I guess one could argue that if the definition of "work" means you're both still together for the rest of your lives, then technically, yes. It worked for you and your lover, but not for the other parties who were sacrificed and negatively affected.
In essence, no, it didn't work. And are you wasting your time? There's nothing good that will ever come out of infidelity. It's not meant to be good, and it's not designed to be good. Having an affair usually emerges out of a long, slow decline in a relationship where one or both of the parties are seeking a void to be filled.
It's possibly an emotional need which is not being filled by the other partner. Seeking professional help to figure out why you're acting out with an affair is a positive step toward healing both you and your relationship with your partner. Please know that you are not alone. At ReGain, there are caring and understanding professional counselors who will guide you through this time in your life.
Once the betrayed spouse finds out, the affair loses a lot of its appeal. So, affairs usually fizzle out after the affair find the light of day. If you suspect that your spouse is cheating, one of the easiest ways to get that affair to end is to expose it. If you think that your spouse is having an affair, you should ask them openly and try to bring the truth out so that you can work together with marriage people to move forward. This is especially true of affairs that are based entirely, or almost entirely, on the sexual aspect of the relationship.
While there are cases of affairs that work out and lead to a beautiful and thriving marriage, this is definitely the exception and not the rule. Even those affairs that seem to be going really well often end in a breakup. An affair can last anywhere from one night to several years. When the affair comes to light is precisely the moment that both of those relationships start to breakdown: both the marriage and the relationship with the other person who is outside the marriage.
All in all, affairs can last for ages or for just a few hours. However, those who are actively looking to cheat are often quick to settle on a new person to sleep with. Many affairs start in places where married women and men spend a lot of time outside the home, such as the workplace, hobbies, or activities. This is because the emotional affair is based on a lot of effort and time spent communicating with one another about feelings and ideas.
Since it takes a lot of input to make an emotional affair work, this type of affair is actually more likely to take more effort and time in the long run. So, while your emotional affair might turn into love, pursuing a relationship based on that is not a great foundation for a healthy relationship. Of course, that process is not an easy one. Since trust is the cornerstone of a thriving relationship, this is an important but grueling process. Plus, after going through an affair, most couples, even those who recover and survive the affair, report that it is much harder to trust their partner after the infidelity.
About half of affairs end in divorce. Do Affairs Ever Work? Search Topics. Can Stress Cause Spotting? The information on this page is not intended to be a substitution for diagnosis, treatment, or informed professional advice. You should not take any action or avoid taking any action without consulting with a qualified mental health professional. Any workplace romance, extramarital or not, can damage workplace morale or productivity if there are inappropriate displays of affection, favoritism from a supervisor dating a subordinate, a bad breakup that results in co-workers choosing "sides" or sexual harassment.
Imagine a married executive has an affair with another executive who's single. Everyone at work knows the married executive's wife—they've socialized with her for years and she comes into the office often—and now people feel uncomfortable and guilty when they see her.
They're also losing respect for the married executive, who can sense the disapproval and starts retaliating with poor performance reviews for those he believes are critical of the affair. Such affairs "often cause turmoil and can disrupt the workplace for years," said Chris W. Some employers might want to create policies to prohibit romantic relationships at work—or even to specifically prohibit extramarital affairs.
While creating "no fraternization" or "no romantic relationship" policies may seem like a good idea, they can create a different set of challenges. Kluger agrees. You essentially almost encourage your employees to lie to you by having a rule prohibiting consensual relationships at work.
Instead, he said, it's better for an employer to encourage employees to be upfront and honest and to disclose when there are relationships. If an extramarital affair is causing turmoil at work, a manager may have some obligation to investigate, Kluger said. Flanagan said managers "should have proof or evidence regarding the affair before confronting the employees involved because without it, it is merely an accusation.
If you do have a policy, make sure that it's not invading privacy. And what if an employer disciplines or even fires workers involved in an extramarital affair but doesn't do the same to romantic couples who aren't married?
Could the disciplined workers have a valid lawsuit based on marital-status discrimination? The case law on this is unclear. Federal law does not prohibit workplace discrimination based on marital status. But firing someone for having an extramarital affair may invite a lawsuit in states that do prohibit marital-status discrimination. As far as Kluger is concerned, "there really is no legal difference between married people and unmarried people at work. Whether to discipline someone for an extramarital affair depends largely on what the company's policy is about romantic relationships at work.
If the workers having the affair violate policy, employers can reassign the employees, especially if one is supervising the other, Johnson said. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Wow I found out on the same exact date. Only she is 20 plus years younger. Been with him for over 23 years, in fact the previous week we had just celebrated our anniversary.
We have four kids together. The two months we were rebuilding our marriage well at some point he was in contact with her and he was nothing but a rude jerk to me because he felt guilty.
He was also distant and cold at times. That was about a month ago. Believe me, he is a self-entitled spoiled brat who thinks he deserves two women. Be happy being single. Wow,reading your letter was like reading my life,my husband lied, cheated and moved out and in with his fling woman and a few months past and he wanted to come back.
Him ,he was distant,moody and was his selfish self doing nothing different and was still in contact with her. Yes i said get out go be with her. I would rather learn to move on than to have a life with him ,that is not the man i married and loved….. I as well as all others deserve a faithful ,caring person who wants them, not a selfish person who takes, blames and is clueless to the meaning of REAL love!
To think back and see i was actually suicidal and am ashamed now that he had that much power over me because now 2 YEARS AFTER the fact i KNOW i am a great person yes with flaws but i am real no fantasy and am willing and able to work hard on showing my care and love. Liz, No one deserves betrayal. Marriage has deeper, quieter gifts. Family, trust, security, safety.. Be glad your husband woke up. He started an email affair with an old girlfriend. Met her once and ended our marriage.
I felt weak because it took me so long to get over. A marriage CAN survive an affair. You will become stronger. Your husband does, now, seem to realize what he almost lost. Save your heartache. I do love my husband although I am not able to express those feelings the way he would like for me to right now! I think you can start to get over it if your husband knows how much he hurt you. My ex woke up after four years.
He realized he had no self respect or integrity. Words like loyalty, commitment, dedication, devotion and honesty made him feel shame. He has to be willing to give you a lot of time to heal from the betrayal.
Ann, thanks for contributing to our site it is helpful to hear from people who have different stories and are in different stages of recovery. If this is not too personal I am curious to know if your ex is still with his affair partner and what he is doing with his life.
I think all of us hope that our spouses will eventually wake up and realize how stupid they were and how much they risked by their selfish behavior. I will never know how difficult the last four years was for you but I have to think that you have learned from this situation and have grown to be a stronger person because of it. He is no longer with his affair partner.
They did marry. She had also left a 21 year marriage. I no longer chat with him at all. He is now involved with another woman. Beautiful statement. The spouse that can be single for awhile has time for self awareness and discovery. My thought about affairs, is, a marriage can recover. I got to the point that I respected a man having an affair the not deciding…the loving his wife but drawn to this other woman more than I did my ex who ended a marriage after emails and one visit.
He had no emotional ties to me at all if he could do that. So, for those of you suffering from an affair, there is hope for your marriage. He could very well still love you …has made a horrible mistake..
Oh Ann! I just came across this web site and been following your posts. In reading your posts, I feel there is hope for my future. My soon to be ex left me for another after 20 yrs, and your right, it never lasts.
The hurt that I and his child feels is so unbearable. He too is now with someone else. I just hope I can over come all of this pain which is so so intense, and hope I can pick up the pieces and start a new life again. I just found out 1 month ago that my H was having an EA with an ex from 20 yrs ago! And now they are in a full blown relationship. We had discussed divorce but I am trying to save our marriage. He has said he wants to give me a chance to show him the marriage can be saved and he suggested date night.
He tells me he never wants to be a divorce man, but feels like its headed in that direction. We still have sex and he has moved into the other bedroom. He says that after all the loyalty and the taken care of him he feels he owes it to me to show him that things can be better.
He leaves for work and gives me a kiss goodbye, when he leaves to go be with her he kisses me goodbye. I know this because I have overheard their conversations. He says he gets that with the OW. Is he just stringing me along? I do believe some of this is a revenge affair also, it sounds a lot like it from the break free book. Our only real problem was communucation. Is he being real with me? But would do I do now? The OW is probably providing him with the things that you cannot or did not, which is a tough obstacle for you to overcome, especially while he is still seeing her.
I know this probably sounds like a broken record, but to be fair to you, he must end contact with the OW. How else can he truly work on your marriage? Basically, he wants to keep her around till he knows for sure about us.
But your right it is a half ass attempt on his part. I can hear the phone buzzing and usually he finds a way to answer again I look at that s hope. How long does an EA last? And it should. The hurt is just so terrible. Hi Toni — I was reading your post — and am very curious what happened? I hope you found your happiness!!
What is he doing? One date night? And it throws me for a loop. I feel so lost and not know what to do. My thoughts are with you! Why are you allowing him to treat you like an option? Once I confronted him and he came clean it was WAR because I was NOT going to just curl up and die and meekly hand over my husband of 28 years to a sweet-talking whore…..
Unfortunately we have children, pasts, futures and everything that goes with being with someone for almost 30 years involves. Artii, I used to be like you. Meaning, I thought I thinking like this made me a confident man. When, in fact, the inverse was actually true. I was not going to throw 9 years away over one very poor, hurtful decision. I believed that with hard work and devotion we could rebuild our relationship and marriage.
I guess my point is this, you never really know how you are going to react until the bullets start flying. I found that my false bravado was just that, false. It shows what really matters to you, and what you will choose to be strong for, to fight for. Reading all these comments has my head spinning yet makes me feel a little better about me ending my emotional affair. I was involved in an affair for 12 years. We were really in love but neither of us would leave. I could never hurt my husband and go off into the sunset with my lover.
He claims he could but what does it matter. I finally made the decision to be without him. We talk here and there as friends but I will not go back to it. Problem is I think about him constantly and the pain of being without him remains and it is almost two years.
Even though things are good with my husband there is this emptiness that is haunting. Will this pain ever go away? BethD, Thanks for sharing. In my opinion, it would be very difficult to get over the pain as long as you are still maintaining contact. Though my affair was no where near that long, I think your constant thoughts of the OP will go away eventually if you cut contact and put all your efforts, both physically and emotionally into your marriage.
I know you are right Doug. I have tried the no contact thing. It worked for a little while but then when he started to contact me again it hurt me to hurt him. I still love him and I know I always will. That is a given. I could write the book on affairs and I do know that no contact is best on paper anyway. At a certain point I was expending more time and energy maintaining no contact so I had to let it go. I try not to talk often. The hardest thing I am fighting is the fact that I feel I was happier when he was in my life as my boyfriend.
Crazy huh? I would say extremely selfish. Let your husband go so he can find somebody else, somebody who will love and cherish him. The prescribed solution is to sever all contact with the affair partner. As long as you maintain contact, the feelings would not have any chance of fading. If you can cut out all contact with the AP, and all reminders of them, too, then perhaps you can develop those same kinds of feelings for your spouse.
I have had a committed love for my wife since I was 15, which enable me to wait as the years it took to finally marry her. Leaving a relationship of 12 years will take some adjustment.
Cutting out a person from your life after that long will take some time to get used to. The pain will fade over time. As you draw closer to your spouse, a renewed sense of intimacy will have a chance to grow and spread into those empty parts of your life and heart.
Changes like that take time. It is always important to allow time to bring the changes we need into our lives. There may be some guilt for a while the haunting aspect.
That too will fade. Another thing that helps some people is helping others. Jeff, I know a 12 year affair is crazy but we were just too connected to let it go. I wish getting closer to my spouse would do the trick but the crazy thing with me is my marriage was never bad. Love my husband to death but different kind of love.
His wife caught on because I guess she got tired of living like brother and sister. I think she also got scared since the kids are 0lder and the last one home leaving the nest soon so she was afraid he would leave. I never blame her. She fought for her marriage but of course it was the beginning of the end for our affair. When I speak to him I can hear the misery in his voice. His marriage is worse than ever and maybe that is a good thing. When he had me I made his life and marriage tolerable.
It is just so hard to let him go but I know it is for the best and the right thing to do morally. As you say, it allows someone to avoid either: 1 Trying to fix the marriage; or 2 move on.
So by not going back into it, you are forcing a change in the status quo, for better or for worse. Maybe, just maybe, he can look deep inside himself and allow things to get better.
That is correct. I always felt that the affair masked what problems we both had in our marriages. For me it was intimacy issues since my husband has medical problems. Our love and affection was there however as well as a great friendship and partnership. His marriage was cold and the only thing they seem to have in common is the children.
I wish i could believe that he will look deep inside himself and allow things to get better in his marriage. Most likely he will try to replace me instead of working on his marriage. Truthfully I have lost respect for him for living this pretend marriage and not even trying to make it better. He claims I am his soul mate. Not sure I even believe in that. Often it is yanked away from you when things are great and that is what makes it so hard to get over. To steal a bit from Dr. Bill Doherty, the difference btw a marriage and an affair is the difference btw being a citizen and a tourist.
A tourist sees the nice hotels, and the beautiful beaches, and leaves. The citizen sees the bugs, the weather during non tourist season, and some times the abject poverty away from the tourist areas.
A tourist has fun, and goes back to thier boring, stable normal lives. A citizen has to deal with the mess. Linda, What a great article! I really appreciate your insight on this! My husband had multiple affairs and his last one got completely out of hand and the OW wanted him to leave us for her. And sadly he contemplated it. I have linked your sight quite a few times already.
I really enjoy your articles. You have a lot to share! Especially considering the statistics. They lived whatever they thought they had in a bubble. Go see how elicit your feelings are after you have to be REAL for a few weeks. Many who have affairs actually end up becoming addicted. Not just to the sex or excitement but to the affair partner. When they decide to end the affair they literally go through withdrawl.
Those feelings of depression and anxiety and constant agonizing thoughts about the other person lead your spouse to wrongly assuming that because it is so hard to end the affair and because it is so hard to stop thinking about them that they must be meant to be. Alecia, you know what I will never understand is why they become so addicted to their lovers, what makes their lovers so special or addicting compared to all the love and commitment shown by their spouses.
Would they feel the same way toward their husbands and wives as they do toward their lovers? If they left their spouses would they feel as lost and hopeless as they do after they end their affairs? It is a known fact that addiction plays a huge role in affairs.
I rationally knew if I left my husband for my OM it would be a huge mistake. I never seriously contemplated it. First of all I knew I could never live with myself if I did that to my husband and second I knew on a day to day basis my husband was a great partner.
Yet I could not leave my lover. I tried so many times in the first three years. I never felt at peace and although I like to believe I was a devoted wife to my husband I know at some level it had to affect my marriage. When we broke up for the final time I felt the worst pain of my life.
It was akin to the death of my parents. I not only was sick for me I hurt for him and what pain he was going through. Withdrawal was the pits.
I am still not over it and I fear it can start up again at a moments notice. It is a constant struggle in my life and it is the same for him. I pray alot.
If your H has made the decision to leave for the OW then let him go. The newness will only last so long and when the problems of the first marriage start raising there ugly head it will all go pear shaped. It happened to me recently and he is constantly trying to make me jealous which makes me automatically think there is something not quite right. Yes they would. I know if I left my husband I would miss him terribly.
He is a wonderful man who deserves the best in life. I honestly think I loved both my husband and my OM. Yes it was double dipping for sure.
It was wrong morally etc etc etc Yet part of me will not regret having my OM in my life. It was the best of times…it was the worst of times. I think when you do meet someone else you connect with like that the friendship is just as hard as the sexual addiction to let go. Of course the sex part is even harder. It is forbidden, it is hot, it is crazy. It is something that is really hard to get in your marriage when you are with someone every day no matter how creative you are.
I use to judge people who cheated and then it happened to me. Trust me you become so out of control it is like a drug you need to have. My life will never be the same and that is my punishment. I feel like I will love and care for my OM till the end but my decision is to devote myself to my husband.
Noone however knows what the future holds. I can see how you might feel that way. But can I just encourage you to keep working at your marriage? You are in control of your feelings and your thoughts. And it is an injustice to your marriage to hold on to thoughts and feelings of your OM. If you want your marriage and your heart to heal than you have to be willing to let that go. If not, than yes, I agree, you will continue to struggle and may even fall again. If you want your marriage to not just survive but thrive you have to get them out of your heart.
It is possible. When your married and you meet someone that makes you feel that way you should get away fast. You know, I think this site has actually answered that question quite well in another post. They were actually only meeting one or two of their needs. The spouse was meeting the rest. What we have to do as the scorned spouses is learn how to meet all of our spouses needs.
It was the nature of our relationship at the time. Yes he was being incredibly selfish in his behavior but I needed to approach it differently.
My love language is not words of affirmation so it is something that I have to be deliberate about or I end up not meeting my husbands needs. He would go to work and interact with these women who would throw complements and flirations his way that skyrocketed his feeling of affirmation. There was such a gap between what I was giving and what the OW was giving that an affair was a definite possibility that eventually became a reality.
Sometimes it just happens and some people like excitement in their life. I am probably one of them. Drama always seemed to find me.
Your husband may be that type. You sound wonderful and i admire you talking this out with your husband. My biggest problem with my OM spouse was that until recently she never mentioned what was going on with them. She just played her pretend marriage out and appeared to be content. My OM use to put her on speaker phone so I can hear the conversation. It was so cold between them I could feel the chill. Almost like they were on remote control.
Never understood that. I have a great friendship with my husband. I am glad for you that things seem to back on track with you and your spouse. I wish you the best. As for me I am contemplating going back to no contact. I think I am getting to the point that talking to him even as friends is keeping me from moving on. Putting their conversations on speaker phone for you to listen to? That is incredibly disrespectful.
That, as much as anything, made me question why I was with my husband. How can he be attracted to someone who could be that much of a backstabber? How is someone like that even appealing?
You deserver better, but there is no question—none at all—that his wife deserves better still. It is a constant struggle for me to try to separate the reality from the fantasy. Yes our times were great and fun times as opposed to real life things. I did however, have some awful break ups and of course challenges in the course of all those years with my lover.
Sometimes I think we went through more turmoil and angst with each other than our spouses. You know each others children, fears, fantasys, friends. You start to confide in your lover much more than your spouse which is not a good thing. Things you would never tell your spouse you tell your lover. It is a complicated relationship. You convince yourself that this is enhancing your life and filling it with everything missing in your marriage.
I have no illusion that my life would be better if I leave my husband and marry my OM. I just miss him so badly that I wonder if it will ever go away.
And yes I know I am addicted to him yet I feel like I am madly in love. Is there a fine line between addiction and love? One thing I have to say, and I am sure that you are fully aware of this, but I feel for a majority of your married life you have been married to two men. You have your husband who provided companionship, trust, and the security that you feel living with someone on a day to day basis. Your lover provided the excitement, stimulating conversation, intimacy etc.
I can truly understand how difficult it would be to let that go. You have become so accustomed to your lover fulfilling some of your needs while your spouse fulfills the others, that there would definitely be a void in the relationship with your husband. I can understand how close you felt to your lover, but I need to ask a question.
You said that you knew each others children, friends, fantasies etc. Did you know them personally or were you only receiving a perception of them through your lover? I also have heard how easy it is to tell your lover things, why do you think that was? Why is it sometimes so difficult to be honest with our spouses? I also wonder would your lover be so appealing if your husband were completely out of your life? Would he be able to provide everything you received from being involved in two relationships?
Most people involved in an affair are receiving the best of both worlds, even though their marriages are not perfect they are receiving some benefit being in them or they would have left years ago. They also have this other person who they can be free, exciting and fun with. I applaud your willingness to recommit to your marriage. I hope with time you will be able to establish an intimate relationship with your husband.
As you said he is a wonderful man and deserves a wife who loves him. I just wonder if you will be able to give him everything he needs without being completely honest with him about your feelings. Are you seeing anyone to help you sort through all of this? This would be very difficult to handle alone. You have a pretty firm grasp on my situation! Believe it or not I know of alot of affairs that have lasted this long.
Even longer. I know at least two where the affair went on over 20 years. One eventually left spouse and married lover and the other broke up. After the first few years I did have two husbands basically and I was pretty much devoted to both of them.
When you are involved in affair this long there is a certain responsibility that goes along with it. My OM was younger, wealthier, and treated me very well at times. That was the fantasy part. The expensive gifts, vacations and spa dates. I had amazing sexual chemistry with my lover.
Nothing can explain the chemistry we had and it was there from the get go. We also had alot in common. Both of us coached our children in sports, both of us presidents of our own company, both of us middle children in big families, Italian Catholic school kids , same major in college. We knew each others children mainly by what we communicated but we both did meet each others children once and we both watched each others kids in sports.
My husband is a very caring person and I think more adoring of me than my lover was. My lover tended to be more self absorbed. He was able to put me in a compartment when he needed to most likely when the heat was on and that was devastating to me. It really did become his undoing at the end and was the wake up call I needed. I do want to grow old with my hub and I appreciate how he is always there for me.
I know I could never abandon him. It is so complicated but you are right they both fill different needs. I talked to a counselor. She feels both my lover and I have more in common with each other than we do with our spouses.
Shocking advice since she is Catholic. Stopped seeing her! Basically my friends and sisters have been a big support system for me. They kn0w both of them and believe it or not have an attachment to both as well. Their main worry always was that I would get caught and ruin my marriage so they are glad this has ended. They do understand my angst in making this decision but I think I hide from them the fact that even though it is two years later I am still in turmoil.
It is embarrassing to admit that to anyone. I feel like an obsession case. I also have to hear from him how his marriage is worse than ever with me out of the picture. None of it helps! If I could just conquer the no contact thing!! Just who do you think you are?? Wonder woman. There is no fine line. Love is selfless, addiction is not. Love is about others, addiction is about getting what you want for yourself. When you get emeshed in an affair it is incredibly hard to see the line and recognize the difference.
I can imagine that what you are going through is agonizing. It reminds me of what a friend said once when encouraging others to not have affairs or even go down the road towards them.
Alecia I just recently had to give that advice to a friend.
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