A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I Recently slept with a married man after talking to him daily for two months and him promising that he would leave his wife within the next 5 months and there is no love between them or sex..just friendship....I believed him and after a dinner date we had sex.....He was telling me all the time he could se our future together, starting a family, being so happy and then out of the blue he tells me it was only "wishful thinking" and says his real feelings about relationships are that they are all negative etc. he said he doesnt even know if we would work out as a couple in the future....he broke my heart overnight and then i said there is no point to continue talking if he feels that way......later on i emailed his wife and sent her proof he was cheating and an loser.....i did it out of guilt and the thought that if it was me i would want to know....but i also told her because he hurt me and i saw his true colours.....now we are all hurt (but shes glad i told her) and he says he hates me and never wants to speak to me again! Should i be feeling so terrible that he hates me?......It really hurts....also, did i do the right thing?
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female
reader, Miamine  +, writes (5 December 2011):
 It's done now, everyone is now hurt including the wife, and it's not your fault, it's the fault of a lying cheating husband. She thanked you, so it's not you she is blaming... Don't worry, you made your move, and it's turned out as it should. Now find some way to forget it all and go on and find happiness in your life.
A
female
reader, eyeswideopen  +, writes (5 December 2011):
 "Hell hath no fury...yada yada yada
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A
female
reader, eyeswideopen +, writes (5 December 2011):
"Hell hath no fury...blah blah blah
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (5 December 2011):
 Oh please you ratted out a cheater to his wife out of GUILT after he told you that he only used you for a quick lay? REALLY? SERIOUSLY?
What you should feel terrible about is
a. you told a man's wife he is a cheater out of anger and pain and hurt NOT guilt. YOU wanted HER to hurt as badly as HE hurt you
b. your choice to have sex with a married man KNOWING he was married and making false promises to you... so what you are mad about is your judgement to trust someone who you feel betrayed your trust.... HE HURT and USED you and you are ANGRY at him or maybe you are angry WITH YOURSELF and taking it out on his wife.
I don't think you did the right thing. I don't think it was YOUR place to rat him out... even if she is happy you told her or that's what she told you...
He's a jerk and he's scummy but that does not make it your job to reform him.
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A
female
reader, hpoco  +, writes (4 December 2011):
 I think you absolutely did the right thing by telling her. If my husband was cheating, I would definitely want to know, and if I could hear it from the source, it would make a big difference to me. Don't feel bad about him hating you, he sounds like a train wreck. Of course he is going to hate you. Maybe some of the other posters are right and you did this out of vengence, but whatever your motive, I think in the end confessing does count for something good.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 December 2011): I was in a similar situation but I was the "wife" - not married but in a two decade long relationship. I was contacted by email about 17 years into the relationship by a work colleague of my ex-boyfriend's, claiming, in the opening line, to be "the other woman". The email was extremely long and centred around this woman's hurt and, it became clear, her obsessive behaviour towards my ex - she noted tiny details that made it seem as if they were in a loving relationahip but, when I read it again, as I did many times, it became clear that these were actually details that she herself had hyper-vigilantly noted and come to some very wrong conclusions. For example, she had actually met me, she said at an opening of an exhibition. I had been there with my partner and been introduced to her but then (unbeknown to her) I left with a friend of my partner's an me and waited in the pub in the corner nearby for my partner to finish chatting to a few people before joining us. She had noted that I "only gave him a peck on the cheek" and believed that I had gone home early, leaving my partner alone. As it was I was simply "pecking" him because I knew I was going to see him in the next ten minutes or so. And she said "after you left, he kissed me for the first time". But when I asked him about this he said - and another friend testified - that he had merely shaken hands and kissed people on the cheek as he was leaving to join me.
What it came down to, really, was this woman being lonely, bored and increasingly obsessed with my ex. Because we were going through a bad time, he had to an extent gone along with it and ended up "fumbling" with her twice over the space of a year and a half. She was from a different country, so also did not pick up on many subtleties of the english language and read things wrongly. No, my ex was not entirely innocent and yes, the woman fully believed that she was in fact completely innocent but this is the thing - she was deluding herself but was also intelligent, sensitive and so on - really believing that she was "on the right track".
I'd say that you will be judged more for sleeping with a married man than you will be for telling his wife. If I was the wife I would want to know, no matter how painful. But the other poster is right - the WAY that you told her will say more about your own needs and your own state of mind than anything else. With this woman it became clear that she really, really wanted to hurt me and affect me with this email because she wanted to come out feeling that she was not "nothing" and that she had an equal status to me in my partner's life. I was foolish and responded to her and this only gave her the satisfaction that she wanted and allowed her to move on - but it dumped me (who really was the innocent one) with all the crap that she had created.
I'd say "wise up" - C.Grant is right in a way - do not get involved with men already in a committed relationship who tell you that their wives/girlfriend's dont understand them etc. Having seen this woman's obsessive email and having recently been approached by a married man myself and hearing the "I'm not getting on so well with my wife" I could foresee how I could so easily become the "other woman" searching constantly for clues that he loved me and not her. Don't get involved again!
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 December 2011): well she has a right to know that she's married to a jerk who doesn't care about her, and he deserves to be outed. So yes I do think you did the right thing of telling her. And if he's mad at you for it, well, that just shows more of his true colors and how selfish he is.
I don't think you were in the wrong. He told you his marriage was ending, and you believed him. I see no problem with being with him this way because he is the one in the wrong for giving you the wrong information about his status and for turning tail.
People love to cast stones at the "other woman" when really it's the cheating man who's wrong because he's the one who made commitments that he's breaking.
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A
male
reader, C. Grant +, writes (4 December 2011):
 Do two wrongs really make a right? You were wrong for sleeping with him. Perhaps it's news to you, but what he told you about his marriage was textbook. It's what every guy who is looking to cheat says. So, you participated in killing a marriage. And now you feel bad, not because you slept with him, but because he's angry that you spilled the beans. You should feel bad that you slept with a married man. Not about what happened afterward.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 December 2011): i think he played both of you and its good that everything is out in the open about what both of you did.
i can understand how a person can fall for the type of lies he told you, considering marriage has become so meaningless to people now days though.
if it were me, i would really want to know if the guy im married to was having another relationship, so i dont think telling her was the wrong thing. i think that it was wrong that you didnt tell her sooner and you let it get as far as it did to begin with.
no married person should have to go threw that, thats not what marriage is about.
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A
female
reader, Ciar + ♥, writes (4 December 2011):
 To a willing person there is no injury and that's exactly what you were. Willing.
You're a grown woman, not a 14 year old girl and he is no Svengali. You knew he was married, perhaps not at the beginning, but very soon afterward. And you knew there was a possibility he was just blowing smoke, but you ignored it and kept talking to him.
Even if he had been sincere you knew he would need some time to regroup and finalize things with his wife before plunging into a serious relationship with you.
You were quite prepared to keep his other life and his big plans from his wife as long as you thought he was going to kick her to the curb for you. Did you tell her that too?
You didn't email her because of guilt or comradery. If you'd given a fig about her you'd have contacted her before you hopped into bed with her husband. Your motive was vengeance. You may be fooling yourself and you may even fool some others, but most of us see this for what it is.
You were not his victim. You were his accomplice.
Learn from this experience. Then brush yourself off and make better choices the next time.
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A
female
reader, fi_the_tree +, writes (3 December 2011):
 People always say that revenge is sweet, but sometimes it isn't...
As to whether or not you have done the right thing, you may have, you may not have. If they have children, joint accounts, mortgage etc together, then this is gonna cause problems in the long run for them, dragging out the hurt longer. If there is none of that (which doesn't seem likely as they are married) then it will be a clean split for them.
She had a right to know, considering he told you everything you wanted to hear, them changed his mind once he got you into bed, that's not fair in my eyes! So what if he hates you for it, he knows he was in the wrong...
Best thing you can do now is leave both of them alone, focus on healing your broken heart!
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (3 December 2011): Lots of people often say not to tell the spouse of someone who's having an affair, but I think you did the wife a favour. If I was her I would be sad and angry at his I had to find out but I would be glad I knew what a dishonest man he was. You should not care that he hates you, if he can cheat on a woman he took vows to spend his life with then why would things be different if he was with you?
You are better off without this type of person in your life. Perhaps this will teach him a valuable lesson but I wouldn't concern yourself. Your heartbreak will lessen over time, don't rush yourself back into dating. Have support from your friends and socialise with those close to you to help you get over him and soon you will see what a lucky escape you had and will realise you are worth a lot more than being treated in that way x
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A
male
reader, The Realist +, writes (3 December 2011):
 In the end you do deserve some negativity here because you did sleep with a married man in the first place but over all no you shouldn't feel bad. You got caught in this guys trap which happens to more then would like to admit it. Doing the right thing is the one that gets your butt out of trouble so if this is the end of contact with the two of them then yes I would say you did do the right thing. His wife deserves to know what she married while she still has such a great ability to leave him and carry on her life. I would have have told the spouse too and then just stopped talking to them both. You shouldn't care whether this ass of man is mad at you. The important thing is that you don't beat yourself up too much over this and just get on with your life.
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A
female
reader, supermum +, writes (3 December 2011):
 No. You did the wrong thing. You slept with a guy you knew was married. That makes you just as in the wrong as he is.Now we have the harsh bit out of the way, it is hard to say whether or not you should have told her. You never know what is going on in a relationship that is not yours. She may have been a manic depressive who was likely to kill herself if she found out. Unlikely I know, but possible. And then you have your side, the fact that you would want to know if it was the other way round. She has told you she is glad to know, and that I guess is all that counts. He will, of course, say he hates you. He has been caught out in a lie. And his wife knows the truth about it.All you can do now is cut contact with both of them and move on with your life. And I hope you learned something from this.
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