What is with the English, affairs, and divorce?

[BoundaryGirl3939]

Everyday when I visit this website I see a post about a husband having an affair, or a suspicion that he is cheating, or an irritation that he is getting to close to a female friend. I see mumsnet as an accurate description of what is going on in English society, and the levels of infidelity shock me.

I'm Irish, and believe me that the men here are not perfect. We have high levels of addiction (alcoholism) and dysfunction (anger management) but the infidelity is definitely not as commonplace (although it does take place but not as frequently). Yes, Irish marriages/relationships break up, and adults may get a second life partner after a relationship has died, but the actual 'cheating' is not as common and is scandalous if it does take place.

I find it shocking that an average man can contently sleep with another woman, and then go home to his wife and kids. My mind boggles that a woman can feel like she has a right to encroach on another womans husband and take a father from his family.

Can’t extrapolate until we have nationality of OW - please provide.

You will see a lot of it here on MN because people post for support if they have problems/ dilemmas.
I am in my early 70s all of my friends and my husband’s friends are still with their original spouse and happily married. We have a couple of relations who are on to their second relationship. Amongst our friends we all accept that marriage breaks down but we all dislike cheating.

You're being very naive op if you think it's just an English problem.
It happens globally, regardless of creed, culture, sex and religion.

DLTB (beaut, not bastard). Let your ducks remain higgledy piggledy.

I recently heard that men are naturally polygamous and it all clicked for me. Monogamy is against their biology. So tolerate them or do what I do and use them to your benefit.

Us English just love to flaunt our infidelities all over the internet. I suspect your catholic guilt is stopping you Irish doing the same!

Any of you seen the study that shows the age group men stay attracted to? 21. Women develop and are attracted to a similar age group. Men will always be attracted to kids, essentially. Multiple.

OP is absolutely bang on the money with their assertions. In the fifth century St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Inspired by this the government and clergy, rounded up all the female fornicators (after a stint in a mother and baby home) and dropped them at the boat to England. Once in England these "sleeper" agents inflitrated the general population, marrying and having families with locals, and this is how their fornicator genetics entered the English DNA, Ireland now free of this plague of fornicators has remained pure and divorce and affair free since. We now mostly populate ourselves through red lemonade and Tayto crisps. England,sadly, has nearly collapsed under the weight of it's own sexiness.

#This post will only make sense to Irish readers, which as the OP so rightly pointed out do not exist on Mumsnet.

Absolutely this.

Let's say there are 10 postings a day with some poor woman complaining about her shitbag husband - what does that tell you about the infidelity rate of a country with a population of 57 million?

The only firm conclusion I could possibly draw is that you weren't paying attention during stats classes at school.

Maybe the circles you run in just have more morals than us debauched English people

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/infidelity-rates-by-country

this one has UK as 36% and Ireland as 33%

Maybe the Irish are just better at doing it discreetly!

In the fifth century St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.

Bollocks did he.

Cars weren't invented until much later.

Good solid attempt at provokatsiya you have there, OP. Hope it's going how you wanted

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Really? The Ashely Madison survey in 2021 showed that Ireland has the highest infidelity rate in the world at 1 in 5 marriages.

Are you Irish? Apparently if so you’re probably right, He’s not.

My dh bought me chocolates last week for no reason, I wonder if he is feeling guilty about something. 😉

Affairs have been going on since day dot and it’s certainly not just an ‘English’ thing. There’s plenty of Irish who have got their leg over someone else while married 🤦🏻‍♀️

I see mumsnet as an accurate description of what is going on in English society

... And there lies your problem!!!! 🤣🤣

In real life, most of my friends and myself are all happily married or happily single or happily cohabiting! I guess most my friends are married. Out of all the friends I know, school mums I have become friendly with, and siblings friends etc... I only know a v v small number who have divorced (2 couples) and I don't actually think I know of any infidelity in my friendship or wider circle!

On Mumsnet you will find the people looking for advice (so things are obviously not going well for them) and those that answer often have experience! No-one is going to post - 'im happily married and so are all my friends, please help!' so of course you get a skewed view!

Please don't see Mumsnet as a reflection of real life in England!!!!

Laughably unbelievable

I lived in the Norhtern Ireland for 3 years and what struck me was that everyone knew everyone. So when anyone met it they would ask where they were from. After a couple of minutes chat it would always transpire that their 2nd cousin worked with the other one's brother. Then they'd probably go on to find a few more connections they had in common .

This would certainly make you think you're not going to get away with whatever heinous act of moral turpitude had just crossed your mind.

In England, you wouldn't usually try and find common connections because it would be more unusual.

So I don't think it's really a question of motive, more of opportunity.

😂

I would love to see actual evidence. I’d make the assumption that affairs happen but it’s far more frowned upon and hushed up (like the Mary Magdalene asylums with unmarried pregnant women)… but sure, you can think Ireland has some kind of moral high ground if that fits your narrative better.

It's absolutely rife in my industry in Dublin from what I can tell.

You never hear about it about your own friends for obvious reasons, but female colleagues regularly tell me about happily married men who have chanced their arm.

@Couldyounot

I would love my gravestone to read “sadly, she collapsed under the weight of her own sexiness.”