Are exit affairs "ok"

[Mensuckbigtime]

Just wondering.
StBXH ended our 10 year marriage last year (DC were 1.5 and 4.5)

Found out a few months later that he'd been having an affair with one of his female friends and ex colleague

I've been reading a lot of threads about affairs and the mulitple "reasons" behind them

-Lust
-wanting cake and eating it
-boost of self esteem

And so forth

Then there is the "exit affair" where someone is in an unhappy relationship/marriage and meeting someone gives them the impetus to leave.

I sometimes get the feeling that exit affairs are deemed as "ok", as the person was unhappy.

My ex would claim that his affair was an exit affair to leave a marriage that he was no longer happy in (never sat me down to have that conversation with me, but anyway...)

So, my question is are exit affairs "ok"?

The affair has left me absolutely heartbroken, but I keep thinking, was it ok for him to do it because our marriage had become rocky with young children, bereavements, miscarriages and more?

Thanks for reading

No it’s not ok.

An exit affair is basically dipping your toe in to single life again whilst retaining the security you have and seeing which set up you prefer? It’s a cowardly way of leaving a marriage.

It depends.

If the only way you can leave a bad relationship is to jump into another one, it makes perfect sense.

Or you could just grow up...!

In the short term there bad
in the long term it forces a situation to a head and moves things forward otherwise you could of wasted many years going through the motions one or both unhappy but not doing anything about it
give you both a chance to build a better life going forward

Yes, I think he does.
He doesn't want to be the guy who cheated on his wife and mother of his children.

So to keep up the good guy image, it's better for him if things started after he dumped me.

A mutual friend met him and OW for dinner with a few other friends and they were pretending not to be an item, when clearly they were and i had already found out about the affair... so the lies continue

are you still officially together? because if not then he owes you no explanation if they are together or not (and they may not be, there are different levels of "being an item").

No, we are not together, but they are as my DC tell me.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

No, he's not legally obliged to tell me.anything, he's also not legally obliged to stay faithful in a marriage.

You are also not legally obliged to help an elderly person up the stairs...

Common decency and respect, I'd say.

I think there's a bunch of things being conflated here.

Having an affair is always wrong. If your marriage is over then you'd better make damn sure that your wife or partner knows that it's over. Otherwise it's just an affair.

Some people have an affair to goad their partner into leaving them. I'm sorry to say that when I was much younger I did something that came close to this. I was very unhappy but didn't have the courage to leave, so got flirty with a colleague and then told then DP about it. Not good, either.

But if you mean is it wrong to fall for someone else - I'd say no. I also don't believe in "emotional affairs". There are physical affairs and the betrayal of confessing feelings to someone else, but this idea that being emotionally invested in someone else makes you a cheat I think is garbage. Often falling for someone else opens your eyes to what is wrong with your current relationship. The right thing to do is leave, do some soul searching, then get dating again.

Hey, its not about falling for someone else.

It's more that from things I've read on here, it seems that if the person is unhappy and then embarks on an affair, its somewhat "ok", because the unhappy person needed a "push" to end the relationship, so luckily the affair confirmed their feelings.?!

Like you said, meeting someone new makes you realise that your unhappy...

Although I'm not sure I buy into that. Do I need to work in a different job to realise that my current one isn't making me happy?

I think you're unhappy, you start the affair, surprise surprise its fun and exhilarating, you continue the affair until you get caught

I think people should just leave before it gets to this point but I realise it’s hard to see the wood for the trees when you are in the situation

We weren’t married or had children so very different to you but my ex left me for another woman after a crossover and I definitely felt better about it when they got settled down and got married etc as at least it was worth it rather than a meaningless shag.

I know from the grapevine he’s cheated on her several times and he once contacted me to try his luck so she hasn’t won much of a prize. But they are still together.

My point is that retrospectively you cannot prove or check when the affair started unless someone comes forward with strong evidence, while the way things are now - he is not obliged to tell you if they are together.

From personal experience - I was accused of having cheated on my ex, and some people probably still believe that I did. I didn't and I don't know how believing it makes anyone feel better, but at the same time there's nothing I could do about it other than ignore it.

I think that not dwelling on whether your ex got with this woman before or after breakdown of your relationship is probably not going to make you feel better.

The grass is greener where you water it. Unfortunately too many men can't hack the early years of children and shirk their responsibilities and run off high on dopamine. It's a reflection of them and their morals, not you or your children he abandoned. (And yes, by fucking over the mother of his children IS ABANDONING them and putting his cock first.)

In my mind, no they are no more acceptable than any other type of affair. If you are that unhappy have the balls to end the relationship before moving on

@Utereusbegone but then you're still a bad guy so effectively the only difference is how much of personal integrity do you have as others will see you as a bad guy regardless

(speaking as a woman who had no children and "just left", and yet I was still the bad guy because I did not enter sufficiently long relationship mourning period after leaving)

Yes you are still the bad guy, but that's just fact so own it. It shouldn't be about how others perceive you, it's about showing the tiniest bit of integrity, and a bit of respect to someone you supposedly once loved by not fucking someone behind their back.

And besides, no one falls for the 'we just got together really really quickly after my relationship broke up of it's own accord' so if it is about how others perceive you, that approach just adds liar to cheat

Have just read your earlier posts, I am talking specifically about people that have exit affairs

No I don't think exit affairs are OK. Breaking up because it isn't working doesn't leave the spouse feeling broken in the same way, or mistrustful, or second guessing history.

@Utereusbegone but that was my point - whether people believed it or not it was the truth. Sure, I had the knowledge I was fair until the end and that I left my ex before starting to see someone new, but there were people who simply did not believe it.

I got "lucky" in a sense because my ex really was a crap person and his actions proved that I had reasons to leave him that had nothing to do with anyone else.

I like to ride on my high horse so I had the satisfaction of knowing I did everything right, but I can see why some people don't care for doing the "right thing".

'are you still officially together? because if not then he owes you no explanation'

Its not a court of law, noone owes anyone anything. However, a shred of honesty for a person you loved, married and had children with might be the very least you can do so they can move on with all the answers

Yeah, that's spot on
Being left after a long relationship is hard enough, when you add the deceipt, the complete loss of trust (which is still important as we have children together) and the questions regarding your past (has he ever cheated before, did he ever really love me) makes it so much worse.

He's just a dick, but as hard as it is for me, I'd never want to carry the burden he now has of officially being a scumbag

@Mensuckbigtime exactly! dwelling on what he did in the past probably won't make you feel any better

but at least you're not the person hiding your new partner in a restaurant claiming you're not dating - he is! also sucks to be his partner...

Yeah, I agree with you that in many cases the affair starts, and then all the supposed desperate unhappiness with the partner gets written in after the fact. They don't call it "The Script" for nothing.

I really do think that sometimes meeting someone else can make you realise that your own relationship is bad. But it's still a terrible reason to have an affair, and it doesn't make it OK even if they're together forever afterwards. If anything it makes it worse. If the relationship actually is serious and you're going to spend decades together, why the fuck not just wait a few months and end your current relationship first.

Wouldn’t happen to anyone on MN.
If their DP/H even glances at another woman she’ll LTB.

There’s no such thing as an affair that is ok. Sometimes people fall out of love, grow apart etc and a person wanting out of their relationship can’t really help that they feel that way. You feel how you feel. But just talk to your spouse and leave. There’s no need for an affair to happen at all. Infidelity can be worked through in some circumstances, but it was never okay that it happened.

Exit affair AKA making sure you have someone else lined up before you leave.

Definitely not ok and a sign of very low self esteem IMO.