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

You shouldn't tell her. I think she should know, but it shouldn't come from you because it will be coming from a place of malice.

Stillmovingon has said exactly what I was going to say, OP.

I would tell his wife to be honest, I think she deserves to know what she is married to but I would also take this as a lucky escape. It may not seem like it now but it’s helped you out of an unhappy marriage and now you can find what you really want.

You were brave, and he was weak. He took advantage of your own unhappy marriage and likely banked on a ‘stalemate’ of you both never leaving but continuing to enjoy eachother, providing the gaps that both of your marriages didn’t provide. He let you down, unquestionably. But see this as a lucky escape from one unhappy marriage to potentially another. Use the next year to focus on YOU, therapy is a good idea, learn to make yourself happy. Don’t jump into another relationship and don’t contact his wife, cut all contact and move on. I wish you all the best.

That's what happens when you play with fire.

Tell her if you want but you aren't really doing it for the right reasons.

I feel for you. You were unhappy and thought you'd found the answer. Now that has fallen through. No wonder you feel angry and devastated.

First, outside of the other man, leaving your marriage is a good thing to come out of this. You were unhappy and it needed to end.

It is totally crap that this guy has proven to be unreliable. I would say not to tell the wife. I understand your feelings about this but it wouldn't count as 'the high road'. You will need to keep your self-respect as much as you can, in this difficult time.

Get the new guy out of your life and work on yourself, build yourself up. A man can't solve your problems or magic your life to happiness. Love doesn't heal all wounds, not long term. Heal yourself, you have the strength.

As devastating as this situation is, actually it could all be for the good. Count it as a lucky escape from an unworthy man, which also gave you the push you need to end your marriage and put you on a path to finding your own happiness.

Sometimes people come into your life for a short time, to shake you up and put you on a different road. Once they've done that, they leave. Don't try and hold on. Take the lesson and use it to make yourself better. Strength comes from inside you.

Good luck x

I think you need to stop playing the victim and start taking responsibility for your own decisions and your own happiness. No one would have a scrap of sympathy if this was a male OP.

Generally, a man who marries his mistress creates a vacancy. Not every time - but at least 97 times out of a hundred. So you have dodged a bullet and escaped an unhappy marriage.

His role in your life is now finished. You need to cut off all contact, so that the healing process moves faster for you, urgently engage with the Freedom Programme, and consider personal therapy also.

You aren't ready at the moment for any kind of relationship with another man, and won't be until you have healed your relationship with yourself. You need to top your resilience levels back up, boost your self-esteem, and realise that your only true validation comes from within. Otherwise, you will be vulnerable to repeating the same patterns over and over again. You don't deserve that.

I disagree anyway with the general MN advice about telling people their partner is cheating - lots goes on in relationships that isn't visible to the outside world. If you tell her, she may not believe you, she will lash out at you (understandably) and you will face being "that crazy bitch" in both of their stories, whether or not they stay together, for the rest of their lives. That might not bother you - I have an over-active imagination, so it would really bother me.

You need to heal, and move on. You are just delaying this if you ramp up the drama by telling her. There's a possibility she'll kick him out (as they had a trial separation, she definitely knows something is up...) and then he'll come running to you. Do you really want to be the person he's with because it's better that he's with someone than no one? Are you only fit to be his back up plan? Don't you deserve more than a cheat who's only picked you because his wife threw him out?

If the answer is no to these, block and start moving on through therapy. If the answer is yes, also block and undergo therapy.

Set yourself free from this monumental fuck up: you deserve it

Okay so all of those other women here reading this thread who are in the OP's shoes, unhappy marriage, how many of you are shagging someone else's DH?

I am guessing the majority have self respect and morals.

See if this was a man having done it to his wife, hed be decimated. Just double standards on mn. So OP you didnt mind him lying g and cheating and hurting his poor wife while you got what you wanted, but the minute he treats you the same why as his wife you are hurt and want revenge. Your revenge on him, to make him hurt like you are. And if his poor wife and kids world is shattered and broken, what do you care? So long as hes hurting as your hurting. Usually I'd post stay out of it, sort yourself out and your self esteem and move on with your child. But really in hindsight you would be doing his wife and kids a favour, to highlight the scumbag they have hanging round their necks. You got what you deserved, and the old adage is you get back what you put in. At least you got out of a unhappy marriage, take the good from it and move on with your life. Hes shown you you were just a shag to hin, now listen to him and be the parent for your child that he or she needs

View him as the man who gave you the strength to leave your unhappy marriage. Years later you will look back from a new happy relationship and thank your lucky stars and him you got out.

Put everything connected to him behind you.

Normally I'm in the wife should know camp but I think you are the wrong person to tell her.

At least it gave you the clarity and strength to leave your unhappy marriage, I would want to know if I was his wife, but not for revenge as it seems you want it to be; but because she deserves to know what an arsehole she is married to. Similarly in this scenario I think you need to let it all go, yes you might have been vulnerable but you still knew you were both married, and often one offers the world and doesn't come through. Would you ever trust him anyway, even if he had left? It will take time, but you need to move on.

Thank you Lailaha, this is so true.

So OP you didnt mind him lying and cheating and hurting his poor wife while you got what you wanted, but the minute he treats you the same why as his wife you are hurt and want revenge. Your revenge on him, to make him hurt

I am wondering about this aswell. OP- you weren’t concerned about him lying and betraying his wife when he was spending time with you so why does his duplicity suddenly bother you now? Oh that’s right- it’s because you are now on the receiving end of it. Not such a nice feeling is it?

I totally agree with Magoria.
After considering your latest reponse might I add if you had been so unhappy in your marriage, the decent thing would have been to end it first and not go after someone else's husband.
And I speak as someone who was on the receiving end of such treatment...not as a judgy, been with one man and happily married woman.
You made your bed, now lie on it.

You have sympathy from me @Ladywit
It's too easy for other people to condemn anyone who does something they disapprove of.

I know several couples who were married when they met each other. These include couples who left long marriages when they were in their 50s and 60s. It happens all the time. It's life. It's not ideal, but what is? As you say, it's when people meet someone else who seems to be all they want that it gives them the courage to leave.

What's sad is when it doesn't go ahead as 'planned' - ie one party chickens out of leaving the marriage.

People are terrified of change. They hang on in unhappy marriages for decades for all kinds of reasons.

That, imo can be as bad as meeting someone else and leaving- it is still a kind of deceit - to stay with someone as it's 'easier' than the upheaval of divorce.

But I do think you want his wife to know a) as revenge and b) in the hope he will leave her for you.

He will certainly despise you if you tell her. He may 'deserve' to be outed, but what good will come of it?

You would feel better for a few hours, or days, but then you might feel a lot worse.

I suspect if this was a long affair that his wife knew anyway- or certainly had an idea of it.

I think all you can do is admit you took a risk. Anyone who waits for a married person to leave, is taking a risk. Sometimes it works out and two empty marriages are ended, the people involved on all sides move on and find happiness, but sometimes it doesn't end that way.

Accept you took a risk and you lost.Maybe you can console yourself a little by understanding this woman has her H, though for how long who knows.

You did the right thing to end your own marriage if it was unhappy. That's a good outcome. The married man was always going to be an 'if'.

He is either not as unhappy with her as he appeared or he doesn't have the guts to be honest with her and himself, or there are children and he is putting them first.

Take some time to heal. It might take you a year or more. Be kind to yourself. Go out, make friends, cry, scream, do whatever you need to and don't look back. This has been a shockingly painful experience but you will come out stronger for it.

Bit of a harsh karma, but sort of serves you right.
Affairs are unjustifiable, however you try to downplay it.
Let this be a lesson, keep to single men and put your child/children first for once. They didn't ask for this, I'm sure they'd preferred mummy to keep her knickers on.

I agree about the Double standards. A bloke would be crucified.

Wow OP that’s so sad for everybody.

I’m sorry that your new partner wasn’t who you thought he was. It seems to me that he’s a bit nuts, wanting you to want him but also enjoying his wife’s efforts. He is not trying to make his marriage work, if he was, he would have been honest with her about you so they’d have a shot at a fresh start in an honest relationship. He’s still deceiving her, he sounds like a right creep.

The man you fell in love with wasn’t real but your grief for him is. But that doesn’t mean you were wrong to trust him. It’s not your fault that he lied to you / is a bit nuts.

It’s up to you whether to tell his wife, it doesn’t really matter what us strangers on the internet think. If it was me? I’m unsure, I think it would be healthiest for you to step away from the whole situation, but his wife is even more of a victim in all this than you are, and deserves to know that she’ll never have a real marriage with that weirdo. Assuming she’s a similar age to you, at the moment she has time to meet someone else and have a genuine marriage, but if this drags on for many more years then it’ll be much harder for her to meet someone else. I probably would tell her yes.

You should send his wife the evidence and then block.

She should have the choice of whether she is prepared to forgive his infidelity. I’d want to know. I never understand this thing of don’t tell the wife. Whether your motives are good or bad, she has the right to know.

For clarity I mean block him, not the wife.

I also, by the way, think it's unrealistic to say that anyone who 'cheats' will do so again.

I know of couples (now in their 70s and 80s) who left marriages for each other and are blissfully happy and have never looked at anyone else.

It's simply ridiculous to say that someone who is unfaithful and then marries the OM/ OW will do say again- no logic to that at all! There are serial adulterers who have multiple affairs yet stay married- that's far worse.

He will feel he's got away with it and won't think twice about doing it again. Therefore, I feel the wife should find out. This is the only way he might learn a lesson from his behaviour

You have jumped from one nightmare relationship with a narc (your husband) to another with a narc (your lover). All has ended horribly.
No surprise to anyone but you.

Instead of dreaming about revenge and punishment, you REALLY need to work on yourself and your self-awareness. Why are you ruining your life for narcs? If you do not get some therapy to understand why you keep repeating the same mistakes, you will keep making them.

You will find a healthy relationship one day if you improve your sense of self-worth.

You should tell her. She has a right to know. As he managed to have a mistress for so long and get away with it you better believe in time he will yearn for that again and do the same with someone else.

I'm sorry things didn't plan out the way you had it in your head but you ate out of a marriage that wasn't working and free to find love with someone who is also single.