Don't care about DH's discreet affairs. Am I the only one?

[melusina32]

DH and I both in our 30s. We have been together a long time, 3 young DC

DH has been having affairs for some time now. We have a don't ask don't tell policy. It is all very unspoken. As long as he doesn't bring it to my door, I don't care.

We love each other very much, and sex still happens, but we are very much "best friends" now. DH has always had a much higher sex drive. I am pretty sure it is just about sex with him

A friend of mine found out about it last weekend and she was horrified. She thinks it is abnormal not to care.

We enjoy each other's company, we have a good life, small children to think of. As long as DHs affairs do not disrupt that, it is out of sight out of mind

the first time I found out, I was shocked and confronted him, but it started up again, and I chose to ignore it. I didn't seem to feel that sexual jealousy, and day to day our lives are very good

i just wondered if there was anybody else in this situation, or am I an anomaly, as my friend seems to think?

Of course my DH is still in love with me. If he wasn't we would no longer be together. I am still regularly batting his hands off my bum when I've got a hot pan in my hand or a sharp knife. (Because I think it's kind of dangerous) We have been together around 20yrs and we're still very tactile, still touchy feely. Still have very regular very good sex. I'm struggling with motherhood and going back to work at the moment as we have 4 young kids and I've just home back after being a sahm for a long time. But the intimacy in my marriage is the least of my worries.

Exactly, Thenapoleonofcrime. We've gone off on an irrelevant tangent really!

op if you're truly happy with your situation, that's your business.

Personally I couldn't live like that - dh and I have been together a long time & have three dc, but we are definitely still 'in love' and just as soppy about each other as when we first met. The thought of him with somebody else kills me, and he feels the same. If I wasn't enough for the man I am with, I would rather move on tbh.

But again, it's your life....

Well, it's your life.
But I would recommend a regular std check.
You are also sleeping with every person the person he is sleeping with has slept with!
Ewwww.

If the OP's set up was based on an agreement between them tgen I'd not be so

Trouble is, the OP had been forced into this as a case of put up or leave. She had already been a victim of his affair and expressed her wants back then. He's blatently disrespected her wishes which was to stick to what the marriage was based on.

She's now in a position of put up or get out. She's trying not to think about it and theyve not discussed this so she doesn't know if he's only doing this for sex or whether there's a lack of emotional conection on his side despite her feeling hers is strong.

Seriously OP, if yours was an open relationship in the true sense of the word is not have concerns about you. Your relationship is based on give and take, you give and he takes!

Talk about this to make sure you are both in agreement as to where the boundaries of your relationship actually lie because you just don't know.

Make sure you're able to cope financially should you separate.

The kids' issue is because people are saying that staying in marriage which is not one-man-one-woman-in-love-with-each-other-exclusively is somehow damaging for the children and their ability to form happy relationships.

I am saying it is not necessarily the case. Divorce can be worse, much worse.

"It suits us for now."

I expect it's always going to suit him OP...

"Divorce can be worse, much worse".

Not necessarily; its better to be apart and happier than to be together and miserable. The children pick up on their parents overt unhappiness with each other and could very well blame themselves. If parents stay together as well purely for the sake of the children then they are building up problems themselves for those people when they embark on their own relationships as adults. It teaches those children that a loveless marriage is the "norm"; one that they could easily go onto replicate themselves.

It also depends on how both parties handle the divorce proceedings; if either parent uses the children as pawns, continues to try and maintain control or conduct a private war against the other then it can be very drawn out. However, this is certainly not the case for all divorces and in many cases as well the children are glad that their warring parents have parted.

"Of course my DH is still in love with me. If he wasn't we would no longer be together. I am still regularly batting his hands off my bum when I've got a hot pan in my hand or a sharp knife".

He is still with you because he is getting what he wants from this as are you. You both get to continue being Mr and Mrs. And as for your second sentence that is just yuck, he is being disrespectful here, you are but a piece of meat to him.

you are but a piece of meat to him.

Hardly... you know nothing about their relationship.

I do not have to know much about their relationship to realise that he is being completely disrespectful of both his marriage and wife here.

I do see how this set-up could be preferable to divorce for some couples. I know people who have 'turned a blind eye' to affairs, sometimes because it is too painful to acknowledge the truth.

In op's case, she doesn't have the sexual jealousy so I think it can could work.

I don't think fidelity is the be all and end all. The man who cheated on me treated me much better than the faithful man I married.

The thing about this that is a problem for me is the OP is married to someone who uses women for disposable sex & I find that very distasteful. As a feminist I just couldn't support that.

Do you have daughters OP? How do you think they will feel when they find out about both of your behaviors in this?
Do you have sons? Do you want them to also view women as sex holes?

Someone said that children would prefer their parents stay together even if there are affairs rather than parting, and that they have experienced this themselves. This is true, but it may not be true for ALL children. Some children have mental health problems due to unhappy childhoods, where it did not agree with some children.
I don't think the "if you are happy with it carry on" is realistic, it is in fact dangerous. It does not address the people who could get hurt, namely the children, and the other women.

"I know people who have 'turned a blind eye' to affairs, sometimes because it is too painful to acknowledge the truth".

Indeed. My mother's friend stayed with her unfaithful H at great costs to herself and doing that also put her in an early grave.

Do you have daughters OP? How do you think they will feel when they find out about both of your behaviors in this? Do you have sons? Do you want them to also view women as sex holes?

What a strange way to characterise consensual sex?! If the Op's husband is upfront with these women that he's married but his wife knows he's sleeping with other women (or prefers not to investigate), then why shouldn't women engage in sex for enjoyment's sake without strings? The problem I see is that they only have his word for it and it does sound like a line a married man might use when it is not true.

I don't see why this is 'using' women- unless they are promised something very different.

These things will only damage children if they see a relationship based on lies, deceit and mistrust. There is absolutely nothing in the OP's post to suggest that is the home situation, indeed, if she is happy and her husband is happy, how will it damage the children to see their parents in a happy marriage?

Of course, if parents are teaching children that one man-one woman completely monogamous marriage is the only type of marriage, then it will confuse the children. However, there are ways to use age-appropriate language to describe partnerships outside of the male/female/monogamy model.

We also don't know the husband's view of the women he is having affairs with. Perhaps they are friends rather than "disposable". In fact, we know very little and there are some horrible generalised assumptions and projection going on in this thread.

Crackers! He must be smiling from ear to ear!

If you are as happy as you say, OP (and I see no reason to doubt you) then your set up is fine. And it is actually good for children to see that there is more to life and to human relationships than the frantic, obsessive pursuit of monogamy.
Monogamy is not 'natural' at all: it's a construct of the patriarchy, designed to keep women's reproductive (and domestic service) potential under the ownership and control of men. It got sold back to women as something they desperately needed when it's the reverse that's true.

That isn't to say that monogamy is inherently bad - it's just another fetish that will make people happy if they can find a compatible partner to engage in it with.
No relationship comes with guarantees. Any partner you have might decide to leave you for someone else at some point. Or prove to be a bad person (abuse, addiction, pathological laziness). Or become very ill, or die.

Finally, people who are 'incapable of holding down a relationship' - some people do not want a longterm monogamous relationship. There's nothing wrong with that. If there was less heavy-duty propaganda about the importance of longterm monogamous sexual relationships, the people who have other tastes and other ideas would not feel obliged to try and engage in them, thereby making themselves and other people unhappy to no purpose.

I don't think think my DP has had affairs or shagged someone else but if he did I think I might feel like the OP. I love him and our life together with DCs, I don't think a lifetime of sexual and emotional monogamy is a realistic expectation and I would hate to lose so much of what makes my life happy just because of sex. I have no urge to be unfaithful to him right now but after 10 years together I know we have good years and bad years and I can't say it could never happen. I'd quite like an understanding that either of us could fuck up and we'd still stay together as a family. I'd find that reassuring. My parents split over serial infidelity but they had different expectations of each other, they thought of their marriage as a romance and then a failed romance whereas I see mine as a primarily a friendship with extra layers of intimacy.

solidgoldbrass I could hug you!

The heteronormative monogamous image of the ideal relationship must be incredibly damaging to those children who won't grow up to aspire to that ideal, either because they're gay, or because they aren't naturally monogamous.

These things will only damage children if they see a relationship based on lies, deceit and mistrust. There is absolutely nothing in the OP's post to suggest that is the home situation, indeed, if she is happy and her husband is happy, how will it damage the children to see their parents in a happy marriage?

Because if it's like my parent's marriage, I used to ask 'mum is dad having affairs?' my brother saw various women drop him off at home. We all knew and we were all told what we were seeing was wrong. It's very difficult to then have any trust in anything they said. I personally feel that my whole childhood was built on lies.

And just to clarify - an open marriage with honesty on all sides especially to the children would have been different. It was the lies that were the headfuck.

NoArmani - that backs up what I'm saying - your childhood was built on lies. That is what is damaging. It would have been better if you had been told the truth, i.e. that dad was being dropped off by a close female friend. However, your parents obviously felt pressured by cultural expectations of monogamy to lie to their children. That is very sad for all concerned.

Agree with worldgonecrazy and SGB