I'm the OW. He ended it.

[NeverEverLand37]

I know I'm going to be torn apart but I need some support.

I left an abusive relationship.

Then I got involved with a married man. I knew it was wrong but I loved him. It went on for a year. He has now ended it.

I feel broken. Does anyone have any advice on how I can move forward?

I think it’s the shitty thing to do. He maybe faithful now and they go on to have a long and happy marriage.

so all this hatred is based on insecurity?

It must be exhausting.

the "decent" thing might have been to tell her after the first time.
Telling her because he dumped you is trying to get revenge, nothing to do with sympathy for the wife.

You are the one doing the spinning. An affair is not collusion in 'someone's abuse'. That's just emotional hyperbole.

It's also insulting to those who have been on the receiving end of actual, real abuse.

She hasn’t done the decent thing so far so why start now?

@SerafinasGoose Please google infidelity as abuse, you’ll find a lot of psychological articles, mental heath professionals and charities that count it as such, the understanding of the harm of infidelity has changed, you just haven’t caught up!

It includes the removal on informed sexual consent, putting the betrayed at risk of STIs, removal of personal agency and usual emotionally abusive behaviours lying, minimising, gaslighting, etc etc

Enjoy the reading!

Stop basing your happiness and self worth on the opinions of men.

I am not sure encouraging people, mainly women, in a role of poor abused victim, is helpful in any way shape or form, when they should be encouraged to be adult about it ,move on instead of feeling sorry for themselves and spend the next decades in a state of bitterness and anger.

Of course it sucks to be dumped for someone else, it hurts. Spending years wasting your life crying about it is not helping anyone.

You leave this relationship like you would leave any other relationship.

You thought you had this amazing guy who you loved - Mr Right. Only Mr Right would have picked you, not his wife. If he didn’t choose you, he’s not the right guy for you. He never was.

You don’t miss him. You miss familiarity, excitement, the dopamine hit. You’re quite literally in chemical withdrawal. It takes 21 days to break an addiction. You need to go cold turkey, no looking at old messages or stalking him on social media.

No lying in bed crying. Get out in the fresh air. Go for a walk or a run. Sign up for a new hobby. Make plans with friends and family.

It will pass.

Dont tell women who have been cheated on how they ‘should’ behave. My word, I have known women to be suicidal, develop anxiety after experiencing it. Not because they were upset because they were ‘dumped’ but because they experienced actual trauma. its known to cause PTSD type symptoms.

I suggest you read ‘cheating in a nutshell’

OP you were probably not the first person he cheated with and you will not be the last. His marriage is ruined because he is a cheat.

However, as others have said you need to work on your self esteem if having an affair with a married man is an upgrade from an abusive man. Do you think you chose a married man because it would never be serious and you could buffer yourself from hurt? Because you need help with that to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Its not fair on the wives and it is not fair on you.

treat it as any other breakup and get comfortable with being single, anyone you choose to have a relationship with should be there for you only and enhance your life, not make you feel heartbroken and worthless.

There are some ugly posts on this thread. OP has posted as an act of self-harm. She knows that there is no shortage of posters who will happily tell her the very worst things that she believes about herself. Multiple pp have done the figurative equivalent of handing her a razor blade.

A burglar raids an old ladies home and steals her jewellery. He gives a diamond necklace to his wife who knows it belonged to the old lady.

It would seem posters with your beliefs regarding affairs would say the burglars wife has nothing to feel guilty about, after all she wasn't the the thief & she should wear the necklace with pride. In my opinion the woman who knowingly enters a relationship with another woman's husband is just as guilty & abhorrent as the woman who knowingly accepts & wears the stolen diamond necklace.

Bad analogy. The laws of theft and stolen goods bind us all and are not opt in. The rules of voluntary pledges of personal sexual fidelity bind those who enter them. That's why they are voluntary.

A better analogy is the man who voluntarily signs a contract with his bank manager to state he will never take anyone into the vault and is entrusted with the keys. He then meets someone, she indicates a willingness to enter the vault, so he takes her in. She might be the biggest arsehole in the world, or just an idiot who fell for his lies about what it's like down there, but who was responsible for the keys and who signed the contract relating to them?

I’m not going to judge you or anyone else.

read ‘women who love to much’ it’s an old book but brilliant. Hope it helps.

Take care x x

Oh I am not telling you to do anything.

Merely pointing out that encouraging bitter people to feel even more miserable and bitter is not helping them at all.

Ex husband moved on, has a great life , is a much better husband because he learnt from his mistakes.

Ex wife is encouraged to feel sorry for herself and accept to be a victim and years down the line is still obsessed by the breakup and refusing to move on.

Who's winning here do you think?

sadly it's easier to blame the OW than to look at yourself in the mirror and admit that there are 2 people in a relationship, and maybe taking someone for granted or whatever reason broke the marriage in the first place has nothing to do with the OW

Of course husband should have divorced first, but cowardice aside, there are reasons why thing happened.

Funny when a woman cheats on her husband, she still get a lot more blame than her new lover does. Always the woman's fault.

@ThisCandidMintGoose I’m not going to stoop to discussing your theoretical (stereotypical) ex couple. I’m discussing actual research, I’m sharing current thinking from psychologists and mental health practitioners. I’m sharing the views of many charities who now count infidelity it as abuse. Understanding why you feel the way you do after having harm inflicted on you, is part of healing, it’s likely to help you heal faster. I’d argue denying it and hearing people dismiss you as bitter, minimise your pain or describe your marriage breakup being a ‘dumping’ as you so beautifully put it, is far more harmful.

Anyway I’m off here. The reading is out there for anyone interested.

Precisely. Gaslighting is a recognised, documented and particularly insidious form of emotional abuse.

An unfaithful partner might employ gaslighting or rewriting history (tantamount to the same thing) to cover their own tracks. As variations on what's known as The Script, this isn't uncommon behaviour. That's abuse.

Simply the fact of having an affair is sleazy, sure; it's shabby, it's cruel, and it's a betrayal.

It is not, in and of itself, 'abuse'. It's simply easy to misinterpret it as such when this is bound up with these other behaviours.

As for removal of informed consent, are you suggesting that all unfaithful men are in fact raping their wives? I'm a twice victim of rape, and have experienced infidelity. I can attest to the fact that this is not the same thing at all, and it's offensive to suggest that it is.

(edited to clarify this is an agreement with the above PP in answer to the claims that abuse and affairs are one and the same issue).

If is so wrong to pit different types of abuse against each other. My sister accidently saw my Dad snogging his side piece (he dropped my sister off somewhere on the way to his hobby with OW, sister forgot something and went to turn back) they didn't notice her and she kept it secret, but she self harmed and started substance abusing. Dealing with the weight of the secret + the onset of puberty was a terrible combination.

My poor DM really struggled with the feelings of violation, Dad shagged OH in her bed while we were visiting family. He sat in our living room with her around our toys and school pictures. He gave her a tour of our house and bedrooms. He didn't use condoms because he had the snip (he snagged multiple OW but the OW I mentioned was his main one). If that isn't a mind fuck I don't know what is.

That's receiving stolen property. And it's a criminal offence.

The false equivalences and poetic licence on this thread are really quite something.

Truly ugly!

I pity them. They must be so deeply unhappy that they feel the need to stick the boot in someone, just to make themselves feel a tiny bit better about their own circumstances.

A good analogy, although whether the person who enters the vault is an idiot is niether here nor there unless mentally ill or totally lacking in the understanding of inevitable consequences.
The very act of agreeing to go in is still knowingly wrong & should be refused.

It remains to be said my post wasn't directed at the OP who is genuinely upset & her circumstances surrounding the relationship are mostly unknown. It was a general post regarding affairs where by & large women tend to understandably vilify the cheating men & place little or no responsibility in the hands of the women who enter into affairs with them.

Absolutely agree.

I have a friend who is regularly in affair relationships. She is financially and emotionally much better off than the men she’s seeing. She gets a relationship, sex and maintains her independence. And she’s always got the threat of telling their wives ( they never clock this until it’s too late).