9 Outcomes No Woman Anticipates When She Falls In Love With A Married Man
You can't help what your heart feels, but there are a few things you can control.
uricazac via shutterstock When women enter affairs with married men, they go in overwhelmed with feelings, often believing they've finally found their soul mate. Because of how good it feels being with him, they believe it is worth any risk. But there are some unintended consequences no mistress anticipates when she falls in love with someone who is married.
I have been there, but let me tell you, as the affair drags on, romance will fall to the wayside, and other emotions will take over and these emotions are not good. Perhaps understanding the consequences of falling in love with a married man before you start will help you not enter the affair in the first place and save you (and possibly many others) a whole lot of heartache. Here are the nine outcomes nobody anticipates when falling in love with a married man.
1. Feeling 'hooked on' the relationship and be unable to let go
Clients tell me that when they started their affair with a married man, they were determined to only get intimate once. They had fallen in love with the person over time, and with love came physical attraction. They felt it was OK, but being physically intimate would be over the line. As the attraction built, they thought they could get some release if only once. I am afraid it doesn’t work that way.
As the relationship goes on, they could only focus on getting both love and affection, and it becomes like an addiction. The feel-good chemical dopamine was released every time they were together, and they felt like they couldn’t live without each other. A 2015 study showed how dopamine is even released when looking at the photograph of the one you love. They developed a physical need to be together, no matter the consequences, all the time. When they didn’t, they sank into a depression until the next time.
2. Losing touch with who you are as a person
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When I was having an affair with a married man, I lost myself. Before I started up with him, I was in a great place in my life. Then, the man I had been in unrequited love with appeared on my doorstep. I put myself to the side and embarked on what promised to be the love affair of all love affairs. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
I started to lose sight of everything good about myself. I was no longer the single woman living my best life in NYC. I was now the other woman who waited around for a man to give her some time. After a year, I had become a shell of the person I was when I fell in love with my married man. The person who had felt so good about her place in the world was gone.
3. Putting your whole life on hold
Your time no longer becomes your own because your married man has a wife, a family, and a whole other life. They will not be available at regular intervals. As a result, you will spend a ton of time alone waiting for your man. The time you would have spent out there living your life will be spent waiting.
The longer you are involved with a married man, the less likely it is that you can find someone else. Someone who is available and ready to build a relationship. Many women who are having affairs try to date on the side and get away from their married men. You will never meet someone else as long as your energy is focused on your married man.
Life is short. Wasting even a minute on someone who can’t give you the best and can’t make you a priority will only hold you back from living yours.
4. Damaging your relationship with your friends
When having a relationship with a married man, woman sometimes lose their friendships. They lose them because their friends don’t approve of the affair or, worse. The friends know something is being kept from them, even if they aren’t told about what is going on. Or, they have to spend a ton of time giving out advice that is ignored. Or, they no longer have time with their friend who is waiting for their married man.
Losing friends because of an affair is bad for many reasons. You are letting go of people who have been with you when you weren’t with this guy.. Not having friends who will spend time with you will isolate you further. When you decide to let go of your married man (which you hopefully will), you might not have friends to help you get through it.
Take a look around at your friends, are they worth sacrificing for some married guy?
5. Destroying your own self-esteem
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Imagine spending your next period not being your man’s priority. Imagine being the person left alone on holidays and your birthday. The one who can’t travel because they want to be available for their lover.
Imagine being on the receiving end of promises that he will leave his wife. Or you are the love of his life, and he could never love his wife again. Or he will be there when you need him. Being repeatedly made promises that are broken.
If you are in a relationship where you are lied to and let down, it's hard not to wreck your self-esteem and feel betrayed. "Betrayal trauma has also been linked to poorer outcomes in mental health, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder," explained a 2012 study. After all, you are repeatedly treated like you aren’t a priority, like you are a second choice to a man who loves you. The more your self-esteem gets damaged, the less likely you are to see that you deserve more than a half-relationship with a guy who isn’t available.
6. No longer being able to trust any man
One of the worst parts of being involved with a married man is the lies. The lies he will be there when you need him, he will leave his wife, and you will live happily ever after.
Many married men believe their promises of being able to put their lover first and leave their wives, but they never do. I don’t know any married man who left his wife and lived happily ever after with his lover.
For a woman, being lied to over and over by someone who says they love them will ultimately scar them enough that the idea of ever trusting another man will be untenable. After all, if your lover can do this over and over, why can’t any other man?
7. Becoming obsessed with him and the situation
When you are in a relationship with a married man, you lose yourself. Your self-esteem will be damaged. You might even lose your friends. The primary reason for this is that you become obsessed with the relationship and the idea that he won’t leave his wife.
Without exception, my clients who are having affairs with married men spend every minute of their day thinking about him and the situation. They think about when they will see him. What will they wear when they do? They wonder if their married man will have to change his plans. What if he can’t stay as long as he said he would?
Furthermore, my clients wonder why their married man won’t follow through on his promises to leave his wife. They think about it constantly, and a significant part of the time they spend with their person is spent discussing just this topic: Why he won’t leave.
They try to talk to their partner into leaving. They ask for details of every minute their partner spends with their wives. They cry and scream and promise to leave, all in the vain attempt to settle the situation and ease their pain.
Unfortunately, the obsession will never stop because your married man will never leave his wife, no matter what he promises. Leaving his wife means leaving his family and damaging his finances, and he will never do it!
8. Feeling utterly depleted
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Think about how you take care of yourself when you aren’t feeling well. When you are depressed, angry, or frustrated. Ideally, when you are feeling that way, you get outside and exercise to work off your feelings.
Unfortunately, what often happens is that women don’t take care of themselves when they are feeling bad. They take to the couch, or they stay up all night watching reality dating shows. They stop sleeping and stop eating well, and their mental and physical health slowly falls apart.
When someone is feeling unhealthy and not good about themselves, it is impossible to make a good decision about anything. Having low self-esteem and difficulty thinking clearly only leads you to continue making bad decisions or not making any decisions. As a result, they stay stuck in a situation that is killing them, namely their affair.
9. Realizing you will not live happily ever after
You are probably thinking none of this will ever apply to you and your lover. After all, your love is one for the ages, and nothing is going to get in the way of the two of you being together. Your man worships you and will take the steps he needs to keep his promises and make you happy.
Unfortunately, it rarely, if ever, works out that way, not because he doesn’t love you or you don’t have a good connection. It happens because your lover is weak and won’t be able to leave his wife and his family.
A man might want to leave his wife because he is unhappy, but he doesn’t want to leave his children. He doesn’t want to risk a healthy relationship with his kids. He doesn’t want to mess up the finances he has spent his adult life building. He doesn’t want to have to abandon the social life he and his wife have created together. So, despite his promises and good intentions, your married man won’t leave. I am sorry, but it is true.
So there you go, with the outcomes women rarely anticipate when they are in love with a married man.
Most truly believe their relationship is different, and it will work out. But, sooner than later, they see they are miserable, and even though they might hold out hope, their affair is not going to end the way they hoped. Your lover might love you, but being in an affair will ensure you no longer love yourself. This will cause more destruction than you could imagine.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in MSN, Prevention, and Psych Central.
