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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationship with married man for a year! Now what...

328 replies

conb123 · 18/11/2020 22:42

I know it's awful and I will be judged. But I have been in a relationship with a married man for over a year. His partner discovered the affair a few weeks ago and he's gone back to his partner and I am beside myself. It's literally as if I have never existed. How could he do this to me. Is it time to move on? I have wasted a whole year on this man. Promises me the world then drops me as soon as she finds out.
Some constructive advice needed please.

OP posts:
myhobbyisouting · 19/11/2020 07:33

"He told me he was leaving her"

😂 he'd have told you anything required to get a shag

italiancitytrip · 19/11/2020 07:34

@PamDemic

Who knows why he went back to his wife - I love that some people always think it's because it's the safe option/they don't want to lose their children. the man I know who did this really loved his wife, he just wanted the thrill of sex elsewhere , and he went back to his wife. Not because she was safe, but because he loved her. sort of.

Look OP, you've learned a lesson. You shouldn't have had an affair with a married man. They lie. You will never know how he really feels. I suspect he'll be back down the line to reel you in again. Is your self esteem really so low that you will be with a cheat and a liar?

Actually the majority of posters are calling that it was just for sex Fact is it's different reasons surely OP he may have meant what he said but was too scared to go through with it He may have just used you for sex Either way his actions show you that you weren't enough and I'm sorry to be harsh but you need to see it like that to accept it and move on. He has made his choice and it's not you He is weak Be strong.
hoitytoit · 19/11/2020 07:38

@conb123 you were just a "bit on the side" to him nothing more...move on. And stick to single men from now on.

trixiebelden77 · 19/11/2020 07:40

It’s completely about ego.

You saw he was cruel, dishonest and unfaithful to his wife. But your ego made you think he’d be kind, honest and faithful to you.

You were duped by your own ego, your own need to believe you’re better than his wife so the outcome would be different.

You need to work on the ego. It’s let you down.

BlusteryLake · 19/11/2020 07:45

You allowed yourself to be his mechanism for ego massage and sexual validation. Don't have affairs with married men. Make a bit more effort and find one who isn't taken.

reasonableme · 19/11/2020 07:55

I am really surprised by the responses here. So judgmental and dismissive. Affairs don't break marriages and hurt children. Marriages are already broken when people go for the affairs.

And if OP says she was in love with him, she means it right? Marriage is a social construct and a moral construct I agree. How does the heart know that you can fall in love only if he is not a married man? I don't think OP entered the affair with a sinister purpose thinking OK let me break his happy marriage. She says she fell in love.

Stop being so judgemental.

OP, you must be feeling stupid and you probably want bitter mum'snet wives to bash you up into senses and must be thinking somehow you deserve it for acting stupid. My sincere advice is to move on.

ivfbeenbusy · 19/11/2020 07:58

Some constructive advice needed please.

You meant nothing to him except sex. You've cheapened yourself. You believed what you wanted to when he said him and his wife had no relationship because you were getting what you wanted. You need to look hard inside yourself for your morals but doubt you'll find any. Best advice - Next time stay away from taken men and find some contrition and compassion for his poor wife and kids

PamDemic · 19/11/2020 08:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MyfavouritesareRoses · 19/11/2020 08:01

Oh well @conb123 he is a lying, cheating shit and you knew he was married so what goes around comes around... tough

Perhaps the next one isn't married?

MyfavouritesareRoses · 19/11/2020 08:05

@myhobbyisouting

"He told me he was leaving her"

😂 he'd have told you anything required to get a shag

Grin this 100% he got in her knickers and when wife found out dumped her - so cliché.

If he is going to lie to his wife - the person he made a promise to then why should he tell the truth to someone who he has sex with?

Hopefully @conb123 you have learnt a valuable lesson. If not, then you have no-one but yourself to blame. For those who say not to be judgemental, why not? Poor you really only enables rubbish behaviour by the OP and the cheating scumbag she chose for a shag

Sunshineandflipflops · 19/11/2020 08:14

Op, I found out my husband was having an affair. id din't give him the chance to 'stay with me' but I have always wondered if he would have left me for her eventually but I think not. He ended up with her for a couple of years after I kicked him out bet by then he had no-where else to go and lost all his friends.

Surprise surprise, he cheated on her too and left her for his new gf.

An affair for most people is a thrill, an escape from the mundane life they find themselves in when mortgages, kids and general life stress take over. The difference is, it's usually (not always) men who check out from the life they chose to leave the wife in it even deeper.

One day, you would have become that wife and he would have done the same to you.

MsDogLady · 19/11/2020 08:20

OP, if I am correct, you’ve written several threads about this man. In the first you were impatient for him to leave his wife. You recently wrote that he’d been rumbled and had dropped you, so you called his wife and spilled the details.

You went into this with your eyes open. You knew he was married but made the first move the night you met because ‘sometimes you have to be selfish.’ As things progressed, you were convinced he was committed because he came around several times a week, seemed invested emotionally, and was helping you financially. Although he kept promising to leave his wife, he repeatedly moved the goalposts. Posters warned that you were headed for heartbreak and they challenged you for being complicit in hurting an innocent woman and children.

When he was recently rumbled, he asked you to lie for him. Enraged, you called his wife and told her everything. She was devastated and he was livid with you. They are still together and you can’t believe it.

You wanted him but he future faked you to get sex and attention. He possibly had an agenda to buy your silence. You sabotaged a year of your life clinging to the lies and repeated empty promises of a married man. Use this as a valuable learning experience.

My advice is to seek the support of counseling to strengthen your self-esteem and boundaries and to learn positive coping strategies. Examine your self-destructive choices, as well as the selfishness that led you to pursue an unavailable man and your willingness to harm innocent people.

Leannethom85 · 19/11/2020 08:21

I'm a child of someone who left his wife(my mother) for his mistress and then went on to marry her. The happiest day of my life was when he left, ladies take note if your hubby or partner cheats and how it affects the kids. He belittled my mum and made a total mug of her and told lies saying was mentally unstable to everyone and she didn't allow him to see the kids, ya know portraying himself the victim - the true story was he didn't want to see us, left us on a door step at my grandmother's house and talk to us on a step. To go through years of him treating my mother poorly and my mum heartbroken, I say to any woman who is married to a cheat, don't be a fool, he be talking bad about you behind your back, exposing all the bad never the good and making you a bad guy. You're kids will thank you and respect you more. They'll see a strong person who stand up against being treated poorly, that's the example of standards you set for yourself and your children. Oh and my father and his mistress divorced he found her in bed with someone else, karma

NTGFK · 19/11/2020 08:22

There are usually always two hurt people in these situations. The wife and the mistress. It’s usually the man who ends up getting away with it!

Getting involved with a married man is foolish.

Taking a cheater back is also foolish in my opinion.

So many people make both of the above mistakes.

I have always lived by the one strike and you are our rule and it has served me well.

Redfacedxo · 19/11/2020 08:26

The internal misogyny on mumsnet Hmm , saying with glee he used her for a shag etc. I'm guessing there's a lot of betrayed wives on here taking it out on an OW to justify their reasons to stay with a lying bastard cheat?

Pebbledashery · 19/11/2020 08:28

Op I'm sorry but what did you expect. After a year he hasn't left his wife yet for you.. That's your answer right there.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 19/11/2020 08:35

I’d think you’ve been ‘fortunate’ that you’ve only wasted a year.

A friend of mine was seeing a married man for around 20 years. He was always going to leave his family after Christmas, after the summer holidays, after kids had done their GCSEs, you name it.

And then he became seriously ill, and she couldn’t even visit him in hospital because his wife or family would be there.
And then he died.

Nomorepies · 19/11/2020 08:38

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ on the poster's request

Mummyoflittledragon · 19/11/2020 08:40

@Ladj

I'm 'the wife' in a situation almost identical to yours. Some advice for you.

If he can lie to his wife he WILL lie to you.
If he says he isn't having sex with his wife, he's lying.
He doesn't love you he loves the way you make him feel about himself. He tells you he loves you because it's what you want to hear and it equals more sex for him.
He probably won't leave his wife for you because most married men don't want a long term relationship with the kind of girl who will sleep with a married man. And yes I know it's double standards.
If he really wanted to leave his wife it wouldn't take a year.

Regardless of whether he leaves his wife or not just leave well alone. How could you ever really trust him. Have some self respect and learn from this. Find yourself a man who is free to be yours.

This is really good advice. And it comes from a woman, who despite being hurt by her husband has shown you compassion op. My advice to you would be to stop sucking up to the narrative that people on this thread are bitter cheated on wives. Do remember if his wife kicks him out and he comes calling, if you take him in you would then be the “significant other” thus creating a vacancy for mistress.
Requinblanc · 19/11/2020 08:51

Come on...what else did you expect?

I know you don't always choose who you fall in love with but seeing a married man is a recipe for heartache.

Just learn from the experience, accept you have been played and focus on single men form now on.

It is so common for cheats like this to lie to both their wife and their mistress with the usual 'my wife does not understand me', ' we only stay together for the kids', 'I will leave her soon''....and so on.

If I was his wife I would have kicked him out too by the way, I think cheats never deserve a second chance...

DrDavidBanner · 19/11/2020 08:56

Oh dear, you must be new here. Otherwise you'd know all these men who cheat are exactly the same.

This is not about you and its not about the wife either, trust me she is not the winner, this is all about his stunted development and precious needy c**k. As soon as he thinks the coast is clear he'll be out catting around again, its what cheaters do.

All you can do is move on, learn from this and maybe try to understand why you are attracted to relationships that are doomed to fail and ask yourself what you really want and how to achive that before you embark on the next one.

welliesarefuntowear · 19/11/2020 08:59

What @Ladj said. I am also. The OW was convinced that my ex was in love with her. He was just a weak weasel of a man. Fuck him off OP and move on. He's a cunt and you'll never be happy with him.

DrDavidBanner · 19/11/2020 09:00

Oh the plus side you've reminded me of When Harry Met Sally which is a great film and I think you would benefit from watching it.

CatsOutOfTheBag · 19/11/2020 09:01

Hahahahhahahahaha!! Really! Sympathy? Lol, you reap what you sow. Have a smashing Christmas!

netstaller · 19/11/2020 09:02

He wasn't yours to begin with...accept your karma and assess why you were so selfish to begin with

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