My twin brother is married to the woman he had an affair with 18 years ago and they got married 8 years ago after living together for 9.

He met her 2 years after his own wife was murdered by a complete stranger.

I don't think he was thinking very clearly and she was being physically abused by her husband.

There M has lasted. Is he happy?

I know of several long term affair based marriages. None of them are what I would call happy, nor fulfilling. Yes, these few 3% of adulterers have been married for many years now, but I can tell you from personal conversations with each of the participants in each affair marriage they very much wish they were not.

How about a typical example?

My next door neighbor for the 15 years I lived on the lake here was married to his OW. They hated each other. Fought all the time over the most ridiculous stuff. In the house, in the yard, on their dock, in the driveway. Anything, Anywhere. Even such small beyond-their-control stuff like changing the clocks to daylight savings time (I remember this actual fight) was an excuse to fight with each other. Only reason they didn’t divorce, according to him, was they were too old to start over, and the financial hit would have been be too big. He also admitted he felt much shame in having to admit he had been wrong.

When he died a few years ago his affair wife did not even go to the hospital. Neither did his children, nor hers. I heard she died alone in the house a couple of years ago too. Rotted away in there for a week before anyone even missed her.

Actually she had been rotting away for most of her life. And no one missed her, ever.

So, affair marriages: more power to ‘em.

They are each of them justice incarnate.

With prayers,

Yes, he's very happy.

She is a wonderful wife to him and he treats her like a queen.

He never has to wash anything, his supper is always ready when he gets home, his birds are spoiled and he takes care of anything she needs, like repairing house stuff, her car, whatever.

Heck, she won't even allow me to clean up after myself when I eat dinner with them!

However they both are an exception as they both endured unimaginable trauma.

They have had their moments when I thought they were going to break up, but since he had her biatchy parts removed, she's a regular Stepford Wife now.

I don't know what to think anymore.

I thought I knew ExH well enough to know that he would never commit to someone he wasn't sure it would last, at least after having already been through a D with me.

DD has seen them together many times and says they are like teenagers in love. Still all over each other after living together for 3 years.

New wife is very materialistic. Thought she would have bailed by now after realizing all the years he still has to pay me alimony etc., that that could have been all her $$.

I still say, they are in it for the long haul, and even if it doesn't, work he'll stay just to show everyone it did!

Just makes me sick that that whor$ shares my and my kids last name now!

It's my understanding that the 3% comes after they have been married for longer than 5 years...that the other 97% of A's either breakup during the A or within the first 5 years of M...so they have a few more years to go before they can consider themselves a *success*

I dunno. I guess it's the word "success" that seems subjective with affair marriages.

To me, living a life with the guilt of betraying and abandoning your spouse and family to be with someone who is willing to do the same, is not my definition of a successful happy marriage regardless of the duration of the marriage.

Always looking over your shoulder fearful of WHEN they'll cheat on you or having to lie to folks when they ask you "how'd you two meet" is not indicative or my definition of a successful happy marriage or life.

Just look how adultery-based marriages are treated when they come here to MB and finally fess up of how they started out. It's just one of many many consequences they suffer.

Adultery and adultery-based marriages are fraught with continued deception and darkness. Just because they marry doesn't change that dynamic, CatGirl.

I believe the two involved are one another's moral equal and deserve their future together. And because they hurt so many people to get there and fought so hard for it, some will stay in it despite the h3ll they're living. It's a prison of their own making.

Jo

Ok, so I'm putting this out here and don't hesitate to call me an [censored] if I deserve it...


But, for the life of me, I can't understand why it won't work...

OK other than the fact that they might wonder if they each will cheat again, but I'm sure they wondered that while they were livng together too...

They have been livng together for nearly 3 years. They know the day to day drudgery of paying bills, taking the garbage out, smelling their bad breath when they each wake up in the morning. AKA the fantasy of the A is over.

OW knows how much he has to pay me for many more years and knows that $$ could have been going to them. As I said she has dollar bills for eyeballs!

She knows he sees his kid every week. Albeit it's just for a little while, but that time could have been spent with her.


They know all that, yet they still got married.

Why would it not last?

It's really like they've been married now for 3 years anyway.

What is going to change and not make it last, now that they have a ring on their finger?

Nothing, how I see it...

Now that they are married, the bills will still need to be paid, as will the alimony. ExH will still come to see his kid and they'll still wake up with bad breath in the morning. The same as when they were just living together.

Am I not getting it?!

It could very well last. I think the odds are not in their favor...but we all know people in long term marriagers that started off as affairs. I would NEVER call one of these "people" my friend though.

Resilient,

I do agree.

No matter how bad the M might become, they will keep on a happy face, and I doubt very much either of them will ever leave.

They don't want to show people that they failed in yet another M and have people tell them, they told them so!

I honestly think they will work their a$$es off to make it work and to prove everyone wrong.

catgirl, some DO work! I wouldn't exactly call them successful, but some do stay together. MY XH has now been with his ho for NINE YEARS, maybe more, depending on when the affair started. They started shacking up in January 2000, after our divorce and are still together. He won't marry her and can't take her around his family, but they are still together.

The reason that most don't work is because of the very traits that made the affair possible, deceit and thoughtlessness, eventually kill the affair.

Wow Catgirl,

I feel and hear your pain so deeply. The absolute truth is we honestly really don't know what is happening between them or what will happen. We can't predict the future, but I can assure you G-d knows how it plays out.

I guess when I keep reading what you are writing, I think back to when I was married 3 years and was still in that "happy" stage. It's only human nature for the "bad" parts to come out unless someone has truly done the work to make amends for their part in hurting lives or changed as a person. From the sound of it, nothing could be further from the truth. Who knows if it will happen. It totally sucks that they have gotten to this point. When all is said and done, over the course of a marriage and lifetime there will be struggles, there will be problems and there will be their day.

I happen to think my WH and OW will be married one days when the ink is barely dry.

All I think we can do is live as best as possible, find the happines we are destined to have in spite of the deep hurts we have endured. Unfortunately we can't control others, make or break their happines, we can only do the best we can and know when the sun sets, we are good and happy ourselves and that even though life KNOCKED us down, we got back up and kept on fighting.

Is it a hollow win, YES in many ways. But it's a win and who knows one day, maybe it won't be so hollow and G-ds plan will be turned to good like he promises.

Cat, how long were you married? 3 yrs isn't really all that long. There's still plenty to years ahead of them to drive each other nuts. And if they stay together for the next 40 yrs, you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Maybe they are happy, maybe the aren't. They have no children so they have one less stress factor to deal with. ALL married couples have problems. They will be no exception.

Thanks Queenie,

I just feel so beaten up right now, it's EXACTLY the same feeling I felt the day I found out about the A.

I literally have been crying for 3 days straight. Lost 4 pounds already.

I was really starting to do well, I thought. Went off AD's 2 months ago. Guess I go back on them again.

I honestly don't know how much more I can take of this.

I so want to be happy and show him that I don't give a cr@p about him anymore, but something is making me not move on.

Obviously he is so over me. Why can't I do the same?

When he would come to get DS, I would make sure I looked to the 9's. OW is a fat pig! Wanted him to see what he lost.

I tried to portray to him I was over him. Guess I did a good job of it huh? He beleived it so much that he moved on to her permanently!

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I am SO tired of pretending. Pretending that Mommy is really OK when my son asks me if I'm crying...no allergies acting up I say. Pretending to the world that yeah I'm glad I'm rid of him. Putting up a good face eveytime I walk out of the house even though I truly wish I were dead half the time.

I'm just tired of it all. It's been a long 3 years...

cat, I am so sorry. Please believe me when I say it won't always be like this. You WILL live over this, I promise!

We were married 20 years. Knew each other 2 years before.

They don't have kids "yet". She's young enough to have them though, and heard she wants to.

Maybe that's why they made it legal as they want to start a family.

That would literaly put me over the edge...like I'm not already.

I SO wanted more kids and ExH wouldn't allow it. Said he was too old and didn't want to be in his 60's when his kid was in high school.

Well, if he has them with her, he will be. But again, just to keep her there, he'd do anyhting.

I have a feeling he might have married her to keep her. I think he likes her $$ and needs it to float his lifestyle. I think she said marry me or I walk. So she can easily say give me a kid, or I walk.

DD says he kisses her a$$ BIG TIME. So it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Thanks Melody.

My neighbor's W had an A. She left him. She never married the guy, but they did eventually break up. This was like 20 years ago this happened.

I just saw him today and he saw me in the yard crying. Asked me what was wrong and I told him. He said he could see himself in me, years ago, but he said it will get so much better and one day I will say why did I waste all those tears over such a piece of cr@p.

The way I feel now, I don't think I will ever be happy agian.

I can't imagine starting over. We had a very good life. He makes good money and we were very comfortable. I'm thisclose to losing my house now, he's put me in such financial ruin. I wanted my life with my ExH, and now he gave the life that should have been mine, to some wh$re!!!

I hate my life. ExH, has someone to go home to everyone night, someone to sleep with everynight.

What the fuc# do I have !!!!????

Cat, it sounds like you have put on a brave front for so long that you haven't had the chance to grieve for the loss of your marriage because you were trying to save it and holding onto hope that your H would return. If BSs didn't love their WSs it would be so much easier to just say [censored] them and walk away. You have your children and you KNOW you are a good person cat. Your exH and the other woman can't say the same. I can hear how low you are feeling today, but the future can bring good things to you. Sorround yourself with good people. You managed to survive D-day and all the crap that followed. You will survive this too.

That's the thing Raven...

I just feel as if I can't do it anymore...I have no more strength to pick myself up and go on.

Yeah I did survive D Day way back then and thought things were getting better because I still had the hope that ExH and OW would end the A and I might still have a chance. I mean pretty much everyone told me A's end.

Well that door closed for me now and I am right back where I started 3 years ago, but feeling even worse now that I know there is no hope.

Ijust want revenge I guess. I want him to hurt like he's hurt me. I want him to feel the pain I've felt nearly everyday for 3 years.

WHEN WILL HE GET HIS??????

There is NOTHING in the world that anyone on here really can say that will make it BETTER. But its an honor to have you walking through this with us and knowing that you are safe and care for and loved on here.

Why, because WE UNDERSTAND, so you aren't alone. WE KNOW this pain, and this GRIEVING and as horrible as it is, unfortunately we have to WALK THROUGH IT TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE.

I would agree with the rest you are grieving because you have been so strong for SO LONG and it's NOT FAIR.

I wish there were magic words to take the pain away. I can't. What I can tell you is that before it gets better, it gets worse and then you don't think it can get worse and it does, and it does again and it does until we have felt all that we need to feel in the grieving.

Just let it be, feel the feelings and understand once you get through this you WILL be ok. You will be stronger for having faced these feelings. My AA sponsor kept repeating to me, no amount of pain will kill you, what you do with that pain will.

We are all here right along with you, walking through it every step of the way. Write, scream, cry, beg G-d to take it away but keep going. Because if you stop in he!!, where do you stay?