Ending affair

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For 18 months I had an affair with someone we'll call Jenny. It's depressingly cliched, it started as friends, became emotional and then physical. At the time I thought my marriage was over. For the last 6 months my marriage has been improving, I subconsciously started withdrawing from the affair, and then more consciously knew it couldn't continue. Events with Jenny came to a head 3 months ago, at a point where we either left our partners and got together fully, or ended the affair and stayed with our partners. We both have young children.

We made different decisions. I decided to stay with my wife and end the affair. Jenny wanted to leave her husband and for us to get together.

She was completely devastated, she essentially told her husband about us anyway, and their relationship is now all but over.

At the time I thought the kindest thing was to have no more contact with her to give her a chance to recover and move on but she wants to stay in touch.

I don't know how to help her. All the advice about breakups, both affairs and normal is to have an total extended break from each other but this isn't a normal break up. If we weren't both married we would still be together, we still love each other and haven't argued or fallen out.

COVID means she is cooped up at home and can't go out and see people easily. This isn't like a normal relationship ending, it's still secret from everyone so she can't turn to her friends. I am the only person she can talk openly with. Her marriage is disintegrating so she is essentially going through two breakups at once, one is secret, in the middle of a pandemic.

We both went into the affair as equals, but we have come out so differently. We're still meeting in secret, I hug her and we talk and I try to support her but she is so completely broken.

I just don't know how to help her.
Has anyone else been in this position, what helped?

Point her in the direction of friends and mental health support. Even with Covid restrictions, caring responsibilities are permitted, which include her friends helping her out with her mental health. If she's not honest with someone other than you she's going to be reliant on only you. Then leave her, properly. If she wants some agency in her decision making, make this one less thing she has to concern herself with and she'll have to move on and make decisions that she can fully influence. You're not helping in the long run by still being on the scene. Also, I suspect you don't really want to end things and focus on your wife, if you did you'd be doing that and only that right now.

Do not stay in touch! You decided to stay in your marriage and make that work, by keeping an open line of contact with the other woman, you will always be one foot out the door. Your wife deserves better.

Totally agree with the PP who said this has very little to do with you.

You are her exit affair. She was unhappy in her marriage you facilitated her acceptance of that. Now she is just dealing with the reality of being alone, which she always was anyway.

She will get there on her own, leave her alone and allow her to grieve and move on. Do not contact her ever again, rip the plaster off..can you though, I wonder?

OP, you’re not going to get very far on here by being defensive.

I will start out by saying that I had an affair. In my case the affair was the catalyst to leave an abusive marriage, but either way it’s still one of the most regrettable things I have ever done.

What you have to bear in mind is that even though you both were complicit in the affair the decisions you made about your prospective marriages were your own. So you decided to stay and work on your marriage, and she decided to leave her’s.

Leaving for another person is never a good idea anyway, but it’s not your responsibility to pick up the pieces after she decided to leave her own marriage.

yes of course she is hurting, but truth is that if her marriage was a happy one she likely wouldn’t have decided to leave to be with you.

Some people struggle to leave a marriage, and an affair essentially justifies how they feel. I couldn’t quite see how I could end my marriage even though I had tried several times, but once I had an affair he essentially had a reason to end the marriage, and even though my affair didn’t continue and he would have taken me back, at that point I realised that I was free.

In my case I never spoke to my AP again. i did still have feelings for him in the beginning, but I just stopped contacting him and now I haven’t spoken to him for eight years, in fact I don’t even think about him. I have heard from mutual friends what he’s been up to, and tbh I think it’s fair to say the relationship would never have worked anyway.

By you staying in touch with this woman you are preventing her from moving on. I understand that you feel guilt but bot of you were complicit in the affair, she also has to own her part and the decisions she has made.

Also by staying in contact with her you are completely dismissing your wife. How would she feel if she found out? You say you worry for Jenny’s MH, but what about your wife’s?

Be honest, why do you want to stay in your marriage?

If that’s what you really want then you need to cut all contact with Jenny as of today. No texts, no calls, in fat you need to block her number and move forward with your marriage.

If you don’t want to do that then you need to end your marriage.

I have to go out - thankyou for the helpful replies. Will reply more later.

When my DB split with a long time girlfriend she was devastated too and he tried to help her through it by being her friend, giving her cuddles etc. All he was doing was giving her false hopehope. Eventually she attempted suicide. It wasn't a true attempt but a tragic cry for help however, she did end up in hospital where she was seen by a psychiatrist. My DB went to visit, the psychiatrist spoke to him and said that unless he was going to go back to her, he must walk away and stay away otherwise she can't heal.

If you genuinely believe the affair is over then I would advise walking away. If you really can't let the OW go, you need to talk to you wife to give her the option of rebuilding her life - if that is what it comes down to.

Either way you are going to hurt someone very badly, and children too.

Hi,
The only advise I can give is to question whether you are actually happy with your wife. If you love this other person is it best not to just be honest and allow yourself to be happy. I am not condoning what you have done but speaking from experience I can offer advice if needed.

I think that this is actually similar to any other breakup. If you stay in contact, she's never going to have a chance to get over you. You need to stop contact completely, delete and block her etc. At the moment you're just prolonging the agony for her.

You both entered this affair as equal, informed, adults. You both have to now deal with the fallout of it.

I have been on all sides of this.
I have been the other woman. I have been the one to end an affair. I've been the victim of an affair. I've been the one to watch a marriage continue and had to pick up the pieces of my life following an affair.

You should tell your wife about the affair. And allow her the ability to work through it in the way she sees fit.

You need to end contact with the OW. Believe it or not, you're doing more harm than good by remaining in contact. You think you're giving her the choice, but you're not. You're giving her hope. Leave her the fuck alone.

Own your shit, and let the women in your life own theirs.

Having seen this from both sides I can 100% tell you that the loving thing is to break off all contact so she can get over you. Affairs put people into bizarre states where none of the relationship crap or tedium dulls the good feelings, so she probably (and likely incorrectly) feels you are more perfect for her than you really are. But you chose to leave her, so you are NOT able to make her happy. Be kind and, explaining why, leave her alone completely so she has a chance to move on and find happiness. You sound well meaning but your ego is taking over. You are not her saviour here, and you need to acknowledge that you are making her sad.

Although she may not be expecting you to change your mind on a rational level, I think she will be hoping for that on an emotional level. She can't have just gone from wanting to leave her marriage for you to being friends. You simply cannot be the one to comfort her. I know it's hard because you feel responsible, but she made her own decisions. It will be hard for her in the short term, but in the long term the kindest thing you can do is walk away.

You lied and cheated during 18 months. Your wife deserves to know and have the choice of whether she wants to continue with you or not. Roles reversed, would you be happy for your wife to have had an affair for so long and you not have a say in whether to continue or not?

As for the OW, the kindest thing for you to do would be to cut contact. What you're doing is just prolonging the hurt for her. She is going to find it harder to move on if you keep showing up. Leave her be.

And thirdly I don't think your marriage stands a chance with all the lies and cheating. How can you have an intimate and loving relationship with someone you've lied to so long?

I think you have to cut her off. Having you in her life is ongoing torture because you can’t be with her, so she is hanging on to the scraps you’re giving her, the contact, the hugs. It’s really sad tbh, and in many ways it’s just like a normal breakup.

What would you be doing if it was a ‘normal’ breakup? I don’t think you’d be coddling her like this. You’d want her to be moving on at this stage no?

I know it seems harsh but I think you have to cut contact if you’re not going to leave your wife. It’s cruel what you’re doing really, by staying in touch you’re giving her hope, even if it’s just a glimmer

Ok, so you feel guilty, which is plausible, but not guilty enough to actually do the decent thing which is 1. Tell your wife, and 2. Let OW move on.

So maybe do the decent thing, which is all of the above, and let the women in your life have the freedom to make decisions about their lives armed with the full facts. I'm not being harsh, it's the best way. Do it your way and you run the risk of your wife finding out some time down the road when OW has moved on, and you think you're happy. Then you lose everything.

At least she was honest enough to tell her partner. Have you told your wife?

Your ex-mistress's mental health is not your concern. And frankly she will recover a lot better without you around.

Focus on your marriage and stop boosting your own ego by thinking she needs you. She'll find the strength all by herself once rid of you.

Also, you say that she won’t tell your wife, but has it occurred to you that her husband might?

Agree with some PP.

Leave Jenny to recover by herself. You being around will make her mental health worse not better.

Some ex'es say that they will self harm etc as a way of keeping hold of you and emotionally controlling you. Its very rare for someone to follow through and either way it isn't your consern. You wife should be your only concern.

As Jenny is playing these emotional games it really wouldn't surprise me if she told your wife at some point.

BTW. Your poor poor wife. Why don't you tell her and let her make her own choice? Not got the balls ?

Hi OP, Mumsnet doesn't seem the place for advice on affairs (if you're having one) try reddit, I have seen excellent, thought provoking advice on there. They have separate boards for separate subjects (called subreddits). Very rare to get into arguments and fights on there.

Just read more of this thread. Some of this advice sounds very supportive.

The OP is being given a really bad time here! Come on, surely you can see that this sort of things are rarely black and white.

OP, I would also say you need to stay away, but not without telling your ex AF why. Explain that you care for her wellbeing and you will not be getting back in touch. Then please stick to it.

And of course dońt tell your wife. No good can come out of that.

Could you two agree to slowly cut down contact and stick to it? This way she gets to have a say and start with a week of not responding to texts, not seeing her etc.

Every time she sees you it gives her a dopamine hit and it just reinforces the love drug addiction. You both love each other, but if you’re not going to be with her then she needs space to heal. Reinforce that she is loveable but that as things are you need to start giving each other space. Make sure she has supports and start backing away.

I don’t think you can help Jenny and I don’t think you should help Jenny either.

You can’t help her because every time you see her, it probably gives her a tiny bit of hope and also brings feelings back and therefore sets back her recovery. The best thing to do would be to cut contact entirely and stop the drip drip drip of hurting her over and over again.

Secondly you should not help her. By going and hugging Jenny, you are continuing to disrespect and cheat on your wife. The amount of energy and time you are investing in order to determine how to help Jenny is detrimental to your marriage. You should instead spend the time and energy being present in the marriage and working out how you can make it the best it can possibly be.

Every time you see or contact Jenny, you are risking your wife finding out. And she will be devastated and bitter for life. Take it from someone who is.

The person to help you get over a break up can never, ever be the person you've broken up with. It lengthens the recovery process and creates a toxic dynamic.

You have chosen your wife. You've chosen to be with her and to try to remember and live by your marriage vows, which you previously broke. You cannot therefore also keep your promises (ie the one where youve said you won't go no contact) with the OW.

You cannot come out of this being the good guy to everyone. I know that sounds simplistic but you can't do the 'right' thing by both women - by which I mean you can't prioritise both of them being happy and healthy. One will be more damaged than the other and in the long term, both may be as I suspect the OW may well tell your wife.

I say this because she is threatening or insinuating she is capable of self harm or worse. I am not minimising her feelings, but if she is using those things as leverage to persuade you to maintain contact there are two possible outcomes. 1. You respond to the guilt by staying in touch with her, so she learns that guilt is a tactic that works with you and she can continue it indefinitely. Or 2. You don't respond to the guilt and her next tactic will be to threaten to tell your wife if you go no contact.

Unfortunately what you need to accept is that your poor wife has every right to know. Her husband has been having sex with someone, fallen in love with someone, laughed, been intimate, held, kissed, touched someone... and is still prioritising that person over her. You say you still love OW. It is unspeakably cruel to your wife (albeit behind her back) to say and believe that while also saying you want the marriage to work. As if she is a duty, an obligation rather than someone you would choose even if you were single. The right thing would be for her to know what you've done so she can make an informed decision. You have taken away her agency, choice and power.

Again, because of your choices you cannot come out of this being the good guy to both parties. There are consequences to your actions and if you have chosen your wife and you now want to live by your vows, you need to put her above all others. Not keep seeing the woman you fell for and were shagging behind her back.

You can choose to take my post as an attack, but it isn't. It's a reality check to remind you that when you do bad things you can't look good to everyone. It's time to face the consequences and if you truly loved your wife you would either tell her everything or at least cut contact completely with the OW. If you're not willing to do that, you should not steal more years of her life away when she could meet someone else who would love her above all others.

If you 100% want to be with your wife and not Jenny, you have got to go completely no contact with Jenny. As hard as it is, you have to let her go.