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

Were you thinking of his poor wife whilst you were bouncing up and down on his cock?

😂 Harsh but true OP stop trying to play the victim. 😂

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.

Of course there is logic to it, whilst married to someone else they have started a relationship with another woman. It doesn't mean 100% that someone will do it again, but if they're capable once I wouldn't trust them. Plus theres a difference between leaving for someone else ie realising you have feelings and breaking your marriage off before actively pursuing anything, and forming a relationship whilst promising to leave and not- thinking that you are entitled to have your cake and eat it.

As the wife I would want to know if my DH was a cheating shitbag. Count yourself lucky you are free of his lousy man. In future stay away from men in relationships, they are not worth the pain.
You are free of your unhappy marriage, pick yourself up, get some dignity and be start to enjoy your new future.

I bet he shit himself when you told him you’re getting a divorce. He chose you because you were married....free sex with no risk to his marriage.

Do you want to tell her in the hopes she throws him out? How would you feel knowing he only came back to you because he was forced to?

Keep lapping up the the sympathy from your fellow cheaters, you’ll get none from me.

LEELULUMPKIN Sun 09-Feb-20 11:58:01
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.
.......
Maybe so but every one of us will have done at least one thing wrong in our life, something that we would rather forget and don't want anyone else to know about.

I have certainly not been perfect in my life - but that's past.

Not one of us has the right to be judgemental about the op. Yes, she made a mistake but she's paying for it and learning from it. She needs our support, there's no point in making her feel worse than she does already.

You do have my sympathy, OP. I wonder if one reason you feel so bad is that you don't ever seem to have developed a clear, rational view of relationships...you seem a bit stuck in the sort of views on 'true love' that many of us grow up with and often have knocked firmly out of us by our first real heartbreak.
I wonder if your husband was your first real relationship and this is why?
Maybe time to yourself is what you need.

Literally pretty obvious this would happen -_- plus you shouldnt leave a marriage for someone you should leave because its not what you want.

He didnt make you leave. He doesnt love you like you love him, he loves the secrecy he loves the adventure and danger and mysteriousness. He loves going back home to his wife... if he leaves her for you then he leaves all of what he loves.

You either move on like people do EVERYDAY -_- or you stay and realise that you will always be Number 2 to him and his family.

And no, don't tell her.
I'm normally the first one to say tell, but you're not doing it for the right reasons. He will persuade her you're crazy, and you won't be moving on.

I’m sorry you feel how you do but I think you need to focus on how instead you are now divorced and free from an unhappy relationship. You wouldn’t have been happy with this OM - he is a cheater (you even say he will do it again, which makes me think you aren’t the first) - and he has spared you from that misery by showing that now.

You’re 40; you still have so much life ahead of you and a child or children to focus on, as well as your job. If you married at 21, I suspect you’ve never really been able to do things you want to do and when you want. Take this time to do that and build up your self confidence so you aren’t attracted to the two men you so far have been with.

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

'That poor woman' is the woman you've been screwing over for the last two years and only now you are suddenly full of concern about how his lying might affect her? Please don't try to dress this up as anything more than an act of a furious desperation on your part.

Whatever reason you give her about how she 'deserves to know,' she will see through it and so will he. It will leave you feeling a bit grubby and pathetic, especially if she kicks him out and he still doesn't come back to you. And he won't. Not like that. The truth is, if he really wanted to leave her, he'd have done it by himself without being forced.

He has not destroyed your life. The only person responsible for your decisions is you. You took a calculated risk to leave your marriage for him and you feel tricked that he hasn't done the same thing for you. I get that it hurts' but what was your alternative? Stay in an unhappy marriage with a man you don't love, just because it was convenient and better than being alone?

You were in an unhappy marriage and now you're not. That has to be an improvement surely?

It feels massively unfair both to me and her and I feel certain he will repeat what he did to me with another woman.

Affairs are always unfair on someone, aren't they? You just didn't think it was going to be you.

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.

I'm sorry but if you've been complicit in that deceit as well as deceiving your own husband, you don't then get to complain about foul play when you suddenly feel deceived yourself. Take it on the chin like a grown up.

Meh, you reap what you sow, it's your child(ren) who will suffer the.most.

I feel for you OP

I hope that this thread can serve as a warning - loads of us get sucked in by these kind of promises.

Please everyone can we stop Relationships from morphing into AIBU

Maybe I used to be the same strait laced, judgy, been-with-one-man only (unhappily) married woman until recently. It takes walking in someone’s shoes to understand why people behave the way they do

I wouldn’t assume that the people here saying what you don’t want to hear are all straight laced, judgy, been-with-one-man-only unhappily married women. In your position I’d take some time out from relationships to reflect on your part in your own downfall. You are now At a place to [in time] meet someone else who is in a position to be with you in an honest relationship so right now you are in the strongest position you’ve been in for some time. It’s not your place to contact his wife in an act of vengeance dressed up as concern - you need to put your energies elsewhere.

Consider this target practice, you are well rid of both of them

He has not destroyed your life. The only person responsible for your decisions is you.

This.

I did feel terrible about his wife but I believed him when he said how unhappy he was because I was the same. I have been the long suffering wife in my marriage and it was terrible and I feel so bad to be complicit in causing another woman pain, but I really believed he was trapped and she was selfish and cold etc.

I think what worries me is your lengthy post describing how you cheated on a promise, a big one, to your husband. I do think it would be good to get some kind of help to see that you must own this, there is no excusing it. If you were unhappy in your marriage you would be pleased to have left without another man to go to

Instead you only left because you had a plan B that was more exciting.

I’d start by owning up to your own decision.

@BerryMuch as much as you would like to maintain that kind of 'logic' it isn't true. People have the capacity for choice. Making one 'mistake' doesn't mean it's repeated. No one who starts something else when married is proud of it. But it happens and it doesn't mean it's a behaviour pattern they will carry on with. In most cases it's the affair is a catalyst for leaving a long term unhappy relationship. It's not the affair that is the issue- it's having chosen the 'wrong' spouse in the first place. If people learn why they married the wrong person, the odds are they don't repeat that. It doesn't mean they are going to be unfaithful again, no matter what you want to beleive.

but I really believed he was trapped and she was selfish and cold

Sadly this is little comfort for the wife who in all likelihood was none of those things. And even if she was, she deserves to not be lied to and to be left then. You must own this too. You hurt her. You hurt your husband.

I'm sorry that you're hurting so much.
It sounds like he has very much played your emotions and been far less honest than you have from the start. Everyone here seems to be very harsh imo but life is rarely black and white. I'd say that you have to take it as a lesson learnt the hard way and move on sadly. If he stays with his wife I suspect she will find out - or may well know already - don't open yourself up to more hurt by telling her.

Also, the fact that I couldn’t really tell him exactly what I think of him the last time we spoke is bothering me. I was just so upset I could do nothing but cry, wished him the best and said goodbye.
Maybe I need to lash out at him and tell him what a scumbag I think he is instead of telling his wife, maybe that will give me some respite. Or will my complete silence hurt more than my words?

I'm not "straight laced, judgy, been with only one man". I do however have morals and I wouldn't sleep with another womans husband, as I know how mich hurt that would cause. You and him are both lower than snakes bellies and deserve the shower of shit that's raining down on you.

I get the feeling that your ex hsband is reasonably well off.

I wonder did the gloss of the relationship with you diminish once your husband moved all the accounts offshore? Did the gloss of the relationship with you diminish a bit when you didnt have as much money to bring to the party.

I wont comment on the rights or wrongs f what you did. I would say at 40 you can still meet someone, just maybe get some concilling and see if yo can urn your life around and develop relationships with friends / family that you do get on with.

Catch yourself on!!

This is not trauma, this consequences of your behaviour.

You had a affair! It didn't go your way, get on with it.

if you tell her and she kicks him out - he will come to you - are you strong enough to tell him to piss off? Because you know that the only reason he is with you is because you are better than no one.

I agree. If you tell her, one of two things is likely. Either he'll put all his energies into trying to save his marriage and she'll forgive him or at least agree to try.

Or she'll tell him to fuck off and you will end up as the grubby consolation prize. Any port in a storm.

Either way, it's not exactly going to make you feel great about yourself, is it?