Do most married men tell the same stories to the OW?

[Ormiriathomimus]

I am still in the stage of obsessively googling and reading about affairs since the discovery of DH's affair. It will pass but at the moment it's like peeling a scab Painful but satisfying.

I have found some OW forums - and once i managed to stop frothing at the mouth at some of the things I read, I realised that most of them had been told 'my wife doesn't understand me/want sex/love me/ talk to me' etc etc and 'I'm only staying because I don't want to hurt her/hurt my kids' blah blah de blah! And what is more so many of the posters appeared to have swallowed the stories hook, line and sinker.

This has the knock on effect of making the OW angry and frustrated when the man chooses to go back to/not leave his wife - why would he when shes so fat/stupid/bad-tempered etc and I'm so much better?

Are there really so many unsatisfactory, hopeless marriages out there and awful wives? IME there aren't. There are marriages (most of them) that aren't perfect, but most of them have very happy times too. I only know of one without any saving graces (and she's scared to leave).

In which case why do so many OW fall for it?

So, if you take a man back after he has cheated, do you accept some responsibility for him cheating Orm? Or does he accept full responsibility without offering any justification or excuses?

He has taken the full responsibility for his own behaviour. He assures me that I am not to blame at all.

I know, however that he was to blame for the affair. I was partly responsible for the somewhat sad state of the marriage. There were mitigating circumstances for both of us in that though. There were none for his fling.

I haven't read the middle of this thread; apologies.

There are dreadful wives as well as husbands. More frequently, there are couples who find out they're not all that compatible really, but have forged a home & family so feel nonplussed or torn. There are "marriages that aren't 'bad' just a bit tired and in need of TLC but no-one has the energy to do anything about it."

The latter couple, like Orm & H, should go to counselling, or jack it all in and take DC round the world on a yacht, or something. In reality, like the incompatible-but-stable couple as well, there is inertia to deal with plus the layers of structure, which it would be scary to destabilise. The partners most likely feel it's as good as it gets. There's a huge amount of social pressure not to rock the boat; take up a new hobby instead; no marriages are really happy, you just get on with it - and so on. You can forget what it feels like to love things about another adult, as contrasted with the low-level variety of love that looks exactly like rubbing along together.

We all know loads of couples who rub along somewhat discontentedly.

When one of them meets a more compatible individual and find they love this person more actively and vibrantly than they ever did love their spouse, they should take this as a signal to rock that structured boat. Often they don't, because the reasons for maintaining the façade still prevail. At this point, the OW/OM is likely to question what's going on. They will hear:
I love you differently from her (true)
You love me differently from her (true)
We've nothing in common except DC and house (mostly true)
She's not interested in the same things as me (true)
I can't talk to her as I can to you (true)
Sex is boring and infrequent (somewhat true)
She's more interested in her bridge club than in me (likely)

Obviously the OW's going to wonder what the hell keeps such a lovely man in such a dull place - he's wondering that himself! Some people do recognise they're facing a massive life-balance question here. But most, again, pootle along in the status quo. To make their inertia seem more rational, they might start painting the home situation as worse than it is. This is where you get into "Not Just Friends" territory, with the emotional detachments and weird tensions arising at home.

Honest cheaters () have the sense to perceive what's really going on, query their marriage and rock that boat. When this happens, we call it an exit affair. Nobody should have exit affairs, but we all understand they are useful. Particularly where there is abuse at home, the affair can show the abused partner what they've been missing - though the same happens for 'plodding' partners, too.

I think you were very lucky to have met the Love Of Your Life, OMC, and it's a shame you didn't meet her before you got married the first time. You should have handled things differently. At least, however, it didn't turn out to be just an exit affair - in all honesty, they can hurt the OW/M at least as much as the abandoned spouse.

OTOH, I know more than a handful of people who've been having affairs for decades - some with the same person throughout; some with several. Whilst I understand their reasoning (it's been explained far too often!) I don't like it. It creates a power imbalance, with the unknowing spouse being at the disadvantage, and I never do like those.

Garlicnuts, wouaw! Spot on I think!

Oh, thank you!

I wonder what percentage of people haven't cheated on their partner. I know I haven't and I can't be the only one!

It does take commitment and effort, that's for sure, and it's not through lack of opportunity on my behalf.

I havent, and Id leave if I was that unhappy,

Great post garlic btw

Brilliant post garlicnuts

Hmmm...what do you mean by 'rock that boat'?

It might well have been a good post but I'm not sure I understood it

" To make their inertia seem more rational, they might start painting the home situation as worse than it "! But why does that keep the inertia as it is? That would fuel the OM/OWs conviction that they should leave their affair partners.

Orm sorry.
Dull marriage -> interesting OW -> cowardly/lazy/confused H -> messy affair with lies to self -> lies to OW and W.
= What you said!
Better?

It does, hence all their agonising on those forums you visited.

In the long-term infidelities I mentioned, the cheating couple don't lie to themselves or one another. But they lie to their spouses. They reckon that, since they've stayed happily married for ages, they're not damaging their marriages. They might even be right; I don't know.

Dull marriage -> interesting OW -> cowardly/lazy/confused H -> messy affair with lies to self -> lies to OW and W.
= What you said!

Now I'm really confused too garlic. Are you saying that the OW does believe these lies or not?

From what Orm said about the forums she's been reading, it would seem so, Fairenuff.

I'm not setting my post up as the last word on marital infidelity. There are lots of other scenarios, too, like the partner who gets sidetracked by a great offer even though they're perfectly happy at home, and the self-serving knob who doesn't see women as real people. I was hoping to flesh out the picture as it usually happens in so-so marriages.

I'm not sure what you found confusing, Orm? Sorry about that!

Haven't caught up entirely with this thread since my last post but from what I have read, one thing stands out. Many people who think affairs are wrong, seem to think that leaving your marriage is preferable, ie they actually seem to see it as less wrong.

Personally, I think what many people who have affairs believe is that while an affair is wrong, it is nowhere near as wrong as leaving your marriage. I think this tends to be the attitude that continental Europeans are more likely to have. Affairs are tolerated to some degree but the institution of marriage is seen as holding far greater importance and (perhaps more so in the past than today) leaving the mother or father of your kids is seen as almost unforgivable unless they are actually abusive.

This point was made clear to me while watching the diving bell and the butterfly (French film - did I get the name right?). While the main character (who has walked out on his wife for another woman) talks to his elderly father, making the point that the Father had many affairs, the Father surprised me by saying, yes he did but he would never in a million years have thought of leaving the mother of his children. This to him would have been inexcusable and the strength of his moral conviction on this was thought provoking (it is an autobiographical film).

I think up until that point I had always seen affairs and leaving your spouse as being equally wrong. That moment made me think about this more clearly and I now believe that while affairs are usually wrong, walking out on your marriage is infinitely worse. And if having an affair is the only way to make your marriage tolerable, well then I think you have to consider it an option. Of course some will say that you should just "work on your marriage" more, but if your spouse is simply incapable of changing, what can you do? Do you split up your family for the sake of your sex life?

I doubt my parents have had sex for years, probably as a result of DF's inability to connect with my DM. She has tried to deal with this issue until she is blue in the face, but I just don't think he is capable of changing. I get what someone said about getting the emotional connection from other people and my mum has certainly put a huge amount of effort into her friendships. I think for several decades she made do with this, but eventually I think she realised she would have gone mad if she had to live out the rest of her life without ever feeing physical affection again. She did everything within her power to change her marriage and it wasn't enough. She has sacrificed enough and deserves some happiness in this regard.

My honest opinion concerned? Yes. It's awful.

It's a horrible, selfish, nasty thing to do to someone you say you care about.

It's dishonest, disrespectful and makes a miserable mockery of the marriage"

I think people like DM only do this when they already feel that they are in a miserable mockery of a marriage. Do you have a solution? (other than leave, "work" on the marriage, or sink further and further into an abyss of depression? - the first one being even more selfish than an affair, the second having failed time and time again, and the third posing huge health risks. Everyone has a right to their mental health.

Isnt my DF's behaviour just as selfish? Isn't he also failing in his marriage vows by not properly looking after my DM's emotional wellbeing? How is what my DM does worse than what my DF does?

One good thing that has come out of the situation is that I am doing everything in my power to find someone without my DF's personality flaw. I never want to be in the position of my DM.

Concerned, a lot of people have affairs and never compromise their marriage for them. Something like 25% iirc.

In a case like your parents', I would say your mother should give herself a chance to live free. A marriage is a two-way contract (I realise it's hard to see it that way when considering your own parents) and, as such, it's failed. It is void.

fiventhree: "Your mum stays with your dad because she gets things from the relationship, and not because only others do"

I disagree. She does get things from the relationship, but she stays primarily for him and for her kids.

"If it isnt enough, she should tell him. If she wants an open relationship, she should tell him. It may even help the dad to change himself, if he can."

i) she has told him hundreds, probably thousands of times over the years. He is incapable of taking it in or of changing ii) maybe he does know, although it isn't acknowledged.

Fairenuff: "I am amazed at some people's attitude's to their marriage vows. Why promise to be faithful to someone if you don't mean it. Some gutless reasoning going on here too...My dh and I are together because we want to be. If either of us is not happy we are free to leave"

This is the biggest contradiction I have seen in weeks! How can you criticise others for not honouring their wedding vows in one sentence and then in the next say that you would leave your husband if you ever came to want to? Commitment doesn't work like that. Didn't you do the till death do us part bit or some variation of this?

Why get married if you have essentially got a non-committed boyfriend/girlfriend relationship? In a bf/gf relationship, where neither has promised commitment, the deal is that you stay together until one person wants to leave. Your marriage sounds like what most people see as a non-committed relationship,albeit with someone who you suspect you will never want to leave and who you suspect will never want to leave you.

I disagree that you have integrity.

Concerned, I frankly think it's more likely to be the opinion of people who don't like to be honest with their spouses than 'Continental Europeans' that paying lip service to marriage while at the same time going behind a spouse's back is fine. Cowards, in other words.

And I disagree with the idea that a cheater is sparing someone the upset of breaking up a marriage -- this is where deceit begins to tie itself up in knots. What a lying spouse is doing primarily is trying not to be caught and not having to answer the 'How could you, you bastard' sort of questions that would follow. Coincidentally a lying spouse is also taking from the victim the power to make up his or her mind whether he or she would like to leave their empty marriage.

I disagree that people 'deserve' happiness too.
What people deserve is respect. Liars and cheaters do not respect others.

concerned

Interesting posts, lots to think about there.

Many people who think affairs are wrong, seem to think that leaving your marriage is preferable, ie they actually seem to see it as less wrong

Yes, this is what I think.

Affairs are tolerated to some degree but the institution of marriage is seen as holding far greater importance and (perhaps more so in the past than today) leaving the mother or father of your kids is seen as almost unforgivable unless they are actually abusive.

I think that cheating on your partner is abusive. Many affairs are emotional affairs, rather than just sex, and this is, imo, emotional abuse.

I think up until that point I had always seen affairs and leaving your spouse as being equally wrong

I don't see leaving your spouse as wrong at all, not if one or both of you are unhappy and have done everything you can to try and resolve the problems.

I think people like DM only do this when they already feel that they are in a miserable mockery of a marriage

I would agree with this.

Isnt my DF's behaviour just as selfish? Isn't he also failing in his marriage vows by not properly looking after my DM's emotional wellbeing? How is what my DM does worse than what my DF does?

Yes, I do believe that he is 50% responsible for making the marriage a happy one. If it were me in that position, I would have separated.

How can you criticise others for not honouring their wedding vows in one sentence and then in the next say that you would leave your husband if you ever came to want to? Commitment doesn't work like that. Didn't you do the till death do us part bit or some variation of this?

Yes I am committed. Yes we resolve our differences. Yes we intend to stay together. But I cannot control his behaviour, and I wouldn't want to. We are free individuals and make our own choices daily. If he chooses to cheat on me, I would leave him. I would not cheat on him. As you can tell, I am passionate about fidelity.

I am doing everything in my power to find someone without my DF's personality flaw. I never want to be in the position of my DM

If you make all your expectations clear, enforce your boundaries and have high self respect it is possible to have a mutually respectful relationship. But there is no guarantee of course.

I disagree that you have integrity

Why?

The thing that I don't understand is how someone can say they love their partner yet they do something that they know would break their partner's heart.

If they were honest and said they wanted an open relationship where they were both free to seek out other partners who could give them what they were missing, that would be fine. But to cheat? To lie? How can you do that to someone you love? I couldn't.

Math, French married couples in my day often did have affair partners. They were not secret. This is the big difference: like Fairenuff, I reckon the deceit is the real relationship killer - and that cheating & lying constitute abuse; cheating partners often engage in verbal abuse, gaslighting, financial abuse and emotional abuse.

Agree about 'deserving happiness'. Such a very American idea

I can see that parallel relationships might be a solution to changing needs but it would have to be open and mutually accepted. In my cSe the fact that something was shared between the two if them and I knew nothing made me feel utterly worthless. It's a cruelty. And any parallel rationship could not take anything away from the primary relationship in terms of affection and respect. I think it would be really hard for the straying partner to police him/herself to that extent. But I know it can be done. My grandfather and several siblings were the result of a longterm relationship with a Parisienne. His wife knew about it and the children were acknowledged officially as his. I don't of course know how happy his wife was about it

Sorry - great-grandfather not grandfather.