What a mess, advice needed please

[Anon2000]

Hi All
So been on mumsnet a while, but dont often ask for advice.
I was married for around 20 years, was with xh from 16 and now divorced. Have been with MM 2.5 years and really need help to let go and move on. I know I'll get flamed for this but I love him and really need help to move on. He's only the second person I've ever let close and it's so hard to let go. No chance of NC either

@Anon1974

you deserve better than this. There are lovely men out there. You need to start taking steps to meet them and start living your life.

On what basis do you say she deserves better?

Everyone deserves better than that.

Op, people who have affairs are not emotionally mature or intelligent. They are deceptive and manipulative.

They have affairs as an ego boost and usually choose women who are vulnerable. In my working life I have met many of this type and can now spot the women who they will target. I always feel sorry for the women as they are accepting so little.

The people having affairs assume no one knows and whilst it might not be general knowledge it will definitely be out there. Sadly women seem to be judged harshly for their naivety so it often affects careers.

Your low self esteem has enabled the affair as no one who believes they are worthy of love accepts so little. The first step is to acknowledge you are hurting yourself and preventing yourself from being truly loved. The roots of this will lie in your childhood and abusive marriage. Emotionally healthy people don't hook up with someone that they KNOW lies extremely well.

In that - the reason you put up with this is that you have sick little self worth you will put up with the scraps from the table.
All the time he will be testing what she and his wife are prepared to tolerate.
His wife will know.

@Livinglearning

Everyone deserves better than that.

That's not true. There are plenty of couples who deserve each other.

No people who have affairs are just human beings. Everyone is capable, some will do it.

Are you saying that op doesn’t deserve an honest loving relationship?

@Livinglearning

Are you saying that op doesn’t deserve an honest loving relationship?

I don't have enough information to answer that and neither do you.

I know that she's happy to be complicit in an extremely extended betrayal of another woman, and that she believes someone who lies and cheats is a 'genuinely nice person'.

Also, a more useful question might be to ask if someone who is a genuine, decent, honest, loving person deserves to be in a relationship with someone like her.

If you're right @CorVoisier, and because of this one thing I've done in a life where I've otherwise tried to be a good friend, sibling, mother, daughter, wife, etc, then what's the point in me stopping?
I'm already doomed to never deserve a decent person again, so I might as well stick with what ive got.

As a wife of 'a boss' who got himself in a ridiculous position with a girl in his office. My husband came out of the whole sorry situation relatively unscathed. Yes he will have to forever live with the mistake he made and the consequences that came from it, the guilt he feels daily, his embarrassment at being a cliche. BUT thats nothing compared to the girl, she spent a long time convincing herself he held the key to her happiness but he literally ruined her life without really even realising. He saw her as a mistake, a blip, a moment of madness. Yes he was nice to her, he's nice to everyone. He didn't want to be unkind to her, probably to keep her sweet so she wouldn't tell me, but she misread this as him genuinely having feelings for her. He may well have had but the moment i found out he cut her dead and literally hated her guts because all of the regret and pain he put at her door. She was broken hearted bereft etc. To split up in a normal relationship is bad enough but the ending of an affair is brutal to the other person, I imagine its like the person they love dying but you don't get any love or support from those around you. My point after all this waffling is this......as painful as it is to you to put an end to this affair on your own terms is it pales into insignificance compared to the pain and upset you will suffer (alone) should this affair come out and it is ended for you.

Thanks @Jonjojobs123 I'm sorry for what happened to you.
That's exactly how I see it happening if I cant just move on.

Can you start broadening your non-him romantic prospects? What is to stop you from dating etc? He surely can't expect monogamy from you? Is your job safe if it ends?

I understand that affairs happen, but after two and a half years what is in this for you? I sometimes wonder if it's like being stuck in a departure lounge endlessly waiting for a flight to be called.

This will only hurt you. I know from personal experience. Rip the plaster off and let him go. I worked with mine and until he left it was really difficult. X

He's not a genuinely nice person.

He promised in front of he and his wife's family, friends etc to be her monogamous partner in life and she's had his kids on that basis; and he's been making a mockery of their marriage for over two years

If he's a nice guy he'd want his spouse to have honesty and equality, right .. so he's have proposed an open marriage when he started having feelings for you, or asked to break up. Either way she's have the knowledge and freedom to choose to have an open marriage or break up and have her own equivalent romantic & sexual involvement with other men. Has he done that?

Nah he's kept her in the dark, made her continue to stick to monogamy rules that yes no longer sticking to (for over two years now) .....has he given her equality, equivalency, honesty, respect?

He's not a nice guy, catch a grip.

So many people think pleasant, civil, articulate, personable people are "nice" ..
Look at their actions.

He's going home to his wife and shagging her having stuck his dick repeatedly in his work colleague (very vulnerable work colleague, out of an abusive marriage with little apparent other relationship experience), aw yeah, he's a lovely guy.

Now he needs therapy to answer why he proceeded with every action that led to him repeatedly shagging his work colleague with a wife and kids at home .... He doesn't need therapy, he just needs to face up to what he is ... But he won't. The nice guy act is self delusion as well.as convincing to others; probably why he's so convincing.

He's going home to his wife and shagging her having stuck his dick repeatedly in his work colleague (very vulnerable work colleague, out of an abusive marriage with little apparent other relationship experience), aw yeah, he's a lovely guy.

Now he needs therapy to answer why he proceeded with every action that led to him repeatedly shagging his work colleague with a wife and kids at home .... He doesn't need therapy, he just needs to face up to what he is ... But he won't. The nice guy act is self delusion as well.as convincing to others; probably why he's so convincing.

While I appreciate it's tough reading for you OP, can you not see this? Genuinely?

That it's vanishingly unlikely he is the exception to the rule and is in fact someone who is having his cake and eating it too because he can and is getting away with it.

If she found out, he would tell her you pursued him, you wouldn't take no for an answer, you wouldn't cut contact, you didn't mean anything, you were just an escape, he would beg her not to leave him. Can't you picture that and how humiliating a position he's got you in, to make you cut all contact not related directly and solely to your work?

OP, I had an affair with a married man. Yes he really seemed like a nice guy. He really truly believed he was a nice guy. He really believed he loved his wife. He believed he was providing therapy for the unhappy women he had affairs with ( I was his third). They all think they are different, that they are not like other husbands who have affairs.

But the 'nice guy' you see is how they see themselves not how they are. 'Feeling bad' about cheating is how they tell themselves they are a nice guy. As if being 'nice' is an identity and not an action that requires sacrifice or self-restraint.

And he never stopped to think about the impact of his behaviour on his affair partners. How all this was fucking with their heads and hearts. OW are used by these men as much as their wife is.

I remember the last time I saw him. We were in a hotel room having sex and his wife called. And he went repeatedly from pleasuring me to texting replies to her for about 15 minutes. And I saw then what his life is. How he works to keep both women where he wants them, keeping them both happy and feeling they have his attention and devotion, so that they stay where he wants them in his life.

Pretty pathetic really. And no, not something a nice guy does.

As if being 'nice' is an identity and not an action that requires sacrifice or self-restraint.

This is so, so, so accurate.

My friend has been split from her husband 8 years - he left her for someone else - and I swear she'd take him back tomorrow if he'd turn up. She will always love him.

I think you can still love your ex but agree that doesn't stop you from moving on. Once you met someone else, you'd probably not look back.

Guilty of not reading the whole thread.

But still the same move on.