<p>My favorite comment is the one about the third person in the relationship. Um, that would be YOU, Smug Snotty New Wife.</p>
<p>I think the NYT puts stories like this up, not so we can approve this narcissistic couple, but so we can enjoy sneering at them. They’re trolling us. “You really want to tell this story to the world, you smug self-absorbed exhibitionist? Oh-kay, let’s go.”</p>
<p>^^^ Perhaps - but whatever their motivation, they should have higher standards. They are so elevated that they don’t have comic strips.</p>
<p>The NYTimes crowd doesn’t read comic strips.</p>
<p>The NYTimes is a business, and they want eyeballs. Is this tabloid fare for the upper-crust? Oh heck yeah. But that crowd wouldn’t be caught dead with a “National Enquirer” in their hands, so the NYTimes is kindly filling a niche.</p>
<p>One of the reasons I’ve lost touch with someone I cared a lot about was that we had many conversations during our friendship about lines we would NOT cross. One of them that she mentioned and I agreed with was dating someone who was married with children. Over the summer, she did meet, fall in love with and start dating a man with children. She was very annoyed with me that I wasn’t overjoyed and fully supportive of her and this new love and relationship and was very “cool” to me ever after, despite being best friends and room mates prior to that. I never judged but just told her I was surprised at her choice for new boyfriend because of the line that SHE had previously said she wouldn’t cross, but she was hurt. 30+ years later, she’s still hurt.</p>
<p>Upthread someone asked how you would advise a married brother or sister who came to you for advice after falling in love with someone else.</p>
<p>Well, I would remind them that in new/newish relationships everybody can look good/better than the person that you’ve been with for a long time. You have known your spouse for years. You know their faults and weaknesses, so the comparison isn’t fair. You aren’t living with this new love so you really don’t know if being with that person will be so much better (assuming that the married sibling is still living with his/her spouse). </p>
<p>Someone upthread commented that there have been cheaters who remarry and they stay married. Well, we really don’t know how much happier they are. They may just be wiser now. They may now realize that divorce is devastating and they don’t want to go thru that again. They may realize that Spouse #2 has just as many faults, but why start over again? They may be too embarrassed to leave Spouse #2 because of how the relationship started.</p>
<p>Frankly, the people in the video should have been shunned by their extended family members (and his kids) from the get-go and then maybe the husband would have had a clue that this was not cool. </p>
<p>* that crowd wouldn’t be caught dead with a “National Enquirer” in their hands, so the NYTimes is kindly filling a niche.*</p>
<p>I thought that’s what * Vanity Fair* was for?</p>
<p>I just think the whole story is just gross and it just speaks to how clueless people can be because few (if any) people confronted them when this all began or when it first came out. </p>
<p>I hope his kids never accept her. Second/third marriages have horrible success rates largely because of the “baggage” from the first marriage. The new wife has some fantasy that “with effort” they can make this all work. </p>
<p>This reminds me of “Jon” from Jon and Kate Plus 8. When that marriage broke up and he was seeing that one girl, he declared that he had found the love of his life, and that he was truly in love for the first time, and that they would be together forever. lol. The relationship didn’t even last a year. He was another self-absorbed person and his decisions on that show demonstrated immaturity on many levels. </p>
<p>mom2collegekids, I think you make some very good points but I still struggle with what people should do if they are no longer in love with their spouse and have found love with someone else. Do they remain in the marriage until the children are in college or otherwise “launched,” or are you saying they should just stay the course as the “grass is not always greener”?</p>
<p>I think that this particular couple is clueless and self-absorbed, but many others do realize the gravity of their predicament and struggle with trying to make the best out of it for everyone concerned. Others suffer silently in marriages that aren’t working. I am not sure what the answer is myself, but I do not see it as a black and white situation.</p>
<p>I would divorce if that is the case. It’s not fair for the other person in a marriage. But I personally wouldn’t give any advice.
But I have aunts that fell in love and off multiple times and the results are multiple children from multiple fathers. One of my aunt’s daughter never remarried even after her husband died when she was relatively youngish. I think the effect was hard on her having to take care of so many siblings.</p>
<p>I have seen the situation play out a few times with friends and acquaintances. The older the children are, the better they seem to weather the split. When there are very young children involved it seems the split, even after the divorce is final, can be a never ending drama. If one parent remarries it seems it is very difficult for the other parent to accept that the new spouse will have so much access to the children. I would have a huge problem with that as a well, but I think in the end it is part and parcel of a divorce that just has to be accepted.</p>
<p>It is easy to confuse infatuation with love. Only time helps to tell the difference between the two.</p>
<p><a href=“If This Isn't Real Love, What Is? The Fallibility of Infatuation | HuffPost Women”>http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4241987</a></p>
<p>To be fair both of my aunts divorced their first husband for good reasons. Not for falling in love with someone else. One was slapped in the first face by her first husband due to jealousy. One had been married more than 10 years with no children, he was rich but she didn’t care, she wanted children of her own.
But I think it’s much fairer to a spouse if you think you are in a loveless marriage or terrible marriage to get out, for your sake and for the other person’s sake as soon as you realize and make sure it’s not a temporary feeling. Would this person think of a divorce if there are no other person involved, ie somebody to fall in love with. Waiting for children to grow up is a bit of a cop out. Is it ok to sneak and have affairs? What if the other person is already married and have children? What if the person you are in love with don’t want to marry you when you are single. My sister had friends like that. The doctor my sister’s friend was having affairs with wouldn’t marry her. She was only good for affairs because she was discreet. His ex-wife had mental health issue. I think the minute the wife committed suicide, he remarried to some one else and not to my sister’s friend.</p>
<p>The best outcome I have seen is when there was in fact a divorce, but the spouse that left did not marry the new love right away. Waited until all the children were in college. And while the kids were growing up, the new relationship was very discreet - it was never forced upon the children. Their time together was when the children were with the other parent. I think that is a person who really tried to minimize any damage all the way around. It went a long way with his ex, who never had to deal with another woman being any significant influence in the lives of her children. </p>
<p>@HarvestMoon1 </p>
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<p>Ok…let’s acknowledge that people don’t feel that they are “no longer in love with their spouse” and then ON THE SAME DAY OR WEEK realize that they are in love with someone else. lol </p>
<p>We certainly can acknowledge that when a spouse carefully determines that the marriage is not salvageable (for serious reasons) and he/she is “open” to SEEKING a new relationship then THAT IS the time to separate/leave. </p>
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<p>I think that when a person thinks that s/he is no longer in love with their spouse, the first thing to do (before becoming open to a new love!) is see if there can be a rekindling of the marriage. THEY OWE THAT to the marriage/children. Obviously, if there is abuse or something serious, that aspect will influence whether the marriage can be saved. But all of that should be analyzed before setting one’s heart open to finding a new love and then falling in love. Again, they OWE that to the marriage. However, there seems to be too little sense of owing anything to one’s marriage when a person has an attitude like, “well, I am more attracted to this new hot co-worker than I am to my spouse.”</p>
<p>And, while figuring out if one’s marriage can be rekindled, it would help if the person “take stock” and think about the outcome…Any “new love” will seem super at first, but will have a whole new set of faults that your current spouse doesn’t have…and you are likely to find those new faults as annoying or more annoying than the ones your spouse has. (Again, I’m assuming that the current spouse doesn’t have something horribly seriously wrong - abuse, raging alcoholic, etc…) And, then there’s the issue of divided assets, divided retirements, tens of thousands going to attorneys/courts, children’s lives disrupted, etc. </p>
<p>When you think about it…It is silly to think that one’s current spouse is THE BEST person possible for anyone. There likely will always be someone else out there that could be a better match, better attraction, more talented, better personality, etc. But, we made a family with the spouse we’ve selected. (this isn’t a perfect analogy, but, we all know other children that have some aspects that are better than our own children, but we don’t throw ours overboard because some other kid is (perceived to be) nicer, smarter, more polite, more talented, or whatever. ) </p>
<p>It sounds like one spouse could turn physically unattractive over the course of the marriage.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>What do you mean? Are you referring to the couple in the video? or to couples in general?</p>
<p>@drgoogle </p>
<p>I do have a friend whose husband gained an unbelievable amount of weight…I am not just talking typical stuff…I am talking about hugely obese where he can’t breathe, he can’t seem to bathe properly and has BO issues, etc. It has affected their sex life. </p>
<p>In general. I’m guessing one of the reasons for the comment no longer in love with their spouse. Change in appearance could be one.</p>
<p>Sure…but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to have an affair. </p>
<p>My friend may end up leaving, but she won’t have an affair first. Her H’s grooming habits have really taken a dive even though she has repeatedly spoken to him. He won’t use deodorant either. She has to wash their bed sheets everyday because they smell after one use. </p>
<p>She has tried to "help’ him lose weight…not by bugging him, but by serving healthier meal choices in more reasonably-sized servings, but he does end-runs around her efforts. </p>
<p>The weird thing is that they haven’t been married for THAT long. I think they’re coming up on their 8th anniversary. And he has started smoking again…something he had long given up…long before they married. </p>
<p>There may soon come a time when she will leave. If she LATER finds someone else, that is different. But she won’t be “looking” now. lol</p>
<p>Sure it’s not ok to have an affair. But to be honest with you if I actually married to one like that, the marriage wont last long. I’m particular about smell, can’t stand people who smoke or drink liquor. They smell too awful for me.</p>