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 !!

Very common. Men rarely leave the wives though, as they're too chicken shit and spineless to do it. As a pp said, they want to have their cake and eat it. Want little wifey at home, doing the grunt work and childcare and housework and life admin, whilst they shag their affair partner, and have exciting illicit encounters with them.

When married women have affairs it's because they are unhappy in their marriage, and their husband is substandard, and makes her miserable. Married men have affairs because they can, as as I said, they rarely leave the wife. Especially as basically, life will be no different with the new woman/affair partner.

Some unhappily married women will leave and be alone, but unhappily married men just shag around, and stick with the wife, because it's easier. Occasionally they will leave for the other woman. BUT, they will never leave and be alone, because men cannot be alone. They cannot cope alone. Women are much stronger than men.

Misogynist? You’re talking to a gran here! Totally agree if he kept his dick in his pants…but he doesn’t…and she could stop providing a receptacle for it.

Bit of a generalisations- the women I know who've had affairs have had a perfectly nice but dull marriage and also want that bit of fun on the side whilst maintaining the perfect illusion of family life

Well yes, they do have shit morals IMO, no matter how sweet and nice they are in other respects.

You are right as she’s explicitly said they’re enjoying a sexual relationship, not an otherwise committed one.

I presume she’d throw him back as well if he stopped performing.

As a single Mum with a busy life I'd actually like someone to shag and have a laugh with without all of the emotion and nonsense, so I do get why some women decide this is an option. I don't have time for a committed full time relationship and I don't want someone in my home all the time or to have to do their washing or listen to them whinge about their day.

I'm not sleeping with anyone but I do get why single busy women might...just a thought from the other side...

I’m so glad you got away from this horribly demented person. He sounds a danger to others, not even your regular sexually incontinent pig ☹️.

Thankfully you’ve managed to rebuild yourself and hopefully your relationship with your children 💐

I disagree

I think past a certain age most men really couldn't be arsed lol. Women on the other hand...

@Royalbloo But why would it have to be a married man? Surely there are plenty of single men who want no-strings sex?

Loads where I work - hospitals are rife with it. I tend to have a lot of people confessing to me about their affairs too, probably because it is well known that my partner left his first wife for me several years ago, so I'm safe to confide in.

People have affairs for many reasons. My partner because he'd married young, had kids young and they grew apart. Other people because their husband or wife didn't want sex any more. Others because their marriage was cold and with no intimacy or the wife spends all her time with the kids and ignores her husband.

We never really know what goes on in someone else's marriage/relationship. Sometimes the other person in the relationship doesn't always know. Judging is easy, but narrow minded and intolerant and personally I'd rather have people in my lives who weren't so perfect and judgemental.

I just think this is such a narrow minded perspective.

It absolutely does hurt. However, more complicated than you make it out to be. It annoys me that people see affairs as the "worst thing you could ever do, scum blah blah blah!!!" But seem to think talking to your partner like shit 365 days a year is way better. Or not helping them with the housework which causes immense stress. Or being controlling. All of which can heavily ruin someone's day to day happiness.

They aren't nice, but ultimately that fuzzy, primal feeling you get when you meet the love of your life aged 25, that sexual drive you feel when you want them, doesn't suddenly disappear when you are 50, have been married for 25 years and just met someone you click with, whilst your husband/wife at home cba with sex anymore and doesn't like buying you flowers/organising days out/giving you attention because they are busy or tired or prioritising their hobby. We as humans have different levels of this desire, maybe if you have never felt this way you are super happy still, or maybe biologically it doesn't give you the same thrill.

To sit there and say everyone who does it is scum, is just..... Illogical and baseless.

Back in the day I used to work in a male dominated environment where we needed to be away from home quite a bit. 6/7 men in my team either had affairs, one night stands or spent time with sex workers. It was totally normalised and gross. They all had lovely partners who had no idea what shitbags they were married to.

If the sex is good, most single men want to become a couple. The kind of man who has a mistress knows the limits, and looks for a woman who knows them too.

For the same reason, affairs between married partners can run for decades.

Or you just don’t know, because the affairs are successfully hidden?

It can be argued @Blonde they could leave the marriage before embarking on a new relationship rather than have an affair.
@Menomeno What an utter bastard he was to you. x

Nearly everyone I’ve ever met has been unfaithful.
I think monogamy is not the norm even though society pushes people in that box.

I think it reduces beyond a certain age sure but in your twenties? I think you’d have to be in la la land to expect loyalty. Yes there are exceptions but they are literally just that

This. I read an article by a married woman having an affair with a married man, both with children, in her friendship group. She wasn’t unhappily married,neither was he, neither wanted to leave their matrriages,just wanted to have their cake and eat it. It was such a smug self satisfied article.

It’s extremely common.
Just because people don’t tell everyone they know does not mean it does not happen.

Yes because both have an equal amount to lose.

There are also many, many people who have children and then split up. Perhaps that is due to infidelity? Who knows.
The ‘neclear’ family where all siblings are fully related and mum and dad stay together forever is on the whole rare.
Of course people will say non of my friends or their partners have cheated but you really don’t know that for definite.
I can think of many couple where I’ve or both of them have cheated.

Yeah but splitting up a whole family is no easy decision. To do so before real feelings have developed may feel premature to many. Many may feel like the itch just needs scratching to be happy. And many more reasons, because human emotions/thought processes aren't black and white

In the same light I have know women leave their violent partner and not one single person was remotely aware that he was violent. It has been covered up for years.

Plenty of coupled up men also use sex workers and prostituted women. Dh has worked with a few. Their wives are seemingly oblivious.

As is often said on MN @Blonde if there’s a problem in the marriage it should be discussed with an attempt to resolve. The itch of unhappiness/lack of contentment is there in black and white. This is not a matter of nuance or the complexity of human emotion.
For some it is a case of having your cake and eating it which is selfish and irresponsible.

I know no female friends who have had affairs.
I have never had one. As a teenager a married man took me out on a date and I left when I found out tbe old dog.

Firstly, not everyone is self aware enough to be able to face their flaws within a marriage. These issues being brought up can fall on deaf ears.

Secondly, it's absolutely not necessarily there in black and white.