I do find these threads a little depressing. There’s a lot of ‘not my Nigel’ and a sprinkling of she must have known what he was like and it’s clear he ‘wasn’t happy’ but the truth is I’ve known of many affairs and some involve your sleazy it was obvious types. But many involved men who you’d have never thought would ever hurt their wife and their families. My husband really is this type, I am not lying as many women are on here, it was not in his nature at all AND everyone who knew him was utterly shocked.
They are your safe person, your confident, your best friend, your person who is too tired for ‘that sort of thing’, too uninterested, too unappealing to other women, have too much moral integrity.
Until they are not.
I truly believe that not all men cheat, but I think to deny entirely the possibility that yours might is potentially harmful. I honestly think because I was one of those, it hit me hard. I was utterly destroyed not just by what he did to me as a human being, as the person who trusted and loved him but by my own story falling down around me. My true love story that i’d built up and treasured was an utter lie, the way I viewed the world crumbled. I completely agree with a poster above who says we need to talk about the damage affairs do more, have open conversations, move away from the needs met narrative which has popped up on here (we can’t control another by loving them ‘just right’), stop presenting affairs as ‘star crossed lovers’ in the media, because the likelihood is they’re far from that.
I truly hope the posters on here are right about their husbands but I wish I’d not been so utterly naive myself, I remember repeatedly berating myself for being so stupid. If I hadn’t been so naive I think I might have navigated the whole thing better in those earlier days.