Affairs - why is it always the woman's fault?

[Pinkie29]

Just looking for a general opinion please.

A friend of mine for the last 15yrs is seeing a married guy and has been for about 8 months she says she loves him etc he makes her feel special after a really bad break-up 2 years ago it's the first time I've seen her genuinely happy since.

I doubt he'll ever leave his wife they've been married forever and have 3 grown up children. My reason for posting almost all our friends have stopped speaking to her? Telling her she's being heartless towards his wife how could she do that etc has she no morals ironically 2 of the friends were married and got with their current partners by way of affairs so surely are in no place to judge? I know it's not right but I just think its nothing to do with me, she doesn't know his wife btw.

Whenever a man cheats it's always the other woman that gets the blame I can understand this if it's a friend or relative but if its a work colleague or some random girl they met the wife/gf is always gunning for them they seduced him enticed him put it in a plate etc rather than just accept their beloved has been unfaithful of his own accord and should direct their anger at the husband not the other woman

Well, yes, they should, but if they don't know him, then I don't think they're wrong to tell her they don't approve of her actions, if that makes sense. If they were friends with him but not her then I would find it strange if they were vilifying the OW and not the MM.

The married man and your friend are both in the wrong. He is worse, but she should know better.

Oh and she's deluding herself if he thinks he will give up his marriage for her, or, if he does, that he will stay faithful to her.

I couldn't be friends with either. Regardless of gender, the married person is clearly in the wrong. As for the other party, if they know the situation they are also in the wrong. I would judge their moral compass.

WRT blaming the other woman - I think that is a natural reaction because you don't want to accept that your partner is capable of doing that to you. It's a defence mechanism and I'm sure most accept they were being irrational after the event

And your friends who had affairs probably have underlying guilt issues and being around her make it come to the surface

Maybe!

It's 50/50 IMO.
I think that there is a fairly common perception on MN that a woman who has an affair with a married man is blameless. I don't believe that to be the case.

See I've had an ex cheat and when I found out my friends were saying awful things about this other girl who none of us had ever met, I didn't get it as she had no loyalty to me so really didn't care who it was had it out with him and ended it.

I've said time and time again he'll never leave his mrs while he can have its cake and eat it but if and when or comes to light it'll be her that gets tarred and feathered so to speak whereas he's the one who took the vows and made the promises etc :/

The judgemental friends are a mystery to me, they say 'it was different' it was worse in all honesty as the men they left their husbands for were in long term relationships with young children (this all happened long before i knew them) whereas my friend is single

Well of course it was different - it was REAL love! The chemistry could not be denied!

I can't remember who said "when a man marries his mistress he creates a vacancy" but I think there is an element of truth. Your friends are probably feeling insecure in their relationships

I used to have a cosy and naive idea that women were generally 'better' than men and had some sense of a 'sisterhood'. It's disappointing to discover that's not the case hence the anger, I suppose. Maybe we expect women to know better but that's unfair to both genders.

I wasn't even the OW and I still get blamed for my DP's marriage break up! I get an email from his EX about every two months telling me so.

What kind of good relationship is going to come out of an affair? (DP and his EX got together while having an affair, what does that say)and how do you respect someone who goes home to his wife and kids after seeing you?

There is blame on both sides but for your friends to judge someone on what they themselves have done ib the past is surely based on insicurities about their own situation

I don't really follow your logic OP. If everyone went around saying "oh, it doesn't matter if I help to fuck someone else's life up - and their kids' lives too, because I don't know them personally" then that's not a compassionate way to behave is it? Of course your friend is to blame. She's an accomplice in hurting another woman and her children and just as bad, the deceit of them. But the blame isn't only hers, it's shared equally with the bloke she's shagging. I disagree that if it comes out, she will be blamed more than him. I think they'll both get the blame and that's about right.

As for your other friends, well you didn't know them when they had affairs and maybe their circumstances were different to your other friend's. On the other hand, maybe they know deep down that their relationships will always have a chink of mistrust because normality has arrived in their relationships and they belatedly realise that this was what their partners' marriages were probably like before they arrived on the scene; chugging along reasonably contentedly and would have probably survived without their involvement. It must be very hard looking over your shoulder and wondering if or when it will happen to you. Your friend's affair reminds them that it could happen to them and is in fact more likely. Mind you, their husbands probably feel the same every time they hear about a mate who's shagging a married woman.

It's always the woman's fault in your circle of friends. Oh, and my Mum would probably agree with them. I do chastise her for this attitude though.

sternface I agree it's not compassionate but to me he is far more in the wrong as he is betraying the woman he married my friend is betraying a stranger which I guess is easier to her. I'm hoping it will fizzle out as it can only end in tears and if he really loved her he'd be honest with his wife and leave.

I think what bugs me is in general people will say 'a woman shouldn't do that what a slut' and the man is almost pitied for being a weak red blooded male, when wags get cheated on the girl is a home wrecker who can't get her own man etc instead of kicking the husband to the kerb

Personally I believe the affair is s symptom of the marital problems and not the cause. Yet it creates more problems.

It's easier to blame the other woman than think of the reasons for the affair/ blame the man.

I'll be honest here and say I've had one or two affairs with married men. I don't think it's anyone else's business to judge so, as far as my friends know, I'm just perpetually and mystifyingly single. I happen know their relationships are far from perfect and it's often a case of glass houses and stones.... Everyone likes a gossip from a high-horse, holier-than-thou position, don't they? :) Tell your friend to keep her private life to herself.

buggyrunner defo agree there! If things were fine at home he wouldn't look elsewhere

cojitoergosometimes that's exactly it if she kept quiet no one could judge, amazed it hadn't sloped out due to the amount of people that know, it's the ones who are in no position to judge that are the worst :/

Maybe the ones who are in no position to judge are deflecting their guilt at having been the OW in the past onto your friend?

I was discussing this with DH a few weeks ago and my stance was that it's the married man at greater fault. The OW hasn't made promises to the wife to keep only unto her or similar. He countered that whilst that's true the OW could date anyone, and knowingly getting involved with a married man makes her deceitful and not entirely blame free too. I guess it comes down to choices - your friend is choosing to date someone who is married and people are judging her for it. I still think the chap is more of an arse, but I would probably judge her too if it were a friend of mine.

buggyrunner - there have been lots of threads on here from women in long term relationships whose H's have had affairs. Many times the wife is sure that the relationship was good, the men seem to re-write history. I think that sometimes the relationship was good, just that the men involved were too weak, or too blown away by a full on ego stroke by another woman, that they couldn't resist chancing it. I think it is really harsh, and hurtful, to suggest that an affair is a symptom of a problematic relationship.

BTW... the accusation of 'fucking someone else's life up' is only true if it goes public. If everyone involved is discreet, keeps quiet, doesn't have unrealistic expectations (like leaving spouses) and doesn't go blabbing to the world then affairs often don't have to have any impact at all. The only advice I would give your friend is that falling in love is not part of the deal. If that's how she feels she should really cut her losses and end it or she'll be very hurt.

Of course your two mutual friends who met their partners through affairs are being shockingly hypocritical.

But tbh if I knew a friend of mine was doing this it would change my opinion of her as a person. Whether she likes it or not she is being complicit in deceit and it is naive to pretend otherwise.

I've noticed it very much in this town - the poor men cannot be blamed, because the nasty little trollop offered it on a plate/ tempted him away from his blameless wife etc etc etc.

A close friend had a long "affair" with a wank stain of a MM. She was not yet 18 when it started, he was in his 30s and married with children. It was vile, she saw it as a wonderful relationship (she'd had a crush on this guy as a child) and he saw it as a booty call. She was one of many, as well. He gave his wife an STD, didn't get it from my friend.

She is still, 5 years on, vilified in the town. He has moved on, has a fiancée and lovely life. He's a cunt of the highest order.

OTOH, I know MM who desperately want out of marriages but don't want to hurt their wives by just leaving - apparently it is "better" to leave over an affair, because it means you aren't just rejecting your partner. This is excellent man logic, and of course infallible.

Women who do "go after" married men as a choice are of course doing something wrong. But women who meet someone and get into something wrong through a series of small bad choices - I feel sorry for them, really. It can't be easy, being second fiddle all the time, plus the stress and fear that they'll get caught etc.

It's just not black and white. People that cheat aren't universally evil, the partner left behind is not either perfect or on the other side utterly shit - all relationships have problems.

I remember my mum meeting one of my father's OW (previously her close friend) and warning her. DF left the OW soon after, for one of the others. This OW had come out of an EA relationship, and gone straight into another one with my father. She wasn't a terrible person - I liked her a lot. She made a bad decision. (DF is quite another kettle of fish - as I said, choosing infidelity as a lifestyle is less understandable than one affair.)

Agree with Agatha. I know quite a few people who've had affairs and the honest ones admit that their affairs happened because it was an ego boost and because an opportunity presented, not because they were 'unhappy at home'. Remarkably for Mumsnet, a woman poster admitted just that on a thread a while ago and I thought that showed a lot of self-awareness and character.

CogitoErgoSometimes I think your view is very simplistic because it suggests that people having affairs are able to compartmentalise them without it having an impact on their marriage. Very few people can do that. If someone's investing in a secret relationship, they are not investing their whole selves in their marriages or families. There are always affair threads here from women who say their husbands had become distant, grumpy, secretive, unkind and cruel while the affair was going on. But I can see if you've been an OW it must ease your conscience to believe that no harm is being done to anyone - but IME that's never true.

If things were fine at home he wouldn't look elsewhere

I though you had a problem with women always being blamed OP? Yet this statement confers some blame on a man's wife, doesn't it? I.e if she'd kept him happy, he wouldn't have strayed?

Unfortunately, this is another little self-delusion that OW often have, until they find out that the only thing that actually keeps their partners happy is the prospect of shagging someone new......

The fault lies with both the married man & the other woman, but IMO the married man is more at fault, as he is the one who is not free to have a relationship - unless he & his wife have agreed that having an affair is ok!

"Very few people can do that"

On the contrary, suprisingly large numbers of people can do it. In the same way that the OP's friend isn't cut out for the OW lifestyle because she gets too emotionally involved, some married people are incapable of keeping the two sides of their life separate, find it very stressful and end up spilling the beans or changing their behaviour. But many find it is not stressful - is even life-enhancing - and if I'm trying to make any point at all it is the opposite of being 'simplistic'. Human relationships are highly complex and we shouldn't judge anyone until we've walked a mile in their shoes.

The point is you cannot know that. You don't live in their marriages or in their houses. You get told that everything is fine at home and that the affairs are having no effect, but you cannot know that unless you speak to their wives or children and even then many people in their position are not able to articulate what is wrong with their lives - they just know that they are not as happy as they'd like to be. Invariably as the OW, you are only hearing one person's version of events and all the subtleties and nuances that exist in human relationships are hidden from you. That's why your view is simplistic.

sternface no that statement doesn't apply to it being the wife's fault at all it's down to both of them imo, if you are both happy and content in a relationship you have no need to look elsewhere, from what I know he's been married 30+ years rarely has sex with the wife and are more companions than lovers now (so he says)

I have a problem with the ow/mistress being vilified and ostracised as it just seems unfair to me, they are not blameless but are nowhere near as bad as the married man cheating on his wife and sneaking out whenever he can

My Dad had affairs and it really bloody hurts the children as well - adult or otherwise. When you find out, it feels like a rejection of the whole family, not just of the woman involved. Your friend is behaving badly and so is he. But, as you say, you don't know him so can't do much about his behaviour. You can help her to change hers. She won't be happy and he won't leave his wife. If he does leave his wife he will just cheat on her with someone else. Sleeping with someone's husband is wrong and there is never an excuse. The wife left behind will have her self esteem shredded; your friend will always be the other woman and will be missing out on opportunities for good men while she is entangled in this mess.