To ask if you've had an affair with a married man

[DuckyMcDuck]

How you could do that?

A friend has just found out her husband has been having an affair. They have 2 young children and she's devastated. Usually, I'd be able to go and be with her but obviously not possible at the moment.

Now, I know it takes two and all that (and don't excuse him in any way at all) but as a woman, I honestly don't understand why anyone would get involved with a man who is already married and a father and I would genuinely be interested in why someone would do that.

@aSofaNearYou I think its me that has sought it out and made the relationship i have with him that way, rather than being instigated by him. He treats me sort of like an adult daughter - lots of advice and support about my career, about dating, finance etc. He's always there to say well done to me when I've achieved something and say he is proud of me. I don't have that i my life (no immediate family and my own parents died when i was young). It fills a massive gap in my life. Maybe if i met a loving partner i wouldn't need it.

"I am not unhappy in my marriage, but it is lacking passion and lust, which I can get from the OM."

Well obviously I don't know your situation but the obvious question would be why not leave and find a full relationship with someone else? Why be 'not unhappy' when you could surely be 'happy?'

Do none of you care about the hurt you are helping to visit on the wives and children of these men? What if the wives find out?

@EmeraldShamrock I think its easy and i think i'm good at it (discreet & unproblematic) and its nice to be good at something!
I do date but i get hurt easily plus being in a big city i do find it hard to meet anyone who wants to settle down. Am sure they are out there but there a lot of players. MM1 is calm and reliable and consistent. I crave those things deeply. He's just like a dad really and I cant explain how much this fulfills me. Advice welcome!

"He's just like a dad really and I cant explain how much this fulfills me. Advice welcome!"

There's something about this that gives me a shiver. He clearly recognises the vulnerability in you that craves what you've described he gives you, and for him to get sex from you in return, when he already has a wife and another long term lover, smacks of something slightly distasteful. It's like he knows how to keep you coming back for more.

He's just like a dad really and I can't explain how much this fulfills me

Can you not see how incredibly unhealthy this is in a sexual context?

I don't mean to dig but you truly sound like you would benefit from therapy.

@Ginger1982 That's what my friend who is also a counsellor thinks. She says its very " transactional".

@aSofaNearYou The sex isn't any kind of role play or anything. Its the relationship between us. Yes maybe therapy could help unpick it - its definitely me that drove the dynamic and now its kind of cemented how we interact with each other.

@atiabalba well I think you deserve a kind respectful man to make you feel all those thing's of your own. I think you need counselling for your unresolved DF issues.
How will you have the time to peek an interest if MM1 is on your mind, you won't notice Mr available.

@atiabalba Predators love vulnerability they know exactly how to feed it, they know all the words and phrases to use. I'm sorry you're worthy of so much more.

Yes I have, when I was younger. And I’m utterly ashamed of myself.

I genuinely don’t know what I was thinking. I literally have no excuse, other than it was nice to feel wanted and I fell for the charm. Shit reasons that are no excuse

I’m married now with children and I love my husband dearly. I’d be devastated if he cheated on me, but just like the wife would’ve also been.

My husband doesn’t my track record, and I’d be quite frankly too ashamed to tell him.

I can’t say anything else other than that. I have no excuse

Getting long in the tooth now so have seen all sorts of different 'types' of affairs/cheating in the workplace:

1. Alpha - senior exec, nice wife and kids, shags discreetly (but not that discreetly!) on corporate nights out. No strings and no interest in leaving family/lifestyle. V common.
2. Chancer - bored with marriage and open to opportunities on drunken nights out. Similar to above but less successful and discreet!
3. Workplace affairs, full on relationship, someone will get caught and it will get messy with nasty fall out.

Not sure of the mentality of OW. Never been one but my own opinion has changed over the years-when younger would have been more black and white, don't owe the wife anything etc and it's down to the husband. Now I'm older I couldn't do that to someone else, causing that much pain to lots of other people (not only wife but family etc)

I was mid 20,s in a new city, new job, no support network, he was my mentor/boss in his mid 30's.

I knew he was married with 3 children, we spent every day together for 8 months.

He told me he missed me initially, then would touch me on the leg and at the waist. He shared his life with me, told me his marriage problems. I told him to go to marriage counselling etc was horrified at the thought of being that women.

He was brilliant at his job, charming, and was able to pretend to be someone that I could fall in love with.

In reflection he just wore me down, made me feel emotionally responsible for him.

He offered to buy me a house and effectively keep me as his mistress, before anything happened.

I refused and said that if his marriage was over he should end it if he wanted to be with me.

Then he messaged and his wife read it before anything happened.

it was almost like everyone had decided what role I was going to play. Of course he completely demonised his wife to me.

He left his wife, the marriage fell apart after she read the message it was clear from that we were having an emotional affair. He wanted out effectively and destroyed the marriage and blamed he for reacting to the message.

I offered to go and speak to her and explain nothing had happened. I was horrified at the thought of causing someone else pain.

I felt responsible and just got sucked in.

We were together 7 years before I got away: he honestly tortured both his wife and me.

Flitting back between us.both, gaslighting us both.

The guilt was horrific and I couldn't let the relationship fail because it had cost us so much to be together.

I'm out of it 4 years and I'm emotionally scarred. I had an abusive father and he knew just how to keep me trapped.

If it helps the OW that your friends husband goes to is set for a life of torture as well.

Why did I do it? I believed that I met the love of my life and that his circumstances, being married were an unfortunate obstacle. I thought I would spent my life with him.

I was step mother to his kids who hated me. I ruined my reputation in work and socially.

In hindsight, I can see that he effectively groomed me, I was a thing he wanted to possess, I now realise that men who treat any women badly will treat you badly. He wasn't some sad person who married the wrong person he was just an awful person with bad character.

I gave birth to my daughter recently and I thought about his wife a lot during labour. As in how could anyone leave or treat badly someone who went through this for them. It makes me respect her more and question his behaviour even more.

It ended when I found out he had slept with his wife after we had been together

I have since found out about others as well.

A friend always told me you can't build happiness on other peoples misery. And I learned that that's correct you can't.

So it was a mixture of being young, naive, and stupid I suppose.

I think about his wife & children frequently and the guilt and shame I feel for how I behaved will be with me forever.

@mamascorpio It sounds like you were a victim too. Forgive yourself it takes two to tango.
Certain men smell vulnerability.

I don’t buy the MN mantra that OW is equally responsible. It’s a shitty thing to do, but if DH cheated on me and broke up our family I would blame him. He is the one who has made a commitment to me, has a relationship with his family and is the one who would be lying all the time. It really isn’t the same and any assertion to the contrary is just fooling yourself.

Thanks @EmeraldShamrock you're very kind and probably right. I'll keep looking out for Mr Available! MM1 does always seem to know exactly what to say to me that's true and he's told me before that he loves my vulnerability. Maybe it had a deeper meaning than i realised?!

I haven’t had an affair as such but I did sleep with a married man a long long time ago. When I first started my job he was my supervisor. I sat next to him and we got on like a house on fire. Over time I started to give him lifts to work and there was an obvious mutual attraction. One night I gave him a lift to a works party and we ended up kissing.
Then a few weeks later we slept together. It happened once. I was 21 and a bit young and silly really. I ended up moving further away so I stopped giving him lifts and he changed departments. It’s not something I’m proud of and I wasn’t really thinking at the time. Just young and naive.
I wouldn’t do it again x

I've had an affair with a married man. I was young and I was truly in love with him, but I knew he was married from the start. As sad and as awful as it sounds, it was that feeling of being truly desired. In a weird twisted way, it feels like someone is saying "you're so hot and so amazing I am willing to risk my marriage and life as I know it just to be with you".

Before it happened, I looked at marriage thinking you've found the love of your life and you'll be happy forever (when I was even younger and even more naive!). So when I started meeting married men in my first proper job, it didn't even really occur to me that one might look elsewhere and have an affair, especially when they had kids. Then it happened and I had never felt so desired before. We never spoke about the wife, so to me she just didn't exist. I couldn't ever even use her name because I didn't want to think of her as a person. I'd never so it again now, but at the time I can honestly say I didn't even feel guilty. I just loved him so much and that was all I was concerned about

I’d be interested in hearing more from those who say they didn’t think about the wives/children and have no guilt. Have any of you been subsequently cheated on? If so, how did you feel when it happened to you and your children? Not a rhetorical question. I’m genuinely curious.

Honestly I do hope none of the OW women, when they are married, in love, with children, get cheated on by their husband and their family break apart.

Even if any of you are too selfish to think of the wife’s feelings. How could you do that to children? How could you let a man choose you?

I’m a child of a broken home, father had affairs. It was awful, not just the break up, but the knowledge he and the OW didn’t give a crap about my mother. I’ll never forgive either my father or the OW for the damage they did to me as a child.

@tympanic have you read the full thread. Some posters have talked about this.

The 25 year old who had a 9 month affair with my now XH (20 years her senior) met him at an event where he won an industry award. Later she went on to marry someone who is at the peak of XH's profession who is probably 35 years older than her. I think she was marriage hunting as a means to social climb her position in that profession.

I read their messages and she joked about me finding out. She knew he was married and had two very small children and she didn't care about hurting us all and breaking up a family. Of course, I was married to him and he owed me loyalty, trust and care. He betrayed me. But she knew what she was doing and didn't care. The hurt was unbearable and i had a right to be angry with her. I think people who say that its only the husband you should be angry with just haven't been there and have no idea how terrible it is. All the lying and cheating and secrets.

Because they pick women with low self esteem who believe the lies that they're only with their wife because of the kids & they never sleep together any more. I worked in a very male dominated industry 10 years ago & the married men were incredibly predatory. Maybe it's a generation thing but they were all over 35 & the other woman was always young, gullible & head over heels, convinced they'd leave the wife. The men meanwhile were usually on fling number 4 or 5 & it was purely about the sex, thrill of the chase & ego boost. I also felt it's an abuse of power because the men were always middle management or above whereas the woman was in a very much lower, usually admin role,but that might just be me.

I would never do such a thing to another woman. It is one of the deepest ways one woman could possibly betray and undermine another. Why would I do that?

I have, for want of a better word, a "fuck buddy". We are both married with DC (obviously not to each other).

It's not a regular thing, we can sometimes go a year without seeing or even speaking to each other, but we occasionally hook up when the circumstances are right. I met him around 6 years ago.

Why do I do it? Its purely about the sex (hands down the best I've ever had) and nothing else.

I've never met anyone who I was so instantly attracted to, I don't really know how to explain it but it was pretty obvious within 10 minutes of us meeting that there was a physical, almost animal attraction.

But I don't ever want to be with him in a relationship and he feels the same about me.