This helps me understand quite a bit more.
How does someone who’s 100 pounds overweight continue to eat too much, when he KNOWS he’s stressing his heart, reducing his life expectancy?
How can a smoker continue to light up, knowing the health risks, in spite of emphysema and cancer?
How can a drug addict continue to shoot up when he knows it’s killing his brain cells and alienating the people who love him?
How does a gambler lose the mortgage payment and grocery money?
Why do people do anything? People choose short-term gratification over the long-term “greater good” all the time. We’re weak. Just in different ways, and for different reasons.
Well, how about that.
I think it was asked a little upthread, but did any of your friends or family know this was going on? Do they know now? If so, what did they have to say about it, or what have they said since then?
A few years ago my best friend was considering taking up with a married man and I sort of flew off the handle. (I pulled the old, “I take great offense to what you are contemplating ON BEHALF OF ALL MARRIED WOMEN!!”) She didn’t say much when I was going on about it, but she also didn’t talk to me for a couple of weeks afterwards. She never mentioned it again and as far as I know, nothing ever came of it. I look back now and think it would have been more constructive to ask her about the reasoning behind why she would find it acceptable to be second best, etc.
I did confide in my best friend. She was a good sounding board, not condoning or condemning. She just listened and made observations, some of which were hard to hear, but it helped me sort things out. But she was the only one I discussed it with.
It sounds like your friend trusted you enough to confide in you because she was unsure of what to do (you said she was “considering”) and wanted help, but when you let her know your view in no uncertain terms, she shut down. She probably could have used your advice, if your reaction had been less severe. Is she still your best friend?
I have had more than one woman come to me before taking a step into such a relationship. I am aware that they pretty much knew, where I would stand on it, before mentioning it. Like you, these woman were smart, good looking and intelligent. I found it quite mystifying, truly.
Honestly, I always found their considered actions as being incredibly offensive to the intelligence they’d been gifted with. Stepping onto the tracks when you can see the train coming, doesn’t seem really smart, to me. Life experience has taught me, the price is pretty high, when you willfully ignore what’s plain to see.
What I want to ask them is how do they not feel like a sexual predator, in a way. After all they are stepping outside of the societal boundaries, of who is sexually available to them, ignoring any pain/damage caused to innocents, (wives, children, families), as collateral damage, trumped by their sexual needs/desires.
He is sexually available. Very much so. He is a grown, free man who has made a decision to break vows that he made. That makes him available. I find the last paragraph of your post incredible. A sexual predator? That’s the kind of witch burning attitude I’m talking about. The OW doesn’t deserve that level of condemnation.
ETA: I just noticed that you qualified your sexual predator statement with ‘outside of the societal bounderies of who is sexually available to them’, which I don’t really think means anything, but it’s better than what I thought you were saying at first.
Easy. *His *wife, *his *family, *his *responsibility to make sure that this doesn’t affect them.
IOW, it’s all about ME and the rest of the world can go hang. How is that not her issue? (I’m talking about all women who decide to fuck married men, not the OP). Sure, the hound-husband is an asshole and a waste of space, but TOW is not “innocent” in this in any way. She knows the unspoken contract and she says yes. Both parties are culpable.
I’m puzzled as to what the OP expected here. Approval? Validation? Sympathy? Kudos for ending the affair? Recognition that TOWomen are people too and have feelings and can be hurt? That last one goes without saying, but it’s kind of like watching someone shoot themselves in the foot. You know it’s wrong, that it’ll hurt, that it may cause “collateral damage” etc, but they do it anyway. Your sympathy is then tempered with a whole lot of :dubious: and even some of this: :rolleyes:
(TOW here means TOS, The Other Spouse–all this applies to married women who cheat and the men who cheat with them).
Never said “innocent”. Said “not responsible”.
Frankly, marriages and families aren’t destroyed by infidelity, they’re destroyed by *discovery *of infidelity. AFAIC, it’s the married party’s responsibility to prevent discovery, and ensure that what they never know never hurts them.
That’s like saying it isn’t the bomb that does the damage, it’s the way it explodes.
I almost never agree with you…but this made me all misty. You did the right thing.
Diogenes got it right as well. Sometimes things are very clear.
Especially the “sympathetic victims of circumstance” part.
That said, the OP deserves a lot of credit for cutting off the affair and for acknowledging (if not in totality, in good part) her culpability. I hope you realize a lot of posters (me included) are genuinely curious about your experience.
I didn’t say you said innocent. I disagree as the “not responsible”–I say not wholly responsible, not even close, but TOW does hold some responsibility. It’s hard to have an affair all by yourself…
Marriages and families are indeed destroyed by infidelity, even undiscovered infidelity. Not all cheating destroys a marriage; much depends on the cheating and the marriage. But if the reasons for the cheating remain after the undiscovered infidelity is over, that marriage is on a selfdestruct course. Whether or not it would have ended w/o an affair is irrelevant, really. IOW, the affair was just a symptom of a larger problem.
Then again, there are people out there who just want a novel fuck and don’t care about their vows/spouse/kids etc. There seem to be plenty of other folks who are happy to oblige these folks. The OP, from her story, wasn’t one of these people, which is to her credit. But surely we are now arguing about honor among thieves?
It is. Ever seen any damage from an unexploded bomb?
If those reasons exist, before, after, or exclusive of any infidelity, the marriage is on a selfdestruct course.
OP, I wanted to say thank you for this thread. I had a best friend once who got involved with a married man. When she approached me, I reacted with a very harsh, shocked reaction - “What the fuck are you doing? Are you insane?”
I lost my best friend because of that reaction. We are still…friends, but I see she is very careful about what she tells me, and remains very distant.
Her affair went on for years. Yes, she was wrong to do it. But all I can think of is how I let her down when she probably needed me the most.
This thread really helps me see how what she was thinking and what she must have been going through. She did hope he would leave her. I knew he wouldn’t, ever, and she spent most of her twenties on this man. But he had kids - no way he would leave his wife.
And I love my friend, even if all of this has come between us. I wish I could talk to her again, but she won’t let me in anymore.
Yes, and the affair is only a symptom of the trouble the marriage is in. I think we are essentially speaking from the same perspective, just saying it differently. 
IMO, one has to draw some lines in one’s life. Where those lines are drawn are up to the individual, but it’s helpful to remember that everyone has different crayons. Society (us) has drawn some lines as well.
I can understand the appeal of an affair, from both sides. I can even sympathize with all the parties involved. But that sympathy and understanding don’t make it right.
There’s another thread running right now in which the OP reveals that she is conteplating a threesome, with everyone knowing what’s going on.
I always wonder, when it comes to these Other Woman/Other Man scenarios, why more people don’t try to renegotiate or redesign their marriages. Is it just because hiding one’s actions taken alone is easier at first? Is it because most of us aren’t used to the idea of changeable marriage arrangements? Is it that the marriage vow is considered perfect, irrevocable, and, once it is executed, even thinking of changing it is dangerous? Even the idea of unilaterally ending (i. e. divorce) it is relatively new and controversial. But if a non-marriage contract no longer satisfied, would we not try to renegotiate it?
I’m one of these idealists who believes that ‘all acts of love and devotion should be acts of worship’, and ‘consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm others’. In some way I don’t get cheating. But I’ve never been in a long-term relationship of more than 4 months, so maybe I can’t in fact get it.
Someone upthread mentioned that the sensation of illicitness was exciting to them. Is this excitement common? I’ve found that this sensation is at best a major distraction from something, and much more often takes away any enjoyment I might have in it, thus ending my interest.
Unexploded bombs are just as unwelcome in my marriage as exploded ones.
And that’s reasonable, but the thing is, exploding is generally how bombs announce themselves. Also, bombs don’t plant themselves. Blame whoever put it there.