Should I take him back if one day he's divorced?

[Lobe]

Now I know the wife is probably gorgeous and much more interesting than me. :D

 

No no - you don't get to bash yourself like that. Reading the stories of other APs, you are in a place (a year NC!) that many here envy. Dammit, you're awesome! Come on. Say it with me. "Dammit, I'm awesome!" And you are.

[Grapesofwrath]

Hard to imagine my ex-MM would ever get a divorce. The only scenario I can imagine is that his wife found out about his cheating and divorced him. He is a classic cake-eater who "loves" his wife, and is "happy at home" but "couldn't resist" me. Translation: He's a selfish tool who takes whatever he wants regardless of who might get hurt.

 

Anyway, knowing me, I would probably give him a chance at first. But it wouldn't take long for me to realize that I could never feel safe in a relationship with him. Not only because of his history of cheating, but also because I have seen him lie in work situations, to friends, and to his family too many times to ever really trust what he says.

[MidnightBlue1980]

Hard to imagine my ex-MM would ever get a divorce. The only scenario I can imagine is that his wife found out about his cheating and divorced him. He is a classic cake-eater who "loves" his wife, and is "happy at home" but "couldn't resist" me. Translation: He's a selfish tool who takes whatever he wants regardless of who might get hurt.

 

Anyway, knowing me, I would probably give him a chance at first. But it wouldn't take long for me to realize that I could never feel safe in a relationship with him. Not only because of his history of cheating, but also because I have seen him lie in work situations, to friends, and to his family too many times to ever really trust what he says.

 

I could have written this word for word.

 

I think if I had to say what disturbed me the most, its that he conducted all his emailing and texting me at work with his W sitting literally on the other side of his desk. I'm no saint, obviously I have lied, but that's just a bit too much. I shouldn't be surprised he lied right to my face too. How could I ever trust him?

 

My H lies but he's not great at it. I am not great at it either. We both caught each other within a month of the A.

 

That said, I have trouble trusting anyone these days. Even myself.

[lilacwine]

No no - you don't get to bash yourself like that. Reading the stories of other APs, you are in a place (a year NC!) that many here envy. Dammit, you're awesome! Come on. Say it with me. "Dammit, I'm awesome!" And you are.

 

haha. Thank you for putting a smile on my face.

Here you go. Damn it, I'm awesome. Damn it, I'm awesome. :D:D

[lilacwine]

Hard to imagine my ex-MM would ever get a divorce. The only scenario I can imagine is that his wife found out about his cheating and divorced him. He is a classic cake-eater who "loves" his wife, and is "happy at home" but "couldn't resist" me. Translation: He's a selfish tool who takes whatever he wants regardless of who might get hurt.

 

Anyway, knowing me, I would probably give him a chance at first. But it wouldn't take long for me to realize that I could never feel safe in a relationship with him. Not only because of his history of cheating, but also because I have seen him lie in work situations, to friends, and to his family too many times to ever really trust what he says.

 

You know what. Your post makes me realize the only "benefit" to being the OW is that we get to see the man for who he really is. This person is the one he's trying his best to hide from his wife and everyone else in his life. I've, too, seen my x-mm lied to his colleagues and his friends over very trivial things. I'm just stunned now all that time I didn't realize he must have lied to me too. So stupid we all think how special we are. That's the only talent he has, I guess. I read somewhere the other day "Any lie will find believers as long as you tell it with enough force." So true.

 

And I think you're very honest in your answer too. The part where you said you'd probably give him a chance at first. Knowing what we know, sometimes we're still so blinded by our heart/emotions. I'd probably do the same. But then the new relationship, built on such shaky grounds, would then be able to die a natural death (as opposed to the way we tried to kill it with our will power in the first place) and the chapter can be closed forever without any lingering doubts on the "what ifs"...

[aileD]

However, many posters here advice the OW to tell the MM to only contact them again once he's divorced.

 

We say that because we (and you) know he'll never do it and it's a wake up call to the OW of after a few months you don't get a call saying "ok I got my **** together I have an apartment, I have a separation and diary agreement in place and the divorce process has been started."

 

I think most OW would realize they deserved better by that point

[heartwhole]

I'm a BW who is still married, and it puzzles me to no end that his OW is still apparently hanging on to hope 16 months later. (She still follows thing related to us on social media, and I doubt she would want that constant reminder if she had moved on. She lives halfway across the world and has never visited our city, so there's no reason for her to follow this stuff other than the fantasy that she could move here.)

 

The reason I say that is because I don't view my WH as anything of a prize. If we didn't have children, I know for a fact that I would be gone. The biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So if he's shown in the past that he can't resolve conflict, he can't communicate, he puts himself first, he blame-shifts, he's willing to lie, he compartmentalizes, he cheats . . . without serious work on one's character (which takes years, not days or months), the odds are that you will get more of the same. Maybe not cheating, but all the faults that led to the cheating.

 

So I feel bad for OW, hanging on. I think she hasn't got a clue. She has set the bar far, far too low. Meanwhile, I'm living the day to day with someone who, yes, is trying to become a better person, but who still has a long way to go. I have no doubt that I could go out and find a partner of stronger moral fiber and with better judgment and boundaries, but I have children and a chronic illness and it's not all so simple. I do still love the doofus, of course. There's that. But trying to build a relationship with someone who has proved himself to be capable of all that bad stuff is not easy.

 

I'll say it again. The biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. You will avoid a lot of heartache for yourself if you remember that. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

[Lady2163]

Let me expand on this a little further as well and give you the basic curriculum from Married Men 101.

 

Many single OW are flattered and charmed when a MM shows interest in them. Something deep inside them tells them that they must be so much prettier and sexier and younger and more pleasant than the MM's frumpy, frigid, boring, nagging harpy of a wife. And they think that once the MM gets his affairs in order that he will be leaving his wife for her.

 

That's the AP fantasy.

 

The reality is that 9/10 MM are perfectly happy with their home and married life and have no intentions of leaving. They are just bored and restless and want some extra poon and some extra variety and excitement in the sack.

 

The harsh truth for the OW is he was probably fishing and dangling his worm infront of dozens of various women and she was the one that took the bait. She was the sucker and she was the one that fell for it. From there, the reason he is meeting her in parking lots and motels for an hour or two of stolen moments is she is the default and the one that he could get.

 

That's 9/10 MM. The other 1/10th of MM are the ones that are truly unhappy and are truly dissatisfied with their BW and are looking for someone cuter, sexier, nicer, funner, younger etc

 

Those guys when they do find a bigger and better deal, they often do leave.....but often leave within a short period of time.

 

Read some of the stories here or on Chumplady from the BW's who's husbands did leave. They often left with little warning or indication and often within a few months of meeting the OW.

 

(Side bar: dissatisfied WW looking for an upgrade can leave their BH's with weeks and sometimes even days when they find a bigger, better deal.)

 

Where I am going with this is, you were involved with your MM for a year and it's been a year of NC. It ain't gonna happen.

 

I haven't seen how old you are but I'm assuming you are in your upper 20s-early 30s. You have burned up 2 years of your free and single days and 2 years of your "pretty" on this guy. It ain't gonna happen. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

As a single woman you have sooooo many more options than some married guy sneaking away for an hour or two. He hit one out of the ball park and was one lucky SOB for finding someone to give him a few moments of fun and excitement periodically. Now it's your turn. Put this behind you and live your life for you and don't settle for less that what you want and deserve.

 

Do you have any studies to back this up?

 

Since the divorce rate is still hovering around 50%, saying that 9/10 of MM whether cheating or not are HAPPY in their marriage is a stretch. Happy and satisfied people don't cheat.

 

Unless they're dogs. And that's another topic.

 

I'm quite certain as happy as XMM was/is, if she had left him at any point in the marriage, he never would have looked back. He liked her, he loved her (still does) but she didn't meet one very basic need.

[lilacwine]

I'm a BW who is still married, and it puzzles me to no end that his OW is still apparently hanging on to hope 16 months later. (She still follows thing related to us on social media, and I doubt she would want that constant reminder if she had moved on. She lives halfway across the world and has never visited our city, so there's no reason for her to follow this stuff other than the fantasy that she could move here.)

 

The reason I say that is because I don't view my WH as anything of a prize. If we didn't have children, I know for a fact that I would be gone. The biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So if he's shown in the past that he can't resolve conflict, he can't communicate, he puts himself first, he blame-shifts, he's willing to lie, he compartmentalizes, he cheats . . . without serious work on one's character (which takes years, not days or months), the odds are that you will get more of the same. Maybe not cheating, but all the faults that led to the cheating.

 

So I feel bad for OW, hanging on. I think she hasn't got a clue. She has set the bar far, far too low. Meanwhile, I'm living the day to day with someone who, yes, is trying to become a better person, but who still has a long way to go. I have no doubt that I could go out and find a partner of stronger moral fiber and with better judgment and boundaries, but I have children and a chronic illness and it's not all so simple. I do still love the doofus, of course. There's that. But trying to build a relationship with someone who has proved himself to be capable of all that bad stuff is not easy.

 

I'll say it again. The biggest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. You will avoid a lot of heartache for yourself if you remember that. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

 

Thank you for a very insightful post from the BS's perspective. I think as OWs, we all more or less know the above but sometimes we live in denial. Or to be exact, our hearts have a hard time catching up with our minds. That's why we keep pining for something that we know exactly not good for us. Human psychology puts us in a disadvantaged position when we tend to want the one we can't have.

 

I'm still trying everyday to move on and never look back. But easier said than done. Your post is very helpful. I need to read stuffs like this again and again and face the cold harsh truth instead of living in the fantasy land of the memories we shared.

[elaine567]

Do you have any studies to back this up?

 

Since the divorce rate is still hovering around 50%, saying that 9/10 of MM whether cheating or not are HAPPY in their marriage is a stretch. Happy and satisfied people don't cheat.

Unless they're dogs. And that's another topic.

 

I'm quite certain as happy as XMM was/is, if she had left him at any point in the marriage, he never would have looked back. He liked her, he loved her (still does) but she didn't meet one very basic need.

 

I believe many people, probably the majority, are just not monogamous and that happy and satisfied people DO cheat as cheating may not be about unhappiness or dissatisfaction within their marriage.

They may have got married for varying reasons, but monogamy was not one of them.

Given the opportunity to cheat, they grab it with both hands.

[lilacwine]

I believe many people, probably the majority, are just not monogamous and that happy and satisfied people DO cheat as cheating may not be about unhappiness or dissatisfaction within their marriage.

They may have got married for varying reasons, but monogamy was not one of them.

Given the opportunity to cheat, they grab it with both hands.

 

Yeah. I have to agree. I believe most men cheat simply because they're SELFISH and GREEDY ... Plain and simple. It just stuns me how they all seem to have this huge sense of entitlement. Where does it come from anyway? I'm still puzzled.

[aileD]

Yeah. I have to agree. I believe most men cheat simply because they're SELFISH and GREEDY ... Plain and simple. It just stuns me how they all seem to have this huge sense of entitlement. Where does it come from anyway? I'm still puzzled.

 

It comes from their penis lol

[elaine567]

Yeah. I have to agree. I believe most men cheat simply because they're SELFISH and GREEDY ... Plain and simple. It just stuns me how they all seem to have this huge sense of entitlement. Where does it come from anyway? I'm still puzzled.

 

We (generic "we") live in a society where having multiple sexual partners is encouraged and celebrated, that is until we get married, then we are told to stick to just one person.

So all that flirting, multi-dating, FBs, FWBs, ONSs, casual sex, short flings, romances, serial monogamous relationships... all turns into

Here is your life partner, till death do you part, in sickness and in health...

 

Is it really any wonder people can't stick to the script?

[lemondrop21]

Dating is hard. There are a lot of people who are not a match or who do not have mutual chemistry. It is a game of disappointment. Reject and be rejected. Do not base a few dates on "I want XMM so I can't do this" - those were simply not a match for you and you have not found the one YET. If you read all the work of the latest dating coaches it takes a LOT of dates to find the one. You might not ever be fully over him and he might always be special. But you can find someone as good or better if you try.

 

Living a life of passion makes XMM fade to a tolerable level quickly. I was just on a vacation with a dear friend and we were chasing our passionate hobby like crazy - staying up late, getting up early. I forgot everything. It was bliss. Now I just made a bucket list for the next year. Launch a business, move to a better place for singles, find a community. I am not sitting here pining for the past. But I am glad to have had it at all. It makes a blueprint that goes from an amazing connection and admiration and attention from XMM but with a bad timing/bad decision to the one who will be similar with good timing and who will commit to me. I want to be worried about what casserole to make to a couple's party or his socks on the floor or where to go on vacation or what movie to watch so I am going to do the work to get to that and I am not going to sit here and cry over spilled milk. Because that stinks. It is what it is - things are the way they are not the way we want them to be.

 

Life is .... ticking...... And true and real love is waiting... if you SEEK it.

 

Just wanted to say this was an AWESOME post, pooldog. Thanks so much for it.

[Lady2163]

Monogamy is a choice and while I do agree that many people aren't monogamous, it is a sacrifice to be made when you (generic) commit to a relationship.

 

I'm not monogamous. But when I commit, I know what I'm giving up. As an almost senior citizen, I know better than to "settle". I didn't when I was younger.

 

People a few years older than I am had the potential to be virgins when they got married. They didn't know if they were compatible or not. Whew. I can't imagine taking that risk now. One time I was at a group function with a bunch of women over age 70. The number of them who hadn't ever seen a penis before their wedding night was staggering. Can you imagine, 'til death do you part' and hope he's not just two inches?

 

Then people my age (both men and women) have bait and switch issues. The sex is amazing while dating and engaged, but the moment the wedding is over, he stops showering and she puts blowjobs on the shelf.

 

XMM is from the category where he knew she would be a good wife and mother. He'd been around the block a bit, had had some good sex, but never any GREAT foreplay and teasing. Women would kiss, maybe stroke his penis a few times, maybe lick it for a couple of minutes. But the prevailing attitude among the nice, Bible Belt girls he was with was, "okay, you're hard, you're ready, it's go time." So, he married hoping their sex life would evolve. It did not. After 30+ years of marriage, she didn't undress in front of him, wore a nightgown to bed and would always redress after sex.

 

Today, there's no way I would marry if the sex was unsatisfying or even, just usually okay.

[Lobe]

We (generic "we") live in a society where having multiple sexual partners is encouraged and celebrated, that is until we get married, then we are told to stick to just one person.

So all that flirting, multi-dating, FBs, FWBs, ONSs, casual sex, short flings, romances, serial monogamous relationships... all turns into

Here is your life partner, till death do you part, in sickness and in health...

 

Is it really any wonder people can't stick to the script?

 

There are practical reasons for monogamy, though, that we've constructed our social structures around. Things like raising/supporting children that you (supposedly) know are yours and avoiding STIs for example are important features of monogamy that frankly I agree with. The mating dance of premarital sex is just that - mating dance - and once you snag a mate you're supposed to bond long enough to raise babies. That's not confusing. What's confusing is people who consider themselves incapable of monogamy because we are animals. What gets overlooked is that we are animals with big enough brains to know the possible consequences of taking on multiple sexual partners, unlike primates who simply kill the competition to take over the fertile females. I'd like to think that some of us can choose to rise about our "primal" instincts still instead of blaming evolution for making poor life choices lol

[elaine567]

, unlike primates who simply kill the competition to take over the fertile females.

 

Which primates kill the competition?

[Lobe]

Which primates kill the competition?

 

Monkeys and chimpanzees kill the competition, including babies, if their position in the pack's hierarchy is threatened. They will "affair up" if they can lol I actually thought Disney's "Monkey Kingdom" was pretty good.

 

Bonobos, on the other hand - females rule the roost and everybody sleeps with everybody for everything - saying hello, saying goodbye, settling fights, making out, because a bird flew by...

[elaine567]

Yes, but bigger brains means that we can bypass the "rules" too.

Societal rules dictate monogamy, but people think for themselves as to whether that strategy works for them as individuals.

Cake eaters tend to bow down to monogamy publicly, but also sample the delights of multiple partners too privately.

[Lobe]

Yes, but bigger brains means that we can bypass the "rules" too.

Societal rules dictate monogamy, but people think for themselves as to whether that strategy works for them as individuals.

Cake eaters tend to bow down to monogamy publicly, but also sample the delights of multiple partners too privately.

 

Cognitive dissonance is indeed unique to humans. Lucky us. In my next life I'm coming back as a high-ranking female bonobo lol

[MidnightBlue1980]

 

Then people my age (both men and women) have bait and switch issues. The sex is amazing while dating and engaged, but the moment the wedding is over, he stops showering and she puts blowjobs on the shelf.

 

XMM is from the category where he knew she would be a good wife and mother. He'd been around the block a bit, had had some good sex, but never any GREAT foreplay and teasing. Women would kiss, maybe stroke his penis a few times, maybe lick it for a couple of minutes. But the prevailing attitude among the nice, Bible Belt girls he was with was, "okay, you're hard, you're ready, it's go time." So, he married hoping their sex life would evolve. It did not. After 30+ years of marriage, she didn't undress in front of him, wore a nightgown to bed and would always redress after sex.

 

 

I heard this a lot from xMM - I and the women I know seriously underestimate the power (or lack thereof) of a blow job. He also complained that she had not done it in 10 years and thought it was gross. I admit am feel stupid now (obviously I did it for him) as after Dday, now she does it for him. It makes me mad because I wish he had just spoken up to her instead of complaining to me. I did learn a lot though. I'll never be so stupid and get played again.

[Lobe]

I heard this a lot from xMM - I and the women I know seriously underestimate the power (or lack thereof) of a blow job. He also complained that she had not done it in 10 years and thought it was gross. I admit am feel stupid now (obviously I did it for him) as after Dday, now she does it for him. It makes me mad because I wish he had just spoken up to her instead of complaining to me. I did learn a lot though. I'll never be so stupid and get played again.

 

I still won't let my husband fist me even though the xOW liked it

[imperfectangel]

he stops showering and she puts blowjobs on the shelf..

 

Anyone else think these two are linked?! Who'd give a bj if he didn't shower? Yuck

[ladydesigner]

I still won't let my husband fist me even though the xOW liked it

 

Seriously do people actually like this

[MidnightBlue1980]

Anyone else think these two are linked?! Who'd give a bj if he didn't shower? Yuck

 

Well. xMM was always clean. I will admit I underplayed the act in my own life. I did not know it was that big a deal. I do not care that much about receiving it.

 

I don't want to play the victim card but I feel stupid, used. Worse, he told me in June that I was still the last woman to do that to him and later I found out he was lying and she was doing what he wanted since May. I guess he wanted to see if he could get it from both of us.

 

He would text me how hard it was to still be in a sexless marriage (and he'd say, get it? hard?). Meanwhile the therapist had forced him to have sex with her in May. When he told me he had been lying, he said it was tough for him bc he thought of me, feelings for me, etc.

 

He's pretty despicable. I told him so too.