In too deep

[Outofmymind45]

I know I’m going to get some hate for this post but I really need some advice from anyone who’s been in the same/similar situation to me.

For the last 2 months I’ve been involved with a married man at work. Up until a few days ago it was all emotional , but then we kissed - we’ve not slept together. I’ve fallen hard for this man and he feels the same - we both agreed it’s not a fling and if things were different we’d be together. I never asked him to leave his family and I never would.
Ive opened up to him , trusted him and he was my safe space.

We constantly had conversations of it needing to end and stop talking to each-other etc but it never lasted long. Yesterday he said that even though letting me go is the hardest thing he’s ever done and he’s scared of losing me , he needs to choose his family. He said he loves her , still wants to be her husband but he also has fallen for me. We now have to act like strangers and it’s breaking me.

Ive walked away and said that unless I’m the one he wants for certain I can’t do this anymore. I’m absolutely heartbroken and so confused how he can say he wants me but he also wants to stay married to her. I’m so in love with him , I’m convinced he’s the one and now I have no idea where to start picking up the pieces and moving on.

i never set out on falling for this man and I can’t even pin point the moment it happened. I just need to know how I can get over this - we see eachother every day and it just breaks me every time I see him

It’s nothing to do with misogyny. He’s going nowhere in this situation and so if the OP really can’t cope with seeing him then she can only vote with her feet.
Of course she shouldn’t have to move jobs but if the only way she can deal with it is to remove herself then what other choice does she have?

That's why filling your pen into the company ink is not a good idea - the knock on impact can be devastating

@daisychain01 they both indulged themselves in the infidelity. Both totally wrong in that.
But then the man did the right thing and ended it. Effectively he can’t win: if he strings OP long he’s the bad guy and if he does the right thing and ends it he’s somehow still the bad guy. In society we applaud people who do the right thing.
OP would carry on the affair if he let her. The affair is the wrong thing to do, therefore gender aside, he has now done the right thing but OP is complaining about it and wants to continue to do the wrong thing.
It has nothing to do with who is the man or woman.
They both did wrong initially but the guy is the one now trying to put it right.
Justifiably criticising a woman for doing the wrong thing and giving the man who did the right thing a plaudit isn’t misogyny, if the genders were reversed in this scenario the man would get the criticism and the woman the praise. Men sometimes actually do try to put wrongs right, despite the way a lot of MN feel about men.
He doesn’t need to move jobs because he’s ok with the situation, he can handle it.
OP knew what she was getting into and he couldn’t have been more honest with her about the way he feels about his wife.
They were in this 50-50, they both knew the risks. He shouldn’t have to move jobs because OP can’t handle the consequences of a risk she willingly took.
If he couldn’t handle it and she could, he should move jobs as a way of getting out of the painful situation and she should stay where she is.
Imagine suggesting on here that a woman who was ok with her situation should move jobs, just because a man was too upset to work with her after she broke off their relationship!
Gender isn’t the issue here, it’s who is doing the right thing or wants to carry on doing the wrong thing after they both screwed up royally.
The best way to get over a limerant object is distance, either cognitive, or if you can’t do it mentally, then literal physical distance.

Oh dear me, I hear you and I am not judging at all. I can appreciate Howard this is for you and I hear your hurt. Be kind to yourself AND sweetie , wake up and smell the coffee too. He's chosen his wife , and now you need to find ways to move on. Seriously - move the f* on!!! It'll be in your best interest! Good luck darling xx

how hard

You cannot "steal" a married man if he does not want to be stolen. He's not an object but an autonomous human being.
Some ladies here are clearly married to a cheater and can only justify staying married to him by pointing their arrows on the other woman. If the guy wants to cheat he will cheat, and he will try to find a woman to cheat with. Do you really think he will not cheat because the OW he targeted rejects him? He'll find another one! A guy arrived in my department and within a year he had an affair with a woman at work, and then we heard that he had had an affair with a colleague in his previous department as well. That went sour when she started making a fuss since it became clear that he had no intention to divorce his wife. Now the new OW played him because she became pregnant - she was in her late thirties so it was now or never I guess. I actually met him and his wife hand in hand in town a couple of weeks before the news of the pregnancy of the OW broke... The wife finally had enough and divorced him. Last thing I know is he married the other woman but I doubt she ever felt very certain about him being faithful...
Believe me, in most of these situations the initiative comes from the married men. I've seen this scenario play out a couple of times. Once a friend at her job and in my own working environment a couple of time. And concerning my friend I told her from the start it was a bad idea. I was right because the guy strung her along for several years, promising to divorce but not doing it. These married guys are very smooth and know what target to pick: a younger single attractive colleague who is a high-performer at work. Younger and single means more vulnerable, less confident when it comes to relationships so easier to convince to accept crumbs.
A single other woman is safe because no way does he want to have an angry husband beating him up and/or telling his wife what is happening 😀!

It's not about it being ok, it's about the fact that the wife is married to the husband, not to the OW. The OW has no responsibility towards the wife, she's not the husband's babysitter.
What an arrogant idea that someone has to guarantee the wife that her husband does not cheat. He's an adult who makes his own choices.
It's a very naive idea that if only all women would refuse to have an affair with the husband, he would stay faithful.
He does not WANT to be faithful, that's the problem. And so he will search until he finds someone to cheat with.
There are guys who work for decennia with female colleagues and will never make a pass with him for the simple reason he's not interested in an affair.

Is anyone else uncomfortable with me being on mumsnet? Go on dadsnet

@Ariel896 : I'm not sure sure what you're saying. Are you saying my comment is unwelcome because I'm male? I don't mind if you are: I just want to check.

Get a new job and you’ll soon forget about him.

@TheSuperfluousWoman you may be surprised but I agree with you. A man can’t be stolen from his betrayed partner and I never said he could be. I believe a cheating man has personal agency but so does the other woman. You’ve conveniently misread my post.

At some point whether or not the man has chased the other woman or not, the affair starts and the other woman chooses to involve herself in the abuse of another woman. That is the point where her own personal agency to engage comes into play. She chooses to engage herself in the deception, CHOOSES to harm another human being through her actions.

Can you give me one other example in society where being complicit in someone else’s harm is considered acceptable and written off with stupid comments like ‘you don’t owe them anything as you didn’t know them’.

Did you deliberately misread this?
At what point was I arrogant enough to say that it was the OW’s responsibility to make sure OP’s husband didn’t cheat? I said her behaviour is reprehensible and it is, but not for the reasons you mistakenly read into it.
Her husband is totally responsible for the affair, I made that abundantly clear.
I just don’t think women who knowingly sleep with another woman’s husband are behaving well in their own right. His behaviour, his choices, his entire responsibility. However, the OW’s choices are independently reprehensible.
”What an arrogant idea that someone has to guarantee the wife that her husband does not cheat. He's an adult who makes his own choices.
It's a very naive idea that if only all women would refuse to have an affair with the husband, he would stay faithful.”
Eh??? Where did I say that? That wasn’t at all what I said! I said it was all on him but OW are not behaving well either. It’s most certainly not any OW’s responsibility to stop anybody cheating, I never said it nor implied it. It’s everybody’s responsibility to behave like a decent human being and whilst I don’t blame OW for affairs I still don’t like what they do by joining in. It’s always the married person’s responsibility to stay faithful, nobody else’s. However,
married men hitting on you doesn’t mean that if you join in you’re absolutely spotless just because he’s the married one and you’re not. It’s a crappy thing to do to anyone, even a stranger you owe nothing to. They know jolly well that they’re helping him hurt somebody else. I would want no part of anything that I knew would hurt others. Neither should they.
Adults are responsible for their own behaviour. His is dreadful because he is married and so is the OW’s for sleeping with a married man. Blame all his, but both behaving appallingly.

Are you seriously saying that sleeping with another woman’s partner is a nice ok thing to do? It’s not her responsibility to stop him cheating but it’s her personal responsibility to behave decently. He shouldn’t cheat and she shouldn’t help him. Both awful.
As if OW are responsible for another man’s affair or choice to cheat.🙄 As if an OW not joining in would stop a man from cheating! He’d just keep going until he found one who would.
Of course it’s a naive attitude to think that if only women would not have affairs with married men they would stay faithful! The second they hit on anyone or flirt they’re already cheating! This naive attitude is one which I certainly do not posess nor ever put out there. All I said was OW are not behaving decently. I stand by that: they’re not. But I says she was responsible for stopping him cheat? Responsible for his affair? Not a bit if it. I agree with every word you say but I didn’t write anything of the sort.
I’m totally baffled.

I don't actually think a random man owes you any loyalty, so I don't see how you can be cross at him. He liked a woman he met and pursued it, he didn't break any martial vows, he never made any promises to you.

I personally don't think OP has done anything wrong if she's single. Single people are free to date whoever they like.

However, to OP I would say - why on earth attach yourself to a man who is happy to cheat on his wife?? You know now what he's like - there's plenty of faithful, better people out there to choose from. Personally I think you should change jobs so you're not seeing him everyday

@TheSuperfluousWoman so if I was your best friend, and I came on to your spouse, whether he rejects me or not I hold absolutely no accountability - right?

OP, I'm sorry, he's a shit. He's a shit husband, and will be a shit to you too. In fact he already has been, because if he wasn't, he never would have drawn you in like that.

The hard truth is, if he's not leaving his wife, he still loves her. He's likely attracted to you, but it's not love, and you certainly won't have his loyalty. You are providing an enjoyable diversion, ego boost and attention. I'd be willing to bet he's done this before.

As a former family therapist, I can tell you without hesitation that when a man gets caught, the full weight of the possible consequences will hit him hard. Selling the family home. Not seeing the kids every day. Dealing with the kids being upset or acting out. Splitting assets and reduced standard of living. Legal fees. Paying child support. Possibly losing friends, as well as totally nuking your relationship with your inlaws. Most men will fight tooth and nail to save their marriage, even when they are no longer in love with their wives. Because their marriage isn't just him and her, it's their family, it's their entire life. An affair partner is rarely ever more than a walk on part, no matter what the married person says. He will drop you and block you in a heartbeat if his wife finds out, and he will probably blame you too, to save his own skin. He will have absolutely zero loyalty to you, or care for you, if he is compromised.

If you don't believe me about the married man script and want to know how married men who have affairs think, go on r/adultery on reddit, or r/theotherwoman. It's sobering reading that I recommend to anyone contemplating an affair, because it's a nasty reality check. These men have affairs for years on end, declare love, but turn off like a light switch when they get caught. And they don't protect the affair partner from the wrath of the wife either, often resulting in public embarrassment, ruined careers, lost friendships, etc. Blaming the other woman is a convenient way to never have to look at themselves, or make hard, adult decisions about not being happy in their marriage any more and taking responsibility for that.

Affairs destroy everyone involved and it's not worth it. Walk away now for your own sake. You can recover from a 2 month dalliance, but the further you go in, the harder it will be to extricate yourself, and the more it will hurt when he inevitably chooses his wife and family. Your job is to choose yourself, because he won't.

This is a very odd response. Of course I can hate and have anger towards my wifes affair partner.

A lot went on and has come to light after my wife told him to leave her alone. He is a nasty piece of work.

Another woman indulging a married man’s fantasy and allowing herself to be second choice.

Protect yourself. Change department or whatever. Your heartbreak won’t get any easier if you keep having see him.

I live near a 71 year old guy.

He cheated on his first wife and daughter and disappeared for weekends. He worked in the pit when it was open but retrained as a teacher and got a job in a college where he had an affair with a student. They got engaged and got a flat together.

Meanwhile he cheated on her too, simultaneously getting a private detective to see if his wife had a partner to get out of paying maintenance.

His career took off, he married the OW (who forgave him) and had two children. He dragged his new family all over the country chasing promotion and cheated constantly, leaving all these colleges under a cloud but getting a payoff.

He got a job as principal at our local college and was offered a room to stay by a colleague during the week as he lived 180 miles away. By this time the second wife had divorced him and he had a new partner. He then cheated on her with the new landlord's wife.

Moved to another college in a principal role, married the partner, and embarrassed her in a speech to the college and industry by assuring everyone "I didn't buy her online". She's Indian and still with him. She's beautiful, smart and a good deal younger.

He became a local councillor here and got up to his old tricks in his late 60s.

A long way of saying these guys never grow out of it. He's flirting with women at the sports club now he's retired.

And yet, your wife, who chose to have an affair with him knowing it may end her relationship with you, chose him… but she’s received kindness and understanding. I guess you have to do what you have to do to reconcile what she did but the victimising of your wife like she’s some innocent bystander is, to me, difficult to read. Sending best wishes, you’ve been through a hard time indeed.

OP your story is a tale as old as time and while you may feel in the moment like it’s love, it isn’t. A new job may be the best option. Rather unfair but it’ll take you out of that painful situation.

Christ. What an absolute creep of a man.

@TheSuperfluousWoman “Some ladies here are clearly married to a cheater and can only justify staying married to him by pointing their arrows on the other woman. “
Shock horror! There are women who are clearly married to a cheater! (Should I hide this fact? Am I supposed to feel ashamed of myself? Good job it’s not ok to judge a women on MN then, huh?….)
If they are saying the OW did a bad thing therefore they must automatically be blameshifting to the OW and think their husband was a poor victim of an evil woman and he did nothing wrong! Rubbish.
I had no idea I should be out there with my shame bell or hide it as if I had done something terrible.
It appears to be more of a betrayal to womenkind and more of a terrible act on MN to stay with a cheating man who got his shit together and fix a marriage and keep a family together, than it is to sleep with another woman’s partner.
I stayed with my husband after his affair but I don’t feel the need to justify my decision to anybody.
You say “justify their reasons” as if women who stay with their husbands are always wrong (ie they have to justify their reasons for doing this terrible thing) and those who leave are always right. There are right reasons to leave and right reasons to stay, too. Not that MN ever likes that.
I never blamed the OW for his affair, he chose it and he pursued it. All the blame is his, not hers. What I don’t agree with is her choice to sleep with another woman’s husband. I think it’s a repugnant thing to do, in its own right, whoever she chooses to do it with.
I don’t know the OW and have never met her or contacted her, nor wanted to.

I don’t like or agree with what she did, I don’t like her behaviour, but to do what she did and say some of the things she said, (I have independent proof, not just what he told me) she’s clearly a damaged individual. The adage is true: hurt people hurt people. This is no excuse though, just a way of understanding how people arrive at where they are and why they make bad choices and fuck their lives (and the lives of others) up.
We all have to own our own shit and deal with it, whether it’s fair that it happened to us or not. There are no excuses for hurting others with choices we made because of personal shit we never dealt with.
I don’t feel the need to “point my arrows” at this woman. OW shoot themselves in the foot anyway, and it’s nonsense to think that because betrayed wives don’t like the OW that they are ok with what their husband did or blame her for it all either.
You can criticise somebody’s behaviour but that doesn’t mean you think the blame for what they joined in with was theirs.
That’s where this gets mixed up on MN, betrayed women who stayed with their husbands and criticise OW get arrows pointed at them under the assumption that they all ‘just forgave their husbands’ or ‘let them get away with it’ or ‘just blame her’.
Posters think it always follows that calling out the bad behaviour of an OW, whilst still holding your husband fully 100% accountable, is never possible nor actually the case.
The argument follows then, that it must therefore be ok to secretly sleep with other people’s partners and it wouldn’t bother the more self-righteous posters at all if it happened to them, they’d feel just fine about whoever had sex with their husband and focus their anger solely on him.
Never, ever going to happen.
I am in my sixties and have yet to meet anyone who liked the woman who slept with their partner or condoned what she did, whether they reconciled or got divorced. The vast majority reconciled. You won’t find them here though. The vast majority of couples do reconcile after an affair, although MN isn’t a great barometer for that, because of the flak you get for admitting it. I get many private messages from posters who want to stay and reconcile but daren’t put that on their post about a cheating discovery, which two replies later becomes an LTB thread and the OP daren’t go against it publicly. The support turns into attack if you do.
But obviously I’ve just never met the betrayed women who are ok with the behaviour of the women who slept with their husbands.
I’m guessing that somewhere unbeknownst to me, there’s a load of women going out for coffee with their husband’s affair partner, who don’t mind this at all and probably helpfully swap notes with each other about how good the husband is in bed and what he likes to do.
It is human nature to dislike somebody who joins in in harming you, even if they’re not the perpetrator. The getaway car driver still gets prosecuted for aiding and abetting the thief, even though it wasn’t their plan and they stole nothing from the bank. They still chose to drive the car.
Not their fault, not their plan, but they still did a bad thing.

Forgot to add that I think the other poster wasn’t saying that OW should police married men’s behaviour, they should police their own! It’s morally repugnant to sleep with somebody else’s partner whether you’re a man or a woman. It’s morally repugnant to sleep with somebody else if you have a partner. Both acts are morally repugnant but it’s not up to either party to police the other. Cheating is a two way street. If people didn’t cheat there would be no cheating is a true statement, as is if people didn’t knowingly sleep with attached people there would be no cheating either. Put genders in here and the fur flies, but they are both actually true statements.
That’s not assigning responsibility to one sole party to prevent the bad behaviour of the other, it’s assigning responsibility to both the cheat and their OW/ OM.
It’s not saying you shouldn’t sleep with somebody else’s husband so that men can’t cheat and that it’s the OW’s responsibility to stop that. It’s saying that in cheating there are two parties who should both take responsibility for doing the right thing, regardless of blame or who started it.
We owe it to ourselves and society to accept responsibility for our own behaviour and behave decently towards others.