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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think that any man who takes 35 years to stop cheating on his wife is no "prize"?

203 replies

Cerseirys · 20/02/2016 08:55

Depressing article in today's Guardian. The husband in question sounds like a complete creep yet his wife stuck with him through it all and now, after 35 years, he's finally stopped cheating on her and she thinks that's her reward for standing by her man.

AIBU to find it sad that some women put up with this? And before anyone says that maybe she was happy with the situation, it's quite clear in the article that she wasn't.

OP posts:
CooPie10 · 20/02/2016 13:58

Agree LyingWitch.
**
She doesn't sound like some vulnerable wallflower. She met him at university so presumably she had been as equal as him. Sounds like they both played this game. She put herself before her children. And if he dumps her, she has no one to blame but herself.

GoblinLittleOwl · 20/02/2016 14:12

I thought this was a reference to the fragrant Mary Archer (not) who stuck by her man, and has very graciously told a newspaper all about it.

hooliodancer · 20/02/2016 14:28

I know a guy like this- through work. I find it strange that the wife in the article thinks her husband has stopped cheating because he is 55- as if that's too old! The guy I know is also 55, in fact I thought the article was about him at first. He says he loves his wife and is desperate for her not to find out. But he has 1 or 2 other women on the go at once. He trawls Facebook, chats people up on trains, in the street. It's a numbers game for him, and he genuinely thinks it's ok as long as he manages to keep it from his wife. He once drove 200 miles for a one night stand with someone he met online. I think he has narcissistic personality disorder as he seems to think that if he wants something it's his right to have it.

I suppose there are loads of people into swinging and dogging- sexually I suppose it's the same thing. It's just that swingers are both into it.

The article made me wonder how many men are like that though? I thought the guy I know was fairly unusual, but perhaps not.

Incidentally, I don't know his wife or anything about her- not even her name- so couldn't tell her even if I wanted to. I would imagine, like the woman in the article, that she knows though.

timeKeepingOnMars · 20/02/2016 14:29

I wonder how much her giving up her work as a teacher played into her decision making - I speak as someone who's been a SAHM and enjoyed it and had no issues it can leave you vulnerable.

Though I know several people who put up with shit behaviour till their men left them - they'd been ground down and financially abused and in one or two cases hit - but didn't see that till the bloke left. She had 35 years of potentially head fucking.

For whatever reason the guy's cheating wasn't the line it would be for me or most people - though I bet he hasn't stopped, she has no security that he won't replace her at some point and frankly I think if his health deteriorates in age and he needs any considerable nursing she'll struggle not to give into massive resentment.

I do know a serial cheater who later in life has settled down - but I don't think this was age - possibly a bit of learning from previous massive fall outs but more because they are in a relationship they care too much to fuck around on. That clearly isn't the case with this woman's relationship.

She does write like a manipulate woman - but I wonder how much is justifying her position to herself - if true it's all rather sad.

TaliZorahVasNormandy · 20/02/2016 14:40

Jesus, I'd rather keep my dignity intact.

MarshaBrady · 20/02/2016 14:43

The manipulation is the last grasp at control though, it's not real, just a story to make what happened more palatable.

Assuming it's not all made up - quite a DM type story

HelenaDove · 20/02/2016 15:06

"He's probably only faithful now because he's too old to pull any more"

And he probably wants to increase the possibility of making sure his wife is prepared to wipe his arse if he should need it should he become infirm.

HelenaDove · 20/02/2016 15:27

"Now young women are being brought up to have jobs AND do the vast majority of the domestic work."

YY Bathtime. And to split all the bills down the middle even if the woman is earning a lot less

Equality innit!

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 15:36

I know you weren't one of the people saying she was just as bad, but you seemed to offer an explanation for why people might think it was OK to blame her for her husband's philandering

I never blamed her, nor did I say anything that should support blame. The man's a louse, I don't see that she's done anything remotely culpable or comparable. But I think it's a shame she chose to deal with her husband's games with her own game of trying to outface other women. It's not one she could ever win.

My earlier point was that a woman who went to uni in 1978 did not have the degree of conditioning and poor education of my mother's generation and therefore her choice is more of personal than a generational one. With no tertiary education let alone a teaching qualification, it would have been a lot harder practically speaking for her to leave.

I don't question that women are still conditioned to see the sorriest dick as a prize, and she is a sad example. But I think there's a mixture of conditioning and perversity in her choice.

I think this article is to let her husband know that she knows, in spite of what she says.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 15:39

She is almost as negligent a parent as her husband and the two deserve each other.

Ffs.

timelytess · 20/02/2016 15:57

What a sad way to live your life
Well, possibly. But there are lots of sad ways to live your life. The shag-around-shack-up-without-a-second-thought lifestyle that many people have nowadays seems very sad to me.

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 20/02/2016 16:12

I read this article and thought that, whilst he sounds like a complete tosser, she comes across as a snooty bitch. They deserve each other. Her attitude towards other women, all of whom she clearly sees as potential rivals, is pathetic. She talks of wining the game, but if her husband is the prize then she's welcome.

I would normally feel a lot of sympathy with anyone whose partner was cheating on them, but not in this case.

Alexa444 · 20/02/2016 16:15

I didn't read the artical but if any man cheated on me and blamed it on a high sex drive... well lets just say his sex drive would not be an issue any longer.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 20/02/2016 16:16

Ysuelte... 'FFS' yourself. If she wanted to play these silly games with her husband then that's fine and dandy, the two of them, wasting just their own two lives, no harm no foul. No sympathy from me but no remonstration either.

But they have children and have systematically demonstrated a damaging and unhealthy relationship model because they are both selfish, inconsiderate people. You don't behave like this as a parent, you just don't.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 16:33

A SAHM as negligent a parent as a sleazy philanderer? Really?

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 20/02/2016 16:40

Yes. I did make a distinction of 'nearly'. But, if you balance up the amount of time each parent spent 'teaching' their children about life, you could justifiably tip the balance the other way. Being a SAHM is only a good thing if the children benefit from it.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 16:49

I don't see that a philandering father neutralises the benefits of a SAHM, he'd have been a sleazy cheat whoever he was with. If they'd divorced he'd have carried on cheating with his next partners.

Yes, she could have set a better example to her kids regarding her own behaviour, but she can't be held responsible for his.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 16:50

Nor is hers comparable in iniquity.

CooPie10 · 20/02/2016 16:52

Yes she can't take responsibility for his behavior but she can certainly take responsibility for hers. She has been an equally bad parent in a different way.
She made her bed and willingly chose to.

JolseBaby · 20/02/2016 17:02

He's a creep - not only fucking one of her friends, but in their home, in their son's nursery at the christening party! However she sounds manipulative. There was deviousness right at the start of the relationship; she knew his reputation and set out to 'tame' him. It sounds like an unhealthy relationship on both sides.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 17:03

Not equally bad no.

A doormat is not remotely ethically comparable to a ruthless cheat.

Wolpertinger · 20/02/2016 17:17

Her friends really don't sound up to much either - unless she's in a social circle where it really is OK to shag other people's husbands and she's the only one that hasn't spotted.

I wonder if there is a class difference between them - he's clearly mega posh army family, boarding school, now earning big bucks presumably in the city. She did go to university but became a teacher - I went to a posh school and this would have been a very unusual choice for a girl, even one who was planning to stop as soon as she had children, unless possibly it was something like nursery or Montessori.

She obvs also needs to stay with him as she doesn't appear to have her own family money to fall back on. So her whole self worth is pinned on the idea that she's tamed this glorious alpha male and now got the perfect family in the perfect house etc etc.

Which makes me wonder if she isn't from the same background as him and this isn't a feminism issue but a class issue. She can't bear to lose her dream.

However others around her, for example her friends, seem to know it's a game where you do some jolly shagging and then carry on and shag someone else. If she was brought up middle class, she wouldn't know this and you are left with the grim reading article, not a Jilly Cooper novel.

I've overthought this, haven't I?

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 20/02/2016 17:20

What do you think the impact to the children is of a 'doormat', Yseulte? A SAHM-doormat to boot? She inflicted her bad choices almost f/t on her children and that's at her door, not his.

The cheating is vile, nobody's disputing that but, the choices this woman made were NOT with her children in mind but herself. Who does that?

Looks like she's now conveniently re-writing history to make them a loving couple. I guess she has to, she has nothing else, not even the satisfaction that she was a good mum who put her children first, not unless she can lie to herself.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 17:37

Army families often send their children to boarding school due to overseas postings, it doesn't mean they're mega-posh.

I got the impression they were from similar backgrounds actually. I think someone from a different background would be less likely to put up with his behaviour.

I went to public school, girls went on to become teachers, in fact some of our teachers had been educated there. But it was very academic, becoming a nursery school teacher would have been unthinkable.

Yseulte · 20/02/2016 17:40

Of course it's at his door he's the one who was fucking everyone in sight.

Many women are doormats, sadly, and she'd have been one whether she stayed with him or not.