Willyouadmitit I completely understand where you are coming from. I have often wondered about the number of people on MN who deny being the OW and as a pp has said below - I believe this is the reason.
The reason people say they’re not the ow is because if a step parent ever complains about anything, some wanker quickly comes along and asks if they were the ow. Presumably because if they were, posters think they deserve any crap thrown at them by the ex or the kids, no matter how many years ago it may have been.
It appears to be a 'get out' to support the step parent for whatever ridiculous behaviour to be thrown at them.
There is a horribly simplistic reasoning on MN for people having affairs. Unfortunately people are all human and are therefore not uniform in their actions. There are also numerous legal and financial reasons why people (especially men)don't do the 'honourable thing' when children are involved. Combine that with the basic fact that few people in a happy, mutually loving relationship look outside their marriage then you have all the combinations required for affairs.
The main issue in my eyes, for affairs are legal and financial. I think we can all admit that the majority of men are the guilty party and the majority of the 'other' are single women. I am well aware that women are more than capable of being adulterous. I am talking about the norm.
When a man has an affair, he is usually seeking sex and companionship. The the top demographic for extra marital affairs are men, in the first five years of a child's life. This is down to simple biology. A women will naturally shift focus of attention from partner to baby. Very often this attention is so intense there is no longer any interest in the partner except for the practical/material resources he can bring to the home to sustain the mother and baby. As we all know, sex is also not top of the list for new mothers. A combination of tiredness , post baby body issues and a growing disconnection. It's not an excuse. It's simply what happens and is partly due to modern parenting styles that encourage women to be 'super mothers' where not carrying your baby around attached to you like a limpid all day and night, somehow means you are not giving them the best.
There is something to be said for old fashioned parenting where babies and children had set bed times and no nonsense was excepted. That way parents actually had guaranteed time together without dcs and found ways to enjoy each other's company as adults without all the focus being on children .
Legally , men who want out of a marriage or ltr fair much worse than women. Men who have an affair get the sex and companionship from OW whilst living with their children (with the added bonus of usually having childcare /washing/shopping/food prep unaffected. ) Honesty has pretty catastrophic consequences. Separation (sometimes permanent due to anger with adulterous parent and parental alienation) , or a need to change work patterns/income to accommodate childcare. Because of this men have a choice of leaving wife AND children - causing devastation to both. Or staying in an unhappy marriage. Or lying. Many choose the latter because they see it as the least upsetting for all concerned 'at that moment' often with no intention of leaving. Leaving usually only happens when the hostility at home makes living together untenable or the adultery is discovered and the adulterer is asked to leave.
The assertion that because someone has been the guilty party in an adulterous marriage is therefore going to do that again is absolute nonsense. If you look on the ONS website for the statistics for 2nd marriages (2015-16) you will see that 2nd marriages end in divorce less than 8% of the time - whereas first marriages is 46%. Adultery is based on situation. Above all else.
Most men who have been through a divorce, custody battles, years of shuttling kids between houses. Non stop arguments with exes and difficult financial outcomes - are extremely unlikely to go through the same thing again. Age also plays a part as does emotional maturity.
Knee jerk platitudes about mistresses marrying their lovers creating vacancies are rarely true. It is possible of course but by no means normal. It's popular on this website because this is a site that supports women . As women tend to be the 'left' party - it's become a line to make people feel better. It doesn't make it true though. A man prepared to leave his children for OW rarely does it for a passing fancy.
The simple answer (after all that) is that people lie. The number of second marriages vs first makes it statistically unlikely that the step mums on here aren't ow but just understandably , reluctant to admit it or the point they are talking about will be ignored and the focus will be on the affair.