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.

The vast majority of women who enter into affairs don't know there is a family elsewhere or are told thry split up. Once they're emotionally tied to the man it's hard for them to get out.

The responsibility lies with the man and his inability to remain faithful.

@Thegreenpotter YAB extremely unreasonable in posing this question.

I worked in my local pub whilst on holiday from uni. I had several men ask me out when I knew they were married or in relationships or ask me to dance to piss off their partners. I said no to all of them.

Even the guy who came to sort out the pumps wanted to take me out. After I said no, it transpired, the pump guy had an 8 week old at home and things were hard. I got the mums in the pub to talk to him.

Wow - it’s so boring reading the number of people who’ve piled on to tell OP she’s asking the wrong question. OP can ask what she likes! It wouldn’t be interesting asking why fathers of young kids have affairs, we all know why. I think OP’s question of how can women justify doing that to a young family is much more interesting.

Anyway OP I’m no expert but I suspect those women are deeply insecure and feel better if they can ‘win’ a man from
another woman, especially a man the woman liked enough to have children with.

Also, something I’ve seen many times on Mumsnet is the ‘other woman’ being told that the cheating man is the only one at fault, not her. “You’re not the one in a relationship, you aren’t cheating” people say. Seems mad to me but I guess that’s the kind of thing some women tell themselves. Maybe there are a lot of this type of women on Mumsnet 🤷‍♀️

And you shouldn't be blaming him equally anyway. You should be blaming him entirely.

Right. So now women are poor little souls so easily led by big bad men that they bear no responsibility for their own actions.

I had a friend who had several affairs with married men. I remember she was seeing one man while his wife was pregnant. She kept trying to defend him, saying what a great guy he was. He wasn’t a great guy. He was a total shit. And so was she because she wanted sex with no strings attached and didn’t spare a thought for his wife. They were BOTH responsible.

I have a theory looking not from a moral perspective.
Although there are lots of men there are not so many men that are capable of getting it together enough to have a house, job, family.
Only 44.8% of men aged 15–49 have ever had a child. 55.2% don’t have children.
This means there is quite a lot of competition for the ones that can hold it together and are more capable.
Ironically what the men are attracted to often in the affair is the women being free and single and adventurous but if they get together with the women they soon revert back to house, job, family lifestyle which was what the women was attracted to.

I know men who have cheated when they have young DC because they find their new lives so boring and restrictive.

Sometimes the woman knows that he has DC, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes the man has out and out lied.

Just from a quick Google men are more likely to cheat than women

Just to clarify. I have not in any way suggested the man is not to blame. He is absolutely at fault.

The question is (and the reason I started this thread) ‘why women willingly get with these kinds of men’. There are plenty of men not in relationships without small children. The man may have little empathy or integrity to be able to cheat but a women who knowingly sleeps with a man like this too. Why?

My exh chased the money. Gave him the best of both worlds- high life with her, me to raise the children, playing Disney Dad once a fortnight. Free to work however and whenever he liked.
Me? Poor, stressed and overworked my whole life.

They say karma will get them. It never got him. Bastard.

I think a lot of men lie.

I have had so many men hit on me in my young and free days swearing they where innocent who I later found out had girlfriends/wives/families.

I actually dated a guy for 3 weeks, we went on several dates (never slept together or anything, just casual dating). EVERYONE in town knew we where dating. One day a heavily pregnant woman bursts into the pub screaming for 'the homewrecking bitch who stole her man' and how she was going to 'kick some ass'. Yes she was looking for me. He worked here, she lived in another town and NO ONE knew she existed. People who I didn't even get on with (like my old school bully) even jumped in to defend me.

Also my first relationship I was ENGAGED to the guy (young and naive). We split up for a year at which time I moved away but had just returned. When he saw me he said it was the biggest mistake of his life breaking up and proposed again. Young stupid me was still in love (even though the relationship was toxic as hell) so I accepted. Once again our relationship was public and known to EVERYONE (he re-propesed in the middle of a big town event).

We had been back together a month or so when two girls cornered me on a night out threatening me for 'being all over their mate fiance' and warning me to 'back off'. I went through his phone when he went to the bathroom and yep he was engaged to someone else too. He didn't even attempt to deny it when confronted, got mad at ME for being 'untrusting' though and we broke up all over again.

I was only on the dating scene for 3 years in my teens. I have been with my DH ever since I broke up with ex-fiance the second time. Frankly I would HATE to re-enter the dating pool, it was full of shitty floaters.

It's like the old days when women were treated dreadfully for getting pregnant when unmarried. Nothing was ever said about the men that impregnated them. The same double standards still apply. It's really depressing.

But flipping it so that ALL the responsibility lies with the man isn’t right either. Telling OP she is asking the wrong question because the answer may show that women aren’t always little angels who have been wronged?! Women claiming they aren’t the ones cheating because it’s not them in a relationship?! Come on! The view that all men are bad and all women blameless is patronising and insulting.

I was once the OW for about 10 months and although I knew he married I absolutely compartmentalised that. We never, ever spoke of his wife and it was like she didn’t even exist.

(there were no children involved).

I didn’t once ask him about his marriage or why he was having an affair etc because it simply didn’t matter to me.

He struggled with it all emotionally far more than I did.

To me he was just a very good looking guy that I was very attracted to and who I had lots of fun with. That was the depth of the relationship from my eyes and I just put the fact he was married into a little box and hid it at the back of my wardrobe.

I was young though (23 I think) and not that it’s any excuse but I had no awareness, or I simply didn’t care, about the immorality of my actions.

I often wonder this. My partner of 13 years left me for another woman he’d been having an affair with. Our youngest had just turned 3 and the affair started when she was 15 months.
I struggle to understand why she would do that knowing about me and the kids from the beginning.
she was in her 40s and married with a child so you’d think she was old enough to know better.

I'm married and wouldn't have an affair because I know the devastation it would wreak on my husband and my child. That is my choice, my responsibility. If a married man has an affair the blame lies with him.

If I was single and a married man was pursuing a relationship with me I don't think I would consider the wife as I would know that their relationship was absolutely dead in the water anyway for him to be pursuing someone else in the first place.

I wanted decent sex without any potential of a relationship. That's my why.

What else do you need to know?

It takes two, but it's the husband that has made vows to his wife to remain faithful. He's a grown up and knows what he's doing. A random women owes the wife nothing. All the anger should be directed to the man they are married to.

I also think, in some cases, it's the threat of mutual destruction. They can trust that the affair partner won't say anything because the stakes are too high for both.

It is very common for men to have affairs when their wife is pregnant, they feel they are not getting attention. The same goes for young children. I saw it all the time in the offices I worked in, the bigger the staff numbers the more affairs it seemed

@Thereasonidid why didn't you look for that with a single man? There are plenty of single men out there looking for no strings attached sex!

It's rather an odd question to ask @Thegreenpotter

Is this personal, to you, or are you just floating ideas, like a philosophical argument?

Some people who have affairs think there will be a happy ending. That the people involved will start over with them. Women are usually fed the line by men that they will leave their wives because the marriage is over.

I don't think it matters if the children are young, older, adult. A marriage break up is sad for anyone caught up in it.

Also, affairs aren't usually calculated events. People are caught up in lust and want to only think of a happy ending where they will ride off into the sunset together.

My reason for being OW? I didn’t think about the children. I didn’t think about the wife. We were both working abroad, wife at home with the kids we didn’t need to think about them. I was 24, naive and fell in love. I didn’t think about the the fact it made him a liar, I thought that we had fallen in love and couldn’t help ourselves. When I found out about his wife I tried to end it but then convinced myself we could just use each other for sex. I didn’t want a long term relationship my plan was to travel. He left his wife for me 8 weeks after we met. He didn’t discuss leaving her with me and I was shocked. I didn’t think of her or the children, I convinced myself that people divorce all the time and they will be fine and it’s probably for the best if they’re not happy.
we got married and are still together 20 years later. But I only realised myself how awful we both are once I had my own children. Maybe before children I was a lot more selfish. Now I cringe when I look back at the situation we were in when we got together, the hurt we caused and the impact on his children. His ex became very bitter and made it very difficult for him to see the children and his relationship with them now is not great. I in no way feel any sense of triumph in getting my man. I feel shame. And I look at my husband sometimes and see a liar and a cheat. I didn’t at the beginning, only now maybe with the benefit of age I am wiser. However, we have had a good life and do have a good relationship. If I could do my time again ? Well I have 2 beautiful children so can’t wish them away but I would never have started an affair with a married man.

I was looking for sex, not a single/married man. I happened to click with a married one.

Fwiw, 99% of the "single" men on hook up sites turn out to be married when you dig deeper, or they expect you to deep throat over coffee.

Yes, because only mothers have morals and no woman with children has ever had an affair 🙄

I almost had an affair and the driver was loneliness, a need for intimacy. I didn't feel any compassion for his wife because in my lonely fragile state of mind, she had a family, normality, company. I saw myself as the unlucky one, not a victim exactly but I was going through my 20s trying to find somebody to be close to and nobody showed any sustained interest in me. Then, this guy I met through work seemed interested in me, and he wasn't turned off me as soon as something small happened. I don't know if the void in me that I thought I was disguising was more obvious than I realised but I was so lonely and people got to know me a little bit and then instantly gave me distance and space. It was horrendous. Luckily I didn't end up having an affair with that man as I discovered he'd had an affair before whatever was happening with 'us' so that kind of brought me to my senses. But in answer to the precise question asked, I saw his wife as the lucky one, the conventional one, the one who'd be surrounded by support, the one who co-owned a home, the one who had sah housewife friends galore, a mother in law, I certainly didn't feel that she deserved any pity. I felt I was the 'poor' one (emotionally). Not all of this was conscious.
I'm a lot stronger now, still single, single is default settings for me now though. I'm used to it, got used to being alone and I no longer feel terribly lonely or lonely at all. This was a long time ago btw so if anybody tries to ''shame'' me, I won't feel shamed as I look back on my self back then and it's like a different person to the stronger person I am now.

@Gadgetfreak

What an honest and insightful reply.

Do you ever wonder if he’s cheated on you? That would eat me up

It’s something many of us have witnessed with friends, family or maybe even our own personal circumstances. I have always wondered how women can willingly get with these men when they do know they have a family. I understand many are lied to and do not.

Then there are the women who do not want a no strings attached relationship, but want the man to leave his wife or partner and kids. Why would they think a man that would willingly do so is a good candidate to be a partner or go on to have children with?

Because maybe they actually like the guy as a person. There probably isn't any game plan or other reason. I think it's sad thar people assume it's because of some kind of competition. No one has mentioned feelings at all.

Also girl code and sisterhood is just a load of made up nonsense to take the blame off the man.

Your comment says more about you than it does me. I was answering the question 'Why do women have affairs with men with young children?' Those women who allow themselves to be the OW are not feminists. Because they are enabling men to dis-respect and betray their wives and children and allowing them to cause untold hurt and harm which often can never be repaired. And to me feminism is about women standing together and promoting sisterhood against misogyny. Thats why I would never have an affair with a married man.

I don't know how you managed to manufacture the idea I implied feminism is about protecting your status symbol. I do not regard a husband as a status symbol. What a silly thing to say. Maybe try reading the response before you comment HeartInMyHand. This is one of the reasons I have a problem with Mumsnet - there are so many women who jump to criticism without showing any sisterhood.