Ok, you buggers (affectionately said). Are some affairs more acceptable than others?

[Koala72]

Right. So, after an unpleasant brush with a psychopathic sociopathic female who attempted to break up our family, I have studied the whole business of affairs for a while now.

And this is the question to you lot:

A lot of men - pretty much most men - seem to have sex or an EA out of their main partnership at one time or another. I did a survey of all the men I know, and only found a couple who hadn't (and I mean family, extended family, all friends, colleagues, neighbours - all of them).

Let us just swallow the bitter pill and say ok, this is likely to happen.
(for argument's sake)

Now - whereas an affair with a woman who intends to stay with the guy, and therefore this will involve him leaving his main partner and possibly kids, is clearly very destructive and life-changing, is it ok for him to have an affair, dalliance, EA, whatever, with a woman who doesn't want him to leave his family?

So, she wants to see him a couple of times a month, talk to him, have him as some kind of sex interest, but the last thing on earth she would want would be for him to leave his main family. Mutual discretion, controlled behaviour, both sides safeguarding any families involved so that they just have a private relationship which in some way helps them, and hurts nobody.

Isn't this OK? (given that if it's going to happen, it may as well happen in a way that doesn't hurt anybody??)

All hypothetical, of course.

Because I am using ‘the knobhead men’ to refer to my earlier post which referred to this group of cheating men men who believe evopsych crap or misogyny which justifies an entitlement to cheating and characterises women as less important,

If someone was doing something you felt was harmful or by anyone’s standards is definitely harmful (e.g. drink driving with their child) you wouldn’t talk to them about it then? Because the most important thing is their choice and this supersedes everyone else’s choices and everyone else’s emotional and physical well-being...

Offred - ok - it’s always easy to take anything to an extreme.
Drunk driving with a kid? Really.

I could also use your example of letting people know when they are about to hurt themselves - and ask if you warn people when they decide to eat another desert; over salt their food; eat tuna (Mercury anyone?), etc.

Or maybe - we can just realise that we are all different. Live our lives differently. Interact with our friends differently.
You give advice and communicate your values and judgement. Asked or not. It’s your way - and it works for you and your friends.

You see the world as having many absolute wrongs/rights.
Nothing wrong with that.

I don’t. And that’s my choice.
Nothing wrong with that way either.

Oh dear oh dear! We are going backward in time with sucj attitude...soon polygamy will be justified. ..he just take another woman but does not break his original family and then a 3d etc etc and the justifications would bring to the conclusion: the polygamist is a honest guy and better than the one who betrays his wife because he deals with his manhood and his natural needs to sleep with more with one woman in an open and legitimate way .... oh dear oh dear...we will be going backward like that ...and all the desperate women will be stalking all the successful male with bright kids to have babies before it is late....we will soon be saying oh well as long as the male can keep together the original family he can sow his seeds as he pleased especially that men are programmed by nature to want to do that....
we have created a highly refined and developed world because we learnt to control our primary needs- and sex is one of them...the tension between our primary needs and our higher principles made us creative , emphatic and better parents and also allowed us to have some kind of control over the population growth (a bit too much now but it can be corrected) ..just go and check out what is going in countries where the primary needs of males are fully accepted and uninhibited...most Muslim countries allow polygamy, most people in most South American and African countries seem to think that a real man is the one who sleep with a lot of different women and father a lot of kids... Now just check out their standard of living and the level of the women happiness there. ...so in short: temptations exist aplenty that does not mean that it is OK to give in them...

You don’t know what I do or don’t do.

I’m not the one repeatedly saying that as a principle you don’t ever interfere with other people’s choices.

The reason I used the example of something really bad was to illustrate that the reason you don’t mention about the harm re affairs is not because of ‘the way you are’ but because, as you have already stated, you don’t think it is harmful.

My point is precisely that we are not different in terms of our approaches to others re social responsibility. What we are different on is that you don’t think affairs are harmful.

he tension between our primary needs and our higher principles made us creative , emphatic and better parents and also allowed us to have some kind of control over the population growth

Well put.

Offred - like I don’t know what you do - you also don’t know my motivations.

And non-interfering with people choices - all kinds of them - not limited to who they sleep with - is important to me.
Equally - I feel strongly about people not interfering with my choices and how I live my life.

If you have ultra-religious proselytizing relatives - or grew up in a society that constantly placed judgment on people’s way of life - you may be able to relate.

Otherwise - you can just right me off as a person with different morals

I’m not writing you off, I’m trying to point out that ‘my friend is happy with it’ doesn’t justify ‘it is harmless’ and neither does ‘I am very keen not to have anyone restrict people’s sexual behaviour because of my religious upbringing’ mean ‘it is harmless’.

And I’m also trying to point out that the difference between us on this issue is simply that you don’t think affairs are always harmful and that it is quite normal for people to speak to their friends about harmful things they are doing and that you would do it too re affairs, as you would re drink driving if you thought the harm warranted it.

And I’ve not made any assumptions re what you do/don’t do, i’ve taken what you have said at face value, you however have repeatedly accused me of being interfering, judgemental and of doing friendship wrong...

Hence me trying to explain that I am not different from you re how I approach friendship itself, that everyone will say something to someone they care about if they think they are harming themselves/others, that the difference is that you don’t think it is harmful and I do, for all the reasons I have outlined.

Josuk @ 16:17 A perfect summing up of my situation.

@Undercoveragent - I remember when I heard it first from a friend - I wondered. And then another one said something similar. And then another. And I figured - ok. It’s what’s happens, it’s OK.
So - here we are.

josuk people who grew up in extremely repressive milieu tend NOT to know how to behave in a free Western environment. They do not know that in such environment there are no strict regulations but there are boundaries and principles and nurture of love/respect etc it is not prescriptive like in their milieu. So when they break from their milieu they often tend to go to a complete unhealthy and decadent way of living...a free Western society that wants to stay highly functioning knows that a hippy permissive society where everyone stays everypne else and where sex is just that (like for animals) is not healthy or functioning....so josuk I hope you will eventually learn how to behave in a non descriptive society with its own universal and humanist principles...

Typos and editor errors: where everyone shags ...to behave in a non prescriptive ...

But it’s not just about sex though is it? The people in these affairs say that but it isn’t that. It is about sex they want in addition to their marriage and they deliberately keep it secret so that they can have both the sex they want and the marriage they want.

And it doesn’t mean it is ok, because the person having the affair doesn’t have a right to decide for their partner that it is ok for them, just for themselves.

What about their spouses who are kept in the dark? What about all the people who will be hurt if it gets exposed including the people having the affair and any DC?

If it were just about the sex then they’d leave their marriages or discuss opening them.

@Kidsneedfathers - oh, whatever would I do without your sage words....
Would ever learn to behave in a manner you find appropriate.
Can you please pass along any teaching materials to the one and only acceptable way to live in such free and enlightened society.

Btw - is that the same rule book for all countries of the west?
I think I may have been reading the French version....
😂😂😂😂

And Offred - no matter how many times you will mention open marriages - it’s disingenuous.
People change. Marriages change. And affairs happen.
And will continue so.

I do think it’s better - if people chose to be unfaithful - that they do it in a way that creates less hurt. Hide it. Don’t let it affect children.
And leave if they feel that’s what they want to do.
Or stay - if they feel like it’s best for the kids and them.

Is that an ideal way to live? No.
In the idealised version of life - we fall in love; never look at another person, and die on the same day.

But - it doesn’t happen like that to most people.

@Kidsneedfathers - thank you for making me smile today.
Especially as I am looking at my unhealthy and decadent way of living...

And - as for being ‘non-prescriptive’ - don’t you think that Kids need Parents - rather than Fathers???

Jos - ‘affairs happen’ is another thing that does not mean affairs are ‘harmless’.

Affairs don’t just happen. People make a series of choices re affairs and their marriages.

No-one is denying that people continue to have affairs.

It’s not disingenuous to suggest that when things change in a marriage people have two options other than having an affair that are less harmful and more productive for all involved; talking about it and leaving.

josuk the French version is more subtle and more class-based than you might think. Of course you have the suburb version of the XVI eme arrondissment but it is quite sordid...now you and all permissive buddies :your behavior would have been fine by all of us petits bourgeois and Puritan middle-class if we did not have to foot all its negative side effects (based on stats: your mental and physical health are at greater risks of deteriorating; you are at great risks of bringing to this world many kids that suffer from the excesses of their parents etc) ...

I think a lifetime of perfect monogamy is unrealistic, we live longer, we're less willing to tolerate unhappiness and we have more opportunities to stray. I think we as a culture have unreasonable expectations of romance and we're setting ourselves up to be hurt.

I'm very happily married but within my marriage we have good years and bad years, my hope is that we stay together forever in SOME form, right now we're raising young kids and we have a transitional monogamous relationship. If he was with someone else and it was a fuck up he regretted I'd rather not know (and I've told him that), if he had a long term affair that involved lying to me, spending our family resources and disrespecting my life then I'd be devastated and furious. If he wanted an open marriage because he felt the urge to be sexual and romantic with other people while maintaining his relationship with me I'd seriously consider it. Honesty and respect is the key.

Sex just isn't that important to me, I don't feel jealous in that way and I value our partnership above all else in my life except for my kids. Having said all that, I can't see myself cheating or being with someone else, not because of any moral fortitude, I just haven't had the urge.

meant to say traditional not transitional!

Kidsneed - omg - really.
How does one not knowing anything about the other person - manages to create these constructs and be so judgemental.
Clearly - must be a humanistic value based person.

All I have said - on this thread - that asked for people’s opinion - that I do think that not all affairs are created equal.
I still believe that.

Whether or not I am having affairs myself, or somehow making you (which you, btw) foot some bils arising from my excesses 😳, or having mental problems, or bringing into this world multitude of children - really - with such imaging imagination you need to be writing books

josuk I might have misread your 17:07 post where you speak about people who grew in a very religious milieu that constantly judge etc I though you were one of them . there is a vast amount of research and documents on kids that break out from such milieu that are lost in the free Western society. Diseases and catstrophic relationships are their companions. Also I have visited Harlem/San Francisco etc...well it is sad to see all these young people and "fatherless kids" with a bleak future (and a very unhealthy present) ..it is what I am referring to. I absolutely agree with you that a child can grow happily without a father if he has around him two grown up parents that do not kerp changing. Fatherless means without an authority figure that shows what is wrong and it is right. my username was chosen to reflect that I am willing to give a go at rebuilding our marriage for the sake of my kids (lies are the worst part of it; I did not care about him having sex on the side as I was busy with my kids and had to be far away with them; I even gave my ok: I had to choose between being a wife and being a mum; i chose being a mum; the problem was that the OW was a very clever stalker and well it does not matter... a-propos France...i do not live there now but...French friends do not understand why i was devastated as he lies to protect me and as he was willing to fully take care of the kids so that I can have some affair as well...

In case you want to know: he could not be with me and the kids because of work...the kids are absolutely beok

Kidsneed - it’s OK. Clearly you have had a lot of things to deal with....

All I was saying - having grown up in a society that had a way of looking at the way life was ‘supposed’ to be, on many dimensions - I tend to resist anyone doing it to me.
As well as try to not pass judgement on others.

Me being this way made it a little challenging - bc my H’s family is quite religious and have tried for years to tell me all the ways I am wrong not to ‘see the light, that is or savior’

So - I do resist strongly when anyone tries to tell me how one is supposed to live and think and feel.
It doesn’t matter if it’s about affairs; or about raising children; or about diet; or about anything else; really.
For me it’s important to be able to make my own choices, even if some may be wrong. One can only learn from own mistakes.
And I treat my friends the same way I want to be treated.
Unless asked - I will not offer an opinion, only an ear. A shoulder.
To me - this is what being friends means.