Hi! I'm new to posting but have been reading all of your posts for a while. Thank you for sharing - it really helps! My quetion is this - I have heard the term "an affair dies a natural death within two years" Is this two years after finding out? or two years on "their own"? I found out about A 3 years ago - it had been going on for several years. (30 year marriage) Now we've been separating with him living with her for one year and our divorce is in the final stages. It seems his life is going just fine and they are buying a house soon etc. but he hasn't "lost anything" yet - as he will when final decree is made. I guess my situation is one that seems as if the affair is actually the "real" relationship. Once he knew I was serious about the Divorce he just cut me out completely physically, emotionally and verbally. Would like some slants on this. Thanks.

carebear, I know this must hurt alot, and I am not sure if I can offer anything of help, and if you check around the boards I am usually in the doghouse cause some of my views are blunt, and consider all solutions, not just marriage at all cost....but anyways I am the wsh, and too have been with w almost 30 years, so in some ways have walked your path.... except I am the ws<p>I have noticed alot of marital difficulties in the 20+ range and have some thoughts that may be helpful (or not)....we (those of us from 40ish-55 or so) are the first generation of long term marrieds who are not thoroughly indoctrinated in you just stay married forever, we are children who came to age in the 60's, and challenged everything, and sought personal fullfillment....like most societal shifts this was good and bad....along with this came a fundamental shift in female roles, including wanting more automony...this gauranteed women were going to divorce more, and not accept submissive status in marriage, but want fullfillment, and nurturing. What folks don;t fully appreciate is this also empowered men to divorce women, cause it weakened the social stigma of abandoning your wife when she was old and all wore out, and had little prospect of finding another man to take care of her. <p>In any event, people were now focusing on the quality of the marriage, not just being married, so what has happened is the emotional holdover from earlier years meant many of our generation would stick it out for the kids, not expect to be happy, and of course we did not have very good tools for marital repair, so counselling was of little benefit, and was mostly of the communicate more, and play nice variety, if sought at all. But when the kids get raised, and empty nest looms, and people start looking at each other...the sobering reality sets in....I don't even know this person, and I don't really want to live like this for another 30-40 years, especially without the kids to focus on..... this of course is fertile ground for affairs as folks try to survive emotionally, and all the attendant fallout...the only good thing about the affairs is that is forces intense concentration on the quality of the marriage, so it can be repaired, or ended....unfortuenately this also means sometimes people run and never really look back...even if the marriage would have ended anyways this leaves the bs devastated, and severely injured...the good news is one can survive, and heal quite well, but it takes a lot of work. You will be ok carebear.<p>As for your personal circumstances, the first lesson is you only have control over yourself and what you do...and the first order of business is to try and understands, and internalize, this affair, and its outcome is about your H, not you....whatever you contributed to the dysfunction of the marriage (and it could be a little, or a lot), you did not cause the affair, and did not deserve this.... that doesn't mean feel like a victim, it just means this is life, this stuff happens, and it is not cause you are a bad person. The next step is to look inside, fix what you want in you, and grow from this...that may or may not help your marriage, but that is not the goal, the goal is to help yourself, and if that helps the marriage, great, if not, so be it...it takes two, and you cannot do anything about your H choices....there is plenty here about all this, so I won't try to explain that part. But regardless of your marital status, or relationship with H or exh as case may be, tomorrow is always the first day of the rest of your life, it will be what you make it, and it is a good time to be alive, scarey, but lots of good things are out there.<p>As for your post, and questions the affair dying thing is a statistical comment....the fact is, most affairs do die, the conditions are not conducive to long term relationships, but that does not mean they all die. Finding out is a critical point cause it does put severe pressure on the affiar, especially those that were comfortable with the secret (the mistress syndrome)...but many die cause the secret eats you up (if you have any ethics at all), and many die cause the op makes demands for more time, and the ws does not want to divorce, and other reasons too. In your case I dunno, your H has essentially had 2 wives it sounds like, and he is choosing one over the other, this is a little more than just an affair...frankly I am not sure at all why you would even want him back, this man apparently has no problems with conscience, and does not value you much if he made no real attempt to reconcille after discovery....I don't know why you waited 2 years, but that is a long time to tolerate an affair, and frankly makes you look very undesireable (weak) for allowing this (by remaining marrried, and meeting some of H needs). It is not fair, but that is how human nature works, we distance ourselves from weak people. But you finally took action, and after a year of seperation no real change, all you can do is look forward and move on. You are right, I would guess he is fully connected to the ow, and will probably stay that way, but one never knows. The good news is you do not have to figure this out, you just work on yourself, do some specific boundary stuff for whatever interaction you have with spouse, and what will be will be, many here will be supportive of you, and help you get that right. Also hopefully this man does right by you, and proivides for your security, and emotional support (if you need any)...why don't you post rest of story, kids? Did you work? Are you financially safe, how old are you? How was marriage, what do you think happened? This is a huge thing for you, take time and work through it all, that is very important. Also understand you are going (and must have had lots allready) plenty of emotional ups and downs, anger, suicide, deprerssion, disbelief, lost, etc. so has everyone here, you are among people who understand.<p>As the wsh in a long-term marriage, who has always been completely faithful, I can only tell you we never really connected, the marriage was about the kids, and surviving, we have been emotionally "divorced" (called withdrawal) for a very long time, many many marriages are like this...it leads to "single" emotional reality, and no one really taught any of us this, so when we start "acting" on it, establishing what seem to be innocent relationships with others, we are actually bonding with someone other than our spouse, but the bond is often real (lots of times is something else, but certain % is real), and this leads to an eventual marital crisis, where truths must be uncovered, and choices made, and it is hell for everyone while this is going on...but everyone survives, is just life, and hopefully people treat each other fairly, and kindly, although often they do not. Our story is different, the affair was not long, and we did not live together, but recognized we must deal with our marriages, and stopped the affair, so it ended, but did not "die" in the sense some mean...we just did the right thing...which is to deal with the marital issues and fix them or divorce...there is no reason for marriage to be an unhappy place, one does not have to live that way. IMO when a long-term marriage ends, there must be a lot of consideration for the needs of the wife, especially if she was a stay at home mom, hopefully that applies in your case.....Good luck, and feel free to ask any questions that may help you.

Usually the affair dies a natural death 2-3 years after being exposed to the light of day. However, there are a few exceptions. You unfortunately may be one. <p>There are several factors that affect the progression of the affair - your actions during the period after you found out - was his family, friends, kids accepting of new relationship?<p>The theory is that affairs are based upon lies and if the wayward spouse lies to you then they'll end up lying to new person - or if wayward spouse has any bad personality traits and doesn't change them then they'll come to light with the new person too.<p>Hard to say in your H's case. Could be a mid life crisis. If there are no youn kids, then he may not think there is anything tying him to the marriage.<p>Whatever the reason he is probably not the perosn you married, and if he lied to you about the affair and is rejecting his marriage vows, he is probably not someone you still want to be married to.<p>What happens is that the betrayed spouse holds onto the image of the person they wer ebefore the affair who was a wonderful person, but this perosn has changed into something not so wonderful.<p>You may want to read the info. on this site - and SAA (Surviving an Affair) and maybe even go to www.divorcebusting.com and see if there is anything else you want to try to do to save the marriage. Remember though, it takes two. And just because your husband is acting this way - it doesn't mean you aren't a wonderful person - it just means H has some issues. K

Thanks so much for your replies. I do agree with what you both have said however, this was not his first affair as I have found out. I believe he is not just a serial cheater but one with a huge problem that he never addressed, just decided to blame me. Anyway, the life and marriage we had was one that anyone who knew us envied. This man has never suffered consequences and unfortunately when I found out I wasn't strong enough to take a stand and risk losing him, therefore, I kept him in this place until he became very comfortable with it. No one in our life has accepted her but everyone has accepted the situation and my children want me to move on and can't understand why I would want him after what he has done. His consequences will be coming soon and now I am strong enough to carry them through - not out of any type of revenge but to look out for myself for a change. I wanted so much to change the pattern that our parents had - his divorced and his dad was on his fourth wife when he died - at least my goal is to change the pattern for me and I know that I am doing that! Thanks again - I am here for anyone!

I don't think it's the affair that dies a natural death so much as it's the "fog". When the fog dissipates, the WS can either try to repair the damage, or try to find some new accommodation with his/her more realistic perception of the situation.<p>Pride and despair may come into play here. And if the WS really believes the bridges were burned, he/she may not even try to look back, choosing instead to "make the best" of the circumstances.

<small>[ August 08, 2004, 11:15 PM: Message edited by: laura_lee ]</small>