Will he leave his wife for me? 5 big signs he will

Are you in a relationship with a man who is committed to someone else?

It might feel exciting and like you have a perfect connection. But at the same time, it’s strained and difficult — because it has to be hidden away and kept a secret.

You love him. You want things to change and hope that he chooses you once and for all.

But, the plain truth is this:

Nothing but pain can come from holding on to an affair.

The outcome is rarely positive.

It’s a hard truth to accept. But we’ve all been there.

I’ll take you through the top reasons why he might leave his wife for you and explain why, most of the time, relationships built around cheating aren’t worth it. Let’s get started.

5 signs he is likely to leave his wife

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1) His marriage is strained and unhappy

If the guy you’re with feels like he made a mistake getting married, it might lead him to make a change and end the relationship with his wife.

Maybe he’s really unhappy in his marriage. He’s facing a lot of strain and stress because they’re genuinely incompatible. This can be a sign that he’s going to end his marriage.

But this depends on how much turmoil he is willing to face. Is the pain of staying more than the pain of leaving?

There’s still a huge concern as to why he isn’t already divorced or why he’s looking for a relationship while he’s unavailable.

If he is unhappy and seeking out a relationship with you, he might be getting the best of both worlds for himself.

2) He doesn’t have children

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If your man has children, he has huge reasons to stay with his current family. Kids are like innocent bystanders when it comes to a cheating relationship. Children that deal with infidelity are often the ones hurt the most.

But if he doesn’t have any children with his wife, there’s less to worry about. It’s more likely he might leave his marriage for your relationship.

That being said, no kids doesn’t just mean he’ll come running to you in a heartbeat. There’s still a lot at stake. Marriage–no matter how or why it happened–is a really serious thing.

Understanding the nuances of a committed marriage, along with the difficulties of leaving that kind of relationship, is important. It won’t be easy for him to leave his wife, children, or no children.

3) His wife is mean to him or toxic

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If his wife is being toxic to him by being mean, berating, or belittling him, it’s possible he’ll leave her for you.

Maybe he turned to you for refuge or escape in the first place. Or maybe he’s just looking for any excuse to get away from that damaging relationship. You happened to be in the right place at the right time.

But even if he does leave his wife for you because of this, remember that there will still be fallout. Divorce is never easy, especially when he’s been cheating on her.

If he’s suffered from a damaging relationship for months or even years–one as serious and binding as a marriage–he’ll probably have a lot of emotional problems to work on. He has to heal from that experience.

Helping him heal won’t be easy. And once he starts to heal, there’s the possibility that he concludes you were just a part of that healing process and makes the decision to move on.

Each situation is different, of course, and each person will react differently. Healing is a difficult and often unknowable process.

If his wife’s behavior is less extreme, it’s possible that he’s not being entirely truthful about the problems in his marriage. He might be using his wife as a scapegoat.

He could be the actual cause of them, and those problems could carry over into your relationship–should he leave his wife for you.

4) He no longer connects emotionally with his wife

If a man finds himself in a marriage without a strong emotional connection, it’s unlikely to last.

Without an emotional connection to his vowed life partner, it makes sense he would turn to other people instead.

Other people being you, in this case.

So how is your emotional connection with him? Does it seem deep and lasting?

That can be hard to answer in a cheating relationship, which is often based on the scandalous, risky, and sexual nature of affairs.

But, maybe you do share that kind of connection. If he won’t share his emotions or open up about his marital problems and why he’s having an affair with you, it could be that he’s the actual problem.

It could be that he’s not connecting emotionally with her, instead of the other way around.

5) He feels trapped

There are a lot of reasons why a man might feel trapped in a marriage.

The burden of family life can be heavy. Some men might feel too weighed down by the responsibilities and monotony involved in this kind of domestic life.

A mistress (you) could be the jolt of excitement that he wants. The perfect solution to the entrapment he feels in his current situation.

So if he’s feeling especially trapped and in need of change, he might leave his wife for you.

Doing so would drastically upend his life.

It’s also possible that his wife is moving too fast for his comfort. She might be ready to buy a house together so that they can have children. That’s just not something he’s ready for yet, so he feels the need to get out while he can.

Reasons why he’ll never leave his wife

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1) Divorce is messy and difficult

The average cost of a divorce in the U.S. in 2020 is $12,900. The cost only starts to go up when you introduce complications, children, custody, and more.

That’s a lot of money to spend just so he can be with you.

And that’s not to mention the emotional cost of separating from his wife–the pain he knows he’s going to cause her, the difficulty of that guilt. Never mind the logistics of having to extricate his life from hers.

It all adds up to a huge amount of pain, work, stress, strain, and difficulty.

It all adds up to this: strong reasons to stay with his wife, and to keep you as his mistress. That way he doesn’t have to deal with the financial difficulty and burden of a divorce.

2) Between his wife and his mistress (you) he has everything he needs

When people leave their home country to go to a new one, there are two types of factors that might make them do so. (Bear with me a moment.)

There’s the push factor, meaning that there’s something negative in their country that they want to get away from.

And then there’s the pull factor, meaning that there’s something in a different country that draws them there.

The end result is the same: they emigrate from their country to a new one.

When it comes to an affair, a man faces neither a push nor a pull factor.

Why?

Because he has everything he needs. He has the best of both worlds.

With his wife, he has structure, a family life, and financial stability. With his wife, he has a house, a future, and a support system.

With you, his mistress, he has excitement, pleasure, sex, desire, and the chance to be “a bad boy”. He has passion, escape, and privacy. There are arguments it’s even beneficial.

So which should he choose?

Neither; why should he have to choose? That’s what’s running through his mind if he’s cheating on his wife with you. He can have the best of both worlds right now.

Why should he blow up his whole life just to have you when he can keep his life the same and get both?

It’s not good reasoning, and it’s definitely not fair for either you or his wife. But it’s the way he’s probably thinking about things, and it’s why he won’t leave his wife for you.

3) He still loves her

Ask yourself why he’s still with his wife at all.

He may complain to you about everything wrong with her, how terrible marriage is, and how much he wants out. If he’s particularly shameless, he might even keep promising he’ll leave her for you.

But why hasn’t he left her yet?

It could be because he still loves her. And, if a healthy person stops loving the person they’re with–married or not–they’ll be able to confront them and talk about it. On their own accord and without having to cheat.

If the guy you’re with still loves his wife, he’s not going to leave her for you.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t love you, too, or that he doesn’t care about you.

He likely cares about you a lot and wants to make sure you’re okay, too.

Remember, though, he’s only married to one of you. And if he’s hesitating to blow up his whole life for you, it could be because he still dearly cares about his wife.

He worries about how much it will hurt her, how damaging it would be if she found out that he was cheating. Never mind how stressful and unfair a divorce over infidelity would be for her.

It’s a huge reason why he would never leave his wife for you.

Here are 11 signs it’s time to leave a relationship and move on.

4) If he had a strong personal reason to leave his wife, he already would have

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This point touches on his motives for cheating in the first place, as well as his personal reasons for having an affair.

He might tell you that he wants to leave his wife and that she’s not an important part of his life anymore. He might say that he’s planning to leave her any day now because he just can’t take it anymore.

But ask him, “why haven’t you left her already?”

If he had a strong personal reason to leave his wife, he likely would have done so already. Of course, every person and situation is different, so this might not be the case

However, by and large, ending a relationship with someone–regardless of marriage or not–will be done for personal reasons, and doesn’t have to involve infidelity.

Understanding why people cheat

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Making the decision to be unfaithful isn’t exactly a simple one. Living a double life and hiding your actions from your spouse comes at a great cost.

And while the decision isn’t simple, the reasons behind why are even more complicated.

Remember, while you may be a party to the cheating, you’re not the one actually cheating. It’s important to understand why he’s cheating on his wife with you.

There are a lot of reasons why affairs are usually unhealthy and unsustainable.

These relationships tend to root in selfish decision-making.

No matter how hard the two of you try to justify the depth of your love or the reasons for your choices, the hard truth is this: you both made a decision that will directly hurt another person. And you made that decision willingly.

Cheating isn’t the only time we don’t get to decide if we hurt someone.

It’s also highly likely your relationship is too one-sided.

Due to the nature of an affair, he has to dictate when the two of you meet up. His life is structured around his family first, then you.

You might find yourself at his every beck and call, waiting for a late-night rendezvous, waiting for the day he finally leaves his wife for you. But, there’s a strong chance you aren’t as important to him as you deserve to be.

Moving forward

The best way to move forward is to make your own proactive decisions.

The way I see it is you have two options.

You can wait around for him to leave his wife.

Or you can move on.

If you tell him you don’t want to see him, he has to decide whether or not your relationship is important enough to him to make some hard choices (like leaving his wife).

You can also engage in different relationships. You can start seeing other men. Your relationship is hardly exclusive as it stands.

If you take a proactive stand, reclaim your independence, and make a few important and courageous decisions, you can come out of it ahead–whatever the outcome may prove to be.

It’s hard to move on.

You might think that he is the perfect man for you, even if he’s not yours.

But all too often, waiting for the perfect person to come around ends in disappointment and heartbreak.

When it comes to relationships, you might be surprised to hear that there’s one very important connection you’ve probably been overlooking:

The relationship you have with yourself. 

I learned about this from the shaman Rudá Iandê. In his incredible, free video on cultivating healthy relationships, he gives you the tools to plant yourself at the center of your world.

And once you start doing that, there’s no telling how much happiness and fulfillment you can find within yourself and in your relationships. 

So what makes Rudá’s advice so life-changing? 

Well, he uses techniques derived from ancient shamanic teachings, but he puts his own modern-day twist on them. He may be a shaman, but he’s experienced the same problems in love as you and I have.

And using this combination, he’s identified the areas where most of us go wrong in our relationships. 

So if you’re tired of your relationships never working out, of feeling undervalued, unappreciated, or unloved, this free video will give you some amazing techniques to change your love life around. 

Make the change today and cultivate the love and respect you know you deserve. 

Click here to watch the free video

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Tina Fey

I've ridden the rails, gone off track and lost my train of thought. I'm writing for Ideapod to try and find it again. Hope you enjoy the journey with me.

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