If you had an affair with a married person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cheat because I don’t want to break up my marriage due to the kids. I love my DH, but I am not in love with him and I need intimacy and he refuses to provide that.

I give the married man I am with something that’s missing in his marriage. Neither one of us wants to get a divorce and we both wished that we would have met each other during different circumstances.

Most people are like this poster. More people should simply be honest and brave and tell their spouse that they have fallen out of love and should divorce. Poster, you and your man should be proactive, leave your spouses and be together. Life is short. If you've found love and intimacy, seize it.

Nothing is missing. He just wants some strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cheat because I don’t want to break up my marriage due to the kids. I love my DH, but I am not in love with him and I need intimacy and he refuses to provide that.

I give the married man I am with something that’s missing in his marriage. Neither one of us wants to get a divorce and we both wished that we would have met each other during different circumstances.

I totally 100% understand how you feel this way and many others will. The piece you are missing though is how you would feel if your husband discovered it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cheat because I don’t want to break up my marriage due to the kids. I love my DH, but I am not in love with him and I need intimacy and he refuses to provide that.

I give the married man I am with something that’s missing in his marriage. Neither one of us wants to get a divorce and we both wished that we would have met each other during different circumstances.

Most people are like this poster. More people should simply be honest and brave and tell their spouse that they have fallen out of love and should divorce. Poster, you and your man should be proactive, leave your spouses and be together. Life is short. If you've found love and intimacy, seize it.

The most likely scenario is she leaves, he doesn’t, she is alone and her kids hate her, he rides off into the sunset unscathed. Men and women often have very different thinking re: affairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cheat because I don’t want to break up my marriage due to the kids. I love my DH, but I am not in love with him and I need intimacy and he refuses to provide that.

I give the married man I am with something that’s missing in his marriage. Neither one of us wants to get a divorce and we both wished that we would have met each other during different circumstances.

I totally 100% understand how you feel this way and many others will. The piece you are missing though is how you would feel if your husband discovered it.

And how she will feel when she sees her kids only 50 percent of the time after her husband discovers it, divorces her and gets 50-50 custody, or decides he wants more than that.

[Anonymous]

Judge not let ye be judged.

Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.

And I’m not even Christian.

Seriously all you righteous people preaching honesty need to look in the mirror, you think your sh!t don’t stink? As they say.

Maybe it’s what you did to get your DH, maybe it’s how you made your money, maybe it’s what you ignore to prosper, maybe it’s what you’re doing to get your kid ahead, but I guarantee you’ve done something in your life that others would take issue with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Judge not let ye be judged.

Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.

And I’m not even Christian.

Seriously all you righteous people preaching honesty need to look in the mirror, you think your sh!t don’t stink? As they say.

Maybe it’s what you did to get your DH, maybe it’s how you made your money, maybe it’s what you ignore to prosper, maybe it’s what you’re doing to get your kid ahead, but I guarantee you’ve done something in your life that others would take issue with.

What is with all the "don't judge!" posts on this and other threads today? If we adhered to "Judge not lest ye be judged" (and yeah, it's "lest," not "let") there would be no DCUM at all.

And coming here to compare affairs with the other supposed "sins" you list is tone-deaf. Others might take issue with some parent who lies on a form to get a kid into a school or whatever. That's vile cheating that deserves to be punished, sure. But it's not in the same league as screwing someone else's spouse.

[Anonymous]

This forum is so lacking in nuance and basic human curiosity it’s amazing people don’t bore themselves to death.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you get to be the arbiter of what kind of cheating is worse. You have no idea about the people or relationships involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been sleeping with married men since i was 18. Im single, so I'm not the one cheating. I am always the one who ends it.

Have you been psychologically evaluated? Do you plan to keep doing this when old and shriveled? Who hurt you that this is what you like doing? Obviously raised in a house with zero morals or compassion/empathy.

+1

I find responses like these to be pretty over the top. So many people on this forum can only see in black and white when it comes to cheating, as in, cheaters and their APs have zero morals and zero empathy. Reality, though, is more complex.

I had a friend in college who lost both her parents by high school. So in a real sense she was an adrift in life for awhile. She had several flings with married men in those years. Before you call her a derogatory name and say she has zero morals, you should also know that she served in the military, rehabilitates injured animals, volunteers at homeless shelters, advocates for the ethical treatment of minors in the system, as a start. She’s a deep and complex person, and a deeply caring friend with a profoundly intellectual mind. She was involved in some flings that very well may have caused some pain. But to say she has no empathy couldn’t be further from the truth.

I know it’s hard to hear that there’s so many shades of gray in these scenarios. It’s easier to think that the woman, or man for that matter, is a moral deprived jerk. But again, life is complex and it would serve us all to remember that none of us are perfect and all of us still add a great deal of value in this world and to the lives of others.

Wah, waahhh, wah. Many people have gone through lots of trauma and still don’t bang married men. Oh yes “some flings that well have causes some pain”. And it’s even plural for gods sakes.

No a lot of narcissists put out phony blogs about their charitable work and it’s all part of the narc bag…all designed for that external validation. Just like the mom bloggers that act like such loving wives and great mothers that are out banging multiple married men behind their husband’s backs. Real salt if the earth people because, hey, they did a fun run for autism speaks.

Huh? She doesn’t blog. She doesn’t do anything charity related. I mean her actual life’s work and paycheck come from child welfare advocacy work. None of this ends up on social media to be clear.

Anyway you just proved my point. I never said her relationship with those men didn’t cause pain. Affairs most certainly cause pain. But you can’t just place every singe person in this box or that based on who they sleep with. In the grand scheme of things this woman has done a whole hell of a lot helping others and making a positive impact on people in need, and having sex with a married man doesn’t erase that, period.

What you say in the bold is true.

It is also true that doing "a whole hell of a lot helping others and making a positive impact on people in need" does not erase her terrible judgement and moral failure in having sex with married men. Two things can be true at the same time.

One can compartmentalize and be a very good, decent, moral person in certain areas, and a moral black hole in other areas, and one does not mitigate the other. She can be a child welfare advocate who has genuinely saved children, and also be morally empty behind a closed door with another woman's husband.

I hope she has gotten therapy for whatever it is in her life that made her feel she craved men's attention and sex so much that her morality, so strong elsewhere, switched off when she wanted a man's validation and body. Maybe she felt she was "saving" men who told her tales of awful wives, so her need to help others was perverted into affairs where she imagined she was helping these men. But unless she herself, not you on her behalf, has shown true remorse and regretted having sex with married men-- all the good deeds don't erase that. She can only live her remorse by stopping having sex with married men and getting professional help to find out why she did so in the first place. If she can see the pain and suffering of children and animals, why could she not also empathize with women whose husbands were cheating with her?

You're just proving the PP's point. Many here, perhaps you too, want to flatten everyone out into one dimension. A cheater = terrible, damaged, immoral person. PP was just pointing out that that is not necessarily, and probably is usually never, the whole story. I think that helping others is actually more important than fidelity, which I think is overrated as a virtue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think single women often don’t grasp the depth of what it means and how it affects people when men do this.

BREAKING NEWS: It isn’t just men who do this…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been sleeping with married men since i was 18. Im single, so I'm not the one cheating. I am always the one who ends it.

Have you been psychologically evaluated? Do you plan to keep doing this when old and shriveled? Who hurt you that this is what you like doing? Obviously raised in a house with zero morals or compassion/empathy.

+1

I find responses like these to be pretty over the top. So many people on this forum can only see in black and white when it comes to cheating, as in, cheaters and their APs have zero morals and zero empathy. Reality, though, is more complex.

I had a friend in college who lost both her parents by high school. So in a real sense she was an adrift in life for awhile. She had several flings with married men in those years. Before you call her a derogatory name and say she has zero morals, you should also know that she served in the military, rehabilitates injured animals, volunteers at homeless shelters, advocates for the ethical treatment of minors in the system, as a start. She’s a deep and complex person, and a deeply caring friend with a profoundly intellectual mind. She was involved in some flings that very well may have caused some pain. But to say she has no empathy couldn’t be further from the truth.

I know it’s hard to hear that there’s so many shades of gray in these scenarios. It’s easier to think that the woman, or man for that matter, is a moral deprived jerk. But again, life is complex and it would serve us all to remember that none of us are perfect and all of us still add a great deal of value in this world and to the lives of others.

Wah, waahhh, wah. Many people have gone through lots of trauma and still don’t bang married men. Oh yes “some flings that well have causes some pain”. And it’s even plural for gods sakes.

No a lot of narcissists put out phony blogs about their charitable work and it’s all part of the narc bag…all designed for that external validation. Just like the mom bloggers that act like such loving wives and great mothers that are out banging multiple married men behind their husband’s backs. Real salt if the earth people because, hey, they did a fun run for autism speaks.

Huh? She doesn’t blog. She doesn’t do anything charity related. I mean her actual life’s work and paycheck come from child welfare advocacy work. None of this ends up on social media to be clear.

Anyway you just proved my point. I never said her relationship with those men didn’t cause pain. Affairs most certainly cause pain. But you can’t just place every singe person in this box or that based on who they sleep with. In the grand scheme of things this woman has done a whole hell of a lot helping others and making a positive impact on people in need, and having sex with a married man doesn’t erase that, period.

What you say in the bold is true.

It is also true that doing "a whole hell of a lot helping others and making a positive impact on people in need" does not erase her terrible judgement and moral failure in having sex with married men. Two things can be true at the same time.

One can compartmentalize and be a very good, decent, moral person in certain areas, and a moral black hole in other areas, and one does not mitigate the other. She can be a child welfare advocate who has genuinely saved children, and also be morally empty behind a closed door with another woman's husband.

I hope she has gotten therapy for whatever it is in her life that made her feel she craved men's attention and sex so much that her morality, so strong elsewhere, switched off when she wanted a man's validation and body. Maybe she felt she was "saving" men who told her tales of awful wives, so her need to help others was perverted into affairs where she imagined she was helping these men. But unless she herself, not you on her behalf, has shown true remorse and regretted having sex with married men-- all the good deeds don't erase that. She can only live her remorse by stopping having sex with married men and getting professional help to find out why she did so in the first place. If she can see the pain and suffering of children and animals, why could she not also empathize with women whose husbands were cheating with her?

You're just proving the PP's point. Many here, perhaps you too, want to flatten everyone out into one dimension. A cheater = terrible, damaged, immoral person. PP was just pointing out that that is not necessarily, and probably is usually never, the whole story. I think that helping others is actually more important than fidelity, which I think is overrated as a virtue.

You missed the entire point of the post to which you're responding. I never said there's one dimension. I actually said the woman can be a good person in parts of her life and lack morals in another part. How is that ONE dimension? It isn't. What you actually object to is anyone who doesn't believe as you do, that "fidelity is overrated as a virtue." But don't pretend the post said things it did not say, just because you want to work your way around to "fidelity is overrated."

[Anonymous]

These threads are so overdone.

[Anonymous]

Huh? She doesn’t blog. She doesn’t do anything charity related. I mean her actual life’s work and paycheck come from child welfare advocacy work. None of this ends up on social media to be clear.

Anyway you just proved my point. I never said her relationship with those men didn’t cause pain. Affairs most certainly cause pain. But you can’t just place every singe person in this box or that based on who they sleep with. In the grand scheme of things this woman has done a whole hell of a lot helping others and making a positive impact on people in need, and having sex with a married man doesn’t erase that, period.

Your friend may do lots of great things, but she also has a pretty big character defect. Maybe that stems from being broken by her circumstances, but she is still participating in inflicting pain on other people (including potentially children). Her good works don’t cancel out this defect. She needs therapy.

[Anonymous]

I think the PP’s point is that there is no such thing as net worth when it comes to goodness. People can be complex and contradictory. This isn’t “The Good Place” where you get totaled out. The only people who see these things in such binary terms are religious people who believe in heaven and hell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cheat because I don’t want to break up my marriage due to the kids. I love my DH, but I am not in love with him and I need intimacy and he refuses to provide that.

I give the married man I am with something that’s missing in his marriage. Neither one of us wants to get a divorce and we both wished that we would have met each other during different circumstances.

Most people are like this poster. More people should simply be honest and brave and tell their spouse that they have fallen out of love and should divorce. Poster, you and your man should be proactive, leave your spouses and be together. Life is short. If you've found love and intimacy, seize it.

The most likely scenario is she leaves, he doesn’t, she is alone and her kids hate her, he rides off into the sunset unscathed. Men and women often have very different thinking re: affairs.

It seems in this case neither party wants to do the right thing and leave their marriage. They want to have their cake and eat it too: the stability and history of a long term marriage and “intimacy” on the side.

How can you possibly build intimacy while you are cheating? There are layers of lies behind everything at that point that precludes any real possibility of intimacy. You can’t cry that your spouse won’t give you intimacy when your chosen solution was stepping out instead of marriage counselling. I say this as someone who had an affair. You are lying to yourself if you think it’s some sort of reasonable solution. Just admit that it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism, don’t romanticise the relationship you have with AP.