Am in utter shock

[honeyandbutterontoast]

Will start by saying this is an OW thread. So I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m just in utter utter shock.

Twelve years ago I met someone. We were both married. We fell in love (I thought). My DH was a bad man, I’m not excusing myself but he was. I divorced him, took the bare minimum and waited for OM to do the same.

He didn’t. For years it went on, his excuses, so I wouldn’t see him, he begged me to be patient. I was his soulmate, his best friend, etc etc etc. And I loved him so much.

We bought a house together, he decided on completion day that he couldn’t leave her. I was in a financial mess for years over that.

In Oct 22 I gave him an ultimatum (this date is important), he had to leave her or we couldn’t speak anymore (up till this point we emailed and texted multiple times a day). He said he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t be without his kids. He went away on holiday with them.

Stupidly we stayed in touch “as friends”. Daily he would ask to see me. He would tell me he wanted to be with me, no matter what would make it happen.

(Sorry this is an essay)

Last spring we saw each other for lunch a couple of times. Something was off but I couldn’t work out what, he seemed depressed. I started dating again and told him we could only be friends.

In the summer he sent me a photo and I noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring on! He told me he had “recently” left his wife but didn’t know how to tell me. That he wasn’t sure if we should move in together straight away (!!) or just get to know each other as single people.

We met for lunch a couple of times, he had endless excuses why I couldn’t see his new flat. It all seemed odd but somehow plausible. We last saw each other in October but carried on messaging multiple times a day, chatting about everything. Or so I thought.

He told me he was very depressed and unhappy. Needed time to get used to life alone. I truly believed he was unhappy, possibly even suicidal at times.

This evening I received a message. From his girlfriend. Who he lives with. Who he had told he was separated when he met her 18 months ago. Yep when I gave him the ultimatum, he was with her. They have a whole life together.

She is 20 years younger than he is.

We spoke on the phone and while speaking she was looking through his phone. There are multiple women. All that age. It’s been going on for years with them.

How he has time to run a company I do not know.

So here I am, 12 years on. In utter shock. And that poor girl. I didn’t know what to say to her, I could only assure her there has been nothing intimate between us since before she met him. Unfortunately he has been with others.

i honestly would have told you he was my best friend. His behaviour had been odd yes, but I never thought for a moment it was like this.

His last messages to me were how he had an okay day today, hadn’t done much. They are on holiday!!!

I get that in some ways I deserve this. But she doesn’t. He obviously was putting his wedding ring on to meet me! How messed up is that. Or maybe he wasn’t married then anymore?!

And I’m guessing when we were actually in an intimate relationship he was shagging these other women. I really had no idea. He would beg me not to leave him as he was so unhappy but had no idea how to leave without losing his children/business.

Desperately need to sleep but had to get all that out. It’s like an episode of eastenders.

I’m not actually convinced he was married in the first place tbh.

So you had an affair with a married man, making you an OW and are somehow shocked he has another OW?

I don't think it is an attack to tell a woman to work on her self esteem, it is the best and first line of self defence against abusers. One of my DD's has a lovely friend, who at only 25, has been with three abusive men and she keeps blaming herself and thinking she deserves their behaviour. It is heart breaking to watch. She can see red flags but still gets into relationships, thinking it is the best she can get. Yes, it was wrong for the OP to get involved with a married man but this guy has done a lot more than lie, he has been extremely abusive and controlling and I do feel sorry for her.

Op, you can't change the past but you can make sure you have a better future. Block him and do everything you can to work on you self esteem and change your view of relationships. Life can and will get better.

He's a sociopathic cunt. I wish him ill.

He knew your were vulnerable and in a abusive marriage. He played on that, wouldn’t be suprised if that’s why he zoned in on you to have an affair with. We all know being in an abusive relationship destroys all confidence and self worth, crumbs of seeming kindness matter so much
perhaps the freedom programme could help to show you that you are worthy of being loved for you by someone who can give you all their love not just a pretend portion

I’m sorry you’ve had this experience.

This man picked you because you are so vulnerable and were willing to excuse what were obvious lies and red flags with sympathy.

Yes of course in an ideal world you would have dumped him at the first sign he was not being honest about his marriage situation but you’ve had 12 years of life wasted and humiliation so I’m not going to judge.

You need to understand now that he will either come for you in rage at being exposed or try to get you to feel sorry for him to save himself.

You need to start being stronger than you feel to get through this. Find your anger and humiliation and use it. Make it clear if he comes for you in any way shape or form you will blow his lies up on a scale he can’t fathom. Exposure of who they really are is the only thing these people fear.
Make it clear you want to hear nothing more from him and make it a police matter if he ever contacts you. Then block.

You say you are never dating again - good. Because right now you are not capable of meeting a decent man. I don’t say that to be cruel - you need to work on yourself which could take years.
Don’t see it as being too broken and devastated by this man to meet someone better. See it as self imposed exile from dating until you are capable of recognising someone better.

Let the girlfriend deal with her situation herself. Stay away from the wife - she will have an inking and not welcome any concern from you. It’s the woman he’s living with who can deliver that news.

It will take time to get over this but it doesn’t need to define you for the rest of your life.
You know why your bar is so low. Don’t fall into the trap of wallowing about that forever. Want better for yourself and want to be better for yourself even if you never meet anyone else. Don’t let the actions of awful men dictate the rest of your life and self worth.

The fact your response to the book recommendation upthread was 'not sure if it will contain advice relating on how to deal with him' means you missed the point of the recommendation. It's not about him, it's about YOU, you HAVE to understand what led you here. You've clearly had a difficult life before meeting this man, but let this be the moment that you start the second half of your life. Get rid of him, block him, stop dead, throw him into the ocean and start phase 2. Be on your own, read books about YOUR psychology, the abuse you've gone through and how that affects the brain and your decisions.

I must admit, I am curious about the house logistics - if it fucked you financially, then I assume you couldn't afford it by yourself, in which case you wouldn't have been approved for a mortgage by yourself, but does this mean you and he were approved for a mortgage together? Wouldn't that then count as a marital asset in a divorce to his wife? Did he supply any deposit, how did you get a deposit? How did it fuck you financially, guessing you just lost the deposit?

This is a wake up call for you now. You cannot problem solve everything but you can start putting one foot in front of another to start repairing the damage caused to your life.

Have you blocked him on absolutely everything? If not why not?

Stop worrying about the other woman. She isn't your concern and you cannot help her.

Stop trying to sift any truth out of this whole sorry mess. You will never know what was real and what wasn't from him but you do know you cannot trust him, cannot trust yourself to make good relationship decisions right now and that actually it doesn't matter what is real and what isn't because the only thing that matters to you should be how you ended up in this situation, why and how it made you feel.

It's not at all surprising a relationship that starts on an affair ends in one. You need to work on you to have healthy boundaries that include avoiding any man who claims to be in a bad relationship.

So you knowingly got involved with a married man and now you're sad to find out he'd lied to you too... Tiny violins

yep my bar was pretty low.

Only you can shift it though. As a PP has pointed out, you asked for advice about this man before and didnt take it.

The same thing has been said to you repeatedly on this thread - that you need to work hard on your self worth before you'll be able to see this non relationship for what it was. Its not a loss, there was never anything there to lose.

I don't think this comment is particularly helpful to OP because the trouble is, if we are kind and decent people, it is very hard to fill in the gaps of what we know about someone. It just does not occur to us to attribute them with crazy motives or sick compulsions. I mean, who on earth would ever have guessed how much madness lay below the surface here?!

OP, despair is a completely natural response at this point, but please don't lose hope, particularly in yourself and your own judgement. It took me 40-odd years of steadily crazier and crazier abusive relationships to understand just how vulnerable I was and just how mad some blokes can be. Learning not to trust is so difficult when we are used to being grateful for small mercies. But here you go, you have learned not to trust. And it will set you in good stead going forward.

The one person you can trust is yourself. Stop kicking yourself for "not noticing" - honestly, if this was a movie plot everyone would agree it was implausible! Trust in your own essentially good nature, and be kind to yourself. Sing Miley Cyrus's "Flowers" in the bath 😁 Line up little treats for yourself. They don't have to be expensive: something like knowing that tomorrow you'll have a nice breakfast is something to look forward to.

Build day by day on these little incremental improvements to your life, and one day you will find yourself happy - in a self-reliant way that you honestly don't want anyone to come along and fuck up for you.

I lived alone like that for many years before meeting my now-DH when I was in my mid 50s. Funnily enough, we were laughing just now about one of my exes. DH can't quite believe the comical scrapes I got into, for years.

What I'm saying is that happiness, alone or not, is very possible for you and should be your primary goal, not fretting over the time and effort you have spent* in this exceptionally weird situation. Thank goodness it is over! Onwards and upwards. Good luck.

*I won't say wasted; it's all experience! Write a book and cash in on the fucker!!!

The girlfriend has the facts and can choose what she does with those facts. Just as you did.
You chose to continue the relationship despite all the red flags. He left you hope and hope springs eternal, but actions speak louder than words. He was rotten from the very beginning.

You met that nice man last summer. Try again but watch out for those red flags and act immediately this time. Read the Bancroft book.

@Rosscameasdoody they are both at fault, but she left her marriage and believed his story of being unhappily married (never believe this!!). She clearly does not have a very high opinion of herself.

I feel sorry for a lot of people in this story, the originally wife + children absolutely, the new girlfriend yes, and also OP who believed the crap that spouted from this gobshites mouth.

He does like to mess with peoples heads by the sound of it, and def likes to string women along.

Shows why you should never get involved with a married man ever! I really hope OP can now see it all for what it was and that she does get some help to work on who she is. Because she sounds like she needs it

I can guess: He has a very good PA who more or less does his job for him.

Urgh I'm so sorry this only sounds too familiar. I had the same experience and wasted 5 years of my life. Plus a few more with damaged self esteem as I couldn't believe I fell for something like this and felt like a piece of crap. I wonder if it's the same guy as i could have written what you did. All the talk about being best friends, the love of each others live's but him struggling and being depressed. What BS.

Take care of yourself.

As horrendous as being in an abusive relationship is, it’s not an excuse to take someone else’s’ husband and break up his family. He hasn’t ruined OP’s life, she’s done that herself by accepting shitty, dishonest behaviour from him for twelve years. She ‘had her lesson’ with an abusive husband but she didn’t learn from it because all she did was to trade one abusive relationship for another. And unless she accepts responsibility for her own part and learns from it, she’s doomed to do it again.

Neither am I. This man was not a typical sleazebag, more of a romance scammer. One doesn't normally think of romance scammers as being IRL rather than online, I honestly think that is what he is.

Oh @honeyandbutterontoast I’m sorry this has happened to you. He is a total con man and manipulator. He saw that you were vulnerable and this is why he preyed on you. He got pleasure from stringing you along and keeping you from finding happiness with anyone else. All to stroke his own ego.

You must block and delete him everywhere. And please do the freedom project.

He was married.
Or is married still.
i have no idea if he actually is separated and if so when from.

But I can tell you from numerous photos, etc that he is/was.

OP - it happens more often than we like to think. I re-met a guy I had known for 30 years last February. We had dated for 2 years 10 years ago. He told me he loved me, was constantly talking about living together (I even had a thread on here about him moving in). He got ill in September and I supported him emotionally through some rough times. He died suddenly at the end of January and his best friend has had to deal with the aftermath and tell me he was also involved with another woman. I'm having to deal with grief and also the knowledge that he hadn't been the man I thought he was. It's his funeral this Friday and I am going knowing the other lady will be there. I'm dealing it with it by knowing I did nothing wrong - I was totally unaware of her existence and I stuck by him to the end. I will never get answers, and it maybe you won't either. My advice - remember you did everything right and it is on his conscience how he has behaved. You were wronged and you will recover from this and go forward.

Well whatever his status you need to really accept he is no longer part of your life , except as history.

Even the concern about the gf comes across as an inability to write yourself out of this drama, a way of still having a “ bit part” in his life. Please accept this is over - for your own sanity and dignity.

I’m so sorry. Wishing you strength for the funeral.

The faux sympathy for the new girlfriend is nauseating. You feel sorry for yourself, no one else.
His poor wife and kids.

You bought a house with a man who was (or you thought, whether true or not) still married, not separated, with kids, you also with kids.

Baffling.

I think you’re going to go through the 5 stages of grief, OP, so be prepared for anger the likes of which you’ve never felt before.

His treatment of you seems downright sadistic. Robbing a vulnerable of your marriage, your prosperity, your opportunity to have children, your dating life, your housing. Playing mind games with wedding rings in photos like in the celebrity pages of the Daily Mail, concocting a whole double life, leading you on to think you were soulmates.

There is something discordant about the fact that you learned he’d supposedly left his wife from a photo… a true best friend would have told you directly, and you must have realised this . I wonder whether you’ve been more vulnerable / naive than perhaps you realise.

He doesn’t deserve anything from you. Try to get done counselling if you can x