How many people are having affairs?

[wondering79]

Not looking for praise or vilification and I know what I'm doing is wrong. Speaking to a friend last night (who knows nothing of my situation, haven't told anyone) she told me a mutual friend of ours has been having an affair for 3 months. I asked a few questions and changed the subject, didn't want to mention mine obviously.

But it got me wondering how many other people are having an affair and for how long? Everyones situation is different and not here to judge or be judged, just interested in how common this is?

Mine's been going on for a year.

85 to90% have cheated or will cheat!! That's ridiculous and I don't believe it for even a second.

It is also rubbish to say everyone is capable of cheating. I have NEVER cheated and NEVER WILL. I think I know how I feel about cheating and I have very strong morals.

I think it is totally wrong and personally could never ever live with my conscience. I can't even lie about how much something cost.

I think people make excuses to try and justify cheating

That's good for you mydog.

But you certainly can't speak for anyone else, including any partner.

TheCrystalChandelier I agree. Not trying to downplay the devastation cheating can cause but it's a lot more complex than it may seem. People aren't comfortable with hearing this because grey zones and moral ambiguity do not sit well with black and white views of the world. For example, emotional affairs - what is this exactly? There's no scientific definition for it, ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers.

If you're interested in trying to understand why affairs happen and some of the complexities around them, I highly recommend Esther Perel's book The State of Affairs.

And I say all of this as a happily married person who's never cheated and trusts their partner but I'm not going to claim that our relationship is 100% affair-proof - I don't believe anyone's is.

Agreed with my dog ..,.,
But to answer the question 18 months for one lady. Kept promising to leave his wife and 3 kids (never did still together 30 years later ).
One man 3 years. EA. Affair partner left husband after first year.
Ended when wife finally put her foot down and he realised he may lose her. (Wife)
Years ago I left 2 serious long term relationships because they weren't working. I didn't stick it out and have an affair. What would be the point? Wheres the end game ? There are plenty of great single men and women out there who would be happy to be seen in public with you lol.
I've been married almost 20 years now. It's not been plain sailing - it's been very hard work at times. But you reap what you sow. We are very lucky in everything we have. I'm not perfect but I have always found, in anything, if you do the right thing, no matter how hard it all works out in the end.

A study a couple of years ago suggested that 2% of British dads are raising another man's child, beleiving it to be their own. So they have to be quite common and given that those involed typically want to keep it private, I suspect that for all those that we know about there will be lots that we don't.

MN is very disapproving of affairs. I've not had one myself but know quite a few people who have. I feel sorry for people who are cheated on and whose partners leave for somebody else. It's all very sad but it's nothing new.

It's so easy to judge when you're not in someone else's shoes...

Everyone thinks , Oh I woudl just leave if I was unhappy but life s not that simple.
Sometimes you don't even know you're unhappy until you meet someone.
Sometimes life is so full of children, money, jobs, houses etc that it is extremely difficult to just up and leave when things aren't really that bad.
Sometimes meeting someone is the catalyst to change.

This. Totally this.

@Harmlesschap

That incidence of "paternal discrepancy" (as revealed by genetic sampling) rises in different populations. It's circa 10% in sampled African populations, for example.

The 1-2% rate in European populations, when you account for widespread birth control, surely points to quite a high level of overall infidelity.

Another factor, particularly amongst men, is that the rate of infidelity is constrained by a lack of opportunity. More men than do cheat, would cheat, if they could.

I don't condone this. I just think people who think cheating is at all rare are naive, and I think the evidence supports that.

It's easy to judge when someone has treated you like shit with their affair, rubbing it under your nose knowing that even though it is obvious, you don't have any proof, staying out all night and going away on holiday with the OW, ignoring your pleas to talk about what is going on and writing nasty emails about you to OW which, when you find his password, you get to read, banging home the final nail on your depression until you are suicidal.

Good that for some people an affair is an escape from an abusive relaitonship, but just chattily bringing up the subject as if it is harmless is not appropriate.

Sure, if I don't like the thread I don't have to read it. And if you don't want to hear what I think of affairs, you don't have to read this comment / post "Oh affairs are fine" threads.

That is indeed the point I was making, only a small proportion of affairs will result in pregnancy therefore there must be an awful lot of it going on....

It's NOT easy to leave someone that doesn't want you to leave, especially when the person wanting to leave is weaker than the person who wants them to stay. Emotional blackmail and confidence chipping, using the kids to keep you there, then someone comes along to make you feel human and suddenly you're not only someone who tried to get out, you're a cheater too. Oh life can certainly get complicated, but not all cheaters do it on purpose. The lies they tell can tear themselves apart but keep them sane at the same time. I'm a labelled cheater. I've been judged most horrid. I don't care anymore. Judges be damned, you know nothing.

causation = correlation comes to mind @harmlesschap. The number of pregnancies isn't a true indicator after all if you're going to base it on the bigger picture, you could argue those that engage in affairs are engaged in risky activity and therefore more likely to be risk taking individuals than your average relationship when it comes to contraception. It's all speculation, but it's certainly a leap to say it shows lots are at it.

I'm not having a physical affair or an emotional affair but I am in contact with someone I came across (arf) on a open site and they send me pictures no one else has access to.
We don't talk about anything personal, never met. I just get my own personal open pics

This person scratches an itch my partner can't and it affects nothing.

*porn site

Ravenmum How am I to bring up the subject in that case? I'm not saying what I (or countless others) is doing is right but I haven't gone into details of my affair as that would be a totally different thread. Simply a question and it seems many others have found themselves or others they know in the same boat. I don't judge you about your history which I don't know so please don't assume you know me or why I do the things I do, you have no idea. Thank you for your comment.

I can imagine it is very hard to leave if you don’t have the power or money to do it. If you can’t afford to physically rent another property and your other half refuses to leave the house. If you’re too scared of their reaction to try and press the issue.

How do you bring it up? Tactfully!!! Remembering that for many people this is a real trigger for very unpleasant emotions, reminding them of an awful time in their lives. Not glibly saying "Hey, who else is having an affair? And btw no negative comments thanks!"

Ravenmum, I think you've read between the lines. I didn't say either of those things and plenty of people have given negative comments. Apologies you don't like the title of my thread.

@Seafoodeatit

"It's all speculation, but it's certainly a leap to say it shows lots are at it."

I don't know what it would take to convince you!

There's concrete evidence of non-trivial levels of "paternity fraud", at a level which surely must vastly underestimate the rate of actual cheating (unless you're suggesting most adulterers want to have a baby outside their relationship, or are more careless than the general population, I find this distinctly unlikely).

There are a multitude of studies where self-reported infidelity is well into double digits for both genders (and some of them are as high as 60-70%, for some populations, and these are large studies). Again, these must be underestimates, by definition (unless you think people would own up to affairs they weren't having).

There are also studies which show that people (and women in particular), will "own up" in greater numbers depending on the context of the question. So, in one study, there was a 5% increase in the rate of admitted affairs among women, depending on whether the question was asked face to face or via a questionnaire.

To me, all this points to it being a pretty common activity. If not a majority (and I think it might be), then certainly a very, very significant minority.

I have been on all sides of the cheating triangle when I was younger. it's shit. So I decided to never do it again. My DP had an EA a few years ago, but I don't discuss things IRL. There are plenty of affairs on MN though - I guess it's pretty common.

And to clarify, the studies for "self-reported infidelity" obviously carefully sampled the population - these were not self-selected samples!

not here to judge or be judged, just interested in how common this is?
I interpreted this to mean that you didn't want any "judgy" comments fro people who think affairs are a bad thing, and "just interested" sounds to me like this is something you think we can all just have a lovely little chat about. Apologies if you don't like my interprettion of your post.

Are the figures for people who have had an affair in their lives, or those who are having one at that moment? Makes quite a difference. A person might have cheated on their boyfriend as a teenager then gone on to have three relationships without cheating. There are more relationships than there are people, so 100% of people could have cheated, but 75% of relationships could be fine.

Ravenmum, I've got plenty of those. Just meant I wanted to keep the thread to what the question asked hence the lack of detail. Apology accepted

The figures are typically referring to infidelity at some point, not necessarily current. So, yes, at a given moment of time, a relatively small proportion of people will be cheating. But over a long time frame, a far larger fraction will cheat at some point.