Leaving an abusive affair/relationship. Warning: discussion of rape. **OP post edited by MNHQ at OP's request***

[Finallydonewithhim]

Long complicated history. Man and I have always gravitated towards each other. Tried friendship - it’s great until the attraction takes hold. We always end up in a dark sexual relationship. Pure lust.

I’m married. He’s had several relationships over this time too. I was prepared at one point to give everything up for him. He couldn’t do it.

Earlier this year he got involved with someone I know. She was warned clearly by a friend of his cheating behaviour and all his flaws. He managed 4 months of staying away then he returned and took advantage of my vulnerable state.

2 months on he has showed me that he is more than happy to be carrying on this without thought or care. He won’t ever stop. He has been very dangerous to me this time around.

I can do my best to keep him away but he’ll always return. The girlfriend is airing her suspicions. I want to do the right thing and go and tell her. I’ve never felt this way about any of the other girlfriends but she deserves so much more.

I do too. My husband does too.

Talk or walk.
Pull the pin on my own grenade.

I want him to stay away forever. I feel this will be the only way to make him.

[QuentinBunbury]

This doesn't sound like an affair any more. It sounds like he's raping her and blackmailing her with exposing the "affair" to get her to carry on putting herself in risky situations. Asking her to be rough with him then assaulting her. Great way to make it all so complicated that he thinks the police wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
If I'm right about that I'm so sorry op
Could you try a SARC and talk to someone there about what to do? I think you should report him to be honest but it probably won't be an easy ride.

[WhiskeyGalore212]

When a woman posts here that her husband is having an affair and the OW is a complete psycho/is abusive etc etc is the man given sympathy or is the woman told that he’s made his bed and she should LTB?

Is he a sex abuse survivor in this scenario?

Did he get into a "bdsm" relationship as a misguided attempt to deal with his abuse?

Is she his bdsm "dom" - who inflicts injuries on him bad enough to need medical treatment.

Is she blackmailing him into damaging physicakky damaging sexual activities?


If not, then stop fkg comparing it to this.

[Comedycook]

You need to take control....not destroy other peoples lives in an attempt to get this man out of your life. In the nicest possible way, you need therapy

[KnightandDay]

I think you're getting a hard time from some posters here OP, I hope you're doing OK.
I can hear the pain and hurt in your posts, it's great that you've reached out to someone to help.
I do think it's best to tell your husband, tell him everything! Then this man won't have that to hold over you. If you're worried about this other woman's safety then absolutely tell her - if it's just a revenge thing then don't.
Take care of yourself!

[WhiskeyGalore212]

Bollocks. If he’s raped her then she reports him to the police

Ah ots always that simple, isn't it.

If its so simple why do the majority of rapes and sexual assaults go unreported?

I hope you have nothing whatsoever to do with victims of abuse and sex crime, you haven't got a clue.

[WhiskeyGalore212]

You are among several posters on this thread who should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves.

[WhiskeyGalore212]

*If its so simple why do the majority of rapes and sexual assaults go unreported?

Oh and that's without the victim being a sex abuse survivor, the perpetrator being able to claim she was in a "bdsm" relationship with him, and her marriage likely being over (while her mental health is, she reports, among the lowest otd ever been) as a result.

They don't report, but op, who's clearly been head fucked by this exploitative abuser for quite some time and doesn't even recognise her own agency to get rid of him, will strife tight in and report.

Strong logic.

[WhiskeyGalore212]

Ultimately op the key to this is to tell your husband.

It will not be easy but .. it's best for both of you.

Your abuser has nothing over your head anymore, and you have deserves the truth.

You said the marriage is pretty much over anyway.

Have you looked Into how you will manage financially etc if you split

[rishisboater]

@Hanger0n well no, but I think abuse is abuse. I'm not saying OP was justified in having the affairs but if it's become abusive she needs the same help with that as anyone. Not a "well you made your bed"

[WhiskeyGalore212]

The other key thing is that you NC this abuser abd stick to it.

If you think he'll turn up at your house, you need measures in place.

You need to tell him you'll go to the police about his harassment and do it if he won't stop contacting you and turning up.at your home.

[rishisboater]

@SafeMove

As someone who was sexually abused historically and then physically and sexually abused with coercive control within a marriage, that was high risk at MARAC this thread is exceptionally hard to read. In fact, I feel sick

You need to seperate out the cheating and the abuse. But you also need to come clean...to protect your DH, his GF and yourself. This is horrendous.

This is another good point. If OP is hurt (well, she already has been) there will be intervention for the children because they will be at risk. The husband will also be made aware.

[godmum56]

[quote Finallydonewithhim]@WhiskeyGalore212 you are starting to understand it.

Previous sexual abuse victim seeking out experiences under the guise of consent/adult. He knows about my past. Last 18mths of so we’ve become toxic. Previously it was based on respect. Last 2 months it’s been awful.

He won’t stay away.[/quote]
no, its been toxic from the get go and you have only just realised it

[rishisboater]

For that reason you need to go no contact and make it very clear the steps you've taken to remove this person from your life.

If you don't, and something happens, you are at risk of losing your children.

[Hanger0n]

[quote rishisboater]@Hanger0n well no, but I think abuse is abuse. I'm not saying OP was justified in having the affairs but if it's become abusive she needs the same help with that as anyone. Not a "well you made your bed" [/quote]
Likewise affairs are affairs. The OP seems to be trying to mitigate that by painting herself as the only victim in this. Her husband is the biggest victim because she's been happily cheating on him for years before her fancy man turned nasty. Barely anyone sees her husband as the real victim here which says a lot about some of the people replying.

[rishisboater]

Ah I see. I totally agree the husband is a victim here also

[WhiskeyGalore212]

Her husband is a victim but that doesn't mean op is not also also victim.

before her fancy man turned nasty

Turned?

[WhiskeyGalore212]

He's a predator and he found prey.

No "ethical" (it's all bollocks but let's just say there are) bdsm practitioner would suggest or go along with making a sex abuse survivor their sub, let alone the sexual violence and injuries he's escalated to recently.

[Honeyroar]

When I first read this I thought you were awful, but as your posts continued I can see it’s really not black and white.

I’m glad that you’ve reached out for help to people that have helped you before. I think that the other thing you can do is take his power away - tell your husband. It won’t be nice, but you’ve said yourself that the marriage is probably dead anyway, so it’s better to end it yourself. Then report this guy for the times he’s forced you. You don’t need to tell the girlfriend - it’s just extra stress for you, and it’s all going to come out anyway.

[Hanger0n]

@WhiskeyGalore212

Her husband is a victim but that doesn't mean op is not also also victim.

before her fancy man turned nasty

Turned?

If the husband had been having a fling with a dominatrix all through his marriage and she'd you'd be saying LTB. You wouldn't be saying he was a victim of abuse. And you know it.

[JustLyra]

@AlternativePerspective

But it’s not just a relationship with someone she’s not living with. It’s an affair. But for some reason people appear to be overlooking this.

When a woman posts here that her husband is having an affair and the OW is a complete psycho/is abusive etc etc is the man given sympathy or is the woman told that he’s made his bed and she should LTB?

But as usual the double standards are out in force here.

Affairs happen, I’m one of the first to say that. But the fact is that they are affairs. The OP has chosen to start shagging around behind her husband’s back, not just at the point he has become abusive but for years before that according to her. It’s only now that she says he’s become abusive that she’s afraid to leave the affair. She wasn’t afraid to do so before that. She had no consideration for her husband and potentially children when she was screwing around with this man behind their backs. It’s only now that things have turned nasty that she’s being seen as a victim.

If a man posted here stating that the woman he was having an affair with had become abusive and violent to the point of him requiring medical treatment then the empathy bypass some are showing on here would be just as vile.

Yes, having an affair is shitty. Yes, the OP has been horrible to her husband.

However, that doesn't change the fact that she is currently victim to an abusive man.

The fact she was having an affair doesn't give that man the right to make her afraid or to harm her. Obviously she wasn't afraid before he turned nasty - no one is scared of an abuser before they start abusing you,

If the OP's husband posted here he'd be told it was her problem, just as the OP would have been told that of her husband had had an affair and his bit in the side had turned nasty. However, neither of those situations are what has been posted about, its a woman who has been physically harmed to the point of needing medical attention by someone she has a relationship with.

The morals of the OP's situation can wait and be dealt with after she's physically safe from an increasingly volatile predatory man.

[Bluntness100]

@WhiskeyGalore212

I’m sorry why is that not an affair?

I wasnt saying it isn't.

The no referred to you saying it wad an affair that has recently turned toxic.

It hasn't redebtly become toxic, it's always been toxic and had recently become sexually violent resulting in injuries to op requiring medical treatment.

Anyway even if strictly an affair, its not a typical affair - it involves elements of abuse abd exploration of a sex abuse survivor and misuse of the already extremely abuse prone bdsm narrative.

But that’s not what she said, she said she was sleeping with him and it turned toxic in the last eighteen months, worst in th last two. I have no idea what you’re arguing about honestly.

Of course it was and is an affair, no matter how toxi it has turned, that’s the very definition of an extra marital relationship.

[rishisboater]

Bdsm isn't abuse though. There's no reason to think someone who you have a mutually consenting bdsm arrangement with would be abusive until it happens.

I'd say the same of a man having an affair with a dominatrix.