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?

How would you know??? If you’re having an affair you’re hardly going to shout it from the rooftops are you 😑 And it’s always the ones who look like they haven’t got time……..the ones you’d look at and think - never in a million years!

Maybe the answer is to make it clear to your spouses that you are not interested in monogamy, or not after 20 years anyway.

I dont think it's deluded.
I'Ve worked in work places where affairs were blatant (eg corporate law) and others where they were far less frequent (not least because some teams were all women)

I'm sure you look perfectly fine but thank you for giving me a much-needed laugh today!

You can have affairs with people outside your team!

I know someone who is single, in her 40s and meets up and sleeps with married men she's met on dating apps. Apparently there's lots of married men who work from home and take time out of their 'working' day to meet up.

And they tell her the old lines of 'my wife doesn't understand me' 'we no longer have sex so I have to do this' and all that shite.
She's no longer a friend after she told me this.

@SnowIsOn I misread the title of the thread and thought it was midwife friends!

I genuinely don't know anyone having an affair. I could just be incredibly unobservant.

I'm well aware of that. I am just giving an example

Different groups of people do have different values , different cultures, different opportunities and behave differently

They’re generally not much talked about, though. DH and I had no idea that a mutual friend was having an affair even though he was staying over in our house on his way to and from seeing her (on work trip to another country) — we did think he was behaving a bit oddly and once or twice ‘missed’ his flight home, but it only made sense after he told his wife (also a friend) and moved out.

I only knew a colleague was having an affair when I happened to see him kissing someone from another department in a car park I was walking through.

And in several cases of friends, they only told me after the affair had ended. One told me immediately after, as he’d ended it and she was distraught, but a couple of others told me years later.

I figured out my sister was having an affair but she's never actually admitted it to me.

She did leave her husband eventually and I think he was so confused as she started making him out to be awful person

She cheated on all her boyfriends when we were younger so I think some people are just no good at monogamy and should probably be honest with themselves and their partners about that and only commit to open relationships

I have no issue with everyone willingly agreeing to an open relationship but cheating causes so much suffering and shame

Nearly all. I also know of two women who cheated on their (male) partners with another woman.

Maybe it seems fewer women than men are having affairs among MN users because they simply don't have time to be online as well.

Women who have affairs are more likely to keep it quiet.

They will aware that they will be judged more harshly by friends, family and society. There will be the threat of much more shame then when a man does it.

Apparently the reason why middle aged people are the best ones to have affairs with is:
They don’t tell
They don’t yell
They’re grateful as hell!

It still happens in very female-heavy environments. Schools are a case in point. The Royal College of Nursing had a huge sexual conduct scandal and had to move its conference (rather unfortunately named as its annual ‘Congress’!) online one year due to ‘a prevalence of extramarital sexual relationships’. Not my words, those of the KC conducting an independent investigation.

I wonder if having few men around makes those available seem disproportionately attractive?

I think this is very true. I have told nobody that I've been seeing an attached man for nearly 2 years. Not a soul. He has told all 3 of his brothers and 1 friend. They've told him it's risky and a dickhead move, but that's it. No rejection, no threats to expose him. I don’t have a long-term partner to betray, but I still fear rejection and judgement from my nearest and dearest should they find out.

Can I ask how you justify your behaviour? Do you think the response from your nearest and dearest would be deserved?

Yes women are judged more harshly by society than men are for having affairs. Just another example of inequality at play between the sexes.

@DuchessofStaffordshire

It’s best never to judge. No-one knows the ins and outs of someone’s situation. Nothing is as black and white as we like to believe - it’s lazy thinking to assume so

It's rife in the church (staff included) 😁 it's quite amusing

Fair question. I don't justify it.

How do you live with it on a daily basis then? I don't think I could live with the guilt but I do realise we're all different.

A couple of my married friends have had several affairs. It’s really difficult as I really like both their husbands & spend time with them socially. But it’s not my place to judge them - their circus, their monkeys. I’ve been round & round in conversations about them both leaving but neither of them have the courage to do it. It’s not a life I’d personally choose to live - it’s very inauthentic & my conscience wouldn’t allow it.

It's not comfortable, but I don't shy away from looking at those feelings. It was a self-serving decision to get involved with him after coming out of a bad LTR myself. The boundaries made me feel safer. He will never leave his partner as he loves her and their life together, and I didn't want the expectation of things "going somewhere". I don't want to hurt anyone, but I realise there's a risk that that may happen. I'm not pretending otherwise.

I believe other people may deal with it differently.