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.

But someone is allowed to think or even call me fat ugly and horrible. I can’t control people’s negative opinions of me or their desires to be nasty for the sake of it.

Well Ted, if you're actually alright with someone verbally abusing or bullying , then I guess I can't argue with that🤷‍♀️

Someone I know has been seeing a MM for over 10 years now. He was in a position of authority when she was going through a bad time. He's never promised to leave his wife, in fact has always said he's staying. The person i know is also married. God knows how she gets away with it. I suspect her husband knows but doesn't want to face it. She's quite obsessed with the MM. When his wife is away, they have sex in his marital bed. When his in law was dying and the wife was away, again, sex in the marital bed. If he's out for dinner with his family, they plan so that he can pop to the toilet and have sex there! I can't think of a more empty life, full of deceit. The only reason I feel is he's attractive and she was bowled over the attention and got obsessed.

Hang on, or are you saying that these saintly men only cheat if the marriage is bad, implying that the wife contributes to the “badness” even if she is faithful, and as good a wife as she can be, albeit one with whom he feels he has made a mistake in tying himself to.

Which begs the question: why doesn’t he just tell her? It’s brutal but cheating is far more savage. Have any ow ever asked the men this question? I guess not. It would probably spoil the great furtive sex.

I did say the behaviours that accompany an affair may well be abusive. But the cheating IN AND OF ITSELF is not abuse imo. It might be a one night stand that the cheater forgets about and never speaks of, therefore no need to gaslight, manipulate and lie. I’m not saying it’s nice or acceptable behaviour, it isn’t. But many things people do are dishonest and morally questionable but not abuse. Lying to a friend that you’re busy because you can’t be arsed to listen to them whinging. Telling someone they look good when they look like a sack of spuds. Etc. lying and going behind someone’s back isn’t nice by any means but I don’t think it’s always or inherently abuse.

Oh, I'm sure there still are plenty of young ones.

Reading this thread has been instructive. I have learned some new things.

For example I have realised while reading that cheating may be a kink.

No, I’m saying that the very fact he’s cheating makes it a bad marriage because he’s cheating.

I don’t really care if people want to say or think nasty things about me. It doesn’t affect how I feel about myself. They’re entitled to their opinion ¯\(ツ)/¯

So why is someone so destructive such an attractive prospect for some women?

Where do you live that all women (and men, for that matter) are attracted solely to stable, safe, dependable people?

It depends on what the OW is looking for.

For women who wants a committed and LTR I imagine there is nothing attractive to her about a cheating man.

Honestly? There can be something incredibly erotic about shagging someone you’re not supposed to be. The element of danger, the risk of being caught, the secrecy and the clandestine nature of it. The same reason people shag horrid exes or have “hate fuck” fantasies. That’s probably part of it. Or naïveté, thinking it means more than it does and you must be really special for him to cheat. Or the thrill of being chosen or “winning” over the wife being an ego boost. A twisted mindset that craves validation in the form of sex and love and feels this could be achieved if he left his wife. It could be any number of reasons, I don’t think all OWs are a homogenous group who think and act the same.

Whilst he was cheating and immediately after it I was in a shit marriage, yes, but before that, no. Cheating doesn’t necessarily signify a shit marriage but it sure causes one during and after. This isn’t wishful thinking or rose tinted anything or me making it how I want it to have been. Our life was happy, our kids were happy, he was happy, we were all ok. He was booking and planning future stuff for us to do off his own bat, we’d had a great Summer holiday together, fab Christmas, good life together and happy family celebrations together as usual. I’d been with him for 35 years and I knew when he was and wasn’t ok. It was plain as day when he wasn’t. It has been going on for nearly a year by then. Gobsmacking that he could be so normal and doing that behind our backs. Continued lying plus increasing pressure to leave me from OW took its toll and cracks appeared.
It still wouldn’t excuse it, but if we didn’t get on, have sex, or do any stuff together or he had no enthusiasm for me or family life then yes, I’d say he was genuinely unhappy and our marriage might have been vulnerable to infidelity. He was fine, there was no clue whatsoever until stress of being a shite took over and it started to show that something was bothering him. He said he was happy with his life and didn’t want to change it. His real reasons for cheating were nothing to do with me or the marriage.
Reasons, mind, not excuses. I can see why he did it but both he and I accepted none of it as a valid excuse. There just are none.

I hope it’s not too personal to ask, but what reasons did he give?

So for some people it is a kink.

Oh no Dr not you again. Haven’t you got patients to attend to?

Sorry to be the one to tell you, but I've got as much right as you to be here.

You said you were old. Have you really not seen people have attractions that aren't stable and sensible?

Jeez. Overthink it much?

It's normally just two people that fancy each other. End of.

@WantingToEducate not at all too personal, no, I’m not dodging this, genuinely, but I’ve learned from experience on MN that all I will get if I do tell you is a barrage of responses saying I am a deluded woman seeing what I want to see and making excuses for a cheating man, no matter how many times I say they are reasons, not excuses. Or that there are no excuses for cheating. It won’t matter, all men or women who have cheated have ‘bastard’ running through them like a stick of rock, will never, ever change their evil ways, all women who are OW are evil temptresses and all women who stay with former cheat husbands are fools, deluded, weak, set the bar low or must have low self esteem. In fact everyone in the above list apparently always must have low self esteem. Explanations fall on deaf ears.
The reasons ( not excuses, MN, not excuses) are to do with issues he had/ is dealing with, for which there are a myriad of remedies and therapy which do not include cheating as one of them.

It takes all sorts to make a world.

That’s ok, I understand.

One thing I do regret in hindsight is that I never asked the MM why he was having an affair. At the time it didn’t matter to me but now that I’m older and I reflect back on it, I do wonder what his reasons were. I had simply assumed he was in an unhappy marriage but reading this thread and some wise contributions (including yours) I realise that it probably wasn’t that black and white.

@Thewookiemustgo I think we commented on each others posts at the time- my Hs behaviour (and as far as I know it was an emotional affair only) certainly coincided with his mum in her last few months of a terminal illness and our business having big issues. It was hugely out of character - he's got faults , (far too much liking for porn for me and a bit of a drama llama) but he isn't a womaniser at all- as you said its100% on him and he knows he totally fucked up and can't now think for the life of him why he did it apart from a distraction from all the shit that was going down. This is though why I get annoyed when people always say there must be something wrong in the marriage- I didn't feel that and he vehemently says there wasn't- there was however something wrong with his mental health and mind set- at that point

There might be something wrong in the cheater's life (although even then, some people are just really randy), but that doesn't mean it must be their marriage.

Hey Doc, I have really enjoyed this thread. I have even enjoyed reading many of the posts of people who hold different views to mine, finding them intelligent, interesting and, in some cases, entertaining.

But I have to be honest and say that I have not enjoyed my interactions with you. It has felt quite unedifying and just not that interesting. For that reason I will not be responding to your questions or comments.

If you don't think I'm worth your time, stop giving it to me. Did you know you can just stop responding without announcing it as well?

I'm not trying to give you an "enjoyable" experience. I'm participating in a discussion and unlike you, I haven't tried to make anyone leave it because I don't like what they're saying or suggested anyone is somehow obliged to be "enjoyable" to me.

You seem to be puzzled by a number of things, the latest one being the idea of women being attracted to men who aren't stable, sensible and dependable. If you're as old as you say you are, it's hard to believe you have never seen this happen.