Can secret extra-marital relationships go on for years?

[PerplexedCat]

Can I ask people's opinion on how likely it is that an extra-marital relationship between a married man of 20+ years and a single woman could carry on for several years without the wife having a clue, and for the relationship to survive (perhaps in a different form) after her marriage to another man?
For info, I am the wife in this scenario.

So if Colin would have married fun Sally then Sally would have become boring Karen and Colin would have had an affair with a new woman he met after the marriage (fun Lucy).

This thread has been eye opening for me and helping me to understand how other people think and dynamics of some relationships. I hope it's helping you too OP.

@S00LA

It seems like in these instances affairs could have been avoided by the two lovers marrying each other instead of other people

You are missing the point. Once they marry / live together it won’t be fun anymore. The thrill and the drama will be replaced by laundry and taking the dog to the vets.

I'm more than happy to do the laundry and take the dog to the vets. I must be a simple soul! It must be terrible to be that much of a drama queen that you need to have an affair in order to experience thrill.

I don't think it's much to do with being a drama queen (king?) - more to do with people lacking in some way or another (low self-esteem, frustration, boredom), but instead of trying to deal with things maturely they drown it out by seeking thrills.

Insightful post @ravenmum thank you that makes more sense.

James Goldsmith said “when you marry the mistress you create a job vacancy”. Now in my experience this is not always true, I have seen some men marry the mistress and it works out. But I’ve also seen one who married the mistress out for romantic coffees with another woman (but then in this case the man and the second wife ended up at logger heads after their son was born and he became a stay at home dad but she came home from work to a messy house and dinner unmade).

One of my neighbours left his wife for a woman he has been having an affair with for 7 years, they stayed together and are now married. One of my mum’s friends found our that her dad had been having an affair for over 30 years! This only came out because he died mid shag at the OW’s house! So yes, I would definitely say it does go on!

Someone I know had an affair with their wife’s best friend for years. When the wife found out, she took her own life 🙁🙁

Then the best friend dumped them because she couldn’t cope with her own guilt and the judgement from others. Also it was in the local papers and she had the type of job where that’s a big problem.

I am married unhappily to an abusive man who I currently (for various reasons) cannot leave (but will leave in the next few years.) He often disappears on drunken binges or travels with his friends or business colleagues and I don’t know where he is. I do all childcare. I am 99% certain he had affairs while I was alone bringing up our children and still has affairs now.

I now work and I am having an affair with a colleague who is a serial adulterer who has been married 25 years and has had loads of affairs. His wife found out about one affair and told him she would stay with him but he should “just not bring it home anymore.”
For me, it adds some fun and affection in what is essentially a very unhappy life for me, looking after four DC alone and working to afford our life. Pre-lockdown, i would put my kids to bed, then see him twice a week, we would go out for dinner and i’d go to his hotel and we’d have sex. Add to that we go on business trips together and they are like holidays for us. During lockdown we speak every day.
He is still with his wife and loves her and I know that he also occasionally sees other people when he travels without me because he tells me. We are quite transparent about this sort of thing. It has been going on for 5 years.
I don’t harbour any thoughts about eventually being with him. I feel at my age (45) and given what my friends tell me about the dating scene, what I would get from it would probably be much worse.

The obvious question @Namechangeacino - why don’t you leave your husband now?

He is abusive and you are unhappy.

No doubt he’s also abusing your children.

I assume your 4 children are all teenagers or older, as you say you leave them alone two nights a week to see your AP.

Who looks after your children when you and your AP go on trips away ? If you husband is ok to look after them alone then he will be fine with weekends. Plus if you children are teenagers then they can chose not to see him.

You have a job which is obviously reasonably well paid.

So why not just leave rather than continue in this sham of a marriage ?

Some people manage to have 2 families with neither woman being aware of the other relationship. No idea how they manage it but yes it happens!

I never understand how they have the time for this - let alone the money!

@S00LA where did I say I “leave my children alone” two nights a week to see my AP?

@Namechangeacino You say you look after your children alone, and visit your AP twice a week normally. So either you leave them alone or you get a babysitter?

I know someone who was the other woman in this scenario. Went on for 5 years before wife found out, they got married after his divorce. I vaguely knew her when it all started and heard the rumours (she always denied it) but I had just started working with her when the wife found out. They never really admitted it until they married.

@ravenmum yes they have a nanny. On the two evenings I see him, I come home from work at 6pm, put them to bed, go out again and come back around midnight. The way the previous post was worded was like I just left them in my house to sleep alone and shagged the OM all night.

I can't leave my husband now, because of the dramatics I know would happen that would disrupt the DC lives without necessity. Right now he's happy thinking that I am alone being an obedient wife and mother while he goes AWOL and travels and gets drunk and doesn't come home and shags OWs. We (the DC and I) barely see him. If I was to upset his current lifestyle by applying for a divorce, all the attention would turn back on me and the DC and keeping us in line, which I really don't want.

So the situation I find myself in is a very convenient one.

Some affairs carry on for decades and may be uncovered only when one dies.

I knew a man in this situation some years ago. He has actually given his lawyer an instruction to contact the OW in the event of his death leaving some things for her that his DW wouldn't be informed of.

It mosy certainly can, my husband of 38 years had been having an affair with a married ex Co worker for 10 years, I never ever suspected, l accidentally came across hundreds of email exchanges between the both of them, he had never deleted any of them, they stretched back to 2010 right up to my discovery in October 2020, my laptop had broken, he gave me his tablet to use, he hadn't signed out. Biggest shock of my life, it has devastated myself and our adult children. I will never forgive or forget what he has done. I got, "she meant nothing, she was a tramp" "it was just sex" "I didn't love her" "it was a bit of excitement" "it was my fault, I should have been having sex more often, what did I expect" Because of shift patterns and distance they only met up(so he says) 6 or 7 times over the years. The emails were very explicit.

My grandad cheated on my gran with the same woman for 12 years

My husband had been carrying on with some blind bint literally around the corner for 3 and a half years.
I only found out as the ow manipulated the situation to ensure I found put. Stuff like leaving her burgundy size 18 cut staines knickers in our family car, posting in our.local FB community groups using a profile picture of her with my husband.
Sadly my teenage daughters friends got involved.

When push came to show he left to move in with her. I think the fact she is blind/visually impaired helped him out a bit as we live in a small town.

If she hadn't had been so manipulative in ensuring I found out I doubt I would have ever known.

Absolutely. The married men who lie they are single and go on a date with you. It's amazing - they will 'NEVER EVER' throw your number away.

They literally seem to have a database of numbers of women they can moan to their wives about and keep asking for dates. They can vanish as long as 5 years but one day they will FIND you on FB or Linkedin and even create a fake profile to write you a message with thier name and say how they have tried to find you and get in touch. Once a cheat - always a cheat. The thrill of hide and seek is what makes it exciting. The more you tell them to get a grip and get lost the more they have you as the 'conquest they have yet to conquer'.

The longer the affair goes on the harder it is to see. Things become the norm in the relationship. Working late, working away, secretive with the phone, hard to reach etc.. Your initial gut feeling gets muted over time.

Yes, the father of one of my school friends did. He was seeing OW until his DW found out just after my friend was born. He started it up again when my friend was 5 or so and carried on until his DW found out when my friend was mid-teens.

My DM had a ten year long torrid affair. We were children and knew about it. My stepfather still doesn't believe it.

If my husband managed to conduct a secret affair for years without making me even slightly suspicious then I would be very impressed. How do the people who do this find the time or energy?

Perhaps he was keeping their friendship a secret because he didn't want the agg of you getting jealous. From what you've said, I wouldn't jump straight to an affair but would probably try to check his phone. If he's deleted the messages then there's definitely something fishy going on. If you can't get his phone or you see that their messages have been deleted, I have used the below interrogation method previously with success. Prepared to be flamed for being toxic etc but I don't know how else you would get an honest answer if he has cheated and destroyed all evidence.

Say that you have spoken with the woman and she's told you about the affair. Tell him that if he tells you everything right now then you are willing to work on saving the relationship (this can be a lie), if he doesn't admit it then you're walking away. If he keeps denying it then insist on seeing their texts and get a feel for if there is anything untoward. However, this will make you will look like a psycho if he is actually innocent and may cause irreparable damage to your relationship.

@Devilment

The longer the affair goes on the harder it is to see. Things become the norm in the relationship. Working late, working away, secretive with the phone, hard to reach etc.. Your initial gut feeling gets muted over time.

That's so sad to read, I get the feeling it comes from bitter experience. It also sounds very true.

@Confusedandshaken i was thinking the same.

My friends DF had OW for 30 years. She accompanied him on every business trip, until DW discovered.

They are still together now, to the best of my knowledge.