Why do single woman persue married men

[alexsp234]

I'm just hoping to get some understanding on this. One of my closest friends is a married man. He's been married for all the time i've known him, I've been single for a lot of that time. Much as I think he's great. he's obviously completely off limits to me as a potential boyfriend.

But recently I've seen 2 single women, both a good decade younger than him, flirt and make it clear that they would be open to a relationship, or in one case 'a bit of fun'. Friday night I was out with this friend and others, but without his wife, and I watched a single woman fairly new to our social group subtly manouvre him away from the rest of us and then engage in what I would consider a highly personal conversation about the state of his marriage.

Why would a woman deliberately chase a married bloke?

Why is it assumed that women pursue the men? Why have you made this a blanket statement? I know plenty of single women who wouldn't do this.

Firstly, I am sure a married man who isn't looking to cheat is able to say no & you do realise the lies married men tell in order to bed women, don't you?

And calling them slags is horrible.

Personally I think the vast majority of single women would not go after married men so for me it's a small minority.

I started getting quite a lot of interests from married men when they heard I had separated. They think you are desperate or that they can rescue you? I can see the attraction of being able to 'hand them back to their wives' like other people's babies...but personally I wouldn't want to be involved in the betrayal of the woman.

Yes, I can imagine lovingfreedom I think there is something in that resceuing theory. They couldn't really 'rescue' you even you wanted them too, but they have that feeling and they don't recognise it for what it is.

Why do single women pursue married men? Because Bridget Jones was right, and underneath our clothes, we are green and scaly, like lizards.

Different: it wasn't intended to be a blanket statement, maybe I should have put 'some' in the title and my OP.

As I say in the OP, I'm single and don't understand why women do it, thus it could be implied that I'm aware not all single women are chasing married men, and I agree with pp who says it's probably a small minority.

It was after watching someone obviously go after my friend on Friday that I suddenly thought; what would make someone think that's an ok thing to do.

Its not just married men. My boyfriend was single for the best part of three years. Now that he has a girlfriend (moi) the single women in the social circle he's in are suddenly taking far more of an interest.. I've observed this with a mixture of amusement and unease.
Its almost as if your value goes up if you are attached.

Daft question really because it's like saying "why does This Woman fancy This Man". It's situationally dependent.

I've been an OW. I didn't chase him but having had that experience, I'd say the main benefit of a relationship with a married man is that you get all the good stuff with none of the downside. You get 100% of their attention when they are with you, lots of gifts, expensive weekends away in top drawer hotels, great sex and the excitement of a secret relationship. You don't have to deal with the day to day grind of a normal relationship - the kind of stuff women post about on here every day. Eg. bad habits, abusive treatment/unkind language, having to see dreadful in-laws, putting up with his boorish friends, seeing his skid marked underwear etc. It's like an ideal relationship frozen outside of reality - a fantasy I suppose. Personally, I wouldn't do it again and it was a one off for me but I totally see why some women would choose that type of relationship.

If you have no interest in having children and enjoy single life, that kind of relationship can work very well for the woman. It can work well for the man too - being totally compartmentalised. Plenty of relationships like this happen, run their course and the wife of the MM never finds out - so never gets hurt.

Other reasons would be

flirting with no intent just for fun and flattery (not serious chasing)

lonely or no other options (some married men are just after sex with anyone at all times and find unattractive, lonely women easy pickings - it's not that hard to manipulate people a little to get them to chase you)

sex or strong chemistry in a particular situation

the challenge or thrill of the chase

boredom and seeking some excitement

falling in love

(Also remember that what you "see" to be women chasing your friend may very well not be. You aren't with these people all the time and get one side of the story. For all you know, he is texting/flirting with them/ emailing them/ subtly placing a hand on the lower back/touching a knee etc etc offline. He could very well be encouraging it. I bet he is.)

Well just because you have been wrongly accused of pursuing a married man does not mean no single woman has ever, Krus.

I think we can all imagine why a mm would pursue a younger, single woman. The op was asking a specific question. And one that, on the surface, might have a less obvius answer.

1. they fancy him
2. they like the challenge

That's it really. I don't consider it "immoral" as these women are single - if the man cheats, THAT is immoral

ChangingUsername is right

And I do find the suggestion that women are the innocent victims of nasty men whatever their status rather offensive.

If I find someone attractive, I am quite capable of 'pursuing' them and it's nit because I've fallen under the grips of their evil man plan.

To suggest that single women don't ever pursue married men is to deny them autonmy and agency in their own lives.

Changing: given that the female in this situation has only known my friend 3 weeks, this was the first time they had socialised together outside work, he doesn't have her phone number, and earlier in the evening she directly asked him if he was married, i find it unlikely that he was encouraging her.

Not just single women, married women pursue married (or in a relationship) men too. As I have recently come to realise

And vice versa, and so on and so forth. I'm sure the reasons why are due to many different factors for each person, plain old physical attraction, seeing it as a challenge, who knows. It's shitty though, that I do know for sure!

It's strange - on the one hand I can see that low self esteem would make a woman want to feel better by proving she can "seduce" a married man. But on the other hand, I've always thought that women who do this must possess a degree of arrogance. After all, morality aside, if I met a married man who I found attractive, I would always assume his wife was far superior to me in every way, so it wouldn't occur to me that he might want to start an affair with me.

I've been single for a lot of time in my life, and I would never pursue a married man, not in a million years.

Because they're cunts.

As are married men pursuing single women, or single men pursuing married women.
Or married women pursuing single men.

No, sorry - they're selfish cunts.

To suggest that single women don't ever pursue married men is to deny them autonmy and agency in their own lives.

I don't think anyone has suggested that.

I think it's loneliness and low self-esteem. I think I'm too busy to be lonely now (with job and kids) but before I had children I experienced long periods of singledom and it honestly seemed like the only people who ever 'reached out' to me were married men. I can see how easy it would be for women with less healthy self-esteems to reach out. loneliness not 'badness' can make people have flings. Although I do think if women have healthy self-esteems they'll back away even though it exacerbates loneliness in the short term.

Jollyphonics, never succumbed to it but before children, in my twenties, it would have been loneliness not arrogance that would have made me feel tempted to go down that path.

Once I did allow myself to become emotionally close to a married man but looking back on it now he was kind of predatory and ten years older than me and I think he 'assessed' that I was a bit lonely at that point in my life. Luckily I didn't allow it to become sexual as despite being very lonely I still wanted more for myself.

Nobody ever mentions loneliness when they're listing reasons why women might have affairs though. It just seems to me like the most obvious reason is totally over looked.

I think I was sending off signals off vulnerability and loneliness which scared away decent men and attracted predator types.

Or because they're 'safe'?

A friend of mine had a string of affairs - each one with a man who was in some way or another not actually available for a LTR. Her conquests have included foreign exchange students, her university professor, several married men, a man with terminal cancer and even a catholic seminary student.

We used to armchair-psychoanalyse her relationships for hours. She's now in a supposed LTR and has a child with a loser that we all suspect will drop her at the first sign of trouble.

Lovely woman, but she definitely doesn't do commitment well.

I honestly don't know any married men who have single women constantly throwing themselves at them. Neither do I know any single women who purposefully throw themselves at married men.

I also don't think that many women would continue to relentlessly persue anyone with no encouragement, whether they were married or not.

I agree with much that has been said

The one person I know who was a serial pursuer of married, or attached men, I think had a really ambivalent relationship with her father. She was never quite good enough even though she admired and emulated him.

So to me, choosing someone who can't fully commit to you is a way of acting that dynamic out, whilst on a really superficial level, feeling pretty good about your ability to charm someone away from someone else.

You could say it's an attack on other women too. Never feeling good enough but appearing to get one over on other women.

etKruste

That's really interesting, and i think it does turn the question back to how much (more) responsibility the attached person has for affairs.

And what a shame it is that the thing you were doing cretaed a vicious circle where you felt even worse about yourself

that sounds like my 20s Magicalsandwich. I had a fling with a man who thought he wanted to be a priest. Also a Spanish Student. I also had a brief relationship with a man on secondment from another country's office. Nobody who was dying mind you! That takes the biscuit! This wasn't what I wanted mind you. Nobody properly available ever showed any interest in me, then I had kids with a bastard, dumped him when I could take no more. When you discussed your friend, what did you conclude?? I wonder what my friends say about me being so long term single. I've got good at rooting at the unavailables and the users and the players but this hasn't left room for good single men (like they say in trite articles on mind body green)

Possibly true to all of the above but bottom.line is : just an entirely self centred person