Are affairs super common?

[User5512]

Every other joke is about 🙄 affairs! Are affairs that common? I thought something like this would be scandalous in my friendship circles, but I heard the other day about a someone I know breaking up with her good friend as she developed feelings for the husband 😳They are 40 ffs !!

Perhaps we are slightly too young (early thirties) as my friends are all in the just marrying and having babies phase. I don’t know (or suspect!) any to be having affairs. I’ll let you know in 10 years 😂 I work as a HCP and ask a lot about people’s sexual history and when I was newly qualified I was shocked how many people have extra marital sex, whether with ‘friends’, a long term other partner or with sex workers!

I don’t think they’re common in my circle or at my work. I may very naive though!

Yes @LaDerniereVacheFolle I should have said "to my knowledge". It's true I might not know.

In my 20s I knew a few people who cheated on their partners in my social circle. Plenty of drama. But in my friendship group now I don't know of anyone who's cheated on the person they married/settled down with.

I'm mostly baffled at how so many posters seem to have such certain knowledge about the private lives of everyone around them. I have no idea whether any of my colleagues have cheated on their partners and I don't especially care. (I don't even know whether one of my closest colleagues HAS a partner, she has never come close to mentioning her private life.) In my workplace it'd be very frowned upon to gossip about other colleagues' marriages or affairs.

Even among friends, even if any of them were having an affair they're all smart enough to keep it discreet. I doubt most people would know unless it blew up their marriage.

Not common in my social circle

I think so, I know plenty of people who have had affairs. It doesn't bother me, I don't judge. I think anyone is capable of having an affair in the right circumstances

Yes. My H has had 2, the most recent discovered in the last 6 weeks. They basically ruin lives.

I work as a HCP and ask a lot about people’s sexual history and when I was newly qualified I was shocked how many people have extra marital sex, whether with ‘friends’, a long term other partner or with sex workers!

I think a lot of people, probably more men than women, wouldn't count a one-off as an affair. So the numbers will vary depending on people's definitions- are you measuring any infidelity, or on-going extra-marital relationships? Many wouldn't count emotional affairs that never get physical. And some people will go to the grave without ever telling anyone.

I've had a fair few married men hit on me over the years - apparently a BJ wouldn't count, more than one has told me. I suspect their wives would not have agreed, and I'd not have believed any who had said they'd asked and she was fine with it (not that I remember any of them saying that, because there would be no point asking if I wouldn't believe them and I'd not be agreeing to their offer in any case.)

I think there probably are a lot more than we ever know about.

I think there probably are a lot more than we ever know about.

This. Also - the posters who make it clear what they think of affairs, and say they don’t know anyone who is doing it -

They’re not going to tell you.

I mean, I don't think it's uncommon or rare, no. As far as I am aware none of my friends are cheating, nor are their husbands but then how on earth would I even know?- the entire point is it's a secret and I'm not with them 24/7 so they may well be.

I had the opportunity to cheat when my marriage was going through a rough patch- I encountered someone via work events who was very attractive, obviously attracted to me and it would have been "easy" for me to do it as it was right there in front of me. I didnt cheat however, as I didnt want to blow my family apart and now things are great with my husband. So, not everyone takes that opportunity and not everyone goes down that path even when its offered to them.

they are more common then people think & particularly in certain workplaces eg police.

I know a few women who have had them but in my actual friend group only one which lead to a divorce.

oh I know one husband who had an emotional affair a few yrs ago, I reckon that’s far more common with social media.

I do think they happen more often than we all think, the point of them is to be kept secret so a lot of them are never discovered. My colleagues were discussing how they would never have affairs the other day and despise people who do, yet out of the 3, 2 of them have texted flirty exchanges with someone other than their partner and openly flirt with each other and the other is having a relationship with someone in work which they kept secret for a year.

I’d say if you hear someone disapproving of affairs repeatedly they are most likely not 100% innocent themselves

Isn’t gossip frowned upon most of the time?

It doesn’t take gossip.

Examples would be the Head of our department, who we know was married, turning up at work parties hand in hand with the same colleague and all over all night. You didn’t need to gossip when it’s right in front of you.

The Colleague that was very open that she has moved out of her home and left their twins with their dad and moved in with one of the field managers. Her mum also worked with us and moved departments because she couldn’t work with her any longer. Her mum was more upset she was making no effort to see the twins.

Or the HRBP, that no one could ever get hold of because she was always attached to the same Married Finance Director. He left his wife, which he told people, then a week later him and the HRBP start arriving in the same car together and are openly a couple.

Or the wife of an operational director who turned up in reception to confront her husband and the OW and make sure everyone knew. I ran the whole site so was called down to reception as soon as she turned up.

While people do gossip, it often obvious . And not talking about it doesn’t make it any less obvious. You don’t need to gossip to see what’s in front of your face.

and to be honest, if you are going to be so unprofessional to these things at work, that’s the problem. Not the people talking about it.

When people say it's not common in my circle it makes me laugh. The whole point of an affair is it's secret, real life is not like the soaps and it doesn't always get found out.

Affairs are more common than people think, you can hook up with someone in a few clicks online and if someone isn't happy at home for whatever reason sex is easy to find online. The amount of posts I see on here about sexless marriages only enforces my belief that affairs are common, as a species we have sex for enjoyment and if people are not getting that from their partners then don't be surprised when they look elsewhere. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it happens more than people think.

This is very true.

i have, unfortunately, come across a few men that say ‘that doesn’t count’ until you ask if they would be the same with some giving their wife oral sex, as an example.

One guy told me about how he met a woman at an agency interview and they texted back and forth sent photos and had phone sex. Set up to meet at a hotel and at the last minute he told her he was married and this was all a bit of fun but he wasn’t taking it further. We had been dating for a few weeks. The reason he was telling me this was because he felt it was a story about how he was such a good guy, he never cheated on his ex wife, even when it was offered on a plate. when I asked how he would have felt if his wife had been exchanging photos and having phone sex with another man, he looked shocked, then confused and then like it sunk in that this was a story about how he was a shit. And how it did actually count. Like he had never once had the thought ‘would I say it doesn’t count if my wife was doing it’

I sat there and then said I thought it was best we called it a day.

Yes, in my experience they're very common. I think I've happened to know about a lot of them because I've mostly worked in environments where affairs are fairly blatant, so am unsurprised by them. This means people tell me.

By no means everyone cheats, but I do think it's complicated. For me, the deceit and its ramifications are worse than infidelity (until the affair gets serious). But we aren't like those middle-class French couples who seem to permit one another a limited 'private life'. I wish we were, frankly.

I've sort-of-cheated, never having an affair or even having sex with another person while married, but got a bit too friendly on a few one-off occasions. Both husbands were serial cheaters and liars, though.

Generally, I believe women are better liars than men, and far more able to maintain a good relationship with their partners while having another relationship with someone else as well.

The amount of posts I see on here about sexless marriages only enforces my belief that affairs are common, as a species we have sex for enjoyment and if people are not getting that from their partners then don't be surprised when they look elsewhere. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it happens more than people think

I agree with this. Sex is a primal urge/desire and I am not saying affairs are right because they arent but if someone isnt getting intimacy/sex then the likelihood is they will seek it elsewhere- again, I am not saying its right but its true, whether people like it or not. I often see people post that their partner is absolutely fine with being in a sexless marriage (I don't mean temporarily- I mean permanently) but that's often because they are getting it from someone else. Sex releases all kinds of chemicals into our brains- there is a reason people risk everything for it, no matter how stupid it is from an outside perspective.

Infidelity is absolutely rife, in every walk of life.

Absolutely rife.

Agree with the poster above who said that if you’re vocal about how you feel affairs people are unlikely to divulge their situations.

I know numerous couples where either the man or woman has cheated. Men are more likely to stray, but women do too. I think men just have more opportunity as women are usually doing the child rearing.

Agree with the posters above re sexless marriages - we have sex because it makes us feel good. Wanted. Loved. It physically feels good (or should do anyway). One person cannot unilaterally decide their partner is now going to be celibate. You don’t get to make that choice for them.

I think a not insignificant number “know” but don’t want to know. Kind of like the French setup.

FWIW - I’ve been the OW for 3 years. I have no interest in him leaving his wife or family. I suspect she probably knows and ignores. Life is not black and white

Two people in my road have had affairs. They both had affairs with other local married people and all 4 of them have kids and had been married for donkeys years. Apart from one they were all the last people you'd think would ever have affairs.

I have a lot of friends and I honestly don't know anyone who is or has had an affair. Only person I know is my brother. Maybe I just don't get to hear about them, I don't know.

Yes, I’d say very common. I know of many and age is irrelevant.

Yes age not relevant. My friend (40s has just found out her late 70s dad is having an affair)

Soooo many married men hit on other women ! I’ve had it happen multiple times in my life.. usually men at work. I get hit on far more by married men than I do single men. I’m definitely not encouraging it, I just don’t know why it happens but it’s happened a hell of a lot. I am very extroverted and a people person so I guess maybe they think that a woman being chatty and friendly to them is a come on?!

a lot of Married men would sleep with another woman if they got the chance. I’ve even had the husbands of 2 friends try it on with me

it’s gross and tbh puts me off ever being married