can an affair work out?

[charlie7171]

i am married. i have been having an affair with a married man for 9 months, though we have known each other for 5 years. he has been married 7 years, no kids. i have been married 10 years, with 2 kids.

do affairs ever work out? is there anyone that can give us advice? the whole internet just tells me i'm a horrible person. i need advice. i want to know stories where an affair has actually turned into a good relationship.

we know what we are doing is wrong. we feel horrible about what we are doing to our spouses though we often talk about building a life together. we do love each other, i know i do, and i believe him when he says he does too. we communicate with each other better than we ever have with anybody else. i know so much more about him, and he knows so much more about me, than my husband and i did when we got married, maybe even more than we know about each other now.

we talk to each other so much: we know each other's faults, and cracks and bad sides; we've had disagreements, even sobbing arguments, much due to the pressure; so it's not all roses - we know how difficult it is. yet we've also seen the loveliness in each other, the strengths and joys. we've shared so much, albeit in secret and absolutely love each other's company. our interests coincide and complement; the respect we have for each other's work is unlike anything i've known before.

but we hesitate to leave our spouses - partly because of the pain this will cause them, but largely because of the unknown: how do you know that you can spend months or years with someone, if you have only had a long weekend at the most at any one time? even though we talk every day, sometimes for hours, we just don't know what it will be like to live together - does the risk justify hurting our spouses as much as we will or compromising marriages that could perhaps one day somehow be fixed? would it justify it, if our relationship collapsed after 1 month together? or 1 year? is the effect divorce will have on my kids justified by my being with the man i love?

we feel so strongly, yet we hesitate... do affairs ever work out? can they turn into beautiful strong relationships? we've seen each other's worst, so we're not blind to it - yet we love each other deeply, emotionally, physically, intellectually. is that enough? or are affairs started in marriages always doomed? does anyone have any good stories?

please, i don't need to know what a bad person i am for what i'm doing - i tell myself that every hour every day, every time i look at my husband. i know that my marriage has problems, we argue continuously and, frankly, badly, though my husband is a good man, and that perhaps i should be putting all my energy into fixing it.

but when you've met someone who you think is the love of your life, and when you've found he feels the same too, does being married already mean that it's doomed from the start anyway?

Well, it does mean that you'd enter a new relationship knowing that your new partner is capable of cheating. Which can't help.

But apart from that, I think affairs can turn into lifelong marriages, yes. I'm sure there was a thread on here recently asking whether one's marriage had started life as an affair - I didn't read it, but it was a longrunning thread, maybe do a search?

when you've met someone who you think is the love of your life, and when you've found he feels the same too

bleurgh

really what you are saying is, is this worth the risk of leaving what i have?

if you wanted it you should have gone by now - it is the fact that you are hedging your bets which makes this very unpleasant situation even more horrible

affairs are always always wrong, period

if your marriage was bad enough for you to go down this road then you should have the dignity and character to walk away and start again - this is extremely sordid and all credit to you for painting it in such a rosy glow

I think affairs are wrong. Not because you can love 2 people at once because of the lies you are telling everyone.

I am sure it can work out - just as i suspect you thought your marriage would.

True love however can be shouted from the rooftops and is a cause for celebration - i dont think this is love, you cannot be proud of it, cant share it and already know that he is a liar.

But anyway good luck - maybe your children will understand you better than i can.

Well put HW (as always...). One of the biggest barriers you will indeed face is the attitude of your children to 'the man who broke up mum and dad'. Of course, this will depend on their age but don't expect an easy ride. and how will they fit into your new setup? I don't expect they have accompanied you on the long weekends so how will new man cope with having a couple of distressed kids thrust upon him. Do they like this man, will you leave them with their dad? all questions to consider.

i agree with abedelia with regard to the children's feelings, this is how i felt about my parents new partners and also how my teenage DC look upon my exh ow. they want nothing to do with her, they are old enough to make their own decisions.

HW is right too, my ex and ow though living together have not made it common knowledge in their workplace despite him living with her for over 6 months. he tells anyone who has twigged something is not right to mind their own f.... business. they are not proud of their'love'!!! they sound utterly ashamed of what they have done.

i would considered very carefully you will hurt so many.

Ir can work out but there will be hurt and damage caused. That can be true if it doesn't work out too...

I'm less censorial about affairs than many on here - probably because I've never been married - but don't you think you owe it to your existing partners to at least be honest and admit that you're not happy and give them the opportunity to have a relationship without lies in it? I'm not wording this very well - I hope someone comes along who can express this better.

If you and your OM really do love each other and want to be together, I imagine you will. I think affairs can work out but I think you need to be as honourable as possible to your current partners. And, for as long as the affair continues in secret, you're not doing that.

I was reading somewhere recently that 85% of affairs DONT work out as once the "secret" is known it takes the shine of things Its not hotel rooms and having an "escape" from reality
It soon becomes the norm ,Kids running around ,Bills to pay, stress and strain of a normal relationship

Saying that a friend did leave her dh for another and it is working for her
2 of my family members left their partners for other people and are happily married still years later

Sorry but you sound like you are not sure on leaving and it has been posted before you are edging your bets

You should be saying I want to leave

I do believe affairs can work out though
But it`s not all rose petals

Nothing you can do in this situation is the descent thing to do any more.

So in the absence of being able to do the descent thing, the most descent thing you could do would be to admit to your poor H what you've been up to, give him the oppertunity to find a new partner who will hopefully become a faithful wife and better role model for his children.

You will then be free to scurry off with OM and have whatever life with him you fancy (until one of you gets bored several years down the line, and the cycle begins anew).

Good luck, becuase you have no right or easy options open to you now.

Oh course it can work, any situation can produce a small percentage of relationships that work.

I think what stops most people from having a happy life is the fact that they think they have to have a man to be happy and can only leave their dh for another relationship.

If you do not want to be with your husband then you should leave him, regardless of whther you have another man to go to or not. Staying with him will only lead to a miserable life for you both, cause you will split up eventally.

What would you do if your DH found out and made the decision for you?

If the shit hit the fan would the OM be there for you or would he run for the hills and you were left out in the cold

You do need to look at all the angles
You also have to be sure on what you want
You need to be truthful with yourself

You asked not to be flamed, so I won't

There are examples where an affair has worked out for the cheating partners

I am not sure it "worked out" for the cheated partners and any children caught up in the mess, however.

Your hesitations are understandable. However, you are both being unfair to your spouses, because with your dithering about, you are denying them the chance to find someone they can be truly happy with

So, I think my advice to you would be to come clean. And take it from there...then everyone (not just you and your paramour) knows exactly what position they are in

And lying to your children is never a good thing. They will be much less likely to forgive you when it dawns on them that they have been living a lie for so long (and it will be discovered)

Well it's possible but highly unlikely. You only need to look at the failure rate of relationships that are built on honesty and trust from the outset. What chances would one built on lies and deceit have?

I have a brother who was with his first partner for 15 years. He met a woman at work, started and affair and left his partner. 10 years later he did exactly the same thing again and he will do it again - although with this one I don't think it will take so long.

I read recently 'if he/she does it with you, he'll/she'll do it to you'. I think that's probably quite true.

The grass isn't greener on the other side.

My mum left my Dad after a 2-3 year affair.

27 years later she is happily married to her OM and I am in therapy.

Sort it out however you can, but do it soon for the sake of your kids.

I have known and met a huge amount of people who left their primary relationship for OW/OM.

Of these, I know of only one such couple who are still happy, but there were no children involved on either side. They both felt so terrible about what they had done that they took no money out of their marriages, gave their betrayed spouses everything and jointly went to relationship counselling to process their feelings and to ensure that since they had both chosen infidelity once, they would not do this to one another. They are still happy, but say that it would have been a better option to have left their unhappy marriages first before starting an affair.

You are hedging your bets and it doesn't sound as though your hesitancy has much to do with your children, which is unusual. It sounds as though it's more to do with whether you would be happy, or whether you might find the same dissatisfactions with OM a few years down the line.

In many ways I think you're being wise to question that - because all the other couples I mentioned took the leap and then found that a few stark truths slapped them in the face. Either the OW/OM turned out to be much worse in real life than the discarded partner, or one of them was unfaithful again as a response to normal troughs in the relationship.

In a few cases, this has become a pattern and sadly I know of a few people who keep leaving relationships this way - and are still claiming that the primary relationship/partner had faults and this is why they were unfaithful, which stretches credibility to breaking point. The flaws are so obviously with them and it's unlikely they will ever be happy, or be able to make others happy, as there is now a trail of betrayed partners and hurt children.

I know a few people who rue the day they started rewriting history about how awful their marriages were and belatedly realise that they have lost the best.

It sounds as though your OM is also wondering whether you are the "real deal", because there are no children to consider for him.

The fact that you are both doing this suggests that your marriages were not unhappy and possibly only became unhappy after you started your affairs. It would be a worthwhile exercise for you both actually to reflect on happier times with your primary partners and try to determine when your marriages became problematical. This is an important step because if you do get together, you will need to know whether one or both of you is just programmed to be unfaithful regardless of the state of your relationship, or whether there were unique factors in the marriage that caused you to have an affair with eachother.

Regardless of what you decide, continuing to deceive your partners while you are both in this "compare the market" phase is indefensible.

The honourable thing to do would be to come clean to them both now, admit that you are conflicted and then give them back their choices. They might decide since you have been unfaithful and deceitful, you cannot have them any longer, or they might agree to give you space.

It sounds as though you are a romantic and have perhaps got caught up in a bit of a soul mate fantasy, so if this is you, I don't think you'll be satisfied with a man who will only leave his wife if he's got a replacement lined up. I think you will always wonder whether this really was true love.

Do the honourable thing here and bear the burden of risk yourselves - give your partners back their choices in life and think really carefully about what led you both to infidelity. Be searingly honest with eachother and your partners about your marriages - and don't rewrite history. Be introspective about what this says about you because infidelity is a choice like any other. There were other behaviour choices that you both eschewed.

Ask yourself if you are punitive, or narcissistic, or an "opportunity" adulterer in that you wouldn't have been unfaithful unless an opportunity presented itself. Be sighted on each other's vulnerabilities to infidelity. Some counselling might indeed help you with this.

Take responsibility and from this point onwards, try to do the decent thing by everyone, acknowledging that you will never be able to undo the earlier deceit, but you have the choice to compound this and make it worse, or to start behaving with some integrity now.

quick question, why hasn't he left his wife? Really, you have 2 DC's to think about, he just has his relationship with his wife. If he's getting nothing from that relationship, why hasn't he ended it regardless of if you'll leave your H or not?

Answer that and you've got an idea as to if you'll work out.

Good point AF, Im sure things 'worked out' for my ex who is getting married later this year, but you should see the trail of destruction left in his wake

The thing is, once it's not a secret anymore then it's not so exciting and one or other will, in all likelihood, eventually fall into the same situation again because the illicit excitement is what they crave.

Of course you want to hear about the circumstances in which it worked out, doesn't make it likely.

Tell your husband, what you are doing has a huge impact on him don't forget about everyone else while you're getting caught up in this selfish excitement.

Depends what you mean by working out.

You need to wake up and decide whether you want your husband or you want someone elses.

need to be quick so will be blunt

you need to consider what has happened to your marriage before considering what to do over this affair.

you loved your DH and married him for life presumably? what has happened? have you forgotten why you loved him? have you shut him out in order to pursue this affair? have you rewritten history in order to justify this affair?

why do you think the mistakes you and OM have made in your respective marriages will not be repeated in a marriage between you an OM?

you are in a very difficult position and you have a lot of difficulties ahead whatever you choose

of course, some good marriages do start as affairs. but usually affairs end in tears for everyone concerned.

my DH has just returned from one. we are recovering, we will be fine in the end. the bond from a marriage can be very strong and in our case it will withstand this.

thanks for your advice WWIFN, I have namechanged a number of times, but you have always helped me

I'm going to be quick as I'm on a public computer but the short answer is NO.

Affairs which work out are often the exception rather than the rule.

In my experience, my mother left my father after 18 years of marriage for the OM. She is extremely happy with him but she had no contact with her own children for 4 years. When she suddenly contacted out of the blue, she more or less expected us to restore her position as our mother and to resume a relationship with her. She has paid a heavy price as a result. Some of her children just do not respect her.

You know full wel that there will be consequences and that you will have to bear the responsibility for those you hurt and expect to be shunned by friends and family. Can you live with the stigma of breaking up two families through an affair?

I hope you sort things out quickly.

Yes but I think it is rare

A friend in exactly your situation was advised to agree to cut off ALL contact with the OM/OW for an agreed period ( I think it was 6 months) and give their marriages their very best shot.

If at the end of that period they felt their marriage was unrecoverable then they should end the marriage .

I dont know if this helps
Good luck

Yes of course these types of relationship CAN work out in the long run. I know of several people whose long term relationships started as affairs. It's not a great way to start a relationship but, realistically, it would be quite foolish to end a long term relationship for what might turn out to be worse relationship, or an infatuation.

There is no guarantee that ANY relationship will last for ever, or will be happy, whether married or not. Just look at the number of people on threads here who are unhappily married, or divorced, or separated. Marriage is no guarantee of long-term happiness - or of long term fidelity as you can never control what someone else does or indeed what "might" happen.

I think if I was in a situation where I had met someone else who I thought might be a possible life partner and I was in the type of dilemma you suggest, I would be inclined to take a break from the current relationship, a sort of sabbatical, and see if the other one would work out. But that is because I am a terrible liar and would suffer from a lot of guilt over a clandestine relationship. It is not that I especially consider adultery to be the worst sin in the world, I don't as it happens and I think people get too emotive about it which I find quite annoying. Monogamy does not suit everyone and I think people are very hypocritical about it. Not everyone can be mother theresa.

Of course there are dangers with this approach - for instance the current partner might not want to have you back and the "affair" partner may not last. But, at least you would get some kind of clarity. If you took this approach you would have to be prepared for the possibility of being in neither relationship - but again you never know what lies around the corner in any type of relationship.

There again, there are people who have negotiated some sort of open relationships, at least for the short term. And there are other people who are in two (or more!) relationships which are either secret or at least the partner turns a blind eye.

None of these scenarios is ideal, but then I am not sure an ideal relationship exists, at least not for an entire life-time.

I am sure your situation is not THAT unusual, after all not everyone can get married and live happily ever after like the fairy tales.

Yes they can work out and turn into the next wife or husband.

But I'd say it's difficult to know until you are actually with them.

Given that roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, it is perfectly reasonable to think that in some of those cases, one party may have fallen in love with someone else, and that in some cases, may have gone on to have a happy relationship with that other person.

Technically, it?s not wrong to end a relationship because you?ve fallen in love with someone else. If someone came on here and said that they?d met someone else and had developed feelings for them, that nothing had happened between them but that they now felt that they couldn?t be with their dh any more, they would actually get support on here and be told that if they didn?t love their current partner then they should end the relationship. But where it becomes wrong is when there is a betrayal of another person. If you start seeing someone else while you?re still married, and all the while you?re lying to your husband, sneaking around, cheating on him behind his back, having sex with another man and then going home and having sex with your husband.

And the other man is doing the same ? having sex with you and then going home and having sex with his wife, and don?t kid yourself that he?s not.

There is no law that says you have to remain in an unhappy marriage. So if you?re not happy with your current dh then you have the right to end it.

But you don?t, IMO, have the right to have the best of both worlds. If you don?t want to be with your dh any more then end the marriage. But if you don?t want to end your marriage (for whatever reason) then you have to end the affair. You can?t have both, and however unhappy your dh might make you, he doesn?t deserve to be betrayed and cheated on.

FakePlasticTrees has an excellent point that deserves repeating. He has no children. If his marriage is unhappy, what's keeping him there?

You don't want to walk out on your whole family to find that to him, you were just a fling.