Do any of you have evidence that marriages that come out of affairs can work? All the books say no, and I wonder if this forum can confirm that or not? Also the marriage might work, but what about the impact on children and others? Any feedback would be appreciated?

Hmmm... interesting Q. Betcha I'll be able to give you an answer in about a year, if XH really does marry OW.

Graxannm,

I think you know the answer to this question, otherwise you wouldn't be asking.

It sounds like you're still struggling. Are you back in contact? What's going on?

Why are you asking?

What is your definition of "work"?

anything can work im going through the same thing i dont know if it will but if you guys fell in love enough to marry you can try to figure out what it will take to fall in love again and this time not make the mistake of giving up needs to let these things happen

GRX,

The answer is yes and no.

I almost created a thread with this same question yesterday.

Couldn't word it correctly.

Yes there are M's that work out and Yes there are M's that don't work out.

It is IMHO all about ownership. Both parties have to be willing to own what created the environment that created the ability for one to stray.

IMHO if one person doesn't then it probably won't work. That person can be the BS or the FWS. If it is the BS it may still be able to work out if the FWS understands that they hurt the BS and them not taking ownership is actually not taking ownership of the A.

If the FWS doesn't take ownership then you have an unremorsefull, unrepentant person who felt entitled to treat you that way. Most people can't look someone in the face that felt entitled to having an A.

I'm a little confused. Are we talking about marriages between the two betrayers or between a FWS and FBS?

I'm guessing he/she means marriages between Waywards and the OP's.

Everything I've read says that once they get to that point only about 18% of "affair marriages" last five years. Seems like Harley somewhere gave the numbers that only 20% of affair relationships lead to divorce, of those 20 in 100, 10 in 100 result in an affair marriage to OP, and less than 2 of those 10 marriages survive 5 years. All in all that means ONLY 2% of "Affairs" work out. So much for soulmates. I'm only recollecting...the actual numbers may differ.

Problem is...they all believe THEY are the 2%.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - here is a link to a study on divorce and happiness. Even if they do get married..."success" does not necessarily equate to "happiness". I strongly surmise the 10 of 20 divorcees that DIDN'T get married to the OP's are significantly more happy after 5 years than the ones that did marry their particular defective forever tainted OP. At least they won't have to live with their "guilt" and "regret" as personified daily by their OP.

[color:"blue"] Divorce & Happiness [/color]

****Interesting statistic from the study...you are twice as likely to be happy 5 years from today if you stay married rather than divorce!!!!

I think Mr. W is correct about the question.

Frank Pittman (Private Lies) says that five years from the onset of an affair, the affairee is more likely to be with the original partner rather than the affair partner.

The stats are dismal - and it makes sense, huh? How can someone build a strong foundation on shifting sand - lies and deceit?

Sure, it happens once in a while. They can stay married. My XW has been married to OM for almost 4 years now. She married the guy she "wasn't having an affair" with 5 months after our divorce. Every chance I get during communication with her I throw in the phrase "when you divorce." Knowing her, she'll stay married in misery just to prove me wrong. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WAT

This is only empirical evidence.

I know of one M derived from A. It lasted 3 years, apparently 3 MISERrable years due to...

the on-going Drama

Guilt

Anterior relationship troubles (children, extended family, hurt by the A)

Reality of the OP's TRUE identity (identity in the REAL world, like in-laws, children, day to day habits, etc.)

Plus, consider that both people are WS, which means they both probably have ego issues and deal with their troubles by escaping

Escapers not committers...hardly a recipe for success in M!

Notably, these factors are likely for any A M....hence the 2% rate makes real sense.


WHY DO YOU ASk?

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't imagine being married to a known adulterer. Always suspicious.....

Why even GET married to a know adulterer? How much sense does that make?

WAT

Well, you know... I can imagine *being* married to a known adulterer. As far as becoming married to one, it might make perfect sense to the adulterers, when you think about it. They may not think of themselves as adulterers, as much as they simply think of themselves as two people who were *meant* to be.

The MOW in my situation was married once before. She cheated on her first husband with her current husband - I'm not sure how long she was married the first time, but it was less than 10 years. She cheated on her current husband with my husband after about 7 years of marriage. I know of marriages that started as affairs that did last, but I would not call them happy. It was more that the affairees realized that marriage is marriage and there will be ups and downs in any long term relationship. Kind of like they grew up............

I would never choose to marry an adulterer and purposely avoided "players" when I dated. And believe me when I say that it sometimes kills me that I actually married the very kind of guy I used to purposely avoid and pretty much despised. Ironic huh?

My sister married her OP, they have been married 5 years now. Her XH was originally to be married the day after the D was settled/granted, but the D took longer, so the M was delayed. Her XH denied any relationship while M (not separated) to my sister, doubtful, their R went too fast.

My sister has since recognized she didn't give her 1st M a chance, she said "I don't love you anymore, I want a D". She also recognizes her own lack of trying to improve things bc the 2nd time around brought home to roost that all M's have problems, individuals have problems and M to the OP isn't going to fix that. In many ways I think deep down she still loves her 1st H, never would admit it though. Is she better off/happy, well as someone else said, she grew-up some. The 2nd M has been rocky since day 1, jury is out if it will last.

Sad thing is her and her 1st H have 4 sons who have suffered thoughout this whole ordeal. Her oldest two were in college, 3rd in HS, 4th in grade school. They are all scarred by it. People say "at least they were older". Divorce is devasting for kids, no matter what age. This is one of the primary reasons I've stayed and have tried so hard in my M, I don't want to hurt my sons.

I guess some do. I don't know of many affair marriages personally but in the Annals of the Rich and Famous, some affair marriages work. John McCain left his wife for the 25-year-old Cindy, who he is sill married to. Tom Hanks (!) left his wife for Rita Wilson, and they appear to be happy. Julia Roberts and her boy toy who left his pregnant wife are still married after four years.

OTOH, under the heading of "if they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you," Newt Gingrich left his first wife of 20 years for his second wife. That marriage lasted 20 years until he left HER for a 30-something hottie. Anyone remember the big Jack Welch scandal? He left his wife of 30 years for his mistress. That one lasted 13 years until he left HER for a magazine editor.

And I remember reading something about the director James Cameron -- he left his wife for his affair partner whom he married. Then he had another affair and left her for that woman. Then he cheated on THAT marriage and married Linda Hamilton. Any guesses as to what next? He cheated on Linda with someone else and is now on his fourth marriage to an affair partner. Note to all the ladies: watch out when James Cameron asks you for a date.

Just read this last night...

-------------------------------------------

CAN A MISTRESS EVER BE A SUCCESSFUL WIFE?
By ELEANOR BAILEY, Daily Mail

14:40pm 24th June 2006

Having strayed once, will he stray again?
You're having an affair, he swears he's going to leave his wife – so far, so predictable. But what if he really did leave her? What are the chances of it turning out happily-ever-after? Not very high, says ELEANOR BAILEY:

You might not remember Rosetta Bain, but she was the woman who stole Anneka Rice's TV producer partner just six months after Anneka had given birth to his son. Rosetta, the high-flying, glamorous mistress, became Tom Gutteridge's new wife – then, three years later, received her comeuppance in spectacular fashion when Gutteridge dumped her for a woman ten years younger.

Questions
• Can an affair turn into a successful marriage?

Rosetta, single again at 47, felt compelled to apologise publicly to Anneka. "Tom used to tell me that Anneka was neurotic," she explains, "and that she tried to come between him and his children from his previous marriage.

"I got to the stage of wondering why he didn't leave Anneka sooner if she was so terrible. Of course, now I realise she wasn't. Now I know he's saying the same sort of thing about me."

Some mistresses are satisfied with playing second fiddle to the wife - or realistic enough to know that the relationship wouldn't work any other way - but most, like Rosetta, live in hope that one day the situation will change and the man will be all theirs. However making it down the aisle is no guarantee of a happy ending, as Rosetta discovered. Her message to the mistress is: be careful what you wish for.

Ruth Houston - a cheated-on wife who exacted her revenge by writing a book called 'Is he Cheating?' and reinventing herself on TV as an infidelity expert both here and in the US - confirms: "studies show that only three per cent of the cheating husbands who divorce their wives marry their mistresses, and when they do these marriages have a very high failure rate - between 75 and 90 per cent.

"If he cheated with you, he's likely to cheat on you, because cheating is his way of dealing with marital problems. Instead of seeking professional help or trying to communicate with his mate, his solution is to have an affair."

Serial strayers

Marina Wheeler, wife of the philandering Tory MP and writer Boris Johnson, has been suffering the humiliation of her husband's second very public affair within two years – yet she had formerly played the mistress herself. She became pregnant with their first child while he was still married to his previous wife, so she shouldn't have been totally surprised when he started straying again.

And Francesca Annis must always have known that if Ralph Fienne was capable of leaving his first wife, Alex Kingston, for her, he could do it again - and sure enough her publicist announced their break-up earlier this year after he had an affair with a young singer.

As Sir James Goldsmith famously put it when he divorced Ginette Lery and married Lady Annabel Goldsmith, "When you marry your mistress, you create a vacancy." And he was something of an expert in the field, at one stage maintaining three relationships (and families) around the globe.

So can an ex-mistress wife ever really feel safe? "I felt like I had to sleep with an emotional gun under my pillow – I needed to protect myself at all times," says Nicky, 35, who married her lover after they had both divorced their spouses.

"When we were having an affair our relationship was so simple - we both went to the same trade shows around the globe. We were together six to eight weeks a year with no strings attached: it was exciting. But when I left my husband, taking our two kids, and moved in with John, suddenly I was the woman at home.

"I couldn't travel as much without having my husband to cover the childcare. So now I was sitting alone for weeks with John away." And no matter how John attempted to reassure her that he was being faithful, Nicky felt she had no reason to believe him.

"I soon became convinced, if I couldn't get hold of him in the evening, that he was with another woman. Once he caught me checking his mobile phone for received calls and he got really angry. He snapped, 'Don't you trust me?' I felt I was turning into his ex-wife, who I knew he despised for being possessive.

"He had the same bored look on his face that I'd seen when he talked about his ex. Maybe some women can marry their lover and feel confident about it, but I felt like I'd made a pact with the devil. I felt I didn't really deserve to have him all to myself when I'd stolen him from someone else. Even on the day we were married, I was paranoid. It wasn't a joyous occasion."

The marriage didn't last. Nicky still doesn't know for sure if John was faithful to her, but she doubts it. That fear was enough to causes a rift between them, and she ended up back with her steady first husband.

"The reasons I had an affair in the first place - that I thought my marriage was boring, that my life at home was pure drudge compared to my life as the mistress - those feelings disappeared completely when I achieved my dream of marrying John.

Mistrust

"It was too much of a roller coaster. The mistrust was too stressful to live with. I couldn't cope. I'm just grateful my first husband gave me a second chance and I've got my family back."

But the biggest irony is that, even if a mistress marriage is not scuppered by the woman's fear - real or imaginary - that she has fallen for a serial adulterer, then the marriage can just as easily founder for lack of excitement.

After the thrill of an affair - the secret liaisons and romantic weekends abroad - marriage can prove a dull reality, a bit like taking James Bond down the supermarket.

"I was waiting in the wings for David for ten years," says Marian, 45 years old, sensible, church going and a thoroughly unlikely mistress. "Finally, when his kids were grown up, he divorced his wife and we married. I was an idiot but I thought it would sort out all my frustrations - no more waiting to see him, no more weekends cancelled at the last minute. I could spend Christmas with him. We could have breakfast together every day."

In the event the marriage was a disaster and Marian left her lover of ten years after eighteen months of marriage. "Yes," she sighs, "I left him. I thought I knew him inside out after so long, but almost as soon as we moved in together I realised I didn't know him at all. Really I'd only seen the good side - the clean, attentive side.

"After a month of being with him full time I started feeling sorry for his ex-wife. He was such a slob around the house! And he was hopeless at getting anything done - I soon found I was buying his children's birthday cards.

"I had felt guilty about breaking up the marriage, but now I suspect his wife was glad to have him off her hands - they remained on suspiciously good terms. In fact he seemed to get on better with her after they split. And I realised that our part time relationship had worked so well because it was part time."

"The more you integrate yourself into someone's life, the more likely you are to experience conflict and disillusionment," says Dr Janet Reibstein, visiting professor at Exeter University, whose research into infidelity reveals that marriages following affairs are particularly brittle, often breaking up faster or not really becoming established in the first place.

"People do not realise how dependent an affair is on the marriage," she explains. In other words, an affair needs the marriage to keep its lustre, to look good in comparison. People believe that they are revealing their true selves in an affair. All those deep conversations, candlelit dinners and long nights give lovers a chance to share their innermost thoughts in a way that a married couple - with children, work, in-laws and hair removal - never have time for.

However, says Dr Reibstein adamantly, this belief is false. "They think that by sharing the deep stuff they are showing their real selves, but actually the trivial domestic stuff - such as whether you leave the toilet seat up - probably says more about you."

Marian's lover David was not being deliberately dishonest by hiding his bad habits for a decade. Part of the allure of an affair, says Dr Reibstein, is that it allows you to believe that you are that more interesting person you show to your lover on your precious, snatched weekends. People deceive themselves that they will continue to be this more attractive self if they end up with the lover full time, which just isn't realistic.

"An affair is just a part of somebody's life," explains Dr Reibstein. "It's a response to something that is deficient in the marriage." If a marriage has become stale, if the passion has gone, an affair can fill that gap.

Stale marriage makes 'affairs seem appealing'

"But once the marriage is over," says Reibstein, "the whole complexion changes because the problems of the marriage, that made the affair seem so appealing, are no longer there." And what works as an affair may not be strong enough to stretch to a full-time relationship.

This was certainly true for Marian. "I realised on the honeymoon that I had undervalued how important having my own space was. I'd never been with him for two weeks solid before. By the end I was desperate to be on my own.

"I used to think I was lonely without him. That was why I got involved with a married man in the first place - I'd been single a long time and thought it was that or nothing. I never realized, until I was with him all the time, how much I valued my own company and that seeing him so irregularly actually suited me very well.

"The upside of all this is that I now really appreciate being alone."

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it Rivertam.




haha. I like this paragraph. I've found that to be so true.


I'm in the process of further self-discovery and healing post-separation. I'm not an OW but I am beginning to re-evaluate some stuff.

I've found out that I don't miss STBX as much. I have activities and I value life and simple enjoyment of things. I can occupy myself and my time and I do like my own company.

So sometimes I wonder, if I'm the kind tf be a rather happy single person. I am no longer sure if I cld have the patience or willingness to share my life with another partner for a full-time long-term basis again.

~A

My wife's OM married his second wife (his current one) in an affair marriage. Lasted 20 years so far. But of course he wanted to trade-in that wife for mine so they never last.

It always amazes me that anyone in their right mind [the key!] would marry someone they know does not believe in fidelity and honesty. Seems a little stupid, if you ask me. What really galls me is when someone marries someone like this and then complains when the inevitable happens. How nutty is that?? That is about like marrying a cat and then whining when the cat meows!

The motto here is if you marry someone who does not believe in fidelity or honesty, don't cry when they are unfaithful to you!

I found this paragraph very noteworthy. Great article, RiverTam! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />