# Women (and men) who have affairs. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 30, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779 "2013-01-30T04:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/41 "2013-01-30T18:02:18Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Reread–I only hate my ex. **ladyfoxfire** and I rub each other the wrong way sometimes (most of the time?), but I don’t really have any hard feelings for her. I just thought it was commendable that you could totally tell her to kill her sorry self and she would totally do it but you don’t tell her to because you’re _just that kind of guy_. You just remind her that you could. What a crazy bitch! ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/42 "2013-01-30T18:04:55Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > “hurting your feelings” is something quite different from betraying a vow of sexual exclusivity, which is something a lot of people consider important, even sacred. No it’s not. Assuming no diseases are involved, then ultimately all that happened is that feelings got hurt. A lot, I get that, and it’s not like I’m endorsing or even excusing it, but get the fuck over it, no one deserves to die because they hurt someone’s feelings. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/43 "2013-01-30T18:13:32Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I think the point here is that while having an affair is really, really shitty, it’s not uniquely shitty. It’s not in a category all by itself, somehow above and beyond all the other terrible things one person could do to another. I’d rather my husband cheat on me than develop a gambling habit, lie to me about it, and run us into catastrophic debt. I’d rather him cheat on me than hit me, or destroy my stuff in a rage. I’d rather him cheat on me than commit a white-collar crime and end up in jail. I think I’d rather him cheat on me than simply develop a low-level distaste for me that manifests itself in petty meanness, sexual withdrawal, and emotional distance. > > I’ve never cheated, been with a cheater, nor been cheated on. I am not trying to justify anything or excuse anything. Cheating is awful. It’s one of many ways people can be awful. One type of awfulness doesn’t make another more acceptable. I think this post shows incredible wisdom, but wisdom that can be hard to appreciate in the context of a discussion like this. Part of that is people’s visceral response to infidelity: it’s not just anger over a partner breaking a promise or lying, it’s a big messy ball of jealousy and competition and insecurity that goes beyond the relative harm of the act itself. To me, your post is a reminder of the difference between causing pain and causing damage. We tend to focus on the pain: we fear the pain, and it makes us angry when it happens. But your life as a whole may be altered far less negatively by a burst of short-term pain than by something less visceral but more damaging, e.g. your partner losing your life savings because of gambling, drugs, or simple hubris. We should probably be more grateful than we are when we escape damage-free from relationships that ended painfully. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/44 "2013-01-30T18:14:01Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > I just thought it was commendable that you could totally tell her to kill her sorry self and she would totally do it but you don’t tell her to because you’re _just that kind of guy_. You just remind her that you could. What a crazy bitch! Yes, he’s such a sterling example of [sanity](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15950729&postcount=102). What a pity that they reproduced… ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/45 "2013-01-30T18:18:40Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > You just remind her that you could. No I don’t, I even said I don’t in the passage you quoted, I just remind her my shoulder is no longer hers to cry on. I don’t see that as particularly wrong. If I were the dick you want to think I am I’d be dropping off bags of valium for her to OD on, or actively turning the kids against her, or any number of other passive aggressive things to make her wretched life just a little harder. Not berating her does not make me a swell guy. But it also does not make her any less a monster. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/46 "2013-01-30T18:20:02Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > What a pity that they reproduced… Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/47 "2013-01-30T18:21:06Z")
I’ve never quite understood the rage folks have toward the “home wrecker.” You should be mad at the partner who cheated-- _they_ wrecked their home. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/48 "2013-01-30T18:23:51Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > I’ve never quite understood the rage folks have toward the “home wrecker.” You should be mad at the partner who cheated-- _they_ wrecked their home. I agree 100%. Don’t blame strangers for not keeping your marriage vows for you, expect the people who actually made the vows to keep them. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/49 "2013-01-30T18:26:25Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > I’ve never quite understood the rage folks have toward the “home wrecker.” You should be mad at the partner who cheated-- _they_ wrecked their home. Exactly. You can’t ruin someone else’s marriage. It’s simply not within your power. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/50 "2013-01-30T18:27:17Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > I’ve never quite understood the rage folks have toward the “home wrecker.” You should be mad at the partner who cheated-- _they_ wrecked their home. It’s an easier target. If you blame the partner, then you have to admit there’s a problem within the home team (and that might mean owning some personal faults) and that takes a lot of work to fix or change. It’s akin to blaming the thief who took advantage of your open door. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/51 "2013-01-30T18:38:05Z")
> [@Lunchy](#): > > I see it as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Obviously something will happen in the future that would be considered bad/unfortunate. Yup, Karma struck again. Well officer, although you think I had motive to cause that bastard to die in a fire, clearly, it was just his karma to die in a fire. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/52 "2013-01-30T18:43:52Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > I’ve never quite understood the rage folks have toward the “home wrecker.” You should be mad at the partner who cheated-- _they_ wrecked their home. If you don’t understand that, then you’ve never watched people, who know that your wife is married to you, go hit on her, tell her lies about you to her, get her so drunk she can barely stand and assault her. If you attack the city walls and the walls fall and you kill everyone inside the city and then you blame the guy who made the walls? Yes, there may be problems within a marriage, but attacking the marriage isn’t being helpful now is it? Making one person in the marriage racked with guilt over the fact that you managed to cop a feel from her isn’t some sort of neutral activity. If you think it is, you are a shitty human. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/53 "2013-01-30T18:47:34Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > If you don’t understand that, then you’ve never watched people, who know that your wife is married to you, go hit on her, tell her lies about you to her, get her so drunk she can barely stand and assault her. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure Diosa was not talking about cases where the “infidelity” was actually sexual assault. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/54 "2013-01-30T18:54:01Z")
And if you count sexual assault as “infidelity,” you’re kind of a shitty human. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/55 "2013-01-30T19:02:51Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > For some the taboo is strong enough to warrant at least some due dilligence about verifying the ‘availability’ of a new partner. Readily available phrases include, “So…you married?” or “Are you currently a party to an implied contract of physical fidelity?” (chicks dig that one). Or my personal favorite, “Seriously? You’re single?” > > So yeah, “I didn’t know” is pretty weak. At best it bespeaks of one’s own breathtaking irresponsibility in picking a partner. If you don’t know them well enough to make a reasonable guess as to their relationship status, you’re just as likely to find out you also misjudged the sort of genitalia they sport. You’re presuming that the married person isn’t lying their ass off to sleep with the new person. And speaking as a I’m-married-so-this-doesn’t-matter-to-me-anyway person, I hear from the kids these days that most singles have sex as early as the (_gasp_) second or third date, so I can presume that by then you haven’t met their parents/their friends/hired a PI to find out why your new BF is “working late” and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/56 "2013-01-30T19:13:32Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > You’re presuming that the married person isn’t lying their ass off to sleep with the new person. Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/57b2e6/32.png) [@Quasimodal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodal)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/57 "2013-01-30T20:48:04Z")
I lump both the person in the relationship who cheated and the person who cheated with the spouse together as “Homewreckers”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/58 "2013-01-30T20:55:28Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > This and what **elbows** explained about the real meaning behind “I don’t know…” In my experience, everyone who I’ve ever heard explain their divorce away like that are eschewing responsibility themselves. Case in point is my husband’s ex. She’s currently going through her fourth divorce. And just like the previous three, she can’t understand what happened when she did everything / sacrificed for him. Of course, this doesn’t speak to the fact that she refused to ever work, spent money like it grew on trees, used her children as pawns, wasted her leisure time on Oprah, junk food and Walmart and dodging house work. […] > > So, yeah. None of that could’ve possibly had anything to do with why those guys left and none have been interested since. I know when she tells the stories of her divorces, they are all the villains and she is the innocent same. But this sounds very different from the three women **digs** and **elbows** were talking about, who are saying “I don’t know…” why _THEY are the ones choosing to leave their marriages, with no new partner in sight_. Yeah of course, people who say “I don’t know why my spouses keep dumping me! They’re all villains!” and never consider their own serious character flaws are likely just being wilfully blind and avoiding responsibility, at least to some extent. But people who decide after many years of marriage that it’s better to be with nobody at all than to be with the person they’re married to? And who don’t bad-mouth their ex-spouses when asked why they walked away, but just shrug and say “I don’t know…”? No, that doesn’t sound like “eschewing responsibility” to me. It sounds like recognizing a deep-rooted unhappiness (which may in fact have nothing at all to do with anybody’s being a “villain”) and deciding that the only solution is to end the marriage. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/59 "2013-01-30T21:13:44Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > It’s an easier target. If you blame the partner, then you have to admit there’s a problem within the home team (and that might mean owning some personal faults) and that takes a lot of work to fix or change. It’s akin to blaming the thief who took advantage of your open door. I agree with this. (See Inigo? We don’t hate eachother always!) Especially if you’re trying to keep your relationship together, psychologically it’s much more comforting to be angry at the ‘other’ instead of the person you’re choosing to stay with. That would mean you’re choosing to be with a person who chose another person over you, which would be insane in most peoples’ minds. So instead you’re choosing to be with a person who had a moment of weakness in the face of a slutty temptress. That’s a lot easier to handle. ---
**Author:** ![SweetiePotato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@SweetiePotato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SweetiePotato)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/60 "2013-01-30T21:33:39Z")
I have to admit to sleeping with a few married men in the past, when I was right out of college. Either they say nothing and you find out later (as a reason they haven’t called… but, hey, you know, we could hook up again sometime…?), or they casually mention it in the same breath as a sob story about how their wife has lost interest in them and they’re lonely, blah blah-- this is easy enough to sympathize with if you’re naive and haven’t heard it a million times before. And then there was the casual work acquaintance who would tell me every day how his wife was making him miserable-- it was like a campaign. And after we had our little drunken foolishness, he was SO HAPPY and lit up and it was really awful to see because maybe he’d actually been telling the truth about being miserable. That couple was doomed-- a year or two later, he was remarried to a new woman and his ex-wife was married to the guy SHE had been cheating on HIM with. My experience being the “other woman” makes me realize that, for younger women, the fact that a man is married often lends him more credibility and the come-ons take you off-guard. Clean, professional, married Steve with a framed picture of his children on his desk couldn’t possibly be a lying philanderer! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779.md?page=4)