Why do women have affairs with men with young children

[Thegreenpotter]

As the title says. Why?

Do they have no concept of the toll that having young children can take on a relationship?

How can they feel ok playing a part in breaking up a family?

This is not to suggest the blame lies with the other women, far from. Just more a curiosity as to why and how they can do so from a moral perspective.

So:

Woman who wants the MM to leave his wife = pathetic and oppressed.

Woman who doesn’t want the MM to leave his wife = selfish and a bitch.

Yet again…..women are always on the receiving end of derision.

How about - person who doesn't have a relationship with someone who's in a relationship with someone else because they don't want to complicit in harming and fucking up another human being's life when they could choose not to?

The answer to this is not to start approving of bad behaviour. Its hard to have sympathy for people who won’t accept they have done anything wrong. Men at least are less bothered by being described as selfish gits.

Different perspective here, the three women that I've known through my life who had affairs with men with young children all had a similar pattern. I have to stress this isn't all women yadda yadda but this is what I observed.

The man had come on strong to them and told them yarns about their wives - usually involving feeling neglected and lonely.

The women (that I knew) were all fairly attractive and single, often having come out of bad relationships (in two cases with there was domestic violence) so their self esteem had been knocked to the point where their relationship with themselves was now non-existent, I used to think that the reason they were hooked on these unavailable men was that they thought this was as good as it gets (in other words, that they were now cynical about men.)

The married man was implying that if it wasn't for him being such a good guy for staying with his wife because of the kids, he would be with the OW.
The OW repeated this like a mantra. I hear variations of:

"He's stuck in his situation"
"He can't leave because..."
"It's bad timing."
"They are platonic"
"He's waiting until the kids are older."

So a lie is spun by the man that these particular women knitted into a reality.

Again my observations are about these three particular women who I've known at different times in my life over the last thirty years so I'm generalising to what I observed.

In all cases the OW was unhappy. Lonely and unhappy. The dance of "pick me" was corrosive to them and their low self esteem and anxiety levels were obvious. Their cynicism about men was compounded by the reality of their experiences with these unfaithful husbands. One actually said to me "This is all that is out there."

In two cases the women were actually ex girlfriends of the men from their distant past. They had reconnected on Facebook (or in one case Friends Reunited - remember that?!) so for those two women there was a familiarity to the man which meant that they swallowed the lies faster with less discernment I suspect.

I've never met an OW who described the affair as fun. In the three cases I know of, all of them were miserable, spending an extraordinary amount of time waiting. Waiting for nothing.

But that’s the point…..I never wanted our relationship to become official, I didn’t want him to leave her, I had no expectations that he would so I didn’t envisage there would ever be any harm or fucking up of other people’s lives. It was
always my understanding that we would just have fun and it would eventually fizzle out - and I was absolutely fine with that.

As a 40 year old I can see how naive I was, but when I was 23 and simply enjoying life, the possible implications of that fun didn’t even register.

As far as I was concerned we were just having fun with each other and he would never tell his wife about me, he wouldn’t leave his wife and nor did I want him to. It felt so insular….just me and him and I had no intention of any harm being caused to anyone.

That was the simplicity of how my 23 year old brain worked at the time.

However, when he told me that he wanted to come clean to his wife, that’s when the reality of the situation slapped me in the face. My fun had suddenly turned into a situation where I would have played a part in a marriage breakdown and it all just felt too “grown up and serious” for me and I felt panicked. Coming clean to his wife had never been what I had wanted and when he said that’s what he planned to do the enormity of the situation completely changed and that’s why I ended it.

Was also going to say that the women didn't need up with the guy (surprise surprise) and in at least two of the cases, the man was having multiple affairs.

A man who will cheat on his wife or partner with young children will not just look for one opportunity to do so if it's in his nature. There's also a sense of entitlement that starts with him not wanting to pick up the slack when he gets home, misogynistic and not an equal relationship - his entitlement will reflect out of every pore.

Something that strikes me here also is the way that the excuses for they gave for him somehow enobled him "He's making a sacrifice by staying in a relationship he doesn't want to be in because of the kids."

So even the OW isn't blaming the unfaithful guy, but putting him on a pedestal.

I have never once said I didn’t do anything wrong. Of course what I did was wrong.

I know it now that I’m older but when I was 23 it didn’t even occur to me that what I was doing was wrong. It truly was nothing but a bit of fun in my eyes, but sadly he felt it was more than that.

Now I’m older and married with children I understand the severity of what I did, but when I was 23, single and just wanted to have some fun, that level of self-awareness simply wasn’t there.

In other words you were immature, simplistic in your thinking, self-centred and lacking in empathy. Would you take a risk like that again, or do you accept it was a mistake?

@Thereasonidid "It really doesn't matter to me that he was a liar"

OK

. "But it clearly matters to you."

Only as part of an academic discussion. He wasn't my husband !

Yet again…..women are always on the receiving end of derision. @WantingToEducate

Where is the contradiction that @Bluebellsandharebells made? other woman (affair partners) are always selfish, pathetic, oppressed and/or bitches.

All this 'how could you say this to the poor (other) women' bullshit hand wringing doesn't wash when you're knowingly partaking in the abuse of another woman.

And it is abuse when a man (or woman) cheats on their partner. It risks their sexual health, and is disgusting. The emotional manipulation. The neglect of the partner. The stress. The heartbreak if found out. The impact on children. The mental impact can last years. Financial consequences.

Women are on the receiving end from other women who think it's ok to partake in their abuse. Correct.

Sorry, @WantingToEducate - I can see you already answered my question.

I will agree with the first two.

In terms of being self-centred and lacking in empathy, I didn’t feel that way at the time because his wife didn’t exist to me. I had no idea who she was, I knew nothing about her and we never talked about her.

The only time we spoke of her was when he told me he was married. It was like she didn’t exist….and I can’t show empathy for someone who in my mind doesn’t exist.

If she had been a real figure to me though, as in if we spoke about her regularly, or if I knew her in person, or if I knew details about her then I imagine it would have been a very different story and to continue with the affair would definitely have proven me to be lacking in empathy. But as it was, the term ‘wife’ was just a ‘word - she wasn’t part of our set-up and I didn’t think about her at all.

I wouldn’t say it was a mistake on my part, it definitely was on his though, but I know in hindsight that I’d made a poor decision when I replied to his initial text. But that’s hindsight isn’t it.

As I said in a previous post I’m married now with young children and the idea of me having an affair isn’t something I could ever imagine doing.

@WantingToEducate - but dehumanising someone you know to exist, by just turning them into a word, is a massive empathy fail. You deliberately chose to switch your empathy off.

@WantingToEducate
"Lie about what though?"
Only the MM knows the answer to that.

"Give me and actual example of what the MM is lying to the poster about that would have any impact on their set-up?"

Don't demand what I should tell you - that's rude

"You can’t just say “they lie to the OW” in relation to thereasonididit’s set-up but not give an actual example of what he’s keeping from her that she’d actually care about it?"

Yes I can and I just did.

This is the problem with liars, you never know where you are with them.

My exH cheated but the fact that he, (without my knowledge or consent) stuck his dick in another women wasn't what ended the marriage.
It was the fact that he had lied, (and as time went on more and more lies came to the surface) so I knew I would never be able to believe another word that came out of his mouth.

You can't have relationship without trust, and that was gone for me.

There are lies of both 'omission' and 'commission' - I don't know which is the worst.

Maybe you’re right. It happened over 20 years ago now but I still think about it a lot and I still don't fully understand why I simply didn’t care that he was married. I do believe that there is a reason for everything we do, even if we aren’t sure what that reason is, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll never unpick the reason why I participated in the affair.

It certainly isn’t for any of the reasons that have been discussed (for want of a better word) in this thread so I don’t know why I did it.

At the time though it was all about having fun with a guy I was attracted to so I think I’ll just have to make my peace with the fact that maybe that was thenreason, and with that comes the acceptance of how selfish and self-centred I was.

I suppose from the outside, what we often see of affairs is the destruction wrought by discovery. Just how tawdry the affair looks in the harsh light of reality.

• the soon to be exMM sofa surfing after his wife kicks him out.
• the OW desperately trying to get MM looking decent before the ambulance arrives after MM had a sudden heart attack.
• the lovers being caught in their tryst (spotted having a bunk up in a layby, caught in his office by the cleaner, caught in the stationery cupboard by another member of staff)

These and many more I've seen at work. OW & MM both end up looking grubby. Nobody has sympathy for either.

Definitely self esteem. I have 2 friends who in the past were OW. They seemed to find it thrilling that they were chosen. They didnt seem to realise all they had won was pond scum.

It’s a double betrayal, my partner of 18.5 years was having an affair with my very good friend who also lived next door.

I had got her through a break up, baby sat, cooked, lent her money, gave her clothes.

Even 2.5 years on I struggle with the aftermath. My youngest was only 2 and my oldest who was 15 at the time chose to cut all contact with his Dad.

She moved and he moved in with her and her 2 children. Sometimes I actually feel sorry for her as he’s very narcissistic and controlling.

The pair of them absolutely destroyed my mental health and robbed my son of a Father.

I saw a picture of them both over the weekend she’s gained around 4 stone used to prance around the garden in tiny shorts in front of him and he’s massively receding and has black sacks under his eyes. That is my karma.

It really makes me wonder how many men are actually doing this, and also how many of our fathers did this.

Aftermath is also that the affair duo isn't prepared for the breakup and the feelings he will have when he suddenly can't see his children anymore in the same way, the financial cost, the reality of 24/7 with the OW who is no different in her demands than his wife at home.

@Thereasonidid I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind?

Were your parents married? And if so, did they have a long and happy marriage?

And you said somewhere down the thread that the risk is the MM's entirely. Don't you perceive any risk to yourself if one of the affairs was unveiled? The MM's wife naming you on social media, contacting your work, telling your children etc, would that not bother you? I'm not saying that would be right btw, but it is something I've known women to do in the aftershock of things like this!

"Lie about what though?"
Only the MM knows the answer to that.

"Give me and actual example of what the MM is lying to the poster about that would have any impact on their set-up?"

Don't demand what I should tell you - that's rude

"You can’t just say “they lie to the OW” in relation to thereasonididit’s set-up but not give an actual example of what he’s keeping from her that she’d actually care about it?"

Yes I can and I just did.

Erm, what have I missed here @Bluebellsandharebells ? You haven't given an actual example at all.

It's because you don't have an adequate response. You're just accusing someone of lying to me because it suits your narrative, without anything of substance to back it up.

You can spin it as much as you want.
Cheating husband is a shit and women who knowingly have an affair with a MM with young children are shits too
Not as shitty as the husband who made vows but shitty too.

It's called cognitive dissonance- you construct a reality and find reasons why your behaviour is acceptable...

If ever the OWs would be in the position or could put themselves in the position of the betrayed spouse, they wouldn't do, what they did.

Unless they completely lack empathy.

@Thereasonidid

"Erm, what have I missed here @Bluebellsandharebells? You haven't given an actual example at all."

Correct

"It's because you don't have an adequate response. You're just accusing someone of lying to me because it suits your narrative, without anything of substance to back it up."

Why does that bother you?

I have a right to an opinion, I'm sorry you have a problem with that.

As I said, it's done, you got what you wanted, why are you still here demanding people respond to you?

Men and women have been committing infidelity for years, there is no firm answer, it can be anything from opportunity to incompatibility. I think it’s questionable that we are conditioned to think we need to give ourselves sexually to one person for the majority of our lives.