Do men ever regret their ‘midlife crisis’ affairs?

[stitchinguru]

Just that really - it’s such a common occurrence, I’d be interested in how it tends to pan out in the fullness of time.

It's like we are vintage collectable cars or something 😂

Affairing down is not about looks. It means that the affair partner has her own issues and is generally looking for a rescuer. It is also the fact that she is willing to be with a married man.

My exdh did. We still talk as we have dc's, every once in a while he'll express regrets and says he wishes we were still together and a family.

I stayed with him for 3 years after his affair to try and work through it but i simply couldn't get passed it. The ow was long gone by then so he ended up leaving and sees the dc eow.

I'm not sure he was that bothered he'd hurt me, I think he only thinks of himself, he wanted to stay with me, he wanted to live with his dc full time, he wanted my income etc etc, he's very much a me me me person.

my exh does I think - I'm not sure he had an affair, but she did seem to materialise very quickly after we split up. I don't think he particularly loves me now, but it's just that he's seen the grass isn't greener, and life in a family home with children is much nicer. I'm a million times happier though!

I went out with a man who massively regretted his affair that eventually ended his marriage (not with me - I was a subsequent gf). he really wished he hadn't done it - thought it had ruined his life. It certainly massively damaged his children's lives. They're all better off without him now though.

At the end of the day, the wife is usually the winner in all of this, although it doesn't seem like it at the time.

Oh yes. My husband deeply regretted the fact that I found out and blew his world apart...

In his immortal words: "Everything would gave been fine if you hadn't snooped!"

Tosser.

By the way, the OW was a virtual mirror image of me. Same age even.

Are you still with him, Flower?

No, thankfully I'm not. Unfortunately, though, I'm a slow learner. Took me 5 years to actually summon up courage to LTB. I wish I'd been more brave...

Sorry, Flowers. But, you did eventually summon the courage to leave him, and your life is probably better for it now.

My father had several affairs behind my mums back when I was younger. She discovered two of them (but suspects there were more). The last one happened when I was about 14......when he realised my mum was on to him, he upped and left. Moved in with the younger OW, stopped paying his half to their house and bought himself a brand new Mercedes. For a while it looked like he had 'won'. My mum was not only in emotional turmoil but could barely afford to live. She got herself a good solicitor and managed to get a very good deal (he just wanted her off his back so he could continue his nice new life). Turns out the OW wasn't very good with money and was in considerable debt but he still married her! There no longer married, he ended up with nothing, had his Mercedes reposed and is now miserable without a penny to his name. My mum on the other hand is married to a lovely man and owns her own house outright. Not only did he lose money, he lost a lot of love and respect. I'm still in touch with him but i've never quite looked at him the same way. He has told me several times that he deeply regrets leaving my mum as she was the only one that 'truly loved him'. My mum on the other hand wishes she'd left the first time he was unfaithful. Parents who have affairs often seriously damage their relationship with their children.

*they're
*repossessed

Some do, some don't I suppose. I don't see the point of pondering it tho, especially as you're doing so from a woman's point of view anyway so you're bound to look for regret reasons/stories. But for all the stories there'll be lots of men that move on and don't look back.

I suppose I had a mid life crisis affair. I don't regret it.

And the award for most tenuous, desperate attempt at spam marketing goes to....

You just know that course is shit when they have resort to promoting in affair threads using posts that don’t even make any sense.

About 5 years ago I had a fling with a 27 year old woman. I was 52 at the time. She wanted me to abandon DW and DS and run away with her. She had an agenda, but me falling for that was entirely my fault. No excuses whatsoever. DW knew her too, through a group we are all part of.

Now then: DW and I have a past that involved us both seeing other people now and then, so when I told DW, she simply laughed at me for being an idiot, then messaged, met and talked to the OW and was really nice to her and sympathetic, which really freaked the latter out.

Do I regret it? Yes, a lot.

@stitchinguru Hate to burst your bubble, but the statistics clearly show that just as many women cheat as men. I though everyone knew that by this point.

So you tell me, do women ever regret their 'midlife crisis' affairs?

Women don't usually have "midlife crisis" affairs.

Oh okay then, I guess you're right then! Just because you really want to believe, does not make it true.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233843

Also, there's this,

nypost.com/2019/04/17/women-are-better-at-hiding-their-cheating-study/

I didn’t suggest women don’t cheat.

Oh women cheat, we don't usually get caught I suppose, or we don't leave.

I'm not suggesting women don't cheat but I personally know of a lot more men that have cheated than women. Maybe that's because they're better at hiding it 🤷‍♀️. I do think women are probably better at hiding too. Personally wouldn't continue a friendship with anyone that cheated, male or female. I have witnessed the pain caused to children and innocent spouses.....ALL cheating requires deceitfulness, selfishness and weakness. Not traits I want in friends.

I wonder if our Prime Minister regrets his?

I doubt it, new.

I worked with a man, very high powered, who cheated on his wife with his underling. The wife had worked to put him through school, quit her job to be a SAHM, and moved across the country to further his career. Underling got pregnant, he left the wife to marry underling. Three years later, underling caught him in bed with their nanny. Nanny was Filipina, so, forced into retirement, he went to the Philippines with her for a period. He has since come back, but I don't know what happened to him. A former coworker told me he was alone.

I knew his daughters from the first marriage. One told me they tolerated him because he was their father, they loved their little sister ("She's an innocent in all of this."), but hated underling. They don't see him much now.

I did. I was 36. I’m now nearly 40 and still can’t get over what I did. I would have agreed with you that it’s rarer for women, but I’ve been reading a lot about it, and I think it’s actually more prevalent than we realise. Certainly the feelings that lead to it.

@unravelling39 that’s interesting, because I read somewhere a recent theory that women tend to have a similar crisis a bit earlier than men - usually mid thirties to mid forties. That’s also the age when most women have affairs. Wish I could remember where I saw it...