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.

OW don’t steal,entrap or beguile men away from daily & children. These men actively chose to have affairs. They chose to lie,they prioritise the affair above their current relationship
Why do men have affair? Because they want to, they can and they do
Affairs are usually illicit and hidden,with a notion of being a force too strong to resist. Often folk will rationalise as could not help selves, inextricably drawn together etc
Women arent immune from love,lust,longing and in that haze they will prioritise themselves, their needs etc. No one is wholly altruistic so it’s easy to construct a rationale eg He was unhappy, it’s a sham marriage, the kids will initially be hurt but get over it

Typo, OW don’t steal,entrap or beguile men away from family & children

How true that is !

My exH cheated with someone 12 years younger. I divorced him so he could be with this "dream girl" he was crazy about. She was totally in love and thought he was wonderful. She pushed things and got pregnant and they married.

She had eclampsia, then post-natal depression that was so bad she was hospitalised and her mother had to move in and help with baby as DH was useless.

So the bubble burst and she realised that having a baby was damned hard work (especially when your 'D'H is an idle entitled sod).

Her reason for her affair was that my exH spun her a yarn about me being a horrible wife, always nagging him and always being on his case. She thought she could "love him properly." When she got him all to herself she realised she's got herself a lazy, moody, waste of space.

She's had two more visits to an inpatient psychiatric unit (one for a suicide attempt) so it seems she is a troubled girl, with mental health problems who was chasing a dream.

They are arrogant and self centred. They lie to get their pleasure and they don't mind if they disrupt their child's sense of trust and solid family or if they waste years of a young woman's life.

Ultimately they feel they won't be found out.
Many have resources to woo and have Narcissism and Phychopathic tendencies. Cheating men often target beautiful, trusting women with vulnerabilities or other Narcissists.

Teh genuine love stories, I think, are few.

Because they want to plus a combination of opportunity, mutual attraction and sexual desire.

The rights and wrongs of it are a different matter - quite how you would reconcile it in your own mind I don’t know. And that goes for the guy too.

Ime the ow has low self esteem and is a bit more vulnerable to the bullshit. I’ve seen a few affairs from the sidelines and the men strike me as a bit predatory.

I was inadvertently the ow once although at the time I didn’t know he wasn’t single. I didn’t even like him that much but I was young, struggling with depression and didn’t have the confidence then to shake him off either.

Maybe because I have that perspective I find it deeply insulting to be propositioned (school dads are the worst) rather than flattering.

I did it when I was 22. He was in his 40s, older and semi successful. I just lapped up the attention from the older man who was obsessed with me. It didn't bother me that he had a wife as I had no kids or a real relationship at that point so the reality of the destruction I could have caused wasn't real to me, I couldn't understand it. We never actually had sex, but sexual stuff had happened at work. It was more of an emotional affair if anything. He ended up really badly burned though, he started talking about leaving his wife just at the time I got a real boyfriend and used to get picked up by my young good looking boyfriend. Affair man ended up leaving the job a couple of weeks later, apparently it was cruel of me to parade my new bf around when I knew how he felt about me. I now understand the implications of what I did, it was disgusting. But for me that was the explanation, I came from a one parent household and didn't have children, I just didn't understand or care about the devastation I'd caused. I was just consumed by self.

my SM lost her father when she was a kid, pregnant at 17 gave her baby up for adoption (coz shame of unmarried in 1960s), was damaged and still 'on the shelf' at 34. My womanising DF chatted her up at his golf club where she worked behind the bar for her parents and that was that. No fucks given that he had a wife & a small child, she didn't care about her own so why would she care about someone elses? She was a low intellect, harsh, bully of a woman and as a child I found her terrifying. I only learned she'd had a child after she died, she had no interest in meeting them & banned family from finding them. Now I just think she was massively insecure. She was damaged but she made her choices in life so either way she was a cunt.

So why do they do it? insecurity.

also to add, I know a couple of women my age who've had affairs with married men with kids, even married them. Same reasons, they're fun on the surface but shallow and insecure creatures, everything always has to be about them.

Immaturity, selfishness, insecurity, naivety, lack of life experience, the deep seated need to “win” in a weird completion against other women? I grew up in the shit show of a parents affair and as such, knew from a very early age that I was never going there. I’ve been propositioned lots of times by married men (haven’t we all 🤬) but, for me, a man being married or having a partner is the equivalent of severe halitosis or BO - I just cannot fancy them. Add children into the equation and it’s even worse, I literally feel a level of repulsion. But if I hadn’t had that early life experience, would I feel the same? Dunno…..

I think it’s interesting when it happens the other way around.
In my early 20’s I worked with a lovely woman with 2 kids, good 10-15 years older than me.
She was divorced and turns out she’d had an affair with someone at work after her second child was born. It took me a while to piece it together as it was never clearly presented as that and in it all she was somehow the victim. Her DH hadn’t been supportive enough, she’d got PND and the chap at work took advantage by showering her with attention…etc.

I was ofc sympathetic and she was a lovely woman it was hard to blame her. She wasn’t the ‘type’ you’d imagine to do that she was just a normal mum and a well educated and successful woman.

Since having my own kids (one disabled) I do fully understand the Isolation, loneliness and relationship devastation, I’ve had PND and struggled so much, but I don’t think you can ever not take responsibility for cheating! I also think no man would ever get away with spinning it as ‘them being the victim’ or ‘not being their fault’

I too have always turned down married men. Getting involved always seemed to me like the sort of competitive, fucked-up, emotional hell that I tend to eschew in all aspects of life.

It is unlikely I am 'better' than the wife, just different. And I'm sure that I too would become a 'nag' faced with his slovenliness and manbabyness.

I don't see these men as a prize.

The people who I know that have affairs want a relationship with excitement and sex but without too much responsibility or emotional commitment.

Considering people are willing to lose their home, children and a massive chunk of their finances for an affair, it is hardly surprising people with nothing to lose are also willing to have them.

I know two woman exactly like this, they really felt like they had 'won' the man's attention over his wife and it made them feel 'better', that they were good and payed these poor neglected men attention while their horrible wives neglected the poor souls. Multiple men and multiple marriages ruined between them. Both kept on with the married ones more than finding a single guy. They definitely targeted the men. I still blame the men, they were married and obviously went along with/invented the poor me story very easily. How ever if they are looking for a willing partner it's these or very naive women or they manage to completely trick a women who had no clue. A married or unfree man has always been a 100% no for me, whatever they come out with.

What an earth does feminism has to do with this?
What a silly thing to say.
Feminism isin’t about protecting your status symbol!

i used to work in a bar so i saw affairs unfold all the time. Im sorry but the last thing women think about is his wife and kids, i dont think it enters their mind if im honest. Another thing that astonished me is the young girls who would sleep with anyone, like middle aged married men, im talking over 45, i remember thinking when i was their age i wouldnt have looked twice at a man that age...EVER.

I haven't been in that situation but I don't believe that 19 year old me would have cared or understood about the impact on kids. I also would have happily believed any lies about the marriage the man told me.

Lust

When I was younger I couldn’t give a shiney shit if they were married or not. I felt no remorse. I wanted what I wanted.

Why do married men with young children cheat? Because they're vile human beings.

Me too

Two sides to that situation. From knowing a woman in that situation I would say she craved love and a family of her own. The man was not happy in his home situation. But it can happy at any age. Some people like that buzz/secrecy etc I think. Others find marriage a long haul. Every situation is different. I know a few married couples whose relationship began as an affair. So maybe it’s also about love.

And women are such saints

Because at the start they just want sex, they don’t care about the wife and they don’t care about the kids. They hardly cross their mind.

If the affair goes on and on at that point they ‘love’ the OM and are willing to look past his flaws.

Someone I knew had an affair with a man she worked with. He had two small children with his then partner. Affair went on a while and then he left her and quickly married his partner. The marriage was over within a couple of months and he went back to affair partner and married her later, also having two kids with her. They are still together but I remember her slating his ex, saying she was very council house esque etc and a nasty person. She herself was very attractive. He was someone going places in life and I think he wanted the cool girl who all the men wanted.

Tbh I wonder how they can look at each other knowing what they did.