Fed up of the idea that men who cheat sometimes 'just can't help themselves' and somehow it's the OW fault!!

[DunnTrying]

This is not in any way a defence of affairs or the OWs part that they play in affairs, but recently a family friend has been revealed as having an affair with another friends husband (she was single) - this is absolutely horrendous behaviour and I don't condone it at all. However I am getting pretty fed up of the argument everyone keeps putting forwards that she is a very attractive woman, who dresses up and is known as having had quite a few sexual partners - that somehow this absolves the man of the some of the responsibility as how is he expected to help himself when this is offered? And then follows the saying of 'ohh don't let her near your husband' as if her very presence would make him lose all sense and have sex with her and 'he just can't help it'. I would still expect my husband to be faithful even if 1000 naked women paraded in front of him offering him anything he wanted!! I've just been really shocked by how many people seem to think she is more to blame than the man by tempting him and being so attractive etc - I don't get why this is relevant or how it absolves him in any way!! As far as I am concerned they are equally to blame, but in terms of his wife - HE cheated - HE broke his trust and promises - HE betrayed her. The OW behaved terribly and I hope feels incredibly guilt for her part, but how she looks, behaves, etc cannot absolves him of any responsibility about what he freely chooses to do!

It has to be the OW fault because if it isnt then the wife is staying with a lying cheating shit bag who cared more about shagging OW than his marriage. Easier to square it in her head as it all being down to the OW throwing herself at him.

Having said that, I do think blame can be a complicated issue.

I'm going to admit that I have slept with a married man. Not an affair, a one night stand and his wife doesn't know. But still. Technically having to put my hand up to being an OW, I guess.

For a long time I condemned myself as being a truly terrible person. I still (obviously!) think it was an awful thing to do but here's my current assessment of the blame and exoneration of all three parties. Feel free to comment and disagree as robustly as you choose.

The man:
Blame - he is married and (at the time) had a few children with another on the way. He came back to my house late at night after the pubs shut, drunk. He came on to me, kissed me, told me I was wonderful etc. He guided me upstairs. He laughed it off in the morning but continued to get flirty and try to kiss me when drunk for years.
Exoneration - he has bipolar disorder. his marriage is stable but not very active, if you see what I mean.

Me:
Blame - I knew he was married. I was drunk. I was half in love with him and just went along with it.
Exoneration - I have anorexia and a strong conviction that I am ugly. I am always stunned if someone shows any interest in me at all. The insecure part of me responds to it regardless of my own feelings and the sado-masochistic part of me wants to fuck up my life even further.

The wife:
Blame - she used to refuse to leave the house to do anything social with him, ever. She wanted to stay with the children all the time. She didn't like physical contact much.
Exoneration - she did nothing wrong!

In summary - I think more of the blame was his than mine (and certainly hers!) but I do think I was partly to blame too (I don't think she was).

I think they both share the blame.

He is 100% responsible for cheating on his wife, but the OW is responsible for her part in the affair. He couldn't cheat without a willing partner to cheat with.

If you know someone is married but have sex and start a relationship anyway, you are playing a part in the breakdown of the marriage and shoulder some of the responsibility for it's ending.

If the marriage wasn't working out, it's up to the married couple to try and resolve the issues or end the marriage. That's made all the more difficult if there's another man or woman on the scene complicating the issue.

And in this case the OW sounds like a nasty piece of work. Comforting the wife for her marriage worries while secretly playing a part in the breakdown herself.

She's not the sort of person I would want to stay friendly with, or have around my family. Not because she's some sort of femme fatale and my husband wouldn't be able to resist her but because she sounds like the sort of two-faced person nobody needs in their lives.

I suppose I just don't think blame can be 'shared' i.e. one doesn't have more of it and as a result the other has less. They both have behaved in the most terrible way and as such have both hurt people around them, but they each carry the blame for their own actions - his for cheating on his wife - her for betraying a friend in such a horrendous way....
From conversations today I think the wife is drawing a line and walking away from both of them.

I think they are both shitty people. One has betrayed his wife, the other has betrayed her friend. Both have deceived and manipulated. That's the argument for sacking them both off and it's a sound one.

The arguments they are using making it all her fault are bogus and I hope you disagree to your friends with them.

Its the lack of female solidarity I find distasteful. Its "more the married man's fault" is swerving responsibility, as if because he is the married one who can't keep his dick in his pants, a woman is honour-bound to jump on it when he crooks his finger. MM & OW are both doing the dirty on another woman. Both equally abhorrent as far as Im concerned.

Unless he was sitting around minding his own business and she leapt on his cock then HE is the one who betrayed his wife. Simple.

As this OW was purporting to be a friend of the betrayed spouse, then yes, I think she is also very much to blame.

Generally, I think the OW is to blame, as co-conspirator, because unless the betraying spouse is a complete philanderer where anyone will do (and many are not) then she has also been part of an active 'grooming' procedure, as the betraying spouse moves towards giving themselves permission to cheat.

Yes, it's different, for it is squarely the betraying spouse who broke the views. But no, she is definitely not blame free.

And it is totally possible to blame both, heavily, for the shitty things they have done.

Some people manage to put the blame on the wife - she wasn't giving him enough attention, wasn't making an effort, expected him to help around the house too much, spent all her time with the children. Is it any wonder he strayed when a pretty little thing offered it to him on a plate?

Insulting to all involved.

I can't buy in to the lack of female solidarity thing. Like we're all in this together against hopeless men.

I don't subscribe to the female solidarity idea either - just because someone is female, they don't automatically deserve my loyalty as a woman, any more that I deserve theirs.

Back in my twenties I had ONSs with attached men - I didn't pursue them but I did sleep with them knowing that they weren't single. I had sex/self esteem issues, which is not an excuse, just the reason.

However, one of them had lived with a so called friend of mine who had just shat on me from a great height, causing me to nearly lose everything. When they split briefly, he made a move on me and I had a brief fling with him. I knew they would get back together. My motivation was spite.

Whilst I'm not proud of that, I'm not ashamed either - she didn't deserve any level of loyalty from me.

In this particular case I think they are both to blame. Him for cheating and her for betraying a friend.

Under the more usual circumstances, where OW isn't a friend of the wife, I blame the husband 100% for betraying his wife. OW doesn't owe the wife anything really beyond basic human kindness. For lacking that kindness, I would judge her to be a skanky person but not actually responsible for the marriage itself.

manicinsomniac One of the lecturers at the teaching college was talking to us about the AIDS epidemic in the country. He said;

'it's really all because the economy here is so bad. The men in this country have no choice but to work in South Africa to support their families and the border control is bad so they stay there a month or two at a time. Obviously they can't stay all that time with no sex so they have affairs and bring back more AIDS. It's difficult but there's really nobody to blame.'

Reminds me of an article in the Guardian a while back - think it was in the 'professionals' section - about NGO workers' sex lives. I thought it was going to be about the interesting situations and boundaries than need to be maintained in that kind of work, but no - it was all about how they needed to have their sexual needs met and was it best if the NGO sent a taxi to the brothel!!! Although not explicitly mentioned it clearly related to men. It scares me that people would do humanitarian work whilst believing there's no moral issue with them paying their poverty-stricken, deprived target group for sex

IMO everyone is responsible for their own actions and I don't buy into this idea of female solidarity either.

But while the person who cheats is the one who is responsible for that decision, there are certainly both men and women who deliberately pursue married men/women, and there are married men/women who fall for them, time and time again.

And the reality is, if a woman posted on here saying "there is a woman in my dh's office who has had multiple affairs with married colleagues who is now showing an interest in my dh and I'm not comfortable with it," the consensus would be that she was right not to be comfortable with it and that she should tell her dh he is out of order because an affair is just around the corner.

I know three women who actively pursue married men or men in relationships and have a reputation for it. Yet married men fall for their charms time and time again. Similarly a friend's wife left him for a man who had a reputation for actively seducing married women away from their husbands, and while she took a dim view of it before she got involved she fell for him and left not only her dh but her child for him.

Human interactions are IMO complicated, and it's often the people who take the most simplistic view who end up getting caught up in complicated situations.

some people will never fall for someone else while in a relationship. But some people are easily manipulated, and IMO someone who deliberately pursues someone who is married almost goes through a process of grooming them towards being with them. Of course the married individual is responsible for ultimately cheating, but none of us should ever be completely complacent in the thinking that we are infallible.