u/rojovilla

There’s a question people ask after relationships like this end: Were you actually in love with them, or were you just in love with the idea of them?

I’ve always kind of hated that question. It makes it sound like if part of what you loved existed in some future you imagined, then none of the rest of it was real. That’s not how it was for me.

I loved her. I loved her intelligence, her wit, her humor, her beauty, how hard she worked, what a great mom she was, and the way she could be vulnerable and sensual with me as if she had waited her whole life for me. I loved the friendship. The physical relationship. The way we talked. The way we worked together. All the little stupid things that come with knowing someone for eight years.

That was real.

But I’m also starting to understand that I wasn’t only attached to the relationship I had. I was attached to the relationship I thought was coming. And I don’t mean I was waiting for her to turn into some completely different person. I was waiting for the woman I already loved to be willing and able to live our relationship openly.

I thought eventually I wouldn’t have to be a secret anymore, that we could finally be open, honest, and free.

And what I wanted really wasn’t some fucking fantasy life. I wanted to spend days and nights together. I wanted holidays, birthdays, and vacations. I wanted to be able to go to dinner, walk into a place, travel somewhere, whatever, without having to think about who we might run into.

Normal shit.

And because I believed that was eventually coming, I put up with things I never would have accepted if I thought they were permanent. The secrecy. The crumbs. The leftovers. At some point I even stopped asking when she was going to be free. I think part of me stopped asking because I already knew how much it hurt to keep asking. But I also believed it was temporary.

That matters.

Because when things got painful, I wasn't just deciding whether the relationship I had right then was enough. Staying also meant holding on to the relationship I still believed we were going to have.

So no, I don’t think I was just “in love with the idea of her.” I loved a real woman. But part of what kept me there was believing the way we were living wasn’t going to be forever.

And when I strip everything else away, I’m left with a question I really don’t like answering:

If I had known from the beginning that the secrecy would never end, that I would always get the crumbs and the leftovers, and that the open, ordinary relationship I believed was coming would never actually happen… would I have stayed for the relationship we actually had?

No.

For eight years, I told myself I wasn't trying to stay in an affair.

I was trying to get out of one.

Not by ending the relationship, but by eventually turning it into the open, normal relationship we talked about having.

I know how that sounds. I know affairs are built on secrecy, broken boundaries, and choices that hurt other people. I made those choices too. I'm not proud of all of them, and I'm not writing this to excuse any of it.

But there's something about long-term hidden relationships that people on the outside don't always get.

When you believe the secrecy is temporary, you start treating everything you're giving up as temporary too.

The missed holidays.

The separate weekends.

The calls that can only happen at certain times.

The plans that depend on someone else's schedule.

The inability to be introduced, included, acknowledged, or openly loved.

You accept it because you believe you are working toward something.

You tell yourself this isn't the real relationship yet.

This is just what has to happen before the real relationship can begin.

In my case, there was always another point somewhere ahead of us.

After this happened.

After that was finished.

After the kids reached a certain age.

After the house situation changed.

After life finally made room for us.

I kept believing there was a finish line.

So I adapted.

I learned how to live inside the margins of someone else's life.

I became grateful for scraps of normalcy because they felt like proof of the future we had talked about.

A dinner.

A night together.

A short trip.

Cooking together.

Running errands.

Sitting on a patio drinking wine and pretending, for a few hours, that we were already living the life we said we wanted.

Those moments mattered to me. They were real.

But they also kept me going.

And they kept me there.

They made it easier to believe that the hidden version of the relationship was only temporary.

Looking back, one of the hardest things I've had to face is that I may not have been crossing a bridge into another life.

I may have just been living on the bridge.

The waiting wasn't separate from the relationship.

The waiting became the relationship.

The compromises I kept telling myself were temporary became the way we lived.

That's the part I didn't understand until it was over.

And when it ended, I didn't only lose the woman I loved.

I lost the open life I thought all those years were leading toward.

I lost the future that had made the present feel survivable.

People hear "affair" and assume the secret relationship itself was the thing I was trying to protect.

It wasn't.

I didn't want to stay hidden forever.

I didn't want stolen time, limited access, excuses, or pieces of someone's life.

I wanted the ordinary things.

I wanted to wake up next to her without checking the clock.

I wanted holidays that didn't have to be worked around.

I wanted to make plans without hiding them.

I wanted to be part of her life instead of someone who existed behind it.

I wanted a relationship that didn't require either of us to lie about what we meant to each other.

That's what I thought I was waiting for.

So when it ended, I wasn't grieving the loss of an affair.

I was grieving the relationship I believed the affair was eventually supposed to become.

I was grieving eight years spent believing in a future that never came.

Looking back, I don't think the biggest lie I told myself was that we loved each other.

I still believe we did.

The biggest lie I told myself was that I was only living this way temporarily.

I have to own my part in that.

I accepted less than I wanted because I believed it was temporary.

I ignored things I shouldn't have ignored.

I stayed through changing plans, contradictions, disappointment, and pain because I kept thinking we were still moving toward the same destination.

But owning my part doesn't make the loss imaginary.

The relationship was real to me.

The love was real to me.

The future was real to me.

And losing that future has been harder than I ever knew it could be.

Has anyone else been through this?

Not just the end of an affair, but the realization that you spent years treating the relationship you had as a temporary version of the relationship you were eventually going to have?

How did you make peace with the possibility that the waiting was the relationship all along?

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, whether you’re thinking about it, living it, or trying to recover from it, but you are worthy.

Not someday.

Not when they finally choose you.

Not when they leave.

Not when they explain everything.

Not when they come back and tell you that you mattered.

Right now. As you are.

You are worthy even if you are hidden.

You are worthy even if you accepted less than you deserved.

You are worthy even if you stayed too long.

You are worthy even if you're embarrassed by how much you loved someone who could only give you pieces.

You are worthy even if you still miss them.

You are worthy even if part of you is still waiting for a message that may never come.

I'm writing this as someone who still struggles to believe it myself.

Because this kind of relationship can really fuck with your sense of value. You start measuring yourself by what they can give you, what they won't give you, what they say versus what they do, how long they keep you waiting, and whether you were ever enough to make them choose differently.

But their inability or unwillingness to choose you openly is not the final word on your worth.

It may say something about their fear.

It may say something about their marriage.

It may say something about their limits.

But it does not mean you were unworthy of being loved fully, publicly, honestly, and without all the hiding.

You deserved the boring things too.

A normal phone call.

A real date.

Being introduced.

Being included.

Being able to grieve out loud.

Being chosen without having to decode every silence.

Being loved without surviving on crumbs and calling it a meal.

And yeah, some of us made choices we’re not proud of. I know I did. But that doesn’t mean we deserve to be emotionally starved, discarded, minimized, or left carrying all the grief alone.

You can own your part and still know you deserved better.

You can miss them and still want more for yourself.

You can love them and still stop abandoning yourself.

So if today is one of those days where you feel stupid, replaceable, invisible, or like you weren't enough, please hear this:

You are worthy.

Even here.

Even now.

Even after all of it.

There’s a thought I keep circling back to, even though part of me hates that it’s still there.

For context, I was the OM for eight years, so this was not a short chapter of my life.

I still wonder sometimes what I would do if she ever truly woke up, realized what she lost, and came back.

Not just breadcrumbs. Not nostalgia. Not guilt. I mean actually came back with remorse, ownership, and the full weight of what happened.

And the more I think about it, the more complicated it gets.

Because the fantasy is simple: they realize they made a terrible mistake, they come back, and somehow that proves it was real.

But the reality is uglier.

If someone had to lose you to value you, could you ever feel safe with them again?

If they were able to discard you, replace you, go silent, rewrite things, or leave you alone in the wreckage, does their regret later actually repair anything?

And there’s another part I can’t separate from it.

If they were intimate with someone else after you, or during the messy end, or while you were still trying to understand what was happening, how do you ever get that out of your head?

It’s not just sexual jealousy. It’s the feeling that they gave someone else access to the version of themselves you waited years for. The closeness, the body, the attention, the possibility, maybe even the public version of them.

So even if they came back with regret, could you ever stop seeing that?

I don’t know what I would do. Part of me wants the validation of her realizing it. Part of me knows that even if she did, I may never be able to see her the same way again.

Maybe the person I loved is gone. Maybe she never fully existed the way I believed she did. Or maybe she did exist, but not with the courage or integrity I needed when it mattered.

For those who have had someone come back after they broke you, what happened?

Did it help? Did it reopen the wound? Were you able to trust them again?

Or did you realize that being chosen too late is still not the same as being chosen when it counted?

I’m not dating right now, and I don’t think I’m ready to. In fact, I know I’m not ready, even after 10 months.

But I’ve been thinking about something that feels like it’s going to matter eventually.

How do you carry this chapter into a future relationship?

I was the OM for eight years. I’m not proud of every part of that. I know I participated in something complicated and painful, and I own that. I’m not trying to make it sound cleaner than it was.

But it was also one of the most important, if not the most important, relationships of my adult life.

It shaped me. It hurt me. It’s changed how I understand love, secrecy, loyalty, self-abandonment, and grief. It left marks on me that I’m still trying to understand.

So when I think about eventually meeting someone new, I get stuck.

On one hand, this is not exactly first-date material.

I’m not going to sit across from someone over coffee and say, “So, quick fun fact, I was the hidden partner in an affair for years and I’m still unpacking the emotional wreckage.”

That feels insane.

But hiding it completely feels wrong too.

Because if a future relationship becomes real, how do I leave out one of the most impactful relationships of my life? How do I let someone know me honestly while cutting out the chapter that explains so much about what I’ve been through?

And whatever mistakes I made in this chapter, I know honesty and trust have to matter going forward. That’s the mind fuck.

Tell too much too soon, and you risk being reduced to the worst or messiest chapter of your life. That’s already happened to me once.

Say too little for too long, and it starts to feel like you’re building something new on omission.

I don’t want my past to define me.

But I also don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.

I think the closest answer I’ve found so far is vague early, more honest later if something becomes real.

Something like:

“I was in a long relationship that was complicated and painful, and I’m still working through parts of it.”

Then, if trust is built and the person has earned more truth, maybe the fuller version comes later.

But I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe this is just part of the shame talking.

For those of you who have moved on after being the OW/OM, how did you handle this?

Did you tell future partners?

Did you keep it vague?

Did you wait until things were serious?

Did anyone ever see the whole truth of you and not reduce you to the affair?

I’m trying to figure out how to be honest without making this my identity.

I posted in another sub recently about the grief side of being the hidden partner, but this question is a little different.

I’m trying to understand the internal side of how people move on after an affair ends.

I was the OM in an 8-year relationship with a married woman.

I’m not here to judge anybody or act like I didn’t have responsibility in it. I know the role I played. I know I stayed in something I should have walked away from a long time ago.

But I’m still trying to understand the aftermath.

For years, I believed we were moving toward a day when the relationship could finally be open, honest, and real. There were promises, plans, and a whole private world built around “someday.”

Then when that “someday” finally seemed possible, she moved toward someone else.

That part has been really hard for me to make sense of.

So I’m asking people who have lived in this world, especially people who have ended an affair or moved from one person to another:

What was actually happening inside you?

Was the prior person already gone in your mind before it officially ended?

Did you grieve them later, even privately?

Did you minimize what they meant so you could keep going?

Did you have to rewrite the relationship in your own head so the ending made sense?

I’m not asking this to attack anyone. I know strangers can’t explain my exact situation, and I’m not looking for a moral trial.

I’m trying to understand the pattern.

How can someone share years of intimacy, promises, and emotional history with another person, then seem to move on like the hidden person barely existed?

My original post was locked before people could really respond to a follow-up comment I left, so I wanted to make this its own post.

For context, this was my original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/theotherwoman/s/4qGxjBev3d

Something I keep coming back to:

What do you do with the anger?

I know I was part of this. I’m not trying to pretend I was innocent or that I didn’t have a choice. I stayed in something hidden. I made choices. I own that.

But I don’t think owning my part means pretending I didn’t get hurt.

That’s the part I keep getting stuck on.

As a former OM, I’ve found almost no men talking openly about this. Not because I think the experience itself is rare, but because men just don’t seem to say it out loud very often:

“I was the hidden one. I loved her. I waited. I got hurt. And I genuinely don’t know what to do with the grief.”

There’s real anger in being left holding the bag emotionally. The grief, the shame, the secrecy, the unanswered questions, the damage. All while the other person moves forward.

And the anger is hard to talk about because it sounds like I’m trying to make myself the victim. I’m not. I know I had agency. I know I stayed. I know how complicated it was.

But there’s anger in realizing how much of your life existed in the margins. Anger in realizing how long you waited. Anger in watching someone else step into the open while you’re left grieving something most people didn’t even know existed.

The OW role seems to have more language around it, at least from what I’ve seen, even if that language comes with a lot of judgment and shame. I’m not saying OW have it easy. They don’t. But there are at least spaces and words for it. The OM role feels almost invisible. People assume it was just sex, or that you should’ve known better, or that you should just move on because you’re a man.

That’s not how it works when there was a real bond.

So for those of you who’ve been through this, OW or OM, what happened to the anger?

Did it actually turn into indifference? Not the “I’m fine” version. Real neutrality.

Or is the goal less about indifference and more about figuring out how to carry what happened without letting it run your life?

I’m not asking to dodge responsibility. I’m asking because I’m trying to figure out where to put the anger before it turns into something harder. Before it becomes bitterness.

I'm writing this without names or identifying details because this involves real people, and I'm not trying to expose anyone or turn this into a public morality trial.

I'm a 50M. I was the OM in a relationship that lasted eight years.

I know that sentence alone will make some people stop reading, and I understand why. I'm not proud of every part of this. I participated in something complicated and painful, and I own that I stayed in a situation I should have walked away from much earlier.

But I'm not writing this to justify the affair.

I'm writing because I haven't found many people talking about the specific grief that comes from being the hidden partner in something that was emotionally real, deeply intimate, and life-altering — but invisible to almost everyone else.

When we first connected, it was not physical right away. We built a friendship first over a period of months. The emotional closeness came before the intimacy. By the time anything crossed a line, there was already a real bond there.

She was married, and from what I was told and what I saw, the marriage appeared emotionally and physically disconnected. She described feeling lonely, unseen, and unloved.

I do not know the full reality of their marriage, and I am not here to litigate it. But emotionally, that is how it landed for me at the time. I believed that, and I let that belief become permission in my own mind.

For the first couple of years, the situation was almost pseudo-open, even though it was never named that way. Our families overlapped enough that it did not feel like I was some random secret person on the side. I felt integrated into parts of her life, even if the relationship itself was never honestly acknowledged.

Eventually, after seeing the dynamic up close for long enough, I said something directly to her husband. That changed everything. After that, I was no longer welcome in that part of her life, and from that point forward, the relationship continued in secrecy.

That was the beginning of the real hidden-partner structure.

For years after that, she and I remained deeply involved. We were best friends, partners, and lovers. There was emotional intimacy, daily closeness, future talk, shared history, private promises, shared trips, and the sense that we were building toward something once the timing was finally right. I helped carry parts of her life that very few people saw. I knew her broken places. I loved the parts she hid from the outside world.

Part of what made the bond so hard to grieve was that it felt like we knew each other in an unperformed way.

But secrecy has a tax.

You pay it in holidays you cannot claim. In milestones you cannot stand beside them for. In photos that do not exist. In stories you cannot tell. In being emotionally married to someone in private while having no public legitimacy at all.

And the goalposts kept moving.

There was always another season to get through. Another obligation. Another reason clarity had to wait. Eventually there was a specific finish line I believed would change everything — the point when the relationship could finally become open and honest.

But when that finish line came, nothing opened. It just removed the last excuse.

At the time, I kept interpreting it as timing, fear, stress, or circumstance. I did not understand what I was actually living inside until I was already too far in to see it clearly.

The cost did not feel equal. In the end, it felt like she lost a secret. I lost my center.

And because the relationship was hidden, the grief has been strange and isolating.

When a normal relationship ends, people know what you lost. Friends saw you together. Family may have known the person. There are photos, holidays, routines, public memories, and some kind of shared acknowledgment that the relationship existed.

In my case, when it ended, it felt like the relationship vanished into thin air. To most of the world, there was no breakup because there was never officially a relationship. There was no public grief. No normal mourning. No shared language for what I had lost.

When something hidden ends, part of the mindfuck is that there is almost no proof it mattered. No public record. No shared archive. Just your own body and memory insisting that it was real.

I was left grieving someone I loved, a future I believed in, and a version of my life that almost no one knew existed.

The ending itself was brutal. There was silence, distance, ambiguity, and no clean closure. I was left trying to piece together what had happened, when things changed, what was real, and whether she had already moved on to another man before I even understood that we were over.

That part has been especially hard to process.

Because for years, she was still married and I was the OM. Then, as the marriage was finally ending and the freedom I had been told I was waiting for became real, it looked to me like another man was stepping into the hidden space I had occupied for years. I can’t prove every detail, and I’m not here to litigate it. But emotionally, that is how it landed.

It made me feel like I had not only been hidden — I had been cycled out of the hidden role.

Another man seemed to be stepping into the freedom I had been told I was waiting for.

I know that sounds ugly. It is ugly. But that is the part I have had the hardest time making sense of.

Underneath all of it was the question I could not stop asking myself: if something can be erased this completely, how much of it was real to the other person?

I'm not claiming I handled everything perfectly. I didn't. I reacted badly at times. I made choices I regret. I stayed too long. I ignored reality. I accepted less than I needed because I believed the future would eventually make sense of the pain.

I am accountable for my part in this. I am not trying to erase that.

But accountability and self-erasure are not the same thing.

The relationship was real to me. The attachment was real. The love was real. The grief is real. And I am trying to hold those truths alongside the truth that I participated in something I should not have participated in for as long as I did.

Now I'm trying to get out of this never-ending fucking loop.

The hardest part has been realizing that I wasn't only grieving the person. I was grieving the role I played, the private world we built, the future I thought was coming, and the fact that none of it had a proper place to land when it ended.

I keep coming back to this question:

How do you grieve a relationship that was real to you, but invisible to almost everyone else?

Has anyone else been through this specific kind of hidden-partner grief? Not just an affair ending, but the aftermath of a long-term hidden relationship where you were emotionally invested, future-focused, involved in parts of each other's lives, and then left with no public acknowledgment, no clean ending, and no real place to put the loss?

I'm not looking for advice on how to get the person back. I'm not looking to attack anyone. And I'm not trying to avoid accountability for my own choices.

I'm trying to understand how people get through this without staying trapped in rumination, shame, anger, and grief.

If you've lived anything like this — being the hidden person, grieving something no one else could really see, feeling like you were replaced inside a structure that was already secret — how did you start moving forward?