Was your affair worth it in the end?

[moomoomummy]

A friend was sharing with me today the extent of the fallout following her affair. The children with anxiety and mental health issues. The messiness of her situation now. So I ask how many of you who are years down the line after an affair. Do you regret it? Would you change the course of events if you could?

My ex was still texting me, trying it on and pretended he was single. To my horror my friend saw him with a girlfriend, and I saw pictures of them on her Facebook. I told her and sent proof and she just ignored it but apologised for what had happened. I said it wasn't her fault, but his. They are still together and i'm surprised she chose to ignore it but he probably spun her some lies.

It's interesting for me reading the other perspective My marriage ended due to my husband's affair. I was so totally blindsided that I am still struggling with it 6 years later. The repercussions have been horrendous, the toll on my kids, the wider family, my mental health, my future really. I had a breakdown and PTSD. On top of that the OW is a cunt and continues to be. She recently emailed me to tell me what a gut wrench it must be that my ex-husband is so in love with her and how blissfully happy they are, while criticising my parenting and mocking the fact I am a carer for my young autistic son and am "too lazy to work". She's delightful and my ex-h claimed she was everything he'd ever wanted in a partner. Yet I recall the slim, extremely fit, well dressed, teetotal handsome young man who walked out on me and our baby and now look at the hugely overweight, yellow, lined, dirty, scruffy, old before his years mess that appears at my house every fortnight for a few hours contact with our son and wonder if his life is really as she tries so hard to portray.

Quite honestly, I wish them nothing but misery after what they inflicted on me and have continued to do so for all these years. Yet I read some of the stories on here and absolutely empathise with some of the situations described, RedAnnie118 for example. We had an almost identical situation in our family and I was glad the woman involved had managed to escape the shit she was married to and find happiness (and safety).

I think it's wise to remember that if you embark on an affair that there will always be somebody who is the collateral damage of that decision and whose life may very well be ruined by your actions. I have yet to see an affair end "well" but maybe my perception is skewed.

I wonder if the cheaters in this thread worry when their OH works late or becomes secretive about texting.

If you know cheating is his typical response to problems it ought to be something they should consider. If he did it with you, he can certainly do it to you 🤔

my ex is much happier now and married to someone else, i've been with my partner longer than with my ex

Yep, all vacuous excuses to justify selfish actions. The knot twisting to justify their shitty behaviour is bemusing for sure.

@Russellbrandshair No, not at all. My behaviour was completely wrong. I was 23 at the time and a fucking selfish idiot. I'm 35 now and I wouldn't go near a married man if you paid me. I will always regret the pain my actions caused.

I do believe our respective partners are in better relationships now - how could they not be? But that's not a justification... it's just a fact. Better to be with someone who remains faithful.

Yes I regret it. The work we both put in afterwards got our marriage to where it should have been and things have been much better since, but it certainly wasn’t the way to go about it, to put it mildly. Eight years down the line I still feel the shame every day and I think I always will. I will also always be glad that I didn’t sleep with OM and I know how bloody lucky I am that DH gave me a second chance. We didn’t have children then and I know I would never want to put them through that. My DH’s face when I told him will haunt me forever. It’s made me a lot less naive, and I am a far better person now, but I wish I hadn’t put him through that to get there.

Have to agree with some of the posters, those saying amongst other things:
my ex is much happier now and married to someone else, i've been with my partner longer than with my ex
- I don't regret it at all and have been very happily married for 20 years
I don't regret it, no. We have been together 12 years now and are not habitual cheaters. We have been together longer than we both were with previous partners and I couldn't imagine being with anyone else.

Sorry you are missing the point- You could have all been in the same situation without having the affair.
Also the believe that because you or your ex are now happy is not a justification for the affair, this more about the cheated party being able to (at least outwardly) recover.
Finally if you have cheated you have shown the kind of person you are and what you are willing to do for your own needs. No matter how much you say you trust and love each other, there will always be doubt. After all I am sure your / their exs will have also said the same.

This is the attitude of most cheaters I cant stand. 'It worked out well for me'. Well, lucky you. You had a good time at other peoples expense. That's great. hmm

Because they don't care about other people. Only themselves.

Look at the single parent who shagged another woman's husband for 10 years because it suited her. That's so beyond selfish it's actually a bit sickening. How you can feel that little empathy for another person is horrible.

It's the same either way to me. If you're doing the cheating on your partner, it's just as bad. Worse really, but the bit on the side is not innocent. They don't give a shit either, or they'd find someone single.

However happy my ex and his ow now are, no matter how settled and over it I am, our kids are not. They still would much, much prefer their parents together. We werent unhappy, creating a tense environment, arguing in front of them, just bumbling along as working parents do and he got sidetracked. They now face a lifetime of two homes, missing one or other of us, split xmasses etc. Not worth it at all as far as I am concerned.

Exactly. Then when it's pointed out we are labelled as 'unintelligent and thoughtless' as a PP stated.

This is the thing.
Life is short. I’m not shouldn’t we shouldn’t be empathetic and care for other humans but at the end of the day you have to chase your own happiness. If being with someone who happens to be married makes you happy, do it. Find a way to make it work. Be open and honest. Life is too short to be unhappily married just to keep up appearances or just to “keep the kids happy”.

'just to keep the kids happy' sounds glib and unimportant but weigh it against toddlers and tweens sobbing and dealing with anger, confusion and loss for years. Genuine unhappy marriage, leave. General 'meh' when you're in the trenches of juggling work and young children, suck it up til childcare gets cheaper and easier and you can focus on the relationship again. Life is not short at all. Ten years or so is what you sign up to for that hardest bit, you don't just jump ship. When you have children I do believe the bar for putting yourself first raises considerably and the pp who said 'so what if the person you meet is married' disgusts me. The ow in my case knew my kids and still actively placed herself in a situation to help my ex destroy their family. There is no amount of married bliss that makes that ok.

No matter how much you say you trust and love each other, there will always be doubt

OW keeps a very tight rein on my ex-h. He is tracked via his phone and is not permitted to have contact with me via WhatsApp as it's encrypted. Such fun!

Life is short. I’m not shouldn’t we shouldn’t be empathetic and care for other humans but at the end of the day you have to chase your own happiness. If being with someone who happens to be married makes you happy, do it. Find a way to make it work. Be open and honest. Life is too short to be unhappily married just to keep up appearances or just to “keep the kids happy”

Are you for real? What about the carnage that is left behind, what about the destruction caused to the left wife, to the children? My DD had a breakdown so you can sod off with your comment about "keeping children happy". If you have to end your marriage then so be it, you don't do it under the canopy of the planning, secrecy and deception of an affair, it makes you a shitty human being. Leave your unhappy marriage and find somebody who is single.

I was the ow for 2 years, he was posing for pictures with his wife smiling then texting me begging me to give him another chance.
Hes disgusting and a serial cheat, i wasn't special he hates women. I hope his wife divorces him and meets someone nice he deserves to be alone.

I would change it to be one of us leaving rather than the affair but I am now married 6 yes on with 2 kids so I dont regret the person...but situation was not ideal but incredibly complex and ruined me for a long long time.

I didn't physically cheat on my ex with my DH. But if you want to lump an emotional affair in the same bracket...

I had feelings for my DH from the moment I met him. I tried to push them away, but they wouldn't go. I was actually very upfront with my ex (we weren't married and had no DC), and he begged me to stay. It broke his heart. I couldn't bear to see him like that so I agreed to try. But I was miserable. I was still in touch with (now) DH and when I was with my ex, my mind and my heart weren't with him. It was painful, but the right thing to do was to leave him. I finally put my foot down six weeks later. He was one of the sweetest, kindest men I've ever met, and he deserved to be with someone who loved him completely. Not second best.

My family (who loved my ex) were initially very aloof with DH, which he didn't deserve because he's amazing. We've been together almost 20 years, married for almost 11 and have two DC. We're the right fit. My ex and I weren't.

I've been in my exes shoes as well with an ex before him. It felt utterly shit at the time and I thought my world had ended. They're still together now, with two DC. I wish them well, we weren't right together and would never have lasted anyway. The signs were there in the relationship, I can see that now.

This is a very sad thread to read. People are selfish.

General 'meh' when you're in the trenches of juggling work and young children, suck it up til childcare gets cheaper and easier and you can focus on the relationship again.

Just on this point, affairs aside, this is the point at which many relationships grow so far apart that when you do have the time, money and energy to focus on the relationship again everything has changed because you have just sucked it up and you can be left realising you don't feel the same anymore.

You should surely be trying to find some happiness along the way and together? Not just sucking it up and sticking it out?

This is the thing. Life is short. I’m not shouldn’t we shouldn’t be empathetic and care for other humans but at the end of the day you have to chase your own happiness

Ah cool. So is it ok for me to sleep with your partner? It would make me happy and life is short after all. Is that ok? Presumably it is as empathy isn’t important so we can all do what we feel line right?

where no its not all or nothing. Of course you should try to keep things good in the relationship but what I'm saying is there's a reason marriage vows say 'for better or worse'.. To help you work through the tougher times. We were paying a 2nd mortgage on childcare and juggling demanding jobs. Just as there was light at the end of the tunnel with youngest going to school, I encouraged him to restart a hobby and he met her. It's very easy (as he did) to follow the script and justify his actions with rewritten history of long unhappiness but it simply wasn't true and we'd only been married 2 years (together much longer). In my case it was the oldest cliche, and it breaks my heart for the kids.

I do believe our respective partners are in better relationships now - how could they not be? But that's not a justification... it's just a fact. Better to be with someone who remains faithful

You could have achieved all of that by leaving. The hurt caused by an affair was completely unnecessary and you have scarred those people. They will never be able to fully trust again. Also I hate to break it to you but you ARE in a relationship with an unfaithful person. If they can do it with you they can do it to you. You’d better watch your back love.

I don't regret it. My relationship was dead in the water and a very brief fling was what I needed to put the final nail in the coffin. I feel bad about the pain I caused to my ex but I also feel that in many ways he drove me to it with laziness and ambivalence. I tried many times to address our problems, he didn't want to acknowledge it and this was the fallout. Had I not had the fling i suspect I would have still been stuck in a rut with him for an easy life but sometimes you need a bit of a wake up call.
It never worked out with the other guy but a few years later I met my fiancé and am now very happy. I hear my ex is with someone new who he is far better suited to so it worked out for the best in the end.

The children with anxiety and mental health issues.

I was a child of a broken down marriage and a very ugly divorce that went to court. My dad had the affair and as someone else described it the aftermath was indeed 'carnage'.

My parent's divorce messed me up. I grew up to be insecure with trust issues, zero confidence and low self esteem. To this day I am still so angry and bitter and it's been almost 20 years.

As for my mum it hit her hard. Eventually she did meet someone after 10 years and she was happier but I expect she could have gone without the betrayal.

At the time no one NO ONE thought of me. Everyone was so focused on my mum and dad I might as well not have existed. I had fantasies of jumping off our roof and ending it all. Opening the front door and walking out never looking back. I was only fucking ten. I was so sick of being the piggy in the middle. I was so sick of the atmosphere in the house. I was so fucking sick of the lawyers. To this day I hate and mistrust lawyers.

So all of you that say everything is better now, maybe for you but for your children, well, better keep a closer look. I never voiced my inner battles, I never spoke to anyone about my self destructive thoughts. I pretended that everything was ok even when I was fucking crying on the inside. Someone had to be strong, my mum was a crying mess never leaving her room. Other things happened that I won't mention but added to the whole mess.

So yeah my dad can fuck right off along with the OW.

@TheMovingFishfinger I’m so sorry to hear about your grief. Did you ever have a relationship with him afterwards as you were so young?
Did he stay with her?