No judgement please

[Furball0504]

I’ve been married for a lot of years, we have two children, aged 22 and 16. For approximately 10 year my marriage has been more of a very close friendship.
For the last 2.5 year I have been having an affair. This wasn’t planned and something I’d have ever seen myself doing. I do love my husband but just on in the way I love this other man.
We have very recently found out my husband has cancer which has literally blown us all away.
I know I have to end it with the other man. It is going to kill me, it is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
I’m a very private person so there’s no one on my side that knows about this so I am on my own with it and have literally no one to talk to.
I’m friends with a close family member of the other man and see them a lot. I know the other man will move on very quickly (he has a track record for this) and know I’ll have to hear about the new woman in his life.
I know I’ll have to go no contact with him which will be hard, we message constantly so it will be a struggle.
Please no judgement, guess I’m just looking for kind words to comfort me or if anyone has been in a similar situation who can relate.

Assuming that’s true.

Go and have a look at the relationships board, and the number of posters whose husbands have told their OW’ that they haven’t had sex for years. Even though in many cases it’s not true, and in some cases the wife has even been pregnant.

Clearly some posters have no moral compass or strongly identify themselves with OPs circumstances.

I can only assume that the posters defending this woman to the point they’re as good as wishing the husband dead so she can carry on shagging the OM are all or have all cheated in the past and see no wrong in it.

No she didn't. She wanted kind words and comfort. Kind words for shagging another man!

No. Kindness for the crisis she is in. For the fact she’s become so vulnerable she’s fallen for a player. (I think we’ll all agree on that last point)

Nobody has to post kind things. But equally they don’t have to stick the boot in either.

@egginthebun I'm glad you reached out

The decent thing to do would be to care for your husband and if OM wants to shout about you from the rooftops because he loves you so much, he’ll respect that, and you. He should wait for you if he truly feels that way, he should love you more for your loyalty to a very sick man and be happy to wait for you if he thinks you’re his future.
You shouldn’t be worried that he’ll jump into the next available bed, but wait a minute…..he has form for that, doesnt he? Would he still be with OW #1 if she hadn’t got fed up of being his dirty secret? He might be making you feel good, but if you were young and single and heard about his behaviour, you’d avoid a man like that like the plague and run a mile.
This isn’t really a dilemma OP, and this man is not your saviour and hero. It’s an affair and he’s a serial cheat. You’re married, and should do the right thing by your husband and your marriage, since you have chosen to remain married despite feeling unseen for years, and are currently choosing to be still married whilst seeing OM.
You didn’t leave your husband before his diagnosis, you chose to stay put, enjoy the security that provides and sleep with another man. Your years of lack of intimacy with your husband didn’t make you leave, when you started with OM you were still in the security of your marriage despite this.
If you’re as important to him as he claims he will wait for you. Personally I wouldn’t hold your breath, but shouldn’t your doubts about him tell you something?
You say you love your husband. Love is a verb. Love is an action. Do something that proves this. What the husband you claim to love needs from you now is your support, not your betrayal. In any other circumstance I’d never say this, but I think you should keep quiet about your affair until his cancer is over, one way or another. The poor man has enough on his plate.
Years ago a sibling’s friend’s mother died of cancer and they found out their dad was having an affair. They left home (late teens) with nowhere to go and my parents took them in to live with us. They loathed their father and never went near him, even when he died. When it came to light, their father was universally loathed and lost relatives and friends, everyone except OW. Not many people are going to be left to applaud you for your affair whilst your husband might be dying, outside of MN apparently, OP. That would be a huge burden for you to carry, so this prince amongst men had better be worth it.
If you don’t like the version of yourself who’s having an affair very much, and you love your husband, you’re never going to forgive yourself for abandoning him at such a crisis point in his life.
OM will wait if he’s any kind of a decent man. I think leaving now would damage your own mental health further down the line, should the affair come to light and the unthinkable happen to your husband, and you’ll wish you’d helped him.

Wow, the OP seeking pity for having got her self in this situation and so many supporting it...

Just imagine when the news of the affair gets back to your husband and kids. Going to be great, no chance of impact on them... just the OP, the real victim in all of this. Even moving to blame the husband for the marriage deterioration, no accountability.

Own up and end things now. You can offer support and it will be up to him to decide if he wants to take it. But offer your family to the right to make their decisions based upon reality and not because someone tells one of your family while he is mid-chemo and he is too weak to get away from you.

'What the husband you claim to love needs from you now is your support, not your betrayal'

Too late, the betrayal has been done. The dh should be the one to decide if he wants her support once he knows the truth.

I'm surprised cancer has even been diagnosed tbh as he hasn't had scans etc. He may just need minor surgery or no surgery at all. He must be told the truth though.

Maybe he's had a fling for years too and they can go their separate ways amicably although would the high maintenance om support her financially as she is still a sahp <despite her kids being grown up> ? I'd guess not.

I don't need to. It's an entirely different context.

Really?

Someone who lies to their family is definitely honest with strangers on the internet when fishing for sympathy?

OK, if you say so.

That's lovely of you. I'm glad you reached out to her. Tell her to hide this thread and not to look at it again.

Cleary some posters are trying to outdo each other in their condemnation of the OP.

Clearly some posters have zero compassion.

If your best friend came to you with this scenario, would you bawl her out of it?!

Exactly!

Same here. The first page left me open-mouthed, with posters falling all over themselves to validate the OP shagging another man for years on end. 'Oh, you poor darling! Of course you must continue seeing your lover as long as you like!' The OP's dripfeeds were weird too. Needless to say, she didn't mention her supposed 'crippling loneliness' until she started getting more pushback and less fawning.

It got a lot more sensible for a few pages, then in the last couple of pages we've had a few posters who seem to imagine that they know the OP personally, and are declaring that she and her DH have had no sex for 10 years or that the DH has 'checked out' for 10 years as though they know this to be incontrovertible facts. Just so bizarre. Plus of course the usual tedious declarations of 'she has mental health issues' and 'oh but she's so vulnerable! So lonely!' used to justify OP's sordid little affair and endless lying.

Cheating is never ok, you are selfish and totally self adsorbed . You husband has cancer and all you care about is how poor little you is going to be heart broken, well not as heart broken as your husband will be when he finds out, you may think no one knows but these things always come out, you should if left your husband as soon as you had feelings for other man, your disgusting

Yes really.

I don't know whether she is telling the truth and neither do you. However, I am always willing to give a poster the benefit of the doubt because I don't like accusing anyone of lying when I have no proof of it.

Fine if you feel the need to kick someone when they're down. I don't.

'Clearly some posters have zero compassion'

I have lots of compassion for the dh. Yes, he clearly made her miserable as he didn't show her affection but there is never a good excuse to cheat. The kids are 22 and 16 not like they were under 5s and she needed to keep the family together. Just leave, get a job and rent a flat.

How is she 'down'? She's not the one with cancer, is she? She's the one throwing pity parties on MN, all me me me me me me me me, wah wah wah wah wah, I'm so sad, having to give up my side shag will kill me. FFS.

And I wonder if you would feel quite the same way if this were to happen to you? Would you be quite so forgiving if your partner had been sleeping with someone else? Really think about that one..

Well you know she's been lying to her husband for years and I expect her children. So you have proof she's a practiced liar.

There's absolutely nothing "bizarre" about taking the OP at face value. You are never going to know any different.

And the "crippling loneliness" part came from one empathetic poster who contacted the OP because she was concerned about her.

Doesn't mean she's lying now.

She might be a very honest person in everything else, with this affair being her Achilles heel?

On the face of it, perhaps. We don't know the full circumstances.

Whatever.

Would you have compassion of a man came in here and said his wife wasn't affectionate enough, wouldn't have sex, and so he's been having a long term affair, while letting his wife work to support him. And now she has cancer and he's really sad about potentially giving up his girlfriend.

Chinny reckon you would.

If it was my friend I'd be disgusted with her and would probably tell her husband.