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?

You would actually have to get all the marriages of, say, 1970 and then track those couples and see how many of them split, 1971 and so on. Impossible.
It's not impossible. Lots of divorce statistics look at how many marriages reach X years. 1 in 3 marriages in the UK ends before 15 years - they do track that, not only how many divorces end in single years.

But, imagine instead of fucking someone, you had insisted on going to counselling, and after a while of being in a safe place she revealed to you that as a child she had been sexually abused, had trust and control issues she needed to work on and could you help her and be with her? I know it is a risk because some people will never be vulnerable and let down their guard, but...
Some people do go to counselling. Lots of it. Some men do a lot to save their marriage before having affairs. Not all marriages are meant to be, not all of them should be saved. I completely, completely agree that people should do what they can first and then leave before having an affair, but the fact that they don't doesn't mean that a) they didn't try properly and b) that the marriage was right or good.

I really don't know why men are far more likely to stay in an unhappy marriage (and have affairs), but they do. Suppose there are a number of reasons, but I think that when shared custody becomes more normal we might see more men leaving when they are unhappy. Men can perceive divorce and custody laws as being very punitive towards them, which can be why they are reluctant to leave. There are women who threaten to 'take them to the cleaners', never let them see their children, keep a house etc. Some men behave bloody appallingly, so do some women.

Beat the odds- I love that comment- 'the fact that it worked out well for you...'

Like I said, selfishness and cowardice.

And as for you, Abitwobbly.........how dare you make me laugh like that, till the kids came running and I couldnt explain myself...

'the rest of us just grit our teeth and soldier on'.

Dont soldier, though. Manage your boundaries. (As you are)

It's quite naive to think that the man has to lie in the bed he has made for himself

Pink I don't think anyone has suggested that he should have to stay in an unhappy marriage, just that he ends it before starting a new relationship. It's the cheating that's he shouldn't be doing.

adrastea, I take your point. But I think that I have read somewhere that they may also stay because the find it easier to compartmentalise. It is easier to stay, for reasons of finance and domestic support.

And all of us find change hard and frightening.

OP what did your dh tell the ow about his relationship with you? Did he say that he wasn't happy, or what? Presumably he must have used at least some of the script?

I have heard pretty much what's in the op from a then married man. He is separated now and living with a v pretty, younger girlfriend - he is punching above his weight aesthetically. It makes no difference though he is still claiming he's bored and dissatisfied with life and wants the excitement of an affair. I find it quite depressing.

But I think that I have read somewhere that they may also stay because the find it easier to compartmentalise. It is easier to stay, for reasons of finance and domestic support.
Yes, probably all sorts of reasons.

Presumably people who are happy at home don't tend to have affairs?

Personally I think there are different types. My father was a serial philanderer. It was about sex and power IMO. Hundreds of affairs while married to DM.

Then there are those who have resigned themselves to living in a loveless, dull marriage out of a sense of duty, but who meet someone who they connect with. Those types don't have masses of affairs, and I think they're less common nowadays.

The script isn't infallible, everyone's different. Some people are plausible liars, others are genuinely unhappily married but feel unable to get out (I have several long-term married friends who are terribly unhappy, but e.g feels unable to leave because they don't have kids, so the partner would be alone, that kind of twisted logic.)

Relationships are just not simple.

I love how the blame seems to rest so heavily on the OW though. Don't generally see the same opprobrium heaped on the OM!

None of it apparently.

Hmm....

He says he never criticised me to her. Or even thought much about me when with her. And vice versa. Compartmentalising I guess. I don't know how true that is. Fwiw unsuspecting she started the relationship - she has form with older men- and he was flattered and 50 and went along with it. I don't think she needed the gilding.

Oh... And apparently she really like ne too

@ abitwobbly

I don't think it is lazy statistics. If there are 200 marriages and 100 divorces a year every year then 50% of marriages are going to end in a divorce over whatever period.

It is not so far as I am aware the case that every year one year's new marriages are reported alongside all years' divorces.

@ mardy - do you have any reason for saying that there are more divorces nowadays because of women reacting to men's eternal infidelity? This doesn't echo what I've read.

There's this for example. The main reasons for divorces are said to be "couples stating that they had simply fallen out of love with each other", along with extramarital affairs, ?mid-life crisis?, emotional or physical abuse, ?unreasonable behaviour? and financial worries.

Men fucking around can't explain all of this. In any case there is some evidence that wives do as often as husbands.

Whatever the immediate cause, marriages fail because someone in them thinks it's OK to have an affair, OK to vent their mid-life crisis on their SO, OK to inflict abuse on them, to behave unreasonably, to piss family money away. And you know what, they're not wrong. You can do all that shit, nobody dares judge you. Hugh Grant had sex with a prostitute in his car and he still gets work. Angus Deayton did drugs and sex with prostitutes and still gets work and in fact his buddy Stephen Fry has supported him by boycotting that news show he was fired from. Nice ehh? Never mind the STIs he might have given his wife, poor Angus should still be on the telly.

Meh.

Crunchy - om/ow - makes no odds to me. The forums I happened to visit seemed to be largely populated by ow and in my case there was an ow so it's more relevant.

OP if you don't mind me asking, were you and your dh having sex during the time he had the affair and, if so, did he tell the ow that or did he lie to her about it?

Ignore me if you want.

Crunchy - yes, similar here. My husband had some half a dozen affairs (that I later knew of) and many more besides. He was just a serial philanderer. Started just months after our wedding.

Some women lie, some men lie, many people stay together, desperately unhappy because they have children.

Men do have more to lose if a marriage ends - and by that I mean DAY TO DAY contact with their children.

Even now it is rare for men to become RP, plus there is the the old fashioned not wanting to leave wife homeless.

I don't think all men / women who have affairs are heartless bastards - for many they just can't see a way out without losing their children.

And I have seen many a child used as a weapon by both sexes.

Of course it is lazy statistics! . What time period are you talking about?*

OK, for the sake of argument 1950 - 1992, and in 1992 there were 1000 divorces? 42 years of marriage resulting in the divorces of that year, being, say 1000! That is not the marriages v divorces of 1992, that is the divorces (so far) of ALL marriages since 1950!
It is comparing apples and oranges. *You are extrapolating that rate of marriages to divorces in any ONE given year (50%) and those are two different things.

The actual divorce rate is around 11%. The census data of 1992 shows divorced people were 11% of the population at that time (does not include unmarried or remarried). Adrastea may be correct 1 in 3 after 15 years, ie 30% - she hasn't given any sources, - but people get remarried as Chap did, and a remarriage is still a marriage.

abitwobblynow Source is Office for National Statistics report on Divorce from 2010 One third of people who got married in 1995 did not make it to 15 years.

From what I've seen men in general like to picture themselves as the poor victim who loved their wife too much, and was forced to cheat by her unreasonable behaviour. Their wives were lazy, ungrateful, denied them sex, didn't love them in return and were so unhappy that the man was forced to leave them for their own good. The chap on this thread pretty much follows this script to the letter, and has probably told it so many times he actually believes it to be true.

So often when you hear the other side the wife has run herself ragged managing house, home, and children, and is exhausted and confused by the lack of attention and love she is getting from her partner who has become distant and critical (all men who are having affairs do this.... as then they have a reason for leaving when she reacts). Had they invested the same time and effort in their existing relationship as they do the OW things would be very different for everyone.

I've just been through this. My H is investing all the time and effort previously reserved for OW in me. It feels like when we first met - I see the amazing wonderful man I fell in love with. The pity is I don't love him now, I would like to re-learn but for me love is 90% trust, and how the hell can I ever trust him (or any of the women he works with) again?????

fairenuff - yes we were. Regularly if not frequently. I have no idea what he said to her about that. It never occurred to me to ask. I shall later.

panicnotanymore Mon 20-Aug-12 20:11:44
From what I've seen men in general like to picture themselves as the poor victim who loved their wife too much, and was forced to cheat by her unreasonable behaviour.

Generalisations, Much? All those married women on the OW sites? They are cheating because?

The chap on this thread pretty much follows this script to the letter, and has probably told it so many times he actually believes it to be true.

And you - of course - know different.

Yes, that's right. I was a complete shit who stayed with his wife for 14 years.
Oddly enough, the older woman with whom I had an affair that I have married doesn't seem to have the same sort of trust issues.

Oh, and the CSA and the courts seemed to believe me, as do my kids - who I managed to maintain links with despite their mum's best efforts.

The OP said "many of the posters appeared to have swallowed the stories hook, line and sinker" and the men don't leave their wives. I've pointed out in some cases the stories are true, and the men do leave their wives.

Incidentally - XW wasn't a SAHM, kept all her own money, and I did my share plus of the child care before I get more BS about "she was tired". She was paying a cleaner, while I worked to keep a rough over our heads.

"You should have left" Yeah? and abandoned my kids? In the end, yes, I did leave.

Yes, I had had an affair - but I wasn't at the time. I also kept paying for the house, and paid way more than the CSA later said I had to.

You know what? I don't regret it at all.
I still see the smart young adults my kids grew up into; I'm happily married and have been for a decade plus...

XW? After what she did before I left - and since? I don't think about her much, and don't much care what happens to her.

..and why do so many of the cheated on cast all "others" as easily deluded and affair partners as predatory.

Probably because finding evidence of what one wants to believe is a defence mechanism that makes us feel better?

@ abitwobbly

how many couples married in 1950 and how many got divorced between 1950 and 1992? That proportion is your overall divorce rate. if the rate of marriage and divorce stayed roughly the same then any year is typical.

The fact that 11% are divorced at any one time doesn't conflict with this. Among those not divorced, some are children, some are widowed, some are single, some are gay, some cohabit without marrying and of whoever's left about 50% can expect to end up divorced.

If life expectancy is 75 and there are 75 people evenly spread for age, you'd expect to have around 30 people who aren't yet married, and probably 5 or 10 who are widowed, 2 or 3 who are gay. If all the remaining 35 people are married to each other, then for 11% to be divorcees you'd only need 8 people to be divorced. 8 out of 35 at any time, so over time, your 11% is different people.

"You should have left" Yeah? and abandoned my kids?

Why do so many men think that leaving their wife means leaving their kids too? It is possible to separate and still have contact, as you have done OneMoreChap.

There can be no justification for cheating on a partner. I don't know how anyone can claim that there is. Unless you are being held against your will, you always have the option of walking away from a situation that has become so miserable.

In my opinion, the reason most men do not leave "such awful marriages", and instead have an affair first, is that most men are terrified of being alone. They will cling to a bad marriage with the skin of their teeth, because they need somebody "to take care of them", and while they do, they are already looking for the next Mrs.

In general, women are much more comfortable with being on their own.

Just look around you at couples who have recently separated... I bet you the majority of men are with another woman in less than a month, while the majority of women take the chance to be on their own, enjoying their own company and assimilate the baggage before even thinking about dating again.

and why do so many of the cheated on cast all "others" as easily deluded and affair partners as predatory

I haven't been cheated on, or cheated, but I would consider the person who is married as the one doing the cheating. So if a married man has an 'affair' with a married woman, they are both cheating on their partners. If only one of them is married then the other is not actually cheating but is the 'ow' or 'om'. Doesn't make a difference whether they're male or female as far as I can see. Cheating is cheating and it's a conscious choice.

I have been having an affair for 7 years.

OM did not give me any indication that we would be together. Neither did i give him any indication. I love my DH and would never ever leave him for anyone else.

So in answer to your query, sometimes the OW knows what the score is and has her own thing going on. So they dont believe things they hear from OM and OM may not even be saying all that crap.

Poor OneMoreChap. sometimes you dont know whats missing in your life until you get a connection from someone else.