To wonder how people who have affairs justify it to themselves?

[CockerMum]

Prompted by another thread but also a discussion recently with a friend who mentioned they have another friend who has been having an affair with a married man for a decade.
If you have had an affair, even if you regret it now, how have you justified this to yourself?

They justify it by convincing themselves and trying to convince others that Theirs Is The Love That Has Never Loved Before and they just had no choice because it was fate and people need to show them understanding and respect instead of criticism

I don't think all cheaters are inherently bad people, I think there's a big grey area and sometimes people cheat because they are being abused, have checked out of their existing relationship or simply aren't happy. I cheated on a partner who I was deeply unhappy with. Had told him the issues and he did nothing about it but continued to cock lodge and emotionally manipulate me into staying with him. So when someone else showed an interest I just lapped it up. It didn't work out with that person either but it was the push I needed to get out of the relationship. Not my finest hour but I look back and realise I'm only human and my actions were a result of the situation I was in.

What is bad however is expecting to have your cake and eat it. People who have a 'happy' family home that they don't want to leave but just fancy a bit on the side are terrible. This sounds much like the thread you're talking about and I cannot justify or condone that behaviour at all. If it's a mostly marriage and there are kids involved then you try to work at it. If it's unsalvageable you leave. You don't sneak about and betray someone you claim to love.

But sometimes it's the truth. My partner left his wife for me after several,months of an affair. They had been unhappy for years - ok, he'd been definitely unhappy for years and she acted like she was. He met me and we did fall in love. He left her and we've been together now for over a decade. And finally getting around to getting married.

I trust him completely because his affair was an exit one.

Most affairs I've heard about recently have been women leaving their husbands for other men.

I've known of a few people, one was typical bloke..looking for responsibility free sex.
The other was a woman with a husband who was much older with dementia. I felt rather sorry for her. She loved her husband, but he was deteriorating, so she was doing drudge every day but with no relationship. I certainly wouldn't judge that unkindly.

It very much depends on what the reasons for the affair are. It’s not always that simple. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, it happens. The reasons for affairs are many and varied. 🙂

Tripe. Years ago it was the norm for men to have affairs but women were just supposed to ignore it, not least because they lacked other options.

@CockerMum I had an affair in my twenties, with a married man. I regret it in that my already low confidence was damaged further and my time was wasted with him. I have some (lesser) regret regarding his wife which I know makes me sound terrible, but I strongly believe that he should harbour that regret rather than me as I had no loyalty to her. That said, I wouldn’t do it again as I have much more respect for women in general (including myself) now than I did then.

It's because they have the opportunity to have sex with someone else and don't care about the consequences

@CockerMum oh and as for why… I adored his company and we laughed a lot. At the time on balance it seemed worth it for those moments.

A woman I work with is quite open about her 20 year affair with a married man. She seems to think it is a wonderful love story. She left her own husband and children, and her OM paid the deposit for 'their' flat and pays the rent for her, but as yet, hasn't left his wife and moved in. There's always a reason why he can't. She's ill, one of the kids is ill, her mother is visiting, and so on and on and on.
Her children (all young adults) have nothing to do with her, her husband is divorcing her for adultery, and she believes that one day, soon, maybe even next month, the married man will tell his wife and move in with her. Meanwhile, the wife is apparently blissfully unaware that her husband has a mistress, he works away a lot.

The pair of them disgust me.

My friend is having an affair. She’s very morally upright in many ways. She just seems to be able to justify to herself that the affair should continue.

A decent person would have divorced first.

'When a man leaves his wife for his mistress, he creates a vacancy'

Will you still trust him when he has his next 'exit affair'?

It's just life, isn't it? People have affairs because they want to. Why they want to varies. Perhaps they enjoy the chase and deception, perhaps they're being abused at home, perhaps they're bored in their marriage, maybe they have no respect for their partner and wish to hurt them, maybe they are trying to force a divorce.

At the end of the day, we live in a strictly monogamous society. It's not for everyone, and many people are too cowardly or too repressed to have a real conversation about what they'd like out of life.

I agree with you. I was in the same position as you.

For me it was a lack of sex for years and zero communication. I tired to broach the subject to get shut down and made to feel a freak for bringing it up. Slept in separate rooms and zero conversation. Never thought I'd ever have an affair. The affair lasted 2 months before I left H and now very happy with the man I had an affair with

But why not leave first? That doesn't justify an affair it just explains leaving the relationship

But a decent person would end one relationship before moving on to the next one. Overlaps are grim and tacky

I left my ex because he was awful. I didn't need to line the next person up before I left him

My DH told himself I hated him. He also blamed me for it, as did his family. It’s broken me.

He met me and we did fall in love. He left her

key missing info there @daliesque

how long between meeting you and leaving her

and “unhappy for years” but too lazy to do anything about it

I was the OW for a decade, I wasn't married, he was.

I would never have considered it before him, I was very hard-line about cheating. I fell in love with him. I was 40.

He was clear he wouldn't leave his wife, that was never on the cards.

We 'split' about 5 years ago, we are still occasionally in touch, as friends. We lived, and live, on different continents so I guess not the average affair in terms of subterfuge.

I don't regret it, but I can't imagine being in a situation where it would ever happen again with someone else (or again with him), it was very much to do with a time and place in my life when I met him.

It didn't open a gateway for other immoral behaviour as PP said upthread. I'm boringly conventional.

I'm sure I'll get some abuse over this post, Mumsnet tends to be very black and white about affairs.

They think they’re fundamentally entitled to ‘be happy’ regardless how unhappy that makes anyone else.

@WindsurfingDreams I'll be honest and never thought I'd cheat. The marriage was over way before I started the affair and I did end the affair a few times as guilt overwhelmed me and the first time we kissed I threw up and had a panic attack when I got home. I'm not proud of my actions but it's also not like I had a happy loving marriage before hand. Husband has never tried to fight for me after I told him it's over and is a very selfish and miserable person I've come to realise. I would never have carried on the affair and stayed married to him and in all honestly I only had an affair for 3 weeks due to me keep ending it. It's very easy to say just end it but when you are tied up in houses and other aspects it's simply not as easy as that. I did love my husband with every fibre of my being but the years of constant dismissal and refusal to communicate eradicated all that love. I am sad that the marriage didn't last as I did intend to spend the rest of my life with him but there's only so much shit you can take before you snap. I would've never had the affair if husband was loving, affectionate and actually spoke to me. We sat in silence every evening for years beforehand and I'd end up going to bed by 8pm as couldn't handle it. I stayed as wanted at least one of my children to grow up with their father around. Trust me looking back I realise that he probably never loved me and only used me as a meal ticket as I was the main earner and it was a comfortable routine. He had a back injury which resulted in him not working but could sit around and play ps5 all day and paint his warhammer figurines but couldn't try and retrain. Where as I have worked almost full time, attending uni and raising 3 children. All he done was wash up and stick kids dinner in the oven. I'm not proud of myself but that is how life ends up sometimes

There are as many reasons as there are people who have affairs, I suppose. But a few I have encountered (in friends, partners, family members etc):

Unhappy in the relationship and wanting to leave it but scared to say so so they back themselves into a corner with the affair.

Feeling an aspect of their sexuality (BDSM for example) not met on their marriage.

Suspect their spouse of cheating - revenge affair.

Fall in love with someone else when already married. Doesn't always mean they have stopped loving their spouse. The married man who tried to have an affair with me when I was at a very low ebb (dd's dad had been cheating and I had finally left him) claimed, I think with sincerity, that he loved me, though he was open about the fact that he still loved his wife, and would never leave her. I turned him down, though I was very attracted and in some ways liked him a lot.

Spouse choosing not to or unable to have sex due to health reasons, age etc.

Error of judgement under the influence of alcohol or drugs (that would be more a one night stand than an on-going affair).

I could go on......

I don't agree that affairs are always as bad as they are made out to be on here - almost tantamount to rape or murder. I think some affairs are worse than others, but fundamentally nobody belongs to anyone. I do agree that lying is generally bad, though I also think very few people are entirely honest at all times. (Including with themselves).