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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Affairs - You need to read this and not ruin your life like me

339 replies

stopwhatyouaredoing · 19/02/2019 17:56

If you are having an affair you need to read this.
I have had a sexual affair with a colleague for 2 years. It wasn't love, we didn't want to leave our partners. She wasn't that happy at home and was bored sexually. For me, it was an ego boost and made me feel wanted as myself and my partner were trying to conceive and I couldn't tell her I thought she as losing feelings for me because I couldn't get her pregnant and that I was failing her. Absolutely stupid I know, but that is the truth of the matter. There was a sexual chemistry, which I should made sure we kept in check but I didn't.
It was snatched moments at lunchtimes, after work sometimes, or on work nights out, but towards the end it got riskier at her home too. The thing is I felt trapped in this affair. It was like a gambling addiction. I craved the highs but hated the lows. I let my partner down in the biggest way ever, I didn't make her priority anymore.

At the end of summer last year, her husband found out and I was relieved. It was over, and could try and work on my relationship. However he told my partner all about it sharing messages that really didn't need to be read and that was it. The house on the market and plans to move on.

The enormity of what I had done, and lost hit me like a tonne of bricks. The woman who had given me her all and heart was devastated, and also relieved as she had suspected for so long.
Me...I was just devastated at what I had done. I was losing her, the woman I love, losing my home, losing the life I loved. The biggest thing though was the pain. I was in pain at what I had caused for her. I had never realised that you could feel the pain you caused to someone else until now.

I am now living alone, hating myself, hating my life and its all what I caused by being stupid. I am low, and have even thought of suicide on some days as it's difficult to cope with my actions and the pain it has caused.

If you are having an affair, or close to one. Please PLEASE, think again, think about what pain you will cause to others, think about how you would feel if done to you, and I mean really think about it. I can tell you I would of made so many different choices knowing how I feel now.

OP posts:
IamTheMeg · 22/02/2019 19:17

People don't have to be so nasty. He has held his hands up and admitted a big mistake. Even himself likened it to an addiction!there but for the grace of god..

IvanaPee · 22/02/2019 19:18

Where did she mention IVF? How is she bullying? Like, what in her post is bullying?

You can do what you want with your feelings and how you manage them. You haven’t really said why you’ve posted here? Because the whole “I might be able to stop someone else doing it” thing is a bit silly since nobody actually needs to be told that affairs can end messily!

And you do seem quite defensive about unsympathetic posts which is weird since you keep reiterating that you don’t deserve sympathy...

IvanaPee · 22/02/2019 19:22

People don't have to be so nasty. He has held his hands up and admitted a big mistake. Even himself likened it to an addiction!there but for the grace of god..

This is quite triggering for some people and you’d want to be pretty dense not to realize that so any “nastiness” is perhaps understandable?

He’s held his hands up? But nobody asked him to. He just voluntarily posted it! Confused

He likened it to an addiction. An affair is not an addiction, it’s a conscious choice and very easy to end, unlike substance addiction (for example). It also would have continued if her dh hadn’t found out, so the remorse and navel-gazing is from a situation forced upon him from being caught.

There but for the grace of god? Really?? This isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you choose. God has fuck all to do with it. Unless divine intervention took his penis and placed it in another woman...

O4FS · 22/02/2019 19:24

But why are you doing this on Mumsnet?

Original poster
stopwhatyouaredoing · 22/02/2019 19:30

Ivanapee, the professionals have likened it to a gambling addiction with the many lows and few highs that you get addicted too.

O4FS I’m not sure actually. I just come across the forums and did it

Bullyadvice2017 You’ve clearly been on the shit end of this, but I didn’t do it to you and I’m not your ex

OP posts:
bullyingadvice2017 · 22/02/2019 19:30

Coz he needs to enlighten us all on how bad the poor shaggers feel when they have been rumbled. But least his wife's relieved right??!? My moneys on him having spent the whole affair gaslighting her.
But here he is dishing advice out on how to keep our knickers up!

If my post was bullying you really have only self pity and no grasp of what you have chosen to do to the one you were supposed love.

IvanaPee · 22/02/2019 19:31

Yeah but it’s not an addiction and you’re veering into excuse territory. Not a good idea for someone who fully accepts what he did.

And you mightn’t be bully’s ex but you sound a carbon copy.

You really didn’t think you’d encounter someone in the same position as your ex on here? Really??

IvanaPee · 22/02/2019 19:32

Again; what’s the post for? What do you want from it?

PortiaCastis · 22/02/2019 19:38

Your cock is yours with attached brains, you control where it goes so don't put it about while you're married and if you do don't make excuses for it. As for saying some women can't get affairs well praps we're too fussy and don't want to screw a dick that belongs to a bigheaded twat.

O4FS · 22/02/2019 19:46

OP, do a search on here for ‘The Script’. It’s the script you tell us, time and time again. Denying, minimising, admitting but playing the victim (yes, sex ‘addiction’ will come under that).

Time and time again it’s spouted by cheating husbands and partners.

See, we’ve heard it all before.

All you’ve done is remind us. Pain, anger, hurt. Thanks for that.

Original poster
stopwhatyouaredoing · 22/02/2019 19:54

I’ve not denied or minimised anything. They are my actions. But clearly everyone thinks life is black and white with no deviation at all. I’m not the victim my ex is, and I never said I’m a sex addict. But like I said before. I’m human and I can look back and feel hurt by what I’ve caused. People can actually learn from mistakes

OP posts:
O4FS · 22/02/2019 19:57

Yes, we're the one’s in the wrong. Poor you.

IvanaPee · 22/02/2019 20:03

But clearly everyone thinks life is black and white with no deviation at all.

And you’re not looking for sympathy or making excuses?

People can actually learn from mistakes

Not if they see themselves as victims which I still suspect you do.

Your posts reek of self-pity and you still haven’t said what this post is actually for! Hmm

Fishdoggy · 22/02/2019 20:26

I'd suggest you walk away from this thread OP.

Why not read some of the women's threads on relationships and see the pain and destruction caused by affairs to the one who was cheated on? This will give you a better understanding of your Ex's feelings. No way is she sailing away unscathed.

If you want to make amends why not spend your new found free time volunteering or raising funds for women's refugees or local food banks? Give back to society in some way.

S021 · 22/02/2019 21:13

My DH did the same OP.

Thank you for posting. It has helped me x

youknowmedontyou · 22/02/2019 21:20

@stopwhatyouaredoing your title says about ruining your life, not your wife's life! Who gives a fuck about you?

S021 · 22/02/2019 22:15

It’s ok for the thread to be about the OP imo.
Just because someone has done something wrong or is at fault doesn’t mean they’re not hurting or need support

CatinMyLap · 22/02/2019 22:55

This reply has been deleted

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Februaryblooms · 23/02/2019 00:14

Had this not been written by a self absorbed philandering twit I would be saying that this deserves a place in classics, for no reason other than the fantastic replies from PP's handing his arse to him on a plate. I applaud you.

stop what you are doing and make sure you listen to the almighty penis

I hope your dick shrivels up and falls off in the night

GrinGrin

Februaryblooms · 23/02/2019 00:24

I can't help but wonder though, has anybody else ever heard a man refer to somebody else's husband as "her hubby" or am I just overly cynical? Hmm

importantkath · 23/02/2019 09:06

Poor @stopwhatyouaredoing

You fell over and your dick landed in a vagina that wasn't your wife's.

FOR TWO WHOLE YEARS.

That a serious case of whoopsies. You poor thing.

I can guarantee that your wife isn't moving on as if nothings happened. I would bet my bottom dollar that she cried buckets, doubted her worth as a wife, questioned her very existence and wondered about her physical attractiveness. When you pulled the rug from under her feet and destroyed her marriage and hopes and dreams, she had two choices. Sink or swim.

Good on her for swimming. Not only swimming, but swimming strongly. Good for her in swimming far, far away and leaving you behind.

Thank goodness she got away without being tied to you forever by starting a family.

bullyingadvice2017 · 23/02/2019 09:23

Be careful importantpat you might make the poor bugger feel like your bullying him too 😂

He was addicted don't you know. Had no control over his actions.
He's devestated....... now he's been caught.
He need to warn everyone that affairs fuck people's life's up. Who'd a thought it?!?

But here he is feeling a need to warn a forum full of women that have been on the other side of this about how awful he feels. What a tit eh!

Original poster
stopwhatyouaredoing · 23/02/2019 09:51

Just leave it will you. I’ve ruined lives and now I have to try and cope with that, and if I’m honest I’m not coping. I’m now suffering serious depression and mental health issues and that is what my warning is for.

OP posts:
AstralTraveller · 23/02/2019 09:57

Two years though. Two. Seriously? This is not a mistake. It's calculated, prolonged deceit and lies and as for the PP that said that good people have affairs. No they don't. The two are mutually exclusive. If my DH had an affair for two feckin years I would not consider him a good person.

OP we get that you have the urge to publicly beat yourself up but please try and see the bigger picture here as it will aid your insight. You had the urge to warn us all about not shagging outside our marriages and you have apportioned blame elsewhere. This indicates that you have a certain type of personality that makes you feel entitled to have affairs gets up peoples noses as a lot of us have had some of that shit in our lives. Stop now and have a look inside yourself, not this thread.

importantkath · 23/02/2019 09:59

Just leave it will you

What you should have said the first time you entered into adulterous territory.