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Original poster

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

138 replies

Weareyourfriends · 16/02/2018 22:43

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.

OP posts:
Pinkvoid · 18/02/2018 00:27

They tell the OW any bullshit they think will garner sympathy for them so they don’t seem like a completely bad person.

“Well I am married buuuuttttt she’s really let herself go in recent years and I’m no longer attracted to her/we don’t have sex/she’s not interested in me anymore/she’s too busy with work or the kids/I don’t love her anymore” blah blah. Anything that will prevent the OW from thinking of him as the twisted, cowardly bastard he is.

MsGameandWatching · 18/02/2018 00:30

They're only there for the kids.
She won't sleep with him anymore.
She's a big meanie and bossy boots.

He doesn't love her but she will keep him from his kids if he leaves.

northernlights0710 · 18/02/2018 01:00

This is what was said to me:

Before DW found out:

I'm in a loveless marriage
We never have sex
She's not interested in me
We live separate lives
She's turned the kids against me
I love you
One day we'll be together
If only I'd met you 20 years ago
I've been to see a divorce lawyer
The divorce lawyer advised me not to leave the marital home

After DW found out he emailed this:
"This will be the last that you ever hear from me. The relationship I had with you didn't mean anything to me. It was purely sex. I was wrong - I have hurt my family and friends. People that looked up to me."

15 years later, he and DW are still happily together. Their kids are long grown up and gone!

Cleavergreene · 18/02/2018 03:55

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

I wonder if this will garner a different or more sympathetic response from the femanista on here.

kidsneedfathers · 18/02/2018 05:06

hownow solid proofs mean letters/other people around and documented behavior that begs belief. .. It is fair enough (and a must) to doubt what a betrayer says. It is not helpful to lump together all cheaters or all the OW for that matter. Some OW are innocent in the sense that they are fed a lot of crap by the betrayer. Not at all in the sense that they know he is married. Some are not. On the contrary. They are desperate. They are extremely attracted by nice married men. They shamelessly stalk. They are the ones who tell crap and invent needs to bring him to her. Etc. (That does not fully absolve him of course.) I think that a betrayal is like a terrorist attck. We must not let them win by hating and suspecting all men, by fearing opening up to love and by hardening our heart to the betrayer. We must not loose our critical and rational approach by thinking that they are all the same , they all fed the same crap to the wife and OW, once a cheater always a cheater etc

Browtox · 18/02/2018 07:38

Men say no sex but love their wives. That’s true. But all the women I know want more sex.
Also wife won’t do sexy lingerie. 🙄

Attilathehunny · 18/02/2018 07:44

Well I'm going to give a slightly different view but I actually didn't have sex with my husband for years. We really did sleep in different rooms & I didn't understand him! Didn't want to by the end. He didn't have an affair though ( as far as I know) and we got an amicable divorce. Our marriage was a bloody lonely place to be for years. For both of us! I think both of us were probably vulnerable to an exciting stranger. Glad it didn't go that way and fair fucks to my ex it didn't!

Patodp · 18/02/2018 08:01

OP
Has he told her he and his wife are in an open relationship
But on no circumstances talk to her about it because we like don't divulge details to each other, we keep it simple. She's fine with this, though. Totes fine.

NaiceBiscuits · 18/02/2018 08:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bindibot · 18/02/2018 08:18

Never been an OW but worked in a bar on and off for years.

Heard all the above as ‘chat up’ lines. Seemed to forget I was also on shift when they brought ‘boring no sex wife who’d let herself go’ in for intimate dinners, or Sunday lunch with the kids… (even caught one of them shagging in the ladies) although he’d try to tell 2 nights earlier that he hadn’t had sex in years…he had a 1year old.

I realised then that there is a section of men who really believe that women are stupid and will believe any old shit. Sadly there are some women who will believe this shit for various reasons.

Patodp · 18/02/2018 08:20

why would all these be lies?

People in good solid relationships have affairs all the time.
My best friend was in a happy partnership with a man who complimented her all the time, they'd been together since uni had a small child, she found texts arranging for sex with one of his colleagues. Everyone was shocked.

Most clients of prostitutes are happily married.

I myself had an affair after a 7 year relationship with my perfect man. We were happy but I got my head turned my a beautiful man who I simply had the hots for. I thought dp wouldn't find out but he did and I still regret it (we're both in happy other relationships now with children but it was sad at the time).

It's having your cake and eating it isn't it.

ravenmum · 18/02/2018 08:43

Reading my ex's emails I saw that he told her:

we were like brother and sister
he literally wrote that. The word "incest" springs to mind. Though, of course...

we weren't having sex
Not for ages apparently. Not yesterday at all, definitely. And anyway, ...

he taught me everything I knew about but at some point it felt like I wasn't going to learn any more
The two sex positions the Great Master "taught" me I think I could have worked out for myself. Even though...

I didn't like sex, probably because I was British
Yes, national stereotyping too, yippee. What a prize she won.

I was planning to go back to my country for an extended period
He tried to persuade me to do so, but I told him not to be ridiculous, the children were just about to have exams.

He didn't want to have children and I made him, "you know how women can be when they want something"
Just bollocks. And who on earth would continue seeing someone who said such a misogynist thing? She even agreed with him!

But I stopped him having what he wanted most in the world, a third child
(OW said she wanted one with him.) Those bastard women, eh? Make you have children, stop you having children...

I was OK with him seeing other women
After months of him being horrible to me during his affair, we started discussing whether we would separate, and how that might work. I was imagining what might happen long in the future, if we split up.

He thought about splitting up with me in 1994
If only he'd thought harder.

IrianOfW · 18/02/2018 08:57

For those who said that some of the things MM (or MW) said might be true. Yes, they might be, but so what? I mean really so what? None of those things are an excuse to have an affair. There is no excuse. If you feel your marriage is bed, fix it or end it, or at the very least tell your spouse you are going to find someone else to have a relationship with and give them the chance to make decisions about their life.

According to some of the texts I saw DH never disparaged me to OW, in fact he told her he loved me - one of her texts asked him what point there was in her being with him if he loved me so much. She 'ended' it with him because he couldn't give her enough. But on dday he told me he loved her. All very confusing. I am sure you can love more than one person at once and I never doubted he felt love for me but his actions were far from loving during the affair.

If someone approached me for an affair (unlikely nowadays) I would regard everything they said with a small mountain of salt. Cheating is lying by it's very nature and why would you believe anything a liar tells you when he wants something?.

Emandjem · 18/02/2018 09:00

OW was given all the above excuses, and when I read her personal family court statements supporting her 'wonderful' husband (my ex), I learnt a lot more of what she'd been led to believe.
Apparently, my ex also had to go to her because he was in fear of my 'physical abuse and verbal violence' towards him.
Yes, I'd supposedly made his life hell by attacking him on numerous occasions because I'm 'mentally unstable' and 'dangerously obsessive ' Hmm

Still, its strange how he saw fit to leave our tiny dc in my care, and not fight to protect them from me, before he sought 'protection and safety' in OW's arms.
The reality is, he was abusive towards me, and I believe started his affair when he knew I wanted our relationship to end.
As the years have gone on, I've heard through the grapevine that he's been cheating on and hitting his OW (now wife)
I guess she has learned from experience that you should take with a pinch of salt everything a man tells you regarding his other relationships.

DarthNigel · 18/02/2018 09:01

' we just have a connection that I never had with my wife'

kidsneedfathers · 18/02/2018 09:01

patodp I like your post and I like you. I am quite puritan by nature but I have seen again and again that people who have little 'flesh' pleasures/weaknesses and own up to them are wonderful human beings. Had the OW in my case been like you I would have befriended her...honestly...

ravenmum · 18/02/2018 09:04

Why would these be lies? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. When they are, it's for these reasons:

We don't have sex

  • OW does not want to catch something off the wife either
  • OW does not want to sleep with someone cold-hearted enough to keep sleeping with his wife at the same time

We never loved each other

  • OW will only sleep with The One, not just One.

She made me have children

  • He has to explain why he'd have children with someone he didn't love somehow.After all, OW doesn't want to sleep with someone irresponsible.

If it's not lies, and his wife doesn't understand him and won't sleep with him, then how about him manning up and doing something sensible about it, rather than sleeping with other women behind her back as if she deserves it?

TheFormidableMrsC · 18/02/2018 10:28

Oh goodness, that was one I forgot...ex-h e-mailed my brother and told him that he had "only stayed to protect DD from her as she hates her". I was absolutely livid, the suggestion that I hated my own child, with whom I have always had a close and loving relationship. It transpired that ex-h had physically abused DD quite severely, that she hid it from me and that he had indeed paid her off to keep quiet. THAT is the sort of man that OW has. She deserves everything she gets.

MsGameandWatching · 18/02/2018 10:38

I wonder if this will garner a different or more sympathetic response from the femanista on here.

Who cares? This is a predominantly female site. Responses will come from female experience. Why do we always have to consider The Menz too? So tiresome.

Pogmella · 18/02/2018 12:49

MsGame if only men had a platform to make their voices heard... oh hang on, my mistake I've overlooked hundreds of years of cultural and political dominance, my mistake...

Flowersin · 18/02/2018 13:22

While there are women in the world stupid enough to believe anything a man tells them, there will be men bullshitting.

niteandfog · 18/02/2018 16:51

In my case he didn't tell me much, just that he felt trapped, they were incompatible and hr had to cage the real him. HOWEVER it all turned out to be truth as he left his wife in the end (and also because the same applies to me)

DotCottonDotCom · 18/02/2018 17:01

Fuck sake I thought you’d given up on mumsnet nite

TheFormidableMrsC · 18/02/2018 17:37

Fuck off niteandfog with your endless gloating.

Offred · 18/02/2018 17:46

Him leaving his wife just means he left his wife. It doesn’t mean anything he said to you was actually true or even that he thought it was true at the time.

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