living with the man I had the affair with

Does he pay his share of the bills at your house? Is he helping his abandoned family financially? I don't blame the ex-wife for not letting her children over to your place, I wouldn't want any children of mine to be put into such a position either. I see no reason for the two of you to jump into marriage, neither of you seem very good at it. I would also suggest you both get serious about birth control (think sterilization), so no more innocent children are brought into the mix. You are very young to have created all this stress and aggravation, but it's your life, and I hope you will learn to make better choices, especially about men. I also hope you learn to stand on your own two feet, with or without a man, and be an example to your children of the kind of adults you want them to be.

yes he is paying his share of the bills, and also helping his wife and children... I must say I stayed faithful to my husnad for 7 years i married at the age of 19, the stress of losing a son between us put enormous pressure on our marriage and he was not supportive towards me in the way i had hoped. The constant looking at women on the internet grew us even further apart, especially when i confronted him, and he continued to do it, almost like an addiction. Until early this year I was faithful....
I love my children to pieces, both my parents split when i was 11 and i never wanted to be like them i wanted to do a better job of it, but now i feel as though im cracking under the pressure.... I must also say he was looking at this stuff on the imternet when i was in hospital and they supressed my labour with my 2 year old and we almost lost him too....

Setting aside for a moment the terrible role model the two of you are providing for your respective children, the fact that he would cheat on his pregnant wife with you and the fact that 'he is not keen on getting a divorce for at least two years' should be a huge red flag that you are satisfying his more purient needs at this time, but he has no intention of making any kind of permanent commitment to you. And even if he should eventually go through the motions of that, you will lead a life of eternal insecurity wondering when he will cheat on you.

Run, don't walk to the nearest exit. Raise your children and do not subject them to any more temporary daddies until they are grown and on their own. By that time you too will have learned a thing or two and will be more likely to be attracted to stable, decent guys.

is there truly no hope of couples such as us being happy long term? i know its rough grounding to start but surely its not all doom and gloom?

Of course there is a chance. There's a chance I'll win the national lottery too. He has already told you he doesn't want to marry you when he told you he won't divorce his wife any time soon. How long odds are you willing to accept?

I never have understood how a woman could even consider staying with a man who would cheat on his wife, especially a pregnant one. I mean, if he cheated with you, why in your wildest dreams do you think he would hesitate to cheat on you?

I think it likely and reasonable that you will wonder what he is up to every time he leaves the house. Is that really how you want to live? Tell him to go back to the wife if she will take him and you go find someone unattached who when he says he will be faithful to you might actually mean it.

well it seems everyones opinions have put me in my place... Maybe I have MUG written accross my face , but it does not feel like it... I have never felt so loved and wanted by anyone.... its so intense. that must count for something?

Getting nothing but negative answers about your situation can not feel good.


So, Im gonna walk on the other side of the street for a while here.
Shoot me yall, if you so choose.

A relationship where cheating happens is a bad relationship.
People DO NOT always match up with the person they marry and that is not always their fault. Sometimes we dont find until later into the marriage that we are not happy, not complete and not comfortable.
This is when most people would begin to sever the ties. Some dont do that. Some cheat, some stay together ' for the sake ofthe kids' and some just dont pay attention.
No matter the persons choice a bad relationship is a bad relationship.
If it was a mutually fullfilling relationship to begin with, cheating would not have been anyones option. So obviously .. the relation ship is doomed.
Why couldnt one person go from one relationship to the other and not have a successful one?
granted, the cheater ( either man or woman) is the type to cheat when something is wrong instead of talk and that is someone you should be wary of.. but that doesnt mean that they are set out to be cheaters for the rest of their lives.

but then again, there are people who seem to be more programmed to have several short ( under 10 years) relationships intheir life instead of one single long one. To each his own.

I dont see any reason why you guys can not have a good relationship after he divorces his wife.

hear that ?
AFTER he divorces her.
It may well be HER that is not signing any divorce papers, but instead of sharing all that excess baggage with you, he just says its him and leaves it at that .
Frankly, if the woman didnt want him back, she could have served him long ago with divorce papers.

A cheater is a person you will have to stay on top of your entire relationship so that you see when they begin to be unhappy and you can either combat that, or end it. But to keep your sanity, it is going to take a lot of work. Do you really want to do that? I MEAN a lot of work.

M aybe you could just be with him for a while, love him for a while but be realistic about needing to move on from him after a while. That kind of work in a relationship is exhausting. Trust me.

Good luck to you

Then again, if feelings were a reliable guide to a successful relationship, divorce would be virtually unknown in our society. We all feel loved and loving when we decide to commit to a monogamous relationship and/or marry, yes? But given the high failure, separation, and divorce rate, perhaps other criteria should enter into the decision and are likely to be just as important.

Oh honey I hear you loud and clear.
But I have to disagree with the above statement.

But feelings ARE a reliable guide to a successful relationship.
Love is a feeling isnt it?
So is safety, security, respect ( though that one is a bit of both)
and if you dont feel GOOD about someone, then you generally dont start a relationship with that person to begin with.
And if after some time you dont 'feel' good with that person, then things are not what you need them to be.

Though that isnt exactly your point, I just had to put that out there..

Got side tracked and didn't get my edit done in time.

What I mean is, that we all feel loved and loving when we enter into the relationship. But those feelings cannot be sustained 24/7 year in and year out - sooner or later there are disagreements, times of pure anger, frustration, discouragement, etc., but if the relationship is built on a foundation stronger than those initial warm, fuzzy feelings, the relationship will weather the storms and will emerge with an even stronger love. So don't hook up with somebody you aren't attracted to, of course. But the initial attraction alone won't get you through.

I have to agree with Shewolf on this one. Just because you cheated with someone, doesn't mean you'll cheat on that person. Likely? Yeah. Definite? No.

And sometimes people just grow apart.

Losing a child is unthinkable and I can only imagine what that put you and your husband and your marriage through. You would not be the first to divorce after losing a child and you won't be the last. It puts a previously unknown and completely unexpected twist in your life, one that you can't "get over " or forget.

My advice is to tell this guy you love him and would be more than happy to see him, AFTER he gets his divorce or at the very least separates from his wife.

You deserve better. Remember that.

And i know usually I am one of the "stone the cheaters" but this case is a little different.

I sympathize with her because of what she's lost. Perhaps she's looking for that missing piece any where she can find it.

Cheaters aren't my favorite folk either but I will give this guy props for moving out instead of carrying on with a clandestine affair. He's financially covering his obligations to his children and his living arrangements at your house. Doesn't seem like all that bad a guy other than he got involved with someone else before moving out rather than realizing his relationship was over and moving out first.

Also, I can appreciate his desire to wait to get divorced. I don't know how he came up with a seemingly arbitrary time frame of 2 years but knowing that his head isn't screwed on right and waiting to be sure he knows what he's doing doesn't seem like a bad idea.

You, of course, are the one who is being dangled by his indecision but I don't see any reason why he won't choose to stay with you than not. If I were you I wouldn't want to be on that kind of string but I don't know him, his prior situation, you and your current happiness outside of this insecurity. They all become part of the mix.

Good luck - I hope it works out the way you want it to.

thanks for all your replies, i guess the problem is that we are two cheats who have got together and formed a relationship together, and yes ure right the circumstances should have been better... i started to see this guy just before i moved out of my ex's place, only because financially i could not go anywhere.. i did not leave my husband for my new partner, i went anyway and had decided to go well before... I was wary of letting him move in before he left her, but the fact he did leave must prove how much he loves me? I know I can be nieave at times, But I hope and pray this is real, my heart does not doubt his feelings, but the fact of waiting for a divorce does bother me, especially i am now almost divorced, however thats my way of dealing with things, not everyone is the same i guess

You seem like a nice lady with a reasonable ability to assess your situation with a minimum of neurosis. Are you certain he moved out on his own and she didn't toss him out when she found out he was cheating? You are most wise to be leery about the delay, but as you have seen, others here disagreed with my take on that and I certainly don't have a better crystal ball than anybody else about what is in anybody's heart.

My view is that you don't go looking for a green marble among a bowl full of blue ones. You might be lucky and find one, of course, but the odds are against you. It all comes down to how much you are willing to gamble.

But best of luck to you. I wish you all the best.

thank you very much for your kind words... Your right i didn't ask for all this but i did fall in love... i didnt plan too. I wouldn't put my kids through all this change if i didn't think it could last. I know im young but i have been through so much in my short life, that my mental age is prob that of a 40-50 year old!!!
All i can do i guess is keep talking to my new man and keep my feelings open for some reassurance from him from time to time then eventually those little chats will become further and further apart. One things for sure if i get hurt this time, ill be on my own for a very long time!!!

I've told my story here before, so if you don't want to hear it again, skip the next paragraph.

My husband and I both left our spouses to be with each other, and we've been happily married for 15 years. We were both miserable in our former marriages. His divorced wasn't finalized when we moved in together, mine was. I didn't wait until have I had my divorce papers to move in with him, the timing was due to something else. I would have moved in sooner if it hadn't been for an unrelated matter. We've gone through good times and some very bad times, due to health conditions. I learned that when one person becomes ill, it can either destroy a marriage or make it stronger. It was a struggle, but it made ours stronger. I cannot imagine giving up the life I've had with him because "I'm married to someone else and I'm going to stay married even though I'm miserable, because that would be cheating" Could we have waiting until both of us were divorced...? Sure. But we were 2 mature adults who knew what we had was the real deal, and to not cheat because of society's ideas would have been ridiculous. Our marriages to our respective spouses had meant nothing before we got together, and was in name only.

That said, I think of all the threads I've read here, or situations I know of, where it's a one way street....usually, but not always, it seems the woman getting the short end of it.
I would also tell you to run to the nearest exit if this man was still living at home with wife and kids, and telling you he wants to wait.

Not saying that may not be the case, I don't know enough about the situation.

Shewolf brought up a good point. From my experience, some men would rather just say "let's just wait 2 years" then get into the whole communication thing.....What if it IS the wife that's holding up the works? If he tells you that, you'll want to figure out a way to work around it, get her to change her mind...I don't have to tell you what kind of problems this might lead too.

I sure would want to find out what the entire reason is, and if it's the wife, you might decide to just sit it out and wait until things go through. Personally, I was married in my heart as soon as we lived together, getting papers signed, both to end one thing, and more papers to start another, was just a formality.

BTW, when you discuss the whys, be aware it may take more than one conversation. Also, don't feed him the "it's the wife theory" Even if he's a great guy, he might go for that just to end all this talking that we women seem to want to do.

When you say you're living together, do you mean all his possessions are there, that the 2 of you have the same home base, and that he spends every night in your bed?

In my book, that counts for a lot. My husband has some hobbys that frankly I think are a waste of money.....I never tell him that because I figure "Hell, he's spending money on something he likes, and he's doing it right here in our house. He could be out spending money at a strip club, bar, opium den or in some other womans bed."

I don't want to say anything more about this aspect until I know why he wants to wait.

oh...I work with someone who has twins with someone else that works for the same company. They have bought a house together and everything. They don't have a marriage license yet because as the woman can claim being a single mother, the benefits of her child care and health care for 2 toddlers is much greater than if she was married.

As far as everyone they know is concerned, they are husband and wife just as much as if they went down to the courthouse and got a piece of paper.

I have only a few words to say.......... You will get what is coming to you. For him to cheat on his wife whilst pregnant is disgusting. And let's just say you enter into an unhappy marriage, make a mistake so to speak........then why get your wife pregnant? Does birth control not exist? And why not get out the relationship first and be decent about it before jumping into the sack with someone else. I gather he was sleeping with her not long before he had an affair with you. Must have been.

You see I also know what is is like on the other side of the fence my mum cheated on my dad. I've been picking up the pieces ever since. Now I see the cracks in my mum's relationship just like you. They thought it was all carefully planned out blah blah blah. Thought she'd get away with it without us even finding out. Now she realises his wooing, his talks were all b**ll**it. Things aren't turning out the way she planned. Back to reality. She's also lost her daughter, me in the process! His kids will grow up and realise what he is. And you're no better for having an affair with him just to feed your own insecurities and need for affection. How many affairs has he actually had or says he's had?