Affairs can end up long term

[potatohead1]

As our current Queen proves. Contrary to many MN assertions. It is not rare for relationships that started out as affairs can indeed prove long lasting.
I'm not in an affair. I'm not condoning them. I'm just challenging typical MN rhetoric

@5128gap I honestly don't think that's how it works. I know of a fair few people who've had affairs, and for everyone in their circle, once the dust settles, its been a 9 day wonder. People may disapprove of cheating, but typically unless it impacts their lives, they have higher priorities than holding on to lifelong judgements of other people. In reality it's far more likely the cheat keeps their own friends and simply substitutes the AP for their spouse in the social group. There's maybe a little initial chuntering but the group adapts. People don't like to think of this, but its true. Especially if the cheat and AP are a good fit with each other and the social group.

This is so true but posters like @grayhairdontcare just don't want to believe it. They desperately want to retain the belief that the couple will be pariahs if not publicly then privately for all time. It's just not like that irl. In real life people just move on. Some people end up really getting on with the new partner more than they did the first

@putalidonit it's not that I don't want to believe that people move on.
I believe people do move on.
I just don't believe building a relationship on lies,deception and the destruction of others is a good loving foundation.
But each to their own.

@putalidonit those who divorce (for a number of reasons, affairs, abuse, addiction) tend to struggle in later marriages...because they don't resolve the issues from the first. I think alot can be said about how a person leaves a marriage, especially one with children.

You can leave someone (due to an affair) but do it respectfully and with consideration and compassion. I imagine those people have a higher chance of making the next relationship work.

A couple I know well, met online dating, except he was married, she didn't find out until later. He couldn't end his marriage without someone else in the wings. They have been together quite a while and appear happy enough but he has lost his 2 adult children from his first marriage. Mostly because he didn't have empathy to their feelings. I don't know if he feels it was worth it as personally it would haunt me everyday but we are all different.

You’re completely right. Nobody knows what’s going on behind closed doors, nor what goes on in another person’s head. The whole world may think one way and so sometime even would the spouse in the second marriage with whom the affair took place.

But some may feel guilty but never admit it, show that they’re happy and not directly express their regret of inflicting trauma on their children and even first wife /husband from their their previous marriage. However, for all intents and purposes, they look happy and so are assumed to be happy. Longevity in a relationship doesn’t always indicate happiness. Those who have absolutely no feelings of regret or guilt for their deceitful lies, well then that would show what kind of person they really are. Those with a conscience, might be happy in their subsequent marriage after the affair, but would at least feel guilty/regret hurting others. Also, to have compassion for the people who have been hurt and are reminded daily of said affair, no matter how they show that they’ve forgiven and have moved past it, should not be that difficult.

I agree with the PP who said that marriages after affairs started as a fling may not last when there was never love there as opposed to those that started from a place of love. Of course, if a person who has been cheated on, nobody is going to spout the statistics when marriages after affairs do last. There’s nothing wrong with trying to console someone whose world has fallen apart so to gloat and say that actually I know of marriages and relationships borne out of affairs to last is actually seems quite spiteful. But if one was to prepare their friend and loved one and say that this may be a long-term thing and you and the children may need counselling to handle this trauma and that you’re there for them would be fine but not immediately once they’ve found out about the affair. That’s precisely why posters on MN can’t say that as they don’t really know poster IRL and so can only provide support, console and provide platitudes and give practical advice and that’s ok too.

As for C&C, I can’t really say. She does children and grandchildren from her previous marriage so it would make sense if she wants to keep a space that would be comfortable and convenient without any thoughts of royal protocol. I can’t say I blame Camilla for that. It seems very practical. Besides, they can afford it so why not?

I think the mumsnet rhetoric has come about because so many reports of affairs on here are by women who have been blindsided by the discovery.
Those women who were already in unhappy marriages are much less likely to turn to an online forum when they discover their husband's affair.
Because it is mainly the blindsided women posting, then it is much more likely that the husbands are cake-eaters, and less likely that the affair will turn into a second long-term relationship.

It helps that Diana is no longer around. I very much doubt we'd have a Queen Camila if she had lived.

We probably wouldn't have a King Charles either.

I agree with the posters who make reference to the fact that a relationship developed on a foundation of lies and deception can never quite cut the mustard.
Compare that relationship to the one grown from the innocence of youth, or to the one that has developed through commitment to one another through agreed monogamy, or marriage, and the raising of children. It just cannot compare.

I agree with most of what you say except the blindsided bit meaning the husband is unlikely to have a ltr moving forward.
A partner could be blindsided whether the husband is a cake-eater who will go on to be a cheater or a man who has met someone he has fallen in love with else. I don't think blindsided-ness is restricted to one type of affair

And yet others who have actually experienced it says it does. They are happier, more at peace and more contented than ever.

I know of 2 couples who are (or seem) happily married after over 15 years.
I can’t speak for them, but if that was me, I think I’d always have that thought at the back of my head. He’s cheated before….

Nor me

And yet others who have actually experienced it says it does. They are happier, more at peace and more contented than ever.

(1) they would wouldn't they; (2) that's because they're no longer crawling about having an affair

Isn’t it more in this case that they were possibly meant to be together but it was not allowed. Hence marrying the wrong people the first time round. As many people do….

They can but research suggests the majority don't.

And for people who were the OW/OM who are still together and claim their partner never cheated again. They don't know that. I'm sure the previous partner would have said the same until the affair came to light.

Research figures differ but most state over 50% of affairs are never known about.

I'm not naive enough to say my husband would never cheat.

All I can say is as far as I know he hasn't. That doesn't mean he actually hasn't.

So it surprises me that people who actively started a relationship via an affair and have first hand knowledge and view of their partners ability to lie and gaslight a previous partner have such confidence.

I tend to think it is more an internalised belief that they are different to the previous partner and that it couldn't happen to them.

Relationships 'grown from the innocence of youth' very often grow into something quite unlike anything either would have anticipated or hoped for. The great problem with the innocence of youth being there in the name. As young people we are much less likely to excercise the sane discernment in our choices. We simply don't have the life experience and self knowledge.
With luck a couple of 20 year olds will grow together to be 40/50 year olds who still have enough in common to stay together. Unfortunately far more often one or both change into a different person with quite different wants and needs. Of these, some plod along through loyalty or fear of change. Others decide to move on to relationships more suited to who they are now. Starting these relationships through an affair is obviously far from ideal, but it doesn't mean the new relationship isn't a better fit than the old one.

Charles wanted to marry Camilla in the first place, so this is different to the majority of affairs. They should have been together from the start really. It wasn't fair to drag Diana into it though.

I get what you say @putalidonit about a husband perhaps not then being a cake eater. But if he has fallen in love with another person then wouldn't it show in his relationship with his wife? I mean, wouldn't she notice that? He would have to be a good actor to not show any signs.

I think often marriages are already so weary that people are too detached or preoccupied to notice.

So theirs is 'different' from serial cheater affairs or dysfunctional relationship affairs or abuse in the marriage affair or bored and entitled affairs..... all affairs are not the same and like C&C sometimes the affair coupe is just a better couple

@putalidonit "sometimes the affair couple are a better couple "
Of course they are!
They needed to find each other to build this fabulous relationship on a bed of destruction and lies rather than leave their unhappy relationships and start afresh.
But nothing would compare to the excitement of illicit sex and constant lies to spouses and children.
They needed that to make them the better couple.

And again to desperation to believe this. You are just wrong. Many are happy and content. I doubt a woman who cheated on her violent ex is feeling anything other than joyous glee that she is now happy with the man of her dreams. You so want...NEED to believe people are only happy in inverted commas. That they can't be truly genuinely happy but they are. Millions and millions of them. And many of their exs are too.

I do believe that two people who built a relationship on lies and deceit can be truly happy.
Of course they can!
After all. Their happiness was all that matters to them.

This is so so true. I've known a few deeply selfish people over the years, and often wondered how they got a partner, but then they do and I discovered their partners are equally as selfish, and bizarrely, and this is so unfair, they're often the happiest couples around. Just, together, absolutely no regard for anyone else whatsoever, and, it works!

They can. But knowing that both parties are capable of being unfaithful I would imagine they'd find it hard to really trust each other.

Well there you are then! Even those guilty of the worst behaviour typically find a way to reconcile it so guilt doesn't mar their happiness.
Often this is by acknowledging (and at times exaggerating) the unhappiness in the previous relationship. However, it has to be said, if one person in a marriage would prefer to be with someone else, whether they actually act on it and cheat or not, then that relationship is far from happy, so chances are the new one will be better.
As for leaving first, again, it's not how it works. People are often not so miserable they want to disrupt their lives because anything is better than being with their spouse. It's often a lower level discontent, boredom, lack of happiness, rather than an unbearable must leave now misery.
Its often the catalyst of meeting the 'right' person that throws the dissatisfaction with the first relationship into the spotlight, and drives forward the desire to end the marriage.