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.

How strange. The only time I feel affairs might be justifiable is if one or the other partner is terminally ill or institutionalized.

It’s never ok. When you really love someone- you can never imagine jeopardising what you have- regardless of gender.

An affair basically says your needs and wants are bigger and more important that your partners.

The affair you’re describing as ‘ok’ is the kind my H had

Problem was, I found out.
Devastating for everyone involved

I'm inclined to agree with you, OP. We can be as naïve or eternally hopeful as we want to but that isn't a talisman to protect a marriage or relationship.

For some women/men, your OP would be a deal-breaker, for others it wouldn't. If a guarantee of discretion and family unit was the price, I think a larger segment would accept this set-up.

Ever read animal farm " all animals are equeal but some are more equal than others"
No if its an affair its wrong tjats the definition of the word otherwise it would be called an open relationship by all involved.

brieandChilli got it spot on. A drunk one night stand - probably forgivable. The thought that while you were sitting watching telly on a normal Tuesday night he’d be secretly texting her and wishing he was there - not forgivable.

You spoke to all those men and they were totally honest. Ok then.

Sorry, but why is everyone so weird on here? No of course I didn't speak to each one. I knew about some affairs from others, etc.

Isn't this what the French do?

@Koala72

I have been researching Affairs for 18 months.

I read Parent Who Cheat and the author describes that children of cheaters usually follow in their parents footsteps...

Also from research papers, people who cheat are usually more intelligent and more disagreeable. Interesting eh?.....

The thing is, relationships require Intimacy (in to me you see) and if you're concealing an affair, your not sharing yourself, your vulnerability and not allowing your partner to 'see' in to you? So although you might be able to keep an affair running alongside a marriage, you are not giving 100% to that marriage. After a while the distance between the spouses is widened because the person who's having the affair has made minimum effort to 'share' themselves and intimacy is lost and they may use this as an excuse as to why the marriage failed?

I think it's what a lot of people do, and we just don't know about it.

I too was an absolute baby and thought this bad stuff only happens to other people and that most partnerships weren't affected. Then when I really started paying attention, I found that loads of guys had done it, whether discovered or not. At first I was shocked and very upset, and undermined - it tipped my view of what I thought the world was. And then I calmed down and accepted it and it doesn't make the world a better place, but there's no use not facing up to it.

Then I asked myself if all these guys were bastards, then? Which would have made mostly all of the men I knew bastards.

They're just human. And I'm sad that so many relationships aren't perfect in the way they should be. And I'm really sad that men I thought were trustworthy have pretty much all turned out to have been unfaithful to their partners. But it's the reality.

So then I came to my question of if it does go on so much, then are some types of affair acceptable (if there's no choice).

I'm not a man-pleaser at all. I'm just realistic in the face of what I've seen.

God that's a depressing thought: my dss are likely to follow in their dad's footsteps.

if you're concealing an affair, your not sharing yourself, your vulnerability and not allowing your partner to 'see' in to you? So although you might be able to keep an affair running alongside a marriage, you are not giving 100% to that marriage.

But what if you have shared yourself, and shown yourself (not by having an affair, but just by genuinely giving 110% of yourself), and your partner doesn't get it/you? If then an affair partner does, couldn't you run the marriage for all that gives, and for the family, and the affair for that part of you that the partner doesn't seem to see, even when it's right in front of them?

I guess I'll be in for a flailing from some for saying that ...

Christ no. Any kind of affair my dp would be out on his arse without a second thought and I'd expect the same treatment if I did it.

Rather be on my own forever than in a relationship and be cheated on.

So as I understand your OP: Poor helpless men can't help sleeping around. Therefore all women should either a) put up with being cheated on (partner) or b) basically be available for no strings sex whenever it suits aforementioned poor men (the entire rest of the female population).

Given all of this basically absolves men of showing any decency whilst making women dance around to please therm, I think I'll pass.

Poor helpless men can't help sleeping around.

I didn't say that. I said most men seem to do it. Not helpless. Bad.

And I'm really sad that men I thought were trustworthy have pretty much all turned out to have been unfaithful to their partners. But it's the reality.

I'm not sure that it is. It may very well be your reality - and if affairs are commonplace in your friendship group, they'll have started to seem more socially acceptable - but it's not everywhere.

Granted, there are people that cheat. But there are people who don't. I'm not naive enough to say that I'll never be cheated on; this isn't a way of protecting what I'd like to believe. But I know few men who have had affairs. One at work; who granted didn't seem to suffer many consequences but they were the subject of gossip. And two personally over fifteen years or so; both of whom were ousted from the group eventually after splitting with their partners.

Anecdotally; we're all likely to know different people. But I don't think you can say most people cheat; and I don't think you can deduce what forms of affair are less painful. For some people, a one night stand would be worse because you're risking everything for an hour or so. For some, they'd much prefer that to anything with emotional meaning. It's all too personal.

@Koala72

So then I came to my question of if it does go on so much, then are some types of affair acceptable (if there's no choice).

I think me and you have been asking the same questions OP. For me it has indeed been life changing. I had rose tinted glasses on until it happened to me. It's like I've looked in to the abyss? Like I've just found out Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy aren't real? I understand how prevalent Affairs are now and realise why they happen and quite frankly I want no part in these shenanigans so I'm staying single. I simply don't trust men now.

Koala.. I get what you arw saying and certainly I thought, as did my now dp, when we met that we would have exactly what you described.
What happened was we couldn't compartmentalise and fell in love and wanted more, a proper relationship.
This is the third scenario you haven't mentioned.

`This is the third scenario you haven't mentioned.

I think probably the dream scenario.

Affairs aren't ok, but i think sometimes they are understandable.

(I'm not approving any of these. It's just examples)
Ongoing affair would probably bother.me more than a drunken one night stand.
There's a difference between a one night stand with someone you met via friends and actively seeking someone to sleep with.
Friendships can easily stray into EA territory if both parties aren't careful. Some shift in either party's relationship could tip the balance.
Equally, a little bit of flirty banter in the knowledge it isn't going anywhere isn't necessarily bad.
Sometimes good people can make crap decisions. I view those affairs differently to serial cheaters.

But what if you have shared yourself, and shown yourself (not by having an affair, but just by genuinely giving 110% of yourself), and your partner doesn't get it/you?

I think you're describing most marriages? I think most of us set out with good intentions at the beginning and over time life takes its toll on the relationship. We use the coping strategies we have or have learned from our parents and these aren't adequate tools for navigating long term marriages.

From what I've read, our expectations are higher now, we expect to be happy all the time and if we're not, we have a right to move on. Plus we're living longer so we have the ability to venture in to a second, third marriage.

I think we need to be taught about relationships in school tbh.

John Gottman is a relationship expert and author and he explains about couple types. If we were educated about such things maybe we'd make better choices?

www.gottman.com/blog/the-5-couple-types/

Ok I know it's not the same so bear with me, but the first thing that came to my mind when I read this post was a morality debate I watched a while back. One speaker was defending the view that morality is just whatever best contributes to human wellbeing, and the other asked "wouldn't it be ok under that philosophy to rape a woman in a coma if you could guarantee she'd never find out and no harm would come to anyone?" The first person then explained how, no, it wouldn't be ok, because living in a world where you knew someone could do anything they wanted to you as soon as you lost consciousness would horribly detract from your quality of life. It wasnt about the event itself, it was about living your life knowing that something that terrible might happen. Now obviously it's a different situation, but for me the idea of a secret affair is just as awful as one I'd find out about, because I don't want to conduct a relationship with the constant fear that my partner might do that to me. I'd be miserable, even if it wasn't actually happening. And I think that if it became commonly felt that a secret affair was ok and harmless, then we would all have to live with the fear that our partner might think this was ok and do it. So even if it wasn't actually happening, the fear that it might would do tremendous harm all by itself. It's not just about the actions themselves, it's about promoting the kind of society we want to live in, and sanctioning any type of affair detracts from that. I'm not sure I'm articulating myself very well, but do you see what I'm trying to say? Apologies if I've missed the point.

Thanks, Bibbidee. Very interesting. I think there's so much going on emotionally with all of this - it just isn't as simple as one thinks.