To think that people having affairs

[InappropriateCrushes]

Is very very rife. Made so much easier with social networking sites, mobiles and email.

People I know, friends, friends of friends, colleagues, everybody is at it, or at least flirting, or sexting, or on the brink of something they shouldn't be.

It's not right, I know, I'm not saying it is. On the relationships forum there are so many threads from heartbroken women whose partners have cheated, but it got me wondering; who are they cheating with? That someone could be you or me. We're naice girls, it doesnt make us evil or detestable, does it?

is this person a crap parent?

a man who gave up his studies and dreams of becoming a teacher to provide for his family, a man who emotionally and financially supported his daughter when her husband went off, a man who had to give up work and had to fight with ss to look after his granddaughter (me), a man who spent hours with his grandchildren becasue their fathers were crap taking them on days out, doing school work with them, cooked for their friends, making sure they went on holiday oh and held the family together when my nanny had a breakdown

is that a terrible parent? is that a terrible person? he was a wonderful man we were very very lucky to have him in our lives

he had an affair and i hope he got some happiness out of it he certainly deserved to

I truly believe decent people don't engage in this behaviour

I'm sorry if you've been hurt by a similar situation. Equally kids can be hurt by parents who no longer love each other and are 'staying together for the sake of the children'

I'd agree with Freudian and would say the difference is that they are a crap partner/spouse rather than a crap person or parent.

I'd even argue there are distinctions to be drawn within the 'crap partner' label. A former boss of mine, met his now wife when unhappily married to his ex. Before embarking on the new relationship, he split up with his ex wife and has remained (as far as I know) happily married to his second wife. It isn't an ideal situation, but I view it far more sympathetically than someone having a succession of one night stands behind their partner's back.

Having an affair isn't the only way of finding happiness, and most certainly doesn't always end with happiness. No matter how much one deserves happiness, it still doesn't make having an affair right.

Meh, the people on this thread who have had affairs/are the OW/OM and don't regret it always come out with the same claptrap about things not being 'black and white'. Tis human nature to defend what you have done or are doing, even if you know it's wrong and you wouldn't like it done to you. What this comes down to is selfishness and it's no more complicated or 'grey-in-hue' than that.

Of course children suffer because of affairs especially if their parents' marriage breaks up because of it. Kids who've been raised to tell the truth find it a complete headfuck when the one who's instilled those values turns out to be a liar and a cheat. And their pain is usually made worse when the one who's had the affair lacks the guts to speak honestly to them about what happened, or rarer still takes responsibility for it. In one family I know, the dad had a much-regretted affair and he took it on himself to apologise to his kids as well as his wife, because apart from the affair he had been a shit dad to them while he was playing away. He put his hands up to what he'd done and was honest with them. They seem fine now but every other kid I know has been severely fucked-up by their parents' affairs - far more so than so called 'normal' break-ups.

I know a few people who've had affairs and not one of them thinks that they were an effective parent while it was going on. They were preoccupied, absent, stressed-to-fuck, irritable and unavailable. Seems like they're not as self-deluded as the unfaithful of Mumsnet eh?

Meh, the people on this thread who have had affairs/are the OW/OM and don't regret it always come out with the same claptrap about things not being 'black and white'. Tis human nature to defend what you have done or are doing, even if you know it's wrong and you wouldn't like it done to you.

How fucking dare you!

For your information I have never been unfaithful to anyone I have been in a relationship with. Fair enough disagree with me on the impact of affairs etc. but to sink to insinuating that other posters are having affairs is the cheapest of cheap shots.

It pretty much invalidates anything you have to say, if you have to resort to playground tactics.

sternface is talking about people who have had affairs - if you haven't, then surely her comments don't apply to you?

I cheated on my ex-DH. It was the beginning of the end. Young, selfish and entitled - no other reasons for it. I couldn't look myself in the face and ended up leaving him, because he deserved better. He never found out, and we didn't have children, but I well and truly learnt my lesson. It was not how I was raised at all (two loving parents who never cheated on each other and wouldn't have dreamed of doing so; very much until death did they part) and I was so appalled by myself.

It will be a cold day in hell before I cheat on DH, the father of my children.

sternface is talking about people who have had affairs

S/he quoted what I had said on a previous post.

Luckily the company I work in now is very nice and nothing like this goes on.

The last 2 companies I worked in, every trip was a shagfest (men and women, married or not) and it was 'what goes on on tour, stays on tour'.

I hardly ever go out for drinks but when I do, I see men taking their wedding rings off before going to chat to women and I COMPLETELY agree with whoever said earlier about the city and men hitting the stage where they realise they've got loads of dosh and can 'trade up' (awful word but you get my drift).

You would also all be utterly horrified by the number of women who look completely desperate on nights out and happily go for married men. I see it every single time I go out. In my day (cue the violins) the men chased after the women. Every single time I've been out, I've observed a sort of aggressive play by older women chasing after men. I am clearly very old .

I don't think it's as simple as some of you make out either. Life is never simple, people can be weak even when they are usually strong.

Affairs hurt more than children, they hurt families. My EXH was a cheat and a liar and still is. His DM and DS were devastated to learn about this trait in him. Many of his friends were mortified/still are.
I actually don't think our DD will be adversely affected as she was so young, 9mths when affair started, 18mths old when he ran away.
He still lies, is uncomfortably secretive and I know it has upset family. They feel a familial obligation to support him and OW etc (and i understand this) but it has destroyed their relationship with me. (not my choice, my cunt ExH has dished out ultimatums).
I'd be devastated if I found out my sister or brother had the ability to be so deceitful. I dread to think how my DM would be.
Not just children, sometimes entire families get fucked up. It's taken my family quite awhile to trust my DP as a result.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Back in the 70s, two neighbours had a notorious affair right under their spouses' noses, and knowing the two of them I would say it wasn't their first or their last. I was friends with the daughter of the man involved and she passed on a lot of gossip about other friends of their family, quite a swinging circle by all accounts, many of whom I met.

exH used to work for a man who left the office every Thursday afternoon for a standing date with a long term mistress. Everyone in the office referred to it as 'L is off reading to the blind'.
exH had his own foray into the world of adultery too.

I am wondering where the notion of deserving happiness comes from.

Yes my ExH did put himself before the children Wendy his actions and the way he went about it were reprehensible and you can see from my post at 19.48 yesterday that it has been hard for my children.

?I quite see that if one spouse is terribly hurt they might well want the offending spouse to feel guilt that the children will be damaged. But that's a bad attitude and very selfish in itself. Likely to be self-fulfilling as well.?

I?ve never tried to make my ExH feel like that personally. I admit I am doing everything I can to bring the DCs up not to be affected with good co parenting with my ExH, reading books like About the Children www.amazon.co.uk/What-About-Children-Julie-Evans/dp/0593060709/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334988115&sr=1-1 and letting them talk about their feelings, if they bring anything up. But I certainly wouldn?t want to pretend that it isn?t affecting them and they?ll be fine iyswim? However I have never shared my feelings with the children on the break down in our marriage, in fact they know very little even 2 years on, as they were so young. I just tell them mummy and daddy love them very much etc. So I hope my attitude isn?t selfish yellowtip?

Titfortat my children are young yes. So as you said they do not see things at all like Freudian said.

As I said in my original post: It doesn't matter if we think there are far worse things that can happen, the child only knows their Dad has gone and their world as they knew it has fallen apart. And certainly for my children as they are so young, that was very much the case

However my point of view is purely based on my circumstances, I cannot speak for every child. So I think I understand what you were getting at Freudian

Busy day ahead here so I probably won?t be back to this thread again. But I did want to respond to a few things. I?m not the most articulate though, so I hope I got my point across.

There are some polarised views on this thread, but there is a grey area and I am glad to see posters who weren?t affected by their parent?s infidelity. I?d be interested to know how old they were though when it happened.

Try that again. What About the Children

I'm getting the feeling that there's a view here that older kids cope better with affairs.

My XH had a year long affair before leaving. I was not really aware what was happening during that year but did realise that my XH was acting oddly/was depressed and unhappy etc.

Understandably I went through various emotions during that year from dazed to upset to in the end working what was happening and throwing him out.

My DC were not aware of the affair until quite a while later as XH refused to tell them and I was advised in the circumstances to leave the 'telling' to XH.

During the year of the affair one of the DC's crashed totally and developed major substance abuse issues. He will never be the same again. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen him unconscious. One of my other DC's is fine on the surface but unable to talk about anything that has happened to his brother.

I'm afraid this is my experience of an affair.

What a load of self serving bollox. It's. Not the affair rather its the response which damages the kids? In effect the cheater is saying 'my' weaknesses and self indulgence must be catered to on the grounds that 'i'deserbve happiness. But you - who has been humiliated and betrayed must not givein to your feelings, you weak self indulgent thing because z That will damage the DC.own it, adulterers, I say. YOUdid this.
I speak as one who hasn't. Perhaps I'm the one with the unbiased perspective?

Compos, do you really think you're the only poster to have said this stuff about 'black and white' in relation to affairs? If this was Family Fortunes for people excusing infidelity, that particular phrase would share the platform for 'top answer' with other weaselly excuses such as 'it just happened', 'you can't help who you fall in love with' and the perennial victim-blaming favourite of 'I wouldn't have done it if I was happy'. My post was directed entirely at people who've been directly involved in affairs and are still making excuses for their behaviour.

IME the damage and hurt caused to older children is often far worse than experienced by younger kids. I also think these posters who insist they weren't affected by their parents' affairs either had very good support and honesty at the time from both parents, didn't have to live with the cuckold full-time and see his torment or have re-written history as a coping mechanism. What's depressing though is the amount of posters who hold the deceived parent responsible for the fall-out and not the parent who threw the grenade into the family in the first place. Amazing how more is expected of the parent who's had his/her world torn apart and is in trauma.

I still think risking ur child's emotional and financial security because ur having an affair is selfish.Yeah it may not affect them but its hugely irresponsible to take that gamble.

Excellent post sternface

"IME the damage and hurt caused to older children is often far worse than experienced by younger kids. I also think these posters who insist they weren't affected by their parents' affairs either had very good support and honesty at the time from both parents, didn't have to live with the cuckold full-time and see his torment or have re-written history as a coping mechanism..... Amazing how more is expected of the parent who's had his/her world torn apart and is in trauma"

Wise words indeed from Sternface. Yes I do think that if had been able to totally deal with XH's behaviour and chat to the kids in an appropriate way about it early on, it could have made a difference. But then I didn't actually know what XH was doing for a quite a while. XH was being extremely hostile to me and in parallel I was watching my DC fall over, unable to speak at times, sometimes unconscious, abusive to me, researching and trying to buy chemicals (I could add more!). Yes, I guess I should have manned up .

With you on that one LeQueen. I hate that line. If you want to be happy work on your existing relationship, give it your all to make it work so that if you have to leave and upset your children you know you've tried everything else first. Don't go shag someone else in a relationship that's nice and easy due to no children/commitments/real life

To risk your spouse and children's happiness for a squelch and a splatter. Dress it up ad you like and tell me I,me I'm making it sound sordid. It is. There's no getting around the fact that you're placed a higher premium on your own satisfaction than the happiness of your family. Of course sometimes it lasts and perhaps the sum total of happiness gained is greater than that of happiness lost. But your common little affair? Nah.

Our GP had an affair. He took the perhaps sensible precaution of choosing a mistress with the same name as his wife. Veronique. Veronique no 1 is still a district nurse in the village, and Veronique no 2 is now his wife. There was a lot of joking about them both having the same name, but, I live in France.

When I first met the nurse I assumed he had been referring to her, and got the response 'my ex' spat at me. Later, she told me I should go and 'see Patrick' about something, so presumably things had calmed down.