Advice I am the other woman

[emilysof1]

Hi,
I am looking for some constructive advice.
I am in an awful situation that is ruining my life.
I have been in a relationship with a married man for several months. It started out as a one night stand and became quite intense quite quickly from there on in. He is in a long term relationship with young children. He is 10 years my senior.
I know what I am doing is wrong and believe me I feel terrible for it but I am in deeper than I ever thought I would be and I don't know what to do.
My man tells me he is leaving his partner. That they have drifted and that they no longer have a connection. But he never talks badly of her. Says that she doesn't love him and doesn't care about their relationship anymore. Cliche I know but he tells me that they have no sexual relationship and sleep in separate rooms etc. People may laugh but I do believe him. The thing is, months down the line and he has not left. He keeps promising after this occasion or that occasion but it never happens. This sounds really selfish but I have fallen in love with him and I hate the thought of him with his partner. I am jealous. He tells me he loves me and wants to be with me. We've spoken about the future. But I am becoming so frustrated with this situation and can not carry on. We speak every day. We see each other frequently but he still spends time with his family, goes on family holidays etc and I hate it. Will he ever follow through and leave? I am starting to wonder if this is worth it?

The only thing you can control in this horrid situation is to end it with him. If he wants you he’ll chase after you and beg you to be with him and end it with his wife. If you end it and he waves you goodbye you know you were being strung along. It’s the only card you have to play.

They all sing the same old song. Look it up on Google.
Hope you don't get permanently lumbered with him because you' ll really have your work cut out.
I have a much younger friend in exactly the same position as you, he's spouting the same old lines, meanwhile her mental health is deteriorating.
Her life is on hold, in limbo, waiting and waiting and waiting.
He throws her the odd crumb of hope when she tries to finish it, he even openly flirts around her friends.
One day she will see him for the selfish pig he is, but she's not there yet.

OP..i would suggest you set a date that you want to see some progress by, such as he has moved out of marital home.
Then if he doesn't the very best thing you can do is remove yourself from his life.
I understand you love him, but unless you want to be the ow for the rest of your life you have to make it clear what your expectations are.
You can stop seeing him, but tell him that when he has keys to his own place and divorce papers in hand he can come find you.
In the meantime don't sit moping at home, go out and get on with your life.
If he appears and you want him then good luck to you both.
But you might find that he does not show up and you are not bothered because you have a real. Life.... A real boyfriend.. One who can go on holiday with you, stay over, make real plans..
The liklihood is this man is future faking you.
I ended my affair... Not for the same reason but still very much in love with him... It hurt like hell for a while, and when he re appeared in my life, single.. I had my own fun fulfilled life..

@CelestialGalaxy

I think you are being harsh...the OP hasnt shattered lives the husband has and if the wife does find out then that wife can make her own choices about what she will and won't put up with and going forward what her children will have as a homelife. I dont for one minute think that if OP had turned him down in the first place he wouldn't have found someone else. The fault is not with the OP but the husband. How OP chooses to live her life is up to her, and I know we can't understand why she would want a man like this, but that is her choice. I am on the side of the wife and her right to choose to remain in a faithless marriage if only someone has the guts to tell her.

An affair is not possible if 1 person says no.

Obviously the husband is equally to blame.

Affairs potentially shatter lives. That’s a fact that cannot be underestimated.

There is better out there than a married man OP. Guarantee what will happen, he will keep stringing you along till his wife finds out, then there are two possibilities. 1. He drops you quicker than you can say ‘affair’ and stops talking to you, you never hear from him again while he repairs his marriage and you repair your broken heart or 2. She chucks him out and he only ends up with you because he’s got nowhere else to go and you will always be ‘the second choice’ and he will do the exact same to you, couple that with you also having to deal with two heartbroken resentful children and an ex, which wouldn’t be a walk in the park and will probably make you miserable. YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT.

Sorry but any man that is okay cheating on his partner isn't exactly a nice person is he. By all means dump your partner if you want to sleep with other people but to cheat is disgusting no matter what background issues there are. And no he won't leave her for you. Unlikely

When my husband had an affair he told her we were separating, that we slept in different rooms and hadn’t had sex for ages..in actual fact we were getting on great, sleeping together and in the process of moving to our dream house.
He just wanted to have his cake, eat it and then some!
If he can cheat, he is already a liar, if he is lying to his wife then he can do it to you just the same.
He has shown you what he is capable of and you can never trust him, you may as well cut your losses and move on without him.

Also yes people do still cheat when having hot sex and still in love. They are just assholes that want to do something exciting

I was cheated on. 4 whole months and yet we had sex 4 times a week and he proposed to me.
Was all a lie, everything he told her and everything he told me, I dumped him and he dumped her but of course I wouldn't take him back. Sleezeball

Whether or not he's sleeping with his wife is irrelevant. The point is why the fuck do you want to be with someone who has no moral centre?

You're complicit in something that is wrong. It's as simple as that. You're both behaving reprehensibly.

His cheating on the mother of his children. He will certainly cheat on you

He is not your man and he has no intention of leaving his wife.

You are being spun the oldest yarn in the book.

Just dump him and stop wasting your time.

If they were still having hot sex and he still loves her then why the hell would he be a entertaining me?? It does not make any sense

because there is a high thrill in the illicit, the thing which is not allowed. Because the deceit etc is, for some, part of the pleasure. Because now he gets twice the sex, because an affair is all about the fun, while with his wife he has also to be responsible.

OP - that fact that you think he is telling you the truth over this, that he and his wife don't have sex etc just proves how naive you are I am afraid.

As to hurt - you are already hurting her. Not being the one to tell her is not because you don't want to hurt her, it is because you don't want to be the bad guy. Trouble is, you already are.

f they were still having hot sex and he still loves her then why the hell would he be a entertaining me?? It does not make any sense

Because it's exciting seeing you, he gets a buzz from meeting you, he gets the excitement of his relationship with you that he doesn't get with his wife. You're different to his wife.

Probably because all relationships tend to lose that initial buzz, excitement and honeymoon period is why he's having an affair with you. He doesn't get that with his wife because she's 'normal' but of course, if he left his wife and started to have a relationship with you, you'd then be the 'normal' one

Does he have children? I knew of someone like this and long story short I wonder if he wasn't going to leave while the children were under 18, as it would cost him a lot of money in a divorce.

He strung OW along but obviously It was dressed up as doing the best thing for the family, wanting kids to be at uni/stable before leaving.....

Careful.

(Btw OW & him - they broke up about a year after)

@HermitsLife I am envious of you not having read it yet.

Heartburn is a great book, also about a cheating shit of a husband, as it goes. It's a very thinly fictionalised account of her first husband having an affair and leaving her. (He was Carl Bernstein of Bernstein and Woodward who revealed Watergate.)

They made it into a film with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

'I feel bad about my neck' is an excellent collection of her journalism.

Imagine not having seen When Harry Met Sally! No wonder she's hankering after married men.

There are only 3 outcomes from all of this

1. You wait for him to end it with her, giving up years of your life and it never happens.
2. You tell his wife because you don't want to wait for him to do it. Wife kicks him out despite him begging for forgiveness. He ends up with you and somewhere down the line shock horror he has cheated on you.
3. You tell his wife and she forgives him and he stays with her.

I'm sorry...he is still sleeping with her, they don't sleep in separate rooms. It's always the same script with these men, she doesn't understand him, they've drifted, lost their connection etc. But he won't leave her, they never do, if he wanted to he would already have done it.

You are offering him yourself on a plate, why does he need to leave her he has it all right now.

Please stop now, you deserve better and you're wasting your time and affection on him, trust me you do not want to win him, (a cheater!) he's the booby prize.

This is surely a well known ruse. Often wives in these relationships miraculously get pregnant too. Dump him and be glad, 'once a cheater ....' as the saying goes.

Oh love. I hate to hurt you further but he will never leave. He’s leading you a merry dance.

If they were still having hot sex and he still loves her then why the hell would he be a entertaining me?? It does not make any sense

No - it makes perfect sense and is 110% classic normal behaviour.

He tells you they've drifted apart, no sex, separate rooms, connection gone.

Do you have anything to corroborate that?

No.

Millions of testimonies from women show this is the script. He loves his wife, sleeps with her, no plan to leave.

He also loves having you.

Men are collectors.

They like a harem.

Just because he's entertaining you, doesn't mean he can't also have hot sex with his wife. Do you see? It makes great sense. He's having a fab time. Why change it, he thinks?

If they were still having hot sex and he still loves her then why the hell would he be a entertaining me?? It does not make any sense

But I could say to you that if you want a healthy, happy relationship to bring into your children's life at some point why are you choosing to be having an affair with an unavailable man who is clearly disloyal and disrespectful and continually shows he is not planning to leave his wife - as that does not make any sense either?

People behave in ways that don't make sense to other people all the time. All you can control is your own behaviour. Yours is reckless, self damaging, selfish and bringing potential drama and headfuckery into your children's lives too. Say he leaves her and says he has nowhere to stay. I suspect strongly you would let him stay with you. It would be too much, too soon and unhealthy but you're in the headspace you'd go for it I think.

No good can come from this.

What do you know 100% to be true?

He is disloyal, not good at monogamy or honesty, doesn't follow through on promises and doesn't respect the women in his life.

Those are facts not opinions.

Stop chasing someone who is a prick. Put your future and your kids first.

Honestly? My partner left, actually his wife left. We are together and I wish that never happened. He is not who I thought he is.

@Me0912

Honestly? My partner left, actually his wife left. We are together and I wish that never happened. He is not who I thought he is.

This is the case for one of my friends too and it's really frustrating to watch. I think that she feels because he left and so many people were hurt by their actions, they have to stay together to make all that hurt worth it in a way. But the truth is that their spouses have already been devastated by their months of lying and cheating but don't want them back (obviously) so by staying with the man she had the affair with who has, shock horror, turned out to be the cunt we all knew he was throughout, she is just adding another person to the list of those hurt - herself!

It's never too late to leave, don't buy into sunk cost fallacy and waste more time on a wanker.

Lol
They are not in separate rooms