So, how did it end? Do you ever wonder if you might have had stronger chemistry with some of your dates if you hadn’t been so emotionally invested in him?
Okay, one last question then I will give someone else a chance to play. 
And by the way, thank you for answering so candidly. I really do find this interesting and you are providing a lot of insight on how these things works as opposed to how they work on TV or in the movies…
If it is not too personal, how did it end? Was it a spectacular blow-out or did things just get too complicated and it fizzled out on its own? And my morbid curiosity makes me wonder: did he move on to someone else (that you know of) or did he re-commit to the relationship with his wife?
I know they say, “once a cheater, always a cheater” but do you think he could have reformed?
ETA: And CrazyCatLady beat me to it! Damn my slow typing.
ETA #2: And Sine Nomine! One day I will learn to really use preview.
When I’ve met really great guys who have girlfriends or wives, I’ve still been attracted to them, but I’ve never gone beyond longing for them to be unattached. What flipped the switch for you between wishing he was yours and deciding that he could be?
When my husband was cheating, I could tell something was up. He was doing things that didn’t quite add up. Like what…? For instance, one night after work he had to go to a holiday party related to his profession (he is a lawyer). That was not a big deal, but he made a point to tell me that spouses were not coming, which was odd (turns out SHE was his date). So I stayed home with the kids. But the weird thing was, he took a clean shirt with him so he could change before the party. THAT was odd; he wore a suit to work every day, it wasn’t as if he was going to be doing heavy labor that would make him sweaty. He had gone to many work dinners, but he had never felt the need to wear a clean shirt before.
So I would say, trust your instincts and look for behaviors that are not quite normal, that can’t be explained easily. That’s what I meant in an earlier post, it is often hard to explain your absence for several hours in a way that sounds reasonable.
But, after I became suspicious, I admit I went looking for evidence. I found a receipt for a piece of jewelry, which was not that odd since it was right before Christmas; it could have been for me. But, on Christmas morning, my gift from him was a can opener (yes, really), no jewelry. I asked him that morning if he was seeing someone, and his response was, “Why do you ask?” and I immediately knew.
It ended because I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. The relationship was painful in a lot of ways for a long time, but I was also getting a lot out of it (attention, a sympathetic ear, validation for my attractiveness, etc.). I would not have been doing it unless it was paying off for me in some way, too. But it got to the point where it was more painful to stay than it would be to go. You are right, CrazyCatLady, that the energy I should have been putting into a new relationship was being given to him (just like he was giving me emotional energy and time that he should have been investing in his wife). I knew that I would be “stuck” until I moved on.
That is not to say that it was easy; it took many failed attempts to end it before I became strong enough to actually walk away and stay away. It’s easy to go back when there’s not another relationship in your life. I don’t mean “it’s better than nothing”, but I was not getting that attention and validation from anyone else, and that is a very powerful motivator to go back.
Honestly? Because I had emotional needs that I wanted to fill. Why does anyone do anything? Because you get something out of it. It was selfish on my part, just as he was being selfish to want me and decide he could have me. He put his own needs and wants before his obligation and promise to his wife. I put my needs and wants first, too.
I did not think about his wife and family, which is ironic since my family was destroyed by my ex-husband’s affair (well, we had problems, to be sure, but he bailed out when he met this woman and that ended any chance of repairing things). I remember when it started, thinking, this man is unhappy, and he’s going to have an affair no matter what; I’m not that special, I am just the one available at the moment, so if it’s not with me, it’s going to be with someone else. So, it might as well be me, I might as well get something out of it. And I did, for a long time.
I don’t mean this made it okay, but I had my own reasons for needing/wanting to get involved with him that made me feel good, but the things that made me feel bad eventually took over. Do I miss him? Absolutely. Every day. I miss the attention and the relationship, the friendship. Especially when there is no one else to take his place and fill that void for me.
Would it have made a difference if his wife had given permission for him to see you?
Knowing what you know now, would you have had the affair?
If you had an opportunity to get to know the wife without her knowing who you were - would you? Like, if someone invited you to a book club she was in, or to attend a yoga class she was taking, etc.
Do you think if you were friends with her, it would have made a difference?
Do you mean, if he had an “open” marriage, or she tolerated the affair? Well, it would have made things easier inasmuch as we would have been able to see each other more frequently and easily. Would it have changed my feelings about the affair? No, I don’t think so, because I didn’t really consider her in the mix. She was his problem, not mine.
Would it have made me continue the affair instead of ending it? No. I started it for my own selfish reasons (attention, affection, someone to care about me) and I ended it for my own selfish reasons (I wasn’t getting enough attention and affection to make the painful parts worthwhile).
I’m not quite fully understanding the, “If it wasn’t me it would have been someone else!”, line of reasoning.
I mean, if I come across a running Lexus, with the keys in it, and jump in and drive away, I can’t expect leniency by standing before the judge and saying, “Well, if it hadn’t been me it would have been the next person!” That seems a pretty shallow excuse. It’s still theft, right?
No, I had met her a couple of times long ago, and she was a very nice woman. I’m sure she was lovely. She was not an evil person, or a shrew, she was just a regular woman like me. He never painted her in a bad light, he just said that they didn’t connect any more,especially after the kids had grown up. But he was not particularly communicative with feelings, so I could see how she could get fed up over the years with one-word answers and just give up to go about her own business. I could sympathize with her.
If I could have found out more about her, though, I would have, simply to find out what was so special about her that he would not leave her to be with me (not that I wanted him to, but it did hurt to feel like “second best” all the time).
But, if I had been friends with her beforehand, I would not have started the affair, as I would not do that to a friend; the friendship would mean more. Maybe I could block it out and ignore how it affected her simply because she was not as “real” to me as a friend/acquaintance would have been.
I can’t seem to reconcile how hurtful it was, to you, (when your husband did this, it destroyed your family, you say), with you doing this to another family.
How did you convince yourself you weren’t hurting someone as you’d been hurt, destroying another family, as yours had been destroyed? Having experienced, firsthand, the pain and destruction how could you then participate in the destruction, (even potential destruction), of another family?
“I just chose not to think about that”, makes you sound heartless and uncaring, since you’d experienced the pain of a failed marriage yourself. Can you explain this a little better for us?
I don’t mean it as an excuse; but it was a reason. You’re right, that didn’t make it okay. But I had my own reasons for getting involved with him, and I used him to fulfill a need in myself.
I guess this is not a very good comparison, I would compare it to being unemployed, and if someone offered me a job for half my former salary, that wasn’t wonderful, but at least 1/2 salary was better than nothing, until I found something more permanent. If I said no to the job because I wanted to hold out for something better, I would still have no money coming in; and the employer would just shrug and go on to find someone else to fill the job. I may as well take advantage of the job, for a while anyway, because it would, at least partially, benefit me. I admit it, selfish reasons.
Thanks for answering my question! I appreciate your willingness to share.
If you can believe this, I don’t feel I was a threat to his family. The marriage was already broken when I came into the picture. I never tried to pressure him to leave them, I always understood when he had family obligations (even when the obligations kept him from seeing me). I would never have shown up on his doorstep to confront his wife. I made an effort to make sure he was NOT found out, partly because I didn’t want his wife and kids to go through the pain I experienced, and partly because I knew that I would never see him again if it was exposed (I knew he would choose her).
I think the fact that I had been through it made me more sensitive to maintaining the status quo. That doesn’ make me a saint or martyr. I filled a hole in his life that helped him to continue to keep his family intact, I was like a crutch to him. If it hadn’t been for me, I don’t know how he would have dealt with the marriage. My ex-husband drank heavily to avoid our marriage problems. I shopped. Some people gamble, exercise, concentrate on hobbies, etc. Is this rationalizing? Maybe. But maybe if I had wanted him to marry me, I would have not been so tolerant and understanding of his family situation. But maybe, the reason I didn’t want him to marry me was because I had been through it myself.
“I chose not to think about that” was a little flippant of me to say. It was exceedingly painful to think about it. My heart ached from the pain. So I avoided thinking about it. It was not so painful that way.
Thanks for being so open and forthright with your answers.
“It was exceedingly painful to think about it. My heart ached from the pain. So I avoided thinking about it. It was not so painful that way.”
I have to say, however, this is chilling, to me. Isn’t this what every rapist and child molester does? Every criminal? I mean, if I could just, ‘not think about it’, I wouldn’t have to recognize who I really was, I could put on a front of being ethical and caring, while really abusing my wife or assaulting my children.
I mean, how are you any different than anyone else who transgresses and then, 'just doesn’t think about it!", like Bernie Madoff. Isn’t that what separates us from him? We wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, while he was committing a complete fraud on others, and gave no thought to the consequences it would have for them, consoling himself, one assumes with, “just don’t think about that”, to get to sleep at night.
But it’s also what a lot of people do to deal with a lot of bad situations. My job sucks. I look for other jobs, but mostly I try not to think about my job when I don’t have to. It’s something that criminals do, but only because it is something that people do.
“But it’s also what a lot of people do to deal with a lot of bad situations. My job sucks. I look for other jobs, but mostly I try not to think about my job when I don’t have to. It’s something that criminals do, but only because it is something that people do.”
That’s a good point, and I agree. But while I could just, ‘put out of my mind’, a job I dislike, I don’t think I could sleep at night if I participated in criminal activities. Surely there is some difference between, not thinking about something because it’s out of your control, serves no purpose, and compartmentalizing behaviour that you know would be hurtful to others.
Your job is just your job. Participating in possibly destroying the family of two children would seem to fall into a different category of ‘just don’t think about it’.
But then obviously other people are capable of that kind of compartmentalizing, surely Bernie Madoff, and clearly other criminals must or they’d never get any sleep. I guess I’m really asking how can you compartmentalize your behaviour so well that it doesn’t affect your own opinion of who you really are?
I think you are being extreme and inflammatory to try to put a correlation between an affair between 2 adults and a child molester/rapist.
This affair was between 2 grown adults consensually. The repercussions of their actions might have extended beyond themselves, but she should not be held in the same regard as a rapist or a child molester or Bernie Madoff, who did what they did without regard to consent.
Seriously, I think you are trying to stretch this a bit too far.