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?

charlie - your affair sounds as if it presses all the right buttons - for you - and it is not surprising you consider whether it's worth trying to make permanent.
However, I don't think you give us the whole picture. How do you get on with your DH, what age are your children? Do you still love your DH? Do you have happy times together and communicate well? Why doesn't your OM have children? How does he get on with his DW? Does he know what children do to a relationship, and what would he think if he was landed with yours for any length of time? Where would your loyalties stand then? What about your wider families? The problem is that in relationships there are more factors than your own happiness and if you choose to set up home with your OM you will find that you have things to contend with that you never imagined.

I think they can workout but be carfeul. Up until a few months back i was in the same situation. Had an affair for seven years then we both decided that this year we woudl leave our partners. I love him and i thought he loved me ( maybe he does). We are both now seperated, i helped him choose his house etc etc but now he has said its over. He says he can't cope at the moment the stress of leaving his daughter etc, and his ex finding out ( she did accuse us of having an affair about 3 years ago) but it could also be its cause its not as exciting now. Think carefully. Good luck I hope it works out for you.

work out for who? you and him or both of your families? because the answer would be different wouldn't it.

i think you need to both deal with your current marraiges before you embark on a new relationship tbh its not fair on either of your families sorry but what you are doing is wrong

As someone who recently escaped by the skin of my teeth wrecking my marriage and kids lives for the sake of a short lived affair I would echo a lot of what has been said here

I too distanced myself from my DH. Rewrote history to justify it put myself in a victim role of being constantly put upon and unappreciated

my marriage needed a bit of an overhaul and a bit of tlc from both of us. Wish we'd been able to do that without me wrecking untold devastation

so please either leave yr dh or go no contact with OM until u and yr DH have worked out if yr marriage is salvagable or how to split with as little anguish as possible for yr DCs.

There was a great article in the times yesterday about the end of an affair. Try looking for it on timesonline

If he's right yr OM will wait for you whilst you work through things with yr DH. I am carrying such a burden of guilt about what I did to my DH who is a fantastic bloke and deserved better. We will be ok. But nearly weren't.

No don't leave your husband, it will never work out and it is never greener on the other side.

I might add you are at a crossroads here and need to take decisive action. None of us knows if we can achieve a lifetimes happiness with a partner. But you do want to try to achieve a lifetime of a good parent child relationship. Therefore you owe it to your DCs to decide whether you can achieve happiness with their father or dismantle your relationship in as amicable a way as possible so they can still maintain good relationships with each parent. Please do this without the complication of a third party and cut off contact with OM whilst you go through this process

BTW search for whenwillifeelnormal's posts on infidelity. I don't know who she is or what her history is but god she talks some sense and reading her posts has really helped me straighten my head out and realise that actually what I have is to be cherished and the envy of many

Two of the couples I know started as affairs. They've both been happily married for 10+ years now. None of the 4 people was in an abusive relationship beforehand.

I was friends with one of the 'original' couples - he cheated with his present wife. The first marriage was fine but it wasn't great - for him, it was the old classic of "he didn't know he wasn't in love until he fell in love." It does happen, and it's very difficult to contemplate breaking up with a partner who hasn't done anything wrong. After the shock of it all, his first wife went on to meet someone who is far more compatible with her (now her husband) - so she, also found she hadn't been in love although she'd thought she was! Are you still with me??

Not knowing how you'll get along together everyday is a stumbling block. I'm afraid the most you can hope for is a sneaky week in a rented cottage somewhere, which doesn't really tell you much at all. You have to be pretty damn sure of your feelings.

is this the article ?

strawberrymarks, I would just like to take issue with a statement you made

you referred to women who are not monogamous as "not like Mother Teresa"

Mother Teresa was a nun, the only marriage she had was with God, absolutley nothing like an ordinary woman in an ordinary monogamous marriage, so please don't use such shit comparisons to try and prove a point

because that is offensive

The thing I don't get about your situation is why this bloke is still married.

I can see why you are dithering - with children to consider there is a very good reason for you to stay with your DH even if you think you might be happier with your lover.

However, he has no children. Why hasn't he left in the five years you two have supposedly been so in love? What's he staying for?

There's no reason to feel guilty about leaving someone if you don't love them anymore and want to be with someone else as long as you do it in the kindest way possible. Why on earth would you lie to them and go behind their back for half a decade instead of letting them go and meet someone else?

So, what are the plans with your children?

Will you leave them behind?

How does your new man feel about being their step dad?

How do you feal about diving the assets between yourself and your husband, move into a smaller flat with or without your kids, and work out how to share the kids between you?

Will you want to have shared custody? One week here and one week there?

Or do you want them to live with you and your new man, while they go visit dad every second weekend and one day each week?

How do you plan this out?

interesting article, akhems

there is another thread on here at the moment where the scenario described fits what she is going though just now...I hope she reads it

some women are so utterly stupid about men it takes my breath away sometimes

I wish my ex dh's girlfriend would post on here about her relationship with my ex dh. It would give me just sweet joy to see her try and justify to MNers about her running off with my bloke after 19 yrs of our marriage and leaving me and the 2 kids behind.

I have no sympathy for the OP

SK

I am sorry - I can't resist it. On another thread recently LeQueen said the following and I was so tempted to show my philandering h but maybe you might get something from it

"In particular I like the way people justify their affairs with 'We couldn't help it, we just fell in love'. So, presumably one day you felt zero for the person, and the next day it was true love? How very speedy. Instead of admitting that actually it was a series of tiny steps, each one more exciting than the last and at any point you could have stopped, but basically you just didn't want to, did ya?

Because hey you were feeling bored and this was the most fun you'd had in years, and it was all so thrilling, and you deserved a bit of fun. You could have told your Husband/Wife that you were feeling bored, and that you were feeling neglected. Maybe tried to work through it to a happy ending for everyone? But, nah, this way was soooooo much easier (for you) and much more fun (for you).

And so what, if you once stood up in front of family and friends and vowed to treat your Husband/Wife with respect and honour, because they were 'just words' anyway, weren't they? And, you probably meant them at the time, but let's face it you don't mean them anymore now that something more glittery has come along. And the fact that's it's a secret just makes it all that more exciting. A bit of a thrill, and breathless giggle.

And on some level you might suspect you're hurting other people, but hey, you're the most important one here, right? And, you can sweep those feelings of guilt, slight though they may be, under the carpet because you don't have any integrity and very little in the way of a conscience, after all.

I mean, we're only talking about other people's lives here? And children are pretty robust aren't they? That same mouth with which you kiss your children goodnight, is the same mouth sucking the face off some bloke/woman, the same mouth spewing all the lies and all the deceit. You left your self respect on the floor alongside the new knickers you treated yourself to the first time you shagged him/her.

And a lot of people will know. They always do. And for ever after they will mark you down as someone who can't be trusted 100%, as someone who can be deceitful, as someone lacking in integrity. And above all as someone who is inherently selfish and self serving. And every time you look in a mirror to apply that new lippy, do you admire what you see? Do you think your son/daughter would admire you?
But, hey you're worth it, right? "

So many people on here have been hurt so very much by their partners having affairs without any regard for anyone else.

Sad

Pretty - I saved that post of LeQueen's. I am going to senf it to ex one day. I thought it was great.

SK, I know your story and feel every sympathy for you

but your post taken in isolation there could look like your husband had no say in the matter at all...

yes, I remember those pearls of harsh wisdom from LeQ

I can't really cope with the vitriol on here - it is enough to put anyone off any kind of relationship, especially a marriage, as well wanting to probably undergo lifelong vow of chastity.

Not every person can achieve the admirable goal of "til death us do part". Not every person is monogamous throughout their entire lives.

If you enter into certain religions you undergo a vow of chastity - not everyone manages to achieve that either (thinking of a few priests who have brought shame on the Catholic religion for instance.)

Look, it would be FANTASIC if everyone could be 100% honest, always monogamous, always live up to each and every marriage vow (that means not EVER getting divorced, remember - til death us to part). What about if you are in an abusive relationship and you leave? That is still breaking a marriage vow, right? Okay that is an extreme example, but dogmatic thinking is not sensible. In reality there are lots of shades of grey in relationship and no-one else can judge what is going on in someone else's relationship.

In pracice not everyone can achieve lofty ideals. And, in reality, not everyone wants to.

Some of you are very aggressive and it is quite unpleasant. My partner took a peek on the relationship threads here and ran away saying there were so many angry, bitter women posting.

Look, you cannot MAKE anyone else do anything - if people don't want to be monogamous they don't have to be. It is up to each individual person to decide how they want to live their lives and what they are prepared to put up with.

That's my last word. I would rather be a celebate hermit living in a cave than put up with some of the angry attacks on here.

all well and good strawberry, but the decent thing to do is to END one relationship before you start another one.

Having an affair is only preventing the straying partner from trying to repair the relationship with her partner. (Assuming it is broken) The partner does usually not deserve this.

Having an affair seems the easy thing to do, rather than work on the relationship you have, you try make a new one. It just doesnt sit right with me.

I reckon her lovey dovey other man is just fancying a shag on the side, and the easiest way to get into a (married) womans pants is by professing real LOVE. ach, women are so naive. At least, he does not have children, so if he really loved the op, it would be pretty easy for him to leave. Instead he is all talk, and no action. (aside from the obvious one. )

I just wanted to reply to STrawberry Marks last post.

I am not bitter or vitriolic about the situation I find myself in due to exh affair.

I realise that not all relationships last, nor are relationships always happy ones that we must endure no matter what.

My issue with infidelity is the deceit, lies, betrayal, that the infidel brings to bear on the unsuspecting partner and their children.

I think OP was asking can an affair work out, and for instances where it has. Most posters have done that with their own experiences, whether good or bad.

I have not read any post that is pure vitriol.

You sound a very angry, bitter person yourself, I'm afraid to say.

The bitterest, angriest person on this thread is strawberrymarks

strawberrymarks - my post was not bitter either.

It is a fact that the majority of affairs are not "love stories" despite the feelings of the people involved in the at the time. I was just trying to illustrate this to the OP so that she could try and take a more objective view of her position and make the best decision for herself. She feels that she is totally in love, but statistically this is probably not the case.

Of course, some affairs are the start of fabulous marriages, I did acknowledge this in my post.

I intended to help the OP, despite the fact that I have been on the receiving end of affairs by my husband and my parents. I am not bitter about it, I understand it is just reality.

A wise post, Quint.

I agree completely.

Op, you say very little about your dh, but i assume hes a good dad, hard working ect.Whats he look like ? Because im single and wouldnt mind a bit of fun, and i suck a good cock too. I wouldnt mind a long cosy weekend tucked up with him , and i dont mind listening to him whinge about his wife, and ill probably understand him a lot better than you can ect. How can you possibly compete with me, he,ll never see me cleaning the bog, yelling at the kids , ill be sucking his cock and telling him how fab he is .

How about your kids ? How old are they, i dont mind having them one day a week with your dh, we,ll play happy families and go to the beach ect , ill be the fun step mum while your the miserable get who tells them off and has to do the mundane stuff.

In seriousness, if reading any of the above makes you cringe id think on . Stop stroking this blokes ego for him, hes got a fab deal here hasnt he. Instead why not see him for the cheating lying arsehole he really is and regain your dignity?

Failing that , tell your dh the original deal has changed and he too is free to go and shag. And send him in my direction.

And no monogomy isnt for everyone, but at least have the decency to afford your parter the same righs.