Are affairs common ?

[Livelifelaughter]

My bf told me very early on in our relationship that he had a dysfunctional marriage with no sex or emotional intimacy for 15 plus years. He had affairs and ended the marriage when his children left home. He is highly educated, successful and attractive. He has a group of male friends who he has know for over 25 years, he tells me that most have had affairs too and some simply because they wanted some novelty others because they had stayed in broken marriages for the sake of their children.

He also said that the women involved with him were married as well.

I find him completely trust worthy and he tells me if he's meeting a female friend etc. But my question is, how common are affairs? Maybe I live in a conservative bubble where this is just the stuff movies ?

And feels comfortable telling women to be silent and order them around...

Once you see it, you can't unsee it...and it puts an even more sinister light on the whole thing. Am I the only one seeing it?

I doubt you really have that much information about peoples affairs that you can see those sorts of links and reasons people do it... for someone so against it you seem to have an unhealthy interest and can't possibly know anything about what APs tell each other lies or not.. unless of course you have been an AP for the reasons you have outlined and told the lies you refer to

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Look at it as a man who cheated, lost his wife, regrets it hugely but still blames the temptress OW because misogynists always do and is enraged that he had to take the consequences rather than her...and it does make a lot of sense.

Yea a man who got burned me thinks 😂

Earlier he was telling women what they were thinking and accusing them of lying when they said he was wrong.

Angry, burned bloke. We've been getting quite a few of them lately. Genuine thanks to the one who's actually calling himself Dick something, though.

Yeah septic chat outta that dick alright

Put a sock in it AND debate? You realise that’s impossible, right? Because it would sound like this, ‘mmph. Mbbhhhh. Buuuh.’ Because of the sock. 😀

Loving how even in one sentence you can’t manage a coherent position that makes sense

I'm sorry your thread got hijacked OP. It is an interesting question.

In my circle of friends I (36F) would honestly be surprised if I discovered any of the married couples I know were having affairs.

There has been one divorce amongst our friends, when the wife cheated on her husband with her personal trainer. It was an exit affair, she was discovered/confessed (I'm still not sure) after a couple of months and both agreed to a quicky divorce as they admitted the marriage had been on the rocks for a while longer than that. No kids.

She was so embarrassed about the affair she begged her husband not to tell people, has never spoken to me again as she knows I know, and is still with the AP and tells people she met him on Tinder.

I do think 'birds of a feather' is true though, as in my youth I had an affair and became the mistress of an older man, who wasn't married but had a long term GF he married months after our affair ended. He was a bit of a serial philanderer, and I met him through a friend of mine who cheated on every man she had ever been with and eventually had an affair with my boyfriend. Our friends all had exes they slept with on occasion despite having other boyfriends/girlfriends.

We were young though, and some of us grew up and became clearer on our own values and perhaps grew in our self-esteem.

My AP and his wife are, to the best of my knowledge, still married and my ex-friend and ex-boyfriend are also now married. I would be surprised if the two serial philanderers had kept it in their pants all these years though...

There is a certain type who cheats repeatedly and I am not interested in friendships with those people, so I think my friendship group is fairly self-selecting.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If affairs are a normal thing for men in his circle, then...

I think it's likely that in every one of my relationships before DH my bfs were unfaithful. I say think because I broke up with them all on the strong suspicion of it and couldn't bear the gaslighting about it all. None of them were confirmed but my spidey senses just knew. There were things that didn't add up.

And so many of my friends bfs propositioned me that I became convinced that ever single man on earth was a cheater.

Likewise, I cheated on three of the aforementioned exes. All in revenge for being cheated on. Mostly after getting back together, almost as a pre-emptive strike. Yes that's messed up.

To be fair, all of this happened before I met DH, the love of my life, aged 22. I've never gone anywhere near cheating on him, despite him having loads of suspicions. I fully expected to never meet anyone capable of being faithful. Yet I swear DH has been faithful and will likely continue to be.

I think lots of people think cheating is expected, ordinary and par the course.

DH made it clear to me that this was a deal breaker for him, and so I never took any risks. So I think leopards can change their spots.

I don't know are we not able to be with one partner.

I was with one partner for three years. I was totally bored by the last year. However i still never cheated on him. I wanted to be faithful. I thought to myself I'm not going to be with anyone else till I break up with him.

It is possible to be faithful for years.

These men are selfish. They want more than one woman at once, but they would hate it if the woman did that to them.

@Livelifelaughter My bf told me very early on in our relationship that he had a dysfunctional marriage with no sex or emotional intimacy for 15 plus years. He had affairs and ended the marriage when his children left home.

Would be interesting to hear her side of the story. I would tread very very carefully with this guy, sounds like he's grooming you into "affairs are normal", they're definitely NOT normal for you, sounds like you guys have different values.

I'm sorry but cheats ARE bad people. They don't think about anyone but themselves and their affair partner. They put their spouse and their children through a huge amount of emotional turmoil and abuse, I laugh when people try and downplay affairs.

When I was 24, I cheated on my partner. He had a drink problem, was abusive in every way possible and had worn me down to a point where, when beating me, I begged him just to kill me and put me out of my misery. He wouldn't leave, I had no where to go and it took everything I had to break free. My affair was a few years into this situation and I have zero regrets. Bare in mind, my ex is currently and rightfully in prison for murder, this is the kind of man he is and was.

I know I'm not a bad person. Far from it. It's easy to generalise, but life isn't that black and white

Update
So this is quite an old post from March. BF and I split up, he found it all too much and said he couldn't cope with dealing with the financial ruin of his divorce. Honestly, I don't think he wanted a committed relationship even though he thought he did. He is back on OLD looking for casual stuff while his divorce continues.

Beatrix1234, you are not wrong, he was trying to make me think that he had relationships not affairs. A one off I could understand a bit but there were lots. I won't know if he cheated on me, I know he certainly flirted with other women if I wasn't there, you know sat talking to them all night not mentioning he had a girlfriend.

He completely played with my head, many thing I thought were wrong such as not meeting female friends of his and his constant trips with his mates were things that other friends of his had pointed out, I know this as I had a coffee with a mutual friend.

The thing that I would warn anyone in this situation is that the person doesn't really know what's normal...they think a quick phone call and not letting you into their life is how a relationship works...