What do YOU think about people who have affairs?

[Twiglett]

Have been watching another thread and would like to have a discussion about this without the finger seeming to be pointed at anyone in particular.

I am totally aghast at the concept of anyone who would have an affair with a married man, particularly one with children.

For some reason I am totally appalled by a female having an affair with a married man but less so at a male having an affair with a married woman.

I have no respect for any woman outside a marriage who knowingly sleeps with a married man / father. I feel they are unworthy of any sympathy.

Maybe I feel my gender should know better .. but that is patently pants.

Still its interesting when one examines one's own visceral reaction to the concept of affairs and I do appreciate that some of the above comments are probably not PC but they are when I look to myself how I strongly feel about it.

What do you think?

i should add that my older half brothers and sisters are also on good terms with my mum - she is a grandmother to their children and has spent the last 5 years helping my older sis with her large family in a way her own mother is unable to do. So though there were i am sure resentments at the time the affair was made public we children were spared most of it and bore no ill will towards each other - what the adults felt is more complicated but as people get older sexual jealousy perhaps is less important - i don't know

I suppose it means that as i was aware of the circumstances of my birth as it were - the fact that men stray - was a fact of life - my mum was paranoid about it even when she wouldn't touch my dad with a bargepole herself ! i think it means i am more matter of fact about infidelity - i don't see it as necesarily meaning the end of a relationship - whereas my dh product of a very stable marriage would never forgive an affair.

I have never been unfaithful and I don't intend to be but my experience has taught me that the most admirable, principled and caring people can be unfaithful.

I can't stand it, I think it's the height of bad manners for all involved. They NEVER stay secret, there is always a trail and whether it gets found out or not is not the point, the point is if a 3rd party knows then that is worse than the actual act. I hate the fact that the moment the secret is out other people are drawn into the deception against their will.
I drifted apart from a couple of friends after they both confessed they'd had affairs - I just thought if they think so little of their dhs they wouldn't think twice about imposing on me (and did by confesing). It was just too big a divide, not like having different political views or something.

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pruni - very true...

to err is human etc.

I agree, Pruni, that's why I agreed w/NdP at the beginning of the thread.

I don't think either gender is more or less to blame for it than the other.

I think whoever the girl was that took my man into the toilet of the pub and sucked his cock is a very stylish lady. Not a tramp in any shape or form.

I'm certain because my DH a) wouldn't dare, b) knows I'm too clever not to catch him out c) and hopefully has the guts to tell me if he were feeling confused or whatever, no matter how much it would hurt me. We've seen an affair almost happen to a couple we know, how well they have dealt with it and moved on and I like to think we learnt some lessons from it.
Single women who have affairs with attached men annoy me from a feminist perspective, we should be sticking together to fight nasty men, not shagging each other's cowardly, idiot men.

Yuk, FF!

Imagine how it smelled like puke and pee.

Phwoar and they say romance is dead.

The toilet or his cock smelled of puke and pee?

I am horrified at anyone who is married, male or female having an affair. I am horrified at anyone, male or female having an afair with soeone who is married.

If you are single and want multipe partners, fine, whatever floats your boat!

But if you promice to stay faithful to someone, you should do your utmost to stay true to your word.

No-one has to get married nowevrdays

No his cock smells of sheep shit.

'One can have all the morals in the world but then life gets in the way.'

Agree with Dior. Swimming against the tide here, but I think people are fallible and make mistakes all the time - that's a big part of being human. I am not out to defend or excuse anyone who has an affair, not at all - but I will not comment. I have made it a rule never to post on threads where a specific affair is being discussed - it's a massively grey area as far as I'm concerned. I'm an occasional poster and have not changed my name for this.

My marriage started with me and dh being unfaithful to our then spouses. There are things I regret every day, but I don't regret the outcome. Our previous relationships were both childless and I think that does make an enormous difference - I'm pretty sure neither of us would have contemplated it for a second if there were children involved.

My parents have both remarried and they both had long-term affairs (with the people they are now married to) while my siblings and I were growing up. I was angry when I first found out but I'm not any more. Life's too short.

I think my parents' experience informed my decision at the time. There was no way I was going to live a lie or put my xh through years of deceit - so a couple of months after the start of the affair I left my h and dh left his w. Also I would add it was not an affair in the physical sense until we were separated.

Maybe I am only uncomfortable with labelling men and women as sluts and wankers for having affairs because - it would mean my parents were and that I am a b*ard as I was refered to by my dads stepmother at the time.

some people are quick to judge and then find out life is infinitly more complicated - I prefer to refrain generalising and from judging too harshly till all the facts are known.

suppose that technically I was a bastard

Agree with suburbanjellybrain (not the bit about you being a b*stard... ) My dad - who I love to bits - is just a wanker who couldn't keep it in his pants, my stepmum - who is fabulous - is a slut for allowing herself to have the affair when she knew he was married with kids etc - well yes and no. There's a bit more to both of them than that. And there's a bit more to the whole story as well.

The whole labelling/generalising thing is not good imo.

I am ashamed to say that my first serious relationship started as an affair. It was 20 years ago when I was 17. I met a bloke through a friend at work, he didnt look old enough to be married (he was 26) but I fell in love with him even though I knew he was married. I never stopped to think about his wife, all I could think about were the feelings I had for him.
His wife found out and they split up. He was very possesive and by the time I started to realise what he was like I felt that I had to make it work between us. We got married and eventually split up when he became abusive.
I know you all probably think I got what I deserved, I wouldnt go near a married man again.
I wouldnt want to go there again, looking back they were THE most miserable years of my life.
Those feelings of extreme love/lust dont last forever. Affairs are so wrong and I am deeply ashamed of the fact I broke up a marriage, it really isnt worth it

I doubt he was any nicer to his first wife than he was to you - I am sorry you feel so bad TI - it is an experience that you learnt from there is nothing to be gained from giving yourself a hard time now I hope you have found more positive relationships since.

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No, can't judge. Know too many people (nice and good people - some horrible ones, as well, of course) who have had affairs. Life, people, relationships are just not that black and white.