I had an affair with a married man for 14 years. The pattern was always the same. He would disappear for months at a time to recommit to his marriage, then come back saying he loved me, couldn’t forget me, and wanted me in his life. This happened over and over again.
Last September he finally got caught and was kicked out of the marriage. He told me to be patient and give him space while he figured out what he wanted because he didn’t want me to be a rebound. Even then, he still came to see me a few times.
From November to February he mostly ghosted me. He saw me again in February, then went quiet, then messaged me at the end of March saying he dreamed about us as a couple. He was still sexually messaging me at the end of April.
Then at the beginning of May he told me he had started a new relationship back in March. He said I wasn’t the right religion, that he was attracted to her, and that he wanted to make things work with her because he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the last 14 years. Basically, he says he’s going to fully commit to her.
I feel completely discarded for someone he barely knows, only six months after his marriage ended. I’m devastated. Part of me keeps wondering if he’s really changed and if he can suddenly commit to someone new in a way he never committed to his wife or to me. Another part of me thinks he’ll repeat the same cycle and eventually come back trying to love bomb me again.
This man has spent 14 years training you to live on crumbs.
Not love. Crumbs.
A man who loved you in a healthy, grounded, honest way would not disappear for ten months at a time, keep you emotionally suspended for over a decade, sleep with you while building another relationship, and then announce you were suddenly “not the right religion.” That is not clarity. That is convenience.
You are asking the wrong question.
The question is not “Has he changed?”
The real question is “Why have I spent 14 years emotionally attached to someone who repeatedly showed me I was optional?”
Because whether he changes or not honestly does not matter anymore.
Could he repeat the same pattern with the new woman? Absolutely. In fact, the overlap, secrecy, emotional intensity, and fast commitment language are all signs he probably has not done any real inner work at all. People do not magically become emotionally healthy six months after a marriage implodes, especially when they are still sexting someone else while starting a new relationship.
But do not build your healing around waiting for him to fail.
That will keep you psychologically tied to him.
Right now your nervous system is addicted to the cycle. The disappearing. The return. The hope. The emotional hit when he comes back saying you are the one he cannot forget. That cycle can feel a lot like love when it has gone on for years, but it is instability mixed with fantasy and intermittent validation.
And yes, there is a very good chance he reaches back out eventually. Men who keep emotional backup systems for 14 years usually do not stop cleanly. But if he does come back, it should not flatter you. It should alarm you.
You are grieving two things at once: the loss of him and the loss of the fantasy that one day he would finally choose you fully.
You do not need to prove your worth by finally “winning” a man who never gave anybody real consistency, including his wife. You need to step out of the triangle entirely and ask yourself why you accepted emotional starvation for so long.
The path forward is going to look boring compared to the chaos you are used to. Real healing usually does. Block him. Stop tracking the new relationship. Stop decoding his messages. Stop trying to predict whether he will fail. None of that changes your life.
Your life changes when you decide that being someone’s secret, backup plan, emotional escape hatch, or almost choice is no longer acceptable.