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?

Friendsofmine do you think it would have made a difference to how you feel now if she'd left your dad, but not for someone else?

Or are there things she could have done differently about how it all happened that would have made it easier?

Genuinely interested in the perspective from some years later as an adult.

I strongly suspect DP's cheating on me, or I'm going insane with paranoia.

DP has no clue I feel this way.

So if it's happening and I find out, at least I'm not insane. If it's happening and I don't find out, I might go insane.

Could be I'm just being paranoid, I'm the problem and majorly in the wrong! Who knows?

So right now IF it's happening, DP thinks I'm oblivious and everything's fine so will happily carry it on while I quietly fall apart inside my own head.

See how this works for the other person?

@StLucia4
You sound revolting

Smilebehappy123 You’re entitled to your opinion.
I didn’t go looking for this relationship. We were very much in love.
My family of four are successful. As are his children.
The difference is, I’ve moved on.
I was single, he’s still unhappily married.
All affairs are different.
We are still great friends and he knows there’s no going back.
Personally I don’t understand why couples who are unhappy don’t leave each other but hey, as someone upthread said, my opinion doesn’t count because I was single.
Smilebehaply123 I live a very successful life. I’m happy.
No, not revolting at all.
It was his choice.
We all make our own choices in life.
Good/bad. It doesn’t make us bad people.
Do you actually think all divorces are borne out of people who leave their partners first before starting a new relationship?
Sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love with.

I think the thing with affairs is that people will often project their own feelings/reactions to someone else’s situation.

So if you’ve been devastated by an affair then the assumption is that everyone is devastated in the same way. Conversely if your affair led to you having a better relationship and your ex moving on successfully, you assume that they weren’t devastated because you weren’t, iyswim.

In truth every affair is different, it is naive to think otherwise. And it is perfectly possible to acknowledge that life is rarely black and white while still having experienced the wrong thing.

I grew up in a bit of a strange town where it was a very close-nit community and affairs were rife. Looking back I remember several couples who all had affairs, ultimately left their partners and moved straight in with one another, kids and all and they all continued to move in the same social circles as if it had always been this way. And decades on all those couples who got together as the result of the affairs are still married to one another and have close relationships with their children and the children (who are now adults) also still have close relationships with the incoming partners. I don’t understand it but it worked for them.

Conversely the dad of a school friend had an affair for the duration of the time we were in school, to the extent the OW would ring the house to speak to him and the kids both knew who she was. There was no question that he was not well thought of by all concerned. Friend’s mum stayed with him until her youngest left school and then she divorced him and he moved straight in with OW. The relationship lasted for six months and he then decided he wanted his wife back and still does years down the line.

And there also comes a point where a betrayed partner needs to move on, for their own sake. I have known people whose partners have had affairs go on to be the ones who were responsible for the most damage to the children, by turning them against their other parent, demanding loyalty to them because of what the other person has done, and ultimately that has caused much resentment and in some cases even the breakdown of the relationship with the children.

The cheating partner is responsible for the affair but the aftermath can be just as much the responsibility of the cheated-on partner.

And no, I don’t believe it’s about the children needing to know. I get that the children may find out but there’s a difference between that and turning the children against their other parent...

BetterAlone she didn't leave for the OM exactly...but it was an exit affair that blew up in the final hour. It involved a lot of disruption to our lives not least witnessing our father's breakdown as in our culture he was shamed for the infidelity not my mother. We were not able to tell her what we felt or saw or the pain it caused us. In simple terms we were just kids yet knew she had hurt our family to make herself happy. She used to repeat "but I wasn't happy with your Dad" when the oldest would ask questions which was so confusing to hear. We were happy though...we used to say to each other...doesn't she care about us?

As an adult I can see things could have been much less painful for us all without the infidelity; the shame destroying our father and our mother's need to run away and change our lives so drastically as a result to prove it was all worth it and escape the watchful eyes of family who were trying to protect us kids.

So some of the pain would have always been there whatever the cause of the end of the unit but a lot was added by her affair itself and the nature of the end of our family life.

I'm going to be controversial but I don't believe there is ever any excuse or justification for cheating and affairs. If you aren't happy in your relationship or marriage, you have the choice to end this

I agree. End one relationship before you start another. It’s not hard. No need to cheat and hurt a partner by doing so. Not to mention when there are children involved where parents are supposed to be role models.

Starting a relationship as a cheat would mean you know what a person is capable of doing within a relationship so I can’t imagine there’s much trust after.

What a sad thread. It is really obvious that people who have affairs genuinely, honestly believe that, as long as their relationship endures, the pain was worth it and the ex-spouses, children and wider family all eventually move on, accept it and find happiness themselves

Their own wants make for a very rose tinted view of the rest.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss completely agree with everything you've said. The "well it worked out for me because I'M happy (and fuck everyone else)" must be, at best, a bit twisted.

Jesus this thread is a piece of work. All these people so happy about ruining their spouses and children’s lives all because they didn’t have the balls to leave their partner and be honest. There’s never an excuse for cheating idgaf who you are. Smfh some if you seem so proud of your decisions I hope the lot of you get cheated on too well done 👏👏👏

Given that human beings will rationalise some of the most vile crimes, rationalising adultery seems rather to be expected. It's a shit thing to do and people need to be judge for it, just like other shitty behaviour.

@Phoenixxx

I'm going to be controversial but I don't believe there is ever any excuse or justification for cheating and affairs. If you aren't happy in your relationship or marriage, you have the choice to end this. I understand that for some people in financially difficult or abusive situations that's not always possible. But 2 of my relationships ended through their lies and deceit, and cheating. Do I wish them all the best ? No, I wish them to go to hell. Makes me sick to read how many people cheat and have affairs, and there's a difference between one kiss and a full-blown affair. Yes, i'm judging, no, i'm not perfect, but stop trying to justify and find excuses for your cowardly, selfish and dishonest behaviour.

And as the betrayed one you are condescendingly told by therapists and the internet articles to 1) Rise above it. 2) Forgive, so you can forgive yourself. 3) Be kind to yourself 4) Acknowledge your failings in the relationship

Everyone reading this that has been cheated on will feel the same. None of it helps.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

What a sad thread. It is really obvious that people who have affairs genuinely, honestly believe that, as long as their relationship endures, the pain was worth it and the ex-spouses, children and wider family all eventually move on, accept it and find happiness themselves

Their own wants make for a very rose tinted view of the rest.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

I gave up with all the self help tosh. All this 'just let it go' . There was an imbalance. Too much pain my side. So I leveled the universe out. I took it upon myself after years of emotional abuse to systematically (non phyiscally) take apart both the 'adulterers' lives. The beauty is watching them both unravel on social media.

I don't think this thread deserved resurrecting.

I suspect that some of the wider fallout in the immediate family is often the loss of trust. My BIL had an affair with his GF’s best friend, her marriage was failing and she nominated him her knight in shining armour. All through the affair BIL’s GF was confiding in her best friend since she was confused by BIL’s behaviour. Best friend encouraged her to accept that the relationship was over and they split up, only for best friend to walk out on her DH and move in with BIL.
It caused havoc in the family since we’d been a close knit group. ‘Best friend’ thought that we would all just accept her and carry on. It was never going to happen. I could never trust a woman who could do that to her best friend.

I regret it everyday. I should have just left my husband.

Whilst I've never been cheated on, I have friends who have and their loss of confidence/sadness/loss of trust has been heart breaking not to mention the kids. If you are unhappy, then leave. I did leave an abusive relationship myself with my children, no affair etc. I just don't understand how people think it's ok to do this. No moral compass.

I find the children of divorce comments interesting. As the child of a broken home with no affairs (but a gaslighting, abusive piece of shit of a dad) and knowing peers who's parents divorced as the result of an affair and others who divorced without an affair, I'm not sure any one of us is more or less damaged than the others.

I think those cheated on imagine that their life would have been lovely if only their partner hadn’t had an affair. Nope. Not really. Some aspect of your relationship wasn’t working for an affair to be a consideration. The party line seems to be that if you are unhappy you should just leave. Are you seriously saying that you would find that easier to understand? Someone leaving you and there being no other person. Are kids happier? I think some people might prefer that but a great deal of people would be driven nuts by that scenario. The affair and OW / OM actually gives you a reason - they’re the baddy and all the hatred can be heaped on them. Of course the third option is they stay with you while not being completely happy ...who would want that.? Relationships really are messy and flawed.

@Divebar I think those cheated on imagine that their life would have been lovely if only their partner hadn’t had an affair. Nope. Not really. Some aspect of your relationship wasn’t working for an affair to be a consideration.

Well, on this I agree: there was a complete an utter power imbalance - they could do WTF they liked whilst I had to constantly feed their needs. They'd had a hard day? I had to give them TLC. I had a hard day? Get over it - my negativity's bringing them down. Funnily enough, its when I began to put up some boundaries that they they went looking elsewhere...

That's one of the things I've never quite nailed down with the whole "cheaters only cheat when their needs aren't being met" theory. We're led to presume they're all poor malnourished puppies. But what if these "needs" are having sex with someone younger and fitter? Not being nagged to do your fair share about the house or with the kids? Being entertained like part of your spouse job description is being a effing Variety Club Act even after you've worked a full day and put the kids to bed? "Sorry honey, you're not dancing hard enough! My needs aren't being met! I'll secretly go and see sprightly young Sandra/Sven instead!"

Good relationships are built on reciprocity. In my experience, those relationships where cheating has occurred in couples over 30 with kids (i.e. youth and inexperience isn't an excuse) haven't been that reciprocal - at least not at the time the cheating happened. Have to say though that in virtually all cases it was the cheater doing the taking...

@Tossacointoyerwitcher I think you've got it the wrong way round. In my experience these 'needs' come from being unhappy in the first place. I hated my husband for many reasons but was determined to make it work for the kids. But it got to the point where everything he did pissed me off. I thought that if he just tidied up after himself I'd be less tired and we'd have more sex which would make me feel loved. Or if he just complimented me on how I looked or acknowledged that I'd done a good job with 2 screaming toddlers that day then we'd be happy. But the fact was that even asking him to do these things pissed me off even more, why wasn't he just doing it? Likewise I think men are more willing to do their fair share when they're in a relationship with someone they respect do we don't need to nag them.

I ended up leaving instead of having an affair but it's still caused fallout for the kids. I'm the child of an affair related divorce and swore I'd never put my kids through that but in reality it's been no different for them having parents who split up for a different reason. I also think that if I'd found someone to have an affair with I'd have left sooner instead of putting my kids through a few years of misery with fighting parents, because I think that's the bit that does the damage not the actual affair. But being with a fucking miserable, controlling man who barely noticed my existence for years ground me down and I didn't have the confidence to meet anyone else and start an affair.

I think it's always easy to look back and say that affairs are never justified and they're the cause of all the problems but I don't think it's that black and white.

@MyuMe

Sometimes people don’t actually realise how unhappy they are until something happens. Not sure why people who aren’t affected are so bothered.
I've been cheated on.

How dare they waste my time shagging someone else to see if they liked her better first and waste my time.

Just get out if you're thinking of cheating.

Cheaters don't understand the hurt they cause.

Totally agree with everything you’ve said , except cheaters don’t understand the hurt they cause . They do , but they don’t care , it’s all about them and what they want .

I think cheaters are prone to focus on the infidelity-and whether there were ‘good’ or ‘bad’ reasons or any problems in the primary relationship (when aren’t there?). It’s easy to understand why people want to eat their cake and have it - who wouldn’t?
The colossal damage done by an affair is the betrayal-its the lies, deliberate deceit, gaslighting and mind games that totally wreck someone else’s mental health. It’s sleeping next to the person you trust most in the world and discovering that they are stealing your life from you.
@Divebar no one thinks ‘if only they hadn’t cheated life would have been fine’ and break ups are never painless. But the harm from the experience of being so disrespected, humiliated and deceived by someone you trusted stays long after and it changes people.
There is never a good reason to stay with someone you are cheating on. It’s just easier if you think you’re getting away with it. And the more you avoid the pain of the truth of who you are and what you’re doing, the more harm you will have done.
I think that the probably greater the deceit the worse the harm.

Never had one i think end one relationship before starting another
Don't go near married or attached men neither, who wants 2 share

Sometimes affairs are a coward’s way of exiting. I have an acquaintance to is cheating in her husband (emotional now and hopes to turn it physical). She has decided her marriage sucks and is over. Her husband has no idea. If her affair turns into something she plans to file. But right now she is enjoying the security, financial and otherwise, while auditioning this new guy. It is gross. I have to have contact with her through an activity, but she wants to deepen our friendship (probably burned through others) and I am not interested.
My husband cheated and left. He got ow pregnant before we even filed for divorce (she is 22 years younger) and cut l our young teenage children off because they could not be happy for him. To one of the posters above, he did do me a favor. There were problems in our marriage—as there are in many if not all busy households with multiple preteens and two working parents—but he never discussed anything and I was exhausted but committed to marriage. I thought our trouble was we did not have much time together because we always enjoyed ourselves when we were together. Turns out a lot of the time he was “working” he was actually dating. Those who thing affairs are no big deal have no idea what it feels like to have trust become a liability and to feel the person you love most has made a mockery of your life. I have no idea what bits, if any, were real for almost 29 years of my life.
I actually do think he did me a favor because it turns out I was married to an awful person who took gross advantage of me. I would have stayed and worked Gid knows how long. I spent the first year or so hating myself for losing him and doing a lot of self examination—I did not skip tat part because he cheated. A few years later I am glad my marriage ended and that I got all the freedom and none of the guilt. It is a silver lining, but the person who put this out there as a benefit trivialized the utter selfishness and disregard for another’s wellbeing. Cheating, even as an exit affair, is selfish and cruel.