% sure of his status and obviously I am fully aware that some married men are looking for affairs!

When we met up the attraction was still there in spades I naively thought that the time would have muted the feeling but I was still hugely attracted to him and him to me. We had a kiss then and he asked me to dinner later in the week. There was at no time any indication that he was married and he wasn't wearing a ring. I was excited and exhilarated to have him back in my life and we started a very intense and passionate relationship seeing each other after work and he coming over to my flat at weekends. Maybe that's when the alarm bells should have rung as sometimes he would come over only on Sunday afternoon or would make an excuse that he had an early flight and had to leave that night not staying over. However I was happy to have him in my life and realised that he's a very busy guy, as am I!

We had a great summer I had already booked a girlie holiday late last year with friends so we didn't go on a 'big holiday' together but we spent some lovely nights away at hotels.

On Friday we had supper after work outside of a lovely restaurant and we were discussing going away for the weekend in October to Barcelona. He was telling me about a fabulous hotel he had stayed at with work and i felt excited and happy. I invited him to my parents for Christmas in the country which feels so ridiculous now I want to cry. As we were walking back to the train station holding hands we bumped into 2 ladies who I assumed were work colleagues. He introduced me to them as a his 'friend' and they seemed strangely off with me as we walked away he got very agitated saying that he wasn't expecting to see them and that it made things 'complicated'. He then looked really stressed and worried saying that he had to go and he would call me soon. He left me standing in the street completely perplexed and horrified that something was seriously wrong.

He telephoned me on Saturday night to say that he was married with 2 young children. He said that his marriage was over and he and his wife hadn't had sex for more than a year. He said that he had been patient and understanding with her but she refused to talk about it and see a sex therapist and had expected him to become celibate just because she had. He also said he had tried to organise weekends away child-free and helped out with housework but nothing seemed good enough or made her happy. He said she was exhausting to live with and seeing me again made him realise that their marriage was a mistake. I told him not to ring me again to sort out his marriage and not to prop his life up by using me.

He text me several times which I have deleted and have now blocked his mobile number. I have been a complete mess since he confessed and now don't know whether to tell his wife what has been going on or whether I should walk away and not get involved. I'm also wondering whether I should leave the door open if he separates soon.

I'm also wondering whether I should leave the door open if he separates soon.

WTF??

If this whole thing is not a windup then I implore you to have a serious word with yourself.

I find it slightly strange that you all say "how can this possibly be true it's a script" when everybody knows a lot of married couples with children don't have sex.

I think the script varies but upshot is - it's not cheater fault in any way - they've been driven to this behaviour because ... (insert reasons it their spouses fault )

Having young DC is a stress-er on marriages and can impact on sex lives - but decent blocks get through it with their partners or break up - they don't use it as a justification to have sex/relationships with others.

He's spent nine months lying to you, his wife probably a lot of other people and came clean when caught out.

If you believe you can get past the lying to you, using you and get to a place of trust in the future with this guy and have the time/inclination till he sorts his shit out which could easily take years - then sure leave the door open in future and hope he doesn't keep pestering you in the mean time.

I would personally think however hard it is now to get over him - a fresh start with a guy who respects you and treats people he's in a relationship with well - would be better.

I do get it's not an easy option to walk away from someone you have strong feeling for - but he deliberately set up a situation where you were always going to get hurt - be wary of him.

or option C) his wife now knows (via the ladies they bumped into) and he is calling the OP to whine some more about his tragic life and get some sympathy and support from her.

everybody knows a lot of married couples with children don't have sex.

That's not true. I'd say those not having any sex are very, very rare. Even so it makes no difference to anything.

But one thing I would say, it is really very hard, impossible even, to have sex when you have children... and your lying scumbag of a husband is fucking another woman. Even more so when he is doing it in a hotel room miles away.

Why are you fixating on his sex life with his wife? It's still cheating even if they weren't shagging you know.

You might not be defending him but you aren't critically assessing what he has said. You seem keen to believe he's telling the truth about his wife. Even if he is telling the truth about his marriage now, he still lied to you from the beginning. He has let you live a lie for months.

OP. I think the only way you're going to get any closure is to tell his wife the whole sorry story.
It's plain you are not willing to accept that this guy will never have a committed relationship with you.
It'll be bloody painful for everyone concerned ,but sooner or later you, your lover and his wife will have to move on.
My guess is that she already knows about his affair (s) .

I'm not a regular on this board, but I can't believe that you have so little self respect that you'd consider even talking to him again!

What do you want to happen if you 'leave the door open for him?' If he leaves his wife, or she kicks him out, are you anticipating a nice amicable divorce and weekends with the children he didn't want? The reality will be far more messy and upsetting. You have seen him when he is playing the carefree single man. The weekend father fighting over his assets might not be so much fun to be around.

If you can get a message to the wife, I would let her know.

And ignore this guy, he sounds awful.

You've had loads of good advice OP but you're not going to listen to it.

Tell his wife, he'll have no-where to go except to you and every time he's works late/goes to the pub/has a work night out/business trip/pops to the shop, you'll be wondering. Or are you going to continue to believe everything he says, even when it's obviously lies?

Why would someone who does not want children decide to join a parenting website in order to ask about someone who is cheating on their wife and family?

Hence my windup comment.

The only reason he has even told you he has a wife is because he has been caught out, if his life was so terrible and awful he would have told you straight away he was married. He is now just doing damage limitation, he knows he has been found out and also if his marriage really was dead he wouldn't have literally dropped you in the street to run back home to get his side of the story in before the two women told his wife!

My sisters exH was cheating, he only confessed when he had been caught out, my sister divorced him but he gave the line to the new OW, they never had sex, my sister wasn't kind to him etc, etc (none of it true). She also found out afterwards he had got divorced from his 1st wife for cheating on her (he told my sister it was because his 1st wife was too materialistic, etc, etc). He is now only wife number 3!

This bloke has lied to you for the entire duration of your relationship and he's lying to you now. If you are daft enough to believe his bullshit then more fool you. Your whole relationship is built on a lie.

He's only come clean because he got caught red handed, otherwise he would have carried on lying to you and it might have been months, another year, or even longer before you found out.

Now he's spinning you the classic lines about - no sex, separate rooms, lazy wife who tricked him into having kids and who would threaten suicide if he leaves. Yeah right and I'm the Queen of England.

If she's all he says, and if his marriage is in the state he says it is - then why the fuck didn't he tell you in the first place? Why fabricate a 'single life' for himself? Every Sunday when he was making his excuses to leave, he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going - back to his wife and kids. He only stopped with the lies when he was caught out by the chance meeting with the women, otherwise - there would have been plenty more Sundays when he had 'early flights' to catch and you would have gone on in the relationship completely oblivious to the truth. Would you have dived into bed with him as quickly as you did if you had known he had a wife and kids at home? Of course you wouldn't - which is why he never told you.

You might have gone out with him, you might have rekindled a friendship, you might even have ended up getting emotionally involved and/or sleeping with him further down the line if he'd told you the tale he's telling you now from the beginning - who's to say? But you never got the chance to think, decide/weigh up the situation because he came back into your life portraying himself as single, available man and you had no reason to hold back. Can you not see how easily he has duped and manipulated you? Exactly as he's duping his wife, children, friends and others about this double life of his?

Stop talking to this lying, cheating scumbag. All you are going to get out of 'long talks' is more self-serving, self pitying nonsense justifying his disgusting behaviour. You are clearly very susceptible to his bullshit, as evidenced by your posts here, so your best protection is simply not to give him an opportunity to manipulate you any further by not communicating with him in any way, shape or form.

He's a liar and an accomplished one at that. He's had you fooled for the last nine months, don't let him fool you any longer.

Wow OP, get some self-respect. Read your own posts and ask yourself if it doesn't sound like bullshit.

How old are you OP (although I believe such naivety can exist at any age)?

Oh Good point OwlCapone. Have I been sucked in again?

lots of people who aren't parents use MN

I have had an emotional affair with the ex-who-got-away. Same story, two children, wife who doesn't work much, very unhappy with his marriage though to be fair not with his life overall and loves his kids.

Difference was - he was completely honest with me up front about the situation, you could argue that we are friends rather than it being an emotional affair though I think that's borderline myself. He hasn't had se with anyone else, had no plans to have sex with anyone else despite being forcibly celibate... because he's married.

This man has given you and his wife no choices, he lying to you both to get what he wants and is treating you like you are both there to serve his different needs.

I have chosen to get emotionally involved with a man who has no prospect of a future with me because I value his friendship and I did it in possession of all the facts (even if they undoubtedly are biased towards him!), they are still the facts as he sees them.

Your man doesn't see the value in being honest with you because he might then not get what he wants. His wants matter more to him than yours.

Do you know how we all know that nothing he's said is true, OP? The giant clue is in how he reacted when he was 'caught' holding your hand by what we can presume to be his wife's friends.

He left you 'standing in the street completely perplexed and horrified that something was seriously wrong' while he ran home to his wife. He didn't contact you until the next night. During that 24 hours he was busy being with his wife and doing damage limitation.

Those are not the actions of a man who has been trying to leave his evil harridan of a wife so that he can be with the love of his life. If his wife were the nightmare he's painted for you, he wouldn't have scurried straight back home without so much as giving you a vague explanation. If you were the one he wanted to be with, he'd have stayed with you and his wife would have been the perplexed and horrified one waiting to hear from him.

In the moment of being caught, it was her he thought about and her he ran to.

Once you've properly absorbed that, you can move on with your life and stop giving this arsehole any of your time or energy.

I don't understand why people are having a go at the OP.

It sounds to me like she's made her decision (the right one) but is wobbling a bit and trying to process all the shit she's been told. I would think that's fairly normal but OP you need to stay strong and tell him where to go. (Actually you've told him where to go, so just stick with blocking).

As BeCool says, lots of people with no kids use Mumsnet (I'm one of them), so I wouldn't read too much into that.

Of course, in that moment of being caught he wasn't really think about his wife. He was thinking about the fact that his comfy home life was in jeopardy.

He was thinking about himself. And he ran off to see his wife because keeping the wife at home looking after the kids in the big house (that impresses his friends and colleagues and increases his sense of status) is his priority. Sure he likes having a bit on the side, but they're more interchangeable.

It might be hard to hear OP, but that's what his actions tell you.

Oh, this is dreadful. OP, I'm sorry for you that you find yourself in this awful situation.

However, you really need to stop fixating on the sex he may or may not be having with his wife- it is of no consequence to you whatsoever. People are completely free to leave marriages- and you'd think that someone who is denied all hope of intimacy, is forced to have children, and is treated as a wage slave while their partner lives the high life might think the time had arrived to step out of their relationship...wouldn't you?

I implore you to read some other threads on the relationships board and discover the common reality for yourself. You will find that not all of these wronged wives are ball-breaking, frigid, financially abusive, wicked women. In fact, I don't think any of them are.

He has been forced to justify his duplicity to you, and this is how he's doing it. He's hardly going to say: 'well, my wife is lovely and hard-working and yes, we do have sex sometimes, but I'm a bit bored with the monotony and predictability of life with young children and fancied some excitement with you' Is he?

I really hope you make a sensible choice. I understand you must be very hurt, and this is painful and difficult for you. But please don't be complicit in his determination to damage his family. If you don't, someone else will probably be willing to step into your shoes, but at least your conscience will be clear.

If it helps, my H told OW (and others) that we hadn't had sex for 10 years. We were at the time actively ttc and having sex pretty much every day. To add insult to injury I was actually pregnant during his affair (although regular bleeds meant I didn't actually know it).

The OW like you believed the no sex line. My pregnancy sent her pretty much over the edge. If I were you I'd take it as read that he is telling you a pack of lies. He will also be telling his wife a pack of lies. It's how it works.

OP -

Here is something for you to consider.

Add this man on facebook (if you aren't already). It should be obvious to work out who his wife is.

Invite her to have a coffee. Swap stories.

I think you would be in for a very massive shock. It's easy to believe the "my wife is a gold digging, frigid, manipulative bitch" line when "The Wife" is nothing but a concept in your brain. When you actually have them sitting opposite you the truth tends to come out pretty quickly.

I don't think you will do this though. Because in all honesty, I don't think you want to know what the truth is. You will justify it in your head by saying that it's none of your business, or it's his issue to solve, or you don't want to cause him trouble (wtf). But in reality it will just be you desperately trying to avoid having to face up to the truth, which is that this man is a lying, cheating piece of shit who has so little respect for your intelligence that he expects you to just go along with everything he says (which seems to be working out for him by the way).

Think about it like this: If he TRULY didn't want to be in this marriage, and if he TRULY valued you more than anything else, and if he TRULY was looking for more than just cheap thrills on the side....then he would have stayed with you after you ran into those women. He would have been relieved, not stressed as fuck. Relieved because finally the truth would come up and there would be a catalyst for the marriage finishing.

But he didn't do that did he. Interestingly, he went running back to his wife to try and do some damage control and save his marriage.

Why would he do that OP if she was such a nightmare? Why would he do that?

He would do that because he didn't want to lose the cushy number he had of madame back at home looking after the children, keeping house and having his wife and family, whilst also having a bit of stuff on the side to keep life exciting and stick his cock in when he got a bit tired of domestic drudgery.