@DuchessVivian can you share your story? Are you still together with your AP?
TW:post affair AP relationship update
Yes, I am still with AP who is now my husband (since 2015). I very much regret how our relationship started and would have done things much differently. The outcome doesn’t justify the chaos it caused at the time. We would have both divorced without the affair and should have done so individually before getting into an affair. Weakness, selfishness, and stupidity along with plain old cowardice kept us from individually doing the right thing before entering into an affair.
As a quick snapshot to our story… Met XBH in 2001, engaged in 2003, married in 2005. I was 20 when we met, he was 30. Our relationship was fine. Never fireworks and magic, but I figured that was normal and so did he. We got engaged after I put extreme pressure on him as I was getting extreme pressure from my parents and his. We were roommates when we got married but, again, figured it was normal. By 2006-2007, we led 100% separate lives. Separate vacations, I slept on the couch, separate finances… Very much roommates. No animosity or anger, we just thought it was our normal and since his mom and her husband as well mine do similar (and my sister and her husband) we figured… Normal. Not happy, not miserable, just… Existing together. Not good, not bad… Though we were headed to bad as we were fundamentally disagreeing with increasing hostility on if we should have kids (I wanted, he didn’t).
Hindsight being 20/20, I thank God daily he knew better and fought so hard against it. If he’d say it or not, he knew we weren’t normal.
AP’s marriage was rocky. Met in 2004, engaged in 2004, married in 2005. Rushed to marriage in an unstable relationship as both were religious and they had engaged in premarital contact and were unofficially living together. After they got married, unstable turned to rocky pretty fast with wife on husband physical abuse. Child one was unplanned and the pregnancy almost intentionally ended, then things started to fall apart. Child two came after that, accidentally on purpose during a period where he had said he was leaving. In December of 2008ish, he discovered that she had been opening credit cards in his name online and had run up 20k in debt in his name and he says that was the pivot point where he checked out of their marriage.
Met AP (now husband, I’ll call him AP though) at work in 2008 shortly after that reconciliation for child two. We became friends, then best friends, then inseparable best friends by 2009, though I had not even the smallest idea what was going on at his home. He said bruises on his face and split lips, etc were from basketball. His XBW worked with us as well.
It’s hard to quantify when the EA began, but PA began in April 2009 and we expressed how we felt about each other when the PA started. We were discovered by his XBW in May 2009, she was devastated initially but said after a day or so she wanted to seperate because she hadn’t been happy in quite some time and was glad to have a reason to leave. That lasted until she told her parents and he told his, then she was relentlessly shamed by her mother and his for allowing the marriage to end. Then the pendulum swung back to extreme devastation because they were going to hell, allowing the marriage to end is a sin, etc etc.
As I said in the previous post, it was a roller coaster of reconciling, leaving, reconciling, hysterical bonding, trauma bonding, the gamut from May of 2009 through when he left the final time. In September 2009, he found out she had opened more credit cards in his name after the initial discovery, then ran up another 10k, stopping the spending in May 2009 when she pushed for R. When he left in November 2010, it was undramatically and mutually agreed upon, though she held "just in case" space for him to come back and frankly, I think still does despite being remarried with a child with her second husband… Though I don’t think it’s because she misses the marriage.
Meanwhile, I moved out of my home in August 2009, was discovered by my XBH in September/October 2009. I was divorced by spring of 2010. My divorce was simple and uncontested, we didn’t even go to court. He filed on Monday, I got a call asking if I was sure I agreed to the terms and wanted to waive a trial on Weds, I did, and I had the decree in-hand by Friday. Regardless, we divorced, by December of 2009 my XBH found his forever person, fell madly in love with her, and they’re still together with 4 kids.
AP filed in 2012, it was granted in 2013 and was largely non-contentious despite the at times rocky coparenting. We didn’t find out it wasn’t finalized until 2015 due to a court error, but it was resolved and we married in 2015.
In the time since, she discovered she had mental conditions and sought treatment, and we had a great co-parenting dynamic. She also got remarried and for awhile we were two households where we got along. We celebrated holidays together, met socially, lived within walking distance, and everything was everything, until one of the children informed us they were being abused by the new husband.
There was an investigation, the state determined that there was significant, graphic abuse present being perpetuated by both parties, and the state gave my now-husband/former AP full custody. She had to demonstrate she was on medication, illicit drug free, go to anger management, and complete parenting classes and she could have supervised visits on the road to regain custody. Her husband was barred any contact with the kids, supervised or otherwise. He told her it was him or the kids, she chose him, and she hasn’t seen them or spoken to them in going on three years. Her family now assumes her visitation and also has had limited contact for two years, by her new husbands choice… Her family attempted to extricate her from him, but she insisted all is fine, the kids lied, and when they apologize they can return. Her family states that the problems began when her new husband said meds were a weakness which is why he won’t take his and is fine, so she went off of them, and that led to frequent mutual combat and a cycle of illicit substances, infidelity, and abuse on both sides which is ongoing to this day. In 2021, we found out that she had opened credit cards in XWH’s name.
Which leads me to why I’m here… The kids have been with us several years now and ask questions about how AP and I met, what happened, and such. We answer those honestly, but lately they’ve said that they have no wonder at why their father cheated and left their mother. This makes me feel like they lay the blame for our affair entirely at their mother’s feet, which isn’t true… His choice to cheat and my choice to cheat and participate in cheating was not the fault of their mother. It was our fault, our responsibility. We each own our parts in the dysfunctions we brought into our respective marriages, but the dysfunctions as the result of the affair are 100% ours. I’m hoping by being here that I can learn how to humble myself to try and give a perspective on their mother they don’t have now, or is clouded by what they’ve been through and with her. We have therapists for them and for us together, but it was suggested coming here to participate and see/learn so that we can learn how to share from a perspective that they don’t have without their mother in the picture. I do *a lot* of lurking and reading, participating only when I think I can give insight that’s helpful and not hurtful.
Basically, even though the affair is way in the past, and even though some would say it "really worked out for us" given we are still together and happy, there are still repercussions that impact everybody years and years down the road that need to be addressed. I realize that my story is deeply, deeply triggering and so I’m trying to stay in my lane, I know sharing my story opens me up to a lot of judgment… I just want to help my family. XBW is not the bad guy in the affair, I don’t want her to be the bad guy for the affair, I just want to be able to talk about it as it was without blame on her when I talk to the kids.
