Do men ever regret their ‘midlife crisis’ affairs?

[stitchinguru]

Just that really - it’s such a common occurrence, I’d be interested in how it tends to pan out in the fullness of time.

My ex left me for ow destroyed me and my children she was 21 he 45 we had been together for over 20 years for a year he promised to come home he didn't.
They had that year of him acting and dressing like a teenager she got pregnant eastern european golddigger he is 50 now and ow just had another baby he looks like shit I think he regrets it but he dug his hole.
Our children have no time for him and he is stuck with a very unpleasant person .
He recently said to our daughter he didn't handle things well under exaggeration of the century I hope he feels the pain he put us through

My exh had an affair. I found out on our 25th W Anniversary. She was with him every day whilst I went out to work, she 'helping' him with his work etc etc. We had 15 yr old and 18 yr old. Devastated the family, and close relations. I left him and found a new home and got (eventually a totally deserved lump sum), got on with my life. Now, she has left him and moved on with someone else. He is lonely, ill health and can't work. Fuck him, he deserves everything he is/has. The OW and he messed me up so much, I still feel angry and sick at the way they flaunted themselves in the local area. Sod him. He was 45, she was 'fun'

I think some do, some don't.
Though I did laugh at my relatives tale of driving past her 55yr old ex-husband on the school run in the pissing down rain while onroute to the airport with her new husband .

abbeycafe- I think I’ll always feel like you do (very similar circumstances). It was the acting like ‘the cat who’d got the cream’ (while I was blindsided and trying to keep the family together) that makes my blood boil. Like others who have posted though - think the cream is starting to turn sour. Tough shit!!

What happens when 2 selfish people get together?

Dh never used the word "regret", I think that's because I am still around. He desperately want to forget the whole event and move on because he feels ashamed. The word he use is "I wish this never happened." "I wish I can go back in time.".

What a shame, it happened, I saved the family, he lost my trust, I lost the husband who made me smile inside.

It's been almost 3 years now.

My ExH seems perfectly happily married to the OW. I don't think he regrets it at all. He's slowly pushing away our DSs, as each leaves school he no longer wants to have them stay over. He's 'done his duty' in the strictly legal sense of paying minimum maintenance and having them EOW, but he's counting down the days until DS3 turns 18.

Sadly I don't believe in karma. He doesn't deserve to be so happy, but he obviously is. I hate it that I'm still affected by him 7 years on. I haven't even wanted to date myself, it's too much like hard work and I couldn't trust again.

I definitely think my Dad does. Although I wouldn’t say his was classic mid life crisis affair, as there were definitely some MH issues in play. He’s very amicable with my mum and stepdad but I think he probably looks at their lovely life together and feels a lot of regret.

I think most people regret their affairs. My ex certainly did! He claims that he is destroyed over cheating on me and leaving me and his baby. He claims it’s caused him the most pain in his life and has begged me to take him back.

I should have known my ex was a dirt bag when he admitted to having multiple affairs with me women he used to work with.

My ExH shagged around constantly throughout our marriage. I think it was a superiority thing, I suspected a couple times in our 8 years but gave him the benefit of the doubt because you’re supposed to trust your husband.

Well. Like I said it was constant. I’m finding new stuff out even now, even without looking for it actively, and the extent of it opens up old wounds.

He might have regretted it, made some noises about missing me at one point and recently told my current DP he has a “soft spot for me” but I don’t think he has actual human feelings so I don’t give a shit. All he needs to do is let our daughter down once and he’ll learn what regret means.

Interesting thread. I do not know if my ex has regrets as we do not communicate. I would like to think there is such a thing as karma. However I got some satisfaction recently as he orders things off my son's amazon prime account. It was a self help anxiety book for people with feelings of guilt, shame, low self esteem etc. It made my day.

My greatest delight was when I bumped into ex -DH at a party and told him I was pregnant with baby with new DP. We had not spoken for a long time . His face was a picture . He told me he had always wanted more children. A close friend had told me OW had made him have the snip as she didn't want another child ( she had one child with her ex) .

I think mine had these regrets :

1. He thought he could keep his huge pension and still get half of everything else, and have me pay the secret credit card debt he tracked up (in his own name). And so he regrets that I got more then he thought I should (I got slightly less than half actually) and he ended up with little cash.

1. He thought I'd act as an au pair and he'd just have the kids for the fun bits. He hasn't enjoyed being the only parent (EOW and half holidays) when they've been poorly or grouchy.

1. He thought that without me and the kids, he'd become a successful writer as he'd always thought he would. Didn't happen. Turns out it wasn't us holding him back.

But did he regret the affair?

I don't think so.

When people get into affairs they tell themselves all sorts of horrible things about their partner and their relationship with them. So then it's easy to justify cheating, and easy to convince yourself it was right to leave.

As well as convincing himself, my ex also tried hard to convince everyone else that I was at fault - gaslighting and blame-shifting to make himself feel better. Back-fired, unfortunately for him, meaning that he looked even more of a twat in the fullness of time.

@McWilde that made me laugh out loud.

I think from reading this thread it's obvious most men don't regret causing devastation to their families. They only feel sorry for themselves if things don't turn out as they had hoped and they end up lonely/miserable/poor/hated by their kids.

@shampoo0 it's interesting that your dh seems to have abdicated all responsible for his affair and chooses to see it as something that happened to him rather than a shit choice he made. Rather like an illness or injury. Are you still with him?

I've only known a couple of my male acquaintances who had a "midlife crisis" affair. Both were in relationships which had become pretty awful; someone came along, turned their head and gave them some relief within a deeply unsatisfying life, both seemed to want to get caught, which they did. While neither stayed with the OW both are happier single than they were, however both have teenage DCs who don't speak to them any more but then I've other friends who divorced amicably whose teenage DCs don't really have
much to do with them either.

Then again I also know a woman who was in a similar situation, but no DCs, who had an affair. Her H wasn't feelings well one time and came home to find her shagging her OM in their bed. Nobody referred to it as a midlife crisis though.

HarmlessChap it might be worth you reading The Script. My ex told people our relationship was horrible etc but it wasn't, not from his point of view. Not until I figured out he was cheating.

He admitted to me that he told people it was bad so they wouldn't judge him for cheating with people at work. He said he used to set me up by getting me to ring him at work and then pulling faces as if I was shouting at him!

Truth it's he was in control in our marriage. Both financially and emotionally. But he's since rewritten history to make himself the victim.

I'm familiar with the script.

With one of these two its possible, that there us some exageration but they never seemed particularly happy and when I said a pretty awful relationship I think they both had a level of culpability.

However, with the other one what he said about his exW were the exact same reasons my DW distanced herself as a friend of hers. Always had to be the centre of attention, if you had a problem her's were worse, claims to suffer from all sorts but never with any medical diagnosis or treatment, her "CFS" only kicks in if ever someone needs help or support from her or if someone else is diagnosed with a condition. I'm no expert but I suspect there are narcissistic behaviour traits in there.

Reading this with a lot of interest as my ex (of 2 weeks ago) in his 40s has taken up with a much younger OW - we were together for nearly 10 years. The way I see it..it can go two ways:

1. It is a flash in the pan and he ends up alone again after she has chewed him up and spat him out. Or becomes pregnant. He won't have that as he's always been against 'breeding' as he calls it and has a massive chip about the planet being over populated!

2. They stay together, get married and happily ever after.

I'm a bitch, so I'd rather Number 1 plays out as he stuck to The Script as if he had written it himself.

Pinkmonkeybird - You are NOT a bitch, you are normal!! I think anyone who says they wouldn’t/didn’t feel like you do is a liar.

@Forgotmycoat

I am still with him and I agree with what you said.

Don't think I can ever forgive but I can get on.

I know as many women as men who have a ‘mid life crisis’. One of my colleagues found ‘the love of her life’..she was his second affair, his wife had just lost both her parents to cancer, yet she described him as a wonderful man?!?! He sounds a right catch Her husband found out and divorced her, tearing apart their family. It’s tragic really. I don’t actually think her marriage was that unhappy either, sure after she got caught she said she wasn’t happy to perhaps try and justify her actions. But she never said anything that would suggest she was in an unhappy marriage, in fact I would say it was the opposite.

She hasn’t really shown any regret and is now with someone else. She says things like ‘in the end it all worked out fine, everyone has moved on a met someone else and are happy’. Whether she’s trying to bury the regret or run away from what she did I don’t know. What I have noticed is that she lacks the one thing that most cheaters lack, whether they are male or female...empathy.

Yes, I think the ‘everything worked out fine in the end’ is a way for the cheater to minimise/justify their actions. I am sure that for those who were the victims, the early days after ‘discovery’ of the affair were anything but ‘fine’.

My ex spent years asking to come home, but is still with ow.

We are amicable but at the time I remember him saying that I was the reason he was a fat, alcohol-dependent smoker, because he had to eat/drink/smoke to cope with the stress of living with me. It was so hurtful but within days he was asking to come home and continued to do so for years.

Happily, he is now ever fatter, smokes like a chimney and drinks more than ever. He has aged badly, lost his hair and suffers from several unpleasant medical conditions. So turns out it wasn't me making him do those things after all.

GloomyMonday that is shocking. Why do they behave like utter wankers? My ex trotted out some similar bullshit. By that time I had grown the hide of a rhino though. I think he had sensed that he was no longer affecting me so much and was just saying whatever came into his head to try and get a reaction.

He moved in with OW and a mate of ours told me he spoke to her like she was something he had scraped off his boot. He never did that with me until it was clear I wasn't going to let him come back. All the same they were together for a while. It's like they don't think there will be consequences of their actions.