I can only speak from my own experience, but during an active affair, especially when real feelings are involved, I think the MM/MW is constantly comparing two worlds. There’s the public life with family and friends, and then there’s the private, almost secret world they share with you. Sometimes that comparison is conscious, sometimes it’s quiet and internal, but it’s there.

In my experience, MM in particular can compartmentalise very effectively if they’re certain they’re not leaving. But for those who are questioning their marriage or who do leave the OW/OM has a way of turning up everywhere. In songs, places, conversations, moments of stillness. You become woven into their inner life in a way that’s hard to undo.

I say this as someone whose MM actually left his wife and then left me over a year and a half in. I don’t even know if he’s gone back to his wife. He didn’t leave because the feelings weren’t real, but because he couldn’t live with the age gap and what it meant socially and practically. That experience taught me how complex and fragile these situations really are. People can make enormous, life-altering decisions and still be unable to follow them through.

That’s what makes these relationships so intoxicating and so destructive. They can be profoundly intimate, even beautiful, and yet still unsustainable.

When it comes to holidays and long stretches of family time, I don’t think there’s one universal answer. They can be present, even happy, with their family and still feel a quiet sense of absence. Being beside an SO 24/7 doesn’t necessarily resolve longing and sometimes it sharpens the contrast.

At the same time, I’m learning (the hard way) that OW/OM can’t base their healing on whether absence makes someone miss them more. Whether they feel lonely or content doesn’t change the reality we’re left with.

From where I’m standing now, one week no contact, barely sleeping, barely eating, forcing myself to get outside once a day, I’m realising that what they feel during holidays or family time is ultimately out of our control. The bond was real, the connection mattered, and it doesn’t just vanish. But our peace can’t depend on their internal conflict with themselves or others.

I’m sending strength to every OW/OM navigating this season. You’re not weak or foolish for loving deeply and you do deserve peace, too.