Anyone ever had an affair and managed to keep it secret?

[parkranger]

well have you and do you regret it now?

hadenoughofwork - if you are still reading. take carexxx

Can't you get it into your thick head that MN relationships is not a good place for you to air your dirty laundry about how "exciting" your affair is and how to keep it secret?
Insensitive and selfish, but then that's people having affairs for you, the people being betrayed have no choice in this situation, the unfaithful partners had every choice, the main one being the choice of not bloody well doing it in the first place.

It's akin to a heavy smoker bleating about having a bad cough on a forum for people dying of lung cancer through passive smoking - completely wrong .

Mal, I disagree, sorry.
I think that this thread shows that there are women who are in extra-marital affairs, most don't seem to be gloating, some seem completely desperate.
My Mother is not a feckless wastrel, she did have an affair, but now I am older and wiser and married myself I can understand why she did. Doesn't make it right, of course not.

Typical of the usual self-appointed Mumsnet moral judging panel to destroy what could have been an interesting thread on human relationships.

Where is the rule that says the relationships forum is only for discussions about things that the sanctimonious crew approve of?

Infidelity is a human condition, it won't stop happening because a bunch of you shout abuse about how disgusting you think it is.

"People who have affairs are all the same, weak and inadequate in one way or another."

Every human being on earth is weak and inadequate in one way or another.

Why do the same contributors always jump on these threads and attack ? Stay away from them if You dont like them

With respect Malificence it is not up to you to police what people discuss.
Those in affairs have every bit as much right to discuss any aspect of them they want here, just as you have the right to zoom in on these threads and express your views.

Unless Mumsnet HQ issue a decree, that is, saying only those wounded by affairs can ever talk about them..I can't see that happening any time soon.

There is another viewoint but some here can't accept that

I stayed away from the birth/my children are driving me mad threads when I miscarried.

parkranger keep discussing. It is very interesting.

Mary, thank you for supporting freedom of speech. At the risk of exposing yourself to the attack dogs, may I ask if you are in the same situation as me or just curious as to whether people in my situation are all devils with horns or shock horror, normal human beings.

Infidelity is a choice not a human condition, and while there are weak and selfish people it will always happen, but we don't need threads about it, especially not nauseatingly congratulatory ones, especially as the majority of relationship posts are from people deeply hurt by betrayal.

erm has anyone heard from TTL? Poor girl seemed very desperate last night and i am glad that some out there see this discusssion as a bit sanctimonious. I agree.
It should be a case of there but for the grace of god go I you know!!

Affairs are sad sad things - I think there are men and women out there who prey on the weak the sad and the lonely. I also think people get themselves embroiled in an affair which I am sure is exciting in the early stages but then becomes deeper and deeper and both sides wanting more and the deceit deepening. It cannot be easy to live with that can it unless you are a non feeling f**kwit which I am sure some people are.

I don't think this has got much to do with the culture of this forum actually - but it has everything to do with human nature.

There are some absolutes in life if you have a moral compass. Deceiving others is wrong - and generally if you wouldn't like someone doing something to you, you shouldn't be doing it to someone else. There might be all the justifications and excuses in the world that led to you to choosing a wrong behaviour, but it is a choice nevertheless.

Like in RL, if someone comes on to this board and says: "I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to stop it" then a more helpful discussion arises....

If someone like the OP comes on to say: "I'm having an affair, I don't think it's wrong. It's really exciting living out a husband and wife fantasy at work, has anyone managed to keep up the deceit and if so, tell me what happened?" then just like we would with someone in RL, we will react with anger and hostility, because basically what someone is asking us to do is to share ways of keeping up the wrong behaviour (deceit) instead of stopping it.

It is human nature, not the nature of these boards, for people to react with hostility if people are asking for help to continue doing something that is wrong.

There are lots of women on this forum who have gained perspective about affairs - the wisest ones are rather more introspective and consider their own behaviour and their own choices, rather than pass the responsibility to the deceived partner for not having sex, not noticing them enough - and the myriad of excuses that everyone - male and female - provide as justification for their choice to have an affair rather than the more difficult, but more ethical choice of either leaving, or of telling their spouse that they intend to have sex outside of the marriage.

There is a pattern though. It is pretty obvious that the Relationships board is full of people who have been on the other end of a deceit and a betrayal. In RL, if we meet people who have suffered through the behaviour we are now enacting, we have the sensitivity to say nothing, or temper our words. On a discussion forum, we are mindful that others have been hurt and if we do actually want a mature, adult discussion about the issues, we take some care with the message we convey.

Parkranger you did none of those things - and you have received a perfectly understandable reaction. Rather than some introspection though (and here you and others will see the pattern..) you blame other posters, likening them to the "Taliban".

It is a pattern I see often on these boards when people are hurting others - their instinct is to blame, rather than take responsibility.

well, it would appear that very few people in my situation are willing to discuss it here. I can understand why given the reaction. I suppose it may have been obvious but i had hoped that those people would just be able to ignore this thread and leave those of us with no one in real life to talk to (for obvious reasons) to discuss things honestly. Clearly that was naive of me.

I think it is so sad that people are quick to judge and be jury too - none of us should judge others for what they do - it is up to the individual to live by their own actions etc.

I am not even going to talk about my situation cos having seen some of the rants on here I would not want my position miscontrued, attacked,judged, sympathised with or anything else.

In any form of communication, we adapt what we say to suit the audience. In that sense, yes, you have been missing the obvious. If you really want a mature discussion about the issues, show some sensitivity in what you write and the tone used. Acknowledge that others have been hurt by the very behaviour you are writing about.

In an open forum, it is unrealistic to expect responses from people who think the same as you and have been in the same situation. In fact the value of the forum would be greatly diminished for you if that were the case.

In your situation. other posters have actually found it helpful to see the perspective of the people they have hitherto dehumanised or even disliked - the betrayed partners that often exist on both sides.

But the greatest value to you would be the realisation that like every situation in life, we have personal responsibility and cannot blame others for the choices we make.

just ask yourself honestly, even if you haven't had an affair, have you never been tempted?, has the idea never appealed to you? And then be honest enough to admit that in the right circumstances , if the right man pursued you, you could not find yourself in my situation. i never imagined i would be here a year ago. But now I am I don't regret it.

I have frequently answered that very question on these boards Parkranger. Yes, I have been tempted - and that is normal, especially in long relationships that wax and wane over time.

But no, I didn't and couldn't have an affair, because it is wrong. Deceiving other people - and not just my H but in many cases, the other party's partner - would be a choice I couldn't live with. But it starts with whether you believe this to be wrong you see. And whether you would want someone to do the same thing to you.

If you don't regret it yet, you presumably don't think you are doing anything wrong. Perhaps you will in time when the deceit comes to light and you have to face some consequences.

looks like I'm the only weak willed one then

I'm coming back after a bit of an absence from the thread. I was surprised that Mal said my views were the most depressing of the lot as in many rspects it seems she and I are very similar.

I have been married for 26 years, and always faithful ( as has my DH been) If he did something I disaproved of of any kind, such as commit a crime, have money problems or get involved with someone else my first thought would be that it would make both of us even more unhappy to bring our relationship to an end. I hope I could exercise forgiveness and try to understand what had gone wrong. If we were to part I would probably suffer far more than if I was to understand and forgive.

I feel very strongly that those with views that are different to the norm should be allowed to express and explore them. Censorship and lack of tolerance is not good.

If one in 4 people are unfaithful at some time surely they cannot all be branded weak and horrible?

The human race is fascinating, the variety of human experience is fascinating and I think we all gain by considering the views of others, even if we strongly disagree.

Earlier I made the point that I stayed away from the Pets section because my dog died - I was criticised for that, but someone else has now said what I wanted to say ( but I thought was a bit insensitive) that is that if you have had a miscarriage you would stay away from the baby and pregnancy threads. ( I have had two miscarriages)

Now we might not find out if there are many members out there who are having happy affairs as they are probably too afraid to post, which is a pity.

I think betraying someone is horrible tbh - whether an affair or any other form of betryal/lies/deceit.

The affairs might be 'happy', but the effect on their partner would be far from 'happy'. I can't help reading this thread and think why not tell your partner and face the consequences if you are so unhappy you need to have an affair?

Yes - there cannot be a "happy affair" if deceit is involved and one or more people would be unhappy at its discovery.

Hiding threads isn't the answer - discussing the issues and learning others' points of view is more helpful, but posters should be aware of the sensitivities on all sides.

Parkranger and other lurkers, I wondered whether a cut and paste below might give you food for thought about your actions? It is something I wrote a few months ago in response to another poster's bewilderment that she had "got herself into a situation she had never imagined possible". It's interesting that the language used on this thread is very similar. This is what I posted on that thread:

I come at this from the perspective that infidelity, deceiving one's partner and denying them choices in life are fundamentally wrong behaviour choices. I also think good people do things that are wrong. I think it's a natural part of our self-preservation in life to justify to ourselves why we are doing something that a) we believe is wrong and b) we wouldn't like done to us. So we make excuses, many of which appear on this thread. Others come on to collude with those excuses and justifications - and I don't think it is necessarily helpful to those of you in such turmoil, which I sympathise with, from a humanitarian point of view.

Those of you (OP specifically) who were honest enough to admit that your marriages were happy before you embarked upon an affair are further down the route to understanding why your affairs happened.

Although this is painful, I think you might gain better understanding of your predicament by becoming much more introspective. What is it about you that led you to this behaviour? Could there be any narcissistic traits in you that have been previously unacknowledged? Are you punitive (he won't have sex/propose marriage/talk about feelings)? What have you been giving to your primary relationship (as opposed to "getting")? If your primary relationship was unhappy and you believe this to be the reason you had an affair, why did you not make a different behaviour choice - to bring your grievances to the table, compromise or indeed, leave the relationship?

I see many times on here people justifying not leaving primary relationships "because of the children". I think that's worth challenging too - how much is it really about the children, and how much is it about other things that you value, such as status, society's approval and in some cases, financial survival?

I can perhaps feel less emotionally charged by people's need to find excuses for infidelity because fortunately, when my H was unfaithful he didn't try to re-write history and claim that there were problems in our marriage - and he never once blamed me for his affair. Healthily for him, me and our marriage, he recognised pretty quickly that this was a fault in him and that infidelity and deceit are never justifiable. So he went about fixing himself and in turn, we were able to rebuild our marriage.

You will however see other men and women on infidelity threads who resent deeply that their unfaithful spouses re-write history, apportion blame in every direction but themselves - and this compounds the hurt.

I also think for those of you who are conflicted about whether the OM is the real deal should try to do a bit of projecting into the future. What if OM one day withdraws sex, becomes selfish - or indeed displays any of the behaviours that you believe are present in your current spouses? Will you have another affair with someone else, or will you learn from this and resolve to express your dissatisfaction in different ways?

The language used in many of the posts is revealing - words and phrases like "victim", "swept away", "can't believe this has happened to me", "powerless" - all of these put you in passive mode and evade your own responsibility for your own behaviour.

Good people do bad things, but if we do, it's about us - it's not someone else's fault and it's a choice we make. The really difficult stuff is about being introspective enough to own the bad behaviour and get to the root of why we're doing it - to ourselves and the people in our lives.

There is something so childish and pathetic about descibing an affair as exciting.

It's like the arsonist saying they got a thrill from watching someones house burn down...

well I am meeting my OM for a nice country drive in a bit....I will let him know that I have been getting this feedback.

ParkRanger, you really need to grow up a bit.

thank you WWIFN. your posts are very eloquently put and your post at 10.57 in particular is something i would have said if i could have put it like that. i find this discussion interesting and relevant to so many people and situations-and to myself(my dp nearly finished us off 3 or 4 yrs ago with infidelity, but as a single woman i had an affair with a married man some yrs ago).

i was looking back at the beginning of this thread and for me it really was the way it was being put-horrible quite frankly, very self-congratulatory imo. that is part of the problem- and i know i wouldn't hold back in real life if one of my friends was acting like that. she might get support from me depending on the circs, but she'd get the truth too.

I'm sure he'll care, parkranger.

I am not self congratulatory nor smug about my position

however done some hard thinking over night and the less judegmental posts have helped me

Thank you