Is it Possible to fall in love from an affair

[3117e]

So I really need some non judgmental advice please.
If your going to tell me how much of a bad person I am please don’t I already know!

So me and my partner became friends with another couple who we met through friends. Over time we got closer and closer until the 4 of us pretty much became best friends. They have 2 primary aged children and we have 1.

Anyway over a period of time me and her partner became close like really close friends but it became apparent that we both fancied each other etc;

Anyway fast forward a few months we find ourselves having a full blown affair any opportunity we bet we’re ‘at it’ the passion in it is just something else, something I’ve never had with my partner.

If we’re wt each other’s houses and I go to the toilet he finds and excuse to come upstairs to grab me or kiss me if only for a few seconds. We’ve spoke and both said no feelings were ever meant to come into it but they have.

Anyway I find myself thinking about him literally day and night; we see each other regularly as friends or one on one.

It’s very apparent neither of us are happy at home and we very much have the same needs and wants.

Jokes have been made by other friends saying how me and him are alike and my partner and his partner are alike how we should swap.

But I just want to know is it possible to keep this going?

We both very much want each other but don’t want to ruin our families at the same time.

Please no hate I hate myself enough but sometimes you can’t help it.

@onlythreenow and there you go proving my point!

Leave your partner.
make a fresh start.
If the guy is interested in you he will leave his wife.

stop sneaking around. Stop messing about as your actions at the moment could blow two families apart and he may possibly want nothing to do with you after to save face with his partner or family.

you will be the one tarred as the affair started by both families and wider circle.

your current actions risk so much.

have the balls to stand on your own two feet. Tell your partner you no longer love them etc.
leave. And see how the future plays out.

otherwise you will forever be the other woman and that’s all people will remember you as - the home wrecker.

we both spent part of the week working away from home, at the time my dexh was away a lot too, so effectively i was living a single life
We chose the puppy together, and pup travelled with me, so when we were together away from home pup was there , then i would take pup back with me , if that makes sense ?

This sounds awfully familiar... now sat here wondering if you're my best friend having an affair with my partner? 🤔

It can happen. I had an affair after 25 years of marriage. Left my husband, and had to live with the hurt that this caused. Moved in with my affair partner, and we were married five years later. This year we will celebrate 20 very happy years together.

If you've got young children it'll be hard, so prepare yourself for some difficult times ahead.

@Theredjellybean

Yes, that makes sense, thanks for explaining. I was struggling to understand how that could work but with that set-up it is doable.

Please don’t think this. I don’t know who you are or where your from but I know full well this wouldn’t be ‘her’

She doesn't get to pick which man she wants. Funnily enough he also gets a say and since one doesn't know she's a liar and a cheat and the other has clearly said he doesn't see himself in a relationship, it seems she doesn't have a choice at all. She is lying and deceiving her partner with whom she has a child. She is also lying and deceiving her friend whose husband/partner she is shagging. She's undoubtedly lied to her child about where she's been and what she's been up to and probably his kids.

If she wanted to figure stuff out, she would remove herself from this horrible situation (of her own making), try being honest with people and deal with the outcomes. But she isnt. She's maintaining a lie, hurting people and, to be quite frank, acting like a pathetic, nasty piece of work.

Are you the OP?

@3117e so now that you've considered your own feelings and possible outcomes, when are you going to take into consideration your families? Or do you only consider their feelings and future when it suits you?
I get you don't want judgey replies OP. I'm not saying you chose this. But you have made a choice and it really seems that you are ONLY considering what is going to work for you.

My ex did this with my friend, the fall out has been horrific. Our 16 year old no longer speaks to him, she lived next door and moved much to the upset of her two children.

Its been embarrassing like something of Jeremy Kyle, he now lives with my friend. Her children don’t speak to him. Our 4 year old is confused as to why Dad now lives with our old neighbour.

The whole thing is a mess. You will get caught out in the end and people will judge you, stop talking to you and see you as an absolute bitch. When the excitement is over he will most likely move on.

There will be mo winners.

@3117e

This book may provide some.good advice

Affair!: How to Have Your Cake and Eat it Paperback – 18 Feb. 2005
by H. Cameron. Barnes

Available on Amazon/eBay

I think you need to be more careful. Behaving that way when your partners are around isn’t clever. Is this just lust. If you get found out the fall out will be huge. Imagine the whole playground talking about you with someone else’s husband? How will that affect your child when your with their friends dad? I suggest you get some counselling to decide how you got into this situation. Often affairs end I think because you both want different things. Women generally are emotionally attached for men it is about sex. Have you spoken to the guy your seeing about the future? Think of your husband and what you really want. I would say your marriage isn’t that suitable if this is where you are at?

@Musmerian “there’s no distinction (on Mumsnet) between serial philanderers and people who fall in love while already married.” There’s a huge distinction between the two types of cheat where feelings are concerned, yes. Much more nuanced. However: One is a cheat in love and the other is a cheat who isn’t. But both are cheats. There’s no grades of moral high ground in cheating, no excuses for making an immoral deliberate choice to lie and deceive the person you have made promises of monogamy to. You’re not in a superior moral position just because you fell in love if you lied to and deceived your partners in an affair to satisfy it. I doubt they would say “oh, you were in love? Well, that’s alright then, in that case I really don’t mind that you lied to me and sneaked around behind my back.” Never met anyone who said that, but I know plenty who said “Why did they have to cheat? If they loved someone else why didn’t they just bloody tell me?”
The decent moral thing to do was to realise how you felt, tell your partner, give them the choice to act like a single person that you availed yourself of, leave, and then enter your new relationship. No, it’s but always easy but the right thing to do isn’t always easy. But it’s still the right thing to do. People fall in love with others and they can’t help that, but they can most certainly help the way they deal with it. A cheat is still a cheat, whether they are in love or not. The awful results for the person who got betrayed feel exactly the same.

OP, if you feel so guilty, why haven’t you at least shut down the upstairs degradation of your families? You could choose to act decently when your ‘loved ones’ are present downstairs. As you haven’t put a stop to it, it seems that you both must be getting a charge out of making fools of your partners and children. This isn’t love. This is seediness.

You're getting a kick out of doing this in such close proximity to your actual partners, in their homes. The homes all your kids live in.

It's especially vile to be doing it in your homes.

This is the sort of shit that leaves spouses with genuine trauma.

Grow up, shit or get off the pot.

He doesn't like you the way you like him. You've admitted that yourself. You're both cheats, you're romanticising it and he's literally told you outright that there's not future in it. It's embarrassing.

You're risking your partners mental health and your childrens wellbeing for some illicit affair with a bloke who isn't really that into you.

Bleurgh.

Name changed for this as don't want it linked to anything.

I have been in this situation, not quite the same we weren't all good friends like this, but everyone knew eachother.

We are now together but it has NOT been easy, it has caused a lot of pain and the relationship has not been plain sailing.

I feel like we are in a good place now but it's taken a while to get here. Kids have had to adjust, exes have rightly so been very angry and upset. Living together has had its challenges.

We did fall in love and we do love eachother, we still have great sex, it's been 4-5 years now. We do trust eachother despite being told we wouldn't. Both our exes are happy now but we still hurt them and it wasn't ok.

Would I do it again? God no. But we are where we are.

What I have to say is though, don't leave for eachother hoping it'll work. I left because I knew I needed to, I wasn't happy and I had done something we couldn't come back from. I chose to leave, I told DP, I'm leaving, we are done. You make your own decisions, I'm not waiting round for you because I despite what I've done deserve better than that. So you come back to me if you leave and we'll see where we are at. Or you stay, make a go of your relationship and either tell her or don't, I will not tell her that's your call.

He left shortly after but I wasn't banking on it, nor did I think we would actually work long term when reality kicked in. We have and I hope we last the long haul so at least that's something out of the mess.

I honestly don't think many couples would survive the trauma post affair to give it a real go. Despite being one that has, that's my honest opinion. And I think you need to know the reality, without the judgement, which is why I am telling you.

If you don’t respect your actual partner enough to remain faithful and honest to him then you need to leave him, regardless of what you’re doing with anyone else.

You know the answer to your question already.

If you want to be with him (and actually, even if you don't), you have to come out with it and be honest, and yes, that is going to be very tough for your current partners and children to handle. Your friendship group will never be the same again - it won't be able to weather this. That's just how it is.

I feel for you because it is very difficult to choose who we fall in love with. However, you have acted wrongly by doing this in secret and your poor partners are going to be devastated.

I hope you make the right choice and I recommend getting a good counsellor to help you through it.

Everything you're excited by would be weird in a relationship. If my husband snuck up the stairs to intercept me every time I went for a wee, it would be both tedious and alarming.

You're excited by this because it's not a partnership. You aren't the ones paying bills, raising kids, doing housework, changing nappies, cleaning up puke etc together. You are the bastards who are destroying your partners self esteem and ability to trust and breaking your children's families up behind their backs, knowingly, for the sake of cheap thrills.

You don't want to be shamed? You should be so, so ashamed. Normal people don't choose to give the people they "love" lifelong trust issues. They don't choose to break hearts just so they can get some illicit fucking.

But no. No, it's not love. It's clingy infatuation and you can bet your household income (which will shortly split in two) that he would drop you like you were contaminated if his partner found anything out. You need to tell your partner and he needs to tell his. It's not fair on them, you pair of utter garbage human beings.

It's the deception which is the problem op.

Both of your partners thinking they are off for a night with friends, everyone laughing together, you two fabricating reasons to covertly grope each other, thinking about having sex while you are away from each other.

You are pretending to be in a relationship with your partner but lying to him every minute of every day.

Nothing is real in your life. It is the shot way for you, your partner and your dd to live. The only difference is you have a choice whereas your partner is just a deceived fool.

I am typing this sat in new home with my new partner who was an affair partner.

It can work, but it's not easy. I left my husband for him, he left his partner for me.

It has caused upset - obviously.

We both still have moments when jealousy about our pasts rear their ugly heads.

He was in an abusive relationship (not him saying that, I know this) I was literally bored after over 20 years. My husband wanted me to stay for companionship.

It can work, but you have to be honest, with your current partners and each other, stop sneaking around. We told our partners after a few months, as we didn't want to mess around any more.

Good luck with whatever you do, I won't judge, pm me if you want.