Why cheat?

[Notabellend]

What is missing from a relationship to make others cheat? I don’t cheat but for those that have been through it, I am sorry. What changed in the relationship? Why do you think it happened. No judgement here. We are all human.

This is the worst reason ever - so FUCKING selfish 🤬🤬🤬

They never consider it was down to them that their partners HAVE the babies.

Sorry it happened to you 🩷

Thats horrid. You both made the baby. That isn’t your fault. Sorry to hear that.

Thank you. I hope you are happier now!

The reason I ask, I know it is complex, is to help us prevent it happening in our own relationships.

Of corse its normal to notice when someone else is attractive.

It is just trying to understand what makes them cross the line without breaking it off with the old partner first.

I agree and understand.

Maybe they just need to communicate to us better? We all want to feel accepted.

❤️ a happy ending 🙂

Really good point.

That doesn’t make sense when you read on MN of all the men cheating on their partners with younger prettier women.

I nearly did. I was super depressed (diagnosed, on meds) and hated myself, my life, wrestling with suicidal ideation, really low and really awful. And I felt like not one person in my life gave a fuck. I wanted to chuck a grenade in my life and watch it explode. An opportunity presented itself to do that - and I nearly took it.
Don't get me wrong, if I HAD cheated it would have been no ones fault but mine, mental health no excuse etc. but this was my situation and headspace at the time. I'm very thankful that I didn't do it!

@Notabellend ‘The reason I ask, I know it is complex, is to help us prevent it happening in our own relationships.
Of corse its normal to notice when someone else is attractive.
It is just trying to understand what makes them cross the line without breaking it off with the old partner first.’

Truth is you can do ALL the right things, you can have sex with them on demand, attend all their pastimes, cook their favourite meals, adhere to their every whim and desire and they STILL might cheat because we cannot CONTROL other people by making them ‘happy’.

Cheating is ALL about self; happens for a myriad of reasons (many on here) and often has f’all to do with the primary relationship. At the end of the day it’s rooted in selfishness and entitlement at that moment of period of time and we’re all capable of that to a lesser or greater degree. It’s scary but it’s true.

I believe it was an Ashley Madison survey that found well over 50% of cheats counted themselves as happy or very happy in their primary relationship.

Sadly, I have learnt that the only control you have is over yourself and having a clear plan if your partner does cheat and pulls the rug out from underneath you is wise.

When you say "cheat down" it doesn't mean just looks.

Let's face it, if a man cheats then the woman is also a cheat, and has no scruples if she's willing to have sex with a married man.
He will probably "look down on her" for that because men have amazing "double standards".
That's why only 3% of married men leave to marry their OW. Then 75% of those eventually divorce.

Good post.

Resentment against blatant unfairness within the marriage. A way to hit back, if you like.

To get something that’s missing in your relationship.

It might be something “wrong” like the thrill of the chase, or excitement, or a secret that gives you power, or an enabled wank or an adoring slave.

Or it might be something you’d hope to get from your marriage like respect, intimacy, partnership, consideration, companionship.

It takes a very big person to ask themselves if they played a part in their partner’s infidelity.

I believe it was an Ashley Madison survey that found well over 50% of cheats counted themselves as happy or very happy in their primary relationship

I think this is really true. For a lot of men its about opportunity and married dating sites provide opportunity. Its simply not true that all men cheat because their marriages are unhappy in some way. Some do it just because they can and they enjoy it. Sad but true.

Jude Law, King Charles, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hugh Grant all cheated down looks wise.
Younger doesn't necessarily mean prettier eg Piqué
In my experience the pretty young women have better options and higher self esteem than to entertain a married man. The women who accept to being a side piece are the ones who know if he were single he wouldn't look at them twice because he'll be looking to date the prettier ones. They only have a chance because he's married and desperate.

Oh come on!

Prince Charles was not ' trading down', he was in love with Camilla but unable to marry her. He thought his duty was to marry a virgin brood mare to bear him heirs. We all know the tragic outcomes of this for Princess Diana and her children and family.

Regardless, the comments on this thread that cheating men ' trade down' is a rather blatant misogynistic attempt to direct ire at the OW rather than the men, and in a particularly childish fashion, ' Yeah well, so what? I don't care you're ugly.' Please. Get some self respect and some dignity.

@sharpenedroof
It's actually anti misogynistic, it's my observation against the clichéd trope that men cheat because the wife let herself go or the other woman was so incredibly beautiful it was hard to resist her.

What a cheating partner needs, eh ?

If there ever were problems within a marriage in no way would an affair help rectify what was missing.

And I would go as far to say a cheater would have been blatently unaware of their own contributions to the problems, betrayal by a cheater shows a definite lack of empathy, sympathy, understanding and care, the bedrock of partnerships.

Without these you have no emotional intellegence and have a very selfish, self absorbed, nature. Being deceitful over a prolonged period shows a definite lack of awareness of others in pain, very worrying.

No ending is good in a relationship but having an affair to ease your next landing or branch swing takes a whole lot of lying and deception, those lies are inhuman, forget about needs, the lying and gaslighting is abuse, full stop.

And the cake eaters will lie all their life, it's part of their DNA.

And many of those betrayed people you who you say should take a look at the part they played within infedelity, I should imagine were the type who were trying to keep the relationship going, their nature was not to lie, cheat and abuse.

Their very fedelity shows they were capable of reasoning before they took to hurting as an answer.
,

Its really not. Anti-misogynist would be to hold the cheating man entirely responsible for his own infidelity, and therefore not focusing on the women at all.

Shifting your attention to the women when a man cheats is never anti-misogynist, and focusing on the woman's attractiveness is really never anti-misogynist.

And look, the anti-misogynist response to the man-excusing bollocks of ' she was so beautiful he could not resist her', is to say ' Yes you could as you are an adult in full control of your own choices. Stop trying to blame a woman for your own free choices.'

Not saying, ' actually she was quite ugly'. That is still misogynist.

The massive ego boost.

The thrill when you first start dating someone.

The delightful secrecy.

Something to look forward to.

The pleasure of having a secret to yourself. And knowing that you're so clever to trick your unsuspecting partner into believing you are loyal.

I imagine it's any one or all of these elements.

I disagree because the conversation around why men cheat invariably veers into the physical appearance of both women which is why I preeimptively addressed the misogynistic view that it was because the mistress is gorgeous and the wife is ugly. Actually it's often not the case in my observation, it's about the man being a bottomless pit for sexual validation and a woman with less options or who couldn't get a single guy with the same qualities as the married man is why they often accept the crumbs and secrecy of an affair, it's the best she could get of a man this calibre. in my first comment. I also don't think it's misogynistic to call women out when they are letting the side down and behaving badly. Mistresses absolutely take part of the blame, why is it that it's misogynistic to blame the other woman but it not misogynistic to contribute to hurting the wife, surely sisterhood goes both ways?

I disagree because the conversation around why men cheat invariably veers into the physical appearance of both women

This is the bit that is misogynistic! Its misogynistic to talk about the appearance of the women. What anyone thinks of their looks is utterly irrelevant to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that the man chose not to honour his commitment to his spouse. Diverting to irrelevant opinions on the looks of the women distracts attention from to the man and his culpability.

You are not fighting misogyny by continuing to engage in misogynistic thought patterns and conversations. And you are.

Your character assassination of the OW is just childish, and deeply misogynistic. It just is. You are just buying into ancient misogynistic, and quite cartoonish, stereotypes of high value, virtuous wives and low value 'whores'. Its stuff of your imagination. You do realise that many OW will be married themselves? They did manage to attract a husband. Many others will have an affair as one relationship in their life and then go on to have other (non affair) relationships and then marry. You have created a false and simplistic narrative of OW for whatever reasons or psychological benefit of your own.

And read your post again. The subject is cheating men and your ENTIRE focus is on women and their responsibility for men's infidelity. Cheating men love narratives like this. 'The women' fighting amongst themselves suits them. It diverts from their blame and responsibility.

That's getting pretty close to 'victim blaming' IMO.

No-one is responsible for another person's choice to cheat.

Unbeknown to me my exH and I wanted a different type of marriage but he misrepresented himself to me, and I believed that we had a partnership.
He didn't actually want a partnership, he wanted a skivvy that he could have sex with when it suited him.
When I complained he cheated, so I divorced him to set him free to have her !

Some people are interested in the reasons for affairs.

Some people are interested in the excuses for affairs.

Both subjects are repulsive and many wish they didn't exist.