When is an affair the real thing?

[Mummywifey]

I ask because I have been lurking on here for a long time…looking for answers/similar stories to the situation I find myself in.

What I notice is that without exception (that I have seen so far) is that affairs are referred to “mistakes”, dismissed as fantasy, passed off as love bombing and always doomed to fail long term.

I know that in real life some people do meet new partners while married or in relationships and go on to have happy futures together.

So when is an affair not a mistake? Or in what situation may it be accepted as a happy ending?.

I’m not questioning the fact that affairs are morally wrong - the deception and lying are wrong and unkind. In some marriages I am sure one or both partners are unhappy and only gain the courage to leave when someone else gives them the hope. But is it a tiny proportion of affairs that end up being true love or…..?

Really only pondering the subject and don’t wish to be bashed for it…would just be interested to hear varying perspectives.

When my mum had affairs I didn't hurt us children. What did hurt us was the fact my father stayed longer than he should have "for the kids" it was horrible living in a house with parents who obviously didn't want to be together. It was awkward, no love, no affection. We was so happy when he left (he raised us alone). Oh I was around 7 when this happened.

Depends whether or not you had a Christian marriage of course.

Personally I care less about the specifics of what the vows said. I don't think adultery is worse than any other kind of lies or deception.

@Caliburn
Exactly! My DC were older but they feel the same. The MN idea of the evil husband cheating on his doting blissfully unaware wife is not the reality in most cases. In the vast majority of cases there are at least signs that one person is checking out even if it’s not blatantly obvious that a marriage is in trouble. Most people can tell if their partner is not fully invested in the marriage. If someone is capable of living a double life, acting completely normal and not arousing any suspicion then the betrayed spouse is definitely better off without someone who is capable of that level of deception without any remorse.

@AdamRyan

I agree. A poster on here once said that adultery was worse than rape and that adulterers should be stoned! 😂 I would say domestic violence, sexual assault, drug addiction etc are far worse!

[quote Baws]@Caliburn
Exactly! My DC were older but they feel the same. The MN idea of the evil husband cheating on his doting blissfully unaware wife is not the reality in most cases. In the vast majority of cases there are at least signs that one person is checking out even if it’s not blatantly obvious that a marriage is in trouble. Most people can tell if their partner is not fully invested in the marriage. If someone is capable of living a double life, acting completely normal and not arousing any suspicion then the betrayed spouse is definitely better off without someone who is capable of that level of deception without any remorse.[/quote]
How do you know what the reality is 'in most cases'? None of us can know what the reality is 'in most cases'!

I can tell you that my personal experience was that I did not have the faintest idea my partner was not fully invested in the marriage. Yes, he was capable of living a double life, acting completely normal and not arousing suspicions. What you are right about is that I am certainly better off without him!

I've seen affairs happen mostly in people that marry young, or have been together since teens. It is shit to do that to another person, I know. But my father had a huge home and intertwined finances and a business. He used excuses to not leave a dysfunctional marriage with a liar and a cheat, in the end, he just packed our things and left with the kids (mum wasn't interested in being a mother). We ended up alot better off and he went on to marry a wonderful woman after. My mum is still with the man she had an affair with and as far as I'm aware, they are good.

I said that in my experience most people have happily moved on. I don’t understand why someone would still be bitter years later

Well people have to move on, maybe in real life people will not express their displeasure at having their choices taken away from them in everday life, these boards show different.

This is the most ridiculous sweeping generalisation I have read on this post so far. I am assuming that you suggest people just stay in miserable marriages in case their future grandchildren might get a bit upset that their grandparents don’t live together anymore

And there we have it future grandchildren.
No some people already have grandchildren, so the whole dynasty of a family can be blown appart and altered, in ways you probably can't comprehend.

As you said some of your friends and family members have been together 20/30 years after starting as an affair. Some people don't have that luxury of time.
Of course myself I would have much prefered my h to have had an affair when we were younger and not after 35 years.
His affair left me with fewer choices than if i'd been young.

I also think you are guilty of sweeping generalisations as in your first post, a bit I'm alright Jack and everyone needs to get over it.
Everyones case is different and you seem to like minimising other people's pain as in your choice of words calling people bitter.

I will call anyone out for using patronising language like that when it is aimed at people who have been through abject hurt and trauma.

And your last personel attack......

I really hope you’re not this bitter and unpleasant in real life whenever someone disagrees with you

I think that statement say it all, charming.

Sorry that was for @Baws

@TabithaTittlemouse

An affair is always a mistake. Not ending one relationship before you embark on a new one is always wrong.

This is truth. But even when people end a relationship because they have feelings for someone else when nothing has gone on, they still get called a cheat. Speaking from experience.

@Onthedunes
Do you always attack anyone who has different experiences and views to you? I will call out anyone who makes sweeping generalisations. Are you suggesting that your husband should have stayed with you despite being unhappy? Life is far too short for that! It sounds like you need counselling so that you can let go of the bitterness and move on with your life.

You made a sweeping generalisation earlier in the thread @Baws !

@Useresque

As I said that is my experience from friends and family. I appreciate every situation is different. I’m glad you are happier without your ex as I am. My only regret is that I wasted 20 years on him!

I will call out anyone who makes sweeping generalisations

I never said that.

I said "I will call anyone out for using patronising language like that when it is aimed at people who have been through abject hurt and trauma."

Your choice of words are inflamatory to the point where readers would seriously believe whether you have ever been betrayed and that is probably the unspoken truth of others.

Many people currently experiencing betrayal would read your terminology and baulk, women who are at their lowest and trying to claw their self esteem back or assemble some meaning of life again.

To hear you call people bitter is offensive and deeply unsympathetic and does not aid anyone who has been abused.

Are you suggesting that your husband should have stayed with you despite being unhappy? Life is far too short for that! It sounds like you need counselling so that you can let go of the bitterness and move on with your life

This is a corker ! I can't even lower myself to answer that one.

‘The MN idea of the evil husband cheating on his doting blissfully unaware wife is not the reality in most cases. In the vast majority of cases there are at least signs that one person is checking out even if it’s not blatantly obvious that a marriage is in trouble. Most people can tell if their partner is not fully invested in the marriage.’

Maybe so BUT that doesn’t mean they for one minute believe their spouse is capable of betraying them in such an appalling way, even ‘if’ they sense a disconnect; otherwise I’m sure they wouldn’t have married them! This is why betrayal is such a huge shock. It’s the discord between your belief about the person you hold dear and their ability to hurt you. Your reality being shattered.

And I totally agree with @Onthedunes

@Baws ‘Bitter’ is an appalling word to throw at a MN poster who articulately describes the the pain of infidelity and who had consistently supported anyone going through the same pain.

There's a massive discord you're right @Ladybugzrock

My STBXH was having sex with me knowing he had picked up genital warts from one of the prostitutes he had been seeing. Thank God I eventually noticed them on him. But yes my reality was obliterated.

What is appalling is the MN judging of people having affairs and the refusal to accept that affairs are a symptom rather than a cause in most cases. Of course relationships starting as affairs can lead to happiness, it’s absurd to claim that they can’t. My ex had affairs not only because he was an arsehole but our marriage clearly wasn’t working. Threads like this always attract the irrational types who attack anyone else who disagrees with their closed views. If I’m coming across in anyway antagonistic it’s due to being totally fed up with this Victorian view that affairs are some sort of crime. I did not say that it isn’t difficult for a betrayed spouse to go through it, my divorce was the most stressful period of my life. But over time people should be able to move on. Some people on here are full of bitterness and don’t seem to be able to move on years later. This is not healthy for anyone. Certain posters are thoroughly unpleasant towards anyone who expresses any opinion that differs from theirs.

This thread has helped me immensely to balance different views on affairs.

My exh left for ow and dropped the bomb on the foundations of our life. It ruined us and his relationship with our friends and our children.

However the thought that the judging of affairs is old fashioned is - in my opinion - not one I agree with. It's the dishonestly and disruption caused by affair that's being judged.

[quote Freedom22]@Eleganz did you consider that it’s not easy to be the person to leave? That you can stay somewhere for other people or for the sake of not rocking the boat for too long. Yes you should leave first but I can see how overlap happens and I think it does more than people admit[/quote]
It is no easier or harder for the one leaving as opposed to the one being left. You will never get me to feel sorry for my ex or accept that he was somehow "driven" to an affair by his deep unhappiness. He made a shitty decision because he lacked the moral fibre and self-control to make the right decision. He simply wasn't thinking about me or his family at all, he was infatuated and thinking he could get away with it.

I was the one that ended up calling a day on my marriage and filing for divorce when I realised that I could not trust him properly ever again. It was hard (hence why I tried to reconcile), but I didn't need to have an affair to do it.

Something being hard does not excuse making bad choices.

I really don't understand why people are so keen to normalise affairs and see them as no big deal. I suspect they either a) haven't been on the receiving end of one or b) have their own issues with their own situations that they think this line of thinking will help them some how.

I suppose when its the primary relationship that was the mistake, and the APs are better matched than they are with their spouses, but didn't meet each other first. I know of a few couples who are far happier with their AP than they were with the spouses they left them for, have remained in long term relationships with the AP and haven't cheated again. So arguably their getting together was not a mistake, they were just mistaken in thinking the best way to get together was an affair.

@5128gap
Exactly! I know a few people in the same situation. It’s hard to leave a marriage when there are DC etc. However wrong it might be to start a new relationship whilst still being in an unhappy marriage, many people do it. This does not make them bad people. We are all human and nobody is perfect!
People are more inclined to leave if they have somewhere and something to go to.

Some women aren't as shiny as they appear to be though. I understand why some men have affairs. My friend did, his wife would use the children against him at any opportunity if he tried to leave and he was terrified of losing them. I'm not surprised he ended up having an affair! She is awful.

He has left now though and it's costing him thousands in courts to see his children as she has gone to the other side of the country with the children to punish him. So when people say "just leave" how easy is that really though? I've seen both sides of affairs. I've also seen a marriage break down with no affair and that was just as hurtful to the party not wanting it. So nobody can win really can they? I don't judge people that have affairs, I don't think they are bad people. I think it's shitty, yes but so is staying in a marriage with a person you don't love anymore.

Mine could have been the real thing. In terms of feelings, compatibility, connection, kindness, understanding. He showed me things I'd never had in my marriage and in other circumstances we'd have worked. My marriage ended and his hasn't. He has young children and doesn't feel he can leave. I know he is in love with me but his children come first.

As they should!

“Are you suggesting that your husband should have stayed with you despite being unhappy? Life is far too short for that! It sounds like you need counselling so that you can let go of the bitterness and move on with your life”

@Baws whatever happened to #bekind?
You don’t know the circumstances surrounding @Onthedunes experiences, you have no evidence of what their relationship was like, yet you have suggested that her husband must have been unhappy and left her without a backwards glance and was glad to do so and had he stayed would have been stuck in an unhappy relationship. You say that she is bitter and within a only a few posts have decided she needs counselling. “Advice” dished out without an ounce of compassion or sympathy. “You need counselling” actually reads here as an insult. Nobody can possibly know enough about anyone on MN to make judgments like that and they are only designed to hurt. In this case to hurt someone you already know by their brave admission on here has probably been hurt enormously already.