Affairs

[Theanswersalemon]

People who begin new relationships by cheating on their spouse/paerner end up "trading down" from their spouse. Often way down. Do you agree, or not?

Quite the opposite in fact @MrsMagistrate
It just gives you more choices and agency when he leaves.

What I'm saying is whatever assets someone believes themselves to have, whether that be wealth, class, intellegence beauty, youth etc, it is no protection against infedelity and the chance someone could like someone better than yourself.

Trading up or down is objective on the merits you are applying it to.

Someone could trade down from someone with a professional job, to a supermarket worker, but they may have traded up by gaining someone who is younger, healthier and more attractive or a kinder person.

You can't quantify these things but I would say if you are judging people's worth on class, education, and job then maybe you are not the catch you maybe you think you are.

There is something in your posts which I find snobbish.

@MrsMagistrate yes probably snobbish. I can live with that thanks.

This is an interesting discussion. I'm a high earner and my partner is in a 30k a year job. We've been together 12 years and have a daughter.

I've just asked him if he would prefer a woman with a less pressured lower paid job to make him feel more significant and secure.

His response was "no. I have to be secure in myself regardless of what you earn, plus who the fuck is going to fund my retirement?"

In reality, we've been together since the start of our careers and when we met we were on the same career footing. He was earning more than me at one point in a job he despised, but when I got the "big job" he traded it in for his current job but in a field that he really loves, with my full blessing.

I don't think about him having an affair, if he's going to do it then there's nothing I can do to stop him and he knows that any whiff will see him out on his ear 🤷🏼‍♀️.

I do think that some men are utter cunts and I do think that some women are utter cunts and sometimes circumstances align that make an affair more likely. We're all human, I've been attracted to other people but obviously not acted on it because I'm happy at home and don't want/need that shit in my life.

If I weren't happy at home then I could see a situation where I'm hopping into bed with them. If my needs weren't being met at home or I was unhappy enough to consider an affair I would talk with my partner to find a mutual work through. If that didn't work then the relationship is over, he's out on his ear and I'm free to pursue other men. I can do this with no financial consequences to myself.

But what about my partners side of things? I guess if he wasn't happy at home then he would find it a lot more difficult to raise this with me as he relies on me for his roof and home comforts. Maybe he could end up trapped in a relationship he doesn't want but can't leave because he can't afford to - and someone else crosses his path that he sees as his ticket out, or gives him what he feels like he's "missing" in the relationship. And thus the affair starts.

I don't know 🤷🏼‍♀️.

I do don’t think you can be as black and white, my Ex’s AP was much more exciting than me, but that turned out to be alcohol, drugs and metal instability, she has been much harder work when it’s come to their children than I have with our daughter (he has told our daughter this).

Years ago I had a man leave his wife for me. I don't think I was a trade down as for one thing, he has severe health problems and she was the opposite of supportive.

A bit older than me, uglier, (I'm not saying this to boast, just be objective) less intelligent, had to be the centre of attention at all times, arguably more mentally/behaviourally deranged than me (and that's saying something!), physically (which she truly hammed up and faked for attention) and mentally in the condition of an incapacitated amoeba, kind of abusive. Her mum was awful too, whereas mine loves him.

I think he would've ended up leaving her at some point anyway.

Having said all that, I'm still enmeshed in this ex's life due to his health problems.

It could be said to be the worst mistake I ever made (there've been all sorts of issues.) I should've kept him as a more distant friend.

This is so true.

I am convinced that if women were able to be much higher earners, then there would be a a lot of men having their suitcases packed for them tomorrow.

Far too many women (and we've all seen them on these pages) can't leave abusive - yes, cheating is a form of abuse - relationships because of lack of funds.

We need to invest more in our daughters, so they grow up with marketable skills, financial self-sufficiency, high self-esteem, confidence, independence and emotional intelligence.
That way more men will have to 'up their game'.

Women need to learn that their value is not measured by whether or not they have a man in their life, nor should they be dependent on one.

We need to invest more in our daughters, so they grow up with marketable skills, financial self-sufficiency, high self-esteem, confidence, independence and emotional intelligence.
That way more men will have to 'up their game'.

Well... yes. But that's all meaningless unless they also grow up to learn that a loving relationship is a two-way process, and loving a person might occasionally mean accepting that they prefer someone else, whether we like it/understand it or not.

I am convinced that if women were able to be much higher earners, then
there would be a a lot of men having their suitcases packed for them
tomorrow.

Of course wealth increases your options and choices.
Unfortunately not all women and men can be higher earners, it's not in the capability of many.

Life is unfair and unequal in many ways, I understand you saying that being financially independant give you options for ending unsatisfactory relationships with more ease but it will not protect you from heartbreak if someone decides to leave you for another.

You cannot assume protection from abusive relationships by stating you can manage financially on your own but on the other hand think you are exempt from being discarded because you are in a powerful possition. In other words you are never immune to being hurt.

Love doesn't work like that.
You can't buy love and loyalty.

I don't think anyone is saying that having your own financial independence makes you immune from heartbreak or being left for another. Not at all.
It does however give you many more choices and makes life a whole lot easier if you end up having to manage alone.

@Alcemeg "and loving a person might occasionally mean accepting that they prefer someone else, whether we like it/understand it or not.".

True.

However, I think many of us don't find the 'preferring someone else' as much of a problem as the lying, cheating, gaslighting etc that goes along with affairs.

Cheating steals the betrayed partner's agency - it robs them of their ability to make informed choices about their own future. Treating someone as 'collateral damage' in the search for their own happiness is more than disrespectful, it is despicable

Depends what you value in yourself and your own values. If you see your high earning ability and career success as something to be proud of and intrinsic to your self worth, it will hurt a lot if you partner chooses someone else who doesn't embody those ideals. Same as if you value your looks/figure and so on.

Men (and women) cheat on all sorts of people- beautiful, slim, high earning, kind, loyal etc. It is always an extremely painful rejection whether you're a CEO or an unemployed single mother in a council flat.

@Cupcakekiller What you say makes total sense.

It's true that beautiful people still get cheated on eg; Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry, Jennifer Ariston, Julia Roberts - Richard Burton cheated on Liz Taylor repeatedly.

And it hurts just the same.

However, what rankles is when someone tells you that they also value you for certain attributes, but then 'move the goalposts' without telling you. That's just plain sneaky.

We need to invest more in our daughters, so they grow up with marketable skills, financial self-sufficiency, high self-esteem, confidence, independence and emotional intelligence.

I think it's also a shrewdness/cautiousess that some of us learn with age and through experience of men. Knowing we can't 100% trust them so need to keep our own resources etc, even if it's just a council flat or disability benefits. Also learning the red flags and tactics of abusers- that could be taught in schools.

However, what rankles is when someone tells you that they also value you for certain attributes, but then 'move the goalposts' without telling you. That's just plain sneaky.

I suppose they change their mind and realize they value something else more.

But affairs can be mostly infatuation and not based on anything real at all. That'd maybe be cases where the new relationship fizzles out fairly quickly after they leave their spouse, though.

Ok so let's talk about women who have affairs, because a significant number do and it becomes more problematic to explain as the 'just sex innit' argument isn't really true.
IMO
Women cheat because it's something just for them. Women cheat because we have more separation between our identities, because we have been told that we cannot rock up to work being Jacob's mummy and so not being Jacob's mummy becomes a performance. We lose ourselves when the real us lies somewhere in between the domestic sphere and the workplace. It becomes tantalising for someone to get to know us as a separate entity to Jacob's mummy or Javier's wife and it hits us somewhere in our core. Because we have lost sight of that person and so when someone is attracted to us (not us as wife and us as mummy) it really resonates (me? me? as the protagonist in Beloved says).
Well that's just my two pennies worth.
Nothing about trading up or down but about choosing something for us. It's a really fucked up version, ineffective version of self care.

So to explain, to me the AP isn't really relevant, it could be anyone who pulls out that part of ourselves which has been suppressed due to marriage or children.

And just to clarify I've never had an affair.

I left my marriage for someone who was also married. I absolutely did not trade down, he’s is everything that I wanted my husband to be and then some. We are far better suited to each other than with our previous spouses. Partner doesn’t earn as much as my exh, but that is not something I hold as important.

So have you married this wonderful man?

no - my previous was marriage was so miserable I don’t think I’d ever wish to do so again

???

I just don't get that.

You now have a man that is waaaay better in every way than your ex and you don't want to get married?

I'm baffled.

I believe that my exh thinks he traded up.

I mean... no one asking him to parent his children, no one asking him to share the domestic and life load, no tired, resentful, disrespected wife comforting herself with food and drink to drown out the loneliness and misery of being married to him.
He didn't need to sexual coerce his AP presumably.
AP refused to have anything to do with our kids so he simply stopped seeing them so now he has a woman who has the same values as him when it comes to parenting.
He definitely thinks he traded up.

My opinion....he took up with a woman who knew that he was married with sn kids, who refused to meet with them up to and including four years and who was happy to watch on while he ignored calls and pleas from his children to spend time together ...so in my view he traded way down. Base level in fact.
As for looks, body.Below base.

Any port in storm as they in these parts

Why? I did not have a good experience of marriage and would be really reluctant to be so vulnerable again. That doesn’t take away from my feelings or commitment to my new partner.

Whether it’s easy to hear or not, sometimes you simply marry the wrong person.

However, what rankles is when someone tells you that they also value you for certain attributes, but then 'move the goalposts' without telling you. That's just plain sneaky.

But what if he still wanted those same attributes and found someone with stronger attributes than yours, more money, better carreer, higher class than you.
I doubt you would be happy or accepting, in fact it would probably hurt you more.

No matter what the reasons are for someone liking another more than you and then leaving you, it's still going to hurt.

@MrsMagistrate I think we have all agreed that it isn't possible to affair-proof a marriage/partnership.

I also think we have all agreed that no matter what someone's reasons for preferring another person, it will still hurt.

"But what if he still wanted those same attributes and found someone with stronger attributes than yours, more money, better carreer, higher class than you."
Chances are they wouldn't want him!

When people cheat, the affair partner isn't special, they are just available.

Cheaters have to find their AP not only from who's accessible to them but from those that actually want them.

That's why both Hollywood and the House of Commons are rife with affairs because there is such a big pool of people- cheaters have plenty of choice.

However, that doesn't mean that others have no agency in the matter. There are plenty of people that I know that have more self-respect than to be another person's 'bit on the side'.

Spot on. Couldn't agree more.