Did your relationship start out as an affair?

[theaftermath]

Please no flamers as I am looking for support in a bit of a lonely and dark time

Me and DP have been 'together' 2 years. We had an affair for 6 months. Mostly emotional, plenty of "1st base" physical, slept together twice.

We then both left our marriages. We kept our relationship quiet for a 6-12 months (different lengths to different people) and for the last 6-12 months have been "out". (Basically he kept me a secret for longer than I kept him a secret as was worried everyone would realise he'd left his ex for me). My friends knew my marriage was "dead" before I left so that bothered me less.

So nobody ever found out about our affair.

I wondered if anyone else out there who's relationship started as an affair would be able to chat (post on here or privately message). This whole situation has brought out lots of issues as having an affair is something I never thought I would do. (He'd never cheated before either.) We are still very in love and very much want to be together (and for the most part have a great relationship) but there are so many emotions involved and so much "baggage" to deal with. Obviously in hindsight I wish I'd left my marriage first and then got together with him but I can't change that now.

Would really appreciate some people to talk to. thanks

I've re-read the OP as I thought I must have missed the reasoning behind deciding to keep the relationship a secret after leaving the ex-partners. The only thing I can pick up on is that neither of you wanted to seem like bad people. Was that not disingenuous to your ex-partners? Rather than them mulling over what it is they might have done/not done do you not think you owed them the truth?

I think this man seems quite seedy and he either liked the illicit nature of the relationship or he was hedging his bets.

Hell kitty, that is a really aggressive and unprovoked comment. I find some posters on here are downright weird.

went all around the houses over the weekend.
Not sure where we will net out but have told him all the things I think / want him to explore/ am worried about etc.

I want to trust but don't know if I can.

I guess it's always a risk when you really love someone who has hurt you once but I do think people make mistakes and I want to give him a chance to explore why he's done it, and whether it's something he can address in the future.

The sexual thought thing is apparently cause he thinks it's wrong to have sexual thoughts about anyone except your partner so he tries to not have them AT ALL. I think people will always meet other people they find attractive but it's what they think/do about it that makes a difference...

Anyway - I've put out on the table what I need from him so let's see...