If you’ve had an affair I’d appreciate your opinion

[Pelagi]

Which sounds a bit odd, I expect. But stay with me! I have been thinking about what my marriage was like in the decade before I separated from my husband, and wondering what was going on in his head.

We separated when I found out that he was having an affair, so I asked him to leave. In the subsequent months I found out that actually he had previously had at least two affairs, the earliest one starting when our youngest was less than a year old (she was 11 when we separated) and the next one starting a bit later and going on for some years. Then there were a couple of other “flirtatious friendships“ that he kept secret from me but I don’t think they were actual affairs. And then finally the one that I found out about. So really there was some kind of infidelity going on for most of the last 10 years that we were married.

Reading on here about people who are stuck in unhappy relationships and feel they can’t leave, or feel they have to stay together for the sake of the children, or are with dreadful spouses, makes me wonder whether that was him. In particular, what does it say about me? Which is why I am asking for an opinion if you have had an affair. What kind of husband/wife did you have?

To be honest I think I will probably never really understand. But it’s coming up for a year since we were separated and I thought I might get some views from people who have had affairs themselves, and not left. Maybe if I get some views now, then I can just totally close it off at a year and maybe accept that I will never really know.

Obviously don’t feel that you can’t answer if you haven’t personally had an affair, some people have knowledge of this sort of thing anyway. But I’m guessing that those who have will have particular insight into what goes on.

I have complex-PTSD also.
I still suffer from the aftermath of stonewalling, gaslighting and so on.
I still walked away from my last ex because I knew I couldn't forgive him or forget what he did...and I knew that I'd never get past it no matter how much time past. He hurt me too much, at a time I was already deeply hurt....I think I already had complex PTSD and then ended up in another traumatic relationship.

Had I stayed and then tried to blame the past on me having an affair 2 decades later then that would be a cop out. You have to take some responsibility for that.

You say she blamed the affairs on her personal breakdown....yet about yourself you say "traumatised people don’t have the same capacity to make sane decisions as others do."......people having breakdowns also don't have the same capacity to make sane decisions either!

I said she blamed her own breakdown. I didn’t say she was telling the truth.

I'm absolutely shocked that some people's response to their partners infidelity is to stay in the relationship and cheat themselves. To me you have lost something integral to who you are. You're a liar now, you're a manipulator now, you are possibly hurting the AP, your children. The hurt will spread far beyond your partner getting their comeuppance. It's awful.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, thats not my concern. I honestly don't think you'd care about my opinion anyway. But I have been cheated on in two relationships, I too have been diagnosed with cptsd but one thing I am absolutely fucking sure of. Nobody takes my honesty, integrity and decency, that I know I have in spades. Nobody gets that. Ever.

Yes that's what I said...her personal breakdown. How do you know she wasn't telling the truth?

The OP asked why people have affairs. I merely stated my experience. It is not comparable to many other peoples’ experience, it is simply mine. Other people will have other reasons.
Good for you that being cheated on has not caused you to lose your integrity or honesty but telling someone they have to react the same way is like saying “I had cancer and survived so there’s no reason why you can justify not surviving if you get it”. My personal psychology is not the same as yours, my experience is not the same as yours and therefore the corresponding reaction is not the same as yours. If the World obeyed simplistic rules of right and wrong, inputs and outputs, then I wouldn’t have been put through what I was put through...unless you’re saying that at some level I contributed to the reasons why she cheated on me, in which case you prove my point - that you CAN drive a person to betray you.

“ How do you know she wasn't telling the truth?”
Because everything that came out of her mouth for a year was a lie. It was an attempt to recast herself in the role of victim rather than villain.
People who have breakdowns don’t recover in a matter of a few weeks.

That's fine that you stated your experience, but people are responding to it because it's an ongoing situation and we have empathy for the other people involved also.

I don't personally believe it's ever ok to punish someone like that 2 decades on, you have children with this woman now. If you still cannot forgive her or forget then the right thing to do is end the relationship.

The analogy about cancer is ridiculous. We are talking about conscious decisions that are made by adults, not how a disease progresses differently in different people.

And you're sitting arguing against my point of view while justifying your own, as if it's more important than mine. It's not.

You made a decision to do something that you say yourself has caused you great trauma when you were the victim of it. And on you go. You can justify it all day long I'm sure . But you have lost yourself in the process. You can't get it back, and I don't want the OP to consider doing anything similar. Because it's just poisonous.

Likewise Lockdowntown attempting an overdose after someone leaves you can be seen as manipulative also....and if it wasn't intentional manipulation the effects of it can still be the same on the other person. Maybe that is part of why she lied...because you were fragile at the time and she thought she was doing the right thing and didn't know how to handle it. You don't know everything that was going on in her head so you can't conclude anything about why she did what she did.

People absolutely can recover from breakdowns in a few weeks.

You're the villian now though, make no mistake.
Your kids will blame you if this is found out, they won't accept your justification.

I am not justifying my behaviour, I am explaining it. My life is not how I wished it would to have been and I strove to do what I could to see it didn’t happen, but eventually I had to concede that the World is as it is and not how we would wish it to be. By the time I realised my own failure, half my adult life had been given over to misery. My determination to reconcile cost me. I am now wise enough to know that I am incapable of forgiveness. I didn’t know that then and I spent too many years locked in an internal war between what my heart felt and what my head was telling me.

And as for my overdose being manipulative- since to this day she doesn’t know about it - I hardly think so, but thanks for making that assumption

To have an affair would mean there was something lacking in the relationship. No one who does so could honestly say that they still love, desire, admire, respect their primary partner. Maybe they are cowards, weak, treading water till kids grown up, mortgage paid off or whatever. It IS all about you or how they see you. They are not interested in sorting out the issues if they can get away with it. It's not fair to say its all about them. People change. One marriage for life is an odd concept really.

Lockdowntown I’m not going to judge you, it sounds like her affair completely tore you apart and I can understand the not leaving, trying to make it work at the sacrifice to your own wellbeing.
But, now you do have all this insight, why not leave now? You still sound really hurt by your wife’s betrayal all these years later, you’ve admitted you can’t forgive and you’re now having double standards by carrying out the same behaviour that crippled you.
Surely it would be healthier to end the marriage and try to piece yourself back together? That’s not happening while you’re still in it...

I don’t feel guilty. I love my DW and I wish this wasn’t the situation but I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t deserve this and she doesn’t get to complain how I choose to heal the wounds she caused.

That sounds like justification to me.

My determination to reconcile cost me. I am now wise enough to know that I am incapable of forgiveness. I didn’t know that then and I spent too many years locked in an internal war between what my heart felt and what my head was telling me.

It cost her too....and she's not aware of the full extent yet.
You now know that you're incapable of forgiveness. Is she aware?
Or do you think oh well...I can't forgive...so i'll just keep cheating on her. Be honest with the woman and maybe that will help you make some progress in healing your own trauma.

Look OP I have a lot of friends who were pretty promiscuous and flipped from man to man for a prolonged period , cheated and two timed
I also did
But to have that many affairs when you have made a commitment ...I think it’s him being an arsehole , ha has a moral flaw
Not you

You say the world is how it is and not how you want it to be.... Don't you understand? you are now part of the reason the world is as it is. For everyone who gives up on an honest life and turns to one full of lies then more hurt happens, which leads to more hurt and then even more.

But it's okay, because once upon a time you were the victim of betrayal so you get to do what you want to do.

Your analogy about cancer wasn't correct. But consider an analogy about abuse. Is a person who has received abuse as a child allowed to go to become an abuser in adulthood? Even if it's only to the parents who abused him? Is that ever going to make the world the way you wish it was?

You will do as you want, I'm not going to tell you otherwise but you're not the victim anymore. Far from it.

Not had one myself but my ex did - truth was l had gone off him (used to look at his dad and be terrified that is what l would end up with in 40 years time as he was so like him), plus he was always out, had no time for me and l never wanted to be intimate with him cos l just didn't fancy him. I found out about one affair so we split up then was told afterwards by other people there had been more than one. Not sure if that helps at all OP xx

I hope no one I your life ever reads what you wrote @Lockdowntown .
You have made it sound like ever since her affair your life has been nothing but misery, that could easily be taken as being inclusive of your children.

I can accept its a very mixed and complex set of emotions but it sounds like you have silently seethed for 2 decades, but still built a life with someone, had children with that person and now decided that actually you can't forgive so you will do the same to them instead.
I also hope you know that should this ever come to light you will absolutely 110% be the bad guy and rightly so.

So, I made my original post before I read the rest of the thread but now I have I can’t not make a couple of points in light of what @Lockdowntown has said.

So, as I detailed above I was the long term mistress of someone for years, so my high horse isn’t very high. You’re getting no judgement from me about your actions in terms of the affair, but this behaviour is really awful and the result of some pretty disordered thinking. Forget about your wife- because for whatever else you feel about her you clearly don’t like her- but what about you and your kids and your mistress come to that? I have to agree with @Lochie662 that you’ve allowed your own integrity to be eroded and that can’t feel good. Deep down you’re still struggling even if it’s a different kind of struggling.

As I mentioned, I was the mistress of a man who was deeply, deeply damaged. He was a selfish fucker who chose to have an affair and keep one going, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t really sad and that some of that sadness wasn’t done to him thorough no fault of his own: his mum left, he had a baby that was stillborn with a long term partner who never got over the trauma and left him broken hearted. He was fucked up and sad and definitely had PTSD. But rather than dealing with that trauma he got into an unfulfilling marriage and then met me when I was 17 and thought I was the balm to heal his pain. Instead he just gave ME PTSD too. And you know what I did? Once we split and I was so sad and broken too, I embarked on an unfulfilling relationship with a man who worshiped the ground I walked on. And I was a fucker to him: was inconsistent and cruel, would stand him up just for the sake of making someone suffer, I was seeing him but I had casual things with other men. I was 23, 24 and badly hurt with various substance abuse issues and huge trauma, so in my mind I could justify it but it was ultimately unjustifiable and I knew it.

Then I met my now husband and he was just lovely. Kind and good and clearly just not going to dedicate his life to some scrappy little scrubber who was using her own PTSD as an excuse for being a cunt to people. I made it clear I was up for it- by this time I lived with the poor man who I was taking out my revenge on the Male sex with- and my husband said very firmly that he thought I was lovely and everything but this wasn’t how he wanted to do this.

It was the wake up call I needed: I left my boyfriend, cleaned up my act and got some therapy. Within two years I was married to my now husband. But I can see SO clearly the other path that I could have taken, the one where I justified all of my bad behaviour for a lifetime because I had been hurt. But that was MY choice to carry that on.

I know it’s not exactly the same as you- you’re still with the person who hurt you and you now have kids- but it’s just a different version of the same thing. You love your wife, you say? No you don’t. That’s not what love looks like. You’re keeping it discreet? Maybe you are, maybe your mistress doesn’t love you and it’s all fun and games for her- but maybe it’s not too. You don’t want to hurt your kids? What- you think they don’t know? What you’ve described is so heavily dysfunctional that there’s no chance they’re not picking it up on some level and they’ll know as adults that they were living in a boiling lobster pot of rage and resentment and pain even if they never know the specifics.

God, forget everyone else for a second even @Lockdowntown, think of yourself: this is SO sad. You deserve better than this. You say you’ve spent more than half your adult life on this.... no ones going to give you a medal for that. Leave now, don’t waste a day. Your kids will still be there and you’ll still be their parent and you get to decide how that works. And you’ll be happy again. Properly, legitimately happy. Maybe not immediately, but one day in the not too distant future.

Please please please get some help. Therapy turned my life around and it could turn yours around too. You say you’ve accepted that you live in the world as it is and not the world as it should be, but that’s nihilistic, Sixth Form poetry bollocks. You only get one life and you are wasting yours.

@Lockdowntown the problem is, you are now absolutely no better than your wife. There's no possible way you can ever be now, and you need to take some time to accept that, I really think you do. I'm not going to say to end the affair, it's your prerogative.

But who is to say that your wife didn't cheat on you initially because of some pain she perceived you to have caused her? You yourself have said she refuses to discuss it. So by your logic, if you'd hurt her somehow even without knowing, then she was fully justified to cheat on you. Do you see that?

You can't ever say that what she did was wrong any more if you can't accept that what you're doing is wrong. You're either both wrong or both right. If she finds out about this affair, she can choose to cling on to the relationship with you, say and do all of the right things to make you think she's giving it a go, whilst sleeping with somebody else. It's a terrible precedent you're setting, there's no way you can convince anybody that you love your wife. No matter what your reasons are for cheating, you are still betraying her and lying, and nobody feels comfortable doing that to somebody they love.

@AllTheWhoresOfMalta

That is an impressive post and I'm so glad you turned your life around as you did.

Maybe instead of railing into one poster ( @Lockdowntown ) who decided to tell his story, some other posters could just take a back seat and let others who have had affairs tell their story. It's okay to sit and listen and not talk for a bit.

How else will the OP get her questions answered if people who have never had affairs keep piping up and shouting down the posters with actual lived experience in initiating affairs? Yes it's understandable that this may feel horrible to a lot people, but the OP deliberately wants to hear from people who have had affairs. Try giving those people some room to talk.

@JingsMahBucket, there doesn't appear to be that many people sharing their stories, that's why the conversation within the thread continued.
Many people only ever read the original post or first page and don't read the full thread so I certainly don't think that discussion with that poster was stopping others from sharing their stories at all.

They always affair down, there was a website called affairrecovery that helped me with my feelings when it happened to me.

@JingsMahBucket

The only two posters who responded admitting affairs both started them as revenge affairs, so these posters weren't exactly answering the OPs questions either as her husband didn't do it for these reasons. The conversation evolved but if you've got a problem with any if the posts report them.

You can challenge people's posts specifically or you can ignore them but you don't get to tell people they don't have a right to post. If the OP comes back and says that then I will absolutely listen to her. But I'm not listening to you.

Apologies OP for any derailment to your thread.

@user1481840227 as I was reading the thread I started to think that others wouldn't share their stories because of all the vitriol.