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.

I disregard anybody who talks about women the way you do, RandomForest. 'Ageing ow', 'assets to compete'. Your posts are creepy.

I agree. I'm sorry for the pain she's experienced, but these posts are gratuitously misogynistic and nasty, even beyond the sadly common "she's responsible for what he did" line of thinking.

If you participate in bad behaviour, you are behaving badly.

@Walkaround that sums up how I feel.

I've been the OW and there was definitely a degree of selfishness and arrogance.

It's not as black and white as that though.
Firstly he didn't introduce himself as

"Hi I'm so and so would you like to cheat on my family with me"
^
I found out a couple of months in. Now if I were single now and this happened I can say 100% that it would end there. Like I said arrogance and a lack of empathy come into my decision to carry on (affair carried on for a year) but low self esteem,maturity and loneliness definitely played its part. I feel mortified now when I look back but I think it's abit much to say there's a special place in hell for people like me.
Also in my situation he was the one who owed his family that loyalty.. his wife never found out and they are still together (it's been 15 years since the affair) In the end I had to block him on everything., he took me ending things pretty hard. I sometimes see him in passing and he still try's to talk to me (it's actually very strange) I always blank him but would bet money if I gave him the signal he'd definitely cheat again. I feel for his wife, she's spent 20 years with a man who stays with her but clearly doesn't love her.^

Once again, this phenomenon of seeing someone hold the married person
absolutely 100% accountable, and thinking that means something else
entirely.

Not at all, what can I see as I go through life.

I see young women with children, limited finances striving together, energies depleated and I see ow inserting themselves and destroying the stability of said young families, young women left traumatised and in many cases unable to rear the young that they have been left with, trying to cope in society by being the father and mother to their children, with all responsibilty for financial, emotional and practical help being taken away.
It's a horrendous situation but ow don't care, just as the men do not, no mercy.

I see middle aged women who have worked their bollocks off accumulating wealth and stability to pass onto their children, putting up with far more than they ever should to keep a family and their finances intact only to be thrown a thank you in the form of her partner shagging someone who wants another crack of the whip with love, if she's very unlucky she'll lose half her wealth and lifestyle to this ow, her children may inherit less, they usually are destroyed as there is always limited time to start again, they are old, fuck em, no mecy.

Regardles of the reasons why the ow want an affair, destruction inevitably occurs, all that is built up is destroyed, in so may ways. The unfairness that goes with affairs is always there, why do ow not care about the unfairness of these situations. That's what I don't get, it's never just about the cock, to be blunt.

I could have lived a different life, I could have destroyed lives, I could have but I didn't, I couldn't have lived with myself knowing I'd hurt someone or their children.

I've seen this all my life, and yes some men are the scum of the earth but the women who don't care that they are, are in my opinion without empathy, concience or mercy.

I could never knowingly harm anothers existance on this planet.
I have a right to despise those who knowingly destroy and harm others.

@DrSbaitso nobody is saying that she's responsible for what he did. He's the only one responsible for that. The OW IS, however, responsible for what she did. She made a conscious choice to engage in a certain behaviour, and is therefore responsible for that. People keep coming back and saying that we're holding women responsible for men's behaviour, and that categorically not what we're saying at all.

@DrSbaitso nobody is saying that she's responsible for what he did. He's the only one responsible for that. The OW IS, however, responsible for what she did.

And she didn't cheat on anyone or break a promise (unless she was married too).

There are a zillion posts on here claiming to hold the MM entirely responsible while using "weasel words" (for want of a better phrase, I do not mean it as an insult), to hold the OW responsible.

It's like when people give a quick line about the MM being responsible then go off on paragraphs of OW abuse, and claim they're holding both equally responsible. They probably believe that they are. And they shouldn't anyway. Nobody who wasn't your committed partner can be equally responsible to the person who is. The commitment is worthless if it doesn't give you more responsibility than a random.

I'm not reading RandomForest's posts any more. I know what they'll be like.

Yes, he's responsible for that, Survivingmy3yearold, think for a minute about what that actually is. It is the assured breaking of vows that he (or she) made to their spouse, the complete disregard of the potential pain that will be caused to the family he/she is supposed to love and keep them safe and intact from all that. He/she promised it.

The other person, the affair partner, may be selfish, inconsiderate, blatantly disrespectful of the marriage and of the part she (or he) is playing in the potential destruction of it but this is a relationship that she is not part of, has no responsibility for it.

Posters are still rushing in to blame her and hold her equally accountable when she is not. She is not responsible for any of his behaviour, only hers. That being the case, why is she being held accountable for what he does? He could have just not done any of it. If men would just stop cheating, there would be no other women (or other men), ever.

Women are not responsible for the actions of men. The married person has total and complete culpability for what they do and this disingenuous thread is really just a thinly veiled way of slating other women, bringing them to book, whilst repeatedly excusing the married man or just glossing over his actions so as to quickly get back to the point - pillorying the other woman.

Until women start holding their husbands fully accountable for the affairs that they choose to have, they have no place asking 'why women have affairs with married men'. Ask your husbands why they have elected to do this to you.

Ditto, DrSbaitso, irrelevant misogynistic waffle.

See it's exactly this thinking that irks women with conciences.

You are allowed to hit someone in the face with a spade yet the words someone uses to explain your behaviour is so dam disrespecful.

You couldn't make it up.

Hypocrites regarding the eveness of pain.

If someone dares to explain that pain and touch a nerve they you always revert to type, Oh goodness you must have been hurt , we have all been hurt, some may sugar coat their experiences but really you have no idea how much we are disgusted by men and women who conduct themselves in this way.

Ask any person who has had to endure this type of behaviour in their lives and they will think the mend and women involved are repulsive.

I'm sorry if that hurts you.

So - why do men have affairs with women with young children? 😁

I think maybe the distinction has to be made between exactly what the MM and OW are responsible for. The only person who is responsible for the breakdown of the marriage is the MM as he was a part of that marriage. The MM and the OW are both equally responsible for the pain that the wife feels in response to that affair though.

The OW might not have owed anything to her, but that doesn't mean that the wife is suddenly not hurt by her actions. It's a completely normal response to hold two people accountable for your pain if those two people acted together to cause it.

The MM and the OW are both equally responsible for the pain that the wife feels in response to that affair though.

But the pain only comes from the fact that he did it! Her decision and willing means nothing; that isn't what causes the hurt. It's only once he makes the decision to break his promise that the trouble starts.

If I tried to seduce your husband and he refused, you'd laugh at me. If he tries to seduce me, he's betrayed you whether or not I accept.

applesandmares yes, absolutely. Both have contrived to cause pain by having an affair. Only the married person is responsible for that. They alone have decided to inflict pain on their spouse by having an affair.

It doesn't mean that the other woman/other man isn't a selfish, disrespectful person also, they are and nobody is saying otherwise, but responsibility begins and ends with the married person who made the commitment to be faithful to the exclusion of all others.

Exactly, DrSbaitso. Married people have complete autonomy over their own bodies and they can and should abide by the vows they made.

Using your example, if you tried to seduce a woman's husband and he refused, his wife would indeed find that amusing, taking it as evidence of her husband's fidelity and his love for her. All plaudits given to him by her for his refusal.

When he doesn't refuse... all opprobrium goes to the seductress/harlot, and where is he? Shielded by his wife.

Good question.
My DH first marriage ended because his ex wife had an affair. My step daughter was a baby at the time, the guy she was cheating with had no children and was 10 years younger. It ended her marriage but didn't last more than 6 months.

10 years on she's engaged to a man who has left his wife and 4 children to be with her and Is step dad to her daughter so it obviously wasn't because he didn't want a family lifestyle.. he just didn't want it with his wife.

“and nobody is saying otherwise”. I strongly disagree with this and think you need to read the thread again. Posters arguing it is just meaningless sex for them are conspicuous in their refusal to acknowledge that their behaviour is in any way selfish or disrespectful. They are in fact saying they don’t have anything to respect.

No woman has ever found another woman flirting with, or trying to seduce, their husband genuinely “amusing.”

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe you are correct- it's always presented that people in happy marriages don't have affairs which I don't think is always the case but I think many people having affairs are in some way unhappy/dissatisfied individuals at that point in their life- and their marriage isn't always the trigger for shit behaviour. It's absolutely no excuse by the way- I don't give a shit about how unhappy my H felt in relation to his behaviour , I'm a really really empathetic person and would have been very sympathetic to how he felt. Finding yourself a nice pleasant fun 'distraction' from all the shit things is a lousy way to treat someone who would have done anything to try and help. Let's just say he well and truly got kicked off the pedestal

I don't need to read the thread again. Apart from the very obvious trolls, nobody is saying that other women/other men aren't selfish/disrespectful. There's really no getting around that, they are.

Whether they chose to respect the marriage, that is another question. Why the hell should they when the married person does not? It is for the married person to respect his/her own marriage... just them.

Walkaround, context is everything. DrSbaitso said, if I tried to seduce your husband and he refused, you would laugh. I understand very well what she meant, you clearly haven't.

If you're saying that you wouldn't feel a hint of pride in the fact that your husband resisted the advances of another woman who found him attractive then I think you'd be in a minority.

@DrSbaitso & @LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I think you are assuming that pain is rational and that a woman feeling the after affects of such betrayal (by her husband, in cahoots with another) should aim her blame plainly on her husband, despite the fact that he has been facilitated in that betrayal by another. It takes two to tango, he didn't do it alone. Yes he has to be held responsible for that marriage breaking down, but any pain that woman feels has been caused by the two of them having sex.

I also disagree that I would laugh it off if a woman tried it on with my partner. I might laugh at the fact she'd embarrassed herself, but I'd have very strong words for any woman that I found to be (trying to) interfere with my family.

Good for you, Crikeyalmighty. He was the loser. Men have enormous capacity for feeling sorry for themselves and pretending that all was 'perfect at home'. It may well have been but all was not perfect with him as a person and that's why he behaved the way he did.

Men (and women) have the choice to leave when all is not well at home, they can divorce if they're unhappy with the marriage. That is the remedy and it's far more respectful than to have an affair.

I hope you're happy now that you don't have this moron holding you back. It was always him, not you.

?! I wouldn’t be any more proud of my husband for avoiding it than I would be proud of myself if I managed to avoid someone sleazing over me.