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.

I think you need to stop and think about what you really want. If you’re convinced the other man will move on quickly maybe he isn’t the one for you either. But it sounds like guilt has made you react. Can you and your husband carry on as friends if he recovers or do you need more?

I cannot believe my eyes. All kinds of apologists for infidelity. Incredible.

Bet you dont even tell your husband.

It’s always the way on here

• man cheats ‘boo hiss cheating scumbag’
• woman cheats ‘aww bless you hun don’t feel bad, your DH must have neglected your needs’

Double standards are breathtaking

It's awful isnt it. It'll 'kill' the op to ditch her fling because she thinks she is duty bound to stay with her poor dh presumably to get the house if he sadly dies.

Did you not meet your ex husband’s needs in some way too ?

So you deceived your husband for 2.5 years and had an affair behind his back. There's no excuse for this, no matter how unloved you felt at home. You should have ended your marriage if you wanted more, rather than getting it elsewhere. How many lies have you told your husband in 2.5 years? It's him I feel sorry for as he could have had the chance to move on from you and start another relationship with someone honest and loyal.

Agree!

People are making a really good point. The OP said “it’s going to kill me to end the affair and the hardest thing I have ever done”

I wonder if fighting cancer might kill your husband?

Or finding out you have been cheating on his for 2.5 YEARS will kill him?

Or finding out how awful and self centred you are will kill him?

But yeah OP poor you.

I think you are at the bargaining stage of grief re your DH's cancer. Like, "if I make this big sacrifice he will have to be ok". Reminds me of a book called "Pain" by Zeruya Shalev, try reading it. But the world doesn't work like that really. You can't make these bargains. Can you try therapy?

I mean, we all behave like dicks at times, and having an affair is one way lots of people to do - a major way granted, but lots of people on mumsnet react as if it’s The Worst Thing Anyone Ever Did, which it probably isn’t, at (what appears to be) the end of a stale marriage.

Don’t be dramatic about it, you aren’t the only one.

It really doesn’t sound like the OM is much of a catch, so maybe no bad thing you have to call time on it.

You will support your husband as you should, but you might want to think about whether it’s time to call time on the marriage and how you might manage that. You can remain supportive without being married to him. I’m not suggesting you should do anything now, but perhaps when things have settled a bit.

you'll be caring for and worrying about him and you can't do this alone.

Should everyone who's lonely and caring for a spouse with cancer start up an affair then?

If you already know that he will easily walk away and move on, doesn't that make it a bit easier for you? He sounds shallow to me.

Wishing your husband well.

The husband should know. If he does get a poor prognosis then why should his cheating wife get everything. He may well want to leave half the house to his kids. It is the least she should do, be honest with him. Yes, carry on fucking the fling if he is so irresistible but surely with her poor dh's full knowledge so he can make appropriate financial arrangements.

I would end things with the OM because he is going to hurt you, he sounds like a serial cheat.
End things and be there properly for your dh. You can consider what to do when you know more about the diagnosis- re whether to end your marriage.

You should have ended things before the affair.

OP should confess the affair to DH agree, but why should she still not get half the house ? I ask this only because I see so many threads on here about husbands who had affairs and they never give up their half of the house or contact with children over an affair? Sorry ignore me if I am getting mixed up, I really am genuinely a bit confused over some of the nuances of this thread

OM doesn't even sound up to much.

He's got previous and he's got issues. You make him feel wanted and validated. Until you don't, for whatever reason.

You start your OP saying that you have a very close friendship with your husband. But then go on to say come quite negative things about him. Which is it?

If you do actually consider your husband a close friend, then support him through this. Either as his wife or his soon to be ex wife, but good friend.

Take OM out of the equation completely.

She should obviously get half just surely not all of it as is the norm when a spouse dies. We don't know if he will die obviously, but if I was having cancer treatment I'd want to amend my will to leave my half to the kids and not a cheating spouse.

Maybe to try and gain back a small shread of dignity?

Because its horrendously wrong to continue an affair whilst her husband is going through cancer treatment?

Because she said it was a mistake, why would you carry on a mistake?

To show her children that she has some kind of decency?

So she can sleep a night?

Maybe because she doesn't deserve to have her shits and giggles snagging someone while her husband is dying?

Why are you trying to encourage her to do a horrible thing under such horrible circumstances?
Certainly she can keep it a secret from her husband but to continue with it is bordering on evil.
Can you image getting cancer and someone telling your husband to keep having his affair because why not, he's been doing it for so long and you might die anyway!

And I realise my advice isn't much different from what you said you planned to do.

My point is that this relationship with OM was likely never going to be what you hoped it would be anyway. So focus solely on what you would be doing in this situation if he never existed.

This! I bet the om has an ow.

Understood yes. But timing right now ...might upset DC even more terribly right now- a diagnosis and the initial couple of months of treatment are the hardest

Not sure OP is actually going to come back on here to the thread but depends a lot on what type of cancer, prostate or pancreatic for eg.

You should come clean, i think your DH deserves honesty from you, his wife. Then he can make an informed decision about how he can spend what may be his final months in this world. You owe him this, otherwise you are forcing him to live a lie. If I was him, I'd want to know. You need to be a bigger and more brave person than you have been from here on. Reading your OP, I'm not sure you've got it in you however.

Exactly! I completely agree.

You met OM on a dating site. So you were trawling for another man when you were still married. And then you give it, “I didn’t mean to fall in love with him” bullshit! If you were unfulfilled in your marriage, you should’ve ended it. But you wanted your cake and to eat it. Don’t make out you’re the victim here because you’re not. You CHOSE to go on dating apps and look elsewhere instead of working on your marriage or ending it. You CHOSE to meet the OM and start an affair with him. You CHOSE to keep it going for years! You’re no victim, your husband is! You broke your marriage vows and you had ample opportunity to not do that but you didn’t. You just kept going. And now that your husband has a potentially terminal illness, or at least will have to go through horrendous cancer treatment and the trauma of a cancer diagnosis, all you care about is that it’s gotten in the way of your love affair with a known cheater, (before you) who has the inability to be alone and just attaches to any woman that will have him by the sounds of it. Utterly deplorable behaviour and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Leave your husband and let him concentrate on his recovery. If I was him, I wouldn’t want your pity, I’d tell you to ram it. Unbelievable!