who are these freaks whao have affairs with married men

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Wow that's impressive Rhubarb!

I had NO baggage!

did you mean emotional baggage beejay

How spooky.

I've just been out for lunch with my old flame from long ago (we were both in relationships with other people, but neither of us had kids).

I've changed my name for this, obviously.

Yes I did mean emotional baggage.
Although I guess you could say my daughter is the ultimate baggage (though in the nicest possible way)
But agree it's probably a whole different thread!

think every situation is different. relationships break down in different ways and people are damaging to each other in different ways.

really really really depresses me that even in jest you can pin the onus of responsibility on the person that is in fact free of commitment, and even more disheartening that this thread title does the classic of blaming 'freak' scarlet (sp?) women.

is the husband or wife that is emotionally absent and withdrawn any less damaging to the children than the one that has sex outside of marriage? it's not clear to me and yet it so easy to start the whole 'stone them' thing about infidelity. things are more complicated than that aren't they?

anyway, i've never shagged a married man....i have snogged one but wouldn't let it go any further, mostly because i was falling in love with someone else at the time. personally i was extremely seduced by his pursuit of me, and also he was a fabulous kisser, and that's another thing, in all of my anecdotal experience, it is mostly the married men that do the chasing rather than women going out to 'get' themselves a married man....

Alas I too am guilty of this crime and actually feel physically sick when I think about it now.

I was in the process of splitting from xh after a shortish but abusive marriage when the work romeo approached me - persistently - and just wore me down. Sadly after being told so many times that no-one else would ever want me there developed a need to prove that someone would .

This guy was 11 yrs older than me and had slept with just about all of the women at work at sometime or another. His wife had found out about lot of them but still stayed, he also used to knock her about. A real charmer eh?

Anyway sadly my situation drove me to him and I saw him for about a month before my sanity kicked in again and I got rid - which was hard as he didn't want to stop seeing me. I had to threaten to tell his wife about us to get him to go.
I heard that about 4 months later his wife hd finally walked out after finding him wife someone else, this was about 7 year ago now, and I saw them together last month!

las vegas...words fail me

So tell me then, how do you explain to children who these women are that chat to them on the phone saying that they are "your dad's new best friend" and even telling the eldest that she doesn't think she is old enough to ask her dad for driving lessons! You tell me that isn't going to be damaging! And you could say, that's just one freaky person, but no, he hasn't had just one freaky person, these girls call the home because they have no respect for his wife or children, even when he has told them not to call him at home, they still do. It's all a little game to them, very funny, something to giggle about with their mates.

Are they all very young Rhubarb? Sounds like selfish teenage behaviour taken to a ridiculous extreme.

i'm not saying it isn't damaging, i'm saying that calling all specifically women who have affairs with married men freaks is something i find v depressing...

horrible for children to answer phone to someone that the father is shagging....

If you have a Church wedding, then obviously the couple make the vows to 'forsake all others', but there is also that bit at the end where the priest wraps the stole round the couples hands and says 'What God has joined together let NO-ONE put asunder' which I have always interpreted as being aimed at people who might split the marriage up through an affair.

No, they are between 20 - 30.

Thoughtful post sophable. I agree that often things are not as straightforward as the "scarlet" woman stealing the husband away from his loving family.

My only experience of a married man was extremely complicated. We met when he was married, but nothing transpired. Several years later, he and his wife separated (she asked him to move out). After a few months on his own, he contacted me. When it became apparent to his dw that he wasn't coming back "home", she then proceeded to have us trailed by a private detective. Photographic evidence of us together was threatened for use in the divorce, and she went on to name me as the other party in the initial papers when she sued for divorce on grounds of adultery.

It was laughable for her to blame me for "stealing" her husband. She thought he'd come back after some time out to think. Her strategy backfired, and she wanted someone to blame.

Well I went out w/a man who LIED about being divorced. He was only separated from his wife. He was in his own house, etc and told me he was divorced. I had no cause to disbelieve him, there was nothing 'sneaky' about our relationship.

Then I found out from his best friend that he was still married. And shortly thereafter, that they were getting back together and she was moving back in.

I confronted him. He admitted it, and so we went our separate ways.

I recently heard from him, and he was apparently truly divorced.

Whatever.

Some men lie about being actually divorced.

After him, I made anyone I went out w/who said he was divorced show me the final decree.

Oh, and I should add that they had separated several times previous to the final time, and had been through extensive couple's counselling with several different counsellors....,.

i should add that in my case neither one of us had any kids. i was truly divorced, however.

it's not that i would necessarily have minded if he'd just been separated - although i certainly wouldn't have gotten emotionally involved w/him - if he'd just told me the truth about it.

It's an interesting one isn't it, about how much blame should devolve onto the unmarried party to an affair?

Traditionally, both parties were considered equally to blame because marriage was a sacred institution, upheld by law, the church, employers, the lot, and anyone who transgressed it, married or not, was a sinner and a social nuisance. Anyone who had an affair with a married person, man or woman, had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they were categorically doing wrong. The fact that the married person had problems in their marriage, was unhappy etc., was irrelevant - to commit adultery was wrong, for both parties.

As marriage becomes less of a public institution and more of a private arrangement, it becomes no longer the property of the whole of society. It also becomes no longer the duty of every member of society to uphold it. It's therefore unsurprising that inexperienced young people have no idea that undermining a marriage is wrong. Strong, simplistic taboos had their uses.

no kids in my case either. I think that if he'd had some my sanity would've kicked in before I'd got involved.

Of the women I know who have done this, there seem to be two types: the desperately needy ones with low self esteem who let men use them (one friend of mine was a mistress to a total tosser fro TEN years!) and tbh, I think these ones sometimes help keep a bad marriage going; and the sexual free spirits who don't want anything from the men - so are obviously all the more alluring.
Far more blame attached to the men IMO. I can't imagine why the women would want them, dishonesty's hardly a turn on.

Just read this one in case there were any contact details
ho hum

I wouldn't go out w/a man who had kids back when I was childfree. NOt that I had anything against them, just that I couldn't handle stepkids at that stage in my life.

What angered me was that he hadn't told me the truth.

No one likes being lied to.

caligula, strong simplistic taboos are great for control.

marriage has traditionally been used not as a sacred way of binding two people that love each other but as a way of men owning women, women as chattel in fact. and the whole notion of women that have sex outside of marriage (whether with a married man or not) being whores was perpetrated to bolster that notion. and we haven't shaken that off, this thread is evidence of that.

Agree Sophable. That's what taboos are for - social control.