What makes people have affairs?

[Janellemoaner]

I am married, and have had several affairs. I’m pretty sure my DH is the same. Neither of us have ever spoken about it to the other. I read recently that 20% of married people have been unfaithful. I know of many others similar to me (obviously I’ve slept with several, but there are others from work who I know are carrying on with others).

Some people are viscerally angry when people mention affairs. The vitriol on here is a sight to behold, for example. But I wonder what drives others to have affairs. For me, at the basic level I like sex and it’s more fun with someone new-ish, exciting and without the baggage that comes with a proper relationship. Is it like that for everyone? Maybe part of it’s a power thing as well, reassurance that I can still do it.

I also wonder why the level of hatred at affairs is so high when far more people do it than perhaps you might think. Is it any worse than being perpetually rude or nasty to a partner, or having a drink problem?

FWIW my DH and I get along great. Neither of us ask nor tell about affairs. I think it helps an imperfect marriage rather than hinders it. Would I prefer us to be able to have a wonderfully happy life of fidelity? Of course. But since we can’t, is what we do really so terrible?

An affair really hurts, my mental heath & physical health suffered massively. I truly waned to die.

I’m so sorry you went through that. 💐
How people can do it to the one they claim to love is beyond my comprehension.

I had an affair because I was unhappy in my relationship but didn't have the strength emotionally to leave.

There had been no intimacy for years and, like you OP, I really enjoy sex and it was just so new and exciting with OM.

OM is also married but I don't know his reasoning for starting the affair with me. I never asked.

What happened? Was there any fall out or is it ongoing?

Still ongoing with OM. I finally found the strength to leave my ex though.

I hope the OM has left his wife too. And I hope that you were honest with your husband about the affair.

How do You know your husband is having affairs too? How do you know he's not faithful and would be destroyed if he found out that you cheat on him? Sorry if you've already said that you know in a previous post.

OM is still with his wife. Neither he nor I want that to change.

I didn't tell my ex. Believe me, the way he treated me was just as bad.

I don’t think they really love that person. What they love is what they receive from him/her. When they get discovered they usually beg to stay, cry etc but I really don’t think it’s because of love. It’s becasue if what they get to lose as well as becasue they git caught before making a decision to leave.
Know your worth ladies and gentlemen and dump them. Show tour kids how to treat people who disrespect them.

No, she hasn't, she wrote she's "pretty sure" he is. If that's all the "evidence" you require, I hope you're never called to serve on a jury.

Because there are so many lies. Lies about where you've been. Who you've been and what you've been doing.
And those lies hurt, they really hurt. And they make you think your going mad because what you believed was your life actually never was.
And that intimate act of two people who love each other has been shared with someone else and in between possibly you.
Affairs don't just ruin marriages they can indirectly affect so many things and people and they are deceitful and horrible.

I think that is appalling.
I know you will trot out lots of excuses about how she doesn't understand him, they don't have sex anymore etc etc but I don't know how you can look yourself in the mirror when you know that you are both treating his wife in that way.
There are no excuses.

Your affair partner’s wife hasn’t hurt you in any way though?
Maybe you should send her an anonymous message and tell her? You have been in her position being treated badly so It would be good to show solidarity/sisterhood. It’s not her fault If you chose to stay in a sexless marriage for such a long time.
By the way I was in your position. Didn’t cheat on anyone, didn’t grab anyone’s husband. Just left my ex.

If you want to have an affair that’s fine however choose a single affair partner before you fuck off and wreck the family(not to mention potential STD’s passed over to unsuspecting affair partner’s spouse)

I don't have an excuse. I have no idea what his situation is with his wife or whether they still have sex or not, I've never asked.

All I know is he keeps coming back. He has arranged to meet me 3 times this week. If he ever had an attack of conscience and said he was going back to his wife, I would let him go.

The situation we're in suits me, so I've been happy to let it continue.

Surely by blowing this affair wide open, I'm causing her even more pain?

I have no desire to grab her husband from her, and he has no desire to leave her.

Why put a grenade under her life for something that is essentially meaningless in the grand scale of things?

Where do people find the time to have affairs? And if both partners are having affairs, they must be haemorrhaging money for babysitting. Unless all the shagging goes on during work / school hours. I just don’t think I could be organised or motivated enough.

Selfishness, a desire for narcissistic supply, low empathy, being an abusive person.

In any relationship entered into by choice, the reasons some choose to lie and cheat are never remotely complicated.

They want to, so they do.

He may well be diseased as he screws other women, so she has a right to be checked for diseases.

And of course she's not in the relationship she agreed to, and has the right to make her own reality based choices.

Indeed. Cheating is always abuse.

Chump lady says it best.

https://www.chumplady.com/your-experience-of-infidelity-as-abuse/

Marriage is about more than sex, you're right.

It's about promising another person that you're going to share your life with them. It's about choosing each other every day. It's about building a life together. It's about having someone you can always trust and be entirely yourself with.

In my opinions what you're doing isn't marriage.

Because it is important for her to make a deicison. If she wants to leave. Becasue she has to know he doesn’t love her and that she should find someone who does. Because you are definitely not the only one he has slept with, he will do it again and put her healh at risk of STDs. Becasue there are so many possibilities out there, life is short and we all deserve happiness. Because she probably lives in a sexless marriage as he satisfies his needs with you.

That's the thing though. He does love her. He wants to stay married to her.

And presumably, she loves him and also wants to stay in the marriage.

No, it's not the marriage she signed up for but that's on her husband. He's the one who changed the goal posts.

I don't know this for fact, but I genuinely believe she would not leave the marriage if she found out about the affair. I think she would stay and try to make it work.

Surely it's kinder not to put her through the heartache of trying to pick up the pieces?

@MadeForFun your posts just reek of selfishness and entitlement.

His wife is having her right to informed sexual consent removed. The more we understand about consent the more we realise how utterly damaging this is. Her physical and sexual health put at risk.

She is having her personal agency removed. Her right to make choices about her life knowing the full truth. Financial decisions, purchase decisions, life decisions, career decisions are all being made with her believing she has a honest and trustworthy husband. She is NOT safe in that decision making and she does not know that.

She will be being lied to, manipulated, gaslit.

She is being abused and you are colluding in that abuse.

But I recognise your username and you’ve been told all of this before.

What’s sad is the constant downplaying you place on the damage you’re helping a cheat do to another human being and the way you then call your affair ‘meaningless in the grand scale of things’

It wouldn’t be meaningless to her. I’ve known betrayed to be suicidal and suffer PTSD type symptoms. Their mental health in tatters. It wouldn’t be meaningless to her.

I want to remain in my marriage. I don't want to split from my husband, I love him.

But I also don't want to be lied to, or treated with disrespect. I want to be able to make fully informed decisions about my own life and not have some random tart who's willing to sleep with someone else's husband make them for me.

Do you understand that? Or would you rather someone you didn't know was making relationship decisions for you?