Are all my midlife friends having affairs? (Apart from me)

[SnowIsOn]

This was the title of an article in the Times at the weekend.

The writer is an author who in the process of researching a character for her latest book contacted select female friends who then anonymously reported back - 12 out of 17 were having or had had affairs.

Obviously take this fluff piece with a huge pinch of salt but I can only think of a handful of people I know who’ve had affairs and they’re all just acquaintances. So this just doesn’t ring true to me. See it a lot on threads here, but that’s from a huge readership and very self selecting, and it’s mostly the husbands who are doing the dirty.

Or am I very naive, are a large minority of mid life women having affairs and are super good at hiding them?

I'm not aware of anyone I know having affairs. I've been with DH 22.5 years and never strayed, as far as I am aware, he hasn't either...

I'm with you on this. Out of everyone I know, I'm aware of 3 affairs ever so it's much tinier. Obviously I don't know what everyone's up to but the response to the affair in our friendship group a couple of years ago suggested to me that it's completely unusual and not the norm at all. It was a huge shock and lives were fucked up. I have never had an affair, never had the inclination and I don't think that's super weird?!

I don't know, OP.
Not here to be bashed, but I had two affairs in my mind thirties (not middle age then) and now at late forties lost all interest in said things and men.
Yes, still long term married, husband knows.
(Lots of circumstances).
How old are these friends?

Everyone has time for an affair. Anyone saying otherwise is a mug. Women are better at keeping the secret, men are cocky and think they won’t get caught but women understand the risks

I’m aware of a few alleged affairs going on, but I’d be surprised if it was that many. I think I read somewhere that about 40% of women and 50% of men have had affairs. No idea if that’s accurate though.

I completely disagree. Affairs were so so common say back in the 50s and 60s for example.

I'm sure none of my close friends are. They have quite strong morals around infidelity and are also knackered dealing with work, troubled teens, menopause, elderly parents etc. And most are in long, stable marriages.

The thought of having an affair makes me weep with exhaustion. I'd just want to shout: Go away! Stop needing me. I am sick of being needed every minute of every day to meet the demands of other people.

Also, I love DH.

I’m not aware of anyone actively having an affair, but know of several marriages that have split due to one. It’s been both male and female part who have had the affair. - The men have to be sleeping with someone!

We’ve definitely suspected a few in my workplace (and one was confirmed when they were caught on cctv in the underground car park 🤦‍♀️)

Im also not in the police, but know from friends who are that it is rife and multiple people have had to be moved around to different shifts etc due to being caught. Being on your own with another person in emotionally volatile situations will do that. Not that I’m excusing it.

I went on an illicit site after my divorce as I had read that there were quite a lot of singles on the site of late, also wanting no strings relationships.
I was inundated with messages (over 100 a day sometimes) from men (90% married) who were looking for 'one partner for sex and a close relationship' with. It seemed to me that the majority of men didn't classify this kind of relationship as an affair, simply something they wanted as there was no longer intimacy from their partners. All of them still wanted to be in their marriages. Interestingly, it seemed (from what I was told) that it was the women who wanted more of a connection and often fell for the men.
I know many of the comments on here say 'how does anyone have any time for an affair' but from what I learnt, many hook ups were during lunch hours or after work when hotel sex could be covered by 'my meeting is running late'. Often men said that they were tracked by their partners on their phones but simply put their phones onto 'flight mode' whilst at the office and then quickly shot off to see their lover... reactivating it when back at the office.
It was quite an eye opening experience.

I had an affair, nobody would have ever known or suspected. You really don't know what is going on in other people's lives, however close you are to them.

As for how do people have the time? Where there's a will there's a way. Lunch breaks, meeting 'friends' etc.

It's not a binary issue.

When a woman posts about how she's felt the need to take comfort elsewhere, she gets a greater proportion of people sympathising than when a man posts the same.

This isn't surprising, given the demographics. It just needs to be taken into account by those crowd-sourcing advice.

I think it’s a lot more common than you think. How would you know?

I remember working at a large corporation in the late 90s and there were lots of married people shagging. So much opportunity- work dos, conferences… I remember being slightly horrified and unfortunately it did shape my views on marriage. That nobody is immune to infidelity really.

I trust DH as much as I can but not with blind trust. He travels lots with work. All I can do is trust him until I have a reason not to.

Though I’m quite philosophical about the whole thing and don’t really judge others that much. Look at the French! People have been having affairs since the dawn of time. I’m not sure we are supposed to stay married to one person for 20-30 years. Those that do and are happy and satisfied do have something special.

The other man must have been smokin' hot stuff under those circumstances 😂

I think there are probably social sets/jobs where cheating is the norm and others where it is unusual.

This.

Two of my female friends have had affairs that I know of. But with each of them, I am the only one they've told. So I assume there will be several others who haven't told me. None of my male friends have confided in me about affairs, but I don't think that reflects them being less likely to have one, just less likely to confide in me.

None of my friends marriages have broken up because of affairs (that we're aware of), though. So may be I'm in an unusually faithful sub-culture.

Much easier to do, too, in some ways, before mobiles, CCTV etc — when being ‘away for work’ meant being largely out of contact.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening but 12/17 is a lot! That can't be generalised surely.

I don't think I know anyone who is having a secret affair. But surely there is the thing... it's a secret.

It peaks in late 50’s apparently, having affairs that is. I don’t even want to see my naked body

When I lived in rural France everyone was having affairs. There were even a few children who all looked like each other (same dad was suggested).

I know for a fact that a busy lady I know has had a few affairs during her marriage. She loves her husband very much & has never wanted to leave him. I don't think he knows.
She's gone years without having an affair then bam, she meets somone & becomes addicted to that dopamine hit you get when you meet someone new.
Once that wears off she comes back to reality. I don't know what the answer is, maybe we're not meant to stay with one person forever.

All these posts saying it’s the men who are doing the cheating, presumably most are cheating with women so there’s a lot of women at it as well. I’m divorced and online dating sites were full of married men/men with partners looking for a fling, men asking if they could come straight to my home instead of meeting for a drink (absolutely not and they obviously are already partnered and didn’t want to be seen out) and men inviting me to their home during the day ( wfh and wife/DP at work ? I didn’t find out) it is an absolute cesspit and probably why I didn’t find a suitable partner online. I would not entertain any of this but presumably some women would otherwise they wouldn’t keep trying. And apart from this you have people having affairs with work colleagues/ friends/ neighbours I know people who have been in all of these scenarios. So yes there are lots of people having affairs, I think it happens more than people realise.

Again, I think that’s deluded. It’s a pretty ordinary thing to do. A 2024 survey suggests 36% of adults have had an affair, with not much of a gap between men and women. It’s not something a tiny minority of Evil People do.

Not only can't be generalised, also highly unlikely to be true.