I now really dont believe that the majority of men are faithful

[isthismylifenow]

I know I am generalizing now, but once again I have had an "offer" from a married man.

I have posted frequently here, so maybe you remember me, but if not, separated for 6 months from a 20 year marriage.

I have been propositioned on a few occasions now, but this last one just takes the cake.

How offended on a scale of 1-10 would you be by this message..?

"If I were there right now, I would wine and dine you to your hearts content, then with your permission, would take you home and perform wild and wonderful sex bringing out the worst in you"

I reply in a joking manner (in your dreams...) as this is a friend I have know for some time, there has been banter in the past between us, but nothing more than a joke here and there.

His reply to that:

"I need something casual and safe, what do you say, are you keen to take it further"

WTAF! So I didn't even reply and now I am getting the "oh so ignoring me now messages"

I am upset. I don't think I am wrong in feeling upset. This has happened quite a few times now, in every case the man is 'happily' married.....well that is how it would appear when I was married and we were all mates. Now I am single, it seems like men think they have the right to treat me like a piece of meat, or 'ah its been 6 months, she must be gagging for it, so I will give her one'... its degrading and its making me start to dislike men. I am no man hater btw, but what gives them the fucking right to think that this is okay on any level.

I don't know if it matters any (it shouldn't, but maybe I have portrayed the wrong message) that since my separation I started going to gym (this was for me, somewhere to work out frustrations and clear my head, which is does and I enjoy going), and I think I probably look better than I have in quite some time.... I am eating better so my skin looks clearer, all things that have just given me a tiny bit of confidence, of which I had NONE at all before.

Now today I ate a big bag of crisps and don't even want to go to gym tonight, as I feel today I just want to put back on the weight.. but fuck them, why should I.. I am not boasting about losing weight, so please don't read it that way.....for once I tried to do something for me, and now I am being taken advantage of AGAIN, but in a different way now...

I don't go out of my way to flirt, as I said I had a bit of a banter with some friends for years, but nothing heavy. I didn't message him first, he messaged me about work stuff (I do work in a very male orientated industry) and then bam!

I am not over-thinking this am I???

I think that by saying "never say never", a person is actually showing empathy for their partner, and esteem for themselves. It's saying "my partner loves me, even if they made a bad choice and cheated it wouldn't mean they didn't love me or that they thought ill of me".

I feel that we place such an emphasis on not-cheating that we make cheating into this massive, tragic drama when it really actually isn't. Half the reason "the script" exists, why cheating partners drive their OH mad with lies and minimizing, etc., is because we insist in our culture that if you cheat, it means you don't love/respect etc. your partner.

If we just accepted that cheating sometimes happens because we are human and weak, then when it DID happen, it wouldn't be this life-ending, horrific thing that we had to lie about. It would just be something sad that we could talk about, maybe learn from, possibly split over, but possibly move on from and be stronger.

To say "they would never" is to deny that your partner is human imo. It's putting them on a pedestal that isn't fair. I don't think it's healthy tbh.

I didn't meet my hubby til I was 38 and before that, in London, yes LOTS of men in relationships would come on to me, and the men I was with would cheat. So I shared your view. But you can avoid them... And believe me women are just as bad.

I am surrounded by a strong core set of friends and an amazing hubby who are good people and absolutely would not and do not cheat. And I make a point of avoiding close friendships with anyone tenuous, or cutting them out. There are a few (men and women) in our extended friendship group who could be dodgy but we don't get too close. I can spot them a mile off these days...

Thankfully my hubby shares my values, he had the same impression and unhappy experiences with ex girlfriends and as a good looking guy he still has women making passes at him but he laughs at them openly and puts them straight in a humorous way.

Proof there are good ones out there!

"....men who could be dodgy but we don't get too close. I can spot them a mile off these days...

This, in spades. I think a lot of women just don't recognise the dodginess, and pass it off as "banter" when to others it's a obvious it's a blatant opening to a come on and they'd run a mile. THAT'S naïveté for you.

Yup! Took me ages to work it out but now it's SO obvious!

Cheating isn't something that just happens...both parties need to be willing. I find I can resist other men even if they are attractive, attracted to me, the opportunity is there and we are both drunk...do other people not have this regulation? Is to a gendered thing?

I have had 2 long term relationships with women. They both cheated. I don't think it's just men .

I think it's more of a personality thing - either you're a cheating kind of person or you're not.

I sometimes wonder if emotional cheating (no, not just a hot sex dream) is just as bad as actually physically cheating. Because if it is... Well, I'm very sure many women do it very often.

If you can't deal with cheating (and you shouldn't have to) what about a moresome?

DH knows that imo dishonesty is worse than sex outside of marriage and that I wouldn't mind adding an other person sometimes. So, I'm fairly certain he won't cheat. Why would he risk sooo much if he could get it risk free? DH is very very logical.

Not to mention that when a DP lies this gives their affairpartner leverage. It also leads to the fam coming 2nd... And lies about possible stds.
And to losing face.

And lies destroy trust (which is soooo hard to build up again). So, imo sex outside of marriage isn't always bad. But cheating (especially the lying) is...!!

Summerlovin - just to clarify... In my single days I would never get involved with anyone if I knew they were in a relationship and had no qualms in shutting them down. I don't think I was encouraging them either, just that I always had male friends at school and thought it was possible as an adult, but many men are over optimistic and would misread the situation. In relationships I was a little naive and too trusting, it took a while to learn...

Yes I understand that hillbilly I don't actually find men make moves on me very often because I cut them off at the sussing out stage. I do seem to have chosen a few partners in a row who cheat though
. I don't think more sex or threesomes is the answer unfortunately. Don't quite follow your logic Horatio. Think it's as naiive as a belief in monogamy tbh.

I worked in a cafe in the 90s where it was common for people to cheat. There must have been something in the water! All the men there had at least one co-worker on the go, and our manager was having an affair with the manager of a nearby clothes shop. One of them had me in his sights, and he loved bringing his girlfriend over to chat to me when she came in. It was horrible.

And yes, I've also had the experience of suddenly finding myself apparently 'on menu' after my divorce. I no longer judge married women who stop seeing divorced friends, I think they just have decent intuition where their DHs are concerned! And two women I know would be up in arms at this kind of thread - you can't tar all men with that brush, some of us have wonderful devoted husbands, etc. But their DHs cheat. And actually, one of them took his girlfriend to help him shop for his wife's Christmas present last year.

Lots of men are faithful but they arent the ones you hear from! Sleezy guys are just a loud minority. Its seems like they are the majority when you are single or online or out on your own, just because they are the ones that get in your face! Dont give up good men are out there!

I must have led a sheltered life because apart from one mildly flirtatious message from an ex on FB I've never been propositioned by a MM. I work with lots of men and have only heard of one affair in 13 years. I would bet my life that DH isn't unfaithful, but if he were it wouldn't necessarily kill our marriage. I don't think sexual fidelity is necessarily the be-all and end-all. It's the lying and lack of respect that so often goes with it that's the problem.

I've never been come on to by a married man, or at least not that I recognised - I'm not good at that sort of thing though. I fully believe that dh is quite likely to cheat at some point, my worry is that I would actually be basically OK with him having a ONS or even an affair, but he is such a romantic that I think he would immediately tell me about it and leave in order to be with her. That, or he would just start freezing me out the way you read about on here.

I'm not desperately interested in sex with other people but tbh I do make efforts not to make connections with other men - thinking about my male friends on FB, I think I only have two who are heterosexual and live in this country. No, three. I never see them in real life though.

I think that by saying "never say never", a person is actually showing empathy for their partner, and esteem for themselves.

Totally agree with this. But not the rest of your post, really, because the serious risk with cheating is that you'll get emotionally involved. And that is a very high risk. Only weird fuckers with some kind of emotional bypass can genuinely 'compartmentalise' sex so it doesn't affect them. This means the laid-back strategy only works if you're married to an emotionally absent weirdo!

It's why "It was only sex, it didn't mean anything" is such a rotten excuse. It could be true if the sex was lousy or the person was awful, but then you're saying you treated your partner like shit for a bad shag. And devaluing the other human being, to make things worse.

Yet, if it was 'worth it', your entire relationship is potentially at risk. So, basically, every time you choose infidelity, you choose to risk that. It's why I didn't cheat. I've had plenty of sex that I didn't want to pursue as relationships, but my point is you don't know which ones are going to leave you feeling all special and meaningful - so, if you cheat, you're taking that risk. Every time.

Summerlovinf, DH can have threesomes and sex outside of marriage asblong as he's honest. I'm really not sure why this is naive.

Sleezy guys are just a loud minority
No. When it gets over 90% its a majority.

Reflecting seriously for a moment, it's only June. So far this year, as well as countless minor come-ons from married men to me, there have been two serious ones. Both very successful in their respective fields, very respectable, very 'happily married'. One talking about leaving his wife and 'upsetting three generations' of his family, the other trying it on despite knowing full well I knew all about his wife - I've seen his wedding video! Two others have been half my age.
To be honest, whilst I say there are some faithful men, I am not sure if I believe there are any.

Thought it was only threesomes horatio. My misunderstanding sorry. Do you have sex outside the relationship too?

You only need a few men to be making lots of propositions for it to seem like so many men are sleazy, rather than men who are sleazy make many sleazy propositions.

Good question. Up to now I honestly believe that neither of us had sex outside of marriage. But we havent been together for that long (less than 5 years, we're now expexting LO 1)...
But up to now DH does not want to have sex with other people (we have spoken about this rather often). He does not want an open marriage so I won't pressure him.

So I haven't had sex outside of marriage... Which I can live with very well. But if DH were to be ok with an open marriage at some point (we have already made rules about how we'd do that) I would sleep with other people. I love DH very much and would not want to hurt him. He's also really sexy etc. But I could see me quite literally crave sex outside of marriage at some point. However, this takes up time... So, I don't really know.

But we both like sex with more than one person. Which is really nice imo.

As soon as I became single I had married men popping up frequently to try and bed me. Sad but true. I have lost a lot of respect for men I'm afraid.

I travel a fair bit for work. I have been propositioned by married colleagues on many trips, generally when alcohol has been imbibed. It's pretty normal for most folks I think.

Married men never come on to me. I must be completely unfanciable