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?

Based on my observations it seems to be mainly boredom. Affair seems exciting compared to mundanity of LTR. Some ppl don't seem to be suited to monogamy but in those cases it would be better if they didn't get married in the first place (or marry someone who's happy for them to see other people).

They don't care. Why would they.

It benefits them.

By having zero self-awareness.

The person cheating tends to rewrite their marriage to make it all out to be their spouse’s fault (ie they drove them to it by being selfish/lazy/etc) when in most cases that has no basis in reality.

The affair partner often doesn’t have much self-confidence and so believes everything their lover tells them and also starts blaming the ex. They believe it can never happen to them, they’re better because of x/y/z, and so when in fact it does happen to them (most affairs fail) they try to then blame their lover.

My old friend cheated to her first husband. We haven't talked much about it but I think she just didn't quite believe in monogamy. She said she was young and she was allowed to explore or such thing. And if he doesn't know no one is being hurt.
They divorced. She remarried. Don't think she cheated the second time as she 'matured'...
We are not friends anymore though so can't be sure.

I don't think monogamy is natural for a lot kf people really.

Its an old fashioned concept that was imposed by society over one hundred years ago.

It was a societal rule.

We wouldn't say " you can only have one friend"

So how is expecting people to be in a relationship with just one person, realistic

My friend had an affair. He was in an unhappy marriage.

I think he did it as a way of ending the marriage, he was drifting along unhappily but didn’t have the courage to end it. In some level, he knew there was no going back after starting an affair.

He’s very happily married to the OW now and has been for 10 years.

I haven't really had an affair, but I'd imagine people justify it by saying it's not their fault that they fell in love with more than one person. Or the opposite of that, that it didn't mean anything and it was a one off mistake because they felt neglected. Neither of those excuses is great though really.

It's realistic if you have taken vows to that effect!

If you don't want to be monogamous, then don't get married. But anyone married is entitled to expect their spouse to respect the vows they chose to make.

Unhappy by who’s definition his? Cheaters often rewrite the narrative to make themselves the victim when the truth is he had his head turned and now to avoid looking like a failure / loser he must make the second marriage work. And they often do this by elevating the OW.

Saying a vow is saying something in the moment.

Years later in the marriage, it's not really realistic to expect married people to never be with anyone else.

As we see , as so many married people having affairs.

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect to completely own a person. It rarely works.

If people entered a relationship and said "you can be with other people and I can also be with other people", a lot of people would be happier.

There needs to be new definitions of marriage and relationships.

Many people see marriage as a financial contract more than anything else.

Looks ahead to the future I agree, we need a more enlightened, flexible form of contract. Something that encourages people to stay together whilst raising children is definitely important, but we all change and over the years our feelings and desires change also. The important thing is to be honest with each other, talk about things and discuss options, there are many these days. It doesn't have to result in deception or separation/divorce.

Yes. His definition. His wife thought they were happy!

Only with the benefit of hindsight does she see theirs was a bad marriage. But she was devastated at the time.

Once you've been married for over 20 years, you wouldn't care what the other half is up to!

If I said to someone "you can only have one friend at a time for years. You can't see any other friends for those years"

We can see how restrictive it is.

Yet we expect people to only have one romantic partner at a time.

People often can't stick to this restriction. As it is very restrictive

As someone who has done this myself in numerous situations in the past and happy to talk about it - I notice there are a lot of "my friend" in the thread 😏- I think people on the other side massively overrate the "how could she do this knowing we had kids / were married / etc." part.

I don't care. You're a random person to me, we don't owe each other anything. My relationship is with him, not you. It is no different to me if he has a wife than if he has 3 cousins or a great-uncle. It's not about you at all. It's about sexual attraction, having fun, and escapism. It's about escaping paying the bills, cleaning up vomit, all the day to day drudgery, and going back to the excitement of when you were free to wine and dine. All the excitement of a brand new relationship, before you chose security and got bored to death.

(For context, I don't break up relationships. I quietly see bored men from a mutual attraction standpoint until it fizzles out or someone else interests me more. I'm not interested in a relationship, I just borrow them and put them back where I found them. None of the wives have ever found out, I'm not in it for the drama or to steal someone's husband).

Feel free to ask me anything you like.

But would you not think about the children? And what could happen to them?

I've never had an affair with a married man, because I know if their marriage broke up, it would deeply hurt the children

Some people are just not very good at assessing risks. Poor risk assessment, plus poor impulse control, plus an ability to compartmentalise then you have someone who can more easily indulge themselves. They don’t think they will get caught or they don’t really think of much and just stick any uncomfortable guilty feelings or thoughts about consequences in the box.

I'm not sure they do justify it, they live with it. People are people ,they do all sorts of things they shouldn't. Obviously devastating if your life is wrecked by this but it's not surprising this happens fairly routinely in life.

You said a man having a wife means nothing to you. That its just the same as a man having three cousins.

A wife is different to cousins though.

If you have an affair with a married man you're not going to hurt his cousins.

You're going to hurt his wife.

I could never have an affair with a married man , (where the wife doesn't know) as I can imagine the deep pain I would cause his wife and children.

Do you not feel the pain you could cause them?

I'm another who thinks it can be more nuanced than is sometimes assumed.

I know of a case where the woman decided she didn't want sex any more at 40 and the man took he view that a discrete affair was the better option than breaking up the family home with two young children. Is that justified? I don't know that I would use that term as such, but I do admit to having some sympathy with the man in that situation - is it reasonable to unilaterally withdraw from one aspect of a marriage and expect the spouse to just accept that? It's not clear cut in my opinion.

Marriages take two people.
People take each other for granted
Things become stale.
Someone shows a person some attention and it starts to longing for more.

Sometimes couples can then use that to work together to improve their marriage. Sometimes it it the end.

You are giving a lot of thought into what you think people will think about

The honest truth what they are thinking about is what they will do when they are alone with the person they desire and how to make that happen

what they feel guilty about will come (excuse the unintended pun) second and later. lust is a huge drive. people often make terrible judgements and can be extremely selfish and destructive when they are infatuated. Its not an excuse put it happens even with the nicest kindest loving people

humans are fallible

I wouldn't have thought my Dad, who had several affairs, gave any thought whatsoever about "justifying" his actions

We all have lust, but why not date a single man.

I've never been with a married man bevause my empathy for his children , would always stop me.

I guess that some people have more empathy than others. That's always the case anyway. It's the cruel selfish people who don't think of others.