‘Good’ men who suddenly leave for OW: does it last? Limerence?

[PepperSalt]

I found this thread title hard to write succinctly, so will try to explain better here.

Background: I’m a regular who has NC . A few months ago my H of over 20 years left a marriage extremely suddenly and shockingly, without warning to be with the OW, with whom he has an emotional affair. We have one adult and one older teen DC and my H was known by everyone as such a solid , great guy. A real family man. Relatives on both sides have questioned whether he’s having a breakdown because it’s so out of character. It turns out that he has actually told himself, as well a me, a version of The Script so he detached from me as he got closer to her.

My question:
If the man leaves a long ‘good enough’ marriage with supportive extended family, a strong family unit including DC (plus a lovely home and a great lifestyle in our case), in order to gain the excitement of being with a younger woman who he has fallen for head over heels, does the new relationship generally last?

My reasons for asking:
I recently stumbled across the concept of limerence when reading an old thread on MN and it occurred to me that my H may not have found his new life partner in mid life after all, but may have fallen for something more transient.

I’m not writing this in a state of false hope that he will return. I’m genuinely just curious about others’ experiences.

If you know other ‘solid , reliable, family men’ who left their longstanding marriages in similar circumstances, did the relationship with the OW last?

Did the man grow to regret and fully recognise the sacrifices he had made when he left?

TIA

@PepperSalt I'm in a similar situation to yourself. DH has left the marriage after 22 years. Completely blindsided us all. He was what could have been described as a 'good' family man. Great extended family, lovely home etc.

I too have pondered on your question. Also, thinking I just needed to know. I can admit that I didn't want it work with the OW (which he is still denying). I wanted it to fail. I wanted him to realise it was a mistake. I am, however, trying to accept that this won't happen. Even if it does, does it matter? He's ruined everything anyway.

I'm trying to change my thinking into hoping it does work, as then all this won't have been in vain. I'm devastated at the breakdown of my marriage.

Not the answer to your question. Hopefully, it will help to know that you are not alone.

Think it’s hard .
Your kids will likely never accept new woman which will cause some stress for your H.

He will lose his repeat from friends and family which I am sure he will find hard.

Through divorce he will lose financial assets and which may cause stress for all but ultimately he will only have himself to blame. I’m sure he will miss the family home . Kiss his children adoring him.

I am sure he will always love you as a friend and miss you.

All these things will cause him sadness and stress and put a strain on the ow and him .

He will miss big christmases and birthdays . He will be the outsider .

but

I hate saying this - it’s new and exciting and he will be having sex with a childless woman who is young and free. I bet he will enjoy it .

if she wants kids then it will be hard . I’m not sure of her age but if she wants a baby then there will a massive strain as the excitement of being free and fun and able to do as they pleases changes.

I think anyone who has an affair always misses their old life . But realistically they wanted someone else and were prepared to hurt their family to do so - so they are serious about leaving. .

Most of that is complete tosh.

"Where comes the point when a relationship has made it?"

It is precisely this type of question and this type of mindset which men and women who are having affairs with married people routinely use as justification for their part in breaking up marriages and families.

If it lasts a long time, the "affair" must have been true love, must have been a level of compatibility that was not there in the marriage, the cheating husband must have been incredibly unhappy and the affair partner he left the marriage for must be his soul mate, look! see it lasted for years and years it must have been love!

Nope. All relationships can have one or both people miserable whether they be long or short relationships

Its just if deep down you feel some kind of guilt (you cheated on your spouse, you left your children, you prioritised the relationship you had with the person you had an affair with over the family you have built over x years;

or (if you are the affair partner) he had to leave his spouse because I am so much more compatible with him/his wife is a bitch psycho/his kids don't appreciate him/he is so much happier with me so true love wins in the end etc etc

Then that narrative only supports and fortifies people who are having an affair with each other and go on to break up a family, they then feel blameless in their actions.

That together with the fact that if you literally upend your life, you turn the titanic on what you have built over the years by leaving your wife and your children, however much you try to ignore the fallout, somewhere deep down you know the devastation you caused, then leaving the person you did it all for because the relationship doesn't ultimately work - you will be more determined than ever to stay with that person won't you?
You trashed your previous life, you left it all behind for your affair partner, you are going to move heaven and earth to stay with that person in order to justify it to yourself and not be "proven wrong".

Longevity of relationships do not (in any circumstances) equal happy relationships.

I am a man which I think is relevant.

I left my first wife for AP - she left her husband and became my wife. Huge trust issues on her part with me ever since, which I think are understandable although has led to abusive behaviours on both sides. I had an emotional affair with her, which became physical after I'd told my wife I was going to leave. It was appalling behaviour which I deeply regret. She had been my first girlfriend from age 18 and looking back I was never capable of a true relationship, my fucked ip childhood had created a human very poorly equipped to function as an adult. I was a 'nice guy/rescuer' and also someone who could not admit making a mistake. Covert narc if you like, acting the nice bloke.

So I failed to end my first relationship when I knew I didn't love her, had two children and then an affair.

Not being able to admit I had made a mistake, I married AP and it has been fairly grim since. AP/DW wanted to show the world we were star crossed lovers and that our ex partners were awful people. Absolute bollocks. Both are far better people than us. I went along with it to my shame but never believed a word of it. Which is probably worse.

Really we both want to split up but as I've said elsewhere DW doesn't want to be poorer and will settle for sitting on the sofa with all the streaming services as her life and I struggle with the guilt of denying her that and that I am aware that I made a bed so deserve to lie in it.

Through therapy and self work I understand why I did what I did and that I am unsafe as a person, certainly in relationship terms and so in my fantasy life I live alone and attempt to be a better person for my adult children.

All that said, I never wanted to go back to my ex wife. Not once, not even when AP was demanding I handed my phone over for the daily check or ringing my dad to ask if he thought I had met someone if I came home later than said or if I was driving off into the night after rowing about this stuff, declaring I was leaving for good and generally acting like a wanker. Not because my ex was a bad person but I knew I didn't love her- I'm not sure I can love anyone except my children.

Yep, that's it

My ex did. They are still together nearly 20 years later.

Notsuchaniceguy · Today 15:16
Thanks for your honest post which is interesting and I am glad you contributed.

You might be offended by this but I actually think it is, to a greater or lesser degree, something which a lot of married men would do if they thought they could do it with total impunity. (i.e, have kids with one woman who they have married (if she has insisted on marriage) and once the kids are over about 2 or 3 years, leave that family and move onto the next woman who herself may or may not want kids) Its just a biological thing men are programmed to do.

If they have enough energy for it they would do it on a serial multiple basis. Generally speaking men are not programmed to be fathers to their offspring in the way women are programmed to be mothers to their offspring (for the duration).

The most stark illustration of this is how many men there are clamouring to be on the books of sperm donation organisations. There are so many, and these include happily married men who would tell you they get plenty of sex and are happy with their home life and have children at home/in multiple homes and they don't do it for the money.

My husband had an affair and left early last year. We had been together almost 20 years and have 2 school age children. I was completely blindsided, I would have honestly said we had a happy marriage. Myself and our children were devastated. It has blown apart our family and extended family.

He and the OW seem to have been very on and off, they have "massive fights" and split up, she has lied about really serious things and threatened him. Yet he still seems to go back. It is very toxic and I have no idea how he can be happy. Our children refuse to have anything to do with him.

He is still living with his parents over a year later, which I find strange when she has her own (all be it really shit) place.

I think some men will be happier in their new relationships with the OW. I bet there are also a lot who really regret what they've done but stay with the OW as otherwise they'll "have nothing", (that's what my husband said).

This ^

Fuck him op . Please never take him back 💐 you can and will have a better life without the faithless fucker x

I've know a few relationships that started as affairs and are still going, having outlasted the original marriage. However in all cases the AP was a good match in terms of age, interests etc. I don't know any where the party has had 'their head turned' so to speak by a partner totally different from themselves. Generally because the former usually means you've met the person right for you after marrying some one less so. Whereas the latter typically means you've got carried away by a novelty, and people tend to return to type eventually and miss their 'real' life.

" However in all cases the AP was a good match in terms of age, interests etc. I don't know any where the party has had 'their head turned' so to speak by a partner totally different from themselves."

This is the strange thing about people (often men but not always) who leave their wife for someone much much younger. I admit that sometimes the younger partner can be a better fit personality wise, but if its more than a generation difference in age gap then I find it impossible to understand what the frame of reference must be like in day to day conversation.

"Oh yes, you know that song, it was an iconic Britpop anthem "
"What is this Britpop you are talking of??"

etc etc

Bit of a sweeping generalisation that younger people wouldn't know pop culture. My teens know what Britpop is/was!

Generally speaking men are not programmed to be fathers to their offspring in the way women are programmed to be mothers to their offspring (for the duration).

Well they're not programmed to breastfeed, but are you seriously saying most men don't really have an interest in being present for their children to adulthood?

Bit of a sweeping generalisation that younger people wouldn't know pop culture. My teens know what Britpop is/was!

I assumed it was the younger party talking about Britpop.

Shows you how old I am!

DarrellRiversCriminalBehaviourOrder · Today 17:29 - given the black and white choice of
(i) unlimited sex with any woman they wanted to have sex with entirely on their own terms, and
(ii) (on a mutually exclusive basis), as you put it " being present for their children to adulthood?" (by which I mean being there for the day to day stuff and the hard stuff, not the "fun once in a while stuff") then yes, I do think a significant percentage and probably a majority of men would opt for the former over the latter (especially men under the age of about 60/65).

That’s not limerance OP. That’s just lust.

Limerance is a form of OCD. You want what you can’t have and still pine for it years and years later. It consumes your thoughts, your life and keeps you in a state of addicted inertia where you can’t let go so you can’t move on. So you obsess about the person you can’t have.

Sounds like your H is just a run of the mill bloke who’s had his head turned by something that offers more excitement than family life. I don’t mean that unkindly, btw. I think we all go though a “Is this it? Is this my life until I die?” phase where we get dissatisfied with our “lot in life” and want to feel (emotionally) alive again. It’s how we handle it that counts.

Well my ex left for affair partner, since then Social Services keep calling me to report they have been subjected to Domestic Abuse on at least 4 occasions. The kids wont go over anymore. Grass must be greener as they are still together. However they have nowhere else to go. x Sad

I think that even good, and generally decent, people can sometimes take actions that are “wrong” and harmful to others.

Also people can appear to be happier in relationships than they really are, even for decades. Then start to question their relationship as their children get older and the reality of home life becoming just them and their partner sinks in.

Im not sure thinking on this is very helpful for you.

This happened to me too. I highly recommend the book Runaway Husbands. Sending you a hug, I know how hard a situation this is.

My father left for affairs, which didn’t last and eventually did marry a woman much younger also. All of his relationships after his first marriage were to women 20 years younger. He is now still married and with a second family. I think think he made a massive mistake. He isn’t the man he was at all, he is diminished. He’s small minded, petty, mean and arrogant. He wasn’t always like that.

So does it last? Yes I think it can because if you are foolish enough to leave a good marriage just to swap for youth, then you are often not going to ever acknowledge that you were a fool. You’d have so much to lose. Imagine realising that you gave up so much, just for a bit of young totty.

But I do think it changes you, and your Ex has chosen a path that will limit and diminish his character. Tragic really.

My exH had a typical mid life crisis affair and left for the OW, then upon realising the consequences of what he'd done (which didn't match the narrative in his head) proceeded to have a nervous breakdown (a proper clinical one). It didn't last with OW, the grass was not only not greener it was full of weeds and brambles, I've lost track of how many girlfriends he's had since.

They often, in my experience, find that they don't actually know the OW/OM very well and that living with them day to day is very different to sneaking around playing star crossed lovers 🤮

5 years later my XH and his OW are living together and engaged to be married but from what I gather from our kids is that they have a nasty dysfunctional relationship where she is a bossy bully to him just like he was to me.

Since he left I've had a fabulous time enjoying online dating, buying a house that's all mine and now have met my one true love who is 628856888 times more fantastic, kind, funny, talented than my XH so ever grateful to the weirdo OW for luring my XH to her!

😂

I would say it's not black and white and also it doesn't really matter.
It's extremely hard to know anything substantial about other people's relationships. Just because people get married /stay together doesn't mean they are happy or even love each other.
Just because relationship ended doesn't mean it was unhappy /not real love etc. People part for all sorts of reasons and stay for all sorts of reason.
I can totally understand why it's so tempting to hope that en ex who left you is unhappy /will see the light and come to regret it but the truth is that when you do that you are letting another person and their actions to define you.

Leaving a partnership or marriage for someone else is the end. Nobody who values their relationship do that. Ever. It's not something that is done in a heat of the moment. There is no coming back from it.

I'm really sorry you're going through this. 💐