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!

I think the reason why affairs happen in unhappy marriages is because the spouse isn’t secure enough to step out into unknown territory, often with the knowledge that the grass isn’t always greener and then having that security to fall back on, if things weren’t as they had expected.

YES - ultimately I think almost all affairs are driven by a deep unhappiness--even the ones that are just opportunistic, fleeting and callous betrayals - are driven by low self esteem, a deep need to be desirable, dissatisfaction with who and where you are in life. Why else seek to hold on to a person you are deceiving and go through the anxiety of sneaking around, hiding who you are and leading a double life?

As someone who was in a marrriage that ended with my partners infidelity I do not want to be thought of as the

victim of an affair

This

They're selfish OP. It's not really more simple than that

is also not true.

Because the other triggers do not have to lead to affairs

is also not true.

MN is full of men and women who act like total victims when it comes to infidelity. I am NOT excusing anyone who has an affair and I'm not saying that it is right. What I am saying is that it is complex and people who place the blame solely on the shoulders of the person who had the affair are denying their own culpability (in the majority of cases)

Affairs are hurtful, devasting and tear families apart, I've been there. I also spent many years in therapy examining my own part in my marriage break down. There are two sides. The vast vast majority of affairs are not simply "selfishness". If you have been the "victim" of an affair and you still view it as such then examine yourself. It's hard and it's painful but it's worth it. The bitterness I see here on the daily isn't hurting anyone except the person spewing it.

@AnastasiaBeverleyHills

As someone who was in a marrriage that ended with my partners infidelity I do not want to be thought of as the

victim of an affair

This

They're selfish OP. It's not really more simple than that

is also not true.

Because the other triggers do not have to lead to affairs

is also not true.

MN is full of men and women who act like total victims when it comes to infidelity. I am NOT excusing anyone who has an affair and I'm not saying that it is right. What I am saying is that it is complex and people who place the blame solely on the shoulders of the person who had the affair are denying their own culpability (in the majority of cases)

Affairs are hurtful, devasting and tear families apart, I've been there. I also spent many years in therapy examining my own part in my marriage break down. There are two sides. The vast vast majority of affairs are not simply "selfishness". If you have been the "victim" of an affair and you still view it as such then examine yourself. It's hard and it's painful but it's worth it. The bitterness I see here on the daily isn't hurting anyone except the person spewing it.

brilliant post.

relationships break down, sometimes its down to 1 person, but sometimes its both sides. I could write my own story, and maybe I will at some point. People have affairs, and that is cruel to the other person, but is it not also cruel for the "victim" (partner who didn't have the affair) to withdraw from the relationship over many years and not inform the other person, withdrawing love, care, attention, etc? to me that is also cruel.

MN is full of men and women who act like total victims when it comes to infidelity. I am NOT excusing anyone who has an affair and I'm not saying that it is right. What I am saying is that it is complex and people who place the blame solely on the shoulders of the person who had the affair are denying their own culpability (in the majority of cases)

Affairs are hurtful, devasting and tear families apart, I've been there. I also spent many years in therapy examining my own part in my marriage break down. There are two sides. The vast vast majority of affairs are not simply "selfishness". If you have been the "victim" of an affair and you still view it as such then examine yourself. It's hard and it's painful but it's worth it. The bitterness I see here on the daily isn't hurting anyone except the person spewing it.

@AnastasiaBeverleyHills, can I just say you sound like a very rare and special person, to be hurt as you were and yet have the ability to really examine your own role in what happened is really admirable. And as you note yourself, ultimately of benefit to you too and those around you. (As an aside, I have seen people who are the so-called 'victims' of affairs go on to do as much, possibly more damage to their children with their bitterness and failure to at least try and build a new life). I think one of the cornerstones of good mental health is to be honest with ourselves about ourselves, our weaknesses, our failings. Which is not the same as blaming ourselves - although that may occasionally be justified. It is instead a case of knowing ourselves truly and what our patterns are so that we might not make the same mistakes again, if nothing else.

@Seadad

YES - ultimately I think almost all affairs are driven by a deep unhappiness--even the ones that are just opportunistic, fleeting and callous betrayals - are driven by low self esteem, a deep need to be desirable, dissatisfaction with who and where you are in life. Why else seek to hold on to a person you are deceiving and go through the anxiety of sneaking around, hiding who you are and leading a double life?

I think exactly this.

I've always wondered how people can cope with what must be the continual anxiety of being found out. But apparently some people feed off the adrenalin. For me, I couldn't put myself through all that worry which is one of the (more selfish) reasons why I wouldn't have an affair.

Sometimes its to escape an abusive marriage or relationship.

As in my case.

I developed very strong feelings for someone single where I worked at the time after 13 years of unhappiness and abuse. Didnt embark on an affair because I ended my relationship after one nasty incident but I would have done if I hadn't ended it. And would have had no regrets either.
I'm still with the person I fell in love with as we got together a few weeks afterwards.

So yes I would have had the affair if I cpuld

I do wonder at the number of marriages on here where a couple live in a sexless marriage and where many women essentially hate their partners. It must be truly awful to live like that.

I was in a sexless marriage, I went 11 years without sex.

At the time I didn't know my ExH was gay I was so caught up in supporting both parents with dementia and my disabled brother plus my daughter and working full time I didn't think about myself.
It was like the elephant in the room we couldn't talk about.

Now I am in a relationship I had forgotten what it felt like to be loved so now I have other trust issues as well, but yeah sexless was awful...

@Fernlea

I do wonder at the number of marriages on here where a couple live in a sexless marriage and where many women essentially hate their partners. It must be truly awful to live like that.

I was in a sexless marriage, I went 11 years without sex.

At the time I didn't know my ExH was gay I was so caught up in supporting both parents with dementia and my disabled brother plus my daughter and working full time I didn't think about myself.
It was like the elephant in the room we couldn't talk about.

Now I am in a relationship I had forgotten what it felt like to be loved so now I have other trust issues as well, but yeah sexless was awful...

there's s sexless marriage thread on here...... not just men who withhold sex.......

I think the person who has the affair is often seeking to fill a void in themselves.

I am the ‘victim’ (& I do see myself as such). I accept there must have been problems in the marriage, although I was never told this until he left. However, a different man in the same marriage would not have done it. They would have shown more courage & integrity. It has devastated me & I’ve felt lower than I’ve ever felt - its worse than a bereavement.

I would not wish it on my worst enemy, with the exception of the OW & DH - I hope one of them cheats on the other.

I am surprised that some people still see cheating as a 'victimless crime'.
Cheating is abuse - abuse of someone else's trust, love, and loyalty. It's abuse of family time and money.
I was a victim of infidelity and will continue to believe I was. I think if someone holds you up at gunpoint and robs you, you’re a victim of crime. I think if someone rapes you, you’re a victim of sexual assault. And I think if someone **s around on you and risks your emotional and physical health, you are a victim of infidelity (and probably emotional abuse as well in the form of lying, gaslighting and devaluing).

“Victim” implies that a someone did a bad thing to you without your consent.
Does anyone ask a person who got mugged what they did to deserve it? I don't think so - that would be victim-blaming.
Yet some people continue to promulgate the idea that the betrayed party was somehow responsible for the detrimental actions of someone else.

I said that I WAS a victim (capitals for emphasis, not shouting) and continued to be so until my husbands affair was discovered. After that, I was in a position to make informed choices about my marriage (something I had been denied up to that point) which started with a visit to the solicitor's office.

I believe we were two people who should never have married and that was half my responsibility, but I did not make my husband cheat - that was entirely his choice.

@AnastasiaBeverleyHills

I don't see your post as brilliant. I see it as really worrying. What you say is true to the extent that when things do sour in a relationship there is often a complex interaction between two or more people. However, one person is never responsible for another's actions and it is not the cheated on person's fault if their partner chooses, in the context of problems in the relationships, to have an affair. And yes, it is ALWAYS a choice (as if it's assault it's not an affair). We need to both acknowledge that relationship problems are complex but also still acknowledge that people have individual responsibility for their actions. I can see that you don't want to be considered a victim of an affair but many people disagree and to say that the actions of their partner are their responsibility is entering some dangerous ground as it is also their responsibility if their partner hits them for example? There were things they could do to have prevented that in some instances but so what? Their partner is still responsible for their own actions and nothing should be used to obfuscate that fact. All the problems listed on here as reasons why people have affairs do not EVER create an inevitability that the person will have an affair. That happens when someone chooses it to. I might have driven my ex to the point of absolute distraction but it never was and never will be my fault that in that context he chose to cheat on me. That was a long time ago and I have learnt a lot about myself in relationships and recovered to a degree from some of the abuses in my childhood which were part of that context. But this does not mean that it was my fault that my ex chose to cheat on me and I will not be victim blamed in this way. We have worked hard over the years to protect women from other types of victim blame so I don't think we should be introducing new ways to make women responsible for other's actions.

BTW there was nothing to stop my ex leaving me. I was not in control of him in any way which would have made that hard. He just, in that moment, thought about him and not me. It took me a long time to recover any element of trust given the damage that he (not I) did.

I agree with @AnitaB888.

The cheating I have seen has been where the cheater has seen something he wants and has gone all out to get it, with no regard to the DW and DC.

It has usually been due to opportunity - the pretty much younger colleague or the newly single female friend.

@daddyshark1976 - You’re right in that a lot of females do have a healthy sex drive too. If my husband decided he never wanted sex again, then the only option for me would be to leave, it is unfair to force celibacy on your spouse, if this was something previously enjoyed by both parties. Generally speaking, once the sex goes, everything else falls apart swiftly after but this is probably not the case in all marriages, where there has been an agreement of celibacy.

People absolutely are victims- of deceit, gaslighting, and betrayal by the person they trust most. That in no way means that the cheated on partner is blamess in the dynamics of their relationship- and that some of the feelings in their partner that led to cheating may be a consequence. But having feelings and acting on those feelings, sliding into a moment of infidelity and then repeating it over and over again? That's all on the cheating partner - no question! And yes - its selfish and cruel to take advantage of someone's trust and abuse it. @AnastasiaBeverleyHills - its important that we all recognise the effect our behavior has on our partner - how contributes to their mental state. But you are no way responsible for being deceived cheated on and deceived. If your partner had a drunken kiss with a stranger and confessed - good for you that you can reflect how you might have been responsible for their feeling vulnerable or open to that to or any single moment of weakness.

But if you were deceived over a longer period then you are blaming the victim in blaming yourself. Without question.

@AnitaB888 & @foxhat

In the many years since my marraige breakdown I have retrained and work directly with women and men who experience infidelity and abuse.

I apologise if my post came across as victim blaming. We all view in the infidelity in our marriage/relationships differently. An important part of my mental and emotional growth was to acknowledge my own part in my marriage breakdown, which ultimately lead to my ExH having an affair. Yes, it was 100% his choice but it is also one I may have made in other circumstances. As I said, it's complex.

Just to clarify the above, I am not saying my part lead to the affair, I'm saying the marriage breakdown did.

@Seadad It was over two years. As I said, life is complicated. Some people are very black and white, in a lot of cases life is not black and white

ABH,
You said ' If you have been the "victim" of an affair and you still view it as such then examine yourself. It's hard and it's painful but it's worth it. The bitterness I see here on the daily isn't hurting anyone except the person spewing it ' - which sounds supercilious, arrogant and patronising.

The adjective 'bitter' is used regularly as a pejorative term to dismiss those who are upset over wrongs and/or injustices, and is an attempt to minimise their pain. It is an unnecessary and cruel label to further degrade those who are already hurting.

People heal from the trauma of betrayal in their own time and in their own way. If they find expressing negative emotions cathartic then they should not be decried for doing so.
To suggest otherwise suggests a total lack of both empathy and understanding.

Sheer selfishness. End of.

AutumnColours9

"Sheer selfishness. End of."

This x100

Cheaters choose their own pleasure over someone else's pain - it is indefensible.

@AnastasiaBeverleyHills

Brilliant post.

I can’t get my head around the level of bitterness, hostility and black and white judgements on here.

@AnastasiaBeverleyHills

How very noble of you, to voice that you too have experienced infedelity and decided through your own experience that all other posters that have been betrayed , are bitter and at fault themselves.
That's a massive sweeping statement and is insulting to anyone whose experience has been different, or worse than your own experience.

You say you work with adults who experience infedelity and abuse, well I can only say you sound comletely lacking in empathy and maturity to understand the differing levels of hurt that can accompany infedelity and betrayal. There is a massive spectrum of loss, we see it, the younger ladies who support one another stating LTB you will find happiness again. We also see the older ladies who have been rejected, after many years together, loss of status , loss of money, lonliness ahead, ill health, and final years alone.

There are so many different types of affair, which are affected by so many differing factors throughought life, but to minimise the pain of the betrayed partner is to admit that you really do not understand the different degrees of loss.

There are always different degrees of everything, it would serve you well to recognise that.

I fully admit, I am still shocked at the level of deception that some of the posters have been through, I wouldn't dream of minimising their pain.

What good has it done you to do this?
Has it helped anybody? will it help anybody? do you seriously think putting people on the defensive helps them , if you do, you can't possibly have been gaslighted for years.
You see it's not just about the sex and the affair, it's about the many other aspects of their lives and it boils down to the fact there can be a massive injustice in their life.

So good.. you have picked up the pieces, bounced back and are preaching about the fairness of infedelity and how balanced you are, well good but may I suggest you don't council couples as it's people like you who are easily manipulated by abusive or narcisistic men.

You preach a higher level of understanding, but do you?

[quote Baws]@theleafandnotthetree

Exactly! We all have our flaws, but I surround myself with non judgemental people who accept that we are all human and none of us perfect.[/quote]
@Baws

So you are non judgemental? I too am not religious but I would not dream of dismissing someones right to be religious, I certainly wouldn't ridicule someone for their beliefs.

Also how can you know that cheating is not an evil thing to do, do you thinking cheating is a sole activity that does not involve any aspects of evil. You clearly have not had enough life experience to know that the mental aguish and abuse that can accompany betrayal can cause illness and death.
Your comments are flippant, uninformed, immature and patronising, but then again non of us are perfect.

@Onthedunes

So you are non judgemental? I too am not religious but I would not dream of dismissing someones right to be religious, I certainly wouldn't ridicule someone for their beliefs.

Also how can you know that cheating is not an evil thing to do, do you thinking cheating is a sole activity that does not involve any aspects of evil. You clearly have not had enough life experience to know that the mental aguish and abuse that can accompany betrayal can cause illness and death.
Your comments are flippant, uninformed, immature and patronising, but then again non of us are perfect.

Oh you’re funny! 😂😂
I have had plenty of life experience thanks including being cheated on and enough personal experience of religion to know that it and the majority of people involved in it are far more ‘evil’ than affairs are. I have not had the easiest of lives at all and I think these experiences have enabled me to understand that situations are rarely as black and white.
There is no evidence that any ‘superior being’ exists so yes, I do have a hard time taking anyone seriously who still believes that in 2021 especially when they use it as a cover for being a complete tosser.
The only reason I mentioned religion was because other posters started spouting bollocks about affairs being a sin.

As for your last sentence, I don’t think I could have summed up my thoughts on your own judgemental views much better myself.

I think of myself as a victim in my DHs affair and I’m not ashamed of it - I was pregnant / had a young baby at the time, we never argued, were very happily planning our wedding and still having lots of sex and I always put him first and made an effort for him. He agrees I did nothing wrong and we’ve been through a lot of counselling which has analysed us to the nth degree.

For us comes down to he was happy in the relationship but looking for escapism from a tough time in other aspects of life (ie. a baby and the responsibility that scared him). He had no intention of leaving - it was a distraction.

So yes I guess he was unhappy but not with me and therefore not in a way I could do anything about. In fact I was making a significant effort at the time as I was aware having a baby is a key trigger time for men to feel pushed away.

I think affairs happen as

1. exit affairs / due to unhappiness
2. opportunity / narcissistic/ selfishness
3. at times of stress (apparently when someone close to you dies is often an affair trigger too) combined with opportunity