never be an OW because you will probably always be unhappy even if he leaves his wife

[AThousandRegrets]

I was 26 and recently come out of a long term relationship and was a single mum with a 3 year old ds. MM was 35 and i worked with him (oh the cliches) we became friends. and eventually he started telling me he was unhappy in his marriage and had been for years and he couldn't wait to leave. inevitably it soon became flirty and he told me he was falling for me. I didn't have MN then so I didn't know about the script.

I thought I must be so special to have a married man chasing after me. but actually what I should have known was that I was far from special...as we all know it is just the thrill of the new compared to an established long term relationship. I was nothing special just a silly girl...but one who was something new and different.

When he asked me out for a drink I said yes and from that first date I fell absolutely head over heels. I told him I wanted him too but I wouldn't be the "other woman" (except, I was, I just couldn't see it because I was a fucking idiot) but we dated for a few weeks and then he left home.

we got married a couple of years after he left. and 9 years after we met he is the "perfect" DH he is loving, adoring, generous, funny, gorgeous looking and a great father - we have 2 dds and my ds (obv a shit one with his first dc as he left her) ...but I will never be happy because I just constantly question everything in my head ....if he hadn't have met me or i had have turned him down, would he still be with exw? he says no but he is bound to isn't he? we also have 2 dc together. but I feel the dc shouldn't be here, that they are a product of something nasty. if I could go back I would change everything. I would have ran a mile....as the whole relationship has been tainted by how it started...I would probably have eventually found someone who was actually single and had more dc If had wanted them.

his adult DD from his first marriage refuses to see or speak to him. she allowed contact for a year after he left but then decided she wanted nothing to do with him. so he has not seen her for 8 years now. (she was 13 when he left) and my DC with DH have a sister who they've never met and who wants nothing to do with them. She has a child too so dh is a grandparent but he has never seen his grandchild. And I totally don't blame her tbh. Because I see how Dh is with our dc and I know it would break them if he ever left

I also never anticipated how hard it would be being part of a "second" family ....everything dh and I have done together he has already done. got married, had dc, bought a house, had holidays, xmases, birthdays, ....it just makes our relationship (and me) feel less special cos he has been there and got the t shirt. I also find it very hard to be around DH family ie his mum, dad, aunts he is very close to them but I never feel I fit in. also dh's dd cut everyone else off as well so thanks to me, his family don't see her either. I am embarrassed for what I did

I cant imagine the guilt will ever go away nor the feeling of being second best....If anything it has got worse over the years, as we married, had dc as it makes it even clearer in my head what DH had with his ex and what he threw away. and how his ex must have felt when he left. I have had years of counselling through relate (with and without dh) and also had CBT to through and have been on anti depressants on and off for years. but it has made no difference. I am 35 now, the age DH exw was when he left her...I am not the young pretty girl he met and now I am scared he will do the same to me. I have thought about ending things but I really do love him and I couldn't be without him. I sometimes think about suicide and how I could end things quickly

feel free to flame away because I couldn't feel any worse than what I do. I know I am a total cunt and deserve this and more. I am not even sure why I have posted this.... I just hope this puts off any potential OW and also makes any wives who have been left for OW feel a bit better because this OW hates herself

What Redhat and others said.

I know people whose happy, very secure relationships started out as affairs. I know people whose relationships contain repeated flings on one or the other part. I know women who would make everyone happier if they had affairs and left their horrible husbands (and yes, that includes their kids).

A few years ago the official line on MN was 'tell him that you can't possibly have anything to do with him while he is married'. Now it's 'if you ever admit to any attraction between you and a married man you are EVIL'. And a really vicious booting of second partners even if they weren't the OW.

catfish you have just explained that tge the situation with the dd, is exactly the ine that the op already thinks!

Posters offered up a different perspective in order to support her. You are now telling her, her version is right.

How is that helping?

It might be right, but it could equally be wrong. No one really knows except the dd.

Thinking about this though, the OP is not happy in her marriage, she is suicidal and insecure. Her husband has an adult daughter who is NC. I do wonder if it is her husband that is the problem, and the way the relationship started is a red herring (or only indicative of her future husbands selfish tendencies).

OP, I think you need to be honest about your husband. It seems you are almost pathologically casting yourself as the 'baddie' while throwing no shade his way - indeed he is 'perfect - although his betrayal was greater. I would maybe hop over to the relationship board to look at some threads on emotional abuse and gaslighting, even if just to eliminate. I cannot believe a strong, loving, mutually supportive marriage would leave you feeling so self destructive and insecure about grwoing older and losing your looks, and I do wonder if your DH has managed to give you a cross to bear so he doesn't have to carry it.

I was answering posters who suggested the dd may have been poisoned by her mum and pointing out that the husband may not have been as financially reasonable as the OP thinks he was.

But the posters were answering the op who was blaming herself and dh for the way dd acts. So you just swung full circle, and put the blame back at the op.

She already believes this.

Dear O.P.,

I don't know if you're religious, but even if you're not, I hope perhaps the following quote might be helpful to you. It is from Sister Wendy Beckett, a Roman Catholic Nun (she used to have an art programme on the BBC a decade or so ago) It is about forgiveness and appropriate contrition:

"I don’t think being human has any place for guilt. Contrition, yes. Guilt, no. Contrition means you tell God you are sorry and you’re not going to do it again and you start off afresh. All the damage you’ve done to yourself, put right. Guilt means you go on and on belaboring and having emotions and beating your breast and being ego-fixated. Guilt is a trap. People love guilt because they feel if they suffer enough guilt, they’ll make up for what they’ve done. Whereas, in fact, they’re just sitting in a puddle and splashing. Contrition, you move forward. It’s over. You are willing to forgo the pleasures of guilt."

In simple terms:

You acknowledge you did wrong/caused hurt. - This you have done.
You reflect on it. - This you have done.
You feel remorse. - This you have done.
You decide never to do xyz again. - Again this you have done.
You ask forgiveness (if you're religious. Not a necessary step if you don't believe)

You accept that this is the best you can do, leave the rest in god's hands/leave it alone and realise you cannot control it and forgive yourself and crucially move forward. If there are ongoing consequences (and in such a situation there are inevitably going to be), you acknowledge these, and accept them/live with them gracefully. That doesn't mean crucifying yourself all over again every time one of those consequences pops up, but you do the best you can to manage them with dignity.

This is the most any human can do. Think about it logically, do you have the power to change the past? No. So why keep going over it when it can change nothing? The only way you can help anything is by putting all your effort into your marriage so that it means something. So that everything that happened wasn't in vain. If you don't do this, then everything is just a futile waste of time and energy. Forgiveness involves moving on. Moving on is intrinsic to forgiveness.

My father left my mother for OW and I had a pretty miserable childhood after that. Just 3 weeks ago the OW died (they broke up 15 years later). O.P. I cried for her. Didn't love her - she really wasn't a nice person and made no efforts to make us feel like family - but she was never a bitch to me personally. I also have a reasonably good relationship with my father. Your DH relationship with his daughter, like it or not, has nothing to do with you. There is nothing you can do except answer her questions and be welcoming should she ever try to reconcile in future.

I say this to you as someone who absolutely hates affairs for obvious reasons. However, you are genuinely sorry for your part in what happened, and there are plenty of OW who wouldn't shed a tear. You would never knowingly commit the same actions again, so stop hurting yourself and your family and move forward. Answer this: Which has more legitimacy? The person you were then, or the person you are now? People are concerned with who you are now. Again(if you are religious). God cares about who you are today. The ex and people in her circle may never have anything good to say about you, but see my point on consequences above*

I have suffered terrible depression and anxiety also and understand your feelings. Guilt is one of the worst. Let it go OP. You are no better or worse than anyone else.

Hope this helps

Good post

GREAT post!

Love Sister Wendy Beckett. What she had to say about an Edward Hopper painting released me from a longstanding angst, akin to what you're going through op ie it had a grip on me and I couldn't get out from under it. If that angst taps at my door I remember the painting and I am instantly reassured.

Talking of the arts - does any of it do it for you? Painting, writing, poetry, dance, music, sculpture? The arts represent us in our humanity, all the mess of it, and can be a great solace.

The problem with affairs is that they seemingly wipe out any wrongs ever committed before the affair happened. You could be in the most unhappy marriage ever but as soon as one party has an affair the other becomes a saint in the eyes of others, when in reality, life just isn't that black and white.

I had an affair several years ago. I didn't leave for the OM, although I did leave the marriage. And after the fog had subsided my thoughts went back to where they were before I'd had the affair, about how if you got together as a result trust might always be an issue, even if the marriage genuinely was an unhappy one, because in order to have an affair you first have to deceive someone. And if you are not by nature a deceitful person this still does go against who you are, so the idea of that deceit leading to something positive is unthinkable once you step out of the excitement of new feelings, new beginnings and end up in the reality of the outcome of your actions.

On MN I am considered to be a bitch because I cheated. In real life my ex was emotionally abusive, controlling, and made me lose all sense of identity. Even years on I read things sometimes and realise that that was me. I read something someone posted about coercive control last night and still ended up feeling anxious because my ex ticked so many of those boxes. He installed key loggers on my devices to see what I was doing. Gained access to all accounts e.g. Social media to see who I was talking to. Had me followed, gaslighted me constantly, did things like turn off the heating in the garage and take the key to work so that I couldn't switch it on during the day. bugged the house. Made it impossible for me to go back to work, the list goes on. And yet when I had the affair I became the bad person, and people said to me when I tried to explain "but he didn't hit you."

And you know what? Now he is gaslighting his current partner, and is still controlling me through the DC. Telling them that he intends to tell them everything about why we split up when they're old enough to understand. There is never any excuse for anyone to offload their own bitterness on to their children. So if that's what the ex in the OP's case has done then she gets little sympathy from me on that score.

If I could turn back time then I would do things differently. But sometimes it takes something dramatic to realise that things have to change. The line that when a man marries a mistress he creates a vacancy is a cliche designed to destroy women's self worth and make those spouting it project their own feelings on to situations which on the whole they cannot possibly know anything about. I can hand on heart say that I would never have another affair.

In the OP's case it is entirely possible that her husband will never have another affair. The fact that he left his former wife quickly would definitely imply that the marriage was not a happy one. And you know what? In truth if he'd left and not got together with the OP people would still brand him a shit for leaving his wife, even without an OW to go to. I know that when my affair ended people assumed that me and XH would stay together. When I chose not to stay people said they didn't blame him for leaving me. He would have taken me back in a heartbeat, but I just couldn't go back.

Op while you are living in the past you cannot possibly find happiness in the present or look to the future. Fact is, you and your husband are now together. You have two lovely children together. Nobody is perfect, and nobody can predict the future. You have to live for now and make your life what you want it to be. Living in the guilt won't make anyone else feel happy or change the past. It will only enable you to continue to beat yourself up. What is to be achieved by that?

Do you love your husband? Does he love you? In which case the past is the past. Let it go and look to the here and now.

As for his older DD, she is an adult. her mother can no longer be blamed for her thoughts. if she genuinely intends to tell your children then she sounds like a pretty spiteful woman who I wouldn't be entertaining at all. But I would go one further and perhaps when your children are older, talk to them about relationships, and about what really happened. Do you know the details of your DH's marriage and why it was so unhappy? You certainly don't need to go into brutal detail, but saying that not all relationships are happy but sometimes people are unable to feel they can leave is a starting point.

I intend to tell my DC when they're older what happened. Not in a blaming way, but in such a way that I will take responsibility for my part but I won't give my ex the satisfaction of sticking the knife in because he thinks he's superior. For him it's about control. And in fact the DC have spotted that miles off without ever having had any input from me on that score.

OP it's time to forgive yourself. Even the wronged parties are responsible for their own feelings after a time. You're years on from this now. Nobody has the right to keep you in the past and hold you eternally responsible. Nobody is perfect, even the haters on this and similar threads.

So a wronged child is spiteful and not to be forgiven for a threat made years ago and never carried through? Talk about one rule for one and another rule for another, along with twisting events to blame the victim and innocents!

I agree with everyone who has said that he doesn't sound like he's following the script. This was not an affair where he attempted to have two relationships at once. He left her. It was an exit affair.

Whilst I don't condone an exit affair either (it's much less messy if people leave for their own reasons, and the exit affairs aren't necessarily good relationships of themselves), it is not the same as someone who has no intention of leaving their spouse, they just want to screw around as well.

It sounds like he genuinely has something with you that he never had with his wife. He could maybe have faked it for a couple of years out of some sense of guilt, but not this long, not this consistently.

I wonder if the existing depression, combined with the catalyst of reaching his ex wife's age at the time they split, has triggered these feelings, and focused your illness on punishing yourself.

His relationship with his daughter is not your responsibility either. It's between them. There's no guarantee that if he'd stayed, and the relationship between him and XW got worse, that she wouldn't be damaged by that. There are no guarantees in this world.

Please speak to your GP again

She hasn't carried it out yet because the children aren't old enough. The OP said that she had said she can't wait until they're old enough so she can tell them what a bad person their father is.

If she never carried it out then of course it might be words said in the heat of a moment. If she carries it out when the children are older then yes, she is spiteful. There is no other reason years and years down the line than spite designed to hurt innocent children.

Do people really think it would be OK for the older DD to tell the OP's children about her own childhood just to hurt them? Let's not kid ourselves that this would be in any way in their best interests, it would be all about revenge and nothing more.

With those threats in mind there would need to be rebuilding of relationships between the DD and the father before I would let her anywhere near my children.

Love your post AntiqueSinger.

Hazel, I was thinking that myself, as 'shit' as it may be, I too think there is a good probability of this.

Vigorously agreeing with sassandfass too. You don't get to slap around an OP who has nothing whatsoever to do with your own situation; if you must be so disgusting, take it out on the people who were disgusting to you.

I was cheated on in quite a devastating way, ending my 13 year relationship. Won't bore you with the details as its not about me, except to say that it seems now that the thing that precipitated him actually leaving instead of trying to have both was that he got the OW pregnant.

For a time I hated both the ex and the OW equally and wished all manner of terrible things on them both. I was in a tremendous amount of pain and yes, that is on both the ex and the OW (mostly the ex to be honest). I wanted nothing more than to hear they were miserable and that he cheated on her too etc etc. I did ban mutual friends from telling me anything about them, but I did gather that the had 2 children and married.

When I eventually heard that they had split there was a moment of 'ha' but mostly I just felt a bit sad. What a waste, and a shame for those kids.

All that to say, all the angst and wanting 'karma' to go get them was my issue to deal with. And I did, and moved past it. There was a time when I would have wished them both on their knees begging for forgiveness, but now they don't mean anything to me at all. Yes they caused me, and my family, great pain, but I recognise now that neither of them were evil incarnate, and whilst I'll never think it was ok for him to handle things the way he did, I can see what was wrong in the relationship (including my part in it) and am in a far healthier relationship, and have become a much more well rounded person as a result of it.

Sorry, I'm waffling, but I'm essentially trying to get across the point that you haven't ruined this woman's life. You love your husband and presumably that means that you see the good there is in him. He tells you that he was unhappy, and that he is happier with you and you seem determined to disbelieve him, yet you also say he is a good husband and father to your children. If you trust him, you need to believe what he says and trust that your whole marriage and children's existence is the result of some 'script'. I'm not denying there is one, I'm saying it doesn't seem to apply here. I doubt he married you, fathered two more children and continues to support you and work on your marriage (you mention him coming to Relate) as the result of some script to justify bedding another woman! It sounds like you are solid, but that it's not easy on account of your depression and anxiety. If he was this terrible, shallow, using the slightest excuse to move onto the next person man I think he would have done it by now.

Yes your actions caused pain, but we none of us get through life without causing pain. You recognise it, you have suffered for it, and now it's time to move on. People really can be in relationships/marriages that are unhappy and not working. Yes perhaps it is a bit lame and cowardly that they get out of those relationships through affairs, and yes in an ideal situation you'd have told him to stay away and come back when his divorce was finalised, but that's not what happened because we can't all be as perfect as we ought to be. I really really dislike cheating and know how soul destroying it can be for the 'wronged ' party, but just because you've made mistakes or been wrong doesn't mean that defines you as a person forever. You're not going to do it again, you recognise the hurt you caused and are sorry, but torturing yourself is not going to change anything and you do still deserve to be happy, to love your husband, to enjoy your children.

OP I think your relationship is a red herring. I think you're depressed and would advise making an appt. with your GP to discuss how you have thought about suicide.

A man with the baggage of a first family will never make a second happy family. SUCH bollocks! What a ridiculous and sweeping statement.

There is just SO much on this thread that is insulting and offensive (to us all) that it makes extremely unpleasant reading, but perhaps that is what some people enjoy. Maybe that is what some people feel they need, a great chance to come and take out their pain, anger and bitterness on people who are totally unknown to them.

A man with the baggage of a first family will never make a second happy family SUCH bollocks!

Absolute bollox indeed!

On a more practical note, I agree an apt with your GP would be advisable, maybe print your first post out to help you remember what to say, although if you don't want to get into the details you can equally say 'I feel crushing guilt whichothers say is disproportionate, I feel terribly anxious that I am going to lose my husband, I have intrusive, irrational thoughts and I have contemplated suicide'.

In fact, just read that factual sentence back without the detail of how your relationship started, THAT is what is going on here - you are poorly and you need help. It's not just a natural result of having been an OW all those years ago, it is not your 'just deserts'. Nobody 'deserves' to feel that level of guilt and despair (well there are obvious exceptions like murderers or abusers).

In addition to the GP, I'd look at finding help privately if you can possibly afford it. I see a therapist I went to privately at the moment and she's incredible. Maybe CBT could help with the intrusive thoughts? Or maybe a talking therapy will help over and above counselling, which isn't always what's needed or enough.

But definitely the GP first. Apart from anything else it doesn't sound like your meds are working, perhaps you need a change of dose or a different type.

OP ,
Try to leave the past behind and live in the present. Counseling may be helpful to do this. Take care of yourself.

OP, I am just a few months into separation after finding out my husband cheated on me. I hate the OW - truly hate her - BUT she is not you, and our circumstances are entirely different. Not only that: I also know it wasn't her fault. She didn't break the marriage vows; she didn't walk out on a heartbroken partner and a confused 5yo child.

My STBXH is the one who should carry the guilt. Right now, I admit I that hope the OW is suffering but I know that, in time, that will lessen as my life gets back on track. In the future I hope to be indifferent to her.

You sound like you need help to come to terms with your (misplaced) guilt. I honestly hope things get easier for you.

Yes, what Abecedario said regarding the meds. The ones you are on, perhaps, may be making you feel worse. Some are like that-the same med doesn't always work the same for everyone. Read the reference sheet of side effects closely and see if anything fits. Please consult with your gp about this.

She's a real, live woman, a mother who is suffering. Yes, she made a choice some years ago that perhaps you wouldn't have made, but Jesus, have you lot led blameless lives?,

And the many, many women who post on this forum who have been cheated on aren't real, live women, mothers who are suffering? My life isn't blameless, but I didn't actively enter into a relationship with a married man and play a major part in the breakdown of that marriage.

What you fail to understand is what people on the receiving end of affairs experience through the actions of others: the loss of friendships and family, the loss of their home, poverty (which will be life-long in my case), devastated children, children called 'benefit scum' in the playground, shame, desperation, fear, loneliness. In fact, if you imagine a nuclear bomb going off, the life of someone on the receiving end of an affair is the devastation that's left when the mushroom cloud has dispersed and there is nothing left. It impacts like that. It runs deeper than you can ever imagine and the impact is life long. I frequently considered committing suicide but I can't tell you the number of people who told me that I was 'better off without him' and that I should 'just move on'. It's odd how people don't seem to understand that I knew all that. But knowing it doesn't make it easy to achieve.

I didn't ask for any of that and I recovered and have done my best to build a life and do what I need to do. The OP made an active decision to do what she, she wasn't some kind of passive by-stander. The child concerned is the one who had to see, feel, experience the devastation of her mother and manage her own feelings during adolescence. She is allowed to make a judgement and decide that the OP and her husband are not people she wants in her life.

Please don't deny the feelings of those of us who have seen the other side. I find we reap what we sow in life. I have no empathy for the OP as a OW. I understand, however, she is hurting as a human being.

I wonder if your DH is troubled by any of these kind of thoughts?

He was the critical one here, not you.

I feel for you but equally I don't like the assumption that your DH's DD has been 'poisoned' by her mum. How would you know? You have no contact with either of them. Demonising the exw is is bad as demonising you. For all you know, the exw has spent years carefully not slagging him off to her daughter. And perhaps the DD has reasons to not like him you are not aware of. Sounds like most of what you know about how great he has been towards his DD has come from him.

He probably has been great, but you don't 100% know what went on when you weren't there or before he met you.

But either way, YOU should not beat yourself up. You were young and fell in love and since then have made a happy life and a family. He now has a massive duty to comfort and help you through this. Sounds like he may be merrily enjoying his second family and not realising quite what you are going through. Show him your OP.

FWIW, I recently discovered an affair and I have no bad feelings towards the OW (who was one of a few). She was the younger, vulnerable person.

cannotlogin... If you have no sympathy or empathy then perhaps go and say so on your own thread, don't use the OP and this one, to lash out.

Can'tlogin

And the many, many women who post on this forum who have been cheated on aren't real, live women, mothers who are suffering?

Yes of course they are. BUT THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT THEM IT'S ABOUT OP.

Please don't deny the feelings of those of us who have seen the other side.

I'm not. I'm saying that the thread of a suicidal woman is perhaps not the best place to vent them.

Good lord.