What do men typically tell their affair partner about their marriage?

[Weareyourfriends]

My friend is having an affair with a married man. He has obviously told her some things about his marriage to make her feel better about being involved with him.I am willing to bet that women on here who have either been involved with a married man or whose partners have strayed can predict the things that he's told her - so what do you think they are? If the answers come back as accurate as I expect, I will show her this thread to help her understand that what he is told her is absolutely classic - and therefore likely not true.

We haven’t slept together for years 😂

They don't have sex anymore is the absolute classic

I'm a betrayed spouse.

He told me ....'we just drifted apart'....uh no love, you didn't tell me shit and left me one afternoon!

They don’t get any physical attention and miss it. What else would it be besides “ she’s crazy”

That he no longer loves wife / never did and they are together because of children / finances / sick relatives / insert any excuse here.

That he will leave wife when xyz happens

That he is so lonely

We don't have sex. The marriage has been dead for years. She doesn't understand me. We're together for the kids.

any bollocks that will enable ow to engage without accepting she is harming another woman whilst somehow believing that him leaving and being honest is not an option....

I've never been in the situation, but it's all the clichés...

She doesn't understand me
We live separate lives
We never have sex
We're only together for the kids
We're like brother and sister
We sleep in separate beds
I'm just waiting for the right time to leave

Don't know if it's typical but the MM I was in a relationship with told me

• he couldn't promise me anything
• he loved his wife
• he wasn't going to leave her

That was about it. He rarely spoke about her or their relationship.

He left her after a while and we are together.

"I never loved her. She coerced me into marriage". My cousin's ex.

Sure she did. She wasn't pregnant and no one put a gun to your head. You were the one who proposed. Asshole.

‘My wife doesn’t understand me’, said to many a naive colleague in a certain industry.

these are all so well known I don't get how an adult woman can be taken in by them
I mean, 'my wife doesn't understand me'.....really?
how do you even keep a straight face?

She’s controlling.
I can’t leave because of the kids
She said she’ll kill herself if I leave

My friend (male) who had a fairly recent ish affair said less about his wife and more about the OW. Apparently she was amazing, gorgeous, the love of his life etc etc. None of which turned out to be true (I know, no sh1t). She was totally crazy and part of me thought, well he deserves it. He was awful to his wife.

My relative had loads.

She doesn’t ever understand like you do, she’s never interested in what I do.

We don’t have sex, we live like brother and sister and have done for years. In separate bedrooms.

She has her life and I have mine. However for the children’s sake we need to keep it quiet.

She has mental health issues so she can’t find out as she is poorly.

Oh and the real cracker, I can’t leave for the kids, I will when they are at school, college, uni. Someone is dying. Basically 20 years wasted and he’s still there, with his wife.

Bonkers.

Shes mentally ill & kids

We're essentially separated
I'm just there for the kids
She's psycho/ a cold fish

We don't sleep together / we rarely sleep together

There's no passion / thrill

I would leave, but she has depression / any other long term illness without a clearly defined progression

I do care about her, but we're more like brother and sister

She isn't interested in doing anything, hasn't been for years

She's the mother of my children, she'll always be special to me (not so special I won't cheat on her, though)

I've tried so hard to make it work

I just feel like my life is going nowhere

And of course, all the same old flannel that men have always used to get insecure women into bed:-

"You're so sexy" (if she thinks she's not)
"You're so intelligent" (if she thinks she's not)
"You're so interesting" (...)
"I've never met anyone like you before" (he has)
"You're an incredible woman" (especially is he is 20 years older)

And then the things he says which may actually be true:
"I just can't help myself"
"I can't offer you what you deserve"
"I'm not good enough for you"
"I can't believe how lucky I am"

She is mad
She is fat
She has got old ugly and boring
We never have sex

Oh, and of course yeah we sleep together like one a year or less and she doesn't give blowjobs/handjobs/anal/whatever, you're an incredible lover...

My best friend was told that his live-in girlfriend had suffered from eating disorders and he was worried that she would relapse if he left.

No doubt mine would have told her that we never had sex (true) but I truly believe he cannot have said that we weren't best friends because we were. Or so I thought right up until he left after 24 years.
All he wanted was a shag

A friend of mine was told that he thought his GF was ugly and fat and nuts but he was apparently just "not good with conflict" so stayed with her for another three years....

I have no idea what my exH told her. I'm killed with curiosity, though, reading the above. I do recall arguments started by exH before I knew he was having the affair, and I think now they reflected the behaviours he was projecting to her about me.

Once I was at a friend's house for a girls' night dinner, maybe my first night out alone in several months, as my four children were all under eight, and when I came home about midnight, a bit buzzed, didn't go straight to bed but stayed up for an hour working on some music I was composing/trying to transcribe.

The next morning I got up and exH had written me a long, disappointed letter about how lonely and rejected he felt that I had stayed up to drink tea. At the time, I couldn't think of a single reasonable answer and ended up apologising and promising not to do the same again.

Much later (months), I realised I was being set up to fail some arbitrary test of good wifey-ness, contrived to demonstrate what a poor partner I was. I can only imagine it was reported as such to OW, so they could both agree how loveless and sad our marriage was for poor, suffering H.

There was a narrative being composed about me: I've never been privy to what it was, but it seems the sad and lonely prince required to be rescued from my cold and cruel claws.

"we sleep in seperate rooms!"

"I only stayed for the children"

"I do everything"

"She knows I'm leaving but I have to stay for now or she'll kill herself"

"We haven't had sex since the last child was conceived"

I think a lot of the time it’s the truth. Cheating is dispicable but, people do grow apart. It’s insane to think that people are going to want the same things at 50 as they did when they were 25. I’d have thought most affairs were driven by sex anyway