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Original poster

Could you be with your husband knowing he's in love with someone else?

86 replies

TaniaShwain · 17/08/2022 08:41

Exactly that.

Husband has met someone else online and engaged in an emotional affair.

Wife doesn't want to end marriage separate and has told husband she's willing to forgive him as long as he severs contact with other woman.

Husband is willing to make marriage work for sake of children but he's admitted he's in love with other woman and isn't in love with wife but loves her as she's the mother of they're children and have been together many years.

Is it destined for failure or can it work?

OP posts:
JubileeTissues · 17/08/2022 09:29

Sounds like the script he's given to the OW who wanted the affair to go further to be honest. He was just there for an ego stroking - if he wanted to have sex with her he would've done.

"I love you but it's complicated"
"I have to stay for the kids"
"I'm not in love with my wife but it's complicated"

Blah blah blah.

The OW is deluded if she believes that crap.

Varoty · 17/08/2022 09:33

In that scenario I’d accept a marriage of convenience for the kids, at least until they were 18. Particularly if he was a high earner and his income could give the kids a better lifestyle than they’d have living with me as a single mother. It’s not fair to make your kids suffer just because you picked the wrong husband.

Malad · 17/08/2022 09:37

Why are you so interested if you are not involved?

No one other than the two people who met know what happened on the meets. Men lie all the time when they are caught. They will minimise as much as possible.

i Suppose it can work out but you would always wonder whether it will start again and knowing your husband loves someone else, can’t be easy. Is it love though or just lust?

When you have an affair, feelings are intense but might be very short lived.

Lots of people stay together for the kids and financial security. To be honest I’ve found in life that most relationships drift into the same Pattern of monotony after a few years. Some people are happy with that, others will seek thrills elsewhere. The internet has made it much easier.

MMmomDD · 17/08/2022 09:47

Emotional online affairs where people barely know each other in real life and met only briefly are 90% fantasy and escapism. He isn’t ‘in love’ with the other woman - he doesn’t really know her.
He may be many things - bored with married life; tired of responsibilities; scared of getting old - etc.

So - if they both want to stay together and rebuild their relationship - why not. It requires work on both sides but there is no reason why it can’t work out.

PainPainGoAwayToday · 17/08/2022 10:07

He will most likely continue the affair, he will just be better at hiding it. He’s unlikely to stop something with someone he loves, for someone he doesn’t. It’s also likely to progress to physical eventually (it probably already has, always amazes me when people think it hasn’t because there wasn’t “the opportunity”, people desperate to bang will make an opportunity out of anything- toilet, alleyway, hotel room but anyway…)

If he doesn’t then he will grow to hate the wife who made him end his love affair. He will have more affairs. Eventually he will leave. The wife will constantly be worried about who he is texting, where he is and what he might do.

It can’t end well. Staying together for the kids doesn’t work. He’s admitted where his loyalties are and shown her who he is, she needs to listen.

Luredbyapomegranate · 17/08/2022 10:16

It’s not necessarily doomed but it’s tough to come back from.

He has to really have seen what he would loose and to feel it wasn’t worth it.

She has to be secure enough as a person to forgive without debasing herself.

Luluella3 · 17/08/2022 10:26

It’s the beginning of the end when this happens.

initially it might seem like it will work but it’s just denial and fear on both sides. Also you shouldn’t settle for someone who isn’t in love with you. And how depressing knowing deep down they actually love someone else.

I think there is an initial period of ‘winning’ over the OW if the husband stays… and the pride - ‘look at what a strong couple we are. Standing for the marriage’… but eventually it becomes apparent it’s not really a win at all.

he’s staying out of obligation and duty. Resentment will build and it will falter eventually.
it may take years, but it will.

even more likely with long term emotional and physical affairs.

Dery · 17/08/2022 10:28

No advice but, God, this kind of love but not in love BS really irritates me. It’s so emotionally stunted.

He’s been going through the daily grind with his wife - of course, the OW looks shiny and new in comparison. It’s very likely that if the people who are the OW and the wife swapped roles (if you see what I mean), he would be pursuing the woman who is currently his wife.

Life is messy. Some affair partners do create deeply bonded LTRs but often the feelings are heightened by the illicit nature of the relationship and the longing that comes with not being able to be together whenever and without that it all crumbles.

ChiefWiggumsBoy · 17/08/2022 10:52

No.

No ifs, ands or buts - just No.

Cheminaufaules · 17/08/2022 10:57

There are different sorts of love.

There is the love a person feels for the mother of their children and then there's that heady 'in love' feeling which is often more prevalent in our teenage years.

When you take it back to the bare bones, there isn't that much difference between caring for and about a person, and, loving a person. When you want what's best for the other person, regardless of your own selfish desires, I would call that true love.

I think it could work.

Luluella3 · 17/08/2022 11:01

Cheminaufaules · 17/08/2022 10:57

There are different sorts of love.

There is the love a person feels for the mother of their children and then there's that heady 'in love' feeling which is often more prevalent in our teenage years.

When you take it back to the bare bones, there isn't that much difference between caring for and about a person, and, loving a person. When you want what's best for the other person, regardless of your own selfish desires, I would call that true love.

I think it could work.

I agree in principle but I think in the case of an affair, particularly physical and/or multiple affairs, the person has demonstrated that they don’t want what is best for you. That they don’t care if they hurt you. That is not true love, and any declaration of ‘love’ after discovery tends to truly just be guilt. If you truly loved someone, you would not intentionally hurt them.

I think it’s rare to come back from that. The relationship is never the same.

HollowTalk · 17/08/2022 11:03

I think it's impossible for anyone to end someone else's relationship - if the guy and the OW both want to continue it, they will, regardless of what his wife does.

As a previous poster said, it worked for her because her husband wasn't in love with the other woman. This case is different and I think within a month or so they'd be seeing each other again.

endofline · 17/08/2022 11:07

Cheminaufaules · 17/08/2022 10:57

There are different sorts of love.

There is the love a person feels for the mother of their children and then there's that heady 'in love' feeling which is often more prevalent in our teenage years.

When you take it back to the bare bones, there isn't that much difference between caring for and about a person, and, loving a person. When you want what's best for the other person, regardless of your own selfish desires, I would call that true love.

I think it could work.

But he hasn’t been caring for his wife above his selfish desires!

Cheminaufaules · 17/08/2022 11:08

I'm not really sure what the difference is when someone says they are 'in love' with one person and that they 'love' another. 'In love' implies a kind of infatuation. But infatuation does not endure; it develops into love.

Cheminaufaules · 17/08/2022 11:09

endofline · 17/08/2022 11:07

But he hasn’t been caring for his wife above his selfish desires!

Show quote history

I never said he was.

Jamaisy82 · 17/08/2022 11:11

I'd be long gone. If rather be alone.

AfterSchoolWorry · 17/08/2022 11:12

'Coffee date' means car sex.

endofline · 17/08/2022 11:12

JubileeTissues · 17/08/2022 09:29

Sounds like the script he's given to the OW who wanted the affair to go further to be honest. He was just there for an ego stroking - if he wanted to have sex with her he would've done.

"I love you but it's complicated"
"I have to stay for the kids"
"I'm not in love with my wife but it's complicated"

Blah blah blah.

The OW is deluded if she believes that crap.

Yes. Who did you hear this from OP? It does sound like the shit he’d tell his OW. Most men who have affairs, still want to believe they are ‘good men’ and this script, in their mind, allows them to believe that. It allows them to reframe themselves as making a sacrifice for both women, when, in reality, they have been a selfish arse who has used both women.

JudyGemstone · 17/08/2022 11:22

He’s not ‘in love’ with the woman he met online.

it’s not reality, it’s just infatuation and smoke and mirrors at this stage.

but to answer your question, no absolutely not it would be soul destroying.

ABrotherWhoLooksLikeHellMugYou · 17/08/2022 11:27

SurfBox · 17/08/2022 09:02

I couldn't stay with a man who was in love with someone else

easy to say when you aren't in that situation.

I was in this situation and I didn't. It broke me and my self confidence to be ignored and have him be emotionally intimate with someone else even if he wasn't physically intimate. I ended it and it was fucking hard, not going to lie, but I am so much happier he's gone than I was living that dark half life with a ghost of a husband.

I would never recommend any woman does that to herself.

HappyHamsters · 17/08/2022 11:27

Let the OW have him, it will soon fizzle out when she has to wash his dirty kacks, the novelty will soon wear off, she will dump him then he will be on his own. If he was a decent loving husband worth hanging on to then he wouldnt be looking for online dates in the first place .

Musttryharder2021 · 17/08/2022 11:38

This can "work" until children reach 18 and then he'll be out of the marriage.

Why would you want to stay in a relationship where the other person has admitted they aren't committed to you?

nottalot · 17/08/2022 12:02

Staying together for the kids absolutely fucks you sideways if you're the kid. It's a lie of convenience to yourself that it's better for them.

I honestly didn't believe that people could love each other until I met someone, thought it was all fake deep down and no one was really happy.

Luluella3 · 17/08/2022 12:17

nottalot · 17/08/2022 12:02

Staying together for the kids absolutely fucks you sideways if you're the kid. It's a lie of convenience to yourself that it's better for them.

I honestly didn't believe that people could love each other until I met someone, thought it was all fake deep down and no one was really happy.

Agreed, it looks like a noble sacrifice when in fact it’s just a cowardly decision based on fear.

it is better to model a healthy relationship to children. Obviously it’s better if both parents live each other and stay together, but if the relationship is unhealthy, far better to split, and kids pick up on more than you realise.

nottalot · 17/08/2022 12:25

Yeah - you don't even realise that your baseline assumptions about relationships are skewed, because it's all you know, and it's entirely unconscious.

It must make a phenomenal difference to be part of a family where your parents really truly care for each other.