Sucessful relationship with AP's

[27penny]

How many of you have met current partner through an affair or an overlap in relationships.. did it work out? Looking to hear of sucess stories.. i know this will get knickers in a twist but i have read a few on here that are in a happy relationship with someone they met whilst in a relationship

My DH and I met when I was newly separated and he was still married. Not our proudest moment, but we have been together 23 years now.

Met exh when he was married. He pursued me and I was surprised when he left his wife - really did not ask for it or expect it. We were married 25 years (five years longer than his previous marriage) Now divorced.
Do not recommend marrying an AP.

Meh, of course there are cases of ‘happy’ relationships post affair but coming looking for individual cases doesn’t look at the whole picture. Studies have been carried out and the results are pretty conclusive.

‘According to WebMD, the “in love” stage of an affair lasts 6 to 18 months, on average. And around 75% of marriages that start as affairs end in divorce. Considering only 5 to 7% of affair relationships lead to marriage, that's a grim statistic for couples hoping their affairs will last forever.’

That’s pretty grim reading. Seek confirmation bias all you like. It’s generally a disaster waiting to happen. I know so many men who even if they stayed with the AP still whine to their ex about how they made the wrong decision, who wants that?

OP are you currently an AP?

i have been both an AP (I was single he was married) and then married to a man who had APs (the same man). I never had affairs myself when married.

I am now seeing a man (18 months in) who is separated but still living platonically in the same house as his wife /he lives the life of a single man but they cannot afford to live in two houses as they have children in their late teens. Not ideal situation and I know we are very unlikely to be together in the long term as I find it hard to think off him sharing mundane domestic decisions with her and I don’t believe they will ever be in a position to split finances as she was a SAHM for years and is now very low paid job (TA) and this is an expensive area.
Ironically as an AP I envied his wife still living with him, then as a wife I envied the AP having all fun and romance while I was the boring wife and now I am back to envying the wife even though they are just housemates now with no sex or romantic life together.

A person having an affair is capable of lying to a person they’re in a relationship with. A person having an affair with someone they know is married has a very low bar and low self esteem (which they’ll deny). Sounds perfect, what could go wrong?

My cousin married her AP, as did her dm before her. The family laughed about it. I was the only one who thought it was shite.

They’re also 3-4 times more likely to cheat again than someone who has never had an affair (university of Denver study). I don’t subscribe to ‘once a cheat always a cheat’ but certainly ‘once a cheat, very much more likely to cheat again’. I just don’t get how anyone could possibly think that their cheat is SO different to all the others?!

I think it depends on the circumstances. A serial cheater, probably not as they'll probably cheat again; but ones that meet at work or similar, have strong feelings and end up leaving their partners have in my experience. In some ways the relationship might be more likely to be successful if it's the 'second time around' so to speak. Like anything, it varies so don't think you'd know either way. Often an affair is already someone in an unhappy relationship who would've left anyway if they had the opportunity

Someone I know married his affair partner. I assume they are happy. But he did lose his kids in the process. Once the kids found out about him cheating on their mum they cut contact and most mutual friends stayed friends with the wife. I am polite to his wife, but would never spend time with her outside my husband and her husband catching up.
So the relationship worked, it stuffed up the remainder of his life.

Of course it can work out, like any other relationship, but it's a lot harder to trust someone that you already know is capable of cheating.

I've been with my AP for coming up 3 years which isn't long, my father has been with my stepmother for over 30 and he's always been much happier with her than my mother. Sometimes we marry wrong and make mistakes but it doesn't mean we'll be untrustworthy forever, no one knows the exact circumstances and there's not a one size fits all answer to your question.

Oh i know there isn't one size fits all answer just looking for people's experiences. I agree that people often marry wrong when they are young and get stuck in a marriage with kids finances etc. @hay5689 are you both married or just you? Do you plan to be togther properly

@letthatmango i have read those same stats but those are based on remarriage and god knows in what country. So its not really accurate as not everyone gets remarried but i hear ya.. stats aren't great just curious as i have seen a few pop up on different threads about people who met while in a relationship, not seeking confirmation bias

@Calibrate can i ask how long you were seeing each other before you got together properly

I was an AP - partner was engaged though I was single. She told me she was unhappy with her partner and that I was the real deal. We got married, had kids, the whole shebang and everyone waxed lyrical about how good we were for each other, how strong our relationship was, how her ex fiancé hadn’t really been that suitable at all and sometimes you meet the right person in inconvenient circumstances. Every year she’d write a page on how lucky and grateful she was to have met me on my birthday card.

Then 12 years in… Boom! Had an affair with someone, I discovered it, we divorced. In process discovered she’d cried tears of joy when her fiancé proposed to her only to cheat on him with me a month later.

Read into that whatever you will.

Now with someone who’s never cheated.

Genuinely curious, how can you possibly trust him? He's already cheated on one wife, what's stopping him cheating on you?

SO’s ex had an affair, and is still with her AP. I met SO a few months later, and his ex crafted a story that we’d been having an affair, and her SO was just a friend who moved in to save her and then romance blossomed. I expect quite a lot of her friends and their acquaintances still think my SO and I had the affair.

Anyway, they’re still together four years on and apparently happy. Tbh I think the marriage was on the rocks for a long time and his ex just took an easy route out because she didn’t want to be single (but also wanted to be the innocent party, hence lying about me).