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?

That was @ cory

I think there can be compelling reasons. A reason isn't synonymous with an excuse.

The only difference I see in them leaving you, and leaving you for someone else is the latter not showing any respect. Either way, they still don't want to be with you. But by keeping their trousers on, it proves that at least they have self respect and respect you, even if they no longer love you. It is about decency. Treat others how you would like to be treated.

The terminology in almost all posts suggests it's overwhelmingly men who have affairs .

My other had an affair when she was 65 - with a Bishop!

I think there is another reason for leaving your spouse before taking up with someone else, titfortat - and that is the ability to make an objective decision re your marriage. Once someone else is on the scene, all decisions are clouded and the departing spouse is often lying to his/herself as well as everyone around them.

Affairs are very rife! Recently my social circle alone seems to be full of people having affairs! I am not btw . I dont know if this is an age thing - most of friends are mid 30's to 50.

I have a friend who seperated from her (cheating) husband 2 years ago and has just started dating. She registerd on some dating sites and the other week we had a girls night in and after a few glasses of wine decided to log on and have a look at some of the blokes she had been chatting to and to see if there were any "decent" ones she could contact. Well I have to say I was shocked. She put in her search criteria within 25 miles of where she lives - which covers some the area I grew up in and another area I lived in 5 years ago. I am not lieing to say 9 men I know as married all popped up in her search. Only 2 mentioned they were with someone else (or hinted at it) and said they were just looking for no strings sex. I am guessing had we been blokes looking for women in the same criteria maybe a few I knew would have popped up too - but cant say for sure as we were looking at the men.

I think social media makes it very easy. Nearly everyone knows of someone who has "got intouch" with an old gf/bf or school days crush on FB and alot of these do go onto some kind of dalliance, whether its a few flirty PMs to actaully meeting up for a shag. Then there are those that had upped and left relationships to do this. Its no longer an uncommon tale.

All that said though at the ripe old age of (almost) 40 I look back on my youth and young adulthood and think infidelity has always been around on a very prolific scale. I just dont think alot of people realise this.

At 14 I recall a school friend crying and not knowing what to do after catching her married Dad shagging some woman on the sofa when she bunked off school one lunchtime.

At 15 I recall a friends Dad (married) making a pass at me.

At 16 I started work in my first year 3 married men asked me out. Within the following 3 years that I worked there I came to realise they would try it in with any young new girl and seemed to just want a few shags before dumping the girl and moving onto their next young new trainee! This was the 80's before it all went bust in the financial services sector and this behaviour from married men was rife. It was not just the men though to be fair. There were many many rumours about several women in the office as well, but obviously none of them ever actually asked me to my face for a shag like the married men did - so its hard to know how truthful those rumours were. Although I suspect they held a large element of truth.

In my twenties my social circle gre I had married friends who would come out with us on girls night out and happily go off with othe men/women.

I worked in a bar part time on a weekend and the whole of the village football team (majority married) also seemed to be up for shag with anyone willing.

Life goes on and right now I am surrounded by friends of broken marriages - mostly broken down due to one or other partner being unfaithful. The friends I have that I am close to that are still married - well I know some of them are having affairs both male and female. Some I know for fact because I have been told by the people themselves and some I would happily put a large sum of money on to say they were - because I see the signs and think I just know.

Many times on FB blokes have approached me and hinted for more - these are men I know from years ago, people I worked with, used to do sport with etc etc. All married or in long term relationships. Oh and I am not some beautiful stunner (sadly)I am a ageing tired mum fighting the bulge and trying to make the best of whats left of my looks before the crazy paving and crepe paper neck becomes too permanent.

I am not bitter but was shocked but seem to be getting over the shock at how prolific cheating really is. I think its more accessable with social media but its always been there.

I'm sorry that you were so badly affected too LeQueen but did your mother ever try to reassure you that things like this happen and that it would be ok? Did your father ever try to explain? Or were you just left alone to try to figure it out?

That's the problem then really, not the affair itself, but that your mother became dependent on you. I think it happens all too often and I can see why the injured spouse gets caught up in their own grief and forgets the child. Very difficult, and so easy to be wise in hindsight - but so hard at the time.

I have been shocked at the lack of understanding/realisation by people who have affairs of the damage they do to their children, even older children. My best friend at school was really messed by her fathers affair - she was 18, they were the "perfect" family until it emerged he had a long term girlfriend. He was a pillar of the community, church warden type too. The whole family imploded they are still affected by it.

I was a city lawyer - I would say about a third of the senior men were shaggers. It wasn't seen as acceptable generally though. What made me laugh was that people having affairs always thought nobody knew but it was almost always general knowledge with most colleagues thinking how pathetic they were and sniggering.

Trying to be a perfect mum and hold your family together, as the children cry "daddy gone, daddy lost" and you're also trying to manage your feelings and stay calm is very hard. I am finding some of the comments on here a bit upsetting. It has affected my children hugely with their father leaving for a 21 year old and I have tried my hardest to do my best by them, but it does affect the children. And 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 then as with a lot of my friends the ExH hasn't helped matters by introducing the OW to the kids suddenly or similar.

Even 2 years on, my children struggle with their Dad not seeing them as much as they'd like and my elder DD finds it especially hard when the children in her class are all in stable two parent families and talk about what they got up to with their parents at the weekend.

I help on a divorce and separation course and no matter who has cheated the devastation left is very hard for the children and the spouse. I hear people say that it would have been better of they had died, as at least I would have known they loved me, even though they were gone. Instead of knowing they didn't love me and had left me for someone else

Anyway this is a quick post and I've typed it very fast. So apologies for any typos in advance. I just wanted to add my two pence worth, as I have been lurking and some of the things said bother me. So I wanted to add my perspective.

Children cannot be left undamaged by their parents' affairs.

When you have children, you tacitly accept that you are no longer the most important thing in your own universe: like it or not, mother or father, you are now your child's servant. When a married person indulges in an affair, they are saying to their children "Sorry, kiddo, but I'm no. 1 just now!", and that will damage the children.

Even worse, once children know that a parent is having an affair, then those children are forced to make choices between their parents. Even the best intentioned of parents will struggle to manage their own emotions of rejection or betrayal or justification without affecting or involving their children. The worst of parents will actively use their children as a weapon against their spouse or partner, to punish their betrayal or justify their actions.

Yes of course there are worse things that can happen to a child other than a parent having an affair: a parent could die, a sibling could become critically ill or be born seriously disabled, the family home could be burnt down or lost through bankruptcy and so on. But most of these bad things happen though bad luck and cruel fortune. They do not come generally come about about because one parent has taken a conscious decision to put their own emotional well-being or sexual gratification ahead of their children's well-being.

Affairs are very bad for children - to hope otherwise is is a selfish delusion...

(PS If you don't have children ignore this post and sleep around to your heart's content ... until that stick turns blue! After that, you'll have to wait until that first Saga trip to the Fjords...)

Lequeen I am so sorry for you.

teaandcake

thats so fucking sad

really, I feel a lump in my throat reading that

bless you

If someone is going to cheat, they'll cheat. Nothing to do with facebook etc imo.

Teaandcake :(

Sorry wendy but I am entirely capable of knowing what I'm talking about when I say that I'm a child who was not adversely affected by her mother's affair and I still think, years after her death, that she was an exceptionally loving mother who put the three of us way above herself. I also loved my father very much but I'm capable now, as I was then to a lesser degree, of seeing the dynamics and understanding why things happened as they did. I think my father should have been more aware of my mother's needs at the time and had he been then the other man would haven't had has any response from my mother and his vile, self-absorbed hatchet faced wife wouldn't have come knocking at our door at crazy times in the morning to see if her husband was there.

That may be an unusual perspective for a child, but it's absolutely the case.

Yes I feel sorry for you to Teaand cake but I guess your children are very young?

I've only added my perspective as I find it upsetting to have a black and white picture of adulterers presented; life and people and relationships are far more complicated than that.

Yes they are and I have years ahead of managing their struggles with it all. Incidentally, a friend said to me today, that their son 4 years on, still cried several times this week as they miss their Dad living with them.

It's not black and white. No. Another reason to add my pov.

Sorry T&Cakes, but it is black & white: your husband put himself before hos children and they will struggle with that for years to come; just as your friend's DS (4) is currently learning.

Sorry Yellow, but I doubt that your mother really put herself above "the three of you": sounds like she was her own main concern. Try to re-read objectively your own description of "his vile, self-absorbed hatchet faced wife

Sorry T&Cakes, but it is black & white: your husband put himself before his children and they will struggle with that for years to come; just as your friend's DS (4) is currently learning.

Sorry Yellow, but I doubt that your mother really put herself above "the three of you": sounds like she was her own main concern. Try to re-read objectively your own description of "his vile, self-absorbed hatchet faced wife ... knocking at our door at crazy times in the morning to see if her husband was there": might not that poor woman have been driven out of her mind by the fear of what her husband's selfishness was doing to their children?

Your callousness tells me your mum's affair did an awful lot of damage to you; and to another family as well. Affairs hurt children; don't be so weak as to pretend they don't.

(Sorry about the previous half post - new to this, & pushed a wrong button!)

No wendy, she wasn't a stranger. She was a horrible, self-absorbed woman (intentional repetition), whose children were pretty much of my owm mind and got on with it (they were older than me in fact). They got dragged down by their mother a bit, but it became all about her.

I'm actually extremely sensitive, not callous at all. That's offensive. I'm just giving a child's version; you are both giving the adult perspective. I'm probably less biased. And no, not damaged, and definitely not awfully damaged. How rude!