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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

No judgement please

426 replies

Furball0504 · 29/01/2025 13:09

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.

OP posts:
RadFs · 30/01/2025 09:21

Hi @Furball0504 you say that for years there’s been no intimacy. Did you ever try sorting it out. The double standards on this page are shocking. You don’t seem to have painted a good picture of the OM. He doesn’t seem to be someone that can be trusted. You need help. Speak to a therapist.

homeiswhereyouparkit · 30/01/2025 09:22

You are a disgrace!

Phthia · 30/01/2025 09:28

Before him, I'd be at home on my own every single day

Why? Did you not think about, for instance, getting a job, volunteering, doing classes, joining clubs, exploring your local area, sightseeing, etc?

Gloriia · 30/01/2025 09:29

We can only hope the op has had a wake up call and is currently confessing all to her poor dh so he can get his affairs in order and spend time with people who love him as his future is uncertain. Then she can live happily ever after with her om who will no doubt cheat on her..

TwistedWonder · 30/01/2025 09:52

Phthia · 30/01/2025 09:28

Before him, I'd be at home on my own every single day

Why? Did you not think about, for instance, getting a job, volunteering, doing classes, joining clubs, exploring your local area, sightseeing, etc?

Agree. The logical step to being home all day bored and lonely is to get a part time job, go for long walks, join a gym, take some classes, join a meet up group etc.

There's a million other choices other than find a shag buddy

Dweetfidilove · 30/01/2025 11:32

NotOneOfTheInCrowd · 29/01/2025 16:31

OP, if a woman came on here and posted:

“I’ve been the OW for 2.5 years. He’s trapped in a loveless marriage but he hasn’t left her. We love each other deeply and we are everything to each other. Now he’s just found out that his wife has cancer and he’s said that we can’t see each other any more. He claims he’s heartbroken.”

What do you think the responses would be.

The rights or wrongs of an affair aside, if the OM in this scenario was a woman posting here, she would be told that she was better off without him. She was clearly his bit on the side, was never going to leave his wife, and now he’s made his choice, and that she deserved better and should block and delete and move on to find a real relationship.

At the end of the day you don’t have any respect for either of them. You clearly don’t love your DH or the OM or you would be with one of them.

If you loved the OM you would have left your DH for him.

If you loved your DH you would have ended the affair before now.

It’s one thing to have an affair, a fling as it were, it’s quite the deception to keep that affair going for 2.5 years. That’s not something you didn’t plan, you clearly have been planning all along, how to deceive your DH, how to lie to him every day you go out and have sex with the OM. You were on dating apps, so let’s not pretend that you didn’t ask for this to happen, you were looking for it.

Someone feeling lonely can end up in an affair, I can see that. But this isn’t just an affair, this is a calculated deception.

Your DH deserves better and so does the OM.

Hopefully he will move on to someone who genuinely loves him

👏🏾👏🏾

Yogaatsunrise · 30/01/2025 11:36

Guys put your pitchforks down. You have no real idea what op’s life has been like! Jeez, she has come on here for support!

namechangeGOT · 30/01/2025 11:50

Yogaatsunrise · 30/01/2025 11:36

Guys put your pitchforks down. You have no real idea what op’s life has been like! Jeez, she has come on here for support!

No, she's come on here to feel better about herself and vindicated. If she wanted support she should have asked for it before she started her affair. Now, having said that I don't think she's a witch, or hateful and I don't think affairs are the worst thing a person can possibly do to someone else and I also think, depending on circumstances they're easy to fall into.

OP claims she loves the OM. She doesn't. She loves his attention and his apparent sexual need for her. If she loved him she would have left her husband. It seems to me she's loved everything her husband has provided for her including the ability to be a SAHM and didn't want to give that up. Even for someone she now claims she's going to find it so very difficult to give up. And let's face it, she isn't going to give him up at all- she's just going to have to get even more sneaky around seeing him.

She can only make herself feel better, no one can do it for her but for that to happen she needs to see herself for how she is.

Londonfridgeisfalling · 30/01/2025 12:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

CoralOP · 30/01/2025 12:26

Yogaatsunrise · 30/01/2025 11:36

Guys put your pitchforks down. You have no real idea what op’s life has been like! Jeez, she has come on here for support!

And she doesn't deserve one bit of support 🤷‍♀️

SoupDragon · 30/01/2025 13:06

Yogaatsunrise · 30/01/2025 11:36

Guys put your pitchforks down. You have no real idea what op’s life has been like! Jeez, she has come on here for support!

said no one ever on a thread about a cheating man.

Theoriginalmrscillianmurphy · 30/01/2025 13:20

This reply has been deleted

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NotaRealHousewife · 30/01/2025 13:58

Oh op this is a mess. You need to end the affair as it's not the answer

If you are so unhappy in your marriage then you need to look at ways out when you are clearer about what is happening with DH

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 14:46

RadFs · 30/01/2025 09:21

Hi @Furball0504 you say that for years there’s been no intimacy. Did you ever try sorting it out. The double standards on this page are shocking. You don’t seem to have painted a good picture of the OM. He doesn’t seem to be someone that can be trusted. You need help. Speak to a therapist.

You don't know what the OP has tried during those 10 years, certainly the first 7.5 of them. I don't think we are likely to find out either because with the venom coming the OP's way, she is unlikely to post again.

Affairs are never the answer, but some of the cruel, vindictive commentary here is appalling.

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 14:56

Gloriia · 30/01/2025 09:29

We can only hope the op has had a wake up call and is currently confessing all to her poor dh so he can get his affairs in order and spend time with people who love him as his future is uncertain. Then she can live happily ever after with her om who will no doubt cheat on her..

Why would she do that to him, now of all times?! Don't you think the man has enough to contend with?

NotaRealHousewife · 30/01/2025 15:57

The responses on here have been awful, I doubt we will see op again

Secondstart1001 · 30/01/2025 16:00

I think the sad thing about these posts is someone trying to be brave enough to post then getting attacked. When they came on here to get advice. I don’t think shr will be back.

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 16:19

Yeah, I wonder do those sanctimonious posters feel good in themselves for attacking a woman who is at such a low ebb.

Not much #BeKind around!!

@Furball0504 I hope you are coping and realise that not everyone is here to give you a kicking x

Muffin777 · 30/01/2025 16:33

Secondstart1001 · 30/01/2025 16:00

I think the sad thing about these posts is someone trying to be brave enough to post then getting attacked. When they came on here to get advice. I don’t think shr will be back.

She doesn’t want advice though. She wanted sympathy for having to end her affair because her husband has cancer.
I mean. What can you really expect?

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 16:44

Muffin777 · 30/01/2025 16:33

She doesn’t want advice though. She wanted sympathy for having to end her affair because her husband has cancer.
I mean. What can you really expect?

Show quote history

She was "looking for kind words to comfort me or if anyone has been in a similar situation who can relate".

According to her, she can't talk to anyone IRL, and I think she just wanted someone to talk to.

I'm sure there are people on this site who have had a similar experience.

Gloriia · 30/01/2025 16:49

Secondstart1001 · 30/01/2025 16:00

I think the sad thing about these posts is someone trying to be brave enough to post then getting attacked. When they came on here to get advice. I don’t think shr will be back.

Brave enough to post? She's been having a fling but now her dh inconveniently has cancer and she's sad because she thinks she will have to give up her bit on the side The op sounds a bit self absorbed and has deserved all the criticism she got. Although tbf I do think there was encouragement for affairs in some earlier posts.

Let's hope she has told her dh.

Muffin777 · 30/01/2025 16:50

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 16:44

She was "looking for kind words to comfort me or if anyone has been in a similar situation who can relate".

According to her, she can't talk to anyone IRL, and I think she just wanted someone to talk to.

I'm sure there are people on this site who have had a similar experience.

Show quote history

Yes comfort. Sympathy. But I am unsure as to why she thinks she is entitled to any sympathy or comfort… and not because her DH has cancer either, because of what his cancer means for HER having to give up her affair. Mind blowing.

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 19:00

Gloriia · 30/01/2025 16:49

Brave enough to post? She's been having a fling but now her dh inconveniently has cancer and she's sad because she thinks she will have to give up her bit on the side The op sounds a bit self absorbed and has deserved all the criticism she got. Although tbf I do think there was encouragement for affairs in some earlier posts.

Let's hope she has told her dh.

Show quote history

Let's hope she hasn't! It's the last thing the poor bugger needs to hear right now!! Don't you think it would be spectacularly cruel?!

wigsonthegreenandhatsforthelifting · 30/01/2025 19:09

Muffin777 · 30/01/2025 16:50

Yes comfort. Sympathy. But I am unsure as to why she thinks she is entitled to any sympathy or comfort… and not because her DH has cancer either, because of what his cancer means for HER having to give up her affair. Mind blowing.

Show quote history

She didn't say she was "entitled to" any sympathy or comfort; she asked for it. She said that her DH's cancer, "has blown us all away", so I think it's safe to assume that she's deeply upset by the diagnosis. She stated that she still loves him.

Do you know what, life isn't black and white, and sometimes good people do bad things.

The OP also said, "I am on my own with it and have literally no one to talk to". She has realised now that the affair can't continue - yes, it never should have started or carried on, but it has. People have affairs every day - I don't regard it as my business.

And now she can't even talk here either, because of the venom of the sentiments expressed towards her?! Not even the tiniest tad of compassion?!

NotaRealHousewife · 30/01/2025 19:11

Secondstart1001 · 30/01/2025 16:00

I think the sad thing about these posts is someone trying to be brave enough to post then getting attacked. When they came on here to get advice. I don’t think shr will be back.

Exactly