Fallen in love but I'm married

[Mrsnoriss]

Ok, here goes. Feel like I'm probably going to get a lot of abuse for this and I am prepared for it. Not necessarily looking for advice, just need to get it off my chest as I can't talk to anybody about this IRL.

So basically, I have fallen in love with my friend. We've been friends with this couple for years, go on hols together etc. For the past 2 years or so friend and I have been getting very close. We've had the odd hug and talk a lot, came close to kissing, but we haven't as we both feel really bad. This is a completely shit situation to be in and I feel like the worst person on the planet. Like I'm living a lie. Can't see how this can go on for much longer. That's all, thanks for listening. Would be nice to hear from someone who is or has been in similar situation.

Stop kidding yourself.

This didn't just happen out of the clear blue sky. This is something you chose. You were bored, so you looked around for a bit of a hit. You chose your close friend's husband to get it with. For years, you have been making choices to progress this. Every meeting, every action, every little heart-to-heart, it was all a choice. A choice to screw over your perfectly innocent husband and your close friend.

This is not romantic. It is cold blooded, selfish and cruel.

Here it is.... forget about your friend for the moment. Imagine he has moved abroad. Now your marriage - with him out the picture would you stay or still consider leaving? That's your answer.
You leave a marriage because you are unhappy and can't live that way anymore.. not for someone else. If you left, it doesn't mean your friend would his marriage.

The problem is that you both allowed to get where you are now, that is at a place where you are questioning what to do. If you leave your husband and he is wife, how much pain will you cause, how will it impact on your kids, how will it impact on your finances, what if you realise that he is not the person you thought he was and have regrets? And of course, what if he promises to leave his wife and after you've left your OH, he changes his mind and goes back to her and everybody hates you.

Massive risk to take to let your heart take over. Some win, some lose.

Of course you can love more than one person and yes you can be happily married and still be attracted to someone else. You have full control of your feelings and actions. Of course a new 'thing', sets off feelings which seem mind-blowing in comparison to the person who you argue with about chores, leaves skid marks in the toilet etc. As a pp said, take the other guy out of the equation totally and look at your marriage. Then read some threads on here from betrayed spouses and what they and their kids go through. Then read the Divorce board about finances, maintenance, contact weekends. Then the step parent board about blending families. Then decide which scenario is better. It's very simple. You're marriage would have to be utterly shit to choose scenario B

I deserve every comment on here, I'm quite aware that I am the lowest of the low. But, I just want to say that my H and I have grown apart for reasons that have zero to do with OM. And also, no I did not plan this EA, it just happened. I have been witness to a very messy divorce, I know it is horrendous and of course I don't want that to happen. But please believe me when I say that things are not always so black and white. I hugely regret the mess I'm in and I will have to figure a way out of it.

You see there are marriages where one partner suddenly gets attention from someone else...and some embark on the excitement of being wanted. Secretly. They moan about how unhappy they are but wouldn't really leave their other half, kids, house, friends, comfortable life they have spent years building. This scenario happens A LOT! And the partner getting the attention starts resenting their OH, takes care of themselves more, more secretive with their phone....
And on the other side of the coin you have got people in miserable marriages who are unhappy and should leave and maybe don't know how to.
You gotta to see which side you're on.....
Then leaving, in any situation, causes hurt to everyone around.

The emotional affair aside, I think you should leave your husband. You apparently,don't love him and aren't prepared to fight to save the marriage.

Forget the their man. Deal with the priority relationship.

There are a lot of black and white comments on here OP.....no one knows how things are for you so it's easy for people to jump and judge. If you've grown apart then you need to sort your marriage first...can it be saved or not. And move on from there.
If the OM is still around after then either he has done the same or decided not to risk his family.
Regardless the decision here has to be about your marriage at hand rather than the EA.

The 'promise' you can one day be together with this other man?

What about the promise you made during your wedding vows OP?

I realize you say that pretty much your marriage is past meaning much anymore to either of you but still, it sounds like you've been in a loveless marriage for a very long time to be so sure and committed to this other guy.

It's so sad how marriages can just crumble and be beyond repair after once making such a commitment to each other.

Sorry but a lot of these comments are of the fire brand and pitchfork variety.
Sometimes you marry someone who seems right at the time and you grow apart. Sometimes during that time you meet someone else.
This idea that no matter what you have to make it work or batter yourself with sticks and guilt seems crazy.

Is it ideal? No, but life isn't tidy. My parents were both married to other people for almost 2 decades before they had an affair and left their partners to be together.

It happens.

I think when children are involved there needs to be a damn sight more wrong with a marriage than 'growing apart.' to end it with infidelity. To Me that simply means that the realities of day to day life with two working parents has simply meant the couple has lost sight of who they were or have few opportunities to be a couple rather than parents. Far too many marriages (mine included) ended because ex and I were very much in that place and circumstance put an ow in his path at that point. He inevitably found excitement, being wanted / needed. How could that compare to arguing over lie-ins and chores and school runs? I'm not flaming the OP yet, but I would like her to read some of the threads I suggested. The reality of the fallout, even if she and this chap ARE 'soulmates' is it actually worth it?

I agree huge. I think you put up and shut up (provided you're not being abused) and find a way to make it work when children are growing up. Plenty of time to canter off into the sunset in a decade or so.

@kitchenrollinrollinrollin
Hahaha
Yeah because that always works out ok!!
18th birthday present 🎁
If that’s what you’re doing to your kids, and handing out advice for others to do the same, you’re deluded.

And you kids will be fucked up.

@kitchenrollinrollinrollin
"Put up and shut up" - are you for real??

My advice, as someone having an affair with her best mate, is nip it in the bud. I love my OH in many ways, we have a lovely child and I want him to be a full part of her life so it's me that won't walk out. But I found someone that understands me on so many levels and is everything my OH isn't sometimes. If I could combine the two they would make the perfect man. But the heartache, the guilt, the worry about getting caught and therefore hurting people, really isn't worth it. If I could go back and change the moment it happened it would, but I am now genuinely in love with two men even if some posters here think that makes me a total bitch. My situation, for various reasons, is what it is but I would advise you not to do it. Pick one or the other and make it work.

God what's the matter with people?! They have fallen In love - it happens and is hardly the crime of the century. Especially considering they've not acted on it yet.
With all due respect, I beg to differ. I'm going through a divorce thanks to a near identical situation as this. Tell my eldest who leaves messages on my phone saying "I miss you Daddy" that "it happens". Tell the youngest who asks me "where've you gone Daddy?" when I ring him to say goodnight. Tell the parents on both sides who are traumatised. Tell the OM's partner who was posting "luv you so much hun xxx" on Facebook the same time as he was playing Heathcliff to W's Cathy at the school gate once the other parents had gone home.

Its not the falling in love that matters. We all get inconvenient attractions. It's the failure to act and nip matters in the bud that matters. Because they have acted on it, even if not physical. Every secret, clandestine conversation. Every pining admission. Every sweet nothing whispered out of earshot of partners who've done nothing wrong. It just whips up the drama and fantasy all the more. And that's addictive.

I don't see why you should be miserable. If you've fallen out of love with your husband then maybe you should do both of you a favour and be honest.

Of course H and her have drifted apart. Of course she's fallen "out of love" with him. Emotional dramas such as these are self-centred tornados that suck the life and air from everyone around them. Real life cannot compete.

Now, that would be fine if there's substance to it. Or if the marriage had been failing prior. But has it? Was it? Or is it another like so many mid-life affairs, where the two "soulmates" will leave their spouses to finally be with each other only for said perfect partnership to promptly collapse in the cold light of day.

Yeah, my W? Her and her soulmate not looking so hot now from what I gather. And it's only been a couple of flipping months.

Sorry for the rant. Touched a raw nerve.

OP I do not think you are the ‘lowest of the low’. I think relationships are complicated and feelings are messy, and life doesn’t always go as planned and we all can makes messes.

HOWEVER, I would say that, in my view, you ought to try and explore whether you can repair the relationship with your husband first by for example, going to couples counselling and having some honest conversations about where the intimacy has gone, why you’ve become so distant from one another. Give it a go, try, and you will know you have tried.

You won’t be able to do this with the OM in the picture I’m afraid! But I really feel you owe it to yourself, to your husband and your family unit to try first before making any irrevocable decisions.

@carlady Look up "three legged stool affair" - preferably in things published by Relate. It's a known thing and yours sounds like a classic case:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=nC3BJG_adbUC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=three+legged+stool+affair+relate&source=bl&ots=w-D5wrD435&sig=xsdBsi9jgps3hTbvINcXYWZC2gg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMrpupl5PcAhVLL8AKHUtyCxIQ6AEIUjAE#v=onepage&q=three%20legged%20stool%20affair%20relate&f=false

I think when children are involved there needs to be a damn sight more wrong with a marriage than 'growing apart.'

I think many people here would disagree with you. But OP your husband isn't abusive right? He's moderately supportive? So he's done nothing particularly wrong to cause this, it just happened. This pattern is common. The feelings of excitement you felt at the start of of the marriage have ebbed away over time, which is normal. But you miss them.

Then a new person comes along, and you feel those emotions anew all over again. It is invigorating. If you did act on them though and leave your husband, those feelings for this new man would ebb away again, only faster this time, and you might find yourself in the same place all over again. Logically you probably understand this, but those emotions are hard to resist. I don't know what you can do, but I think you need to fight your marriage.

Fight for your marriage I mean.

Grow up

Dear ladies forgive what I will say here...I have noticed that decent husbands are usually willing to 'shut up and put up' like rolling suggested for the same of their children-unless of course the partner is an abusive parent/person ...many husbands in unhappy marriages prefer to remain married for the sake of their kids -yeah yeah many of them go around to have a dip on the side -but that is besides my point. And my point is: OP is the OM a decent man? If yes then it is unlikely he will leave his wife and kids for you....if no is he worth the mess of the break up ? So even in French scenarios if the OM is a married father and his wife is decent there is no happy ending (the Macron case: he was a young adolescent aged 15/16....) So be honest talk to your husband try to build a wall around your marriage (cut contact with the OM family) go to a therapist BEFORE you do anything ...decide when you are sober and wider...good luck!

Self flagellation "I'm the lowest of the low" isn't helpful here, as all it does is stoke the drama of your (so far not physcial) affair,

Indulge it only if you are happy to stay on the (immensely common) 'baby steps' route to an affair.

You can now choose your path. You can indeed decide you are low, and make no changes and so proceed with your affair.

Or you can decide make some active choices about your life and what you want in it. Which might be one or other man or neither.

To have both would be unwise, and to expect to make good choice about your marriage when your head is full of affair partner is unreasonable. You made the choices which permitted the other man to take up your time and attention (both of which you promised elsewhere). You can, if you wish, reverse those choices.

If you do not want to do that, he fairest course is to cancel the promises (ie end your marriage). Something you might want to be doing anyhow as you believe it is so very unsatisfactory that you would rather cheat than work on improving it.

Either break up with your respective partners or stop spending time together because it's a shitty thing to do to them