Would you sleep with a married man? Even if you didn't want him to leave his wife.

[Coconut91]

Just wondering would anyone sleep with a married man, that you find very attractive. And you know he's married and don't want to break up his marriage or have a relationship with him?
You're also single.

Wtf? No.

@DarkenedSoul

You said you couldn't stop it. Yes you could. You chose not to and to carry on.

Also, you don't have to expect a lack of desire from a partner after you've together for an extended amount of time. You work on your relationship and communicate what your needs are to make sure it stays how you both want it to be.

Essentially you are a weak, lazy man who is trying to justify his actions.

Nope, just because you might do something like that doesn't mean we're all incapable of saying no.

I met a man who I had electric chemistry with. We were both married. Had we met before we met our partners, who knows where that would have gone.

But instead of giving in do you know what we both did? We chose our spouses. Because we had met them first and we love them. And we don't know whether that chemistry would have lasted forever.

Marriage is choosing your partner every day, every time there's a choice.

Of course plenty of us have been in a situation where a married man propositioned us or we have been in propositioned while married. It’s some crazy level cognitive dissonance to think that the ‘pull’ some of you experienced was just too strong to overcome basic level common decency and we’d all do it too if we had experienced such deep level connection (what absolute bs).

Affairs are abusive. The Oxford definition of abuse is unfair, cruel or violent treatment. Affairs are certainly unfair and cruel. As has been said repeatedly the removal of informed sexual consent, putting the betrayed at risk of STDs, removal of personal agency, infidelity includes minimising, gaslighting, manipulation and withdrawal of affection. It also includes withdrawal from family life and financial abuse. It is now widely realised and spoken about as abuse including within domestic abuse charities. A quick google and you’ll see that.

The cheat is an abuser.

I personally don’t like some of the terms for OW used on here but honestly you have to have some deep rooted misogyny to participate in the abuse of another woman for your own gain. And that bit always gets overlooked.

What I do have a right to is a partner who will treat me fairly and honestly. That means either get out and then get with someone else, or stay and have some integrity. Not lie to me and deceive me and string me along.

Any decent person would be fair to their spouse and not cheat. Then again, someone who would cheat in the first place isn't the type who would care about how they treat the person they made vows to.

I would always let my spouse go to their affair partner. They deserve each other. There's a reason relationships that begin as affairs often fail. They very rarely succeed. A relationship built on deceit and with people who have the qualities that would have an affair doesn't have a strong foundation. How could you ever trust them? If they will cheat with you, they will cheat on you. You are not different.

Are you quite young, OP?

Married men cracking on gives me the ick.

Married men trotting out any lines comparing me favourably to their wife give me the ick.

Married men telling me how unhappy they are in their relationship gives me the ick…extra ickiness if they do it while staring at my boobs.

Seeing a wedding ring gives me the ick.

Married men literally make my vagina clamp shut when it comes to choosing a partner.

But you were happy to use misandristic language in an earlier post of yours. And why didn’t you report the numerous incidents of ‘misogyny’ in this thread which used the same and worse words?

So you thought you'd come on Mumsnet to ask if you should shag this married man? Is this because you want sense talking into you from the obvious reply's you'll get, or are you just a goady troll?

I'd have felt cross. I'd have felt angry. I'd have felt lied to. I would not have felt abused.

I probably would have given a fleeting thought about the woman/man he cheated on me with. Which then would have quickly disappeared whilst I focussed getting rid of the lowlife who had lied his arse off to me.

I’m “kidding myself.” And I’m pretty sure I’m right.

I honestly think it’s demeaning for all parties.

@tinklingchimes hear hear. Unfortunately there are many many people who believe they do not need to treat others with respect and decency

I've repeatedly sat in a rooms of professionals @XChrome @InevitableNameChanger and discussed abusive behaviour. What it looks like all its forms. How lightly the term is now bandied around, meaning its seriousness of action and response has weakened. How anything which is slightly adrenalin raising for another is considered abuse by someone. How the black and white abusive actions we can all agree on has been coloured by people extending what the grey area around them looks like.

No, the abused person doesn't always get to define the word, as some people will say they've been abused, e.g.because someone has (rightly) said no to them. Again, something which has been interesting to discuss with professionals.

If the marriage was celibate, which you so often read about on here, then the cheated on partner's physical health is not at risk. By some people's definitions, including some of the posts here, this means the affair is not abusive. Others will say it is abusive, as the emotional health of the cheated on partner has been damaged. It could be argued that the emotional health of the cheater had been damaged long before they cheated, as their partner unilaterally decided to remove sex from their marriage. It really isn't black and white.

By some people's definitions, everybody has been abused at least once in their life. My definition of abuse does not agree with theirs.

So, like I started with, I'll continue to disagree with you that lying is abusive. The consequences of that lie may be abusive. A marriage partner lying that they are monogamous is a lie, nothing more.

Anyway, I'm bowing out. I've got a Taylor Swift concert to get ready for and I cannot tell you how much excitement there is in this house. Typing this out has made me recall a post on a US forum branding Ticketmaster as abusive. This was due to some people being allowed to buy tickets for multiple nights by their system, meaning the real TS fans chatting on the forum couldn't get hold of any. Their mental health couldn't cope with how unfair the system was and they were suffering. There were several posts agreeing with the OP and a few telling them they were ridiculous. The few got shouted down, as they had no right to tell the several they weren't being abused by Ticketmaster. They were victims, don't you know?

Have a sparkly day everyone. I know I will.

Absolutely. The bollocks that is being spited on here to justify sleazy grubby cheap sordid behaviour would be laughable if there wasn’t a wife and children on the other side being abused.

The ones in here with zero morals - just own what you are. Dressing it up like you’re star crossed lovers with chemistry that can’t be resisted is so disingenuous. You’re not the romance of the century - you’re a pair of grubby little scumbags only interested in your personal gratification and no level of basic human decency and respect.

This thread is actually disgusting me some of the mental hoops being jumped through to justify cheating. Grubby and grim

Cheating is what weak men do. I'm not attracted to weak men. So no.

You know you've got the weaker argument when you post then make an excuse to "bow out" .I work in a related field and I think it is increasing disappointing that you are comparing concert tickers with putting someone at risk of an STD

Surely you don't really believe all those marriages are celibate. That's just the lie the man tells his affair partner. In fact that's one of the most grim things about people who have affairs,.they lie to their wife and they lie to the affair partner

Tricking someone who thinks they are having monogamous sex is abuse.

I've never said anything about abuse.

But I am pretty certain that as well as being angry at my partner and getting rid of him, I'd also be really upset with the woman who knew he was married and did it anyway. I could feel compassion for her if I knew she was also lied to, but anyone who knowingly participates in hurting another person is as much to blame as the other.

Eh?

This thread is literally about the woman!!!

Would you as a woman shag a married man was the question.

So we are only talking about the woman.

Of course the man is scum, but he isn't posting here for opinions is he? Do you honestly think if a man posted on mumsnet saying 'I'm married and I have affairs, Aibu?' That Posters would respond that it's all the woman's fault?! Of course they wouldn't.

You have continually on this thread got it wrong, with the exception of the language used.

FWIW I think affairs only serve one purpose ultimately and that is to PASS PAIN ON.

Cheats and their affair partners are often broken in some way. They self medicate with an affair. It provides a high that is addictive. They validate themselves through illicit feelings. It’s dark and seedy it not about love.

I actually don’t believe all people that have affairs are bad but they are extraordinarily selfish and entitled at the time and invariably whatever pain they are in then gets transferred to the betrayed. This certainly happened to me. My husband, at the time, wasn’t a bad man but he was a very broken man.

Of course there are cheats who only care about sex but I’d argue they are broken too, as to know that the sex your involved in could or will mean the destruction of another human beings life is broken thinking. It shows a complete lack of empathy and compassion. You don’t have to be bound to another through marriage or partnership to offer basic common decency. It’s how society works and functions.

And so their brokenness is passed on.

And that’s before you get to the children. There is PLENTY of evidence out there of the damage infidelity does to the children in the marriage.

Pain passed on, why on earth would anyone want to be involved with that?

People can split hairs over whether it’s considered “abuse” or not (and I think it is) but surely what’s undeniable is the tremendous amount of trauma it inflicts in most cases upon the wife who has been betrayed?

I’m so against being involved in causing that trauma that when I used online dating I used to list on my profile “no married or separated men” Not saying it deterred all the married men but I hope it put some off. I was always on high alert for potential signs of married men anyway like men telling me they were using a nickname on their profile or trying to rush me off the dating app to communicate on WhatsApp.

And needless to say people have always encountered married men trying their luck in bars, coffee shops, clubs etc too. Definitely not just an online problem.

Lol. I can't imagine there's many single women left in the world who haven't been propositioned by a married man. So, yes, we have been tested, and it's an absolute no.

Quite. It's funny how the women who hop into bed with married men think they were somehow special or super alluring rather than the "first one to say yes"

Exactly @InevitableNameChanger

The only character traits you know for sure if a married man comes on to you, are - weak, a liar, selfish, happy to pass on STDS without consent, easy...so those character traits immediately tell you he tries it with anyone.

Everyone is different but I’m not capable of dating a married man. I’d be wracked with guilt and anxiety not to mention I wouldn’t respect a man who was married and trying to get with me, so there would be no desire to be with him in the first place.

Once I hear someone is married, any attraction just evaporates somehow 😬😂

If on the off chance for the first time in my life I did in fact experience strong attraction to a married man and felt tempted by his advances, I’d remove myself from the situation because the idea of being with a married man is morally objectionable to me . So aside from harming his wife I know if harm myself too.

But as I say feeling tempted by a married has never happened before in my 2 decades of adulthood!

I don’t even date men who are “separated” so no way would I knowingly have an affair with a married man.

What worries me is that some men hide it so well it could happen one day, of course that wouldn’t be my fault but I’d still feel terrible if/when the truth came out.

I shagged married men in the past but wouldn't now. Due to Mumsnet I've seen the light and the impact it has on other women (I know it's not rocket science but I had a blind spot about it.)

@Coconut91 Spend a few weeks reading Relationships board and how devastated women are when they discover an affair, and I hope it will stop you thinking it's potentially ok.