Need some nonjudgmental hand holding please

[Fckup]

I realise I may get flamed for this but I need some help....I stupidly slept with a married man. Not once but on 3 occasions. We felt like soulmates. I knew he was married with 2 children and I told him to leave her or I wasn't interested. He left her, he felt relieved and as he hadn't been happy for 8 years including a 15 month long affair with someone else it seemed like The right decision. That was on Wednesday. Yesterday he went back to try and save his marriage. I'm devastated, not because of this but the way he has used me. I got too involved, I've no real friends, my kids are growing up and are at their dads this weekend and over Christmas. I don't know how to get over him.

surely if he loved her enough he would have stayed faithful? He said he'd wanted to leave for years. What sort of man has an affair for 18 months whilst trying for a baby with his wife? Or has one night stands hoping his wife will find out and throw him out. I don't want him to love me, I was feeling pathetically sorry for myself this afternoon. However, I'm pleased that she knows as hopefully she can make a life without him.

In answer to your question a selfish self centered asshat.

And you are just deluded. I was sympathetic but reading your update I think you are behaving selfishly and are cheap.

Just like my dads mistresses. You are all the same. All the morals of a tom cat. I hope she kicks him out and you have your 'prize'.

I'm stuck aren't I then star trek? Either I don't want him and it's been a game to get him to want me more than his wife or I do want him and I've got what I deserved. I did something very wrong when he persued me. However he did not love his wife and I'm pleased she knows what he is like now. Not because I want him, or to have my ego stroked but because someone that's given him 2 children and almost 10 years of marriage deserves a hell of a lot more.

Stop the drama. Cut him out. Don't even give him headspace.

Get therapy. Find self respect. Get angry. Get insulted at his arse hattedness. Fuck him off. Do not ever think about getting involved with any married man again.

You sound like you want him again. You seem to think you are forcing his hand. He does not want you. He will never love you.

No startrek you are wrong. I do not want him. I'm struggling not to give him headspace as my self esteem is so low, however thanks to MN I realise how I cannot be in contact with him. I'm trying hard to get beyond caring whether or not he used me or still wants me, I need it not to matter.

I'm angry with myself for doing this to his wife. It was shitty and even though he made all the running I fell for his charms. I'm angry with him for pretending for the whole of Christmas and new year that things were improving between them, then New Year's Day she gets told this. That's just horrid.

Fgs you didn't do this to her, he did. Who he cheated with is irrelevant. You need to stop making it about you. I really don't understand how anyone could want a "man" like him. I would find him repulsive.

You need to stop trying to analyse their relationship and whether or not he loves her or not. Chances are that he's a have his cake and eat it kind of man. The sort who wants his lovely family, wife and home, but also wants a few shags on the side to provide some excitment when family life gets mundane or stressful.

He said he'd wanted to leave for years - and you believed him? Really?? You know he could have left at any time but he chose not to, don't you? You said he went into orbit when you told his wife. If he really wanted to leave then he wouldn't have got angry. Honestly - he came out with every predictable line an unfaithful shit of a man can do and you just lapped it up. There are plenty of unfaithful married men out there, so if that's the sort that floats your boat then you've got rich pickings.

So, you said the kids are on holiday still and you're not back at work. How about picking yourself up and getting all of you out of the house for a couple of days out and some fun? End this endless moping about him and his problems and his family and wife, and just get on with your own life and appreciating what you have got.

It really doesn't sound like you are being true to yourself.

It is entirely possible for someone to love one person and want another. We are made of feelings and they don't get switched off so you just care for one person. I know someone who has cheated on his wife, would again given the chance, and has reasons for acting as he does. It's no justification of course.

If you want him, admit it, stop with all the false care for his wife and angst for yourself.

Goingtobeawesome - you're partly right in that I want the man I fell for, not the reality of who he is. Which is why I'm struggling as I can't believe he is the sort of person he now appears he is and I can't believe that I got it so wrong! I'm supposedly an intelligent professional women yet got this so very wrong. A bit of me is hoping he will turn out to be a decent human being but I think that's more for my own piece of mind so I can think I didn't get him completely wrong.

Tbh if this has all come as such a shock, I think you could do with sticking around here for a while and reading lots of what comes up on the relationships board. There are many thousands of men out there like him repeating the same behaviour over and over. They follow a script.

You are infatuated and vulnerable to a degree. He doesn't care one iota for you. Not one. You are a quick, cheap thrill for him. He is using you as if you were a prostitute but not paying. Seriously, no more contact with him and get yourself to therapy sharpish. 2016 swear off men full stop and rebuild yourself. You can't trust yourself right now

His poor wife must be devastated. He's completely betrayed her. I hope she's strong enough to move forward without him. I hope he hasn't passed on an sti to you or her. He is a weasel.

Hoping he will turn out to be a decent human being?

Oh come on love.

Even before you let him fuck you, you already knew he'd had a long affair and several 'party fumbles' (btw nice way to minimise CHEATING).

So look - you didn't "get him so wrong".

You knew from day one that he was a lying cheating cunt.

Stop putting wasted mental effort into working out how you got him wrong. You didn't. You know and I know that you really did know, underneath, that he was shit who just wanted the sex.

Stop wasting mental effort on shit like "he wouldn't have fucked me if he loved her". He doesn't love either of you - though he loves getting to be a family man and getting you to fall pathetically over his cock, that's true enough.

NEWSFLASH... I fucking despised my husband for several years because he was a cheat. Did I also cheat? No, I didn't. Honestly, I came close - the text messages I swapped with an ex towards the end of my marriage were not acceptable within a marriage. One reason why I finally left was because I knew I couldn't stay faithful any more. He didn't deserve my fidelity but he had it because I was MARRIED. I didn't leave before as I had a child with him - guess what love? Your shag's wife would have slung him out if she had no kids, I bet. Instead she humiliated herself shagging him MORE to keep her family together.

In fact, for this or the next married man with kids you fuck because of your "self esteem" can you think about my daughter crying on Xmas Eve when she had to leave the fun at daddy's to come to me? And when she says sadly, "mummy, it feels like I see you more than daddy" or "mummy, I wish we all lived together". She painted a plate at Xmas and put our 3 initials in it, in a heart.

That's what these cheatingCUNTS do to their children.

Why would you want one of those men? Why are they not an instant turn off to you?

So... Put your mental effort into working out why you chose to ignore blatant evidence that he was an arsehole, and fuck him anyway.

You were bored, lonely, selfish, whatever... but focus on you and your behaviour, not his. Because you're the one you can ensure behaves better next time.

Cabrinha Thank you.

You're right, and chchchange as well. As is everyone else that's posted on here. I need to get myself strong, I don't know how. I honestly feel like I need a man! I've never been like it, until I met him I was a single mum of 5, working and thriving. Now 2 months later I am a mess.

I had an affair with a MM and consider him to be a decent bloke despite him previously being a serial cheat. We are now a proper couple and I cannot view him as a bastard despite his repeated cheating.

All logic tells me I should think of him like that so I understand what you mean. Do you separate a person from their actions or do the actions define the person.

I wish you luck in getting him out of your head and doing the right thing. Keep yourself busy, go no contact and do not feed the drama.

He sounds a pain. He's the type that will never be happy and always be looking for where the grass is greener. He's just one of those philanderer types that some poor unfortunate women end up with. Make sure you're not one of them. Hope you meet somebody nice.

Onadark - that's really interesting whether a person is defined by their actions or you can separate the person from them. If I was reading this thread Id be able to seperate the series cheating from him but not how he deceived his wife after telling her...bloody men.

No, not bloody men.

Please don't insult our fathers, sons, brothers, friends.

Are any of your 5 kids boys? Shame on you even more if so.

I agree. All men aren't cheats. And some women are far from perfect. A person is their actions. I doubt if he's going to leave his wife and take on you and five children. That would be too much like hard work if I know how the minds of those types function.