AIBU to think that most relationships will end with an OVERLAP with a new relationship.

[morningpaper]

I don't get this thing on MN whereby married people are expected to end marriages before embarking on other relationships.

This idea of people (except you always mean 'woman' ) being "slappers" if they enter relationships with married people makes me think lots of you have very little understanding of how relationships work.

• To be blunt, I would be FAR more upset if DH left me for a lonely life as a single person in a bedsit than for a new relationship. I think the former is FAR more insulting. I have a close friend whose husband did this and it was MORTIFYING every time people said "Oh darlng, was there someone else?" and she had to say "No" (unspoken message: 'I am just too horrific to live with').

• People need support when they end relationships - and that support often comes from a new relationship.

• If people ended every marriage at the first sniff of new romance, or at the first feelings of dissatisfaction, then none of our relationships would last more than a year or two! It is often a new relationship that gives people the impetus to re-evaluate their lives.

• Most relationships become very "stale" after a certain amount of time - society tells us we must WORK at our relationships after the desire has gone, but WHY? Why not just accept that our partners or ourselves might be MORE happy in a new relationships - we have changed and grown, after all.

I have several friends in relationships with married people - and I expect a lot of you do, too, but they probably don't tell you because you are so HORRIFIED at the idea. Such relationships generally end in a lot of DESPAIR but they are part of life.

When you talk about "ending relationships before starting new ones" it sounds to me just like people who talk about not having sex before marriage - a great ideal (perhaps), but not realistic for 99% of people.

But in every affair you have had MP there have been 2 innocent parties yours and the the other persons. Cant you find a way to make your life happy without making other people unhappy?

So if I decided tomorrow I wanted some fun I could go out have an affair, leave hubby then remove my children from their home & father simply because I was bored - I am so glad I am not that person, I would not allow myself to be that person and ultimately as an intelligent human being it is my choice.

LOL I really must work now.

Slapper/bastard/whore is not an attempt to feel "safe" but an expression of anger and derision.

Well WW there were certainly two other people that we were "cheating on" but those marriages were fairly dire to start with, if I'm honest.

Bear in mind that my ex-husband is now a woman, so the happyeverafter was probably not really within my grasp, regardless of my own fidelity.

MP, I dont understand why it is so important for you to label your affairs as something else, overlapping relationship is just a nice and fluffy way of putting it.

So, your poll tells us that most of the women in your office are prone to affairs, pretty unloyal workforce, but hey, it is not my office so I should not worry. But I dont see how you can think your colleagues are the average of the nation, after all, most other people would rather perish into thin air than discuss their post childbirth bodies with their boss...

i think most people who have adulterous relationships will regret it

and not go back there

there is one advantage however

if you can call it that

divorce is alot quicker on the grounds of adultery

I see your point about your ex but you only have your parners view of his marriage dont you and by having an affair he has proved himself not to be an entirely honest person.

MP, it is human nature to categorise, to put people in boxes.

to call them names we would not call people who had not done what they had done

i don;t neccesarily agree that calling unfaithful people of either gender slappers/ whores/ slags etc is helpful.. but it is driven by anger, derision and human emotion

the same strong emotions that apparently drive people to be unfaithful

it would be lovely to say, oh yes A left his wife and the 3 kids for another woman ( or vice versa) , apparently it had been going on for months... but i still really like them both as people and will continue to respect and admire them just as i did before i found out.....

but that is not reality

my friends DH cheated, he was one of my friends too and i cannot, cannot look at him or feel the same about him now. i don;t think he is a slag or whatever, i feel sorry for him. it did not work out with OW and he is homeless, friendless and lost the respect of a lot of people. he lives iwth his dad and sees his children once a week. who is the winner? who has come out of this well? who deserves our repsect and kindness? he had no intention of telling his DW. he was going to play them both until he decided what he wanted.. how can i not think badly of someone like that?

sorry, MP, but i actually thikn you are being naive in thinking that the name calling is wrong. it is the behaviour that leads to it that is wrong and reprehensible

quint: Read the OP. Why are you trying to make this about ME? It isn't.

Admittedly, I have had my share of "fun", but I made a choice when I got married. I chose my husband. Not because I neededd to be supported, but because I love him and want to be with him and thick and thin.

I have been the other woman. Once. I broke up a young family, a gorgeous one year old boy suddenly lost his father. To me. I am not proud, and I sort of raise my eyebrow to anybody who boasts of affairs and infidelity. I did not know he was engaged, I did not know he had a child. Heck, I did not even know that his fiancee was the cousin of my flatmate... I was mortified when I realized the ramifications of my short few weeks of passion. To say it has influenced how I feel about affairs, and people who knowingly start "relationships" overlapping or not, with people who already has a partner, is an understatement.

Some posters on this thread appear both irresponsible, careless, and blatantly blindfolded.

it is not just the having an affair, it is the way a lot of spouses treat their exes and their children afterwards, especially when leaving for somoene new

how many threads on here about exes not turning up, about not paying maintainance, about acting as though they are childless and absolved of all responsibility..

it is the twisting of the knife that so often goes with affairs and ending marriages that stirs so much vitriol and condemnation of people who have affairs and those who think affairs are excusable..

MP, I have already answered the actual OP several posts down. But you know what, the thread has taken a slightly different direction since the op, as I have read other posts too. And this seems to be quite a lot about you and your office and trying to convice that this is the norm. I dont think it is.

I woudl agree with you there Lulumama

I get annoyed when people say "The children will be devastated" because actually, it's wanky (usually) men who devastate children, by not supporting them and taking repsonsibility for parenting them - or women who refuse to let their partners see their own children as a form of revenge.

Saying that single-parenting devastates children is somewhat offensive to single parents and parents who split up quite amicably and endeavor to do so without damaging their children.

I can't believe this thread is still going! I just thought I'd take a quick peek out of curiosity!

So many opinions, so many stories- what are you all trying to agree on?! You never will!

Go and read a book or do something more meaningful, that will enrich your day....

QS I said SEVERAL TIMES that I don't think that talking from (my) personal experience is particularly helpful for the discussion one way or another, but if I don't answers questions then I get told I'm avoiding the issue, and if I DO answer questions then I'm told it's 'all about me'! I can't win!

have spoken to a number of close friends and famnily about this very subject due to my friends marriage ending due to infidelity. not one person has intimated or stated that it is ok at all to act like this. no-one has said, well, in his shoes, i would have done the same.

everyone said the same: you work at your marriage, you think of your children, if it is not working and beyond rescue, you leave before you shag anyone else.

the duplicity is what most people are totally offended by. the lying, the not turning up to important things for the children becasue too busy with OW. that is just not right.

You are right hls I am going to do some actual work now

hls, it is not neccesarily about agreeing, but getting a handle on what other people believe or hold dear. i have no intention of changing my mind, but i am enjoying reading this nonetheless... debate is not always with the aim of winning over the other side

And there isn't "a lot about my office", that is very unfair. I posted ONCE in respones to someone saying that they wouldn't want to surround themselves with such immoral and depraved people who engage in 'overlapping relationships.' My point was that you probably ARE surrounded by such people, but while you continue to make your own moral repulsion clear, they are not going to share their own difficulties with you.

lol i do hate it when people come onto a thread and say why are you talking about this GO AND READ A BOOK

Some of these comments are making me cross actually.
I can absolutely say without question that I would never cheat on my husband. I wouldn't do it. I love him and respect him and to me it would be a vile low thing to do.
I can't say that I would never fall in love again - but to do that I would have to surely fall out of love with my husband. But I simply would not cheat on him.
Wafting around and saying things along the lines of "well people do, so you or your DH probably would/could at some stage' is bollock. It is a life choice. I can say it the same way I can say I will not beat my children. I will not steal. I will not swear at my mother .
To suggest that everyone does, so anyone who holds that committment dear is a liar or dillusional is really dishonest. It just means that the person saying that has no fixed moral positions that they hold absoloutely true. Perhaps they just don't trust themselves.
I also find the discussions about being monogamous as settling for a life of boring mundaniety because finaces are tied and you can't be arsed to try pastures new equally mean spirited.
DH and I have a great life, great kids and we turn to each other for comfort and fun and support and laughter.
Perhaps it is the things we have been through together that have made us committ and appreciate the joy of that committment. Very few relationships survive a child being diagnosed with a severe disability. We had to examine what mattered to us when we went through those difficult years. Perhaps others focus on the fun and excitement of the early days of a relationship without understanding the deep warmth and love that can be generated between two people who care about each others happiness as much as they do their own.
I don't really care about how others find their happiness. i don't call other women slappers and should it ever happen,I would not regard any affair DH or I had as being the responsibility of anyone outside our marriage. My brother has moved on to a new woman every time his current 'love' has had a baby. That is never the fault of the woman he moves on to - it is always his fault.
But i think there are snide assumptions being made on here about anyone who has made a 'real' committment to their partner.
I am not deluded, insecure, boring or fat - thanks.

MP, I have yet to meet any children/adults who's parents separate during their childhood who honestly say they were not affected in an adverse way. Children usually blame themselves and think they have been abandoned not the other parent. It may make single parents happy to believe that this is not so but children from single parent families are more likely to commit crime, experiment with drugs and have emotional issues... not all but more likely. So when any parent embarks on an affair at the risk of their marriage/long term relationship they are at real risk of long term damage for their children.

No separation is easy or ideal, especially when poverty is a likely outcome. But I don't believe for one moment that all children of single parents are worse off than if their parents had stayed together!