Step Talk

My current relationship did start out as an affair and my boyfriend in the beginning had no intentions of leaving his wife. Things progressed in our relationship and we really fell hard for each other, very unexpectedly. I knew he was married and he had 3 children and had to stop and ask myself, "Did i really want to get my heart broken in this situation?" Wife did find out about me (but she was seeing others as well) she freaked!!! So anyway, he moved out of house and was staying with friends, but going home occasionally to see kids and what not. Then moved out permanantly and filed for divorce. I was the almighty "HOMEWRECKER". The one that made my boyfriend's ex ask him "Is she worth it?" The one that had my boyfriends mother calling him screaming that he better not abandon those children!!! The one that the ex bad mouthed to the kids on a daily basis. The one that the ex would ask "Is she prettier than me?" It was an explosive part of my boyfriend and I's relationship and a true test to say the least! He got his kids every other weekend just with an agreement with the ex (nothing signed legally). After a year of dating my boyfriend and I moved in together. I was still in college and after I graduated my boyfriend filed for joint custody of his 3 kids. We have his kids every other week, 50/50 with ex. This entire situation was a huge RESPONSIBILITY. I went from graduating college student, future R.N. to a girlfriend and step-mother of 3 overnight. It was alot to handle. It wasn't easy, but I wouldn't change my experiences for the world! My boyfriend's children when I first met them were 5 yr old son (clone of his father), and two 1 yr old beautiful twin little girls. I love those kids more than anything in the world! They are not my flesh and blood, but they are everything to me. It's hurtful, don't get me wrong when I see how poorly the ex cares for those kids. She is an evil, miserable human being. And I'm not just saying that bc she is my man's ex-wife, I'm saying it bc everyone that knows her says the same. But, now after 2 years together (kids and all) this is my life and I plan on marrying this man one day (and his children.) And although I want to scratch the dreaded ex's eyes out when I see her, and send those kids back when they misbehave or have gotten on my last nerve, I try to make the most of it. He/She who angers you, controls you. I refuse to let that happen. So good luck with your relationship! If you're like me it is an unbelievably bumpy ride, but incredibly worth it in the end!

We started dating more than 9 months after they split up and she left town (and started dating another fellow), but before the divorce was done. When she heard we were dating, she went around writing emails to people we knew, saying "we were having an affair while they were married". I guess that helps her sleep at night. Luckily, people who know all of us, know better, so her slander didn't hurt us.

It's unfortunate that she has indoctrinated my stepchildren with this belief, and we've tied our own hands by trying to take the high road with them and not involve them in adult matters. I think they are starting to come around. Perhaps in time they will understand.

I don't know what to do but to live the truth, and in time the children will hopefully figure it out. I guess my worry has mostly been about how they will accept their half-brother or sister, when he/she comes.

Me and my current bf worked together. We're both military which made it a little complicated. I started liking him when we were hanging out in a bar somewhere in Nevada. We were really drunk and he walked me to my room. I'm not sure what happened but the last thing I remembered was him kissing me. I freaked out because I had a bf at the time and he was married. I told him to get out and that was last time we ever hung out. Didn't know but later on I started liking him little by little. A couple of months passed and me and my bf broke up. I've been observing my crush for awhile and noticed he was hiding something. He seemed unhappy about something and was very good hiding it. I also noticed that he talked a lot about his son but not his wife. Then I thought hey I'm going to tell my crush that I like him, just to see what he'll do. So I did it via email because I didn't have the guts to tell him face to face. The worst he could say was he was flattered but married. To my surprised he didn't say that. He wanted to hang out. I was shocked and scared. We met that night just for a few minutes. After that we met a couple of more nights we didn't do anything but just talk about his wife. He told me he fell out of love with his wife and wanted a divorce. I'm not sure why he didn't do it sooner, I guess he wanted to stay for his son. What pushed the divorce was when his wife found out about me through some of his emails. That made him really mad and told her he wanted a divorce. It was a big shock for the chain of command, but the people that worked with him said he was talking about it for a long time. At that time we were getting ready to deploy. However on the very last minute something happened, I was left behind and he was sent on deployment with the command. Now I 'm waiting for him to get back in April. I don't know his wife very well so I'm not sure how she's going to treat me. We are no longer in the same command which is great. This is still a fresh relationship. I've met his son twice and I want to make sure he doesn't get use to me. Anything could happen between me and his dad. So that's my story, I told the same story on another website and got shunned badly. I just knew he was unhappy. I don't know why his wife didn't see that. Right now she's giving him a hard time about money. She wants to use the money meant for their son to pay her bills. She has a job now but I guess it's not paying her enough. He knows she has money. I just hope they both can figure this out. I really don't have a say in it. I just have to sit and watch. Please don't shun me.

My DH's wife left him. We were working together and I had just had my heart broken as did he. We start hanging out and as I tell him, he just never went away. Of course, once her infidelity came out, she was all but dead in his eyes. I do not consider myself being "the other woman", others may disagree. I am the only person he was with after her. She too was dating before the divorce was final. I do not regret at all the way things turned out. We both believe we were meant to be together.

They did that all own their own.

I started talking as friends to my DH online about six months before we ever met in person for our first date. At the time DH & I began talking he had been legally separated from his ex for about 6 months (I actually thought they were already divorced). Although they were physically separated (living in two different states on opposite sides of the US) for longer. When DH & I had our first date it was months after his divorce was final. So it wasn't me that broke them up.

Although his Ex-wife has told their daughter(7) that it was my fault they divorced. That they would have never divorced if I had not came into the picture. Can we say "fruitcake"???

My DH and I work together also. My boss hired him in to work under me without my knowledge and there was instant chemistry. We were both married at the time. I would not have thought he was though as I rarely heard his ex's name mentioned and our conversations about his home life mostly were about his kids. He would occassionally ask me to lunch and we would go as friends - I always told my husband at the time. Then three years later DH informs me he has feelings for me. He started out explaining it was just a feeling he had about us and that he wanted to spend time with me. WTF!! I was irate! This man was a very good friend and almost like an older brother to me as well. I accused him of just wanting to get me in the sack. He said that wasn't it at all. He starts calling me some and his ex starts looking at his phone and figures out he's calling me. Then he admits to her he is in love with me and had been for 3 years - since the first day we met. I'm not totally without blame, but at this point there certainly was no sex, not even a kiss and he's telling his ex that. I barely had time for my head to spin around from his news to me and now he is telling her that. In the meantime, someone from my work starts calling my ex at work and telling him stuff. My ex starts sending threatening e-mails to DH, writes a letter and calls our head honcho at work and I find out he has been recording my home phone calls with a hidden recorder under our bedroom dresser. Not only was he recording my calls but my oldest daughters as well. She was pissed! My daughter then informed me some things that he had done to her (not sexual abuse) but more like mental things and that was it for me. I kicked him out. DH and I were married two years later. I hope no one thinks badly of me, but I met my soulmate in DH and waited all these years to find him. Of course you know from my posts that there are a few issues we are working on.

My relationship with my SO did start out as an affair. We were both married at the time and we worked together. The attraction was instant, but because we were both married we tried not to let our feelings for each other get in the way....But they did. So about 4 months after starting an intimate relationship he told his ex wife that he has been seeing somebody else and it's time to start the separation/divorce process. She took it hard, but freaked out when she found out that I was 10 years younger. I think at first she hoped the 3 skids wouldn't like me, but they fell in love with me. It still has it's hard times; the kids walk on broken glass around her, the 11yr old SS deleted Christmas pics of me from his camera, but kept my kids on there.... It's sad. I will always be known as the other woman, the mistress, whatever. My skids will sometimes tell her how much fun I am, or that I dress nice and it's more than she can handle. It took me a long time to realize that happily married people don't cheat. I wanted to blame myself for breaking up a marriage, but I had to realize that I didn't. His family is trying to come around , but the BM is "so perfect because she bakes cookies and makes playdough figures with the kids". His family is also very Catholic, and their religious beliefs play a huge part in their acceptance to me. I've only met his brother and he seemed okay with me (he was probably taking his bi-polar meds that day!) but his father has made it clear that he will NEVER accept us (me). We have a long road ahead of us, but we're not going to let every opinion bring us down.

I would like to know how many are in this boat ...

My husband and I met two years after he got divorced. He dated several women before we met. He and I were friends and I thought he was a super dork. But UnderDog Syndrome kicked in and about 4 months later, I realized he looked really hot in glasses. Then I found out he had kids. ICK. But the kids grew on me and it was mutual. THEN one day SS8 (who was 5 at the time) says to his mom on the phone "yeah Dad's new girlfriend is really nice. she is really good with Play Doh."

Guess what happened almost 24 hours later? She calls his mother, his sister, all his friends and says he was cheating on her and that is why they got divorced and I am the other woman. FREAKING NUTS I TELL YOU.

Clearly this is a distorted version of reality which is onset by enraged jealousy. However, FREAKING NUTS is the best analysis at this point.

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." ~ Abraham Lincoln

I was looking 4 the solution to the same problem, but mine is an affiar and i need to get out because its emotionally tireing and depressing.

after breaking up with my boyfriend who i have a child with i suddenly fell in love or rather i say i was attracted to this guy i work with and we started kissing and hugging and cuddling for about 5 months b4 we eventually engage in sex it was a nice feeling at that moment and as he is married or sort of he is staying with his girlfriend for like 7 years and they have 2 children. Now suddenly when i felt guilty of what we were doing i told him 2 stop he refused and told me that he want me and want to have a future with me he want to leave his sort of wife and be with me.

this thing went on for like 1 year 6 months now and everytime i want us to stop he tells me that he loves me and that he has found some happiness with me and he want a future with me and on the other hand i have tried to manipulate him to leave his wife but he all the time tell me that he cannot afford to be with me because we have to find a place for ourselves and that we all cannot afford at the moment so we should rather get rid of our little debt so we can afford to get a house together, i love this guy and know what i am doing by being with him is not right and now i feel in my heart and my soul that this thing will never work because everytime he tells me about his family or children i get so very hurt i am not sure if maybe i am jeolous or what but is the feeling i have. I told him many times that i want to be with him that i want a future with him but he does not respond much all he tells me is that it will happen and we must not be in a hurry. because the main thing is that he is still leaving with his wife he goes to her everyday when he is not with me, we spend more time together but i still feel that something is not clicking between me and him because i think if he says he loves me that much he should have left his wife long ago to be with me and also that he should make a plan for us to find a place to stay. I feel very sad and hurt because i know i love this guy very much or maybe i think i love him but what hurt me most is that he cannot make a clear decision to come live with me because he says he does not love his wife anymore and that he does not have any feelings for her anymore and that they are not having sex anymore and all that i find it very hard to believe because my question is how can u stay all this time with somebody you don't feel anything for?. last year we agreed that this year we should find a place to stay but when i hear from his talking i feel like i do not feature in his future and i have asked him many times where our relationship is only for sex and everytime he declare to love me.

the question is , how to handle all this, is this thing gonna ever work if maybe i should prepare myself for the disappointment, does he really loves me, if so why does it takes him so long to want to live with me.

I know this thing has started as an affair with a married man, but it all started as aflirt and one thing lead to another until it grew so big. the moments i am happy with him are very few because most of the time we arque about whether we should continue with this or what and everytime i tell him to leave this thing he beg me very hard and because i feel i love him i eventually give up agree to stay with him even if he goes back to her everyday when we are not together.

since last december i have lost a little bit hope i had os being with him and everytime somethings tell me to stop everything and come out of this misery. when the days goes by it all come back to me that i realise that he will never leave his wife so as for all the people who have told me before, but sometimes i tell myself that maybe he will, i want to stop this thing and i think i need all the strength i can get or some advice of what i may do about all this mess. there is so much i can say about this realtionship, like ven that he is so jeolous or rather obsessed about the friendship i have with other guys and i don't think its healthy, at some point i think i know all the answer to solve this thing or that i know what the solution is but i don't have the courage or maybe i need the reassurance that this thing will work or not before i take action, but my instinct tells me to end all this.

could anyone please help, or refer me to where i can get help, because sometimes i can feel that i am so depressed about all this.

thank you.

I walked in to my first marraige with this statement- "We love each other, we are in love with each other. If there is ever a time when that love isn't enough for you, then you need to be adult enough to tell me. If we can't make it work, then we need to end it. There is no reason for you to cheat." Needless to say, he cheated, I left. With my now fiance, we both said the same thing. With him being deployed now, trust is a major issue. Especially after what happened with my ex. I don't think that there is any excuse for anyone to cheat. If you are so unhappy that you are thinking of turning to someone else for comfort, maybe you should talk to your SO. If you have tried that, and nothing has changed, then you need to be mature and get out of the relationship. Just my two cents.

I can tell you that the relationship I had with my father was forever impacted by his infidelity to my mother and by the awful way he let his wife (he married the woman he was cheating with) treat me. I haven't had a relationship with my father in over twenty years and I don't anticipate ever having one with him. He has five grandchildren that he will never meet, poor man.

The heart loves where it will. I have no problem with my father falling out of love with my mother, divorcing her and moving on with someone else. My mother is not the most pleasant person to be around, they were not compatible in any way and only married because - oops! - she was pregnant with me. What I do have a problem with was the way it happened. He cheated on her for years before she finally found out and it totally devestated our entire family.

Falling in love is something we can't help. We can't control that. We can, however, control with whom we have sex. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think cheating is wrong. Tell the other person it's over, then you can have sex with whomever you want and it won't be cheating. The divorce doesn't have to be final, but your spouse should be told it's over before you sleep with someone else.

My father is out of my life not because he fell in love with someone other than my mother. He's out of my life because he didn't have the guts, the integrity or the respect to tell my mother it was over before he started having sex with other people. He's out of my life because his second wife spoke viciously to me, refused to give him messages when I called, threw out the letters I'd sent him without showing them to him and did anything and everything else she could to cut me and my sister out of his life. But HE was our father and HE should have had the guts keep his daughters in his life, despite what his second wife wanted.

So I guess you could say, when the final tally is in, that I have no relationship with my father now because I have no respect for the man. I understand he's only human and I hold no grudges against him, but I lost the respect that I used to have for him.

I'm curious about the "step-children from hell" comment, though. I'm wondering what makes you call them that.

~ Anne ~

P.S. I remembered that I should probably post about my experiences on the other end of that particular spectrum. Not about having been cheated on... I have been, same old boring story, nothing new to post about. But I fell hard for a co-worker a long time ago who was separated from his wife. When he first asked me out, I declined due to him being married, but when he told me that he was legally separated and living apart from his estranged wife, that seemed okay to me. So I embarked on a relationship with this guy and it was the stuff movies and romance novels are made of. He had "the one" written all over him. For almost a year, I was in sheer heaven. It was absolute bliss. Then I found out that he had lied about being separated. He wasn't... he was cheating. As perfect as he had seemed before, I lost all respect (and love!) for him as soon as I found out he was actually not separated. To me, things like loyalty, fidelity, integrity and being a stand-up guy are the sexiest qualities in a man. Hmmm, I've been mad at DH all week... thanks for the reminder of why I married him!

"Adjust on the fly, or you're going to cry."
Steve Doocy, The Mr. and Mrs. Happy Handbook

We knew each other and briefly dated before either of us were married, 15 years before we became reacquainted. This time, it was an affair for him but not for me.

One day we ran into each other by chance and talked about doing lunch. I could see that that prospect frightened him so it didn't happen, but a month or so later we saw each other again, and again talked about lunch. A week or so later it did happen. the chemistry was still very strong, but actually quite different, I mean I think HE had grown up in that time.

When we took it to the romantic level I said, "I don't know where we are going with this but whatever you do with me is your choice and your responsibility, not mine." I had cheated on my ex before I split with him.
"I understand what can make someone cheat and it is not a good thing so you should ask yourself why you are doing this and what might be missing from your marriage."

My god, I really did more or less say all that to him but I still did not take him seriously because I was pursuing someone else at the time and was gradually realizing that that was going nowhere, but as long as someone else had that part of my heart, I did not take my affair seriously.

I finally decided that THIS was the one and that there were 2 possible outcomes.

1. He would never see me again and renew his marriage.
2. He would leave her for me.

He chose number two. That's when I started really thinking about what I was getting into.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the more I have come to know about the ex, the more I understand why he found me so appealing.

I had a boyfriend at the time. My now DH and I hooked up 14 months after SD was born. He said BM and him used to fight a lot so he moved away to college for a few months, then came back. I don't know if they were in a relationship, but obviously, eight years later, she still hasn't had closure...so she may of assumed he would always be there for her just because she got knocked up. So, this went on..I had a boyfriend for two more years..then he found out about me and my now DH. My now DH knew I had a bf at the time, but he didn't care.

i too had an affair with a married man, at first we only talked on the phone, then we fell in love. He lives in New Mexico, and travels a lot with his job as he's in industrial construction, he has no kids with his wife, claimed to not know why he even married her, told me how much he loved me and wanted to be with me, but he had to be careful because she would take everything away from him. I bought it, then all of a sudden, he stops calling me and taking my calls. Question is, should i call her or not? I'm not vindictive, but I feel very used and stupid at this time. The breakup of the relationship hurt, but not as much as realizing he's not the man I thought he was.

Any ideas?