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.

I think he did tell her. From a couple of weeks into us talking he'd said he'd have to tell her. That she knows him too well and had picked up that something was different. She had something important coming up and he had wanted to wait until that was out of the way to tell her, but told her sooner as she was pushing to know what was going on with him.

A tale as old as time OP. And given your age (you aren’t young) you are a fool. Sorry.

There’s being naive and then there’s being downright stupid and unscrupulous. You started a relationship with a man knowing that he was married with children and then you’ve got the front to whinge about how his wife has treated you? Many many years ago I had a boyfriend who cheated on me with a female just like you who didn’t care that he was in a long term relationship and over 50 years later I can still remember the sense of hurt and hatred I felt towards her for ruining my relationship, and that was without being married and having children.

Your man didn’t care about you, he was never going to leave his wife or even willingly tell her about you - you were just a quick shag and he bailed out as soon as you had jumped into bed with him. Sorry OP, but you have wrecked the woman’s life and you deserve everything you get.

@Growlybear83 but she didn’t even know you, or did she?
She was just believing what she was being told, (which could be anything) also why should she care about you. She didn’t wreck your relationship, he did. I think you should thank her, as it sounds like you got a lucky escape. Hopefully she ended up with someone like him.

I do feel bad that she's hurt, more so that the children were hurt although I'm not sure why they felt the need to tell them. I expected that they would just be told that their parents are separating like lots of others do. I know he was worried about how they would handle it, but lots of children experience separation and do better with happier parents.
I didn't expect such hate from her. I understand she's angry, but he stayed and cut contact with me so I think I came off worse in it all. Or maybe I really did have a lucky escape.

Yes, imagine WANTING everyone to know that your husband despises you, has zero respect for you, and has been having a good laugh at you behind your back. The wife's the only fool in this situation.
Anyway, it's fine to fall for someone already in a relationship. Just make sure that that relationship is properly ended before anything happens between you.

You cannot be serious.
You came off worse?!
That poor woman had her entire life ripped out from under her. You were part of that. He was discussing and making plans for her life with you and she wasn't part of that! You have no idea what this kind of betrayal does to someone.
You had a fling with someone you knew was married for a few months. I had longer relationships in my teens! Your lives were never intertwined, you don't have shared experiences all you had was a projection of a fantasy.
Its insulting for you to suggest you came off worse here.

She does work, looking after their children.
Hope you don't ever have any,and someone comes along for a quckie with your husband.
It's usually not great for the children either the fallout.

Their children are school age so she has her days free. He works long hours and has to travel often. It was one of his frustrations that she doesn't understand how hard he works and was always complaining that he isn't helping enough.

The children, will feel it, because the parents will be unhappy.Nobody has to tell the children anything, they family will suffer and you've contributed to that.Just try and stay away from men with families.Yes it' s mainly his fault, but the world is a hard enough place and there are single men.
You seem to say you won't be fooled again, so try and learn from it.

Yea she was an acquaintance and knew that we had been together for some time. He was just as much to blame as she was. They were both total shitbags.

Im not for a second suggesting that the man whose marriage the OP tried to break up isn’t every bit despicable as the OP, but she is the one posting here looking for sympathy, not him. Some of the responses in this thread really do show the Mumsnet double standards - if the man in this ‘relationship’ had posted about what had happened, he would have been crucified, but some people are seriously suggesting that the OP was naive and hard done by, and the OP thinks has the cheek to say that she didn’t expect such hate from the man’s poor wife!!!! Sometimes I can’t find the words to express what I think of some of the people on here.

How dare you even mention this poor woman's children and speculate that they'd be happier with separated parents. What is wrong with you? They're not your children, he's not your husband. Never was, never will be. They are a family and clearly trying to stay a family. You got used because you were easy. It's not that deep. If he loved you he would make it happen with you. He didnt. That's it, there's nothing else to think about here.

You have two choices really. Listen to the women in this thread who actually very kindly gave you lots of nice words and advice and move on or stay in your delusion and keep gaslighting yourself into thinking you were important for 5 mins.

Are you trying to wind me up?
She's working damm hard looking after those children, he decided to have them and presumably agreed she would stay home.Like I say hope you never get yourself into such a situation where you're relying , trusting your partner and they stick the knife in.

I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to wind anyone up just giving the context.
I am no where near them now, I've respected his wish to cut me out and just trying to make sense of it all and move on.

There is a special place in hell for women who knowingly sleep with married men.

They really are the lowest of the low. The shit on a shoe. The scum of the earth.

The only thing worse than these women are the married men themselves.

.

OP only seems to answer posts which allows her to ridicule the wife.

JFC - how can anyone have any sympathy for a woman so self absorbed that she knowingly fucked a married man and hoped he’d break up his family for her and is now playing the victim and claiming she’s the one who has come off worse?

You didn’t expect hate from a woman whose husband stuck his cock in you - seriously??? You’re not a victim do stop with the pity party. The wife and kids are the only innocents here.

I don’t understand why she’s standing by the cheating cunt but for whatever reason she’s chosen to forgive him and you need to suck it up. It’s not fair he’s got away with it but it’s their choice.

You need to cone up terms with the fact you were a convenient shag who played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.

Your updated read that you hadn’t learned a single thing and you have zero remorse.

Men like him seem to be Teflon. I bet he’s done it before and will do it again.

Agree. Regardless of what sex they are, cheats and the willing partners are scum.

I do feel strongly as my friend committed suicide after her husband cheated on her when she was pregnant - that’s how dreadful the consequences of cheating can be.

Yep. Zero remorse, zero empathy, no lessons learned just a poor me self absorbed pity party.

I'm starting to suspect that OP is just a troll. I refuse to believe that women like this exist.

I do feel remorse. I regret that I was involved in hurting others. I'm just trying to explain that I was hurt too. I understand that that was my own fault in many ways.
I would never get involved with a married man again I assure you.

In the nicest possible way, yes you have been a fool. Falling for a married man's script happens to younger women with a pretty face, newer to a workplace and greener than May corn, but you're in your thirties and fell for this.

While you may be questioning the motives of his wife, betrayed and furious as she is: she holds a lot more power than you, and has him by the cajones (legally and financially in the event of a divorce), and he knows this. Funny how quickly he dropped you like a hot potato and left you to face the fallout as soon as he got his dick wet.

But... you are continuing to play the fool by looking at matters through the distorted lens of the lies this man fed you. You need to start working on why you were so naive to swallow this bullshit in your thirties, and why getting the focus and attention of a married man appealed to you. Emotionally healthy, switched on people shut that shit down immediately, you didn't - perhaps look at the why of your own behaviour than analysing his and hers.

This almost cost you your job, and you have likely suffered reputational damage as a result (not to mention subject to all the workplace gossip that will fly around about this). Learn the extremely valuable lesson of don't shit where you eat.

OP, children are part of family structures; do you think children only find things out if their parents 'tell them'?

The kind of seismic impact an affair disclosure has in a relationship is almost impossible to hide from children. As a SAHM, this woman will literally have had nowhere else to go with her shock and grief but the home she shares with her children, for whom she cares.

Children overhear adult conversations, ask questions, read moods, notice inconsistencies (his wife did after all, so why do you expect his children wouldn't?) and draw their own conclusions. If old enough, they may have seen message alerts flash on their dad's phone in an unguarded moment.

Affairs impact children's lives, full stop. Often, the shame and secrecy which accompanies an affair disclosure is palpable to children, although they're not able to name it. The source of their parent's distress is all the more frightening as it is shrouded in mystery: has something happened to grandma? Is someone ill? Why won't any of the adults who normally love them and keep them safe reassure them? Left to try to puzzle things out for themselves, children in families which are experiencing the trauma of betrayal often suffer a great deal. Perhaps your friend and his wife were left feeling that telling their children something would be better than leaving them hanging in the uncertainty of not knowing. You can be certain that this is a conversation no parent wants to have with their child, yet the two of you conjured a situation where, in the end, this felt like the least bad option in this couple's minds.

This man's wife has not been somehow remiss in her parenting by being transparent with her children if that is what has happened; that is a very unfair suggestion. You can't know what the alternative was, or how their children came to know the truth. What you can be sure of is that such a disclosure was never something either parent would have wanted for their children.

TBH I think her thinking is pretty much typical. She’s selfish and entitled and desperate to play the victim here.

I was married later in life, I know I never needed to get myself involved with a married man to get my validation and feel goods. I understood how utterly damaging that might be to children and their partners from a very young age. There’s a type and she’s clearly one of them.

Thank you, this is a good explanation I hadn't considered.