He's not a bastard but he's behaved like he is. Confused.

[ComeDownToMe]

DP and I have been together nearly 2 years. We live together and it's great. We get on fantastically, he's witty, engaging, kind, supportive. The sex is amazing and we enjoy each other's company.

It started out as a casual relationship and I had a lot stronger feelings for him than he did me. But we ended up spending a lot more time together and grew a lot closer and our relationship turned serious.

The thing is one of my closest friends recently discovered her DH (now STBXH) was cheating on her and I've seen at first hand how broken she has been. Her ex has been an utter cunt and makes my blood boil.

My DP cheated on his then wife and she slung him out so I know everything I've said about my friend's ex I could equally say about my DP. I didn't feel good about this before but it's even worse now.

Can men really compartmentalise to such a degree they don't think about how much hurt they would cause someone they love.

I will probably be criticised for this and rightly so but I wasn't particularly judgemental on men having affairs before as long as no one got hurt. Now I've seen the hurt it feels a bit different.

I don't think of my DP as a bastard but he's done a lot worse than my friend's ex and I've called my friend's ex every name under the fucking sun.

How do I resolve this in my own mind.

I think she's funny: Daily, passionate, varied and spontaneous

Keep it up lady. ;)

Your guilt is utterly pointless and won't help anyone. You've got a flaming so if virtual flagellation was what you wanted you've had it.

If you really want advice about your guilt then here it is. Move on. Bury it. Don't tell anyone what you've done. Don't ever confess to being the OW again. Just shut up and deal with it. You aren't join to get a medal for being a nice person by confessing on here. No-one is going to condone your actions. Your friend probably thinks you are a bitch. All women who are not the OW are going to be suspicious of you.

If your relationship can survive the judgement of those who know you in RL - good for you both, but my advice about the 'guilt' is that it's pointless and no-one really cares if you feel guilty or not because it really doesn't change anything. It's just you being selfish. Move on. Try and learn from your mistakes. Don't be surprised if this relationship doesn't work out. Leave him before you cheat on him or vice versa. For goodness sakes do not have kids with him - you are both too fucked up for that.

You can't offer him what he most wants at this point - a harmonious relationship with his former family.

He could have that with any other woman, but never with you.

When he gets bored of rubbing his wife's face in his infidelity he' be off to charm another woman into being his housewife cum hooker.

He spent a long time building that family with his wife, he's not going to risk a lonely old age away from future grandchildren and family occasions for the sake of some cheap tart he only went after because she had a reputation for being easy meat for married men.

When he's properly over his marriage he'll move onto a respectable woman closer to his own age that his wife and children will get on with.

He could be telling a OW that right now, about your marriage.

Well that he has left his wife. No need to say he is even in a relationship.

Comedown, you're here and keep returning I suspect partly because you DO feel very bad about your actions and you are having to mature and see the consequences of what you did through someone you love and care about. You are masochistically accepting the judgements on here because on some level you think you deserve them. And you do.

It's not really the point whether or not your partner will cheat on you. He may he may not. The justifications on your mind as to why he won't ('he's happier') don't really matter and are naive. The truth is you can't control life, there are so many variables that mean he could do, and he may well just be the sort of person who does. The truth is, you can't know. And no justification or rationalisation is going to change that.

You are never going to resolve it in your own mind. Your pain and guilt is a consequence of what you've done and you deserve it and you should process it. Your paranoia and jealousy in regards to him over the coming years will be a part of that too.

Listen to these infidelity episodes by Cheryl Strayed www.wbur.org/series/dear-sugar

It seems like you are someone who hasn't had to deal with this level of judgement and non-approval before, especially from your own self. Tell me, what happens if you forgive yourself? What happens if you accept that a part of you just took something you wanted with no concern for someone else and that you still have to believe that you are a better partner, and maybe even person than her to deal with it. What if you accept that about yourself and try to move on.

It's possible that what you are really saying is I don't know if I feel safe with this man, but what can I do now? The answer is you can live with it or you can leave. Both reveal the truth, that you hurt someone profoundly for selfish reasons. Now punish yourself or forgive yourself, but first of all accept yourself. Then move on to him. It does make you a massive hypocrite if you leave a man for betraying someone in a way that you were part of cos you can't deal with the aftermath. But you know what, maybe you are a massive hypocrite about his. The reason you can't resolve this in your own mind is because you can't square your vision of your DH and of you as 'good people' who just 'fell in love' with the cruelty and villainy on show to you through your friend. It's time to realise that you both are both. This is called taking responsibility and growing the fuck up. These things can't be resolved in your mind. You are profoundly flawed. Now what are you going to do about it.

Also red flag is you saying you had a lot stronger feelings for him than he you. Your passion for him and the specialness of your relationship with him is going to be stoked by a feeling of insecurity and uncertainty whether he felt the same way about you as you did about him. The sort of rationalising you're doing comes from a place of being 'one down' in the relationship. This is what you should look at.

I think maybe deep down you are really worried about him leaving you / betraying you and this is making you very defensive about the relationship, especially since you destroyed someone else to get it.

There's a lot for you to work through. I think you should see an individual counsellor if you're not already. Is there an age gap in your relationship?

"He can talk to me about anything knowing I won't criticise him."
I wonder if you realise how that sounds from the outside.

You won't criticise him. For anything. Seriously, can you not think of anything that he could do that might deserve criticism? I'm not talking about the many things he has already done which absolutely deserve criticism; but is there absolutely no behaviour that you would have to, in all conscience, criticise?

Essentially, you are talking about unconditional love. But the only place that unconditional love belongs is that of a parent to a child. Adult to adult, love should always be conditional. Conditional on mutual respect, mutual support, mutual caring. When one partner loves unconditionally, the other partner often starts to abdicate on the respect, support and caring; because if their partner doesn't respect themselves enough to expect these things, why should they bother? And that partner may have started out as a good person, but put them in the environment of unconditional love and it's human nature to devalue that love.

Anyhoo, that's enough on that problem that you're making for yourself. Back to the thing you're asking about, how to live with the guilt. "I don't want to split up with him but I want to know how I live with what we have done. It is really troubling me and is my reason for posting for advice."

Obviously you're not going to like the answer. Ideally you want to continue as you are right now, but not feel bad about what you and he have done. Either to wipe those memories, or just not feel bad about them.

Well, it can't be done. Guilt is the price you pay for the sin you have committed. (I'm using 'sin' as shorthand here, it's less cumbersome than any other way I could phrase it.) It is your conscience holding you to account, or, if you don't have a conscience, it is your awareness of the contempt of society for your actions. It is the natural consequence to bad behaviour.

In days of old people would try to ease their guilt by atoning for their sin; not only by mending their ways and 'sinning no more', but also making amends to the person they injured, giving away all their worldly goods and entering a monastery/convent as penance, flagellating themselves with whips, etc. Replacing the emotion of guilt with a physical/social/financial discomfort.

Now you are quite clear on the point - you are not going to mend your ways, you are not 'sinning no more' - you are sticking with this relationship. You cannot make amends to his wife and children. It could be considered that returning to this thread is a bit of self-flagellation, because you are getting a verbal kicking here. Does it help? (You're not taking the advice offered, so that's the only thing I can see you as getting from this thread.)

I would wish better for you OP. You have behaved abysmally, you're hell-bent on hitching your dreams to someone who will hurt you - and I really really don't think you've dealt with your self-esteem issues. They are at the heart of your behaviour, and I don't see any light at the end of your tunnel until you address them.

Yes, agree with whereyouleftit. The reason you are here and the thing you can't 'resolve' it that you are actually profoundly vulnerable in this relationship. You now have to be a perfect partner or you will not be worth it. You won't see it yet but you HAVE to be able to criticise your partner when necessary. And you have to be equal and mutually powerful overall. This is why I ask if there is an age gap. I think you will find yourself profoundly disempowered by this relationship and you are starting to see it now, through your friend.

There's an old Sicilian joke goes like this.

A man is asked which one he would save if his wife and his goomah (mistress) were drowning. 'Oh my wife of course!' the man replies. 'Not cos I love her more, but cos my goomah, well, she'd understand.'

BloodontheTracks, there is quite an age gap. He's in his 50's and OP describes herself as 'nearly 20 years younger than him'.

Also :
"We don't have any plans to have children. He's had the snip and it's not enough of a priority for either of us to look into a reversal."
and
"I only mentioned I earn more than him because a poster thought I was only keen on him for lifestyle reasons, thinking younger woman likes older rich bloke with money, which is not our situation. "

Sad to reduce a relationship to ages/money/stated procreative preferences, but they do influence a relationship profoundly.

Oh god, sorry, I didn't reread thoroughly as I should.

Yes this is a shitshow, OP. I have some sympathy. This isn't the relationship for your life. It happens, sure, but right now you are bent double making mental excuses for him in your head and emotional capitulations towards him in real life and soon the image of his ex in your mind will demand more.

you really need to take hold of this or you're in danger of regretting something major for the rest of your life. Individual therapy NOW is a priority. As is getting honest with yourself rather than defending things on a forum where people have been through exactly what his ex has. Now's the time for you to really emotionally mature. Listen to those Cheryl Strayed things I posted. And be really honest about this relationship. You are already lying to people you know well about what happened. You haven't resolved and accepted this. There's not reason to lie here, but I suspect you may have done automatically. Face this and what you really feel and what it might mean. This is a hard hard road.

I wonder what your friend failed to do to keep her husband from straying, given it's apparently entirely in your power. If only she'd nagged a little less and put out a little more, hmm?

I think the truth here has unsettled you on a level you might not even realise yet which is why you keep coming back here to try and justify and get people on side.

This is just really sad now

OP - don't ever get boring, or get ill, or gain weight, or heaven forbid criticise your DP.... you know what you're in for.

Of course, there's always the possibility that you might be the last stop on the line simply because it's harder to attract 'the ladeeez' as a 50-something man than it would have been in previous decades... in which case, you can enjoy being a carer in middle age for someone you know you were the consolation prize for and perhaps will always mildly resent that ! Or maybe you'll have a sudden rush of empowerment in about a decade and find another married man to take off with! You go, girl!

Silver linings and all

I keep coming back to the thread cos amongst the vitriol some posters have been trying to help and I am taking on board what they are saying. As also suggested I deserve the vitriol and perhaps it is penance.

I really have not intended to goad anyone. However I think I am entitled to defend myself and the state of my relationship with my DP when it has been necessary. I won't mention our sex life again.

I do only have my DP's version of his marriage and I accept he could be lying or his wife's view could be different to his. But I have met his wife and I did not think they seemed close. Appearances can be deceptive I grant you.

DP and I met through a shared interest and he introduced me to his wife (we were not having an affair then) and I met her a number of times after that (it did include ashamedly when we were having an affair)

They did not seem at all close and she rang him a number of times during our affair (never when we were in bed) and again there seemed no affection there. A friend also said she would not have put them together as a couple.

I am not excusing him at all as he should not have cheated on her.

I think I have gone into my relationship enough now as my post was not about it and there have been a number of helpful posts from Lady Blood & Where which I would prefer to go into.

Its always an eye-opener when posters as woman-hating and man-pleasing as you turn up, OP.

Lady your view is the same as my DP's regards dealing with the guilt. We can't change it, being guilty or not does not lessen the hurt to his family and we have to learn to live with it.

I thought we were good people and seeing my friend has made me realise we can't be. If my friend's ex is a cunt so is my DP and the same with her OW and me.

It isn't me to be a heartless bitch who hurts people but it is what I have done. I have always despised the type of woman I have met through work on occasions who has sex with any bloke to climb the career ladder and is out for what she can get. I am no better.

My family and friends who do not know my past would be really shocked. I would guess many of them would think I would be the last person to have sex with a MM let alone the sordid affairs I have indulged in.

For those of you who say I can't let myself go as my DP will be off like a shot I ain't anything to look at. I am certainly not a dolly bird type.

Hypocrite I do not hate women. I have plenty of good women friends who I think a lot of.

Oh stop it. Such self pity, such 'oh, but it's just lil ole me, I'm not a bad person' - it's getting tired now. You did a bad thing - and no amount of fantabulous sex will cancel that out.

You think your friend never had great sex with her ex-H?

Comedown, your view of their marriage is irrelevant and a bit sad in its naivety. I understand you think you are explaining and defending but you have absolutely no knowledge or right to even make your own assumptions about a long term marriage based on what you have witnessed or even been told. You sound very very naive here. Even though I know you are doing your best to see things from all sides and be rational.

This thread leaves you in such a defensive position that I think it will be hard for you to honestly go on the journey you need to to admit certain things and grow. This is why I strongly suggest a counsellor. I don't think it's possible for you to see objectively what is bothering you right now, except a vague sense of shame and guilt. You are happy with attention focused on you, here and elsewhere I suspect, the attentions of an older man who was not initially interested in you, and a board which is initially scathing of you that you hope to win round, or at least use to get what you want from. This speaks to the following qualities.

I don't think you're a bad person. But I think you are very self-focused and definitely naturally selfish and controlling. Your initial post shows how you lacked natural empathy whatsoever until it was brought closer to you through a friend's experience, and even then your last line is about how you can resolve this in your own mind. For your peace of mind. No one else's.

You write clinically, with a great sense of self-control, so I think control is very important to you too. I think the messiness of this is difficult for you, and the carefully ordered sense of who you are has been upset and you do not like it.

Also, it is very clear from the outside that you are trying to keep your man 'happy' in the belief this will stop him from straying. I can tell you point blank, no you can't and you are delusional, simplistic and immature about what creates and causes infidelity. I am worried for you in that I think you will come to regret the knots you will tie yourself in over this, and I doubt very much the power in your relationship is as you think it is. I think deep down you know this but right now don't mind because the set up suits you. Recent events with the friend, and possibly other things you are withholding here, have caused you to question the story you have been telling yourself and you're early on the journey to becoming more mature ( I hope).

Obviously you can do as you please here, goading or not, but I honestly think this is a waste of your time. I think you will faintly enjoy the psychoanalysis on offer because you are a little narcissistic, and even the attacks, as you are a little masochistic too. But I do not trust you to be honest or brave enough here to actually discover what's going on with you and what to do. Please seek an accredited counsellor. I think you need support to look at what you've done and maybe get out of what will become a very negative relationship with someone you care about but are actually quietly being controlled by and trying to control.

Blood I really appreciate your posts and will look at those links, cheers.

I do feel very bad about my actions and I know I deserve the judgement on here.

I haven't had to deal with anything like this before. I can't forgive myself because the hurt I have caused is too great.

You are entirely right that I can't square my perception of both myself and DP as good people with the pain we have caused. It just doesn't match up does it.

Also, 'good people'? Jesus please, time to grow up. COME ON, OP.

'I can't forgive myself because the hurt I have caused is too great'

Stop.
You know this isn't apologetic or even humble. It is powerfully, powerfully arrogant and narcissistic. The person who loathes themselves has a huge amount of respect for the part that loathes.

People do this shit all the time, OP. Stop aggrandising. Just address it. Do it now.

I think OP is revelling in this a bit too much. It cant be real.

yeah maybe. but the initial post is interesting cos it withholds OW information which rings true for someone ashamed, self image focused and controlling. It's quite a bored but accurate person if it's a fraud!

Possibly. You had it right with arrogance and narcissism, rather than remorse though. It shines through. I'm wondering if she's enjoying being the 'one who has the man' rather than the 'abandoned wife', like his ex wife, and her dear friend. She sees herself as the one who has the prize - as though a serial cheating husband, thrown out by his wife who got wise to him - is some sort of prize, or an affirmation of her worth.