What's the feminist take on affairs?

"I wouldn't have an affair because I love my partner. But if single wouldn't have a relationship with a married man as I feel it is wrong. Part of that is because i feel enabling a man to check out of his marriage or family life and have casual sex is supporting the patriarchy. It enables men to use women for domestic purposes and raise his family while also having sex with who they want. So overall is bad for women. I feel like that's not overall a popular opinion. That women should be able to do what they want."

I view this differently. I wouldn't have an affair with an involved (married or in a relationship) man or woman because I want to be part of hurting another human being. Having an affair is enabling any person (man or woman) to check out of their relationship and have casual sex at the expense of their partner. That is the issue to me, it being at the expense of another person, and that is a moral, not feminist, issue.

"Part of that is because i feel enabling a man to check out of his marriage or family life and have casual sex is supporting the patriarchy. It enables men to use women for domestic purposes and raise his family while also having sex with who they want. So overall is bad for women."

What about a man who has an affair with a married woman? What system is he supporting that enables the woman to use the man for domestic purposes of raising or providing for the family (or a mix of both) whist allows her to have sex with who they want. Affairs aren't intrinsically bad for men or women. They're bad for whoever's being cheated on, whoever's trust is being taken advantage of and broken. Whoever's playing their part in the contract of marriage and family life whilst the other breaks there's. And that person can be a man or woman, and the cheater can be a man or a woman, and sometimes both parties are men or both women in gay relationships. That's what makes it moral rather than feminist issue.

So sorry your shitty soon-to-be exH has done this to you, OP. It takes a certain type of very calculating nastiness to actually set up a flat with the OW while still with your wife.

I think I said upthread that the feminist issues for me round infidelity were not about the choices made by individual women, but about the systemic institutional, legal and financial inequalities in marriage (both legal and de facto) which put women as a class in a vulnerable position. And that's jumping out at me again from your post - you're a SAHM, not out of personal choice, but because 2 of your children have special needs and (to use the American phrase) someone has to step up to the plate, and in our sexist society that's almost always the mother.

So you've made huge personal and financial sacrifices for the marriage and for your children (for instance, I bet the money he's spaffed up the wall on the second flat could have paid for a nanny and decent respite care for you and your children) - and the fact that the system is set up to condone this, and that he'll probably manage to evade a lot of his financial responsibilities towards you and the children - that most definitely is a feminist issue.

His OW? Not so much. She's a arsewipe on an individual level (she can't play the "he never told me" or "he told me his wife didn't understand him" cards in these circumstances). And I don't doubt it will come back to bite her in the arse. He's demonstrated he's a very nasty piece of work indeed - and she's going to be the one stuck with him.

She is likely to be his next victim too, I'd bet actual money on that. She behaved badly but likely will pay for it, as the ExH will likely devalue and discard her too.

My take on this from a feminist is about how society enables men to dump their wives and kids, often after the wife has sacrificed her career to care for those kids.

The "nice guy" at my work is like this. Went for a pint with him once and he told me about the daughter he never sees, doesn't pay to support and has never chased contact. The way he describes her mother is textbook for an abusive twat, but he somehow still manages to be the guy everyone thinks so well of! I distanced myself after hearing that, and I still think he's baffled as to why! There is definitely a feminist issue in how society fails to make deadbeat dads accountable.

Drink driving used to be socially acceptable, but a massive public ad campaign changed that. Smoking indoors, too.

Stay strong OP, hopefully one day society will recognize that men like your ex are reprehensible.

The other point here, apart from all the other ones mentioned, is that if feminists take a stance that women should uphold moral standards (which is the gist I think), is what does that mean for other countries with much more restrictive moral expectations for women?

Really sorry this happened to you, OP. As stated upthread, I've been in the position of being the cheated party and I know it feels crap.

But also: I think you're falling into the familiar trap of holding women responsible for being kind and catering to other people's feelings while not holding men to the same standard. Yes, the OW did a pretty shitty thing. But she's not made any committments to uphold your best interests, love or respect you, to protect your family or your feelings. Technically, she owes you nothing. Your husband does!

I think in a lot of these instances people don't really think much about it at all. Even if they have a sense of unease about it. Most of us have some things we do that make us uneasy, buying iphones, or driving too much, etc but we do them anyway and sometimes we just try not to think about them too much.

A lot of people, especially younger ones, are that way about sexual relationships.

Tbh, when a man is abusive I think the affair is almost irrelevant, other than the fact that (if discovered) it can often be the catalyst for the relationship ending at last - it seems that women will put up with abuse but not infidelity, which is the final straw. So in a weird way you could argue that the OW has kind of done you a favour in giving you the final push to leave a man you should have left years ago.

I hope that doesn't come across too harsh, just trying to present a different way of looking at it.

I feel for you and your children, OP. Your husband is a shit, and this other woman is too; she may well be very young and stupid, but that just makes her a stupid shit.

I doubt if someone so selfish would call herself a feminist, as feminism involves standing up for other women too.

I'm sorry you're in this situation but it's your husband who is the utter shit. You've fallen into the classic trap of blaming the OW. Same old same old!

Personally, i've always managed to fall in love with unobtainable people/out of limits, or in more recent years, I've developed love affairs with certain cities ( Rome, for example)

I mean with people who you just can't have, for whatever reason.....the intensity of feeling captures something in you...feels irresistible..the person features in your dreams and in your waking thoughts. Likewise the place/the city.....

Cheating is potentially a feminist issue in that the language, blame and victimhood that results has seriously sexism undertones. But I don't believe that an OW is necessarily anti feminist. Sure, it makes her a not particularly nice person because she is engaging in activity that is, by most standards, morally wrong, but that's got nothing to do with feminism.

However, the way OWs are blamed and the language used to describe them (tart, whore, bitch etc) are all anti-feminist. The fact that men so often carry on with their lives while the OW has hers torn apart. Similarly, post break up, the man who had the affair is so often better off financially due to deep systemic sexist issues in our society.

I also had never thought about this but this comment from a pp really also resonates with me:

None of these systemic issues are down to the individual OW. Though actually I think I would argue that a second wife who encourages her new husband to welch on his obligations to his first wife and children is anti-feminist, because at that point she's choosing to support a political/institutional framework which allows women to be shafted.

Maybe we romanticise marriage too much; expecting too much from it? I'm always a bit taken aback by the numbers of women who still dream of big, fairy tale weddings with all of the trimmings..."the best day of their lives" and so on....

Strictly speaking, & certainly traditionally, a marriage was a contractual agreement between two parties, or two families, or two communities ( and in the past a contractual agreement in which the woman was effectively considered property). Marriage was/is more about continuity and stability and the creation of an economic & family unit, than about love and romance - as we now tend to see it, and expect from it.

A love affair is an affair of the heart, not a contractual agreement, and the heart does not follow rules, it follows its own calling. I'm sure most of us have fallen in love and/or had crushes while in a committed relationship with another...whether we act on those feelings is a different matter. Personally, i've always managed to fall in love with unobtainable people/out of limits, or in more recent years, I've developed love affairs with certain cities ( Rome, for example).

A love affair ( not just a sexual fling) makes you feel alive, vibrant.....one sees only the best in the lover...how they match you perfectly...it is irresistible, consuming, maybe even obsessive.....and then it eventually burns itself out.

I was hitching through France once, in my late teens...and I ended up on the mediterranean coast, working on the restoration of a boat that belonged to a couple. A man and a woman. They were both married to other people( and each had children with their spouse) but this was their joint project. they came out to the boat for a weekend every so often and met up with friends of their relationship.

One evening the woman went home to her family, and the man apologised to me for not making a pass at me one evening, after we'd been out to dinner with their friends. He thought I''d be offended if he didn't. What a relief!

Which comes back to patriarchal religions, different 'spheres', women as gatekeepers of sex, women placed as protectors of 'morals' in society etc etc etc

Affairs are on both. And not a measure of whether individual women get to be in the feminist 'club' or not.

The pertinent conversation is around how our family lives are structured and how men are facilitated in so many ways to do what they want and women get the blame whatever happens.

So yeah less about the woman and more about what it means for men. For example I struggle with stripping. Not for the women who do it but like it gives men what they want and supports their negative attitude to women. So it is a feminist issue. But affairs are on the men not the women.

I wouldn't have an affair because I love my partner. But if single wouldn't have a relationship with a married man as I feel it is wrong. Part of that is because i feel enabling a man to check out of his marriage or family life and have casual sex is supporting the patriarchy. It enables men to use women for domestic purposes and raise his family while also having sex with who they want. So overall is bad for women. I feel like that's not overall a popular opinion. That women should be able to do what they want.

Feminism is about class analysis.

It's not about singling out women whose actions you don't agree with and saying 'you're not a feminist'.

Anyone got that quote about feminism being for all women even ones who do this you don't like?

I really can't get excited about this as a feminist issue at all. It's about 2 people doing something consensual. If a man who is married to a woman and has an affair with a man it's not a feminist issue even though the hurt to the wife is the same as if it were a woman? A lesbian who has an affair with a woman married to a woman is extra bad. The married lesbian deserves more scrutiny 'unsisterly' than a man who does the same?

Comparisons to porn etc are ridiculous.

Genetic conversations about the way women who have affairs are painted etc while men are just left to get on with it are valid. I would say that women who have affairs get more blame than men. Which is rooted in society ongoing desire to blame women for everything and remove the spotlight from men. According to many posters though, these women deserve more condemnation not less, and still no focus on the men.

It's a nope from me.

She knows that she is doing the cruelest thing she can do to another woman--violating her private life and quite possibly shattering her family.

I think this is a bit of a slippery slope, to be honest. Having been on the receiving end of cheating, to be frank: it was shit and painful and I was hurt and angry - but it was by no means the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to me.

What would the implications be for other woman-on-woman world shattering scenarios? Is it unfeminist for me in my role as a female executive to fire a female employee because this may cause her hardship? What if I fire a man whose wife is a SAHM and this makes her family's world shatter? What if I'm a lesbian and break my partner's heart because this relationship doesn't work for me anymore? Is it unfeminist for me not to stay in a miserable situation? And so on ...

I don't like this way of thinking. It really does elevate the "sisterhood" to a stick with which to beat women in all sorts of scenarios!

I absolutely think that a woman who has an affair with a married man is behaving in a very unfeminist way. She knows that she is doing the cruelest thing she can do to another woman--violating her private life and quite possibly shattering her family. It is a cruel act that will hurt and disempower another woman that simply does not have to be done.