Was I a fool?

[Missinghim24]

I'm ashamed to say I had an affair with a colleague last year.
We have worked together a long time, though located in different countries (We are both the same nationality but he lives in the Uk), we saw each other at work events a few times a year.
Last year our work messages got more personal and we shared that we liked each other. He told me his stay at home wife is always annoyed with him, she doesn't get along with his family and hasn't learned his language - nor have their children so he felt very isolated. She didn't appreciate how hard he worked, but I understood what it takes to do the job.
After a few weeks he told her about us, and messaged me to say that he wants his family and has to end it. I accepted that.
But then we saw each other a few days later. He said he'd had to say that as she was threatening to move away with the children. He was very upset so we went back to his hotel room to talk. We ended up sleeping together. When he returned home he moved out and I thought we would be together. But he went back to his wife.
I understand what we did was wrong, but i though he was so unhappy and really cared for me.
Since then he has ignored me completely. His wife has contacted me, telling me I'm young and foolish and should have seen it would never work, that she and the children hate me and will always be part of his life whatever happens (I'm only 11 years younger, he is in his 40s I'm in my early 30s ). That I can't understand as I'm not a mother. I ignored her so she posted about me on social media, so my colleagues, family and friends all know now too. I asked him to stop her but he said it's between her and me.
Was I really stupid to think this was something, that he cared? I would not repeat this mistake but I thought I really meant something to him.

@cockandbullstories

I've always been commited to not sleeping with married men in relationships, for if I had I would have run the risk of him falling in love with me.
It would have led me to be in a liar's pact against another human being and her family. Phoning, texting, meeting, receiving and buying gifts privately taking away famly rescources, taking time, affection and intimacy away from another woman, who I would have had to completely block out and imagine doesn't exist, to fulfill my selfish desires to be with someone who realistically should be taking his marriage vows and familiy responsibilities seriously. Whilst at the same time hoping that he's not just playing a game of one upmanship and abuse in the marriage and that my ultimate participation in the game of 'love' could lead to me crying, being abandonned and expecting any kind sympathy till I was ready to help ruin another marriage.
There could never be a vision of tearing a family apart and knowing kids and ex wives are struggling whilst I played happy families making a home with a guy who was pretending to be single., Yuk.

You either are or you arn't that kind of person, there is no black or white on this one, there is no "I was fooled".

It's intrinsic, it's who you are.

Sorry if that's painful, and there is no apportioning all the blame on the men who had the affair, the blame is equal between sexes.

Why are you apologising to me " sorry if that is painful"? Are you making assumptions in your head about me? It's your opinion and you are entitled to it as I am with my " it's not black and white" opinion.

@cockandbullstories

Apologies, that was directed at those who partake in affairs.

Thanks @CornFed. Appreciated

@Missinghim24

I was not asking about your family.

I was asking about the family that is now destroyed. The one you didnt think of.

He is primarily responsible.

But you are either on a wind up or a sociopath. No one can believably be this lacking in self awareness.

People like the op don't care or at least don't feel any responsibility to the wife and children they are complicit in hurting.
I can't fathom it at all

This thread has been a fascinating read. For some reason it never really occurred to md that those involved with married people go through the exact same process of justification that those who are cheating do. I’ve been on the other side of this when my dh had what I refer to as an emotional affair, but he still calls an inappropriate friendship as in his words, he didn’t feel anything for her, he just liked the way she made him feel. It took months of self-reflection for dh to have this level of understanding of his motivations and to be honest, I’d recommend the same for you to try and understand why you would become so emotionally invested in someone who wasn’t willing or able to be with you.

Fwiw, the men in these situations are not necessarily bad people, but while cheating they become self-centred, accomplished liars who blame their wife for their abhorrent behaviour and only really care about themselves. I do think you were fooled, but no more so than his loyal wife who no doubt believed his bullshit too. I know I did.

While I do think the other woman has some culpability for their part, I’ve come to feel quite sorry for both parties in this situation. The betrayed wife is lied to and has her agency removed and is dealing with relationship terms that she would never agree to if she knew the truth. The other woman (in my case at least) is accepting scraps and believing that this man has some level of love or loyalty to her when he really doesn’t care about her at all beyond her admiration of him. It’s very sad for all involved and I wish that people knew the damage these ‘relationships’ can cause before getting involved. It sounds as though you won’t make that mistake again which is a positive.

Whatever you think of me and my motivations I'm grateful for all the responses, kind and otherwise that have been helpful.
So I'll continue to just be honest in my replies.
I don't see myself as someone heartless, the opposite actually. But I didn't give much consideration to his wife. I felt guilty, often, even I think she's been cruel in her treatment of me. I bought into the version of her he presented to me and I considered it a marriage that was ending anyway. I had no bad feeling towards his children, but hadn't considered how they would view me. I knew he loved them, and would continue to care for them and expected that meant they'd eventually be part of my world too. I had (wrongly apparently) assumed that the fact our relationship started whilst he was still married would not be something they would be aware of.
I thought he was a good person, that his feelings for me couldn't be controlled and I knew were a source of great guilt for him, which I thought supported my view of him as a good person. I didn't expect that we would not eventually be together and none of this would be worth it to anyone.
I see that I'm not the first or last person to think this way, and that I should have thought more with my head than my heart.
Pps mentioned that he was probably not being the great husband I'd pictured him as. Obviously the fact he was unfaithful should have made that obvious but it didn't. And it's been really helpful to consider that his view of his wife as never happy might have been a reflection of his efforts as a husband.
I still don't understand why they chose to stay together if both were miserable, but accept that's none of business.

It really isn’t - the man is married and in this case had children.

He betrayed his family - the OP betrayed no one - you cannot betray someone you don’t know. When for instance I voiced disapproval at the fact my dickhead was still married he took me out to meet his work colleagues and also took me to his house to show me how his marriage really was over

The OP now realises she was wrong to get involved with this man and it seems has cleared a harsh lesson. He lied to her and she believed him. He chose to do that.

If he’d been upfront with the OP at the start and said “look I’m married and I’m never going to leave my wife - I just want some attention and sex” I’m sure she would’ve ran a mile. He coerced her into thinking he wanted a relationship with her (why she would want a relationship with a man like this is another story and one the OP needs to have a hard think about herself). I realised afterwards that for me it was because I was very low and unhappy and he showed me love and attention which made me get a dopamine hit and have me a false sense of happiness.

The man and his wife both sound batshit and I’m sure in time the OP will release she was very lucky that it was a lie and she got away from him and his drama.

To think the married man and the OW who is being lied to are equally to blame is very misogynistic and rather ignorant.

You don't know they were both miserable! All you know is what HE told you. @missinghim24

Op there is no way that you didn't consider that his wife would be at best furious and most likely completely devastated to find her husband had been cheating on her.
She was always going to hate you, it's much easier than hating someone she's loved for a long long time.
By extension the kids would hate you too.
And it sounds like you didn't care much for him either. He was telling you that he was struggling with guilt. So rather than encouraging him to address that by doing the right thing, what exactly did you do?

Of course the OW is also to blame, even if it's only 10 percent.You may not think you can be implicated in hurting causing harm to someone you don't know, but do you think for example a politician who helps construct a system or law that effects and hurts many people is not to blame, because he doesn't know the people?

@Redscrunchie can you give me another example where being directly involved in the physical, emotional, sexual harm of another person (I’d argue abuse) is dismissed by the fact you do not know them or have not made a promise to them?

But if you have been made to believe the wife is not going to be hurt, bc the marriage is dead or over then that is different isn’t it? As I said earlier, if the man was honest about the situation to the OW and said “I’m not going to leave my wife bc whilst I’m not particularly happy, I’m actually perfectly ok staying in the relationship bc I don’t want the hassle of divorce and actually having my wife makes my life easier” then in 9 cases out of 10 the affair would not happen! They lie and lie and lie again to get what they want.

The married man takes agency away from both his wife AND the OW in this manner, as she is made to believe the situation is different to what it actually is - which is that the married man wants an ego massage/attention/sex/excitement. Instead he spins the tale of the dead in the water marriage, the wife who hasn’t had sex with him for years etc.

I do accept my part in my situation - I was in a very bad place and would never normally get involved with someone who was still married (even if he said it was only on paper) but I didn’t lie to anyone or fabricate things to draw someone in and get what I wanted from them.

I suspect this man has told the OP many lies and she just doesn’t understand that yet.

You are comparing physically harming someone you do not know to sleeping with someone who’s partner you do not know.

That is a silly comparison.

I didn’t just say physically harming, I said physically, emotionally and sexually and in fact I know of people who received STIs so who were physically harmed.

You are choosing to see this as ‘silly’ because it questions your narrative.

You involved yourself in harming another. It matters not that you were ‘lied’ to. You’re choosing to see that as an excuse. You CHOSE to believe lies because you wanted to go there.

There is no other scenario where you can knowingly involve yourself in harming another that you can dismiss with ‘I didn’t know them, didn’t make promises to them’. That is my ‘silly’ point.

Not really as if the marriage was already over a decent human being would say ok start divorce proceedings and then come talk to me about starting a relationship, if YOU choose not to then you are complicit in the abuse of the innocent spouse and children.
Claiming to be a victim of the cheating spouse is just you trying to ease your conscience when the truth is you chose to be a mistress and help destroy a family instead of saying no to a married man.
Look I get it nobody wants to think of themselves as the bad bastard in any particular situation and its very easy to blame the cheating spouse and convince yourself that you're also a victim, but its not true you are just as guilty as him, there's no justification for knowingly getting involved with a married man.
You can say if I'd known that he'd lied or wouldn't leave his wife I'd never have got with him all you want but it doesn't change the fact that you were happy to sleep with a married man and contribute to the break up of a family in the worst possible way, with all the hurt and harm to the wife and kids that goes with it.
You made that choice, nobody forced you or held a gun to your head. You decided that what you wanted was more important than doing the right thing and staying away from a married man, that makes you just as bad as him imho

Not really as if hes still having sex with his wife you're putting her physical health at risk.
Why do you think that the 1st thing women are advised to do when they find out they've been cheated on is to get a STD test

You involved yourself in harming another. It matters not that you were ‘lied’ to. You’re choosing to see that as an excuse. You CHOSE to believe lies because you wanted to go there

No, I did not “involve myself in harming another” as you put it bc I was told that she had moved on, didn’t care, it was over etc. I had no reason to believe it wasn’t true as in my mindset - why would a man who wanted to stay with his wife relentlessly pursue and try to have a relationship with another woman? Going so far as to take that person around the area he lived in to go drinking/for lunch/ holding hands walking down the street, taking her on weekends away? It sounds like the Op was told something similar. When you are dealing with that level of sociopathy/deception it is very, very easy to believe what you are being told - why wouldn’t you? If you’re an honest person you do not believe that there are people out there who go through life lying and cheating and living a double life. It’s unfathomable - it’s still is to me.

So you are basically saying that anyone who is lied to deserved what happens to them as they should have been aware that the person was lying?

Some women just want to believe that other women are always equally to blame, must be bad people, wanton etc. It’s internalised misogyny pure and simple. Or maybe just ignorance.

I don’t know any woman who would have sex with a man they believed was still having sex with their wife/partner.

It is the MAN - the married man - who is putting both his wife and the OW at risk in this scenario. Do you really not see this?

In my case there were no children so no family to be broken up.

I was told the divorce was going through, not that it matters. If you really think that everyone who gets involved with someone who’s been married will ask to see the divorce papers/speak to the wife etc you are being daft.

Life isn’t like that. Sometimes two people meet and fall in love/want to have sex and if one is married but says he’s getting divorced and they don’t live together anymore would you really ask to see the divorce papers before shagging him? Come on now!

100% - the second you know they’re married and you still continue in a relationship with them then that’s when you’re equally as culpable.

Anyone saying ‘he said he’s married but……,’ is justifying why they facilitated another woman bring fucked over.

We’ve all been pursued by married men but we say no because any decent human being would leave an unhappy marriage rather than find a shag buddy.

The word misogyny always thrown around like confetti to try and make it a sexist thing rather than accept their own culpability and take responsibility for knowingly doing the wrong thing.

No its you and him who are both risking his wife's health. When you have knowingly have sex with a married man thats a risk you are choosing to take for yourself and his wife.
You just don't get it you can't just wash your hands of all the guilt and harm you caused because he lied about his motives when you know hes married. If you were a decent person you'd have told him no come back when you've filed for divorce. If his marriage was as dead as he claimed and he was serious about having a relationship with you he'd have no problem with filing for divorce and waiting to get with you until after she was served.

‘I don’t know any woman who would have sex with a man they believed was still having sex with their wife/partner.
It is the MAN - the married man - who is putting both his wife and the OW at risk in this scenario. Do you really not see this?’

I know plenty of OW who knew that the MM was still having sex with his wife, but their attraction was TOO strong, I also know plenty who listened in on conversations between the wife and husband to know that the wife was happy and settled. I also know of many cases of OW stalking the social media of the unknowing wife and seeing pictures of their happy families. I have a number of betrayed friends, I know their stories.

Your ability to paint OW as victims is becoming laughable now. There’s an OW on another thread laughing about how exciting it is to have sex with a married man, is she one of these poor sausage lied to women you’re referring to?!

As for the lazy (and very tiresome) ‘misogyny’ insult, I’ll take that if it means I support betrayed women and point out the harm made by OW by involving themselves knowingly with a married man who IS harming (abusing) his wife.

Yes i would because I know how men lie and lie and lie some more if they think that it will get them sex.
Having worked in the hospitality industry all my life I've seen and heard every possible variation of my wife doesn't understand me, we're splitting up, I'm a poor abused man from the regulars trying it on with some young thing when I know fine well that they were on the pub/restaurant the day before declaring their undieing love for their wife so I maybe particularly cynical about it but yes I'd want to see proof. Though if still stay clear as I have morals and who wants to be the rebound partner