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).

Lagore I'm so sorry

Reading that brings home the guilt once again, massively.
Did you blame her or your father more? Or just both?

good post flighty. i applaud you.

dont do it, kids! just aint never right imho.

x posts FA

i blame them both. they put themselves and their own fun ahead of the peace of mind of children. which is pretty nasty.

i love him to bits, that would never be dampened, but i was horribly let down to discover he did that. i hated her with a passion. but it was just as much him really. prob more so.

whatever, its all way in the past - and you need not feel any guilt now, your long post shows what you learned, i think you deserve a little peace

Bit humble by that

God you're a nice person

Flightattendent, what an honest moving post, I really admire you for being able to post that. What an awful situation all around.

Anna, I do so agree with you, if only these things and peoples relationships were so simple and cut and dried

Snappy I can totally understand your view point, I do think that things perhaps aren't so simple but I can understand why you feel like you do. I'm so sorry that family life was so hard for you due to other peoples selfishness (and I do think anyone involved with an affair is being utterly selfish)I hope that life is treating you far better these days.

oh dont be daft, youve paid your penance! you dont need to feel guilt forever you know, what good would that do?? you were young, we've all made mistakes. its learning from them that counts in my book.

but thanks for the compliment

Personally, I think affairs are very easy to understand but divorce if there are children of the marriage often puzzles me and I'm rather judgmental of it.

Thanks but I can't take any credit...I was being utterly selfish all the time I was part of it.
All I can say is that it wasn't something taken (or stolen) lightly. Not the stereotypical 'I'm having fun, stuff them' but 'What the f*ck do I do, I can't make myself leave'.

Big mess for everyone but particularly the innocent parties .

x posts again! Thankyou

NKF - but why? Lots of people are better parents when they are in a relationship that makes them happy. A miserable mother/father who has lost all confidence and lets her/his partner walk all over her/him and the children is not a good parent (to give just one example).

Why? Well, obviously I think wretchedly unhappy adults do not make good parents. But I don't see why slightly bored ones or not totally fulfilled ones can't do just fine. And I think even the miserable ones think they're better parents once they've left but the children wouldn't necessarily agree.

Hmm. Don't really agree. I think that children too can be much happier with two happy homes rather than one miserable one. Obviously all children would rather have one happy home. But that is sometimes totally unattainable.

ooh issnt htis intersting

But what about the mid ground Anna. Not the bad marriages. The slightly stale ones? The ones lacking in sexual passion? The safe brother and sister type ones? People might be happier with new loves but probably their children will be hurt.

Personally I think that dull, brother/sister type marriages are bad marriages. Now that doesn't mean I think those couples should necessarily divorce - but I do think that you have a duty to yourself, your partner and your children to make your family life better than that. So - go to Relate or whatever else you can think of of and discuss what your life together is and could/should be about.

Ah, we differ there. I think dull marriages are not good but neither are they bad.

First of all flightatendant - RESPECT
But snappys posts shows why some of us are so angry and hurt - our Dc are the ones who suffer the most - and FWIW I hate and despise H and OW equally but unfortunately am stuck with H as he is father of my DC - OW I have no such ties to and so am freer to despise her far more

I very much come from a family (parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles) that doesn't "do" dull. Dull is bad, dull is lazy, unimaginative. We have a moral responsibility to ourselves and others to make life interesting and fun.

children learn by example. do you really want to teach them that life is all about putting up and shutting up with second best? not to even aim for happiness coz its just not important?

Exactly, Snappy . I definitely don't want my children to learn that you have to put up with dullness.

i have a morbid fear of dull. mediocre is my idea of hell on earth. to be in a relationship like that would kill me a little more each day. what kind of a mother woul;d i be then?

no siree, im with anna on this one

Also, people often fall in love/lust with someone else and the perfectly okay marriage suddenly becomes intolerable. I think the level of self deceit practised by deserting spouses is very high.

There might be 20 years of happy marriage and now it's not good enough, they must find themselves, they have a different calling. The amount of claptrap talked by men and women keen to leave is extraordinary.

I don't believe that aiming for happiness is the goal of life. Certainly not.

But why should we still entertain the ideal that marriage be for life anyway? When the reality is that most relationships don't last the course. 50 odd years is an awfully long time to be with just one person.

Is that question aimed at me?