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.

clumsyduck

“Of course some people are miserable in marriages but then do everyone a favour and split up”

But not everyone wants to split up. I don’t mean the people having the affairs necessarily, I mean those who are cheated on. Some people would turn a blind eye, I know my DH would. He has a far better quality of life with me than without me, I earn most of the money and organise our lives and he is fine with that. Unsurprisingly.

If I left him then his quality of life would decline, simple. He also once told me he would far rather I left him for someone else than just because I didn’t want to be with him any more. If I met someone who better met my needs he could understand that, but not just to leave him because I couldn’t stand to be with him any more, that would be far more hurtful. Yet that is always touted on here as the only reasonable thing to do. People are different.

I’m firmly in the nothing is black and white camp. People in my experience fall into affairs slowly. They are not unhappy per se, or they didn’t realise they were at least. Life is boring, just ticking along. Then they meet someone who electrifies them and that can be hard to resist. But it’s still not enough to break up a family life that is ticking along fine. This happened to my friend and it shocked her rigid, she didn’t think she would ever cheat.

I left an abusive relationship by meeting someone else and I don’t regret it for a second.

I certainly don't think that anybody vilifies the betrayed partner, that's an odd thing to say. Why would you see somebody as 'non-human' just because you're cheating on them? You wouldn't.
It is absolutely typical behaviour of cheaters, saying that their partner is cold, does not want sex, etc.

I know exactly what nasty things my ex said about me as I read about 400 emails he wrote to his OW. He whinged on to her about everything, claiming I hated sex, that I forced him into marriage and children, that I hated the place we lived in and that I deliberately made him feel guilty about living there. It was all absolute nonsense. I know exactly how much he lied and vilified me. I've heard many other people describe similar experiences from their cheating partners. Mawkish exaggeration? Why would you say that? What do you know about my experiences?

I know several women who happily turn a blind eye to their husbands infidelity.

Gets them off the hook for sex they don't want and they get to keep their naice lifestyle , status and house.

They'd be bloody horrified if he did " the right thing" and up and left!!

raven in my experience that's not what happened at all... In fact he always kept saying how a nice person she was just not the one for him. I was more or less of the same opinion of my exH . We never really said anything super negative about each others exes .. just how incompatible we were. Oddly enough now that we've both separated and were officially together is when we're hearing all the nasty stuff about them

Nothing is ever black and white when it comes to affairs and its took me a long time to realise that. My ex left me for someone else who was only 16. He was 27 and we had 2 young kids. I now have very mixed feeling about his affair. Yes he was an absolute bastard as he'd cheated before but he must have felt trapped with me. I also cannot blame her anymore, he and her were together for 8 years and then she left him. I think he took advantage of her vulnerability and she felt safe with him. I see her from time to time and we do talk. She has grown into a lovely woman.

But now it's me stuck in an unhappy abusive relationship, Im trapped financially and my dp has absolutely nowhere to go and refuses to leave. He cannot do anything for himself including writing letters or cv and has stolen money from me.

I've fallen for a lovely man in work, he's single at the moment, we talk a lot, we have things in common. I don't think it's mutual I'm just another person on his shift but it's making me question everything about my life at the moment.

Niteandfog, your cheater sounds nicer than my ex one then!

To be honest I think my ex had to blame me because he was brought up to think of cheating as a morally bad thing. So he needed lots of good excuses to cheat on me. Unfortunately I didn't provide him with enough, so he had to make some up. I would imagine that someone who has a less extreme view of cheating might be able to do it more nicely. I think I would be better at cheating than my husband was! He thought of himself as a Good Guy, so couldn't come to terms with his affair. I'm happy to admit that I can be quite shit sometimes. I don't think I'm likely to have an affair, having been on the receiving end, but I would never say never. I just hope I wouldn't turn into a complete turd like my ex.

This was him: midlifeclub.com/midlife-for-dummies.htm

ravenmum, by the same token, what do you know of other cheaters or their relationships? My experiences are certainly not the same as yours,

You used 'non-human' as a description that was, in my opinion, so much hyperbole. Referring to a partner as 'cold' doesn't mean that they think they're anything like non-human. To me, nothing you've described in your follow-up post says that to him, you would be considered non-human or vilified, just that he wasn't happy to be with you. I'm sorry you were hurt but yes, exaggerating isn't helpful in my mind as it's easy to start believing and doing some re-writing yourself and it's very tempting to do that.

RGNstaffnurse

okay you win.. I literally dropped my Baileys lol lol

LyingWitch, he complained about me to the poor OW (who surely must have got fed up with it) in almost every one of his emails. About things I had said to him 20 years ago. About things I supposedly did on family outings during his affair - all twisted so that I came across as inexplicably cold and cruel. He told her that I was going to leave the country, leaving the kids behind. This was made up entirely. Even the OW was responding with comments like "Why would anyone do that?" and I was thinking "Exactly! It's ridiculous!" This is what I mean by vilifying someone.

At home I'd long suspected that he was having an affair, and tried to talk to him about it. I'd try to talk about him sitting with his back to me, for instance - he did this all the time - and he would simply deny that he ever did it. I'd get frustrated and upset to the point where I could hardly speak. He kept on his cold hard face. On a couple of occasions I couldn't bear to stay in the same house, and went out even though it was pitch black and raining. I walked and walked until I'd walked off some of the pain and might get an hour's sleep (I was literally not sleeping at all, all night, by this point). For all he knew I'd gone to jump off a bridge. When I got home he'd be in bed, asleep, and not mention it the next day. This is what I mean by treating someone like they are not human. Treating them like their emotions and feelings are nothing. They don't matter at all.

I didn't say that all cheaters are like this. I was responding to the comment But I'm still not sure how anyone can be so blinded by affair not to think about the cruel pain to be inflicted to the betrayed. - I was explaining how it is that some cheaters can ignore that cruel pain entirely.

Obviously, though, this is a thread about nice cheating. So I'll leave you all to it.

ravenmum, your explanation makes sense and I've obviously misinterpreted what you said so apologies for that. I was just making the point that however badly and awfully a cheater might behave, I wouldn't think that their priority would be to make the person (that they used to love and now cheats on), feel worse. That's not my experience at all. On the contrary, the cheater and their affair partner seem to be in a 'bubble' which excludes everybody and everything else.

There isn't such a thing as 'nice cheating', the closest approximation might be 'understandable cheating', but that's not in any way condoning or endorsing it. It would be better if people didn't cheat, but they do and it's always going to be so.

Your ex sounds horrible and you're well rid of him. It sounds as if he felt guilt about what he'd done and by tweaking the circumstances here and there, it seemed more palatable somehow.

I'm not having an affair. Never have done, never would. I love my dh and even if I stopped loving him, I respect him too much to do that to him.

I'm also 100% sure he has never had an affair. I know people on here tend to raise their eyebrows when posters say that, but it really is the case.

I only know of one of my friends who's had an affair, and that didn't end well.

I ended my marriage when I found out about my H's affair.

After that, individually a small number of women spoke to me privately about their own husbands' affairs, which they (the wives) had found so humiliating and hurtful they had never told anybody. So they told me, because I would understand and I was not such a close friend or family member that they would have to see me regularly. People hide an awful lot of hurt, and hide what they see as their marital shame. I can only suspect it is more widespread than most people perceive in their own world.

Emma....

"I'm also 100% sure he has never had an affair. "

Unless he is a Eunuch, is impotent or you are surgically attached, you don't. Sorry. You simply Do Not Know.

Or do you think every woman who was ever cheated on is an idiot ?

Again :

" I only know of one of my friends who's had an affair, and that didn't end well."

They aren't going to tell you. Trust me on that one. Unless you have very, VERY few friends.

Or you are still young....give it time, sadly.

I cheated when I was young for no reason other than I was attracted to the guy

That is a reason. Why not end it with your current partner. They probably didn't sign up for that.

I've been cheated on by all 3 partners. I cheated on the last one after he cheated on me. I still felt crap about it and just had to end it despite him not wanting us to break up.

I think it best to have your own house/finances etc. and not bother with a relationship. There's too much in this world to experience other than a quick thrill affair. People will always get hurt.

Thanks raven I think it's the first time I haven't been told I'm.the scum of the earth on MN. We both believe we were good people who made poor choices. Neither of us wanted to really get married to our exes and had been unhappy from the very start, we just tried to make the best of what we had. Until we met and realised that out there there were people that were fully compatible.

One of my job roles included visiting people's homes every few weeks. I was amazed how differently relationships work in some areas.

Where I am now it seems people are married, get unhappy, cheat until they find someone else, split up, move new partner in, get married.... and repeat. People seem to move on very quickly. Between visits, new partners move in. It's just such a quick turnaround.

I find this behaviour just wrong but people here seem to this it's perfectly acceptable. There seems to be great pressure to be in a relationship.

I talked to one woman who was all loved up with one man then three weeks later with someone else. How can feelings change that rapidly?

That'QuiteEnough of course I don't think women whose husbands have cheated are stupid. What an odd thing to suggest. But I am sure my dh isn't or hasn't been unfaithful. If I turn out to be wrong then I would be as shocked as if the earth turned out to be flat not round, or Donald Trump was proved to be a genius

And I do only know of one friend who's had an affair. Of course some of my friends may be having affairs and not telling me, but I only know of one. I do have another close friend who's in a long-term relationship with a married man but she's single so not having an affair, he is. But I don't really know him.

Dh and I have been together for over 25 years.

Couldn't and wouldnt.

Had a partner i was witb for 6 years pre DH. When i realised i wasnt happy in the relationship, i ended it. Was it easy? No. Did people get hurt? Yes. But a lot easier than if i had an affair and a lot less hurt then if i had an affair.

All relationships have rough patches- me and DH are pretty much through one at the moment that has been going on for over 6 months. Ive missed physical intimacy but not enough to go and jump into bed with someone else

Paranoid- my DHs ex was with someone a week after they split up despite being married to him for 15 ywars.

@IrianOfW I can agree with that. I have had a 'near miss' myself. Unhappy and met someone who pressed the right buttons as you call it. The line for me was just imagining sleeping with that person. That was enough of a scare for me. Refocused my attention on my marriage which was until then, feeling like it was going stale.

I'm sleeping with a married man currently. I'm single and he is married with two children, a toddler and a baby.

It's very cliche but we met at work. He has pursued me for months but I never retaliated until I got fucked over by yet another guy I was dating and had a 'so what?!' moment.

It's sad but this just affirms my belief that all men are shits. I don't see myself being in a trusting relationship again. It's sad because I'm only 30. But being single has been a revelation - the amount of married men who have made a move on me is astounding and has made me lose faith.

We're a walking cliche - we have sex at work, at my house before work or in his car afterwards. I presume his wife has no idea. I've never asked about her or their sex life. I don't really allow myself to feel guilty, which probably makes me a terrible person.

Why do I do it? The sex is exciting. He's so unavailable that there is no chance I will fall for him and get hurt. I get to live my life and feel desired without any of the shit that comes with a relationship. I don't want anyone to find out and I don't want him to leave his wife.

I genuinely believe that humans are wired to need sex and to feel desired and wanted. Rightly or wrongly, if this goes, more often than not I think the man seeks it elsewhere.

From the outside this guy is a doting parent and perfect partner. I bet his wife would say 'my DH would never cheat'. I know I'm not the first affair he's had.

waxedlyrical, I don't know how long you've been seeing this man but I'm guessing not very long from your post. I think you're setting yourself up for a world of heartache because you may not feel anything particular for this man at the moment - but there's every chance you will develop feelings. He has the best of both worlds... you have just your world and he's a bit player in it.

You'd be doing yourself a huge favour in ending it whilst you're still at the 'take it or leave it' stage.

I'm not bothering to talk about the wrongness of it because a) you're single and b) you're disassociated from your actions at the moment.