Separated from wife but lockdown prevents him moving out

[Kiki55]

Hello everybody. So it's been some time since I last posted on my thread. I wasn't going to come back here but I was thinking about this period of time where I sought help and advice and I wanted to give you a further update. It may be a shock or surprise to some of you but we are still together. Still very happy and in love. I've met his children, they like me, my ex husband is positive about him. Asks our children to be respectful etc. He now pretty much lives with me but has his children at his flat because my home is too small. We plan to get a bigger house next year where all the children can stay. We know we done the right thing. We are in love beyond words. The doubt and issues that we faced all surrounded making the biggest decision of our lives. We do feel like an exception, we trust eachother completely. The bottom line here is that we both married far too young. We haven't done this perfectly but we are now in a good place, fixing the damage we have done which does appear quite minimal considering. 

[BaileyB]

Kiki, I’m glad you are doing well. I’m glad, because the opposite is pain and dysfunction and that benefits neither you or your children. No, you did not do this well, and I have to wonder how his wife is doing with things this Christmas. But, for the blessing that is the fact that your children appear to be coping with this trauma in their lives - that is a good thing. I hope that is true, blending two families is difficult even at the best of times. Best wishes.

Edited December 11, 2020 by BaileyB

[spiritedaway2003]

8 hours ago, BaileyB said:

Kiki, I’m glad you are doing well. I’m glad, because the opposite is pain and dysfunction and that benefits neither you or your children. No, you did not do this well, and I have to wonder how his wife is doing with things this Christmas. But, for the blessing that is the fact that your children appear to be coping with this trauma in their lives - that is a good thing. I hope that is true, blending two families is difficult even at the best of times. Best wishes.

There are only so many possible outcomes, and I think they did as well as they could, under the circumstances.  Someone will also be hurt in these scenarios, whether that's the BS or the AP.  More often than not, it's the kids that get hurt.   Even if his wife is hurt now, I'm not sure if her Christmas would have been better if she knew that her spouse had betrayed her.  I'm sure the "advice" to her would be to leave a cheating spouse. 

I will refrain from the "should they have told her or not".  That's a matter of opinion and there are levels of selfishness to each.  My opinion does not reflect that of the OP, but I can see why her approach causes less trauma, at least in the short term, if the end result is the same.

Thanks for the update, OP.  Best wishes. 

[deepthinking]

the various children may never blend. I have no idea why 

On 12/11/2020 at 1:31 PM, BaileyB said:

Kiki, I’m glad you are doing well. I’m glad, because the opposite is pain and dysfunction and that benefits neither you or your children. No, you did not do this well, and I have to wonder how his wife is doing with things this Christmas. But, for the blessing that is the fact that your children appear to be coping with this trauma in their lives - that is a good thing. I hope that is true, blending two families is difficult even at the best of times. Best wishes.

The children may never blend. Seems a lot to expect that because their parents {the two relevant ones} blended that the children have to fall in line. 

[Birdies]

I'm glad that things have not been traumatic for the children.  I'm married to the man I had an affair with (we were both married), and we have a child and are working on #2.  We are very very happy together.  Sometimes it can work out. 

But, we have done a lot of self-reflection and work to figure out how we made such terrible sh*tty choices and to improve ourselves.  I hope that you guys are doing that too.  Otherwise, when things get hard (as they invariably do), you might find yourself back in the same situation.

[Prudence V]

On 12/11/2020 at 12:08 PM, Kiki55 said:

We do feel like an exception, we trust eachother completely.

This matters. I’m glad it’s worked out for you (so far, at least. Anything can happen to any of us at any time.) I’m also glad you posted: few of us for whom “it worked out” (in ending up together) post here, which makes it difficult for those who are in the midst of a multi-sided relationship to have reference points to consider their own situations against. Not all of these relationships work out  - many don’t. So seeing ones that did, and being able to distill commonalities etc as to why, might help someone decide whether their own situation has a chance or not.