I’m happy my husband married ‘the other woman’ (link)This appears to be an "opinion" piece from the betrayed wife's (BW) perspective, so I would caution that it likely won't fit everyone's notion of how an affair ends. Or that every BW will be "happy" in such a scenario. Every marriage is different. Every relationship is different. Even every affair is different. Many end sadly for at least one person involved. But some can end happily.
So I picked up the phone, and I called her.
In a handful of conversations, I ordered her to leave my husband alone. She wouldn’t. Instead she grew more steadfast in her position; she said he was hers now and there was nothing I could do to change that.
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During what would be his last visit home, he announced he was leaving me and I dropped to my knees and urged my cheating husband to stay. I was scared for the future and what life would be like without him. But more than that, deep down I knew that getting on a plane to try to save our marriage would do no good. My husband had already left the relationship. In fact, so had I. I just hadn’t realized it yet.
By that point our marriage had been deteriorating for years. While we had once been unable to get enough of each other, by this point we could barely tolerate each other’s company and walked through our lives as business partners more than anything else.
^ With respect to the bolded section: I'm uncertain that while
in the marriage/relationship most people would come (easily) to this realization.
It’s hard to say whether our marriage would have survived had this woman left us alone to repair it. I am inclined to say possibly in the short-term but likely not much longer than that. Even if the two of them had never met, I believe the lack of love and mutual respect my husband and I showed each other, especially in the later years of our marriage, would have eventually brought us to the same result. We would have divorced even if neither one of us had cheated.
During those early months when my marriage was unraveling, the very thought of this woman disgusted me. I saw her as an interloper, a trespasser and the catalyst that brought an already troubled marriage to its abrupt end. She was all of those things.
But she was also the impetus for me building a new life for myself, including a career I love. I hope now that I may one day spend my life with a man I love.
I like to believe everyone could be so honest with themselves.
