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 think you’re going to have to draw a line under this and put it down to a lesson learned.

I get you were unhappy in your marriage, but he wasn’t single and you knew that. Had it worked out the way you’d hoped then it’s his wife that would be left feeling the way you are right now but you didn’t care about that. So I do feel this is hypocritical.

I can’t say I feel sorry much sympathy for you because IMO you brought this on yourself getting involved with a married man. I feel sorry for his wife, however we all make mistakes.

As another pp suggested, you were very naive to assume it was all going to be perfect. I also think that relationship that form on the back of affairs are pretty much doomed from the offset.

If someone is willing to have an affair (physical or emotional- you keep focusing on the physical but it’s not just that) then it could be assumed that they don’t always live by the same moral codes as the rest of society try to live by. In other words, they could do it again, more directly he could do it to you. He has done in a round about way by going back to his wife.

Should you tell her?? I don’t know. It’s not like you’d be doing it to help her, you’d be doing it to get revenge. You probably will be doing her a favour but her best interest is not your motivation.

For what it’s worth I think you’ve had a lucky escape. He’s clearing not bothered about either of you.

A friend did this and lost her husband and home. The OM left his wife to be with her. Has since left friend and shacked up with another woman. Caused my friend untold grief, worry and stress. Their children also suffered.

Your whole OP and subsequent updates smack of self pity and delusion - you made your bed, so lie in it.

You say you didn’t have the confidence to leave - why not seek therapy, friends, a hobby or even work on your marriage if your husband was interested (did you ever try - you claim he was a poor husband but what kind of wife were you sneaking about and putting your energy into an affair ?) ... something (anything) to work on your self esteem ? Instead, you put that energy into an affair with a married man.

You’ve willingly believed whatever tripe he’s fed you about his marriage and wife - you still don’t know what’s real.

Although you were so kind to wait until you decided your marriage was over before shagging a married man - if you were sure why not at least tell your husband ?

You’ve carried on this affair, yet now you’ve been dumped you feel some sympathy for his wife ? Get real - you want revenge. You’re not acting out of some sense of what’s right. You’re looking out for yourself as you have throughout this affair.

What’s real is you both behaved dreadfully. You need to take some responsibility, stay away from (married) men, look after your kids and work on your self esteem.

I'm sorry you've had to go through this OP and I think anyone could end up in your situation given the right circumstances.

But as PPs have said, this is a time honoured tradition with long term affairs:

The man is getting hot sex on the side and a bit of extra excitement in his life. He's happy to carry on like this until he stops fancying the woman.
The woman on the other hand is usually in love, and wants to leave their current husband for this new man.

The man will do anything to keep the hot sex on the side going so they keep reassuring the woman that they'll eventually leave their wife, hugely exaggerating the negatives in the marriage to justify continuing with the sex.

Then the woman finally leaves her own partner for the new man and overnight goes from unavailable goddess to liability.

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.

Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. That sort of thing is very much in the eye of the beholder and marriages are complicated - no two are ever exactly the same and not all adulterers are blatantly lying about their spouse in order to get sex. Clearly some genuinely feel that it's the truth.

I have a friend who was recently devastated to find out that her DH had been using hook up sites. It has taken months of semi-separation (at her insistence) for her to finally decide that she won't have him back. All this time he's been waiting with his tail between his legs like a scolded puppy, jumping when she says jump, then being sent back to the doghouse for a few weeks. He has promised everything - they'd move house, he'd leave his job and start afresh somewhere else. He'd work from home so he'd never need to be out of her sight again etc.
Whatever she wanted he would do - just please don't leave because he loved her, he'd just been weak and stupid because he craved sex and physical affection.

Anyway, she's now told him she can't ever move on from it, so that's that.

The thing is, all us women who knew them well as a couple have been super supportive of her and very critical of him for obvious reasons. But since she's announced it's over, I've had three separate female friends quietly say to me that actually, she was always cold and selfish towards him. She never showed him any affection or said anything nice or encouraging or supportive to him and she would openly tell everyone that they never had sex any more in a loud jokey way but it was humiliating for him, because it was her choice, not his.

One by one all our mutual friends have admitted in hushed tones that looking back, there didn't seem like there was much affection or respect on her part. She was often quite dismissive and disdainful and would criticise him in front of his friends, and make jokes at his expense. And he was always nothing but a gentleman to her, as far as we could tell.

My DH has commented several times in the past 'why is Sue always so horrible to John? If you spoke to me like that in front of our friends I'd be furious.'

So when someone tells you their sex life is non existent and their partner is cold and distant and they are lonely, it's not always a lie.

And to his credit, he has never ONCE said anything negative or critical about her during all of this and has never ONCE tried to excuse his behaviour or shift the blame onto anyone but himself. He holds his hands up fully to being in the wrong and he's lost everything because of it. He'd go home tomorrow but she won't have him.

So maybe OP, this is what you are dealing with. Yes his wife is not perfect, she might be cold and selfish at times but he loves her and his kids and his life with them more than he loves you.

I feel so bad to be complicit in causing another woman pain

And yet your going in position was you'd like to cause her some more as a way to either get at him or get him back.

I'm sorry I don't think you remotely feel bad, you want him to leave her. You want her gone and you want him to be with you. You may as well own it instead of pretending you're all broken up about her.

Look op the bottom line is he doesn't wish to be with you. You say your marriage was awful, so you're better off out of it. Result. Unless it wasn't that bad and your just saying it as a way to justify why you did what you did. A bit like pretending you're all broken up over her.

Dust yourself off and move on, focus on yourself and uour kids, get mentally healthy and when you're ready you'll meet someone else. It's not this guy, as hard as it is, accept that, he's made his choice.

@Mylifestartstoday I'm sorry you and your children are going through this.
Given the constant debate on whether to tell the wife or not, would you have preferred she'd told you to you finding the messages or possibly never finding them? I always think it's better to tell, even if you're telling fro ma selfish perspective, but I've not been in your shoes yet

So you believed all the lies he told you but did you never stop to think about the fact that his wife also must have believed him when they said their vows.

You were shagging a liar straight off the bat so how the hell could you believe a single word that came out of the cheating rat's mouth?

I'd want to know if it was my dh. Well I wouldn't want to know, but it would be best to know, for the health risks if nothing else.

As per usual the op is only responding to posters who tell her what she wants to hear and ignoring all the advice given by others.

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.

You seem to be lashing out and displaying quite a nasty streak that really isn't doing you any favours.

You're upset because your affair partner hasn't left his wife and so you think he's a scumbag?

But people who think your behaviour was awful are judgy and lack empathy?

Your self awareness is very poor and I'm afraid waxing lyrical about him being your redemption / balm for your wounds is such a cliche. It's just romanticising what was essentially damaging behaviour for everyone involved.

By romanticising it even though it's now very clear that he didn't feel the way you thought he did, you are avoiding responsibility.

You say he sold you a lie but you were already both lying to everyone so it was silly of you to buy.

Torn re his wife because while I think she should know, you are absolutely doing it to punish him.

If he called today and said he adores you, can't live without you and wants to leave her and be with you are you honestly saying you'd still tell her and think he was a scumbag and never see him again?

Thought not. It's pure selfishness and spite driving your faux conundrum regarding telling her.

I completely agree with @FizzyGreenWater. You ought to tell her. I would absolutely want to know if I were in a relationship like this. It’s irrelevant what your motivation is.
Few of us would be happier ‘not knowing’ whilst it’s going on behind our backs. Putting our sexual health at risk etc

I think it's a bit normal, when you're marriage is falling apart to look for comfort and love somewhere else and also to be confused about your feelings. It's really difficult, but you're feelings for this man aren't real. You don't really know him because he's only shown you the side of his personality he wants you to see. You've probably never seen him in the context of his family and friends or even where he lives.

I know when I went through my divorce I developed feelings for someone who was completely inappropriate and unsuitable. The situation was less complicated in some ways because nothing ever happened but the feelings were the same. I was convinced he was the love of my life and one day after my divorce we would be together. After my divorce was over and I got my head sorted I realised how wrong he was for me and also what a complete arsehole he was.

I think my take home message is to be strong and put a lot of distance between you. Things will get better if you make the effort to learn from your mistakes.

I’m sorry, but I’m shocked that you’re only considering the wife now it hasn’t worked out in your favour. You were fine deceiving “the poor woman” when you thought it would work out fine for you! I’m sorry you’re hurting because that’s not nice for anyone, and this man has obviously betrayed both of you. But you made your choice, and you can’t now suddenly care about the wife you so happily shafted before. Tell her if you want, but don’t tell yourself it’s out of any good motive or kindness. You don’t deserve to placate yourself with that.

Sorry but this is what happens when you cheat! Karma.

Oh well ain't karma a bitch eh

You chased a fantasy.

That fantasy does not exist.

You were foolish to think he was “offering” anything other than illicit sex. Your pain is down to your own choices.

Yes, tell his wife so that she can make informed decisions about her life.

@SleepingStandingUp. I wish I’d never found out. Whatever he had told the OW was a lie, we were happy. I think it started off as a bit of fun, she left her husband and he couldn’t get out of it. It then spiralled into him having a breakdown. My family is destroyed. My eldest no longer sees him, she self harms, hears voices and sees a therapist weekly. The youngest sees him for 3 hours a week. I can’t see him, it’s too painful. My life is over. If I didn’t have children I would have killed myself

That poor woman is now spending her life with somebody who cheated on her and she doesn’t even know! She deserves to know. I would absolutely want to know. At least then she can get out and rebuild her life before she’s too old to rebuild. I don’t understand why you would still want him after this. He’s not the man you deserve.

Get the f*uck out OP your delusional can't believe what I've just read trying to justify this in the slightest has me mad.

Well, hopefully you will now know why cheating is one of the 10 commandments.

It is a truly shitty thing to do. You played, and you got played.

See him as your catalyst OP.

And yes, I would tell his wife. When men are fucking other women, a lot of energy (physical, emotional, attention, respect, money, time, appreciation) leaves the relationship. The wife knows something is wrong, but not what is wrong.

It is torture. Tell her.

You should 100 % tell her

Of course tell her, why shouldn’t she know who she’s married too? Don’t understand some people’s not telling her thing.