SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know of 3 couples that started as wayward and AP.

1 - One of my best friend's Mom's when my friend was in HS. She was having an A, divorced my friends Dad, and married her AP. They have been together for 31 years now.

2 - My cousin and his current wife. She was in a relationship while starting her relationship with my cousin. They have been together for probably 18 years or so now.

3 - A different friend from High School. He was cheating on his girlfriend of 23 years. His long term girlfriend ended up leaving. I helped her move out, I haven't spoken to him since, but I know that they are still together. It's probably been about 8 years now.

So often I hear that the wayward spouse and the affair partner will never make it happily ever after. But all 3 people I know of that started that way sure seem to be happy. (who knows)

One of the things that my wife said to me right after D-day was "There are 1000 other guys out there that could make me happy." I told her that she was wrong. That she had to choose to be happy, that nobody else could make her happy. However, I also told her that either one of us could choose to be happy with 1000 other people.

Do you really believe that the wayward and the AP were doomed to have a failed relationship?

My stbxWW and her AP going on 16 months.

Not sure if there are others I may know of who started that way.

I know of 41. I do not know each couple personally. In some cases we do not know each other very well.

I can only think of 4 that are still together. One the husband cheats frequently. In one the wife cheats frequently with the ex-husband. One says he is happy. But, they have been married a very short time. The other I do not know well enough to ask.

In 3 cases one spouse passed away. One was a mistake and a horrible existence per WH and AP. One seemed okay but the husband indicated he still cheated. One never said. But, I think he regretted his decision. He got the AP pregnant. He had a wonderful wife and family. His relationship with his children from the first marriage was poor to nonexistent.

One couple I know date or see each other often. They are not married so I did not include them in the number.

My best friend and her husband are basically in the same situation as my WH and the COW, (age difference, SAHM, COW, etc) except in my case, the COW was single with no kids. My best friend was married with a small child.

They’ve been together for about 12 or 13 years I think. A little less time than my WH and myself. I don’t think I’d describe them as living happily ever after. I think they are in a bit of a slump right now and I don’t know how they will get out. They had a lot of good years though to be honest.

Ripped... 41? Holy cow...

That's 82 people... Woof...

123 people impacted if you count the betrayed spouse...

WOW... just wow...

I can think of two that have been married 20+ years. Do they have "happy relationships"? Idk. I know I wouldn't want their lives.

In both cases they're estranged from some of their children/grandkids, and they've both had children that grew up to be cheaters themselves.

Transgenerational trauma is real, unfortunately.

Just one, my father in law. He was married to wife’s mother for 26 years and stepped out. He even had the audacity to invite her along to group outings. The ALs husband (she had been married three times already) hired a PI and the rest is history.

Ironically my wife treated the AP like crap for many years and had an estranged relationship with her father due to her view on infidelity. Go figure...

I only know of 2 couples, and their relationships didn't last very long.

But when people meet under devious and lying terms it tells one right way the tone of their relationship. I mean, if they will betray their spouses with each other, how much easier will it be to betray each other? Let me put it another way, if you were betraying your spouse with another married person, would you have any trust in them if you ended up married? I think not.

Also, there would have to be some sort of guilt issue. Hurting people so badly (to include children family, friends...) and stating to the world that you're both crap people and getting married after an adulterous betrayal has to take some steam out of the sails.

So being together and having a loving and fulfilling relationship are two entirely different things.

Without thinking about it too hard, I can think of two.

My ex wife is still with her AP, as far as I know. I haven't talked to her in ~20 years, but via internet stalking... it seems that she still has his last name and they both still live in the house that she bought for herself after we got divorced.

My SIL is also with what I would call an AP, I think. She is a bucketful of crazy, so all details are sketchy. As far as we can tell, though, she left her husband after deciding to be with someone else. That was maybe 15 years ago. She has since cheated on that guy, lived with another man for a couple of years, and then moved back in with the AP. Like I said, a bucketful of crazy and the infidelity is merely a small fraction of the crazy tales.

A friend and her husband had a fling while with serious long term bf/gf but they went bk to their relationships but i believe the fling happened few times. Eventually separated and got together...I know for a fact just before they got married she kissed thr ex bf. Id bet good money he cheats when away for work. Shes psycho crazy paranoid. Not a happily ever after....strangely she supports r for me without judgement probably one of the better supports...yet feels if he cheated shes so paranoid insecure crazy she couldnt stay and R. She struggles now as it is.

[This message edited by Tentwinkletoes at 3:24 PM, August 15th (Wednesday)]

Too many the biggest one being my own parents (they were both married when they met)

They stayed together but happy is a story for another day as my mom went on to have more A's on my dad.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 3:29 PM, August 15th (Wednesday)]

If they will do it with you they will do it to you, right ?

The research I read one time that said that relationships that began in affairs had a less than 1 in 10 chance of surviving.

The problem with real life examples is that yuo don't know what goes on behind closed doors. No idea if one or both repeated that behavior or not.

I think sometimes who suffer from the grass is greener syndrome often want to prove themselves right so they endure a lifetime of misery in a horrible marriage. At least they weren't wrong about the grass color on the other side of the fence . . .

None. That I am aware of.

if you were betraying your spouse with another married person, would you have any trust in them if you ended up married?

The trust thing boggles my mind.

If the wayward can't trust the AP... then why should they trust the betrayed?

But they seem to...

I guess I could ask that same question in reverse.... Why would the betrayed trust the wayward?

I need a beer.

The research I read one time that said that relationships that began in affairs had a less than 1 in 10 chance of surviving.

It's much lower than that. It's more like 1 in 100. Some stats quoted below, but the chances are extraordinarily low. And, of course, even if it's 3% (which is on the high side, 3 out of 100), how many in that 3% are happy? Not 100%, I promise you that. And how many of that 3% go on to cheat on one another? A whole lot. And that's the high side estimates from the source quoted below.

Thinking through my friends, I know of maybe 20-30 A's (all men). Of them, one left his wife for the AP, didn't marry, cheated on her, and broke up. He's actually pretty happy, married life just wasn't for him, but he's not happily married.

This is why anyone, man or woman, having an A for "love" or "he/she's the one" or anything relationship based is a fools errand. You probably have better statistics (seriously) trying to date a stripper or an actor (2 notoriously bad for marrying material).

100% of PA's provide more sex. 1% of A's lead to lasting love. The math is amazingly bad for anyone who's trying to get anything from "more sex" from an A. It's literally the only thing they are good at providing, which is why stories where the WS comes here and says "I loved her/him" blow my mind. You're out of your mind having an A for that reason; it just makes no sense at all, because, in almost all the cases, that love you feel is an illusion and will soon be replaced by revulsion and shame. It's sad, because this was my W, and to this day, I still don't understand how the statistics and numbers didn't temper her decisions.

1. Depending on which sources I found, it’s estimated that only 1%-10% of married men who have affairs end up leaving their spouses and marrying their affair partners (I haven’t found a stat for married women). I don’t know the validity of these stats, but they feel like they are probably right.

2. Over 75% who marry partners they were in an affair with eventually divorce. (of course, this isn’t much higher than the divorce rate for any second marriage. Still, it’s sobering).

3. 80% of those who divorce during an affair regret the decision.

So putting that together, it doesn’t look so good. For every 100 people who have an affair, anywhere from 1-10 of them will marry their Affair Partner. Of those, statistics say that 75% will divorce within 5 years. So that means, MAYBE 1-3 out of 100 live “happily ever after” with their affair partner after leaving their spouse.

I have a friend who left her husband to be with AP. They got married about a year ago. I don't know if they are happy. I try not to stay in contact. Last time I saw them was at a backyard BBQ and they spent the entire time talking trash about AP's fBS. I thought it was awful. I cannot be around them and I do not believe that this marriage is going to work out in the long-term.

that love you feel is an illusion and will soon be replaced by revulsion and shame.

You could have said that about me and my marriage pre-A.

ugh... I'm going in circles.

There are two myths.

They always come back. Nope

It never works out. Nope (not a high %) but it happens

My experience is opposite to yours. I only know two couples. My brother who met his current wife and left his first wife for her (of course he didn’t in his view, he was already unhappy, oh, the serial cheating on her could have maybe been the reason why she was always unhappy and depressed hence he was unhappy with her? Hmm...). They are divorcing now, not because of cheating, ironically my brother didn’t cheat on her, to my knowledge but they both realised none of them was a prize.

One of my best friends, she recently found out her husband cheated on her. She mentioned while discussing it that they met while he was still married to his first wife.

And there’s a third from my childhood. She cheated and left her H and her child to run off into the sunset with the OM. It turns out the OM had serious mental health issues and committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train.

So it looks like I don’t know any successful marriages built on an affair.

Oh wait, there’s a fourth... my MIL... her current husband was cheating on his wife with her. She was the ow. He divorced and they have now been happily married for over 20 years. Happy if you dismiss the fact that one of his daughter called the house phone years ago, my husband answered and she threatened him and his mum. And the fact that he is now 83 and has no contact with his two daughters or his grandchildren. In fairness he doesn’t seem to be bothered by it and he is the ideal grandfather to my daughter. How he can play granddad to a child not blood related to him when he has (I believe) 4 grandkids he doesn’t see it’s mind blowing. But here you go, happily married as I said...

Oh and one more thing, I know the excuse my FIL (or better said my MIL’s husband) must be giving himself because when they found out about my WH’s affair he had the audacity to turn it on me. He said, one day after dday, when they were trying to pretend that nothing happened and I asked to talk about the elephant in the room, that he knows how painful it is but I was not always a supportive present wife because I was travelling with work. Yep, I was, once every few months and rarely overnight. I guess he’s right, I wasn’t like the ow he married (my MIL) who never worked and waited on him like a devoted woman, putting him above her kids and sending them to work (the kids) when they were 15 because he said so and she follows every shit he says. No thank you.