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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

One for the men of Mumsnet

107 replies

MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 22:45

Ok, imagine this: you're a man. You've been married for 15 years, you have 3 children under the age of 15. You've been in love with another woman for 8 years. She's the love of your life. She loves you too, passionately. But she marries someone else because she's afraid you'll never leave your family. You stay friends because you can't bear to not have some contact with her. But her marriage doesn't work out, for other reasons. She gets divorced. You realise she's free again. It's like a freakish twist of fate. You want nothing more than to be with her. But you know that if you leave your DW to be with her then your children will hate you. What do you do?

OP posts:
Ewe · 09/10/2009 23:06

My post was from the man of this house!

He is very much of the life is too short to waste time with someone you're not in love with school of thought. He can't understand why the man in this situation stayed married for so long though.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:06

Thanks ABetaDad - what you say is what I worry about. Despair is probably a better word for it.

OP posts:
BiteOfFun · 09/10/2009 23:10

DP says you would stay with your wife because the other woman is a fantasy which would be ruined by the reality of a gaggle of unhappy children and a bitter ex. But he wouldn't have got involved in the first place, because it's a shitty thing to to do.

LynetteScavo · 09/10/2009 23:10

"and held her with the most amazing tenderness."

Oh please!

He says he would like to have a child with you. I used to have a boyfirend like that. He had a name picked out, and would pick up pretty baby clothes indept stores. It was never going to happen. I knew it, he knew it. We got on fantasticaly, but we were never going to be a family together. And niether of us was married to someone else.

Have you given him an ultimatum?

Or are you too scared to do that?

Would you be happy to have him even though he would still be paying out a heafty wedge of his wages to his family?

LynetteScavo · 09/10/2009 23:11

Move on.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:11

Ewe - re staying so long: he is, despite what has happened between us, a decent man. I think he feels a massive tie of loyalty to his DW. As 50ft said, they've had 3 children. It's hard to be cold-blooded about that.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:15

Lynette - I'm trying to work out whether to give him an ultimatum. I'm not too scared to do it, I'm just trying to work out whether I should. Don't mind if he pays out hefty sum to his family as I'm financially independent. If the writing's on the wall that I should move on, then I will. I guess I just wanted to hear what people think of this. It's not something I can canvass views on in RL because I feel shame about having been involved, for so long, with someone who is married and know very well that friends would say "get over it".

OP posts:
BiteOfFun · 09/10/2009 23:16

It's nice to think of these things as tortured love affairs with noble sacrifices on all sides, and the movie would be full of meaningful silences and romantic angst.

The reality is an ordinary guy shagging someone else.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:19

BoF - I know, I'm not trying to dress this up as anything different. He's just a guy, I just happen to love him that's all. I'm not looking for noble sacrifices, I'm just trying to work out whether I need to get real and draw a line under it for good.

OP posts:
mrsboogie · 09/10/2009 23:19

jesus, it's not about payouts if he leaves - its about taking 3 kids' dad away from them and fucking up their lives. You already used some poor sod in a rebound marriage. Move on.

If you love him don't give him an ultimatum that forces him to dump his kids for you. They are more important.

Northernlurker · 09/10/2009 23:21

You need to get real and draw a line under it for everybody's good!

EdgarAllenPoo · 09/10/2009 23:22

wel biteoffun..in Now Voyager he goes back to his Mrs.

dump the baggage OP - before he dumps you. there is too much negatve history* to this relationship even if he leaves. now of course, life is too short to be with someone you don't love....but maybe he's stayed in his marriage because there is enough love there.

  • i was going to write feedback. Too much Ebay.
Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:25

I didn't use "some poor sod in a rebound marriage". I married someone I thought it could work with. He treated me like shit, and our child as well. I stuck it out for 3 years. Then I left and I divorced him. The consensus seems to be that I need to draw the line. Please don't flame me here. I came on looking for views and I've had them, for which thank you. But despite being the OW, I'm not a heartless bitch.

OP posts:
mrsboogie · 09/10/2009 23:26

well think of his kids then, they need him more than you want him.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:27

Edgar - I think you are right that there must be enough love there. Otherwise he wouldn't have stayed. Painful truths.

OP posts:
ABetaDad · 09/10/2009 23:27

MrsJellyby - I knew a bloke like this. My last boss.

Married for 20 years, wife, DCs, everything. Had another woman on the side for 10 years. She had a boyfriend for goodness and she eventually married said boyfriend as she feared she would never have a child otherwise waiting around for my boss to make up his mind.

About 4 weeks after the wedding, my boss upped and left his wife of 20 years, the woman left her boyfriend (and now short lived DH) and my boss and the woman now live togeter as man and wife.

Ultimatums sometimes work but in your case, you got married and the man did not leave his wife. That is why I do not think he will now. Maybe when his DCs have left home but not now. Sorry to say that as love can be a pretty cruel thing at times.

mrsboogie · 09/10/2009 23:29

I do know a bloke actually, spent years in an afair with what he calls the love of his life -in the end she ended it and moved away because she knew he wouldn't leave his wife. And she was right, he wouldn't - he loves his child so much he would never ever leave. But he cries for the OW when he is drunk. Years on he still cries over her.

But the child won.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:30

Thanks ABetaDad. Time for me to face facts, I guess.

OP posts:
Alibooobaandthe40phantoms · 09/10/2009 23:30

You need to move on. Get some self respect and tell him you're ending the affair. He is not a decent man, he's been lying to his wife for 8 years. If he can do it to her, then he can do it to you.

Original poster
MrsJellyby · 09/10/2009 23:32

mrsboogie - I know that's how it would be for me too. That's why I wondered (perhaps unfairly) whether men were built the same way and would never, ever do something that could hurt their children. Apologies for the sweeping sexism that underlies that question.

OP posts:
BiteOfFun · 09/10/2009 23:35

I don't think you're a heartless bitch, OP, but you are in a situation partly of your own creation that is causing all of you pain and misery, and the only way out of this is to make the break and find happiness yourself, maybe meeting someone else who is able to love you without hurting people. You seem to have some conscience about all this, which is a good thing, but it will also pollute a real relationship with this man with guilt (rightly, really) and doom it to failure IMO.

Give yourself and this guy's marriage a chance and cut him off.

EdgarAllenPoo · 09/10/2009 23:35

are you sure this married man isn't your rebound dude then?

LynetteScavo · 09/10/2009 23:35

MrsJellyby, I don't think you are a heartless bitch, just mis guided.

I'd agreee with your RL friends, and say just get over it.

You have tow choices.

  1. Give him an ultematum, and if he chooses his wife, move on.

2)Accept that you will always be the OW. You have a child, and cancontinue the affair; and he can have his cake and eat it. This will probably prevent you from meeting someone who you could share the rest of your life with completely, though.

mrsboogie · 09/10/2009 23:36

I don't think its a gender thing - its about how much the person loves their kids and/or is willing to put their own happiness before their kids'. Some men will some men won't, just like women.Some can dump their children without a backward glance- you read threads about them on here all the time.

Maybe you know how much he loves his kids? that's your answer

Heated · 09/10/2009 23:38

The reason he is Mr Fantasy is because you don't have the mundanities of life to contend with, just romantic highs and lows.

If his marriage was so awful he'd have walked away by now, which suggests it isn't.