Why do men cheat? Lily Allen & David Harbour edition

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Why the fuck do men (and women, don't get me wrong) cheat?

David Harbour and Lily Allen had a seemingly good marriage, and he cheated with a younger colleague.

Why do people cheat, especially when they have a good thing going?

Edited to add. I meant Edition!

These types are all so whacked out on substances I genuinely doubt they know what they are doing and wuth whom.

Uninteresting people.

Unmarried/single women?

They got married after maybe a year, and she took her two young daughters to live abroad with him in that time - after having had affairs, including with another married man.

It's not exactly a good template case for "why do men cheat?"

I'm not saying it was her fault he cheated, but the situation isn't awash with sensible people.

In the specific case, Harbour & Allen, it sounds like No Way should any of us be commenting. There are too many things being said yet truth is unclear, about what they agreed would be reasonable within their own marriage.

If Allen wants to say whatever to seek support from her personal buddies that's her perogative.

Many songs are based on grains of truths but are far from strictly truthful, there's been lots of artistic license usually if only to make verses rhyme or express a sentiment rather than tell an accurate story. So interpretting DH+LA marriage thru what songs she wrote (or on her album, anyway) wouldn't lead to an accurate picture of their actual situation. That's Putting aside that LA can only tell her side of the story and probably omitted aspects that don't fit with creating the emotion she wants song to evoke.... or that are simply too embarrassing !!

Songs are best interpretted as art not life,

What a stupid post. He didn't wake up one day to find he was suddenly married to her. They would have met, dated then both decided to get married. It doesn't just happen. Presumably he loved her at that point

Or you could be a grown up and leave

Emotionally abusive husband. Made me feel shameful for having sexual needs. Treated me like a child.whats happening in the marriage was the cause but with two children, mortgage etc divorce not on the table right now

Cheat? They blurred the line by allowing her DH have sex with other woman.
When you play with fire someone gets burnt.
Even if you're paying.
Pair of idiots.
I feel sorry for the DC, not the overindulgence of this pair of attention seekers.

I think anyone married to Lily Allen would end up cheating, shes cheated loads on her exs. Shes an awful woman & now trying to ruin his career.

I don't think they're a good example. A pair of very messy people who already had an open relationship.

They allowed one another to cheat with sex workers/one night stands but set the boundary of no emotions so she isn’t hurt because he cheated, she actually allowed this but it’s purely because he fell for someone else.

It sounds like both brought their emotional damage to the marriage in droves and it was doomed to fail from the off.

Lots of reasons in different situations which are never the same, but in Harbour’s case specifically, I guess he’s a very average looking man who has made a hugely successful career that involves fame and money. With that he automatically becomes “attractive” to women who wouldn’t give him a second glance if he was stacking shelves in ASDA.

He obviously has few morals, obscure standards or just doesn’t like Lily Allen very much and chooses to live the life of a prolific shagger, who will continue to move from one affair to another.

They seemed a strange couple anyway. Two people who have huge egos in a relationship isn’t going to always end well.

In my exs case,he is a psychopath
(Or at least has a lot of the traits)

With a psychopath,one of their traits is boredom-they can start a fight in an empty room,just for something to do

And he was obsessed with sex-he would have had it 24/7 if he could

He was also a cocklodger and really thought his sexy body and good looks would get him through life (to a degree,it did)

He beat me up and ran off with my then best friend-she was desperate for her own baby and tried to snatch our baby on her way out

(she had a lot of mental health issues-an excuse for 'I can do what i like and it's not my fault' in her case-she admitted she puts a lot of it on and she had a doting mother who excused a lot)

They'd been shagging since I was first pregnant-i wasn't up for as much sex and needed sleep and life had become 'boring'

It lasted 6 weeks-her mother saw what a cocklodging loser he really was,had a word and they broke up-the sex wasn't as good when it was out in the open

He also saw a lot of sex workers behind both our backs,using our money

He left for another woman who was very vulnerable and did the same to her before moving away

He's finding out that looks fade and hes not as sexy as he was 20+ years ago and women are wising up to cocklodgers so is finding life every hard and has had to get a job

Because their dicks rule their heads and they think they are smart enough to get away with it . Plus men are not vilified as much as women for cheating . They don’t get called names like women do , neither do they get harassed the way that a woman will be by other men hoping for some of the same .

I vaguely knew LA back in the day in London and she was then, and I assume now, an extremely obnoxious-behaving and extremely damaged person. People like her are, sadly, fucked up from childhoods with crap parents who are narcissists and addicts and don't give them enough attention. They sadly carry that baggage into all their adult relationships and make ill-advised choices as a result. In her case: thinking using sex workers is cool and not damaging, being a cool girl and trying to go along with an open relationship aka let me shag around from a slimy bloke, clearly not great esp for someone that craves attention and 'centering' as she said in a recent interview, due to the shit parenting. I mean someone with rich and famous parents that went to 13 different (fee paying) schools and left with no GCSEs was clearly struggling from childhood/teenage years. Not to mention moving 2 young daughters to the US to marry a man you met on a celebrity dating app a few months before. Bad choices, bad outcomes.

I feel a mix of annoyance, exasperation and pity for Lily Allen. Lots of people have shit childhoods and shit parenting though and make it through to something better. In her case she has plenty of money, fame, nice places to live, access to expensive therapy, so she really should be sorting herself out now in her forties. Hopefully this latest albulm is the start of that (or continuation to the recent therapy she has had, according to that interview).

He's just an entitled average male that got lucky and is riding out his luck by shagging everything that moves. Why he bothered getting married and taking on 2 young girls is beyond me, especially since the 3 year affair started months later (and is rumoured to have resulted in a now 2.5y old daughter). What was the point? Conspiracy theories say Marvel needed him to look like a 'family man'.

Pretty much. She also has an album to sell and is touring next year, so financially there’s a lot at stake. But she doesn’t have much power and has never been overflowing with talent, so it’s going to be her who ultimately loses.

The minute I read or hear that someone has addiction issues, I’m like ‘Say no more.’ Apologies to all addicts, but for the most part, they are too dysfunctional to behave in relationships.

I don’t want to imply all cheaters are addicts, but in my own experience, addicts who miraculously don’t cheat are always sailing pretty close to the wind… they’re always on the cusp of being unfaithful. Addicts may have one particular vice, but their dysfunctional behaviour extends beyond it. They chase chaos and self destruction. Consequences don’t exist.

My brother is an addict. He’s not been using (that I’m aware of) for several years but he cannot stay faithful in relationships. It’s impossible. He ALWAYS ends up leaving because of someone else (whether they’re waiting in the wings or not). He consistently ruins relationships with his infidelity. My ex husband is also an addict/recovering alcoholic, sober 30 years, but his addictive vices transferred to/became food and sex (the latter of which I was NOT the recipient because it’s not about that for an addict).
I honestly think too that a lot of mental health issues (drug) addicts and alcoholics have are derived from, or at least exacerbated by, battering their brains with substance abuse. They lose so many emotional, compassionate, empathetic chips along the way- if they were ever that nice to begin with. Both my ex husband and my brother are complete sociopaths. I don’t say that with judgment or resentment, just total honesty.

Lily writes her own stuff. Obviously with help like every major artist. From what she's saying in this album it was an open relationship gone wrong? He had an emotional affair and it wasn't just sex? I guess that could be fiction. But it's very specific!

Its not fiction. They've found the women, a makeup artist from New Orleans that he met on a filmset and interviewed her and she's acknowledged it.

I think men and women cheat for different reasons. Based purely on my own experience. I found out my ex had cheated multiple times from the early days of our relationship.

Who knows why I stayed as long as I did in such an emotionally abusive relationship... the result being he cheated again (obvs) and I also cheated after that.

So to answer 'why' - he absolutely craved attention. He always cheated with women in relationships who somehow seen him as a kind of saviour. He thrived on that.

For me - I cheated for an emotional connection that had been destroyed in my relationship.

I think women are more likely to cheat when their relationship is actually dead, but they feel stuck and dependent on their partner (emotionally or otherwise). Cheating women have maybe experienced some kind of past trauma, men are childish 'Peter Pans'.

Men & women cheat in approximately equal numbers. It takes two to tango & all that.

They both seem to have major issues. She's certainly no saint, but nor does she pretend to be. I like to see art of any kind being this raw and unapologetic. Victims of cheating and abuse have been silenced through shame for a long time.

My friend has been seeing a married man for almost 3 years. He says he's not happy at home but if he was to leave he'd lose everything. It's got to the stage where she's not even sure she wants him to leave any more as she is very independent and doesn't 'need' a man. She did finish it recently though but they talk all the time. No matter how wonderful she tells me he is, he's still a liar & a cheat and she gave him no reason to leave while he could carry on with her and still have a stable home life

Ew.

I suppose when the man's poor wife tests positive for STDs, it'll all be blown open.

According to her album (an excellent listen) it wasn’t an open relationship until he asked for it by phone when she was working away. Then broke the ‘rules’ she reluctantly agreed to.