What is with the English, affairs, and divorce?

People don't start threads about their happy marriages- its never going to be representative!

Lower divorce rates don't mean everyone is happy either HTH

Go back to school and learn how statistics work.
HTH

No, because Italy is also very Catholic, and another country where affairs are run-of-the-mill.

This board isn't representative of the population, bc your not hearing from the people who aren't impacted by affairs. It doesn't give you any kind of statistic.

LTB and go NC

@Seashellssanctuary , Not pedantic at all. It is an insult to use England as a name for GB or the UK. I am not English at all but I am British.
Your assumption was misguided.

What is it about the Irish and their boozing?

What a silly thread this is.

I'm from an Irish family. Plenty of philanderers on mine and DH's sides of the family, male and female.

I might start a thread about the fact that I don't think my husband is having an affair

My Irish ex husband had an affair and left me. I'm Scottish. Does this help?

What a load of bs.

People are shagging around in every country.

I’m fairness, no-one comes on here to ask if they are unreasonable for having a happy marriage or unreasonable not to have an affair. It’s a skewed view.

English Catholic here... in the community I'm in cheating and divorce are also less commonplace. Most of my friends are married and their parents for decades, and cheating (that we know of) and divorce are very rare and when it does happen, like you said, it's seen as very bad. It might well be to do with Catholicism and the guilt we feel doing anything wrong and also being in a community where it's unusual. But maybe also the example set by previous generations.

@Seashellssanctuary it's not pedantic at all, and I didn't say you were confused. You were being ignorant.

If you give a figure for "England" which is actually for the UK, then respond to OP's thread about England by talking about the UK, it implies you think England is basically the significant part of the UK. Happens all the time on here.

My "input" was not intended for your benefit.

Do you think Irish people have a different human brain to the English? Of course they cheat, it's just not as openly discussed.

I'd say Ireland is more culturally catholic than people literally believe it.

You just repent and all's forgiven anyway, and an affair is low down on list.

I'd say that had a lot to do with it, yes! Basically, married couples had to endure no matter what unless they were granted an anullment, and they were much more difficult to get until recently, not to mention EXTREMELY expensive. Sure we don't know how much domestic violence there was, especially due to drink, which I'm sorry to say has always been a problem here. I wonder if there was less adultery because of societal disapproval, everyone would know you and what you were at, and with being so much more devout, there'd be far fewer people willing to be affair partners, nor even having sex before marriage, so adultery-inclined people wouldn't have as much opportunity to betray their spouse and family that way? Social media and phone apps have made it so much easier; that's how my X went about it, Snapchatting young ones who were either gullible or didn't care that a middle-aged man was highly likely to be married! They might even have known and not given a damn!
Thing's ain't what they used to be in Mother Ireland!

You just don't hear about it. We're very vocal here and if we're not happy people will know about it that includes affairs! Maybe it's just kept quiet there no.

No, but I do think we should reinstate the shame culture for people (men) who bugger off and don’t pay fairly for their children. Shame culture should be rife for them.

I don’t know…. If I literally believed I would burn in hell for eternity for defiling the sanctity of marriage for some hot sex in the here-and-now, I would definitively take a moment to pause and reconsider.

God knows everything after all, even if your spouse doesn’t. And it takes a lot of Hail Mary’s to claw your way back from breaking a Commandment and a sacred vow of marriage.

So at least a percentage of the religious population probably were/are influenced by their faith and their abject terror of hell.

Not everyone, of course. But some.

YABU.
This is an online forum not real life. Take it all with a pinch of salt.

My DH is from an Irish family. His grandfather deomonstrated the "commitment to partnership/ children" by having two (large by today's standard) families that he moved between. His wife knew about the second family and tolerated it.

It’s not an “English” problem. It’s a man problem.

Men come from all nationalities and ethnicities.

Thankfully, in England, we don’t have a culture where divorce brings shame on a family.

You seem to think that Mumsnet represents all of the UK.
Do you understand anything about statistics?
And do you realise how small a proportion of the UK population post on Mumsnet?

Hmmm. Naive? Or just childishly goady?