Happily Married but also love someone else

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not me.

I only have ever truly loved my husband romantically. I married for love.

I do not reminisce let alone even think about high school or college boyfriends before I met him when I was 26.

I’m 50 and he’s the only one. I can’t imagine loving anyone else.

Me too.

It’s sick how many people on this forum settled.

I met my spouse when we were in our mid 20s and it was like a lightning strike. He was talking marriage within a month. We were inseparable ...still hot for each other 25 years later.

It’s sad so many people stay in marriages without true passionate love.

DH here. We are friends with a couple like this. Head over heels for each other, wife is ALWAYS talking about how amazing her husband is. It’s honestly sort of cute and charming in a way... slightly annoying sometimes, but whatever, good for them! The husband is a great dad and husband, dotes on her constantly. They’re both really good looking and affectionate.

Except the husband has also gotten drunk with the neighborhood dads and talked about multiple affairs. Also the girl he wished he’d married. Like more than once, it’s a big part of his “private” life and existence. So, don’t be so naive and superior. His DW sounds like you and would seriously die of shock if she ever found out.

Also, the worlds a big place and anyone worth a damn is multidimensional. It’s completely natural to love more than one person. Whether you act on it and
under what circumstances is a different question. But I think the weirder thing is going through life not falling in love with all kinds of people.

Ha. Definitely not me. Husbands ex is 4’9” troll who has 4 baby daddies. It’s a running home between us. Every HS reunion it’s some new loser and a new kid. He got out if that sh@t town and never looked back.

Sounds like he has poor taste

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A number of cheaters have no desire to upend their married life with kids but truly love their APs. It’s different kinds of love.

Many men love screwing their APs, but do not have any live for them. They know women will put it out and keep it coming if they tell them what they want to hear...and then drop them like garbage when they get tired of them. It’s not real. If it were they would give up everything for you. Sorry—you are easy sex.

I can relate to the original poster. If it were not for the kids, I’d leave my wife for tomorrow. My wife is an awesome mom
but she is now “mom” and our relationship diminished with kids. My AP is what I have wanted my whole life on so many levels. Our chemistry is off the charts. She refuses to let me even consider leaving my wife until the kids are out of the house and I respect her for it all the more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A number of cheaters have no desire to upend their married life with kids but truly love their APs. It’s different kinds of love.

Many men love screwing their APs, but do not have any live for them. They know women will put it out and keep it coming if they tell them what they want to hear...and then drop them like garbage when they get tired of them. It’s not real. If it were they would give up everything for you. Sorry—you are easy sex.

I can relate to the original poster. If it were not for the kids, I’d leave my wife for tomorrow. My wife is an awesome mom
but she is now “mom” and our relationship diminished with kids. My AP is what I have wanted my whole life on so many levels. Our chemistry is off the charts. She refuses to let me even consider leaving my wife until the kids are out of the house and I respect her for it all the more.

Wow, you lucked out. Most APs demand men leave their families and put pressure on his being available. I won't cheat anymore because I can't find a woman who is fine with me putting family first.

I had same situation, awesome marriage that completely tanked when kids came and wife became mom who wanted nothing to do with sex again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH here. So much of marriage is timing. I was at an age when I was ready to find "the one" when I met my DW, and we were very compatible (background, interests, life goals). I knew she was who I wanted to marry, and we had been together for years when I met someone else, but I had already invested years with my then girlfriend, and I couldn't just throw away what we had built and our future. Do I think about that other woman? Yes. Do I think we could have been happy together? Yes. I don't think there is just one love of your life, but there is the person who you choose to marry to build your best life. Will I feel differently in ten years? Maybe.

Another man who 100% agrees with this. Timing accounts for more in life than people are willing to admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in this spot. I’m a DH. Most (not all) of my buddies I know well enough to discuss this with are in the same boat.

You have more passion, interests, potential, all that earlier in life. You probably also were both much hotter. That plus the nostalgia is always going to feel better than someone with whom you have to share kid duty, endure financial choices that aren’t your own, and smell each other’s bathroom stuff.

It was, in fact, better. Maybe that person was the love of your life. Maybe not. It’s gonna feel like it either way. But we have to grow up. My wife isn’t by any means my soul mate and isn’t the love of my life. That happened a long time ago. I still love her. But I’m mostly happy with the life I have. You make do.

What do you mean by that? Do you mean that people in long term relationships let themselves go, become unhygienic, etc, or something else?

Come on!

It means that if your spouse takes a dump in the master bathroom in the morning and you need to shower, you’re going to smell it. The fan is not magic. You’re going to see your spouse getting ready. You’re going to see your spouse sick with the flu. None of that is sexy.

[Anonymous]

The AP is for romance and fun and the DW is for mom duties for many folks. Who knows if the DW would even be into the romance stuff after things start to get sexless. So it’s a way to keep things evened out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too many losers on Facebook. Thinking they love someone else instead of living in the present. Miserable lives.

Omg. YES!! Middle aged losers

God willing, you may get there too.

[Anonymous]

My husband hates his psychotic ex-AP and we have crazy good sex twice a day during COVID. She was looking for an exit affair. He was in the throes of a midlife crisis dealing with childhood trauma. We have always had a very passionate sex life. Both still hot 24 years later.

She was short and fatter and not young (50). Also, not smart, no career. Variety for sure. You have filet mignon, had to see what 7 Eleven chili dog is about...

[Anonymous]

I think people give up. As pp demonstrates, when there is true love and passion, a marriage can get survive and thrive. The problem is with all of the people that were t compatible—sexually, emotionally or intellectually to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Only 2% of affair partners end up together. And 2nd marriages have a 65-75% divorce rate, it goes up from there...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only 2% of affair partners end up together. And 2nd marriages have a 65-75% divorce rate, it goes up from there...

The person someone cheats with tends not to be as attractive, interesting, engaging, etc. as the primary partner who is being cheated on.

Rick Reynolds, LCSW says…

“I have never seen a situation where I felt an individual “affaired up”- meaning that they end up with a better person. It may seem like a better decision at the time, but it will prove it to be a step down.”

If nothing else, it will be a step down in terms of maturity, character, integrity, intelligence, loyalty, spirituality, sincerity, etc.

The reasons for why a person “affairs down” are potentially limitless, but the one noticed most often seems to be that the affair partner made the cheater feel good while stroking his/her ego so much that it didn’t matter what he/she looked like or how his/her character was.

Basically, the wayward spouse is needy and looking for someone to boost his/her ego and winds up looking for someone beneath him/her.

This person will make the cheater feel superior, if only temporarily. The easiest women to pick up are "unhappily married women". You aren't getting the cream of the crop there.

“People have affairs even when they have a good sex life and feel connected to their partners,” she says. While she in no way recommends infidelity, when it does happen, Esther Perel views it as an opportunity to “look under the hood” to see how the straying partner needs to change and dig into how the couple interacts in order to strengthen the relationship moving forward.

[Anonymous]

22 years married. My husband and I have been getting dinner and a fancy hotel room Saturday evenings. We check in around 4pm and head back home to our 12&15 year old around 11pm. They are loving the unfettered time with pizza delivery and we have experience deeper levels of intimacy...and hot sex.

After years of being kid-focused we are back! It feels like coming home again...and we have daily sex now.

Sometimes it takes losing almost everything you love deeply for a person to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband hates his psychotic ex-AP and we have crazy good sex twice a day during COVID. She was looking for an exit affair. He was in the throes of a midlife crisis dealing with childhood trauma. We have always had a very passionate sex life. Both still hot 24 years later.

She was short and fatter and not young (50). Also, not smart, no career. Variety for sure. You have filet mignon, had to see what 7 Eleven chili dog is about...

Nah. He left McD for BK and decided they are the same, so he stayed. Had he ever had filet mignon, he’d never had a reason to compare the dollar menus. He would’ve tried prime rib. Just thought you should know the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband hates his psychotic ex-AP and we have crazy good sex twice a day during COVID. She was looking for an exit affair. He was in the throes of a midlife crisis dealing with childhood trauma. We have always had a very passionate sex life. Both still hot 24 years later.

She was short and fatter and not young (50). Also, not smart, no career. Variety for sure. You have filet mignon, had to see what 7 Eleven chili dog is about...

Nah. He left McD for BK and decided they are the same, so he stayed. Had he ever had filet mignon, he’d never had a reason to compare the dollar menus. He would’ve tried prime rib. Just thought you should know the truth.

The chili dog is good late night, but leaves you with indigestion and feeling like sh@t the next day. You hate yourself for eating something that gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband hates his psychotic ex-AP and we have crazy good sex twice a day during COVID. She was looking for an exit affair. He was in the throes of a midlife crisis dealing with childhood trauma. We have always had a very passionate sex life. Both still hot 24 years later.

She was short and fatter and not young (50). Also, not smart, no career. Variety for sure. You have filet mignon, had to see what 7 Eleven chili dog is about...

Nah. He left McD for BK and decided they are the same, so he stayed. Had he ever had filet mignon, he’d never had a reason to compare the dollar menus. He would’ve tried prime rib. Just thought you should know the truth.

Not sure he would sign a 70-30 post-nup, beg, cry and plead ...and go to individual therapy 3 days per week and be f@cking McD 3 times per day ...that’s a lot of effort to keep McDs. Filet Mignon can get anyone ...doesn’t need to sell itself short and stay with a cheater.