Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Flip

Original poster

Regretting a 'missed' opportunity

22 replies

att457 · 18/09/2015 10:11

Give me some sensible perspectives on this. I'm single. About 18 months ago a married (no DC) male colleague who I'd always been mates with started spending a lot more time socialising with me, being friendlier than he had in the past, very subtle flirting. I knew his marriage had been in trouble for a while (I'd heard him telling male friends) but, even though I fancied him, I deliberately didn't flirt back and avoided situations where anything could develop. Eventually things went back to the way they had been before and I assumed he had sorted things out with his wife.

Fast forward to this summer. New female work colleague joins office and male colleague starts behaving towards her in the same way he did to me. But she doesn't back off and instead flirts with him, invites him round her house and makes plenty of opportunity to spend time alone with him. Now he is leaving his wife for her and I'm gutted (flame me for this) that I didn't respond when I had the chance.

OP posts:

MairzyDoats · 18/09/2015 10:14

Think yourself lucky you didn't go there. Because it's obviously his modus operandi - marriage I'm trouble (or maybe not, maybe it just got a bit boring for him) and you know exactly what he's going to do next.

OneBreathAfterAnother · 18/09/2015 10:17

Oh god, why!?

Honestly, why are you gutted?

She will never trust him fully. Not now, not in a few years. It wasn't just that he couldn't take his eyes off her, they weren't meant to be...he was actively looking for someone else, and he will again when he gets bored of her.

Is that what you want for yourself? Someone who may offer a relationship and marriage but can't be faithful?

Analyse what it is that you are gutted about - I'm guessing maybe you are just generally a bit down about being single, rather than it being him? - and then wish her all the best in your head, because she'll need it.

KayDee81 · 18/09/2015 10:17

Do you really want to be with someone who leaves his wife for the first bit of hot totty to walk into the office?

Mairyhinge · 18/09/2015 10:45

If you're really that bothered just wait a wee while, he will get bored with her and start with you again....as they say, when a man leaves his wife for his mistress he creates a vacancy.

Sighing · 18/09/2015 10:51

You will surely find someone better (it wouldn't be hard). He's either a would be serial cheat OR gutlessly needs to be in a relationship before ending/ facing one that isn't working.

Sunshineandsilverbirch · 18/09/2015 10:56

Why are you gutted? He didn't leave his wife for the love if his life, his soulmate. He left for the first pretty woman to respond to him.

Your instincts last year were quite right.

That's not a man you want to be in a relationship with.

pocketsaviour · 18/09/2015 10:58

Look, he was obviously seeking an exit affair. It's cowardly behaviour but sadly common. IME exit affair relationships don't last, it's like a rebound thing. So if you would have wanted an actual relationship with him, you're best off out of it anyway.

Cookiecake · 18/09/2015 11:00

Why would you be gutted!? I think you behaved in the right way. This man clearly has a pattern on this sort of behaviour and personally I wouldn't want to be with someone like that.

Trills · 18/09/2015 11:10

I can sympathise.

You didn't respond because you thought it would end badly.

If you'd thought "this could end with us getting together properly", you might have gone for it, because you liked him and you thought he liked you.

In illustrating that he was ready to leave his wife, he has also illustrated that you were not special to him. He was just looking for an out, and was not overly fussy about who provided him with that out.

ToGoBoldly · 18/09/2015 11:14

You missed the opportunity to be wooed by a philanderer. This is not something to regret, it is something to celebrate. philanderer. He clearly wasn't that taken by you personally, he was just looking for fresh vagina.

SchnooSchnoo · 18/09/2015 11:21

He is either someone who is unable to be faithful, or he is someone who is unable to leave an unhappy relationship without someone else lined up beforehand. I understand that how you feel, but honestly you probably had a lucky escape.

AwesomeAF · 18/09/2015 11:26

You dodged a bullet there.

Original poster

att457 · 18/09/2015 11:27

Trills: that's exactly how i feel. If he's left his wife and then made a move on me i'd have been happy to date him.

Schnoo: I think it's the second one, I think he was clinging on to an unhappy marriage as the best option and now has found an out. Not a characteristic i admire but something that, from reading threads on here, seems to be quite common in men

OP posts:

RachelZoe · 18/09/2015 11:32

When a man leaves his wife for his mistress he creates a vacancy.

You dodged a bullet. Do you have low self esteem? I can't conceive of a confident and happy person being gutted over this.

Original poster

att457 · 18/09/2015 11:56

Rachel: you are right about my self-esteem. Also, apart from some dodgy OLD I've been single for a long while so it feels like I let a 'live one' get away!

OP posts:

RuffWearer · 18/09/2015 12:05

Atr, you're worth more than being the accidental arm-candy of the office philanderer simply because you're female, available and have a pulse. Surely his transfer of attention to the next person should make you realise that for him, a woman is just an excuse to hang the end of his marriage on?

goddessofsmallthings · 18/09/2015 12:22

Being single doesn't mean you have to be desperate.

You haven't let a "live one" get away. You quite rightly rebuffed the attentions of a married man and have nothing to reproach yourself for when your head hits the pillow at night.

When will he be moving in with your unprincipled gullible colleague?

Cabrinha · 18/09/2015 14:53

Congratulations on not being the exit affair for a man too gutless not to end his marriage, and happy to attempt to cheat not once but at least twice.

Norest · 18/09/2015 15:30

Well the only opportunity you seem to have missed is being his exit-affair partner.

So I would try and look on the bright side.

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 18/09/2015 15:33

Don't regret not going for him, he was attempting to use you as a vehicle to get out of his marriage, like he has Done with this unfortunate woman. You'd be shacked up with a morally bankrupt, cheating coward if you had gone for it. Lucky escape!

cozietoesie · 18/09/2015 18:31

You missed only the opportunity to behave badly. You took the opportunity to behave well.

BolshierAyraStark · 18/09/2015 20:49

Hell no, he sounds like a wanker of the highest order, this is not a missed opportunity, more a fucking dodged bullet.

Flip