Is it ever ok to have an affair?

[Confusedandmuddlingalong]

A couple close to me have just announced their separation. They’ve been married nearly 20 years and have 3dcs aged between 10 and 15.

She has admitted in the past that she chose her husband because he is a good man and she desperately wanted children but that she never truly loved him.

He really tried in the relationship but eventually realised that she was never going to love him the way he loved her. We, their friends, have witnessed some very uncomfortable moments when she has rolled her eyes at things he says, does, just everything he did was wrong.

But she appreciated what a good father he is and she absolutely lives for her dcs.

Well, it turns out that he’d been having an affair for the past 3 years. Wanted to leave the marriage but she went all guns blazing, reminded him that he promised to never leave the children, that she could forgive his affair if he ended it for the sake of the children.

However, in a weird twist, turns out she’s actually also been having an affair!

Lockdown brought everything to a head and she has decided to end the marriage and continue with her AP.

I’m trying to stay as neutral as possible because I am friends with both of them but I can’t help but secretly have more sympathy for him.

His AP has moved on with someone else and it looks as though he’ll not have main custody of the children which has broken him.

So the question is, was he completely wrong to have an affair when he was in a loveless marriage for the sake of not breaking up a family?

I just don’t judge. I don’t think many humans are capable of life-long monogamy, it’s unnatural and quite unrealistic.
We live so long these days, are we really going to be content with the person we meet at 25 for the next 50/60 years? We change SO much.

I think the idea of marriage being a life goal or an achievement is just a bit silly. But still divorce is frowned upon and that’s probably a big reason why people cheat.

[quote bigchris]@Rwoolley did it come as that much of a surprise to him if they hadn't had sex for ten years ??[/quote]
Yep it did, and it hurt

Funnily enough the only woman you have ever loved having an affair was a surprise. No sex isn't an excuse to go elsewhere

No I dont believe it’s ever ok. We are all responsible for our own actions and if you’re unhappy why not leave? I know people will say oh it’s not easy to leave but answer this: how is an affair making it easier??? Their marriage will likely end now anyway so how on earth has an affair “helped”? It hasn’t. They would have been better off just separating and being happy with other people. Instead they’ve made a bad situation a million times worse by dragging others into their doomed marriage. No it’s not easy to just leave, but the solution to that isn’t to lie and betray because how is that “easy” either?! I think this is an excuse for people to not take responsibility for their own shitty behaviour.

@SerenDippitty

Was the woman wrong to marry someone she didn't love because she wanted to have children?

Yes 100%

Massively unfair to everyone to stay in a loveless marriage for the kids. News flash - no child wants to live with 2 parents who don't love each other.

I did. I have never regretted it. I was in a marriage that was finished, good mates but not lovers anymore. I am now 6 years in a relationship that fills me with joy unlike the 20 year relationship.

Don’t judge.

They both should have left a long time ago, and it should have been over before any affairs. They are both in the wrong, and affairs are always wrong. Something can be understandable but still wrong IYSWIM. They were in a loveless marriage. The right thing to do is end the marriage. Instead he cheated. That's not to say he is necessarily a bad person, lots of people make mistakes and although affairs are up there they are not the worst thing a person can do. They usually destroy relationships and families. But then so do domestic violence, coercive control, financial abuse and emotional abuse all of which are worse than cheating, even if cheating might feel worse at the time.

@IcedPurple and others, there are affairs that therapists and psychologists call “exit affairs”. Those are affairs that people have that wake them up to the true nature of their relationship, which is usually abusive, and gives them the strength to leave. It makes the person realize there are other real and tangible possibilities besides the broken marriage they have. Exit affairs may still be messy but to me they’re justified.

I’m not sure it can be answered in such simplistic ways

People have affairs for many different reasons the excitement, because they are just not suited to a monogamous relationship but children are involved, they fall in love, for sex, looking for a way out of a doomed relationship or an abusive relationship

I don’t blame him and I don’t blame people for looking for intimacy elsewhere if there is none in the relationship and they desperately want it but still love their partner

People are very complex relationships are often complex

@Loveinatimeofcovid

I know several people who have turned to affairs in the face of emotional abuse and I really couldn’t blame them at all. Given what you’ve said I strongly suspect she was being abusive here.

Honestly I think this is a bit of a myth. Most people in an abusive relationship are with someone who is cheating on them. Not the other way around. The vast majority of women seen in domestic abuse services are scared, controlled and worn down.

It would be a massive risk to have an affair in an abusive relationship and if you are capable of having an affair, then you are capable of leaving and most women take quite a while to get to that place.

An affair also does not ‘wake you up’ to your relationship. I believe that is a dangerous view to push around. Me and many other women who were cheated on, had husbands who became more abusive to us through having their affair - as they used their affair partner was an echo chamber to validate their negative feelings towards us - in order to justify their actions. I think that promoting that idea that you, whether man or woman, can ‘get perspective’ and see how horrible your partner is by having an affair is deeply unhealthy.

I can see how ‘messy’ relationships can become toxic, and when one partner has an affair they realize how toxic the relationship is. However being in an affair is just adding to that toxicity in the first place.

There is never a justification. They are never ‘OK’. And I do judge.

No it is not. And I do judge.

I think it's the coward's way out if you're in an unhappy relationship. And when people say they "can't leave" due to finances I roll my eyes because when I left my ex husband I had a 10 month old baby and no job and I survived.

People are very complex relationships are often complex needs are simple. Relationship promises are simple. Not lying is simple. Not betraying your partner is simple. Sticking at it, through bad times, working things out, or deciding up front to leave are all incredibly tough but are simple choices. People who ‘things are complex’ are just making lame excuses for their own selfishness.

Really so the partner staying in a marriage where person they married and still very much love is ill for many years and physically are unable to have sex is a simple life

Or the partner who has bean emotionally beaten down confidence is floored and someone actually makes them feel valued that’s simple too

I wouldn’t think either of the above scenarios the person having an affair is selfish

Life isn’t so black and white but judge away if it makes you feel morally superior

Honestly I think this is a bit of a myth. Most people in an abusive relationship are with someone who is cheating on them. Not the other way around. The vast majority of women seen in domestic abuse services are scared, controlled and worn down. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. My eXH gaslighted me, isolated me from friends and family, turned the heating off so I couldn’t have it on when he was at work, knocked the door pretending to be an intruder so I’d be scared when he was out.

He told me that we needed to have sex after the birth before my six week check and when it would be happening. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t say no.

I lost all my self confidence, he used to tell me that at least he loved me even if no-one else in the world did and no-one wanted to be friends with me.

I met someone and we got on well. For the most part it was emotional but for the first time I felt as if someone actually cared about me for me.

Stupidly we ended up sleeping together, once. But once we did there was a reason to end my marriage. Because it was an affair my eXH was able to divorce me for adultery and I didn’t contest it and never mentioned any of the other stuff. What was the point. An affair eclipses any other wrongdoing in people’s eyes, so talking about how things were would just have been seen as echoing some kind of script.

The truth is that society isn’t supportive of women who leave relationships because of emotional abuse. There is in fact a thread on here right now from a poster whose family are unsupportive of the fact that she is in an abusive relationship and are trying to make her stay with him.

I tried to leave before, but I was told that I would be mad to leave. He looked after us financially, I wouldn’t get anyone who would treat me as he had done.

An affair most definitely isn’t justified, I didn’t stay with AP and in fact never spoke to him again after it ended.

I was wrong to have an affair, but my eXH was no innocent victim in terms of the state of our marriage.

I hold my hands up to having had an affair, but I resent the implication that I was an abuser.

Incidentally, my ex is now working on his current partner.

@MissConductUS

Among women I've known, those who discard a good decent man thinking that a better one will come along are always disappointed. The woman in this relationship sounds horrid tbh and I think will get what she deserves.

I think women are far more likely to end a marriage because it's making them unhappy than because they think a dream hero is just on the other side.

No its never ok. That doesn't mean you can't feel compassion for your friends

It depends. If an affair starts after they genuinely fall in love then leave to live happily ever after, there is a reason to start it IMO.
An affair for the sake of having some sex boosting your ego, when you go home and act like you are committed to your partner is very wrong, if one partner believes they are part of a committed loving relationship it is selfish.

Yeah, I think the outcome speaks for itself. I doubt the passing comfort is worth the messy turmoil of the end of the marriage.

"News flash - no child wants to live with 2 parents who don't love each other."

Yes they do, don't kid yourself. The only children who are pleased their parents split are those who witness DV. Chikdren with parents who generally get along but don't have sex anymore would far rather their parents stayed together. They really don't care that their parents may be happier elsewhere and they certainly don't understand.

News flash - no child wants to live with 2 parents who don't love each other

So an affair is the answer to this is it? Lmao

News Flash - no child wants to live with parents where one is cheating on the other. I did, and it was awful.

@HoneyBeeHappy I have no doubt you felt that you were in an emotionally abusive relationship. However you are not in the majority of women who turn up at domestic abuse services or in the courts. And if you were able to meet someone and sleep with them you were exercising a freedom that most women do not feel that they have in an abusive relationship. It was quite a provocative act for you to sleep with someone when you were committed to someone else, even if you felt like it was abusive. It is still not right and added to that, quite dangerous.

Also if you were vulnerable or living under abuse too all the more reason not to have an affair - you were far more likely to being ‘cared for the first time’ and make your eyes open, but fall into the arms of another abuser.

And also for the reasons that I’ve put before - several abusive men have affairs and cite the same reasons - blaming their wife for being the abusers and the affair as opening their eyes to how awful their wives are. If you are saying that is OK for you, then you are also undermining the abused wives whose husbands are saying that about them.

I feel it would be ridiculous to say ''it's never ok to have an affair'' so it must be that it can be ok.

Marriage is not always successful or right. Marriage doesn't always mean something. Being legally married doesn't make people a couple.

Secrecy is not good though. Nobody deserves to be used or duped.

I hold my hands up to having had an affair, but I resent the implication that I was an abuser. I do still think that affairs are an abusive act. So yes, whilst you are saying your husband was awful, I think what you did having an affair was an abusive act - you lied and betrayed a commitment. An abusive act doens’t make you ‘an abuser’ but it is an act of harm towards another in a relationship that is significant. You were lucky too that it was with someone who wasn’t also harmful to you, your situation could have become extremely bad if this had come out within a situation of you being controlled. So it’s not advisable to any woman in a domestic abuse situation.

Why is it yours, or any of our business? You will never know what their marriage was like and I don’t understand why you are so concerned about which ‘side’ to take. Concentrate on your own life ffs.