Tell me about an affair you've had or know of where the man didn't leave their wife like they promised

[Dineoutone]

Need a reality check please.

It's not me having the affair - though you'll all think it is! I want to show my friend that what she is doing is wasting her life. She's 27 and he's 52 and promised he will leave his wife. They've been dating for a year and the current excuse is 'when you youngest goes to college.' (In 2 years). Yeah right.

[Iflyaway]

Poor deluded women.

Yes, I mean both of them, the wife and the mistress.

I feel sorry for the kids really.

Why can't people be honest? Call it a day when it no longer works rather than living inauthentically.

[MaisyPops]

Wanting an affair to end with running off into the sunset together (aside from the morality issues) is naive and insane.

Cake and eat it springs to mind.

However unhappy a man is in his marriage, you can bet he's still sleeping with his wife. Meanwhile the single other woman puts her life on hold hoping her man will see sense and he won't. She might push for an ultimatum but he won't leave especially if there are kids involved. Even if he does, she now has 'her' man but knows exactly what he's capable of and the trust between them is always going to be a bit dented by how they met.

At least that's my take on the entire thing from what i've seen with people.

(Not saying any of that is ok. More asusming yoir friend is aware that affairs aren't the right thing to get into so focusing on advice).

[BartholinsSister]

However unhappy a man is in his marriage, you can bet he's still sleeping with his wife.
There have been many, many threads on here involving married people who have little or no intimacy with each other, sometimes for years on end.

[wrinkleseverywhere]

Two friends spent years waiting for the married man to leave his wife. In one case, the married man is still with his wife; in another case, the married man left his wife but for someone else (not my friend).
In a third case, the married man did leave his wife & married my friend. Money worries & time constraint as, obviously, the man had to support his 2 DC & see them EoW. Friend & this man have 2 (more in his case) DC. Man has another affair. Friend can't risk separating as has given up work &, as unmarried, little right to financial support (mother of the first two DC had been married to him & had had a brilliant lawyer). This chap now sleeps with whoever he likes whenever he likes it seems.
All of them are such cliches. It's like some moral tale. All true though.

[sparechange]

I know a few...

Friend 1: junior and young-ish policewoman who had an affair with the much older senior bloke
He said he would leave his wife but always had an excuse as to why it had to be delayed
She then got pregnant (claims it wasn't deliberate but no one believes her)
He said he was over the moon but his youngest was about to sit exams so no one else could know that there was a baby on the way yet, but as soon as the son's exams were out the way, he would leave his wife and tell everyone

The baby was about 4 when she finally realised he wasn't ever going to leave. She had to leave the police and now works in a nursery

Friend 2: (actually my old personal trainer) Had an affair with a local bloke, who's kids she used to babysit
He was going to leave his wife, they would set up home, it would all be fine
Bags of excuses, eventually telling her he had been to see a solicitor to start divorce proceedings but the solicitor had advised him that the divorce would cost him so much, and the ex wife would get the house and all his money, so it was better for them to stay together. Which obviously sounded like legit legal advice

He lost interest in her and moved on, and she had to move away because everyone found out and obviously blamed her for being a home wrecker

[mummyto2monkeys]

I have a friend who's husband only left her when she found out. He had been living a double life working Monday- Friday with his married mistress, who was a colleague (they openly were in a relationship to all of his work colleagues and London friends), then returning home to his beloved wife and children at the weekend. This 'affair' had lasted over six years, while my friend had several of their children. They shared a fantastic sex life and he claimed to adore her. However she saw signs everywhere, when she found women's make up at his London flat, or when a friend let slip about a night out in London forgetting it was his 'work wife' who had been present, not my friend. Each time she confronted her husband, she would get abuse with him gas lighting her into thinking she must have been crazy to think that. The absolute filth left his wife with a newborn and two little ones race back to London on new years eve because of an apparent emergency meeting with work the next day. He left her in floods of tears having miscarried and returned to the city early because her negativity was not how he wanted to spend his weekend. Both times she later found out he had met his mistress.

Yet despite six years together he made no move to leave and I believe he would still be there had one of their joint friends not bit the bullet and told all to my friend.

[GatoradeMeBitch]

There have been many, many threads on here involving married people who have little or no intimacy with each other, sometimes for years on end.

My friends ex DH had a sudden renewal of interest in her and in sex out of the blue after years of barely being bothered. Eventually she found out that the boosted libido was down to the fact that he was seeing a girl half his age, which was making him generally randy all the time.

[Bluntness100]

When I found out he told her to her face that she was nothing but a bit of fun on the side and he would do anything to stay with me.

[ChocolateDoll]

Bluntness100 - it looks like a classic case of 'pick me dance'

[Dineoutone]

Some of these stories are surprising! I don't know how people keep it up for so long.

I wish my friend would at least date people her age. It's starting to affect our friendship because I can't take what she says about her relationship seriously. She's so intelligent and witty.. completely the last sort of person id imagine to do this. What a depressing topic!

[Obsidian77]

The stories are surprising? The man sounds like a walking cliche.
Realised I didn't actually give examples before.

1. OW had decades long relationship. Every excuse in the book. He never left his wife. OW and her child are some of the unhappiest people I've ever met. The guy died in the end (in his early 60s)
   
2. The man had a number of mistresses, kids with at least 2 of them. He and his wife have finally separated. He lives on his own, cba with his other families, don't think he has even told them he and his wife aren't together.
   These are the two most blatant that I can think of. I know a couple of other women who eventually twigged that their soulmate wasn't leaving his wife, chalked it up to experience and moved on with their lives.
   I think you should stay out of it. Just because your friend wants to waste her time doesn't mean you have to drink this slow poison.

[Huskylover1]

Oh FFS, she is deluding herself. But she's young and doesn't have much life experience, clearly.

My first husband had about 10 affairs. No idea of the length, what he told them etc, but he never once tried to leave me....and when the truth was uncovered and I left him, he was DEVASTATED. He actually said to me "I had a bit of fun on the side, but what you are doing is breaking up a family".

I have also known several other men who have had affairs. Guess how many left their wives? Zero.

Men rarely leave their wives. Having a comfortable home life, plus sex with a GF on the side...why ruin that? They don't want to lose their cushy home life, they don't want to live away from their children (no matter how old the kids are), they don't want to leave their lovely home, they don't want to split their assets and pension.....

In 2 years time, your friends guy will invent another excuse why he can't leave, or he'll dump her, saying it's not working any more.

Best case scenario for her, let's say he does leave his wife...

1. She will never be a Mum (he's too old)
   
2. Her guy will be poor as a church mouse, after his wife takes him to the cleaners
   
3. She'll most likely have to give up sex in her 30's, as his dick goes in to retirement
   
4. His kids will hate her and make her life a misery (probably)
   
5. She will be attached to a guy who thinks nothing of cheating on his wife, the mother of his children....so I'm pretty sure, for as long as his dick actually works, he'll cheat on her. After all, she's not his wife, they don't share history or children, and let's face it, he's a practiced at lying and cheating to everyone around him.
   

Sadly, it will be all of her own doing, and in some way she'll deserve it all. She knows what she's doing after all.

[HappyJanuary]

People who want to leave a marriage do so within the first 3-4 months. For every month they stay after that, the likelihood of them leaving diminishes.

My xh strung his ow along for years with the same cliched old script that all married men seem to trot out to their mistresses, all untrue of course.

She has him now, because I found out and threw him out. He begged to stay then, and he still begs to come home now.

Your friend is helping to destroy a family, complicit in devastating an innocent woman and her dc. Why does she want to be a part of that? Why does she want a man who is capable of lying into his wife's face every day? Why does she want a man who will be 70 when she's in her 40s?

But I suspect you are wasting your time op. Your friend will be convinced that their relationship is special and different, despite all available evidence to the contrary.

[kidsinamerica73]

Sad but true, I know two women who waited for married men, one of whom even married again whilst keeping my friend on the side. Both women are dead now, both died single and in their early fifties (different reasons of course) but they literally put they're whole lives on hold and never had children whilst their lovers carried on living their domestic lives separately from them.
I know a third woman who's now late fifties who has also spent her adult life in thrall to a married man, she's also unmarried and never had kids , she's very lonely and is still being strung along by her rich and controlling lover.
On the other side of the coin I have two friends recently who have been left by their husbands for the OW. On both these occasions the PW is much younger, slimmer and coincidentally both blonde which is neither here nor there but seems to underline the cliche somewhat.

[Finola1step]

Here's another example. Friend of my DSis. Met a man when she was late 20s. He was a good 15 years older than her. Married with primary aged dc. All the usual excuses re waiting for the dc to grow up etc etc.

Fast forward 20 years. Yes, you read it correct. 20 fucking years. Her chance of ever starting a family of her own are gone. She has convinced herself that she is happy with the situation as "She gets the best of him". He is nearing retirement and guess what, is still with his wife. And he will be until the day he dies, of that I am sure.

[Karen85]

My own mum left my dad for a Indian guy 12 years ago who she still to this day only see's once every Saturday night and pines for him all week wasting her life.

I found a valentines card last year which said 'I love you more than her' and I haven't looked her in the eye since I doubt he will ever leave his wife or whoever 'her' is they both make me sick and he treats her like shit but she thinks he's gods gift to women.

My dad has re-married and I haven't seen him this happy in a long time so atleast it worked out for him.

[PsychedelicSheep]

'Men don't leave'

Oh but they do leave, they leave all the time! Every week there's a new thread where the H has gone off with OW. Of course not all men will leave but to say it doesn't happen is a complete fallacy.

OP, you can't say anything to make your friend change her mind. Most likely she'll just get fed up after a while and drift away from him.

[NarcsBegone]

My exh left me for another woman (a few years younger) they had been seeing each other for around 6 months. He came back to me but soon after I realised that he was still in contact with her and was lying about so many things big and small in general. I simply fell out of love with him and ended it. He didn't get back with the other woman as by that time she had done all sorts of weird shit and spent the next five years trying to wheedle his way into my life again. She was 100% sure that he would stay with her and believed all the crap he told her, none of it was true. She was led along for a year and a half in the end. He was full of bullshit and she had a lucky escape tbh.

[Obsidian77]

Oh wow Huskylover "I had a bit of fun on the side but what you are doing is breaking up a family"!! The sheer brass neck of him! Fuck me that's audacious.

[MsGameandWatch]

Sorry but almost all the affairs I know, the husband did leave his wife. I think it's a bit of a MN fallacy that they don't.

[Valentine2]

I was once chased relentlessly by a guy like that. I was new at that workplace and didn't know his previous record. I knew He wasn't my type but he kept begging literally. So I did some digging, found he was happily engaged and had kept it a secret somehow, had chased other women before me while engaged. He was "the script" right down to each line. The Fuckwit then had the gall to tell me that he thinks he can't have babies with his soon-to-be-wife because she can't have babies and has had miscarriages. I threatened with sexual harassment and put an end to it. I probably should have done it but I was offered a far better but harder job elsewhere and was very busy. "The Script" is not a joke. It is real.

[AdoraBell]

Not a man promising to leave, but DH's first wife left him, then left the bloke she'd left DH for and is now married to the fourth one down the line.

Also DSis's ex. Married DSis, left her for the secretary then left her for the replacement secretary.

Your friend is wasting her time.

[ravenmum]

Depends a lot on whether the wife finds out. My ex was with his OW three months when I first started suspecting things. He got colder and colder, followed the script more obviously, but the mental torture was so confusing I still wasn't certain until I discovered their emails ten months later. He had described our life in intricate detail but full of lies to make out that our relationship had always been worthless. When I got him to leave they had been together about a year and three months.

Another guy I knew left his wife of 20 years when his mistress fell pregnant.

I know two women who left for their OM then regretted it.

The neighbour's husband left for and now lives with his mistress.

You don't hear about the men who don't leave, as if they aren't found out, no one knows. If they are found out but the wife gives them a second chance then it's usually not advertised.

[garlicandsapphire]

Apart from the stereotype sleaze bag married man and the damn predictable lines, and whether he will leave or not - where's her morality?How the hell would she feel if it were her (she thinks she's more special than the woman he married - that it would never happen to her??). Can't stand how women walk right in and destroy a family, another woman's life, children's lives. She should be ashamed of herself. Do as you would be done by. And why give a man the opportunity to be a lying, deceitful bastard.... Tell her to find someone decent - and free.