Do women really believe that the wife is a psychotic bitch who doesn't understand him, the marriage is dead anyway and he's going to end it soon?

[duchesse]

And just how young naive would you have to be to believe that crap? I mean, men that have affairs have them with other women. Really for the sake of the sisterhood no-one ought to have any kind of dalliance with someone whose life is not crystal-clear and sorted but apparently many do, judging by the number of women on here who discover their husband/partner is shagging someone else.

So are they just not all that bright, these other women, do they harbour secret misogyny or do they just not care? Or do they so desperately want to believe what the bloke tells them and does it in fact stem from loneliness and sadness?

MR, he would probably have got more days if he's asked for it. Either informally or legally.

I think some men are delighted to be part time Dads and that's partly why they leave, though they often won't admit it to themselves, they start new relationship with ow who is all over him, then he will leave when kids come along again.

I should clarify my position a little. I am the child of a man who was a serial philanderer until he met my SM. He was still married to my mother at the time. She was sick, depressed and stranded in the middle of the countryside in a foreign country with 5 children under 10. My father somehow managed to convince my otherwise very intelligent SM that having an affair was fiiiiiine in the circumstances. Whilst I completely recognise that my father and my SM are a lot more compatible than my parents ever were, the point is that my father behaved like a complete shit and so did my SM. She still believes that he does not have a gambling problem and she "lent" him tons of money that he told her he gave to my mother. She still believes that, still believes the utter crap that he has spun her over the last 30 years, but now that he's sick, wants us to be a lot more involved in his life. She never envisaged ending up childless with a sick old man when she started shagging the thrusting young executive. In many ways I do not feel in the least bit sorry for her but am absolutely aghast at her continuing credulity in the face of all the evidence.

I am sorry but men don't get only one day a week just because. There is a reason because of it. There is a reason he hasn't got more days.

How about if what they say is true? Or if actually they really love their kids and want to be there when they are crying in the night or to change nappies or to be there in the morning when they wake up? And not just part time... And for that it is worth staying in a marriage which is not awful but is easily bearable.

Op, normally I would be compasionate, not so with your sn and dad, she is more suitable as she's still deluded to this day.

Well then they should stay in the marriage. How is it fair their spouses don't get a choice? Their spouses deserve a full marriage not a half life.
Their spouses deserve a choice, not get lumped with a marriage of the cheaters choice.

Melbie that might be true. As it is also probably true of his wife who equally doesn't want her children on a part-time basis but might be having that lifestyle enforced on her at some point in the future by the actions of two other people.

But the truth is that if someone stays in his marriage, it's because there's an awful lot more in it for him than he will ever admit to the OW. That 'bearable' marriage is actually a lot better (or at least was, before his affair) than he is making out. If you're not in the marriage yourself and especially if you've got something invested in the 'story' that's being told, you have no idea what the 'truth' is. But actions speak louder than words.

The "legitimate" family deserves a full-time father and clarity, at the very least. If he doesn't want to stay in the marriage but wants to stay involved with the children, then why is he taking more time out of family time to get into an affair? And no-one will convince me that affairs are not time-consuming. Family life is so busy that something is going to suffer somewhere along the way.

"they have sex when they don't really feel like it"

Dirtymistress what a horrible world you must live in where a happy relationship is having sex when you don't feel like it so your spouse doesn't cheat!!!!!

Dear god!!!

If anyone would cheat in my relationship it would be me. I like variety, I compartmentalise relationships, I flirt. I am extremely happy with DH, no-one other person could fit me better but that really is the point, no one other person, I am just not naturally geared towards monogamy. I've chosen monogamy and would not cheat but if I did it would be to do with me and not to do with the quality of my relationship.

Oh I missed that little gem Offred...!!

Awful, but really......if anyone thinks that having lots of sex and being a stepford wife prevents infidelity, they are massively deluded.

Yet more wife blaming.

Are you an OW by any chance DirtyMistress?

How often do we read threads where the wife says, I think he's having an affair but he's staying because he loves to change nappies and do the bedtime routine???? I don't remember one. Many people who have affairs are rather entitled to start off with, either in thinking they can do it simply because its available to them or because they think their presence in the home is more than enough to make up for their poor behaviour. OW believe a crock of shit because it suits them to. If only the wife would put out more and keep herself pretty, eh? Affairs impact on family time. Who wants a man who stays with them for the children? We have one life, who wants to be second best or a pity partner?!

Did men in the 1950's not cheat then? Did being the perfect housewife prevent it. I don't think it did.

I absolutely agree with dirtymistress. An affair is a sign of problems in a relationship, not a cause of them. People here are very judgemental and black and white over it. Yes, of course affairs are wrong, but the reasons are not always simple, and it's not always easy to leave a bad marriage, for lots of reasons.

I hit my 40s and started realising that life was not as black and white as I had always thought it was. I realised that it's not always "married man cheats on lovely wife with sinful other woman", but that there are a thousand different reasons why people cheat, lots of them very complicated, and it's not always men (but the women wouldn't dare admit it on here). Never judge unless you've walked a mile in someone's shoes, because you honestly don't know what goes on inside a marriage or an affair. Once I realised this I knew I was a proper grown up and not just seeing things in the black and white world of a child.

I'm pretty much certain my father had an affair when I was a child. For years I toyed with the idea of telling my mother and dropped some heavy hints, to which she didn't respond. Then I grew up a bit and let it drop. My parents are devoted to each other after over 50 years together. What business is it of mine what happened in the past? I'm an outsider to their marriage and so I truly don't know what went on between them. Maybe she knows already. Maybe she doesn't want to know. But the point is, to me it looked like "terrible father cheats on innocent, wonderful mother". But I don't know anything that really went on in that marriage, however close I am to them. There may have been a million different reasons I know nothing about. So I've put it to rest in my mind. It isn't my business.

It's much more adult to realise things aren't always as black and white as they look. Rightly or wrongly, life is painted in many shades of grey.

Oh my god. How arrogant can you be? Realising there are shades of grey doesn't make you an adult. It means you have an excuse for everything. Which sounds pretty childish to me.
There are loads of reasons affairs happen. But its wrong. So yes it is black and white. Involving a 3rd party without your spouses consent is wrong. There is no shade of grey.
In life in general there are shades. Like whether to get rid of cheating partner. Neither choice is right or wrong. But the act of cheating, is wrong.

Totally agree Dprince

The naivety in this thread is sad. :(

Most people don't need to have an affair to realise life isn't black and white.

Problems in a marriage are things like redundancy, children, housing, money, extended family strains, ill health, none a reason to cheat.

One spouce having issues isn't problems in the marriage. Cheats have issues by their behaviour, lies and disrespect.

My H didn't leave until after he turned to his best friends wife. I honestly believe that they have not slept together but they were texting each other over 100 times a day behind my back and behind her H's back. They both claim that they are just emotionally supporting each other. Neither of them can face up to the fact that they were doing this in secret. Secret Facebook chats , secret emails, yet they insist that they are just close friends......

I can see that my H is infatuated with her but H just can't see it. Everybody says that his world will come crashing down when she finally tosses him aside. But we will be divorced by then....

They are both addicted to the excitement of it. Once that wears off what are they left with?...

Musicposy - dirtymistress is being the most black and white of all

To be honest you are being black and white too. An affair doesn't happen because of problems in a relationship. Problems in a relationship are just that, problems in a relationship, a reasonable response to that is not to have an affair outside the relationship. Affairs happen because an individual decides to have an affair instead of talking about/facing up to problems or because they feel entitled to sleep about but don't respect their partner enough to talk about it/are too cowardly/selfish to talk about it or because they aren't particularly happy with monogamy but don't respect their partner enough to talk it through with them/are too cowardly/selfish to talk about it/don't respect their partner and so don't allow them to make their own choice about the relationship they are in together.

An affair is always about the individual and not the relationship. If it were about the relationship it would not be an affair because it would not be a secret extramarital relationship it would be talking about the relationship together and either working on it or splitting up depending on how each individual wanted to behave/what each individual wanted out of their relationship.

"An affair is a sign of problems in a relationship"

"People here are very judgemental and black and white over it"

Surely you've contradicted yourself within one sentence Musicposy?

It is precisely because things are not 'black and white' that your first 'judgement' is an erroneous one.

Anyone who makes 'black and white' judgements about why affairs happen is either very narrow-minded, doesn't listen to others......or has some investment in that judgement.

Better surely to say that there are all sorts of reasons and that only the people who are in those relationships know the truth of them.

We have had a very good demonstration of the cheats thinking, forty, grown up, black and white thinking, justifying affair to grow up, be more ballanced in thinking... as has been said, don't blame the marriage its all about the cheats issues.

Hence why I cut cheats out of my life.

If there are problems in a relationship surely a decent human being would discuss it, seek counselling or/and leave. To go looking for an affair is hardly facing up to reality is it. And surely any woman worth her salt would not enter into an affair with a man who is attached elsewhere.

Sternface - try not to call people naive just because they have a differing opinion to your own. And dirtymistress didn't say that only women should have sex when they didn't especially feel like it, and she also explained her name. You sound horribly patronising.