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Original poster

Did anyones relationships start in an affair. Do you trust each other now

69 replies

Gre8scott · 10/04/2020 07:37

If you or your now partner was with someone else when you met has this always clouded your relationship. Like your waiting for it to happen again

OP posts:
IceCreamAndCandyfloss · 10/04/2020 09:20

Agree with soup.

I’ve seen a few couples start out as affairs, none have gone the distance and those with children in the first family don’t have the best of relationships with them.

I don’t think leopards can change their spots.

user47000000000 · 10/04/2020 09:23

ice cream

Leopards can change their spots, people who’ve been faithful all their lives can cheat...

And those who have cheated can be faithful

Hannah021 · 10/04/2020 09:26

@user47000000000 not when u abide by ur moral standards all the time. Im 35 now, i had all the opportunities to cheat and look elsewhere if i wanted to. It is not my standard. I ended relationships when i felt my feelings towards others were getting on the way. But have never made moves that i will regret towards other ppl, cuz i would never and i mean never forgive if they do it to me.

Ppl like you choose the easier way, keep a relationship going and try something else. Rather than address what is going wrong in the current relationship. Sometimes things just get cold, and its fine, just leave it.

user47000000000 · 10/04/2020 09:33

It’s not always that black and white.
Abusive relationship, religious issues, family pressures, financial pressures, MH issues can often make people act in the “wrong” way.

I’m not saying it’s ok but I don’t think you can ever say what you would and wouldn’t do.... just my opinion though

Whatwedontknow · 10/04/2020 09:34

Off the top of my head I know 4 couples who have long term marriages, all 20 yrs + that started from affairs. Non of them have spent those years worrying about cheating, anyone can cheat.

Sittingonthefence83 · 10/04/2020 09:36

My friend had a ten year affair. When her children were older she finally got the courage to leave. She's now with the OM and they're happily married, they are soul mates. What she did was wrong and she knows it but it was true love for her. Not always the case though, every case of different

disorganisedsecretsquirrel · 10/04/2020 09:38

My marriage began as an affair. I was separated but still in marital home with kids. My marriage ended because of my ex husbands affair.

My affair partner was in a very unhappy marriage but like most men in an unhappy marriage he knew that leaving a wife he didn't love and who didn't love him - would mean leaving the children he loved very much.

It's easy for MN to talk in black and white terms - but life isn't like that. All the time he remained in the marriage he remained able to live with his children. The moment he left he knew he would have a huge fight to get any contact.

Leaving a marriage nearly two decades ago was a little different than today. Almost all children remained with the mother and shared care was very rare. The marriage was unhappy because his then wife had been having an affair for 3 years (but he didn't know that at the time) just knew that he was unwelcome in the house .

We met and knew it was something special within 3 weeks. This gave him the courage to leave and begin the fight for contact which he knew would be horrific - which it was - 9 months before the first sight of the children since leaving -and that was at a contact centre whilst awaiting a social workers report addressing the grossly untrue allegations of abuse against the children and his ex wife.

A further 3 years of family court, enforcing contact ensued followed by various re-visits over the years. All in all over a decade in court. Until eventually the kids were old enough to vote with their feet and moved in with us.

We have been incredibly happily married for 18 years.. those early years were really hard but when you have support anything is possible. No - an affair is not ideal but neither is it always the one-sided deliberate cruelty portrayed on this website.

forumdonkey · 10/04/2020 09:45

A friend of mine had an affair with a married man. She was single and he was married. They eventually got married and he's had affairs. Because of his job, one was like a double life. Before the ow, an old friend of his, who I was going out with at the time, started to tell me about all his atnics and I stopped him because I didn't want that on my conscience, because I knew if I knew, I'd be the messenger.

She stayed with him and she's turned into a bitter and sad lady. Her marriage is awful and she's constantly bickering with him. I don't know why she stayed because she's attractive and funny and could do so much better and find some peace and happiness.

mindutopia · 10/04/2020 09:54

I had a partner years ago (not my dh, who is lovely) who I got together with as an 'affair' (except I didn't actually know it at the time because he told me he was single). I only found out he'd been in a relationship a few months later (he had since broken up with her when she found out). Several years down the line, he cheated on me with a mutual friend and also the girlfriend before the girlfriend before me (who he had cheated on the girlfriend before me with...if you can follow this). He eventually married girlfriend before the girlfriend before me. I've moved away now, but I know for certain that he was cheating on his wife for many years as well.

disorganisedsecretsquirrel · 10/04/2020 10:04

lovelydream That was a really insightful post. Well worth posting as I don't think anyone would of heard that saying before. Hmm

However, it is no more or less true for anyone in any relationship at anytime.
The reason people do not leave a marriage/existing relationship before embarking on another are many and varied. Human relationships are complex . Not the black & white life that people seem to assume.
These include,
Housing,
Children
Money/Income
Fear
Religious expectation
Etc.

SuDonym · 10/04/2020 10:10

My husband and I were both in relationships when we met, in fact I met him through my then partner. We had a couple of drunken encounters whilst still in our relationships, but made plans very quickly to leave our respective partners and be together. Not sure if this would count as an “affair” but we did “cheat” for a short while and I strongly believe that “once a cheat always a cheat” absolutely doesn’t always apply.

We were married within 6 months and have now been together 10 years and have 2 children. We trust each other implicitly and have always felt that because we gave up a lot to be together, we have a particularly deep level of trust in each other.

We aren’t proud of what we did, but we were both unhappy in our relationships (but hadn’t realised until we met each other) and ended things as soon as possible.

I acknowledge that our situation is different from people who carry on affairs for years and then eventually leave, but felt like I needed to put forward the idea that sometimes you can end up with an increased level of trust in a relationship as “reformed cheaters”.

TheStoic · 10/04/2020 10:16

I guess it’s no different to people who try to reconcile with a partner who has cheated. Except that they know for a fact that not only is their partner a cheat, but that they cheated on them specifically.

user47000000000 · 10/04/2020 10:19

Thats true stoic

I know my DP and I both feel like we gave up a lot and put our children through a lot to be together. However I thought long and hard about staying and decided giving my DC the view of the world of relationships as the one I had with their DF wasn’t a good long term plan.

Likewise for DP, his relationship with his ex was not a healthy one for his DCs to witness (I know this from conversations with DPs mum, sister, friends.)

My ex has remarried someone who is much better suited to him so my DC (although undeniably hard for them) see two strong relationships and have 4 happy adults to love and look after them.

Each situation is unique.

Good people do “bad” things.

Fairenuff · 10/04/2020 10:25

I think people generally judge others by their own standards so if you are a cheater you assume everyone else will cheat. You can't really comprehend that many people would end a relationship rather than cheat. So yes, I would think you would be unable to trust your partner if you or they have cheated.

StormBaby · 10/04/2020 10:35

I have learnt from experience that relationships that start that way, always end that way. There will always be the threat of cheating, or the guilt eating away at you, or the children involved never forgiving you, or the resurgence of the wandering eye.

It took 12 years for the way my relationship with my ex husband started to finally take its toll(we had both had partners when we met), but it did eventually, and it was really insidious. It wasn't like either one of us just ran off with someone else, but it was like a black cloud eating away at us. The guilt, jealousy, control, looking elsewhere for emotional support... We both were guilty of that for the entire relationship. Its just not a healthy way to start a relationship and anyone that thinks they've met 'the one' in this way is sorely mistaken I'm afraid!

dontdisturbmenow · 10/04/2020 10:45

My mum left my dad and my DD left his wife to be together after their affair. Married after 10 years together. 4 years later, he was having an affair. They were about to get divorced when he suddenly passed away. My mum was heartbroken.

Bridecilla · 10/04/2020 10:49

Yes - he wasnt married but had been with someone for 15 years. We met through work so I already knew a little about his situation via office gossip (he was faithful, she wasnt and hadn't been throughout their relationship)

We got together, he left. His ex married the guy she'd been seeing within 5 months and we've been together 12 years. No trust issues at all.

zsazsajuju · 10/04/2020 10:54

I think as a pp said people have affairs for all sorts of reasons. It doesn’t mean that they will do it again (although maybe they are more likely as a group). I don’t think it’s black and white.

user47000000000 · 10/04/2020 10:56

question for those people who think “Once a cheat always a cheat”

Do you think people don’t deserve a second chance in all areas or just this one? Do you generally see life as black and white or just in this area?

Mammyloveswine · 10/04/2020 10:57

I don't think it's black and white at all.. my parents met whilst married to other people and there has been no trust issues at all! They've been married for 33 years!

Quarantina · 10/04/2020 10:57

Non of them have spent those years worrying about cheating, anyone can cheat.

How would you know if they did? Surely the fact that you had an affair and cannot now trust your partner fully is not really something you'd be keen to share with all and sundry?

NamechangeOnceMore · 10/04/2020 11:02

My marriage started off as an affair. My first marriage was very unhappy and dysfunctional and was already essentially over, but I hadn't left the marital home yet. My now-husband was in a sexless, emotionally abusive marriage but was too scared to leave because he didn't want to lose contact with his kids (he provided a lot of their care - he was a very involved father). Unfortunately, his fears were realised - when he left his ex, she refused to allow him contact, and like @disorganisedsecretsquirrel he had to go to court.

I'm not worried in the slightest that he'll cheat. Our marriage is good and we're very happy together. If I behaved like his ex did, isolating him from friends and family and not having sex with him for years at a time, then eventually he might cheat, but I'm not planning on doing that.

I would feel very differently if he were a serial philanderer, but he's not.

Quarantina · 10/04/2020 11:16

Do you think people don’t deserve a second chance in all areas or just this one

Which other areas in life do we routinely give people 'second chances' at huge personal risk to themselves? Would you hire someone you knew had a history of embezzlement as your accountant because he was very sorry and promised he'd changed his way? Would you be happy with your child's nursery employ someone who abused children in the past because she's been in therapy and worked on her issues and deserves a second chance?

Quarantina · 10/04/2020 11:17

at huge personal risk to ourselves that should say

strawberry2017 · 10/04/2020 11:31

I've often wondered this myself, I've never had an affair but I know people who got together in those circumstances and wondered how they go about trusting the person- I'm not sure I could, likewise I'm not sure I could forgive one but I also haven't found myself in the position to find out.
I've thought that if my husband ever did cheat I think I would prefer it if it was someone he had genuine feelings for and that he didn't throw the marriage away for a fling but I don't know if that's a naive way to look at things
I would like to think that if I met someone who turned my head so much that I contemplated having an affair that I would be able to end things with my husband first so there would be less hurt because to me if I could ever consider it there must be a reason why and that would need addressing.
I'm hoping that I'll never have to think about these things. X