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.

Of course I can recognise the emotions a betrayed partner would have knowing that the person they thought they could love and trust had betrayed them, yes.

Love, trust...both emotions. Emotions that one person believed the other shared and would not betray.

Sexual act. Physical. Not emotions.

A poster earlier who'd been cheated on said the emotional betrayal was far worse than knowing the physical part had happened. That I can fully understand.

The other part of your post is ridiculous.

@Thereasonidid but that doesn't mean that knowing the physical part happened isn't hurtful. Yes, the emotional part probably hurt more but knowing they'd been intimate with each other and then he'd come home and done the same with me made me feel physically sick and disgusting. Plus I had the worry of not knowing how safe they'd been and whether I'd been exposed to infection. That was yet another level of betrayal, one can have quite serious consequences. Truly good sex with someone you love and trust deeply is amazing and it absolutely does mean something in that context. What it means exactly will vary from couple to couple but for most it is meaningful. If you haven't ever experienced sex in that context then I feel quite sorry for you

@Thereasonidid - but the sex is not meaningless, because the sex is the betrayal - just because they are not your emotions, it does not make it emotionless, unless you lack empathy. Unlike you, I think about the situations I have got myself into and that includes the other people affected. Sex with a man who had a partner and children at home is not happening in a vacuum. Unless the sex is meaningless to the betrayed partner it is in no way meaningless.

*has a partner at home

@Survivingmy3yearold @Walkaround

Exactly my point.

The meaning is attributed because of their promise to be in a meaningful relationship with another, who they've left at home with the children while they're shagging around.

That meaning cannot be conferred onto another, who has assigned no meaning to the sexual relationship they're having with the cheating partner.

@Thereasonidid but don't you get that is the betrayal? And in fact the betrayal of that for sex that both parties found "meaningless" is even more hurtful and a slap in the face! If it's that meaningless then why do it knowing the destruction it causes? Is you getting a cheap thrill really worth it at the expense of a family?

@Thereasonidid - what is meaningless is to say the words, “it was meaningless” to the person you have actively participated in injuring psychologically, emotionally and possibly even physically via an sti. How are they supposed to trust the word of someone who caused all that damage then claimed it was meaningless to them?

I'm not sure who you're talking about here, the person who was cheated on or the cheater?

The OM/OW shouldn't implicitly trust the cheater and after finding out their partner had cheated, nor should the cheated upon.

The OM/OW may trust the cheater, but it's not a given. I didn't.

I understand you're finding it difficult that some of us can have sex with no emotion tied to it. I understand that you, and others, tie emotion to all sex. But for me, and others, some sex is meaningless.

I do understand the premise behind the OP's question but, I can't be distracted from the fact that it is the vow-maker who is responsible.

I know plenty of men who are happily devoted to their wives, they would not ever engage in flirting or any sort of 'come on' from any woman, she could be naked and they wouldn't. There are wives up and down the country telling themselves that there's blame to go around but... HE could have stopped it before it ever started. If HE wanted to. If HE valued his wife in and children in any meaningful way, none of it would or could ever happen.

Men (and women) happy in their marriages do not cheat. Sad fact.

Women think that is a judgement on them. It isn't, it's a judgement on him and it has nothing to with your worth, only that he wasn't worthy of you.

The posters trying to make this thread about women and policing other posters who are rightly bringing this back to where the blame lies... posters have the right to disagree with you and you have no right to tell them to go to another thread.

I agree it's the betrayal. It's the betrayal of the one who promised to be faithful.

You seem to be expecting society to keep MM/MW faithful and with their family, rather than put the blame squarely at their feet.

As I've said before, choices and decisions were already made in the cheating person's head before they end up in bed with someone else.

I know plenty of men who are happily devoted to their wives, they would not ever engage in flirting or any sort of 'come on' from any woman, she could be naked and they wouldn't

My XH once unexpectedly changed seats in a pub garden @LyingWitchInTheWardrobe . I asked him why. His reason was that a woman with a very low cut dress was sitting in his eye line, and he didn't want to continue looking at her cleavage. I hadn't even noticed her, or noticed he'd been looking.

All the little choices people make every day towards/away from their partner make a big difference to their future actions.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe you do realise this thread was started to literally ask about women who sleep with MM don't you? And having been the cheated on partner, I'm completely entitled to blame the 2 of them exactly as I see fit. Yes, it was him in the relationship, but she knew before anything ever happened who he was and that anything that were to happen between them would be cheating. I can't fathom how many people keep telling me my feelings are wrong and that she was entirely blameless, despite making a conscious decision to be an absolute shit human being and engage in adultery. Nobody ever said that the OW should take all of the blame over the MM, but this thread was started about the OW

@Thereasonidid no, definitely not expecting society to keep MM/MW faithful, just expecting that people accept that I'm within my rights to attach some blame to OW for her disgusting behaviour and conscious choices. If/when you ever get cheated on, feel free to let her skip off into the sunset absolved of any responsibility whilst you figure out how to pick the pieces of your shattered life up off the ground and somehow put them back together thanks to her behaviour together with your spouse

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I have to disagree- the cheater is100% to blame for their actions , however I don't think having a happy marriage and cheating are always totally separate- plenty have overlap and particularly I think with men- I think women do tend 'more ' to cheat when there is an element of unhappiness/dissatisfaction. There are a great many mumsnetters who have had cheating husbands (emotional and physical) whose husbands say they were perfectly happy and seem desparate to remain married after being found out - they simply enjoyed what they saw as 'a bit extra' or fun/flirting. Utterly shitty behaviour, but plenty of them were honest enough to say they were not remotely unhappy in their marriage .

I understand emotionless, meaningless sex, @Thereasonidid . It is you who appears not to understand that it is impossible for someone to have with a man they know to be cheating and betraying someone else by doing so, unless they have switched their empathy off. The sex act may be meaningless, as in just a physical response to a stimulus, but choosing to engage in it with a known cheater is a choice every bit as much as he is making a choice. It is the decision to make that choice just for physical pleasure that most people object to. I don’t do something utterly meaningless and therefore, by definition, unimportant to me if it will cause immense harm to someone else as a consequence.

I find the concept of happily married men still wanting to cheat quite sad. I don’t dispute it but it doesn’t leave room for much hope does it that unhappy husbands and happy husbands are just as likely to cheat as each other.

Survivingmy3yearold, you can talk about whatever you like, give whatever opinions you like. So can I and so can anybody else.

I wouldn't presume to tell you what your feelings should be, they are yours. My view is that the person who makes the vows is responsible. They are the only one of the two who could have prevented any pain and suffering to the family. In each and every case, he chooses not to, chooses to risk inflicting that pain for his own selfish wants. He did it.

In every thread like this, any anger at the twat of a husband/partner who cheated is scant lip service in the rush to get back to blaming the harpy creature who is the other woman. Utterly pointless, she is not culpable so, what are you going to actually do? The only person whom you have any recourse to is your husband/partner.

Crikeyalmighty, I understand why you think that way. It is a salve of sorts, for the cheated on wife that they believe their marriage was happy because to realise that whilst it might have been happy for them, their husband found it lacking to the extent that he decided to put a bomb under it.

I don't rate what men say most of the time but certainly I don't believe them when they are caught, desperately trying to scrabble back what they had, get back into the family fold, protesting that they were happy and it's all their fault...

To quote Mandy Rice Davies... "Well they would say that, wouldn't they"?

They will say anything, they will do anything, except stay faithful.

Imvho, asking whether a man is to blame for having an affair is a pointless discussion as I imagine close to 100% of people would say of course he is, that goes without saying. What does not go without saying, as this thread clearly proves, is whether the affair partner should also attract any condemnation for participating in something they knew to be wrong. If you are helping the man keep secrets so that you can keep seeing each other and having sex, then you do know it is wrong, imo. He cannot commit the wrong without your help, as wanking doesn’t count as infidelity. You were not an innocent bystander, you were in active collusion with someone you agree is behaving like a cheating, lying, treacherous toad.

He could and should have stopped it all from ever happening in the first place.. All of it.

He's the person who loves/loved you and he didn't think enough of you or his children, his vows to you.

What on earth is the point in levelling scorn at the other person in light of that betrayal?

I found your thoughts very interesting when you were talking about how the OW is helping him to keep his secrets and the affair cannot happen without the OW’s help and that’s why she just as accountable.

It got me thinking about posts that crop up on the Relationship board quite frequently where title isnalong the lines of, “Do I tell her that her husband is cheating on her?”

Its usually written by a woman who has found out her friend’s husband has cheated on her or is having an affair and she simply does not know what to do with the information.

Usually the majority of the posts will tell her not to say anything as it’s none of her business.

So what happens in that situation if she does keep the secret? Is she also then part of the collusion and lying and so she should also be held to account for being involved in allowing an adulterous relationship being able to take place?

@WantingToEducate if I found out friends of mine knew my husband was cheating as kept it to themselves I would absolutely be pissed! That would be a further betrayal by somebody I trusted beyond the original affair and I could not bring myself to associate with them any longer, there would be no coming back from it. Likewise if I found that a friend of mine was sleeping with a MM I would give them one opportunity to end it and come clean to relevant parties or I would do it for them

Tbh, I could not just tell myself something was none of my business and be happy with myself for that. I would ask myself whether my friend was the sort of person who would want to be told, or the sort who did not, and would probably in any event give away the fact something was very wrong by being incapable of behaving as though nothing was wrong when in both their company together, or if any mention of their partner were made in conversation. Tbh, I am not convinced I could just keep quiet if it were my friend being wronged - but I would be more capable if my friend were the wrongdoer, because it is human nature to be more forgiving of, or to give more chances to, or make more excuses for, those you have a pre-existing emotional attachment to (just as it is easier to switch your empathy off altogether if you go out of your way to avoid getting to know the person you are actively harming). I would not be able to pretend to a friend they were not doing something I thought was wrong if they had an affair, though, even if I understood their reasons for behaving that way, so it would not be a happy situation. So yes, I think you are colluding to a certain extent if you can act as though nothing is wrong when you think it is.

To answer the question I thought about this in relation to my closest friend and I think that if I found out that her partner was cheating I would ask him to come clean to her and if he didn’t I would tell her myself. There is no way that I would keep his secret for him. There is no way that I would partake in hurting my friend like that.

Cheating men don’t think they’re putting a bomb under their marriage, they think they’ll never get caught. If they definitely believed they were going to get caught they’d probably be in the unhappy/ no longer care about whether or not my wife chucks me out category or are doing it for revenge of some kind, to deliberately hurt. That’s very, very few of them.
Thinking about ramifications and devastation isn’t usually at the top of the cheat agenda. “Oh, I’ll check if I’m unhappy… ah, I’m unhappy so it’s ok then/ oh, I’m not unhappy so I’ll walk away.” This never even gets rationalised. It’s afterwards when the guilt hits and they need a band aid to stop feeling like a shit and shut up their conscience that they suddenly decide they’re unhappy. Unhappy people do shitty things, happy people do shitty things. Happy people can still have hungry egos that lap up external validation for a variety of reasons. The decision hinges more on conscience, or the ability to override it, not happiness. Compartmentalisation also enables all kinds of crap. Some people are very good at it. Some people get tempted and want it all, despite committing to a monogamous relationship they don’t resist variety when they get the go ahead that it’s on offer. They don’t think about whether or not anyone will get hurt (it’s an inconvenient truth) or ask themselves if they are unhappy or not. They just think, “ I fancy that person,” then flirt with that person, they flirt back, green light in both directions and they don’t say no. I doubt any MM or MW really consciously thought about whether or not they were unhappy at home or not in that scenario, that’s what gets trotted out when they need a justification to OW or themselves.
Cheating isn’t always a long rationalised, considered decision. When the opportunity is there I’d bet money that the first thing thought by a potential cheat are what are the chances of getting caught and people finding out, not searching their soul and debating the quality of their marriage and partner.
The “why” of cheating is the most important question and rarely to do with relational satisfaction when you peel the onion.
It’s to do with the cheat themselves, their issues, the impact of their conscience (or not) and what actual needs they think the cheating meets for them. For some it’s happiness in a joyless life, but not all. A huge majority of MM cheats don’t want to leave their marriages and it doesn’t always have to do with asset splitting or missing their children either. That wouldn’t solve unhappiness if that’s what they thought their problem was, having gone as far as they have, better to leave and be happy than cause devastation and try the hard task ahead to fix it. But they want to keep their home life as it is. They want to keep their wife too. The things that they told themselves made them so unhappy they were driven to cheating apparently. Who would leave the alleged excitement and happiness of an affair to go back to misery? It wasn’t misery. But it sure will be for possibly long while afterwards. For everyone. Senseless to go home to that unless you really want to. Actions speak louder than words and the actions of cheating show that the cheat has huge personal issues to sort out and the action of wanting to stay in their marriages shows what they really want to do.