I left my marriage for him - he didn’t return the favour

[Ladywit]

Two years ago, I met a married man whilst I was also married. It had been a long and unhappy marriage for me and this man offered everything I had been longing and hoping to find in life before it was too late.
Although I was very cautious when I met him and didn’t sleep with him until a year after meeting, he broke down my defences completely. Meeting him put my already troubled marriage on a downward spiral and, egged on by this man in whom I found both a lover and a friend, I filed for divorce last year. He also claimed to be stuck in a very unhappy marriage, made promises and constantly referred to our future together. Although I told myself that he’s merely played the role of a catalyst, deep down I know I left the marriage to make a legitimate place for him in my life.
With the breakdown of the marriage came many challenges, most of all financial as my ex managed to transfer everything to offshore accounts and I have been struggling with single motherhood and a full time job. But I was still relieved to have taken this step and it seemed to me that I had found true love in the process.
However, when I pressed for him to take similar measures and make it possible for us to embark on the future HE had spoken about since the beginning, he didn’t seem to be able to follow through. After seven months of penduluming, during which he asked his wife for a trial separation, went back, we broke up, came back and asked me to go away on a weekend with him, assuring me that he had decided he wanted to be with me, left me again and went on an anniversary holiday with her (which completely devastated me), so on and so forth until finally the painful cycle ended a couple of weeks ago.
I’m weeping as I write this and hurting so deeply. I had to deal with all this uncertainty and emotional trauma while having to deal with the aftermath of the divorce and everything else. It has left me broken and questioning everything. I’m also feeling an immense amount of rage and wondering how it could be that I was hoodwinked by someone I considered the love of my life.
While it is true that we were both married when we met, I didn’t sleep with him until I had decided I was going to leave my marriage, and had taken steps towards it. Perhaps I should have demanded the same of him? I just was so certain it was only a matter of time before he would do that as he was always the one talking about us getting married. I suppose I trusted him.
The penduluming has also confused me, I know he felt genuinely conflicted about breaking his family unit but I feel furious about how he went about with it and prolonged the pain and confusion for me. It feels like he was struggling and trying to wean himself off me. Even during our last conversation he implied he was going to extricate himself from his marriage and come find me, whilst also saying that he would not be able to live with himself if he didn’t give it one last shot because his wife was trying her best.
But you see, the thing is, that poor woman has no idea about me and the last two years.
In my moments of anger, I feel I ought to tell her so that she at least knows what she’s dealing with and bending over backwards for. I feel he’s gotten away scot-free after destroying my life and is enjoying being wooed back by his wife on top of it all. It feels massively unfair both to me and her and I feel certain he will repeat what he did to me with another woman.
In other words, I feel affronted and my sense of justice demands that he be punished in some way.
I’m aware that this is a very basic, primal feeling and I want to know if I should act on it. It just seems unfair that he’s able to saunter back into playing the role of a doting family man after deceiving both me and his wife.
The anger and hurt I feel have paralysed me and I’m struggling to get on with life. I’m 40, educated and attractive but I feel broken, my marriage to a narcissist had already harmed me and I feel cheated that the man I fell so in love with and thought was my redemption and the balm for my wounds chose to play with me and hurt me so profoundly. Did he ever love me at all? What did he gain from this? Why does a part of me still hope he’s going to come back? I know I can never trust him so should I tell the wife and get some closure?
Please respond from a kind place x

I’m also feeling an immense amount of rage and wondering how it could be that I was hoodwinked by someone I considered the love of my life

But you both hoodwinked your partners so both have form for it. Hence I don't get why you're surprised Mr Loverman fooled you.

Tell his wife if you want to. But I bet she knew about you and he promised to give you up.

Your H was a narcissist yet you've made it sound as if you only left him because you met another man anyway.

& now you want to cause another woman misery, just as her man has done to her. Double whammy. & You probably weren't his 1st affair.

I guess you'll get sympathy on here because you're a woman. Yet if he'd dumped his wife for you, you'd have taken him on seamlessly without a thought as to her hurt and sadness...

Yet if he'd dumped his wife for you, you'd have taken him on seamlessly without a thought as to her hurt and sadness...

I’m sure there would have been (and frequently is, in these situations) a great deal of thought given to the hurt and distress caused to the partner/s who get left behind, by both the partner themselves and the OW/OM. Unless a marriage has been incredibly abusive, or there is an openly acknowledged breakdown on both sides, I doubt it’s a thing many people do easily and without some guilt.

The difference here is that the OP was happy enough to justify the pain caused to his wife by both her and the husband when she thought she was getting what she wanted from it.

Now she’s in pain herself, his actions are suddenly beyond the pale and ’that poor woman’ needs to know what he’s really like.

As if she wasn’t going to find out anyway, had the OP had her way.

I’m sure there would have been (and frequently is, in these situations) a great deal of thought given to the hurt and distress caused to the partner/s who get left behind, by both the partner themselves and the OW/OM. Unless a marriage has been incredibly abusive, or there is an openly acknowledged breakdown on both sides, I doubt it’s a thing many people do easily and without some guilt.

Not in my experience. There is a well known phenomenon called "affair fog" - look it up.

Op, he didn’t ‘hoodwink’ you, you did that to yourself.

I’m sorry but I can’t feel sympathy for you because the signs were all there. The only person I feel any sympathy towards is the OM’s wife.

You need to spend time building up your self esteem now, to ensure you don’t do anything like this again, because as you’ve found out, nothing good can come from seeing a married man.

As for telling his wife, I would advise against this as you seem to only want to tell her out of ‘rage’. She doesn’t deserve that.

Apologies I only read your op and not the full thread. I’m sure by now you’ve had plenty of great advice.

All the best for the future.

So you started an affair with a married man and waited a year before sleeping with him? Don’t understand why you waited that long as you had done the dirty on your husband by being emotionally involved with another man. So now you left your husband for this man and he’s won’t leave his wife for you so you want to break someone else’s heart because you were a fool? Why punish his wife just because you can’t have him? Karma is a bitch, you made your bed by sleeping with another man and being emotionally involved with him. Maybe in the future you should go for a SINGLE man and not try to break up another marriage.

Further to what I just posted you can’t blame just him for ruining your life, it’s not like he put a gun to your head is it? You ruined your life by yourself by not being faithful to your own husband and jumping in with both feet to another man. Your decision at the end of the day to end it with your husband so no sympathy here at all.

Aw you poor thing, how you holding up? It's all about you isnt no regard to you're ex husband who you ironically call a narcissist ( maybe look at you're own behaviour) did you consider his poor wife in this who has been completely unaware or their dc or you're own? I have no sympathy for you got everything you deserved you were merely abit on the side for him.

I doubt it’s a thing many people do easily and without some guilt

Sadly, this is cognitive dissonance at its finest. We tell ourselves there must be some noble or higher reason for the cheating because otherwise, what would that say about someone who betrays not only their own partner but does it to someone else too? It says they're a selfish shit. There, I said it. I hate to burst your bubble but for many cheaters there is ZERO hand wringing and self flagellation about their affair, they lie and cheat BECAUSE THEY WANT TO. Thats it- thats your noble reason right there.

Many men (and women too) are serial cheaters and cheat on every partner they have- are you suggesting for each person they've cheated on they spend hours in agonising self reflection, contemplating the hurt they've caused every time? because LOL if so. I'm sorry to burst your bubble but many people see cheating as absolutely fine because its what they want and dont have the first fcking clue about how much devastation and emotional heartbreak it causes.

Well op is never coming back. Too much of a coward to face the truth I guess, not that that is surprising considering her actions.

The stories people have given on here is why I never understand why people say the ow or om isn't at all to blame for a partner cheating. They aren't fully to blame, that goes on the one who cheated, but that person wouldn't have cheated if they'd been told no. The ow or om willingly gives it up and so helps the person cheat. They are no better to me. It's about being a decent human being and caring for someone else's feelings. People who don't do this are highly selfish people. They don't care about anyone but themselves. Probably lacking in empathy altogether really.

I couldn't do that to someone else. Been offered to be an affair partner in the past (he used the usual line of 'my marriage isn't going well', but I didn't believe a word of it). Wasn't even tempted, I dunno how someone can do that to someone they are meant to be loyal to. I even pointed that out and they had no answer to it. Why should I lower my standards just because they want sex? No thanks, I have self respect. Single people only. It's not difficult to just not have sex with a married person or someone in a relationship. It's very easy actually. Dunno how some people struggle.

Mimi I just typed a long response to your post but it's disappeared into the ether somehow.

Anyway, the nuts and bolts of it were that you have completely misunderstood or just misrepresented what I was saying.

Hi OP

You have my sympathy.

I however do not approve of relationships outside of existing ones because they cause too much hurt to too many people so in the end it's not worth it. And for this reason, I feel sorry for his wife too. I wonder why people always blame the woman - she's the participant, not the whole source of the deceit. I think this is what the betrayed wives fail to admit to themselves - that their cheating husband is not a victim of the OW, he is indeed equally guilty.

OP, you strike me as someone who is still naive in a way. I guess that is because you've only had one man in your life so far (apart from the affair partner). You still romanticise things. I know what you were trying to say by not having sex with the OM during the first year of the relationship. At that point however, you should have told him you're happy to have a future with him BUT he needs to make himself single first. It may not have been just sex for him but that's quite irrelevant I'm afraid. What matters is that his marriage wasn't as dead as he told you, and his feelings for you were not as genuine as you thought. You divorced and he SUDDENLY wants to give his wife a chance. See it? It's right there. It's right there that he's selfish, weak and with poor integrity. It shows that you really were just a filler of needs that were not met in his marriage. You want a man who is kind and considerate. A man who cheats on his wife has neither of those qualities. I'm not judging you, OP. You were in a vulnerable place in life, you met someone, he made you fall in love with him, promised you a future together and you trusted him. That's not a crime. But you failed to realise that it wouldn't have taken him two years to be with you if his marriage was really that bad. Lesson learnt, OP. You got blinded by your feelings and didn't see reality for what it was. You're not the first or last person that it happened to.

If you do decide to contact the wife, please be civil, do it anonymously and don't give unnecessary hurtful details. Have the decency and apologise to her. She will still hate you - understandably so, you do need to appreciate that she's not some obstacle in your otherwise perfect fairy tale, she's just a woman. A woman whose husband is a cheat so please do have some compassion for her.

I know the pain you're feeling, OP. Spend some time on your own, focus on your job and children, get therapy. Learn to be happy by yourself otherwise you might get exploited by someone else in the future again. Start with the small things, get a new routine, start reading (more) books - those that will distract you and help you relax so don't go for romantic novels. Accept the pain will now be part of your life but I promise you, it will eventually subside. It might take months or even years but you'll get there. At some point in the future, you'll look back and realise that it made you a stronger, wiser person. You will feel at peace.

As for the OM, that's someone who you need to forget. There's also someone who you need to forgive and that is yourself. Because you trusted the wrong person AND because you hurt his wife.

All the best.

I wonder why people always blame the woman - she's the participant, not the whole source of the deceit. I think this is what the betrayed wives fail to admit to themselves - that their cheating husband is not a victim of the OW, he is indeed equally guilty.

No one thinks the cheating husband is a victim of the OW.

People blame the woman because she is equally responsible if she knowingly starts a relationship with a married man.

No betrayed wife is failing to admit that their cheating husband is guilty.

I think this is what the betrayed wives fail to admit to themselves - that their cheating husband is not a victim of the OW, he is indeed equally guilty

This is an astoundingly ignorant opinion. As a betrayed wife, I have spoken with many others, and not a single one of us has seen the cheating spouse as a victim of the OW, or not being an equally guilty participant in the affair..

@SoupDragon @FritzDonovan

I'm sorry if my post came across as ignorant. But I did notice that some of the posts are quite aggressive towards the OP.

You never met her, you don't know what is like to walk in her shoes, you don't know what promises the OM made to her and how genuine he appeared to be. You do however know your (ex)spouses and there isn't a single mention of their character in your posts. You write about the pain that these situations cause and I'm not minimising it. But to aim it all at the OP just because the scenario is similar seems a bit unfair to me.

Like I said, I don't approve of affairs, there really isn't any excuse for them. The OP made a mistake and came here for advice so I gave one.

You never met her, you don't know what is like to walk in her shoes, you don't know what promises the OM made to her and how genuine he appeared to be.

I don't need to. Because cheating is wrong and there is never any justification for what she has described doing. And then to change her tune to describe the wife as that "poor woman", who is unaware of her husband's cheating...That's messed up. Having an emotional affair for a year then making it physical isn't "a mistake". It is a great number of deliberate choices, all of which she knew were wrong.

I don't have an issue with you giving advice, but I do have an issue with you stating what betrayed wives think, especially as it is wrong in my experience, and the experience of the many, many betrayed wives I have come across. That is what I was correcting. I have no issue with whatever you deem to be good advice to OP, but don't state as fact what a large group of people think if you are not part of this group.

Amd to add - the responses are aimed at the OP because she is the one who started the thread. If the affair partner had done so, the same responses would be aimed at him, but he's not the one on here.

Alright. I think the point is, that the OP comes across as entitled and self centred. It appears not to have even crossed her mind that others are affected (the wife. And all the children, for God's sake!!) And she is being very me, me, me. Frankly, comes across as a bit narcisist. But, hey. Let's not go there... the posts have been v brutal, i agree. But my She comes across just like my ex MIL who cause so much damage by her actions (She fucked a married vicar. And the whole village knew). Instead of doing any proper soul searching, she has spent a lifetime dressing herself up as a victim. (He stayed with wife in the end. But they were destroyed as a family) so she not only destroying the vicars family, but her own family too. Her eldest son is 3 times married and sees prostitutes. The younger son is an alcoholic. I have no doubt she fucked them up and they are both deeply unhappy and selfish people. But maybe the OP is just one of those people too. Maybe not. But her posts do stink of a deeply entitled, deluded and self centred person. I hope I'm wrong. For the sake of her kids.

@FritzDonovan

You are right, the way I worded it was too generalising so I'm sorry about that.

Also, the "change of tune" thing. I think this is due to the OP realising that the guy must have lied to her about the wife and the marriage, rather than taking her rage out on her. Just my guess though. She may have good intentions, she may not.

Also, the "change of tune" thing. I think this is due to the OP realising that the guy must have lied to her about the wife and the marriage, rather than taking her rage out on her. Just my guess though. She may have good intentions, she may not.

I doubt she has any good intentions towards the wife. I mean, she has been shagging her husband after all. Not like op gives a crap about the wife. She can say she cares, but she doesn't. If she did she wouldn't have slept with the guy.

But the wife should know that her husband has been cheating. It's not fair on her for her to be in the dark about how easy her husband is. She thinks he is loyal. He isn't.

@P999

You proved my point. You read the text and to you it relates to your MIL. But the OP is not your MIL, she's a different person.

My impression from the OP's text is that she's very naive. I can't make comments on what's going on inside her heart with regards to other people. But I think she just trusted the OM when he was telling her his marriage is dead anyway. In some situations, this is indeed the case. And sometimes the OM is lying or not telling the whole truth which is probably what happened here.

you don't know what promises the OM made to her

I do know what promises he made to his wife. As does the OP because she made the same ones.

the responses are aimed at the OP because she is the one who started the thread

Exactly.

Ok. I probably sounded v harsh. But I don't think OP should be treated as a child. A naive victim. She is, like me, a middle aged mother with responsibilities. If she has been naive, it's time to grow up before more damage is done. Am not saying she is my ex MIL. But from what I've read I smell some parallels. Could be wrong. Could be right. But either way, she has kids. She has to take responsibility and not ok to play the victim. She isn't a teenager but a grown woman. She says she's educated and intelligent too. So I'm afraid I don't think she gets a get out of jail free pass. That isnt to say she can't turn this around and be a better person. And learn some hard truths about herself. Am of course only able to judge from her posts. But she asked for advice. And got it. She just didn't hear what she expected or wanted to. But she has disappeared. So might not even be reading these posts anymore

@Cyberve

Sorry but I think there's no point highlighting the sentences I've written and taking them out of the context. I'll do the same now but I'm afraid I won't be part of an endless discussion.

I do know what promises he made to his wife

So the OM finally put his wife and children first. What an honourable thing to do. Why did he remember his promises AFTER making the OP emotionally involved with him, sleeping with her, promising her future and breaking her heart?

I don't agree with affairs but I feel sorry for the OP as well as the wife. It really is not black and white.

If you tell his wife he still won't want you.

So the OM finally put his wife and children first. What an honourable thing to do. Why did he remember his promises AFTER making the OP emotionally involved with him, sleeping with her, promising her future and breaking her heart?

Totally irrelevant. At no point did I make any insinuation of "honourable" or offer comment on his actions. The point is that everyone knew what promises had been made to both the spouses.

I don't agree with affairs but I feel sorry for the OP as well as the wife. It really is not black and white.

It really is black and white. Both affair partners were cheating on their spouses. Both were lying to their spouses. Why is the OP somehow deserving of sympathy for being a lying cheat who was lied to by a lying cheat...? She isn't.

If you're going to believe a lying cheat, more fool you. You get what you deserve.