Do husbands end up marrying the OW? Does it last?

[LiteraryDevil]

Just that really. There's been a fair bit on here about affairs and I wonder if husbands who leave their wives for the OW end up staying with her/marrying her and if it lasts.

Or jimmy saville.

In my friends she was the OW and she realised after about 5 years he was ever going to commit thank his and she moved on. I assume he's back with his long suffering wife.

In my case the OW was far far too good for my exh and she copped that after a few months but thankfully he'd left my by that stage. I hope he's alone and will be found half eaten by alsatians because no one misses him when he dies (actually likewise for my friends ex)

My exH is still with the OW 6 years on - they’re not married yet though.

She’s welcome to the lying arse.....

I know if a case where the two uninvolved spouses got together and married, they were married for over 30 years- one spouse died

There former cheating spouses never lasted and one had several more affairs & marriages

Sometimes it does.

I know two women who were OW and got married to the MM and have had long marriages (10 yrs +); that said I work in a male dominated world where men having affairs are very very common (and in the 'boys club' world very socially tolerated and spoken of openly) so the odds I would come across this are probably statistically quite high.

My dad has been married to my step-mother (the OW) for 43 years.

I'd like to say he'd remained faithful to her, but he's had 3 affairs that I know of. She has just put up with it throughout.

Another thing is that from what I've seen basically this is unusual.

Men having affairs are usually quite happy with the basic marriage/ set up at home - wife (often a SAHM) looking after the children and their couple social life. The affair is a bit of fun on the side and the OW are interchangable (need to be attractive, pay him lots of attention, be very available and ideally of sufficient quality/status for bragging rights/ego boost to the MM).

Situations where the MM end up with the OW almost never occur as a result of the MM instigating it and choosing to leave his wife for the OW.

It's only when the MMs wife decides she's going to end the marriage that the MM will go to the OW. There are rare examples where a MM will leave but its very unlikely and only where the marriage is in a bad state (compared to a tolerable state). MM tend to stay put in their easy life.

If that comes to an end not from their choice, that's when they will look to shack up with the OW.

My dad did. Lasted 10 or so years until he died. They weren't happy though and he massively regretted the hurt he caused. Didn't stop him leaving everything to his wife though whilst me and my sister paid for the funeral 👍🏻

@Scrumptiousbears that's crap. I hate to say it but that's one of the main reasons I'm glad my dad with ow. She was a lot younger than him and I'm not saying my dads loaded but he runs his own business which is successful, new car etc. She would of done anything she could to get her hands on it all. He has a new partner now and I couldn't care less if he leaves everything to her. She's really nice and genuine. Not caused anyone any pain and likes my dad for him. I couldn't think of anything worse than the ow getting her grubby little hands on everything my dad worked so hard for.

My dad had an OW. Left my mum whilst she was 5 months pregnant with my brother. Then the OW left him, he tried to come back. Then left again for OW2 who robbed him blind and moved back up to Wales! Karma

FlL did, and has been with her extremely happily for 35 years.

I know of three instances within the extended family where the XH and OW stayed together (20+ years and counting). Can only think of one where XH married OW and split ... she wouldn't put up with his attitude.

My friend's dad married his OW just before I met her (over 30 years ago, she was my friend's mum's best friend). They're still blissfully happy, and her mum has been happily married to someone else for over 20 years too. They both say their marriage to each other was a mistake (except they got my friend out of it) and I can't imagine them being a couple, they're such opposites. So yes, I suppose it can but he wasn't a serial adulterer, he just fell in love with the woman he obviously should have been with from the start.

A (fairly distant) friend of mine's exH had an affair and is now married to the OW. This OW was married to what is now my friend's OH. Between them I think they have 6 kids.
It all sounds very complicated, but seems to work!

I was the OW & I married him. I have often felt like the 2nd Mrs X and now after the same length of time as his first marriage we are getting divorced. Appalling sex and Domestic Abuse.

My dad was with OW 18 years. Guess what happened next?

My mum was the OW. She married my step dad 40 years ago. He has never strayed and they are very happy. Both were in marriages that were miserable. Was it morally right? No. But they would have both stayed ‘for the children’ and that wouldn’t have been right either.

My FIL told me that he never wanted to leave his wife and was only married to the OW because his wife kicked him out.

He had been married to OW for 25 years at that point - is that the sort of successful marriage you mean?

There’s no one size fits all answer to this. Sometimes someone marries the OW and it Doesn’t work, but I’ve seen several instances where people left their respective partners for each other and their marriages lasted longer than the original marriage did. Sometimes it is a case of that people marry the wrong person.

I also know someone whose eXH left her for OW and she ended up marrying the husband OW had left. The man turned out to be an abusive, aggressive drunk which gave her a huge insight into why the first marriage had ended up the way it had in the first place. She’s now trapped in a marriage to a man she doesn’t love.

IME limited experience the answer is yes, stayed together and got married.

I know a man who left his wife of 25 years for the OW. This was in the 80s when divorce wasn’t as common.
He and the OW got married and have been together ever since - he’s in his 80s now.

I read a statistic on this. 93% of relationships starting from affairs fail. Quite damning really.

Wow, so many stories. My faith in men has gone down even further
I do often wonder if my own husband might have tried to come back if I hadn't have started divorce proceedings the day he walked out. At that point I knew nothing of the OW. I quickly got involved with someone from my past (wasn't to last even 2 years but don't regret it as have my LO as a result) so that combined with the fact my husband is an abusive bastard meant there was no way he'd have been taken back.

TBH I don't think you can ever know. I ended my relationship for the same reasons I'd been telling ex partner for two years. Yet its common belief that I left him for another man.

I didn't. There was very little time between things, but I'd done all my grieving and moving on emotionally during the two years I spent miserably trying and failing to make things work.

Alsorts of assumptions have been made about my new relationship and we have been painted as sailing off into the sunset etc, having less responsibility etc when the reality is we are both incredibly damaged people and niether of us are anywhere near emotionally stable enough for a proper relationship. He's helped me get better with my anorexia and I've put on two stone and I look a it better. I was incredibly ill. I weighed six stone and I'm 5ft7. So people assume everything's brilliant now on that too.

CheersMedea, I think that you are probably right in most cases. However, I know of a couple where the MM chose to leave his DW of his own accord (and did so within just a few months of meeting the OW). He and the OW are married and still love each other to bits two decades on. I know it took him a long time to get over the guilt of leaving.

He's got a drink problem though, so I reckon the first DW probably had a lucky escape.