were you ever the ow?

[vicarinatutu]

and if so....how did it end? well? or not so well?
for the record no kids involved. either side.
did he leave?
how long did it take him?

[StaceyAndTracey]

Every single OW who posts on mumsnet tells us that her affair partner's marriage is sexless , that his wife is a bunny boiler and he's only staying for the kids .

Most women who post to say their husband is having an affair, say that they ARE having sex . Or that if they are not having sex, it's their husbands choice

Why do you think that is ?

[MsJJ79]

I have. We were 'together' on and off for around 2 years, his wife knew for most of that time but thought it was over. Lots of complicated reasons he didn't leave, they're Muslim so were a lot of pressure from family not to divorce, plus they have young children. About a year ago we stopped sleeping together and cut contact for a while, we are now back in contact but still not sleeping together and ostensibly 'just friends'. His marriage is a sham and he's now in the process of ending it. I hope he does, for their sake not for mine. I am seeing someone else which he knows about. Maybe if/when he does leave we will have a future together at some point, who knows? Life's too short to wait around though.

[theaftermath]

Yes... We had an affair for 6 months and then both chose to leave our spouses. To this day no one knows we had an affair.

It's been very hard on the relationship for lots of reasons but we continue to get stronger and are both fully committed to one another.

Both ex's seem happy (although his took a little longer....) and whilst I regret how it happened I wouldn't be without him.

However - if I'd ended my marriage and he was still at home there is no way on earth id have carried on seeing him.

[TongueBiter]

Completely off topic, but for some reason I was thinking last night that I hadn't seen you on any posts for a while, Vicar , and was wondering how you were.

[FredaMayor]

How do you know his marriage is sexless?

The only people who know the answer to that are your lover and his wife.
What you're describing that he makes you feel alive, but that affect really comes from you and not him, doesn't it?

I think you may have entered a vale of tears, and if it were me, an unattached man who could give me his full attention is a far more appealing prospect.

[hellsbellsmelons]

For us it was very on/off to begin with.
He was feeling very guilty about his kids.
He actually initially left about 4 months after we started the affair.
After a bumpy start, we were on/off for about 2 years but we have been very stable and happy for the last 2 years.
Love each other greatly.
Mine is a happy ending so far...

[August888]

Yes, I left my husband soon after. He's still with his wife after a year. Says they have no physical contact, doesn't love her or really like her and staying for the children. I'm not sure what to do. I'm glad I left my husband, it wasn't right.

[TheFormidableMrsC]

Don't do it. My life has been wrecked by my husband's affair, he has left me and our children, our son was only 2 1/2 at the time, a child he begged me to have. The OW is poison personified. My kids have suffered terribly. It has changed me as a person, physically, mentally. The stress has been horrific. I feel like the last 15 years of my life have been a complete lie. I feel he has stolen the prime years of my life. I am struggling to rebuild our lives and start again for a million different reasons. He has re-written history completely (as they do) and treated me like something he has scraped off his shoe. If you go ahead with this, prepare for life to be very difficult indeed.

[holdonaminute]

Yes I have been OW. Very similar story to you Vicar although I wasn't damaged when I got married just a bit aimless/indecisive. My exh was a friend really but I recognised he was stable/solid. 20 years and 3 children later I left him because I became obsessed with another man. Then 6 months later became OW to that man.

It was on and off for 2 to 3 years. He didn't leave his wife because I wouldn't let him move in with me and my kids straight from his wife. As time went by his treatment of me was worse and worse and I allowed it to continue all witnessed by my lovely (then teenaged children). Many people were seriously damaged by my failure to end this affair. I can never undo the pain we all suffered.

It is now 5 years later. My exh is remarried to a lovely lady and I couldn't be happier for him. My (now) adult children are all making their way in life but have all been affected by what happened. I am always there for them now and bitterly regret the times that I wasn't.

I have only had one short relationship since that time and am now on my own. Hope that one day I might meet someone but if I don't I am just grateful to have my lovely family and friends.

OW? Never ever again - don't do it!!!

[Purplehonesty]

Yes I was.we were both engaged to other people and left those relAtionshsips after a six month affair (him) - I left my fiancé the night I realised I had feelings for someone else.

His fiancée's dad was seriously ill and died and he stuck by her but it didn't work out. He left.

We have been married ten years and have two dc.

My mum had an affair and left my dad for another man who left his wife for her.

Then she did it again and is now remarried. Her Dh left his wife for her.
I couldn't do that. Once married that's it for me. (I hope Dh thinks that too!)

[MrsSheRa]

Concentrate on you and your issues now Op. Stay single and take your focus off this man and his marriage.

[DreamingOfADifferentMe]

I fell in love with someone I worked with when I was married. He was also married, and I had a child with my husband. Absolutely nothing happened between us other than a brief acknowledgement of how we both felt, and I left my job and we severed contact in order to focus on our marriages. Both of which, it has to be said, were fine. Not sexless, not loveless, not the romance of the century, but absolutely fine.

He left his wife a couple of months later, knowing his feelings for her weren't enough for either of them. I found out through mutual friends. We didn't make contact.

After a hellish year for us both, my then-husband and I separated. It was horrific. There were multiple reasons for it, but a huge influencing factor was that I knew my depth of feeling for the other man simply wouldn't go away.

We didn't have an affair, there was no sneaking around and no sordid meet ups in hotels. We both made the decision not to be in touch in the hope the feelings would go away. I believe we behaved honourably, and tried to do the right thing by everyone.

He and I are now together. We've been married for years. We have more children, we run a business together and genuinely, he makes my heart sing every single day. I don't worry about him cheating - he proved to me, with his actions from the very beginning, that he is as honourable and decent as they come. We're really close with my ex, we see him and his wife regularly and I talk with him most days.

It can work out, but I firmly believe the way you behave in the very beginning sets a precedent.

[PeppermintPasty]

Hello vicar, not seen you about in a while. Mind you, I've not been here much.

Yes, I rather stupidly and needily had an affair with a mm when I was about 20/21. He was around 35 I think.

He'd done it before. I thought I was in love. He wasn't a 'bad' man, just incredibly entitled and stupid too. Looking back, he was a manchild, that phrase so beloved on here and so apt.

It went on for about 18 months. In the mindset I was in at the time I would have tried to make a go of it with him.

Anyway, his wife found out. He left her and stayed at mine for about a week before going back. I remember feeling uncomfortable at that stage.Talk about dense (me, I mean).

Anyway, I then finished it. He was a work colleague. I went out for one final drink with him at lunchtime to tell him that was it, and he didn't want to finish it (of course). He said something like she had calmed down now and we could resume it, and I recall very clearly thinking no bloody way, it's over for me.

It was a sharp lesson learned for me. I am utterly ashamed of my behaviour when I look back. Stunningly self centred. Still, I have learned from it.

All I can say about your current situation as you've described it is that being on your own, for me, is a privilege. I revel in it. Mind you, my last relationship was blindingly abusive, so that's no surprise.

[IrianofWay]

Yes I was - sort of. I had what I know now was an emotional affair with a work colleague. I was married, he was with a newish but quite serious gf. Did it end well? Not really. It turned out that he took it much more seriously than me, told me he had ended it with his gf and was prepared to wait while I divorced DH. That wasn't happening! I handed in my notice and left asap. I don't know what happened with OM.

I do know one long-term couple that started as an affair - he was in a sexless marriage and she was single, busy career, two kids and not wanting strings. He left his wife after about 6 months and they have now been married 11 years. It does happen but I guess it depends on so many factors being right.

[agapimou]

Yep, when I was 18. He was 27, 6 kids by 2 different women. It lasted one year and he told me that he only stayed for the kids , they were separated but living together and she was crazy jealous and would take away the kids if he ever started a new relationship. All bullshit as they were very much together. After a year I eventually saw sense and broke it off. A year later I saw him on Jeremy Kyle accusing his wife of having an affair and forcing her to take a lie detector test. Dick.

[wannaBe]

op, there are and will be plenty of women on here who will tell you that they started out as the ow and that they are now blissfully happy x amount of years on. But read what they have to say carefully. all of those women talk about how they regret the way their relationships started. Is that the kind of new start to your life you want? One full of regret?

So often people will ask couples how they met, and it should be with fondness that one looks back to the beginnings of a relationship, not with regret and sadness over the devastation caused to someone else's life.

I don't buy into the statement that marry a mistress create a vacancy etc, affairs are rarely black and white and many people who cheat on one partner will never do so again. But the breakdown of a relationship is hard enough as it is, it is much, much harder when innocent people are hurt to achieve the goal of happiness.

Anyone has the right to end a relationship. And I would even go so far as to say that anyone has the right to end a relationship because they have developed feelings for someone else. However, it is the overlap between being with that someone else and ending a current relationship which is wrong. And it doesn't matter what the reasons are for the affair or how much of a bitch/bastard the ex is, the affair still isn't justified, even if it can be explained.

I grew up in a town where affairs were common place. And everyone knew who was having an affair with who, and many of these people simply walked out of their marriages and into new lives with the om/ow. And many of them are in fact still happily married twenty plus years on. but even after all that time, people who know them still remember how those relationships started. So even if the couple are now happy and have good relationships with their children and in some cases even their ex's, those people still remember how those relationships started. We all deserve to start a relationship from a position of freedom to be in that relationship.

If this man is meant to be with you then he will leave his current relationship and in time, you can be together. But in the meantime, you have rightly walked away from an untennable situation in your own marriage, and you have the right to be happy. And it may just be that this man was the sign you needed to realise that you were in the wrong place and couldn't do it any more. and that's ok. Now is the time to focus on you and for him to come to his own conclusions. But don't hold out for him, he isn't the one yet, if he is, then it will happen in time, but meanwhile there are other decent men out there who are free to be with you.

[akaWisey]

No I wasn't an OW but I was left for one. I don't believe the 'vacancy' myth either, or that karma will come back with a vengeance on the affair couple.

AFAIK the relationship which started out as an affair for my then H and the OW is solid enough for them to buy a house together, he has 'taken on' her 4 children and I've not heard that he's cheated on her although this was his second affair to my knowledge so nothing would surprise me. I think it probably took him 2 years to leave me for her, based on what I remember him telling me about how far back in the marriage he'd started up with her.

That's a lot of lies to me and to her which she was prepared to accept, I guess, once the 'our marriage is over and we don't have sex' lie was exposed.

MM who have affairs do lie. A lot.

[SelfLoathing]

OW? Yes for too long.
How did it end? I couldn't take the emotional pain so ended it. He still periodically tries a hoover (he is a narcissist type). If I responded, it would re-start. I don't think he sees any relationship he's ever had as "over".
Well or not well? Neither really. Fine for him. Less fine for me. But there was no fall out in the sense of damage to third parties.
Did he leave? No. It was never an issue. Initially, for a long time, I thought he was available. When it became clear he was still married, he made it perfectly clear he had no intention of leaving. I was totally in love and obsessed with him by then. I've not spoken to him for a long time but I still think of him every day.

Generally, men never leave a marriage (especially one with children) because of an affair. Why would they? They have comfortable set up with their wife they have an established working (and probably loving) relationship with and they get to see their children regularly and have the escapism of intense affair sex on the side. If a marriage breaks up it is usually because the wife decides to end it. There are exceptions to this though but very rare.

Every single OW who posts on mumsnet tells us that her affair partner's marriage is sexless , that his wife is a bunny boiler and he's only staying for the kids

This is utter crap btw. Not every man says this. Agree a lot do but like everything there is a range. It's not uncommon to get the "I love my wife, but I also love you too. There's no limit on love" type line. Once I found out that MM was in fact married, he never said any of this sexless/bunny boiler/ only staying for kids stuff.

[BathtimeFunkster]

I haven't ever been the OW.

But you said you wanted to chat, so...

1 you are not old

2 I think your relationship with this man has already been very positive in your life - it inspired you to leave an unhappy marriage

3 if you provide sex while he is still in his marriage, he will never leave

4 give yourself some space to explore all the other things you might want now that you are free to do that. Maybe he'll come to you, maybe he won't.

[BloodontheTracks]

yes shamefully, it's horrible. Fell in love with someone, we both told our spouses about the affair and we are both still with our partners. He contacts me still years later, fairly frequently, to be sentimental, ask how it's going and to half-seriously suggest meeting up. I ignore.

[runningoutofpatience]

Yes, and I am sorry for it now. My marriage had ended and I was at a very low ebb with self-esteem, so I answered an online ad from a married man because I thought that I wasn't worthy of a real relationship.

It lasted for about 5 months and I thought I loved him but in reality I just appreciated the attention and affection. In the time we were together he left his wife and then got a job far away so we broke up as well.

I was able to see later that while I liked him because he was intelligent and seemed caring, actually he was just using me to bolster his own self esteem and give him the strength he needed to leave his marriage. Once he had left the wife and got his new job, he didn't need me either. I was devastated when he left but looking back, he would have been a nightmare if we had made a go of it! A totally pompous git - I was just too blinkered to see it at the time.

I comfort myself that my marriage was over and he did leave the wife, so she is not living with his secret infidelity, but I still acted badly. I would not ever do it again because I respect myself so much more now, I would never be a bit on the side again.

Plus I then discovered that exH had cheated on me while I thought we were happy, and the betrayal that I felt was enough that I would never do that to another woman.

[StaceyAndTracey]

Running - what an interesting and thoughtful post

[Littletabbyocelot]

I remember meeting a woman I now realise was my dad's ow. The poor silly woman made such an effort, all our favourite food (I haven't touched my childhood favourite since that day). She must have genuinely thought she was auditioning for the role of step mum. In reality I suspect my dad just wanted to keep her happy on the side. She wasn't the first and by that stage my parents were in separate rooms but my dad had no intention of leaving. I know people who have fallen in love while married and like you they leave straight away. He's not leaving because he chooses not to.

[runningoutofpatience]

Stacey, believe me I have given that time of my life a lot of thought, to understand why I got involved in something like that. I was not in a good place.

[Apathyisthenewblah]

Yes both DP and I were married to other people when we developed feelings for each other. We both told our respective spouses and ended our marriages.

While I don't regret where we are now (very happy, about to get married, have beautiful DD). I regret that we got there on the back of other peoples extreme unhappiness.

It made me realise I can be pretty ruthless and selfish and no-one wants to think of themselves like that.
My ex is now happily remarried and we have sporadic but civil contact.
DP's ex will never forgive him and refuses to acknowledge me although I am lucky to have a good relationship with my almost DSCs.

If he hadn't left his spouse at the same time as I left my ex I would not have continued with the relationship, waiting and hoping. I was in the process of moving away anyway and would have done some and got on with my life.