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.

That sounds very difficult.

Shame has a useful purpose to learn from mistakes and to fuel change, but don't let it corrode you.

You can't change the past, but you can change the future by learning from this and making different choices.

Good grief - if someone had shagged my husband and hoped to break up my family, I would have done a hell of a lot more than public shaming them. If someone treated me the way you’ve treated the man’s wife I would make sure you regretted it for the rest of your life.

@Missinghim24 he is not a good person. He told his wife because he felt guilty. Not being noble. You were both in the wrong but he, more so - a married man with kids. God knows what he told the wife: probably that you threw yourself at him, hence her going after you. But she is not whiter than white either - publicly shaming you but taking back her useless liar of a husband? Make sure you can’t see the socials of either of them, pair of arseholes. And for goodness’ sake, avoid involvement with people who are not single in future … you know that’s wrong, even if he said their marriage was over.

OP, I know it’s said all the time on here, but do you think you could be ND? I think this might explain why you have trouble understanding why this man behaved the way he did, and why it didn’t occur to you to think about the nuts and bolts of what life might actually be like if he left his wife.

I only mention it as I think it can be helpful sometimes for people to recognise where they might have some blind spots in terms of theory of mind, and living moment to moment.

Full disclosure - I have a lot of ND relatives and I see this a lot, particularly in ND women.

A difficulty seeing beyond the moment, or taking a wider perspective, or thinking about the wider social and relational dynamics of situations. And a real cognitive difficulty in letting go when a situation does not work out as hoped or expected. I see a lot of ND women taken in by grim narcissistic men, because they take things they are told at face value and think about relationships in a fairly simplistic way, and don’t pick up on a lot of the behaviours that others would recognise as clear red flags.

There is a simplicity of ‘I love this person and I am happy they want to be with me’, and a sort of unthinking trust that saying you love one a other means things will work out, and not much else about the situation really registers.

If any of the comments or perspectives on this thread have surprised you, or seem difficult to understand, it may be worth considering that you have some social communication differences that make you particularly vulnerable. Recognising this could help you put some measures in place to help you make decisions that better support your own interests.

The point being at the time the OW doesn’t think he is a lying tosser. They have unfortunately believed the lies they’ve been fed and think he’s a nice guy in a bad marriage or exes living under the same roof scenario (as I was told).

It’s unfortunate that these types of men exist but if you’ve never come across one who is very, very good at it you could never understand. It isn’t like you meet them in a bar and they go into a schtik about the ol’
ball and chain who doesn’t understand them and he’s so lonely etc. They draw you in first in subtle ways and flatter you, make you feel amazing and that you have an emotional connection. They tell you they’re married on paper but are just staying together for the kids or bc they can’t afford separate properties. You fall in love with the facade of the person they are pretending to be. They often choose vulnerable women. It’s very subtle and very, very clever how most of these men work. It’s a sport for them.

I would actually not be surprised if the OP doesn’t know even the beginning of who this man is and the whole story. Is it even his wife who’s been sending the emails? Or him pretending to be her to get the OP running scared? They enjoy this shit.

The only bit of satisfaction I got at the end of the whole shit show was that his wife eventually found out (not from me) because I think he absolutely wasn’t expecting that and he completely shat himself. He really thought he was going to continue having his cake and eating it - when I found out that his wife knew nothing (he’d told me that she knew about his relationship with me) I sent him a message telling him in no uncertain terms that he’d probably be best leaving town unless he wanted everything he’d ever sent me printing off and sending to her. He did a moonlight flit very soon after!

That would be a real waste of your time and energy. Your ire should be with your husband.

It's never occurred to me before but could of course be possible.
I understand the perspectives of those who think I was being played, those who think I should be ashamed (I am), and those who think I should have had the foresight to see the consequences in full, whatever rhe outcome with this man.
I guess my struggle is with the experience of it. I believed he cared for me, I believed he was unhappy and I believed that he felt his wife was unhappy too. I understand he lied to his wife and he could have lied to me to. But reconciling the experience of our time together with the abrupt ending, the abuse from his wife, their apparently ongoing happy marriage - that's been a challenge.
Believe it or not this thread is really helping with that. I expected polarised views and personal opinions of me but I've really appreciate the kindness and straight talking.
I can see I got sucked into believing something that wasn't quite as it appeared.

The stuff some married men happily come out with in the hope of having sex is wild, she of course will have been told by him how you relentlessly pursued him and he had a moment of weakness.

Now I see him posting happy family pictures and declarations of love for his wife I wonder if I really was the fool she says I am.

She is the fool for staying with a man who shags other women to be fair, but the lesson here for you is not to mess with married men no matter the cliche lines they spin.

Why tell her the truth at all if not so that he was free to be with me?

She found out and faced him with the evidence. Bet you.

No one commits to bring with anyone after a series of long distance communications and one night of sex.

Decent men in unhappy relationships that they intend to leave wait until they are free before starting to mess with another woman’s emotions or seek them out for sex.

Reflect and ruthlessly dissect what happened.

To mess with a common saying: Men: fool you once it’s on them. Fool you twice, it’s on you.

You’ll be better equipped in the future

But reconciling the experience of our time together with the abrupt ending, the abuse from his wife, their apparently ongoing happy marriage - that's been a challenge.

I really struggled with that too and il
be completely honest - it took me about 2 years to really get over it and I had a breakdown or ptsd of something. Same as you I just couldn’t understand why he’d risked so much and put so much effort into trying to be with me (at first I’d pushed against it) if it was all mainly lies. I had felt like I’d finally met my person after so long. I see now that he mirrored me a lot and “read” me to create a false connection.

It’s a thrill to men like this - they’re not normal. And it’s best to not waste your time or mental health trying to understand it. If he wanted to be with you he would be. That’s the long and short of it, and as an earlier poster said - why would you want to be with the kind of man who cheats on his wife? I wish I’d listened to the voice in the back of my head telling me this at the start and steered well clear.

I think for me I was ripe for the picking bc I’d been in an abusive relationship and the kindness he was showing me felt like everything I’d ever wanted. He messaged me all the time with really thoughtful, romantic things and sent me music, flowers - he’d text me that he was in work and going crazy bc he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He massaged my ego like hell! And I was a sucker for it. Now I can see that he was like a kind of con man and I was his victim. Try to see him like that and you’ll take a step back and realise that most of it wasn’t real.

It would be with both.

Why on earth would you want to be with a man so willing to throw his wife and kids away.

Yes you were foolish….and also quite selfish.

@Missinghim24 his marriage is definitely not happy - but it’s not because his wife is a horrible bitch who doesn’t understand him.

It’s because he doesn’t have it in him to be happily married. He doesn’t want to be happily married - he wants to be adored and misunderstood, to create drama, to be the tragic victim or heroic father who gives up true love in the name of family duty. He wants to have women fighting over him, and being humiliated.

He is an empty vessel of a person, just play acting, and substituting emotional intensity for solid reciprocal relationships.

So, so true.

They are very unhappy people, not bc of their wife or anyone else but because they are incapable of happiness.

Have a good read about covert narcissism OP - it might throw some light on things.

I’ve worked with men for decades. I totally understand, I’ve just never been dim enough to fall for it. And I’ve never thought a married man trying to get into my pants was a “nice guy” because, by my, or indeed any, definition, he’s not? Ergo, my pants, or any part of my person, are entirely off limits to him.
I will never and have never been “flattered” by the attentions of an attached man.
And I am absolutely no oil painting but I have lost count of the sad shagger lines I’ve been given…. “She doesn’t understand me”, or “it’s a flatmates type relationship”….or the corker “we don’t have sex anymore”
It is total and utter crap and a pointed “does your wife know you are talking about this” repels them remarkably well.

I also want to add as a PSA that if you enjoy being wooed in a super intense and obsessive way, and having long intense emotional conversations with inappropriate people, and long to be swept off your feet by someone who makes you feel incredibly special and unique and the only person who really gets them - you will inevitably meet your equal but opposite number in men like this, over and over again, until you overhaul your idea of what love is.

You are both looking for a fantasy of emotional intensity rather than an actual relationship.

None of it is real, it only ever ends in drama and tears.

Real relationships are a good deal more workaday and boring, and involve thinking about practicalities and priorities.

Again, very true.

I am now happily married to a man who really struggles with “deep” conversations and big romantic gestures but his love is shown in the way he cares for me and our dc’s and puts us before everything else. He shows his love and commitment in practical ways, he doesn’t need to blather on with platitudes or spend hours collating love songs.

Id never heard of the term “lovebomb” before I came on MN quite a few years ago and it’s a shame bc I’d have been wise to it. Any man who does this and tries to ramp things up very quickly is bad news.

Was he your senior at work?
Yes you were foolish but he used you.
Do you feel he targeted you, that he took advantage of you?

This scenario seems a bit of a twist on the way it usually goes because of him telling his wife.

I ca see why you'd feel confused about that OP,

I think that his feelings for you were real but at the end of the day he realised what he stood to lose with divorce, leaving the kids etc, finances.

Put it down to experience and try to move on.

@Missinghim24

I dont want to be horrible to you OP.

But you are exactly the kind of deluded woman that has ruined my life, my marriage of 22 years, broken my children’s hearts and thought that you knew better than a woman who has given the best years of their life to a man, provided them with children and raised them, sacrificed their own career and then been told that he is unhappy and someone like you comes along and has sex and breaks all the marriage vows.

I hope you really understand how foolish you have been. I hope it never happens to you even though i think you deserve the same wreckage in your own life so you know what it feels like.

I am afraid I don’t think well of this man at all. I do think he manipulated you, whether consciously or unconsciously. I think he made you feel special which we all want to feel and that maybe this closed your eyes to his questionable behaviour. I think you have romanticised things a bit which I understand. But as other posters have said, whilst you made a mistake, the most important thing now is that you do not sucked in again. I think he really showed who is with all this nonsense that he assumed she was as unhappy as he was- if so, why didn’t he talk to her about things? Now he claims that she wants them to stay together, even so, if he is as unhappy as made out, why didn’t he still leave? I suspect the practical reality of maintenance and child support kicked in for him. And now his wife is posting stuff about you, he does nothing but says it’s between you and her- seriously??? He has no integrity, no backbone and is quite simply selfish. Both you and is wife deserve better.

The thing is you don't know what he said about you! " when she knew about me" . Do you think he told her you were the love of his life? He probably told her you chased him, he was drunk and made a mistake. Wise up!

But you do deserve the public shaming. It is a fact what you did. You as a woman yourself, how could you do that? You’re not a young 20yo, you’re a grown woman. Now everyone knows what you did. It’s not even a lie. You have to own it, make amends and do the right thing going forward. You also have to earn back the trust from the people in your life.
It really doesn’t matter that he lied,used you, blah blah - you and only you are responsible for your actions.

What did your work do when they found out?

Yes you were a fool.
And an incredibly inconsiderate, selfish and self serving person too.
You are not a naive trusting 20 year old, you are early 30s and knowingly slept with a married man with children.
Yes he is an absolute arsehole, but you have agency in this too.