Affairs, Why Do They Happen?

[TwinkleStar88]

Hi,
I’m not sure why I’m writing this but maybe I’m looking for clarity with regards to the reasons behind affairs.
Within the last few years many family members/friends/colleagues have either been involved in affairs, or have been the victim of an affair. Whether this is emotional/physical it’s very much happening. My SIL also was involved in an affair over a year ago, which shocked all of us, very happy marriage on the outside, a beautiful home, two children, no money worries, a supportive husband etc and I’ve never really worked out why she did it, she seemed happy but clearly wasn’t happy, is it possible to have an affair and still be happy, or is an affair a symptom of an unhappy marriage?
I worked in an office many years ago with a few of the males openly admitting to ‘having fun on the side!’ Again, they had children, even photos of their family on their work desk.
As time has gone by I am seeing this more and more, it’s often highlighted on this thread many times too.
Why do so many seemingly happy people have affairs? Is it unhappiness, boredom? The need to feel wanted by more than one person?
This has also made me question my marriage and wonder if it could happen to me! Totally unreasonable I know!

Good to see some balance here and not have everyone jump on the overly simplistic 'because they are terrible people' line. People who have affairs are, in my experience no more or less 'moral' than the general population. There are people I know who could and would never have an affair yet think nothing of treating their staff badly or fiddling their taxes or indeed in intimate relationships, treating their spouses very badly in any one of a number of other ways. Yes, the proximate and intimate nature of infidelity makes it absolutely crushing for the 'victim' - and others caught up in it including the children - but on the perpetrator side, it is not necessarily a sign that they are a worse person than the average Joe soap. People and lives are complicated, I know one man who would take any chance he could of copping off with someone, yet he is in many other ways a wonderful husband, a great provider, supportive of anything she wants to do, great in a crisis, etc. Equally I know another woman, outraged that her husband had an affair and treats him appallingly now - but then she treated him like that before, they never had sex, she treated him with total contempt, but she is the victim now. Handy that, him having an affair actually suited her because she now has the upper hand forever.

@GypsyLee

Too busy with work and kids they let their relationship go. They think that's it I got him/her now and become complacent. It's easy, look after your partner or they'll go elsewhere. Put in as much if not more effort as you do your kids. Find a good balance of work/life, favouring your partner.

GypsyLee, I mostly agree with you but prepare to get your ass handed to you on a plate!

Partly a by-product of a liberal, hedonistic society.

There's no stigma against it.

Whatever it is- I wish they wouldn't. In many many cases if the dp finds out, it leaves a very broken individual behind. 6 years on and I still am feeling the damage of my exH having an affair.

There is no formula for this. Different strokes for different folks

Everyone I know who has cheated on their longterm partner (and there's not that many!) are people who have low self-esteem, who are unfulfilled by most things that others enjoy - family holidays, days out, weekends away for example - and also have a massive fear of missing out.

They need that fake excitement of an affair to make them feel alive.

They should take up paragliding or white water rafting or wind surfing instead.

But those are expensive hobbies, whereas chatting up someone at work and convincing them to sneak off for a shag costs nothing. Nothing except pride and self respect.

A whole host of reasons. Because you don't care, you think you deserve whatever you want. Because you are lonely. Because you want to be caught and the relationship end. Because you aren't capable of monogamy. Because you want to have your cake and eat it. Because you miss being wanted. So many potential reasons.

Ask me five years ago would I ever cheat on my husband I would have been absolutely sure that no, never, not even an option, only the worst sort of cunt would do that. Ask me one year ago and... let's just say, no covid and I almost certainly would have been embarking on one. I don't think that covers me in glory; I also think that I am something other than the worst sort of cunt and what had been happening in my life and marriage the preceding year and a half would maybe make it more understandable.

I don't think there is a one size fits all answer, really.

From my own experience -

because they are missing something in their own marriage (which may or may not be something they have a right to expect from their marriage)
And at the same time
They have the guts to get a divorce first

@MaelyssQ

Everyone I know who has cheated on their longterm partner (and there's not that many!) are people who have low self-esteem, who are unfulfilled by most things that others enjoy - family holidays, days out, weekends away for example - and also have a massive fear of missing out.

They need that fake excitement of an affair to make them feel alive.

They should take up paragliding or white water rafting or wind surfing instead.

But those are expensive hobbies, whereas chatting up someone at work and convincing them to sneak off for a shag costs nothing. Nothing except pride and self respect.

Fair enough if that is your experience, but it wouldn't be mine. One of my best friends had an affair and is a very confident and lively person who had plenty of interesting things in her life, was a terrific and very involved mother, still is. She simply fell in love with someone in a way she never had before and that coupled with being just about able to tolerate her husband - there was little love and certainly not lust - was a kind of a perfect storm I guess. But she continues to be a wonderful person and friend, just one who made some bad choices

@TwinkleStar88 "or have been the victim of an affair" .

Victim?

"My SIL also was involved in an affair over a year ago, which shocked all of us, very happy marriage on the outside, a beautiful home, two children, no money worries, a supportive husband etc and I’ve never really worked out why she did it".

You were not in that marriage so you don't know what went on. Stop trying to "work it out" . If she felt close to you she would have told you!

"You were not in that marriage so you don't know what went on. Stop trying to "work it out" . If she felt close to you she would have told you!"

Couldn't agree more.... nobody knows what goes on in someone else's home, they really don't. I am in any case always wary of any set of social norms which divides people into 'good' and 'bad' or is too black and white in its moral code, life is just so much more complicated than that.

@Lovelydiscusfish

Sometimes it’s love, too. My mom was my dad’s affair partner. They have been more or less happily married now for about 45 years. They love each other very much.

That’s the reason why she left her husband though, not the reason why she had an affair.

Lots of people have ended relationships and gone out with someone else after without deceiving their ex for a prolonged period beforehand.

So people have affairs for many, many different reasons. But the people having these affairs are all self centred, they all believe they can betray, lie and hurt the person they are supposed to love, cherish and be honest with.

Nearly all believe they wont get caught, it doesnt mean they are unhappy at home, just that they can have fun as well and there will be no repercussion.
Most i know thought they have it all and sadly end up loosing it all.

I obviously think it is possible to fall for someone else when married, just have the decency to tell your husband /wife before acting - although its not normally love its lust and ego.

@theleafandnotthetree exactly.

And, if i had ever been in a relationship were a partner /DH had cheated on me, i would not take kindly to ever being referred to as a "victim".

People and relationships are complex.

@Fudgsicles

I disagree with the above. I think they happen because people are unhappy in their relationships but for various reasons, haven't ended it then they acted on it when someone else came along. All affairs I've known of have been for exactly the same reasons, their relationship had issues that weren't being addressed.

From what I've read on here as well, a lot of people settle and a lot are in sexless relationships which is usually intolerable to the partner/spouse. People can kid themselves all they like that they don't have to have sex, which they don't of course, but then they expect their partner to remain faithful. Sorry, unlikely to happen.

I think very few people have affairs who are in happy in fulfilling relationships. And the partner/spouse who were so surprised by it were kidding themselves when they didn't see any issues.

That's my take anyway. Which won't be a common one on here.

@Fudgsicles Cheating has nothing to do with just being in an unhappy relationship. People are in unhappy relationships all the time, it's why normal people break up. Cheaters are lying, selfish, untrustworthy and cruel people who choose to deceive their current partner while being intimate in some way with somebody else behind their partners back. People who are decent, don't cheat, end of.

Agree with pps that say there are as many reasons/variables as people. There are no rules you can bank on and people are in flux all the time with circumstances bearing on them which changes you over time.

Humans are fundamentally base and selfish in all kinds of ways.

People’s internal dialogue feeds them a lot of shit that isn’t true also, soulmates, destined etc etc

Previous threads that talk about adultery as akin to a crime, is horribly naive.

Better to dismantle the patriarchy so a break up doesn’t fuck a woman’s life up the way it does now

Also striving to make your pain (as the cheated) mean something will result in you filing the cheater as black hearted when the reality is maybe closer to misguided, idiotic and absurdly ego centric

Cheating has nothing to do with just being in an unhappy relationship. People are in unhappy relationships all the time, it's why normal people break up. Cheaters are lying, selfish, untrustworthy and cruel people who choose to deceive their current partner while being intimate in some way with somebody else behind their partners back. People who are decent, don't cheat, end of.

I just don't understand how anyone can go through life, observing the tremendous variety of people and of human relationships and arrive at such a definitive assessment of 'all' of any category of people. I really don't. What if your sister, your son or your daughter told you they were having an affair, would they in your eyes overnight become 'lying, selfish, untrustworthy, cruel' people? Would you just cut them off? I would honestly love to know.

I think you can answer this on so many levels and one is that to do that to your partner you are either trying deliberately to hurt them or you have switched off on some level from caring. It's such a horrible and abusive thing to do to someone when you cheat on them and most adults will have a good awareness of that. I think we can be very good at switching off from other's needs and our responsibilities to others and our 'me me me' culture just reinforces the idea that you really only have to look after number 1 and sod the cost to others.

Previous threads that talk about adultery as akin to a crime, is horribly naive.
Maybe the people saying it have had their trust in their ability to judge character and set boundaries eroded. They will have been lied to many times, possibly gaslighted, maybe even beaten up.

Glad to have you accuse them of being naive too.

I've never cheated, and DH never cheated on me (to be knowledge, but would be 99.9% confident that he didn't and wouldn't have). However, we had both been cheated on, and for different reasons.

DH's ex wife cheated because she was bored, they were quite poor, both worked opposite schedules so barely saw each other, she met someone else at work who she saw as more exciting and who represented a different lifestyle away from being a wife and mother. She left DH and her children for the OM and was with him for a very long time (over 20 years), eventually marrying him. They are now separated because he is gay and was having an affair with a male colleague of them both. Again, another reason for cheating - he may have loved her, but ultimately was more attracted to men and felt able to come out.

My ex cheated on me because he was a narcissist, a bully, and just generally not suited to monogamy. He is still married to the woman he left me for but is not faithful to her. I don't know if she knows that, but that's her business. He actively pursues women who he can have flings with who will not threaten his marital status - whereas DH's ex was looking for a way out of a lifestyle she didn't care for.

I was in a sexless marriage. No sex wasn't my choice . I wasn't the one who cheated.

I would never say that to an individual going through something.

But aren’t we all generalising to some extent in this thread to discuss the topic more widely? The OP set out a general question, so I think it’s a fair comment.

@KirstenBlest

Previous threads that talk about adultery as akin to a crime, is horribly naive.

It's a sin.