Hi. I am new to this discussion board but after reading a slew of books and other resources, i found what was said here the most relatable and sensible.
i am trying to figure out if i need to go.
married 7 years. together with my husband a total of 11. both depressed when we met. i started taking anti depressants after we moved in together to spare him my depression. but as i got better, he kept refusing to do anything about his depression and he was increasingly hard to live with. we hae one kid. we really grew a part after she was born. he couldn't handle the stress and threatened divorce twice while she was an infant. that really killed the relationship for me. he had a couple one-off extramarital episodes i only learned about recently. he started medication last year but i saw very little of the benefit. we stopped fighting all the time. but we also were not talking. he just kept working all the time.
i told him earlier this year that i was miserable, felt trapped, etc. but he did nothing. i suggested couples counseling, he said he had no complaints, what would we even talk about?
as this was going on, i fell in love with someone at work who is also in a bad marriage. worse than mine actually.
my husband found out about the affair (emotional purely) and he immediately admitted he had been ignoring me and burying himself in work and had ignored my earlier pleas. he is in therapy, trying to better himself. i am still angry with him for how shabbily he treated me and our marriage. i feel like i can forgive him, but not if we stay together. also, having tried to cut off the other person, i've decided that i don't want to cut the other person out of my life. i feel because of those two things, that we should separate now while we can do it amicably, for the sake of our kid. i know people might be skeptical of this but it really would be amicable at this stage. my husband might be less so if we drag this out indefinitely. of course i hesitate because i know this is a big step. any thoughts?

So you've come to a marriage building site to ask whether we think you should carry on an affair?

Is that your question?

YOU ARE NOT IN LOVE WITH OM. He is just meeting your ENs.

Why don't you drop this OP and work on your marriage. As long as you continue this Affair you will never be able to find out if your husband can meet your ENs.

Here is your WS FogBable

You want to be in a relationship with OP? This person must be so wonderful to fall in love with a married women and tear that woman's child away from her dad.

Don't come here and think you using the welfare of your child is the reason for you continuing your Affair.

Be freakin' honest. You want a justification, just say cause you want to do this.

I was thinking the same thing!!

My advice?

If you want to continue with the affair then divorce your poor husband so he can find someone that WILL make him happy...

or

If you want your marriage to work..QUIT your job

Do you mean he had a couple one-night stands?

Would you be willing to leave your marriage AND the OM for one year? No contact AT ALL with OM.

Would you be willing to do that?

Just a wild guess... this was after you began talking to this man you "fell in love" with?

Did you feel trapped because you weren't free to go shag this new man behind the trash bins at work?

I'll put money on it.

Well, your husband should not be amicable in any divorce action. He should go for the jugular and file for divorce on grounds of adultery, going for possession of your home and primary custody of your child since you are an unfit parent.
This way, he could subpoena your adultery partner into court and force him to give testimony under oath about your adultery. They can even subpeona your emails and texts in discovery.

This would be very helpful to the OM's wife in any legal action of her own. However, it is unlikely the OM will ever divorce his wife over a cheap piece of action. That is so rare that it is the equivalent of Sasquatch.

See, 95% of adulterous affairs never make it to marriage. Of those that do, a very slim minority make it beyond 5 years. Wanna know why? Because the very traits that made the affair possible, dishonesty and thoughtlessness eventually destroy the affairage. [that is the term for an affair marriage]

Another problem with affair marriages is that many people won't let people like that darken their doorstep. For example, will his parents, grandparents, and other relatives allow YOU in their home? A married woman who is cheating on her husband and behaving like a skank? I sure would not allow you to darken my doorstep if this were my son.

And lastly, what will your daughter think when she finds out her own mother wrecked her family over some sleazy affair? You wrecked her family for what? For a big nothing. Do you want her to grow up and follow in your dishonorable footsteps? To act like a cheap ho with married man?

I don't that is the lesson most caring mothers want to teach their daughters.

So, you can see there are LOTS of problems inherent in affairs. You will wreck your life if you continue with this loser. And it is very doubtful he would ever divorce his wife for this.

He should not be willing to forgive you unless you make some major changes in your life. Most men would not waste 2 seconds with a cheating wife and he should not unless and until you show some sincere remorse and make dramatic changes in your life. The first step towards your redemption would be to end all contact with this loser OM of yours. That means exposing the affair everywhere. The OM's wife should know, your family, his family, close friends. The more people who know the more people to hold you accountable.

So as far as forgiveness goes, it is you who needs forgiveness, not him. You have commmitted a grievous crime against your husband and your child, for you own selfishness. You are trying to wreck your own childs family just so you can chase a married man like a skank in heat. And you are worried about forgiving him?

That is crazy...

no i did it long before.
and last i checked, there are people on this site that do divorce. i posted my question there initially
and yes i am being honest
i don't want to end the other relationship
ergo, i should leave, right?

while i appreciate the advice the way in which it was delivered is really unacceptable.

if you think you're going to convince people to come around t your "stay married no matter what" philosophy
by treating people that way, then no wonder you're failing.

You come to a marriage building site and ask for advice.

Advice given. If you want justification for a decision you've already made, well... I think I already said this is a marriage building site.

right and as i explained, i posted originally in the section for people who are divorcing and was directed over here...i wanted to talk to people who had made the decision to leave

not this angry bunch of people who are angry about things that i'm sorry don't have anything to do with me

i'm not sure why my husband's transgressions don't count.
is it because he's a man? why does his having sexual contact somehow count less than what i did?

it's hypocritical. and sexist.

Your WS is not here asking for advice. If he was, nobody would be giving him a pass on his behavior.

IMHO, you are here because you know having an affair is wrong. You know that OM is not the greatest thing since slice bread.

You've been deeply hurt by your WH's neglect and abuse of you.

YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HURT AGAIN. We understand this.

What do you want to do?

Divorce or try to save your marriage?

OBTW,

Wither you choose saving or divorcing, the recommendation will be for you to drop the other person.

You said OM is married too...in a "worse marriage than yours"

Who told you this, OM?

Did HIS WIFE cheat on him too?

Who told you this, OM?


Decent guys don't have affairs with married women. Regardless of what you do about your marriage...the affair with this loser is a mistake. Remember...what he'll do with you, he'll eventually do to you.

How many marriages/men do you intend to expose your child to?

Mr. W

dcmama2:

You "fell in love" after you and the OM began discussing each other's marital problems, right? What you will find is that this is an absolute texbook example of an A that is not sustainable in the real world. My W "fell in love" with the OM the same way, and my A happened the same way too.

I can tell you from my two experiences, that it is not "love" you have with the OM. It is a fantasy that you two have created in your mind to feel better about yourselves. I am certainly not angry at you, but you may someday find that you are going about this the wrong way.

If you decide that D is your only answer, then get on with it and spare yourself the absolute confusion and emptiness you will soon come to feel about putting yourself in the middle of a M and an A. Your husband and child deserve better. An A is never justified. Ever.

Give yourself a year of living alone, and see if you are still "in love" with this OM. I'll bet you a dollar it won't be there a year from now. You have probably talked about a fantasy life together, free from the perceived shortcomings in your two M's. But if you ever had to live with this OM, along with all the baggage of having an A that brought down two M's, I think you will find that your "fantasy relationship" will actually be not so good.

You have a great opportunity to learn from all of this and find whatever it was that you once had with your H. It takes work, but it is worth it. But whatever you decide, don't continue to destroy your soul by wallowing in an A.

And don't forget that a truly decent man with self respect would never have an A. Imagine what he would do to you down the road when you two start having problems. Have an A???

But your H isn't here, so how can you know what we would say to him?

I asked you if you would consider leaving both relationships. I asked that for a reason. I wanted to see if you would be willing to leave your M without OM in the picture. You say no.

Acknowledge, then, that you are leaving your M for OM, instead of painting the picture to make it seem that your departure from your M has been a long time coming and it's just coincidental that OM has made his debut at this point. I suspect that you wouldn't be on here asking these questions if there was no OM. Just so you have SOME notion of the reality of what you are doing.

Well, you're a big girl and can make your own decisions. But you have to realize that leaving your M isn't going to affect just you and your H. It's also going to effect your child - for life.

I can hear you justifying it right now: "Oh, he'll have a better life, he'll love OM, OM will love him, BH will find somebody else and this will be a minor blip in his life, I'm going to be soooo happy, all of my problems will be solved..."

Except for one little problem: everything I've just listed there will be WRONG. NONE of those things will happen for you.

Your child will NOT have a better life, shuttling back and forth between two parents. He will be upset as he's growing up, not being able to make plans with his friends for weekend play because he'll be 'at his dad's for the weekend.' Not having both of you on holidays, but having to go from one place to another. Having to act like an adult while his parents pass messages back and forth through him. Missing you when he's with his dad. Missing his dad when he's with you. Oh, and there's a lot more in store for him, but I'm getting sad for him already and don't want to keep going.

Your bills will pile up like they do now. You'll need to juggle marriage, parenthood and job like you do now - only you'll also have to deal with the logistics of an ex-husband, a current husband, and a child who is confused and upset and more than likely very angry at this turmoil in his life (that he never asked for, btw.)

There are people who will no longer speak to you. You should probably alter your Christmas card list now, because your child's relatives on his dad's side won't be happy to get one from you.

If you're human, and I happen to believe you are, at some point in the quiet of the night, months or maybe years down the road, your mind will bring out the happy memories of your previous marriage. There will be a small, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realize what you gave up, and the little return you got for that.

You'll very likely take that out on your current husband. It's got to be his fault, right? I mean, look at all the promises he made to you about how wonderful your life with him would be! This is the point where your ex is going to start looking better for you than you'd ever realized. But it'll be too late. You won't be able to un-ring the bell and turn back. You've made your decision and now you'll have to live with it.

And while you're blaming your dissatisfaction on your current husband, he's going to be puzzled and confused. After all, he's just being himself, right? Maybe he doesn't flirt with you anymore. I mean, why bother, right? He married you, didn't he? So now he can relax and be himself!

And he has annoying bathroom habits that you didn't know about before you left your ex and married him. He won't clean up after himself. He doesn't really like your child, but puts up with him. And sadly, your child knows that.

He's going to start spending more time away from home and your harpy ways. What do you suppose he'll be doing? "Working late"? "Out with the boys"? Or doing what he was doing when he hooked up with you, only now he's doing it with another younger and prettier woman? And you know for a fact that it doesn't matter if she's single or married. You know for a fact that he does NOT VALUE THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE, so by definition he will NOT VALUE HIS OWN. After all, he dated you, a married woman, didn't he.

If you take nothing else from this board, I would suggest you read the Spying 101 thread and bone up on spying on your spouse. I believe you will need that knowledge not too far down the road.

Oh, and dcmama? I'm not a bit angry. But your future makes me sad for you, your husband and your child.

Good luck.