AIBU to wonder why some unfaithful men change later in life?

[FlamingoFloss]

I’m in my 50’s so like to think I have a bit of life experience. Over the years I’ve seen a variety of men cheat on their wives/ling term partners. Ultimately, just because they could. They didn’t get going out and stayed together. Or maybe they did - who knows?

fasg forward a few years and these men are now in their 50’s/60’s and their wife/partner that they’ve been with for years, and who they treated so loosely when they were younger, is now their EVERYTHING.

Ive seen this quite a bit. Why is this? Have they finally grown up and now see what they’ve always had? Do they have regrets? What’s it all about out? Anyone else seen this?

OP - I think you are making all of this way deeper than it is. And/or you still really do not understand the difference between men and women, or more specifically their sexuality.

Young men’s libido is a strong force. Society norms, relationships, etc - do put it in check. But in reality, if opportunity presents - and if there is no risk of being found out - majority would act on an opportunity. It’s a simple animal drive.

I don’t think women can fully understand. To most of us sex and feelings are impossible to separate. And we rarely enjoy meaningless sex. But for most young men - sex can come both with emotions, and without.

So - the men the OP is talking about didn’t change. They loved their partners back in the day. They still love them now. Young love is
different to more mature love - and it’s natural for marriages to change with time.
The men acted on their stronger libido as younger males. Their libido is different now, and with that, they both don’t have as much drive and opportunity. They are, as men often get - more lazy, and less in need for variety.

So - OP - just let it go. There is no drama here. No grand unfairness in the universe. Simply - life. And please - do not go and blow up your friend’s lives by enlightening them
to what you think they should know about the past.

Honestly, the older I get, the more I think we’re all just prisoners of biology as @jsku says. Society has imposed norms but we’re wired by survival instincts to behave contrary to that at the most basic level. Older men shag around less than younger men due to less urge and less opportunity.

its kind of like the old narrative about weight loss. “ You need to address the real reasons you overeat” ( subtext: there are complicated emotional reasons for your obesity). No you don’t. It was never that deep. You just need to take this jab which adjusts your hormones and overrides your primeval urge to eat all the food while it’s available so you don’t die in the next famine.

Yes, I have seen this, I have an uncle it very much applies to, and I've seen it in other people as well.

Personally, I think it is closely related to the statistic about male criminality which drops off a cliff at about age 35. I have a friend who followed that pattern, in jail for some gang/drug offences in his 20s, involved in criminality up to his mid 30s, then, according to him, he realised he'd seen friends killed, he didn't want his mum to see him dead or have her embarrassed, and the life wasn't worth it despite the money and excitement. So settled down into a regular job and life and became an upstanding kind of guy in the neigbourhood.

I see it as increased maturity through experience, impulse control, and I suspect the testosterone drop contributes pretty substantially.

@TempestTost yeah- societies with a lot of young men are more unstable but also more dynamic. Younger people of both sexes take more risks and have poorer impulse control than older people but this is more pronounced in men. Again, humanity has benefited from this to an extent. We need disruptors as much as stabilisers

I get frustrated when people say “ oh well the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until 25” as if this means that people below this age are basically children. Risk taking in young adults can hugely benefit them and society although there is also the flip side ( criminality and stupid accidents)

I think this describes my uncle for sure.

He was really stupid when he got married, not just about other women but all kinds of things. He had a bad example of a marriage with his parents, his father was an open serial womaniser. Always was fired from work for beinga fuck-up. Could not save money.

My aunt was only 17 when she and my uncle were married, but she really is the person that prevented his life from being complete shit in every way. Organised their household, had a good job, achieved a high level degree, kept him from fucking up good jobs, saved money. And at a certain point I think it became obvious to him that he had been extremely lucky. And also that his dad had really made his mum very miserable (she eventually left him.)

I recently bumped into the ex who broke up with me in our 20s.
He was not faithful but I was heartbroken all the same.
He thought the sun shone out of him and women were attracted to his cocky nature.
We decide go for a coffee as I'm curious as to how things turned out for him.

Fast forward 20 odd years, he is overweight, unkempt, divorced, broke and in a bad place. Very much dependent on his aging, mum, too.
As I left the cafe he gave me his number and mumbled something about regret.

I had the sense that he wanted to get back together and saw me as his carer.
No f-ing chance.
I'm not getting rid of my dh - who incidentally is ageing very well and looks better at 60 than 25 and a bit of a silver fox (bless him he's unaware of this) -for this twerp.
Besides which, security matters more to me now at my age than romance.

Number immediately deleted and blocked.

I think that men who play the field when young often pull easily and don't make any effort as they don't need to so go to seed.
Whereas men who are a bit awkward when young can improve with age.

For my Dad, I think it's a fear of being alone.

He's cheated on every woman he's ever been in a relationship with. My mother repeatedly, and then pretty much every girlfriend after that it ended because he shagged someone else.

Except the woman he's been in a relationship with for the past 4 years. He's in his mid 60's now, and I think he's realising that the merry-go-round is slowing down and that if he fucks up this relationship then he's in danger of spending the rest of his life alone.

I don't think there's anything special about this woman in particular. He's not madly in love with her in a way that he wasn't with my Mum or any of his past relationships. The risk / reward factor has just changed. He can't get the women in their 20s and 30s that he used to be able to charm any more, and the risk of his retirement plans getting utterly fucked if his current partner kicks him out is too big.

Yep. Their value decreases and it is not high enough for women to forgive their indiscretions as they're just not attractive enough any more.

I'm pretty sure that the ex I describe in my post wouldn't cheat, either.

Lack of opportunity. The desire is still there but the looks and attractiveness aren’t.

A male perspective if I may.

I was never a prolific cheater but I would be lying if I said it never happened or wasn't on my mind in my twenties and early thirties. For me, I think a number of things factored into it: I'm now 51 by the was and have never remotely considered cheating on my current partner of 14 years.

Maturity. I was a bit of a twat when younger and didn't stop to consider the emotional impact upon the person I was in a long term relationship with at the time. We met when we were both 18 and were together until I was 29. When we got together, neither of us had many partners prior so there was always that fascination with the excitement of the new and unknown, coupled with the nagging feeling that you were missing out, seeing your single friends out and about having fun all over the place. General immaturity with a side order of high testosterone and poor morals. In my second long term relationship that turned into a pretty horrendous marriage, there was cheating also. This was from both sides of the partnership. I think the lack of care for each others feelings was symptomatic of the unhappy and fractious dynamic between us both.

For me now, my fidelity is based on a few factors I think:

Principally, I'm more mature. I am deeply in love and attracted to my current partner and the thought of doing anything to destroy the trust and love between us is completely unfeasible to me. This is despite the fact that sex in the last few years has been few and far between for various reasons: some personal trauma's coupled with. menopause etc. Despite this, I would never dream of 'seeking it elsewhere'. The though of it and the aftermath /hurt this could cause physically makes my skin crawl. To a much much lesser degree however, I have to acknowledge the fact that I just don't want the complication stress of having to sneak around and make things up. My heart racing when my partner asks to borrow my phone to search something on Google etc. Fuck that. I think as we get older we generally want a more simple honest life. Well some of us anyways.

I just love the way the guys that have posted here are saying it's 'maturity'.
Lol.

To be fair, I do actually know of one serial cheat who I think reigned it in when his children were born.
He was still attractive but as his father cheated on his mother and he saw him and OW kissing he really did seem to be adamant he wouldn't cheat when his kids were born.
He was a bit of a joker but I did get the impression he was deadly serious about this.

I agree totally with this - more to lose and less options

They also suddenly get the ability to be great at childcare as well even to the point of saying their DW is doing this and that wrong when looking after DGCs. Wtf happened when their own DCs were small - delayed at work, important meeting with some group or other, had to pop and see someone on the way home until DCs were firmly asleep.

I often wonder if it’s the societal pressure to get married and have kids.

he couple I know who this applies- it was her that cheated.

they’d been together since she was 16, he was 20. She was your typical teen who thought she was mature and grown up. He was very family orientated, and really wanted kids.

so they got married when she was 21. Massive wedding, lots of fuss. He admits now he knew it wasn’t a great relationship, but they’d been together a while and she was pushing for the ring, and he felt their families wanted a wedding. He felt time was ticking and he liked their lifestyle and next step was kids.

less than 5 years and 2 kids later she’s grown up realises she doesn’t actually like him much and starts cheating. He would have stuck it out and stayed for the kids, but then she met the man she’s now been with for 30 years and moved him in instead.

so I wonder if people once divorced feel less pressure to “move their lives along” with marriage and kids, so take more time to find someone they’re really compatible with.

I don't know why men post on this subject. Yes I know anyone can post but it's not as if they're going to say:

Well to be honest when I was younger, slimmer and hot, I shagged around, now I'm older, fatter and gravity is doing it's thing, nobody looks at me any longer.
Plus I was an arrogant prick and didn't put any effort into exercise, diet, or giving up the fags, drugs and booze because for some dumb reason I couldn't predict that I may not always be attractive without effort so I let myself go.
Plus I'm now fully aware of my own mortality and will probably need a nursemaid in 15-20 years time so can't push my luck.

What's that expression about if you want to catch a fish you ask the fisherman not the fish? 😁

I don’t know about maturity, though. It’s not all young men. A great pile of cheating men are in their mid to late 40s. The classic mid life crisis.

I see things a little differently to the op because essentially, I don’t think a leopard changes its spots!

I am in my sixties and in our friendship group, the ones who were players at university continued to be players until their mid- to late- thirties. They then got married and had one to two decades where their wives and children were - outwardly anyway - their “everything” - and then they got bored and divorced and returned to being the players they always were.

I suppose then, once age creeps in
to the equation, their opportunities for “playing” become more limited, and they have to “settle” both practically and metaphorically (no offence intended to anyone who takes on a middle aged man who has had two or more serious prior relationships).

My uncle cheated on my aunt throughout their marriage right up until he was 60+.
Then in his late 60s he had lots of health issues and would moan to anyone and everyone that she wasn't very caring or sympathetic to him about his illnesses and he was lonely.

I don't think he ever joined up those dots...

They're past their sell by date, have far fewer opportunities, might not be feeling very well and are desperate not to be alone, so they pretend not to be abusive liars, cheats and completely selfish.

I remember the movie Cocoon, from many years ago, where the narrative was that a bunch of old people in a retirement home found mysterious cocoons in a swimming pool. When they swam with them, they started to get younger.

It was quite an interesting movie, but one dynamic was pitiful and sad. One old woman had tolerated her abusive, cheating husband for years (cheating is always abuse of course, see chumplady.com to debunk any disagreement on that) until he had been forced by old age and oncoming infirmity to behave like a normal man and treat her with a modicum of respect.

As he grew younger, he went straight back to being a filthy, pathetic, lecherous, pos to her great distress.

Obviously, it was just a fictional movie, but the premise was fair.

Once an abusive, cheating pig, always an abusive cheating pig. Given the opportunity, youth, vigour and chance of course they'd cheat again.

The only, only time I'd take any man seriously who no longer cheated is IF he still could but chose not to.

These are usually men who are self-sufficient who could easily afford their own private nursemaid if need be.

Mr Average he ain't. Mr Average doesn't cheat any more because he can't.

Simple as that.

It could still be. A council tenancy is valuable, and in most cases it's harder to get one now than it was when an older couple first obtained theirs. Splitting up and one party moving out doesn't mean another SH property will be forthcoming, and even if it is it'll probably be less desirable than a house. If they haven't a pot to piss in then the person who leaves isn't buying anything, so it's potentially a private rental on a single income. I can absolutely see why money could be a powerful incentive in that situation.

a-lot of women get better with age and refuse to accept low standards anymore , so he knows he has to step up
or she will ship him out and replace him with either peace or another man , he also knows he hasn’t got it anymore.

Because the women don’t have enough self respect to leave so why put yourself through the financial shafting of a divorce if the wife is happy to continue?

Or they are continuing to cheat because they know they can get away with it

No.
Men are not like women. They could be with the perfect woman and still want variety.
Unless they're still attractive it's usually because they can't.
This 'right woman' idea is b.s.

Saying that a man will cheat even if he has the perfect woman is a cop out used by ‘wronged’ wives because it means they don’t have to take any responsibility for the breakdown of the marriage.