# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/121 "2013-01-31T20:07:35Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > People (not to generalize, but they’re always women) often talk about cheating with language like this, where the betrayal is \>99% the lying and only peripherally about the sex. Maybe that’s true, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around. I mean, really, are you really going to be that much less pissed if your husband walks in the door and announces “you know that 19 year old intern at my office? I had sex with her at lunch.” Because now there was never a moment of deception, just the infidelity itself. I think you’ve missed the point. Sex without lying, in the context of an extramarital affair, means extramarital sex _that your spouse knows about and has consented to IN ADVANCE._ Call it an “open marriage” or “separate bedrooms” or “an agreement to mind our own business” or whatever you like. The point is that both spouses have agreed to revoke their strict marital vow of sexual fidelity _before any extramarital sex actually happens._ Your example of deliberately having extramarital sex behind a spouse’s back and against a spouse’s wishes but then confessing it at the earliest possible opportunity does not count as “sex without lying”. The cheating spouse was still lying, they just happened to stop lying sooner than most. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Like\_Pie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9f8e36/32.png) [@I\_Like\_Pie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Like_Pie)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/122 "2013-01-31T20:08:41Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > You do have conversations with them. You do work on it. You do try, and try, and try. And after a while you realize you’re trying to have a rational conversation with an irrational person. But you have kids. And kids need parents, so you keep it together and you keep working, but sooner later you’re tired of working on it. > > Shit happens. Relationships are complex. It’s not about Ricky getting mad because Lucy used too much soap in the washing machine and flooded the floor kind of shit. **It’s BIG shit like running up credit card debts, or gambling, or drinking, or refusing treatment for mental illness shit.** This is the kind of shit that drives people away and into the arms of someone else. > > Anyone can sweat the small stuff and shrug it off. But life isn’t a sitcom. People don’t cheat because the roast was overdone or the garage didn’t get cleared out. (Usually.) All the more reason to get out while you can. I’m not trying to put anyone down, I’m just having a hard time understanding why someone would choose to go through life in a state of monotony. I can understand people who do not have the means to leave their spouse staying married for one reason or another; but cheating (which is what this is about) is not the answer. You’re replacing one problem with another. IMO cheating is the ultimate “Fuck You” to your partner. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/123 "2013-01-31T20:14:43Z")
If you’ve never gone through a marriage that is slowly dissolving, it IS hard to imagine going through it. But a few of us actually have, and are trying to explain to you that your preconceptions are wrong and you would probably actually suffer through a lot more when you’re in the middle of it. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not something people go through with eyes wide open. You’re in the middle of it with a lot of sadness and hurt, resentment, guilt, and social pressure to just stay where you are unless you have a good reason to leave. But that’s what it is. Be glad you’ve never been there. It’s a humiliating and soul sucking experience. Not to mention all of the people who are on the outside saying what a shitty job you did of dealing with your marriage falling apart, and that’s without even discussing anything to do with infidelity. ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/124 "2013-01-31T20:43:05Z")
You know, I’m amazed how polarized the responses are. You want to know something? Sometimes the path toward cheating IS NOT the symptom of troubled marriages. How about this case: (Allow me to **Skald** a bit.) A couple is married more than a dozen years. Lots of shared interests. Lots of fun times and being together. A great child. In all of that time, no other woman has interested the husband in the least. No thought of cheating ever. Really, the kind of “happy marriage” that could be held up as an example. Then the husband meets a woman who is every bit as wonderful as his wife is. Very similar in many ways. Same shared interests. She’s also married and is a mother. The new woman is so compatible, the husband feels as if he were not already married, he would marry the new friend. And the attraction is mutual. And very strong. Really an “If it were a different time in a different situation. . .” thing. In this case, there is a huge potential for cheating and disaster. The husband is not attracted to or in love with the new woman MORE than he is to his wife of many years. But he cares about her very nearly as much, if not exactly as much. In this case, the idea of “cheating” has been considered by the husband for the first time in his life. And he’s no spring chicken. And the idea of cheating has occurred to the new woman, too. It’s been discussed between them. Both, however, care about their own spouses and their own families too much to “betray” them. What has happened is that both married couples and their children have become very good friends. They do things together. They all enjoy each other’s company. Almost kind of merged families. If sex happened between Husband A and Wife B, or for that matter between Wife A and Husband B, it would be “cheating” because of the understandings the partners had with the spouses at the time of their separate marriages and because of prevailing social norms. But it would NOT be because of any pre-existing problems in either marriage. It is possible to love one person just as much as you love another person. We experience this within families all the time. A man doesn’t really love his mother MORE than he loves his wife or his sister or his daughter. And he can also love someone from outside that family unit just as much. There are far more “gray areas” in life than most of the posts in this thread seem to acknowledge. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/125 "2013-01-31T20:50:09Z")
Well, you seem to be talking about people with a proclivity for polyamory, which isn’t exactly what anyone here is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/126 "2013-01-31T21:01:51Z")
> [@KermitTheFrig](#): > > You know, I’m amazed how polarized the responses are. […] > > How about this case: […] The new woman is so compatible, the husband feels as if he were not already married, he would marry the new friend. And the attraction is mutual. And very strong. […] > > In this case, there is a huge potential for cheating and disaster. […] > > Both, however, care about their own spouses and their own families too much to “betray” them. > > There are far more “gray areas” in life than most of the posts in this thread seem to acknowledge. While this scenario is indeed refreshingly different from the various “breakdown of marriage” instances previously discussed, ISTM that it fits pretty securely within one of the “polarized” views expressed here about cheating: namely, that cheating on a spouse is a form of betrayal and potentially disastrous, so don’t do it. Sounds like in this scenario, the man and woman experiencing the extramarital attraction agreed that cheating would be a form of betrayal and potentially disastrous, so they didn’t do it. Instead, they expanded their attraction into a non-sexual bond between all the members of both families. A good outcome and a laudable solution, but it really doesn’t add any “gray area” to the basic issue of whether or not it’s wrong to cheat. > [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > Well, you seem to be talking about people with a proclivity for polyamory, which isn’t exactly what anyone here is talking about. Subject to **Kermit** ’s correction, no, I don’t think he was talking about a polyamory situation, just a potential extramarital affair that got turned into a non-sexual friendship instead. Unless you mean that you really think it’s somehow unnatural or abnormal to be genuinely in love with more than one person at the same time, so any married person who falls in love with a new person while still loving and being happy with their spouse must have a “proclivity for polyamory”. ---
**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 31, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/127 "2013-01-31T21:23:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Your example of deliberately having extramarital sex behind a spouse’s back and against a spouse’s wishes but then confessing it at the earliest possible opportunity does not count as “sex without lying”. The cheating spouse was still lying, they just happened to stop lying sooner than most. This is complete gibberish. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I suspect the problem here is that I’m defining lying in the “traditional” way, i.e. telling someone things you know aren’t true, and not the “cuckoo bananas” way of taking one thing that is bad and calling it by the name of another thing that is also bad. Seriously, words actually mean things. Note that I’m not trying to defend cheating in any way, I’m just trying to separate out the logic some people use in casting it as purely a matter of honesty and not a matter of foregoing specific actions. One can be perfectly honest and still do awful things. ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/128 "2013-01-31T21:23:47Z")
Kimstu’s interpretation is correct. It was a potential extramarital affair. The “gray” area I referred to is that affairs do not always require a bad marriage. Or the desire for adventure on someone’s part. Or evil. Those are very black and white notions. Many of the posts suggest affairs are from something going very wrong one way or another. I can very easily see an affair happening almost out of the blue as a rather stupid mistake, but without the heaps of _ **EVIL** _ that are being heaped on it here. An affair could result from two people loving each other as much as they love their legal partners. Doesn’t really make cheating less pit-worthy. It’s just another explanation. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/129 "2013-01-31T21:27:21Z")
Well as far as that possibility goes, I am sure it is possible, though I believe it’s a very low percentage of the time. What we were discussing is how you can stick with a marriage that is bad even when you know you’re unhappy. I was explaining from my experience how slowly and unexpectedly things go bad to the point where it’s not so easy to just wake up one day and see the difference of where you were vs. where you are now. I can’t speak to that other hypothetical situation that you are now discussing. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/130 "2013-01-31T21:28:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Unless you mean that you really think it’s somehow unnatural or abnormal to be genuinely in love with more than one person at the same time, so any married person who falls in love with a new person while still loving and being happy with their spouse must have a “proclivity for polyamory”. Also, I never said that I thought “polyamory” or the ability to be in love with multiple people at the same time was unnatural or abnormal, so I’d appreciate you not putting words in my mouth. And a person who falls in love with a new person while being in love with their wife is the very definition of polyamory, is it not? Even without having a polyamorous relationship setup? ---
**Author:** ![slumtrimpet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@slumtrimpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slumtrimpet)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/131 "2013-01-31T22:15:13Z")
Well goody, if we’re going to do ‘hypotheticals’ here, how about this one; A couple is married for about a quarter century. It’s not a great marriage, but it’s not awful either. They have children. The husband starts having casual affairs. Wife is clueless. Marriage becomes a little less tolerable, but still not ‘OMG I need to get out of this’ bad. You’re right, **Ladyfoxfyre** , it’s a slow process. Husband then finds a younger more fun person and has a full blown affair. He spends as much time as he can with his new love and as little as he possibly can with his old worn out family. Wife finally catches on. Husband leaves; leaves her, leaves family, blows the marriage off. Is the affair a symptom of the problems in the marriage or did the affairs help create the problems in the marriage? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/132 "2013-01-31T22:28:51Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > This is complete gibberish. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll try to be clearer. I think that people who say about affairs “it isn’t the sex so much as the lying” mean that it’s the inherent dishonesty in cheating that is the worst part. (And of course, the additional dishonesty involved in telling fibs about “working late” and so on is bad too.) That is, feeling sexually attracted to somebody other than your spouse isn’t such a terrible thing, but acting on that attraction to actually have sex with them is what makes a lie out of your purported commitment and fidelity to your spouse. Maybe it would make more sense to you if it was phrased “it isn’t the sexual attraction so much as the fakery of commitment.” ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/133 "2013-01-31T22:39:11Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > What we were discussing is how you can stick with a marriage that is bad even when you know you’re unhappy. Well, that’s what _you_ were discussing, but you were not the OP and there were more than 20 responses before you showed up. The OP was pitting men and women who cheat. I didn’t see your name mentioned there. The “hypothetical” I proposed was intended simply to point out that cheating might sometimes occur is situations that are by no stretch of the imagination “bad.” Almost every example of cheating here was heaping tons of crap and blame about what was WRONG someplace. That is NOT always why it might happen. You may carry on talking about you now. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/134 "2013-01-31T23:26:36Z")
I can only give perspectives from my experience. I’m sure your hypothetical has happened to someone, somewhere. It just didn’t happen to me. So with that said, I’ll just be going now. ---
**Author:** ![KermitTheFrig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/47e85d/32.png) [@KermitTheFrig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KermitTheFrig)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/135 "2013-02-01T00:11:55Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > I’m sure your hypothetical has happened to someone, somewhere. I’m even more sure than you are. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/136 "2013-02-01T01:51:49Z")
> [@I\_Like\_Pie](#): > > This is what I was getting at. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to be honest. You’re married to someone, probably have kids with them, have seen them naked, sick, at their worst, and have maybe done things with them that would shock your mother; but you can’t have an honest conversation with them? Give me a break. Talking open and honestly can be very difficult for some people, especially when they’re talking about an uncomfortable situation. That’s not an excuse, of course, but just saying, “You should talk about it” isn’t the end of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/137 "2013-02-01T01:59:45Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Talking open and honestly can be very difficult for some people, especially when they’re talking about an uncomfortable situation. That’s not an excuse, of course, but just saying, “You should talk about it” isn’t the end of the story. Talking isn’t that difficult at first, but when you realize that you’ve become the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher trying to reach a common ground it starts to become irritating and pointless. So you shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/138 "2013-02-01T04:27:33Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Talking isn’t that difficult at first, but when you realize that you’ve become the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher trying to reach a common ground it starts to become irritating and pointless. So you shut down. Yeah, not all situations are the same. Some couples need to talk and communicate and work things out, and some couples can talk for an eternity and never work things out, and it’s better to just admit defeat and move on. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/139 "2013-02-01T06:54:21Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Evidently they don’t. However, note that what I’m advocating is not “absolute adherence to the vows, no matter what” but rather _honesty_ with the partner to whom one has made those vows. > > As I said above, I don’t really care if a married couple decide by mutual consent not to abide by their vows of fidelity. Nor do I think that a separated spouse who has explicitly renounced their vow of fidelity is morally obligated to abide by it just because they’re still legally married. As long as you and your partner are honest with each other about your commitment or lack of it, then I think your technical marital status is irrelevant. > > But I would maintain that surreptitiously breaking that vow by deliberately deceiving your partner while masquerading as a faithful spouse is still a pretty sleazy thing to do, no matter how loveless your marriage may have become. > > ETA: as **DianaG** said. None of that is what I was talking about - sounds like you are talking about an open marriage. What I am talking about are people who aren’t really concerned about holding to the vow of monogamy, and who have affairs that they think have nothing to do with their marriage. Sometimes they are married to someone who agrees with them, and sometimes they aren’t. Usually it seems, they are men and they just can’t seem to understand what the big deal is - “I love my wife, the others are just sex!” > [@gamerunknown](#): > > Utter fucking rot. More people approve of “[the US going communist](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2011/11_say_communism_better_than_u_s_system_of_politics_and_economics)” than [adultery](http://www.gallup.com/poll/121253/Extramarital-Affairs-Sanford-Morally-Taboo.aspx?CSTS=aler). I don’t know how a conservative could honestly advocate for breaching a contract in order to become dependent on another as a moral option. I’m not sure what a conservative has to do with it. I didn’t click on your links as I am really tired and it would take forever, but if your problem with what I said is the specific amount of folks that feel that way, please note I said nothing about a specific number or percentage - nor anything about communism for that matter. 😕 If you haven’t met any folks that have far more forgiveness for cheating on a loveless marriage, great, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. > [@slumtrimpet](#): > > Well goody, if we’re going to do ‘hypotheticals’ here, how about this one; > A couple is married for about a quarter century. It’s not a great marriage, but it’s not awful either. They have children. The husband starts having casual affairs. Wife is clueless. Marriage becomes a little less tolerable, but still not ‘OMG I need to get out of this’ bad. You’re right, **Ladyfoxfyre** , it’s a slow process. Husband then finds a younger more fun person and has a full blown affair. He spends as much time as he can with his new love and as little as he possibly can with his old worn out family. Wife finally catches on. Husband leaves; leaves her, leaves family, blows the marriage off. > Is the affair a symptom of the problems in the marriage or did the affairs help create the problems in the marriage? Symptom - you said so yourself above. “It’s not a great marriage, but it’s not awful either.” Sounds like these folks should never have been married in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779/140 "2013-02-01T17:21:01Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > Just really reminded me of that Abnormal Psych class exercise. But you have to admit it does really really sounds that way. I didn’t take Abnormal Psych class in college, so I’m afraid I don’t have your level of expertise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-and-men-who-have-affairs/648779.md?page=8)