Left Husband for OM - 3 years later - miss the family unit and fear for the future

[tickingclock22]

Facts to date:
Husband was unfaithful. I in turn some years later left husband for other man. My children (20/21) remained living with their dad. I rented for a year but then went on to buy a house with other man and have been together since. He and I as far as our relationship/love is concerned is great - still deeply in love with him and he is with me.

Ex-husband has been living with new partner for past year in what was our family home for 20 years and our 2 adult children still live there.

Husband fought for me for over a year. But each time I considered going back for the sake of the family / for the 25 years we had been together I stopped and couldn't do it. Would have been for the kids and not for him.

However I remain forever guilty and shameful and also regretful. My son accepts my partner - my daughter doesn't which as you can imagine makes life tricky. I have never forced or pushed her. She has to make her own mind up about things.

But....boy do I miss that everyday family life. Yes I see my kids all the time and actually still have a very good relationship with my ex but the ties never seemed to severed. Always something that draws us. Our family is very close so I guess that's what makes it like that. But I know my life ahead could mean a distant relationship with my daughter..no xmas days...no family holidays...no lazy afternoons watching TV. I watch my kids and their BF/GFs go on holidays with their dad and his partner and I know they would never do that with me and mine. My daughter wont come to my house if partner is in. My daughter wont go to any family event if partner goes. I used to be so close to my daughter and they put me on a pedestal but I destroyed that when I lost self respect and my morals and went down the road of an affair.

What I am asking...as a mum...to 2 adult children who are very much home birds and whom have always been close to their parents and enjoy doing things with us...is love and happiness with your partner enough...Will I run the risk of always being an outsider to my kids lives purely because of whom I am with...I struggle with that concept every day...always fearing that one day I wont be included at all!

Can I make right the wrong that I have done...no I cant turn the clock back...I have offered to leave my partner if I knew it would make my kids happier but daughter said no as she wouldn't want me alone - also I know the quest would be on to get me back with her dad. Which I know deep down they all want including Ex...

Yes I made my bed...I know....I love my partner so much and that has never wavered...but...is it enough..?

And if the op was a man id be saying exactly the same; that his wife was the one who broke their marriage and that he left her, not their adult children who should understand that mum and dads sex life is none of their business just as their sex lives are none of their parents business.

Partners often go back/take the cheater back when they have young children and they want to limit the emotional turmoil a divorce would cause them. That doesn't apply when children are adults themselves.

You chose OM over your husband and children so you need to own that decision. Your dd might come round a bit as she matures and learns more about the world - then again, she might not. I think you have to accept her as she is. After all, in her eyes, you left her. Don't try and persuade her that her feelings are wrong.

Where has OP said she had an affair? She left her home to set up with another man but does that mean that she'd cheated? I didn't read it that way.

Anyway, husband definitely did cheat so he has nothing to say. Both are on good terms with each other so that is positive and perhaps ex partner could speak to the daughter and get her to at least understand what truly happened here.

Myredcardigan - that might be how you'd feel, but this is about how op's DC feel isn't it?

If their dad had a one night stand ten years ago, and the intervening years have felt happy to them, it might be hard for them to understand or accept that as justification for their mum's affair. It might explain why op's dd won't accept her mum's new partner at least.

And saying that her sex life has nothing to do with her kids is bonkers. I don't suppose they're the slightest bit interested in her sex life, but they are certainly allowed to have an opinion and a view on her behaviour and choices. We don't stop having an opinion about our parents when we reach adulthood.

Entirely their prerogative to decide that they don't want anything to do with her new partner, and they don't have to justify their feelings to anyone.

How do you mean you don't think op had an affair Lying?

Bibbity, surely when your children are adults then you are only leaving your partner. If her 17&19yr olds had been married with their own children and living 5miles up the road, would the op still be accused of leaving them? You can't accuse her of leaving her 'children' simply because they had chosen to still be at home, esp the 19yr old.

Yes because it's so easy for a 19 year old to leave home.

Yes Songbird but as adults it becomes a different relationship on a more equal footing. They are of course allowed an opinion on her partner but no more than she's allowed one in theirs.

If at 19, my parents had told me they were divorcing then I would obviously have been sad that they were ending their marriage but it wouldn't have affected me emotionally. If one was unfaithful I'd tell them their behaviour was horrible and support the other but only in the same way if they were my siblings or close friends. I wouldn't have been emotionally scarred as an adult. At 19 I saw them in Sept then again at Christmas then not until the summer. I was financially independent, studying, partying and being promiscuous. I wouldn't have expected them to pass judgment of how I was living so how could I pass judgment on them?

But that's how her children feel myredcardigan, presumably because they were a very close family that spent a lot of time together.

I think that if people really want to help the OP they need to stop saying that her kids shouldn't feel how they feel, and start giving her some constructive advice on how to handle how they do actually feel.

Abed, your post makes no sense to my point whatsoever. The point is, you cannot accuse her of leaving them just because they still happen to be at home. A great many young adults are living away from their parents at 18/19 even if just in term time.

Yes I understand that. I'm just pointing out that her feelings are borne out of emotional immaturity otherwise she wouldn't have said 'yes but he stayed' about her dad. And that its massively unfair for posters to suggest she left 'them' rather than 'him' considering their ages.

She may not have left them, but they may well feel a sense of betrayal when they reflect on the duration of the affair.

There may have been family meals or events that she missed, lies that she told them or times when she was preoccupied. They may remember happy times, holidays and so on, and wonder whether those memories are real. Their mum appeared happy but wasn't. Their mum appeared engaged in family life but wasn't. They saw their mum texting and now wonder who she was texting.

It doesn't matter how old they are, it hurts, and the hurt was predictable but op did it anyway. She could've left honestly but decided to put her own gratification first, so a bit rich to be whining about the repercussions now.

Really, people need to understand that the relationship between the members of a couple and the relationship between a parent and his/her children are two different things. "Your mother" is not the same thing as "X's partner".

This may be hard to understand when you are little. But your children are not little, OP - they are adults now. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that you haven't given them all the information.

But if your children know that you had been unhappy in your marriage for a long time and their father was unfaithful to you, then they are being incredibly selfish - they are happy to see you sacrifice your own life for the sake of their (false) idea of the "happy family" that you once were.

I have two friends whose fathers had affairs when they were adults. They and their siblings were deeply upset and furious despite the fact that they weren't even living at home.

However old you are it's upsetting. All the more so if you're still living at home, and perhaps haven't even finished school.

A friend of mine's parents got divorced when she was 19 and techncially she was at university during the term time. But her mum buggered off back to Australia and her father's new wife made her and her younger sister share a bed in one room (in a very big expensive house).

The whole experience totally devastated her, and she got addicted to dope at university. It took her quite a long time to get off it.

It can really pull the rug from under you. Your parents, your family home represent a kind of security.

If you've left home at 16 and you're working and living with a bf then it's slightly different.

Having said that. It doesn't folllow that there was any onus on the OP to stay. Her husband fucked the marriage. She probably stayed as long as she could cope with. It's totally peverse to consider going back now.

It's always possible that they know all the facts, from both sides not just one, like us, and think op is wrong anyway.

It doesn't sound like they don't have any relationship with their mother, just that dd won't meet om. I still think op should understand and accept that, it might change in time. Well, she's got no choice really, since we can't any of us tell someone else how they should feel.

I'm not justifying the affair. Infidelity is wrong. But both parents were in the wrong here. Would those holiday memories be better if she had stayed but been unhappy because their father had been unfaithful? So if she was unhappy anyway due to what their father did, is it more acceptable for them afterwards to find out she stayed for them? I would have been mortified if either my parents told me they had stayed together after infidelity simply to avoid hurting me even though I was an adult. I would find it bizarre. With children, yes. When your children reach adulthood, not at all.

So the repercussions are surely put in place as soon as one partner strays. Being unfaithful but returning to comfortable family life is no more commendable than deciding not to live a lie.

As an adult I would feel the same about my parents divorce as I would about a siblings divorce. Very sad for them. I certainly wouldn't expect to be considered in their decision making. I'm not saying the op's dd shouldn't be allowed to feel upset but it's just odd to me that she happily gets on with her dad when he's the one who broke the sanctity of their marriage.

And this, I think, is one of the reasons why staying in a marriage "for the children" is a seriously bad idea. Because then the children will look back on their family life and wonder whether it was all a lie.

(Which it wasn't. The fact that you were unhappy in your marriage doesn't mean that you didn't enjoy spending time with your children as a family. It does mean that your idea of your parents' relationship was not accurate).

You know what, it's the new DP that I think I feel for the most. The OP openly made it known that she would ditch him if it meant getting the 'kids' back (not nice!) - lets not forget, adults actually, who will likely be leaving home anyway soon, so what was the point in that gesture, the guilt and emotion about them would be in proportion for 10 year olds maybe, but this seems OTT?

DD blames DP for standing in the way of her parents getting back together? Not sure that is entirely right, certainly not now as she has stated that she would not want the OP to be alone, so really she thinks that would be the outcome for you if you ditched your DP.
Then, to re-enforce the idea that he is in the way for your DD, you offer to bin him!! Have you always kowtowed to her wishes to this extent? This is really bending over backwards for your ADULT children in the extreme.
Sounds like it's about time you cut the apron strings a bit. I'm amazed about how you've gone about this. She doesn't like your DP - tough- you should present yourselves as a stronger unit if you care for him as much as you claim to. She will have no option but to come around in the future.
I hope you are not telling your DP, not to turn up for things, so that your DD will turn up, otherwise you could end up alone, and I would not blame him.

I said in her eyes cardigan.

I'm thinking its a case of empty nest syndrome, you would have felt like this but further down the line anyway (minus the misplaced guilt).

I don't feel sorry for the om, any more than I feel sorry for an ow.

He chose to get involved with a married woman, so he knew what he was getting into - a whole load of baggage.

I think the feelings you are experiencing are par for the course when you go down the path you did.

Everybody gets hurt, the partner, the children and so on.

I do see what you are asking and although nobody here has mentioned this, if I was in your shoes I certainly would have remained in the marriage, which you have said was quite ok, just to keep the family unit together and so I could basically experience those things you are now missing out on.

My children are the most important things to me though and their needs/emotional development are my top priorities in life.

Once I have achieved the best outcome I can for them with regards to all the above only then would I consider my options.

I don't expect to be in that position until they are at least finished uni.

It's no sacrifice for me at all. It's all I want in life along with having a decent career.......so I can support myself should the day come

DD is certainly unfairly demonsing OM. She's putting all the blame on him when it her father who buggered up the marriage.

It's quite common for daughters whose fathers have cheated to blame the mother for taking action.

One thing that might help is relationship counselling for mother and daughter. They could air their issues with third party and perhaps explain their povs. Relate doesn't only do partners. (Not that I am recommending Relate).

Have you been cheated on QuiteLikely?