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

[TaniaShwain]

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?

Lets be real, he won’t stay faithful and will stay as long as it’s convenient for him. She has no control here and will constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She is simply handing her H to hammer to chip away at her self respect. That’s no way to live but it is her prerogative.

I guess it could work if BOTH husband and wife work at it and he truly cuts contact with OW. I just don't know if I could be with someone openly knowing they've told me that they love someone else. Subconsciously I would always be worrying that OW was in his thoughts.

I don't have a lot of self confidence when it comes to men so I couldn't ever stay with a DH who was in love with someone else. I would positively encourage them to leave. Even if they came to their senses, the trust would be gone and I would doubt that their love was genuine, so I wouldn't take them back.

If the affair hadn't progressed that much, I think I could forgive. It would depend, if he was sacrificing family time to spend it with the OW or if he was neglecting his family?
Do you know for sure he's told his wife this? That sort of man tends to tell his wife one thing and his mistress another thing.

I would ask him what he means when he says he's in love with the OW. Does he mean that he prefers spending time with OW to spending time with his family? Is he more attracted physically to OW than he is to DW? Who does he see himself growing old with? Does he feel he has more in common with this new woman than he does with his wife? Has he changed as a person since he got married?
Asking these questions can help to unpack what exactly is going on.

If you are friends with the wife I’d advise her to see a solicitor and see where she stands financially if they divorced in the future. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Even with ‘work’, if my DH had to ‘work’ at loving me and not cheating on me or treating me like crap, it would not be worth the wrecking ball to my self esteem.

Contact with the OW is irrelevant. it happens so often. The knee jerk reaction after affair discovery is to show the OW that you as the wife have been ‘chosen’. That as if cutting off contact with the OW will fix everything and make the problem go away. Again, it’s denial. The OW is a symptom, not the cause. And I don’t necessarily mean a symptom of a problem in the marriage although clearly the marriage is deeply troubled. It’s primarily down to the man being selfish and entitled as regardless of the state of a relationship, cheating is a choice.

I do think it’s a different matter if it’s a friendship that’s gone a bit too far and you realise, and make steps yourself to rectify, engage in open and honest communication with your partner and put more effort into your relationship or marriage without being forced to because you were ‘found out’.

But if it’s a full-on affair, there’s deep feelings involved, and/or sex, just no. The primary relationship is over in all the ways that matter.

I disagree that a primary relationship would be over.

People make mistakes. I expect pretty much every person on the planet has at some stage thought the grass was greener. We all get stuck in a rut, take people for granted, long-term partners can become part of the furniture without us even noticing that's happening.

Cheating, particularly sexual, long term, and / or multiple partners is not a mistake, it’s a choice.

and if you only stop because you’ve been found out… well that speaks for itself.

It sounds like a miserable life for all parties, and will only get more so as time goes on.

Why are you so invested in this then? The outcome can depend on so many factors, maybe family unit is more important than an “emotional affaire” for the wife and husband, maybe the other woman is using this emotional affaire to throw some steam but has no intention to break her family etc too many unknow variables in order to know if this may work in the long run or not .

My husband left his first wife after his affair with another woman turned into a great love.
Their marriage was rocky and she was cheating on him. He met this great love who was also married, she eventually went back to her husband supposedly following parental pressure and suicide threats from her husband.
H moved on, eventually, met another married woman - see the pattern - again another seemingly great 2nd love - again it failed and he met and had a child with someone else.
They separated.
We met and married. A few years in, after moving to a different part of the country, he started meeting the second love casually for a drink when he went back 'home' said it was just friendly - I did and do believe him, although he started texting messages like sorry I missed you catch up next time. I also found he'd sent her flowers at Christmas. He chatted on the phone too whilst out. I gave him an ultimatum and it ended.
We emigrated to France where he started stalking his 1st great love online..finding her phone number etc.. I caught him out several times..he even had her address and phone number in his pocket..she was in another country.
He said he couldn't seem to get over her- 25 years on! He asked if we could get through this .. stupidly I said yes as long as he stopped the pathetic seemingly endless stalking, which he did. However both of these goings on destroyed the marriage ..I should have left..now I don't care. I wish he'd clear off and find her but he won't. He's a great one for looking backwards and celebrating what he had instead of what he's got.

Tbh, I can't see the husband not resenting his wife and pining for the affair partner.

In my opinion, if you're going to take back a marriage after a betrayal, it has to be because both of you want to fight for each other. There has to be passion, regret, and love to even start to make it work and to stop it from happening again. There's none of that here.

I don't understand how anyone can think this is beneficial for the children.

Nope. He’s already said he doesn’t love Dw. Her self esteem would be shot to pieces, constantly wondering if he’s going to leave. He’d be gone if he was my DH and said he didn’t love me anymore.

they only met for cofee yeah right

is that his version-they could ave sex anywhere a hotel room a car etc

You can't be in love with someone you've never met in person.

However, this man is clearly looking for someone else.

My father had affairs the whole 23 years he was married to my mother - they stayed together 'for the kids'...the reality is my Catholic mother didn't want the shame of being divorced/lose the lifestyle and my father was a coward.

He finally left my mother for another woman 6 months after my younger brother turned 18. Put down like that you'd say them staying together worked, however it was pretty obvious to myself and my two brothers that they were both deeply unhappy with each other for at least a good decade before the split...and our 'family' life together was pretty non-existent. It was a horrible, depressing and stressful way to grow up.

I'm 54 and I'm still very angry with both of them. They were selfish pricks who put themselves before their children.

They will just end up resenting each other and teach their kids what a relationship should not be. He should have ended the marriage before the affair but that's done now. He will resent her for giving up a chance of love and intimacy and she will resent him for loving someone else. They are doing their children no favours by staying together

Seems to be the resounding answer to all of this..
I personally think a marriage of convenience doesn't teach a child how to form healthy relationships in the future.

I wouldn’t put up with it, no way! The marriage is over, the poor wife just hasnt come to terms with it yet. She may try and cling on, and the husband will likely say he has given up the OW, but in reality he will just try and cover his tracks better. Sad situation all round.

It might not be a marriage of convenience to his wife. His wife might genuinely want the marriage to work and it sounds like she does if she is prepared to forgive him.
Are we supposed to be answering the question from the point of view of the wife or of the husband?

This all depends on housing situations and things like that. Also depends on child access including whether he will want 50/50 and how that would impact children and mum.

So it's all circumstantial and input won't really matter for that reason.

Having said that I can see a situation where a married couple might stay married and raise a family as married friends and co-parents while they also pursue their personal lives in separate bedrooms. But I think such a situation would be rare because feelings and logistics would get in the way.

I suppose ultimately circumstances play a huge part of it

I don’t think I could stand it…although I have been unhappy in my relationship and stayed because we have a very good standard of life.

I like to think that I love DP so much that if he was genuinely happy/in love with someone else then I would have to let him go. I couldn’t sleep next to him knowing that…

I think this is valid,what I’ve learned from this site is often women stay becayse they value the lifestyle more than they value the actual relationship. They aren’t staying as they are madly in love. It’s fear of being alone, starting again, financial constraints, the house etc. it’s seldom the husband himself.