Have any of you married your "lover"?

[MoreSpamThanGlam]

What I mean is, have you been the other woman and he left and then you got married?

Or have you/are you the other woman?

AND - does this mean that you are a troll of the relationship type (marriage wrecker/evil queen).

ok a lot of the time people stress that you must not give up on your relationship with your partner , you must try and make it work, not give up, etc you can do this for years and years and in the process you may do two things make yourself and or your partner very depresssed and become more likely to fall into a friendship or dependent relationship outside that partnership and thirdly you have subjected ypur children to the pain of your misery

and still in the end the relationship can break down

that's hard..you can be concentrating so hard on not breaking up that the disintegration happens through depression and exhaustion

a lot of people try really hard not to get divorced...sometimes that effort is an enormous price to pay in mental health which might have been better avoided

You know, soapbox, when my partner and his ex-wife were separating (I was not around at that point, let that be clear), quite a few of his friends tut-tutted at what was going on, and took the moral highground.

Since he has great sang-froid, he just stood back and waited... and now, several years down the line, many if not most of those who took the moral high ground then have shown themselves in a far less favourable light .

Life is long. You have no idea what will happen to you in future. Do not be too vocal in your condemnation of infidelity or other behaviours just because, up until now, you have managed to be "good".

I would like to think that I would have run a mile if he had kids, but I was quite young and selfish, so who knows? Now I'm a mother myself, I would never in a million years have an affair with a married man, father or not, and if I were ever to be single again and 'on the market' I would approach a relationship even with a single man with kids carefully - children are a whole other dimension.

AnneMayesR - waiting is a problem - it is agonising.

My partner and I had to live in different countries for 19 months. It was extraordinarily painful.

I think what I was trying to say is that if you invest a huge amount of emotional energy into not splitting up..then you can end up too wasted to break up in an organised, amicable and sophisiticated fashion

Issy - you know, I just don't know couples where it has been "a huge big deal" for the couple and children. Most people here (in Paris) choose to live very close to one another so that the children can come and go easily. Lots of families share the nanny (ie nanny plus children commute between two houses). Children carry on at the same schools.

I do know one family where the mother left the father for her boss and took the children off to a desert island for a while. The father remarried (we are very friendly with that couple) and the children are shared three years with one family and three years with the other. Even they are doing fine.

Anna - I very much doubt that I could commit adultery but as you say, life takes uncertain paths at times.

This is not about the moral high ground (despite my last tongue in cheek comment) but rather about trying to understand, in a place where one can ask openly, what drives someone to hurt their partner (and children) in such a public and devastating way.

It isn't actually about the OW at all, but about the partner who leaves a relationship in such a horrible way.

If anything, I feel sorry for the OW, to start a relationship in such a way is to lose out on the unfettered joy that one normally has at the beginning of a new relationship. I don't imagine it is easy at all!

Fear has a lot to do with it.I think unhappy people often look for a way out of their relationship, and an affair is probably the most common way out. I'm not saying it's right, but I do understand it. Generally, people are unhappy for a long time but too scared and unmotivated to disrupt their whole lives by ending the relationship. They fall for someone else = it forces their hand. Either they want to leave, or they're forced to leave by their partner finding out about their infidelity. It would be much simpler if every unhappy person in the world decided to leave their partner in a civilised fashion, before starting another rleationship (although that still disrupts housing situations, finances and most importantly children), but in reality, it rarely happens like that.

soapbox - I have not divorced myself, so I don't know from personal experience.

But, looking at most couples I know who have separated/divorced despite settled lives (mortgages/children/long relationships), mostly the one who makes the first move out is the one whose confidence is being undermined in the couple ie the one who is suffering from lack of attention, care etc. Desperation for affection drives people into someone else's arms.

i do think that divorcing when you live in jet set wealthy circles your experience is going to be cushioned somewhat at least by lack of money worries

MotherFunker - I don't buy that argument. Why is it simpler if a couple divorces, sells up, buys two smaller properties, share out the children between two much more modest homes/lives each with a single parent? And only then is allowed to go looking for a new partner?

Surely much less hassle for everyone, children included, to go straight from the marital home to a new, reasonably-sized home with the next partner, with all the financial, material, practical and emotional support that gives?

I don't know...I honestly wouldn't want to say what was 'better' or not@Anna888. Different strokes for different folks. If I was leaving my husband for another man, no way would I move in with my lover straight away. No way. That's just me, though. I wouldn't say it's wrong in all circumstances.

hmm anna

the next partner may be poor

Anna: "NKF - children mostly are fine with divorce when outsiders aren't finger pointing and tut tutting and making their lives and the lives of their parents difficult - and when their parents don't feel that they have some kind of misguided duty to undermine one another but are able to move on and build a new and healthy life."

Children are NOT fine with divorce. That is an extraordinarily flippant statement to make. Even if the marriage was acrimonious, children still end up grieving over the loss of their family unit BEFORE they can move on to accept their respective parents' new family. If I were to get divorced, I strongly disagree that my first course of action is to find a new partner. My priority is to settle my children's emotional and financial arrangements before dragging a boyfriend into the mix.

As for tut-tutting from other people, believe me, when my mother was threatening divorce, the last thing on my mind was what other people thought. It might have weighed on my parents minds, but it was hardly a concern of mine or my siblings'.

Nowhere am I saying a couple must stick it out in an unhappy marriage. Of course I am sympathetic to motherfunkers', flightattendent's, zippi's scenarios and happy where things work out eventually.

But Anna, honestly, this advocating jumping into a another relationship pre-divorce is news to me.

When mnetters post my husband is an arse, or he is abusive or I am unhappy in my marriage, I don't remember anyone saying hey, go and find a bit on the side and see if that works, if so, go for it!

blueshoes - a friend of mine (have known her for eleven years) lives with her partner and two children just down the road from me.

When she moved in with her partner, over ten years ago, his previous girlfriend's clothes were still in the cupboard, so recently had she moved out. Hasn't stopped them from being happy together and having two children - and from the ex-girlfriend from getting married and having children. And them all being friends.

This is 2007 not 1957... [sigh emoticon].

Anna, is the era of the disposable relationship supposed to represent progress?

Good grief, this is peoples lifes we are dealing with here. Most people wouldn't rehome a dog with such undue haste

soapbox - this is not about disposable relationships.

This is about acknowledging that relationships end (and allowing them to do so without stigmatising people) and allowing people whose relationships have ended to move on and build new lives as soon as they are ready, rather than punishing them even more.

That is progress.

Have not read the whole thread but two of the best marriages I know started when the man was married and with a young kid - there was heartache at the time but 15+ years on they are really happy.

So it can work out.

blue shoes
i do actually remember somebody saying that....
as a way of helping the marriage survive..
true fact

Not read the thread, no, but the father of my children Married his lover.

They seem quite happy. I guess ( and it's a guess) they are not both as excited and passionate as they used to be when it was behind my back. Nothing like fighting for something is there. It's an amazing feeling when you get it.

I sometimes wonder what she feels now, he wasn't very nice to live with and she thought it was me. I wonder if he changed for her and they live in bliss. Who knows. I know as painfl as it was at the time, i am glad she won him.

"Have not read the whole thread but two of the best marriages I know started when the man was married and with a young kid - there was heartache at the time but 15+ years on they are really happy.

So it can work out."

If he had to break his kids and his eife's heart than it doesn't count. Happiness off of the backs of other people's suffering is not what I would call a good thing.

But Anne, my x made us suffer and i am glad he did, i am better for it and happier than i could know was possible.

I am not saying having an affair is a good thing, but sometimes good thing happen.

stuffitall, I am sure if Anna were on the thread, she would be saying that.

Anna, your friends' girlfriend had moved out already, no children involved - that's great. Would be more interesting if the old and new were under the same roof - oh I am so 1950s .

Anna, you are widening the issue to insist I am stigmatising blended families. Not at all. People make mistakes, people change. But that does not mean they abandon decency in their haste to get settled with new partners in the deluded belief that their happiness equals what their children want.

Someone has to be first in this race to find a new partner. And whether it is the man or woman, surely having an affair would make the spouse less inclined to be civil in a divorce, hurting the children even more. If doing the right thing means being alone and miserable for longer, it is a small price to pay for securing the children's stability and wellbeing. Why compound the complexity of the situation if you can avoid it?