Can someone explain the mindset of a cheater?

[Anonymous]

The PP above is right about two things: it's far more common than people realize and these sexless marriages do become happier and more friendly once the sexual tension of initiation and rejection are gone.

It sounds screwy but it's true. The people objecting have no idea because they aren't in this situation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PP above is right about two things: it's far more common than people realize and these sexless marriages do become happier and more friendly once the sexual tension of initiation and rejection are gone.

It sounds screwy but it's true. The people objecting have no idea because they aren't in this situation

It would be really interesting to know the situation of all of those who have commented. Because some of them are spouses who are rejecting sex and don't like to face the reality that their spouse is me. Certainly their spouse can deal with never having sex again without seeking it elsewhere. Those are the, "why can't you just pleasure yourself," or, "why don't you seek her permission?" types. Some are people on their high horse who have a decent married sex life, but see no problem in me being denied the same. They are so certain they would handle the situation or just accept it if it happened to them, while it doesn't happen. I envy them. So easy to judge when you are so clueless. And some people actually get it.

[Anonymous]

Are you this clueless in real life too? OK, I'll explain it to you like I'm talking to a child. What do I have? I have an AP and we provide each other with what is missing from our marriages. Sex.
Why don't I tell her? Are you serious? Do you really not understand why I would throw my AP in her face? OK, since you don't seem to have a grasp on reality, I'll spell it out for you. She would react the same as I suspect you would react. And yes, I'm making a few assumptions here. One being that you are female, married, and would not take it so well to find out your husband has an AP. This would also lead to a huge blow-up, her demanding to know who this woman is that has destroyed her marriage, and... oh come on, you know the rest of this story. Why the F would I subject myself to that? That is all besides the fact that I owe it to my AP to not reveal our arrangement, the same as she owes it to me. Lastly, since you really don't get it, I don't want anything to cause my arrangement to end.

NP. You sound so selfish and horrible. You owe your AP loyalty but not your wife? That is true mental gymnastics. I wonder how you would feel if someone treats your daughter the way you treat your wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Are you this clueless in real life too? OK, I'll explain it to you like I'm talking to a child. What do I have? I have an AP and we provide each other with what is missing from our marriages. Sex.
Why don't I tell her? Are you serious? Do you really not understand why I would throw my AP in her face? OK, since you don't seem to have a grasp on reality, I'll spell it out for you. She would react the same as I suspect you would react. And yes, I'm making a few assumptions here. One being that you are female, married, and would not take it so well to find out your husband has an AP. This would also lead to a huge blow-up, her demanding to know who this woman is that has destroyed her marriage, and... oh come on, you know the rest of this story. Why the F would I subject myself to that? That is all besides the fact that I owe it to my AP to not reveal our arrangement, the same as she owes it to me. Lastly, since you really don't get it, I don't want anything to cause my arrangement to end.

NP. You sound so selfish and horrible. You owe your AP loyalty but not your wife? That is true mental gymnastics. I wonder how you would feel if someone treats your daughter the way you treat your wife.

If my hypothetical daughter, as a grown adult treated her husband as her mother treats me, I'd expect no different from her hypothetical husband. I'd still have her back of course, no matter what.

I'm loyal to my wife. I'm not cheating her out of anything she doesn't want. She can resume our sex life anytime she likes and I'd be 100% loyal to her, with a sad farewell to my AP. Again, like talking to a child, what do you not understand about the loyalty I also owe to my AP? The two are mutually exclusive. It's not an either/or situation.

The bigger question is, what took you so damn long to comment, Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady? And right back at you, what if this happened to your son? His wife totally cuts him off. No amount of talking makes any difference. She is done and she is perfectly content with her decision. She doesn't have a problem with it so won't even consider counseling. Marriage be damned. Don't even bring it up again.

What advice would you offer your son? Or would you just toss him some Astro Glide (I know you have some) and a towel and tell him to take care of it himself? You're right, I am a horrible person. I'm in good company here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Are you this clueless in real life too? OK, I'll explain it to you like I'm talking to a child. What do I have? I have an AP and we provide each other with what is missing from our marriages. Sex.
Why don't I tell her? Are you serious? Do you really not understand why I would throw my AP in her face? OK, since you don't seem to have a grasp on reality, I'll spell it out for you. She would react the same as I suspect you would react. And yes, I'm making a few assumptions here. One being that you are female, married, and would not take it so well to find out your husband has an AP. This would also lead to a huge blow-up, her demanding to know who this woman is that has destroyed her marriage, and... oh come on, you know the rest of this story. Why the F would I subject myself to that? That is all besides the fact that I owe it to my AP to not reveal our arrangement, the same as she owes it to me. Lastly, since you really don't get it, I don't want anything to cause my arrangement to end.

NP. You sound so selfish and horrible. You owe your AP loyalty but not your wife? That is true mental gymnastics. I wonder how you would feel if someone treats your daughter the way you treat your wife.

If my hypothetical daughter, as a grown adult treated her husband as her mother treats me, I'd expect no different from her hypothetical husband. I'd still have her back of course, no matter what.

I'm loyal to my wife. I'm not cheating her out of anything she doesn't want. She can resume our sex life anytime she likes and I'd be 100% loyal to her, with a sad farewell to my AP. Again, like talking to a child, what do you not understand about the loyalty I also owe to my AP? The two are mutually exclusive. It's not an either/or situation.

The bigger question is, what took you so damn long to comment, Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady? And right back at you, what if this happened to your son? His wife totally cuts him off. No amount of talking makes any difference. She is done and she is perfectly content with her decision. She doesn't have a problem with it so won't even consider counseling. Marriage be damned. Don't even bring it up again.

What advice would you offer your son? Or would you just toss him some Astro Glide (I know you have some) and a towel and tell him to take care of it himself? You're right, I am a horrible person. I'm in good company here.

NP. I would tell my son that he is worthy of a life lived openly and honestly. I would tell him that he needed to find the courage to address the problem openly and respectfully with his wife. I would tell him that he owes it to himself to tell his wife he is unwilling to stay in a sexless marriage and he and she can either create a mutually enjoyable sex life, he can seek sex outside the marriage on mutually agreeable terms or they can divorce. I would tell him that seeking sex in secret outside the marriage “for the sake of the kids” was really a disservice to the children - better that he models respectful conflict resolution, honesty and resilience than secrecy, manipulation and false facades.

[Anonymous]

NP. I would tell my son that he is worthy of a life lived openly and honestly. I would tell him that he needed to find the courage to address the problem openly and respectfully with his wife. I would tell him that he owes it to himself to tell his wife he is unwilling to stay in a sexless marriage and he and she can either create a mutually enjoyable sex life, he can seek sex outside the marriage on mutually agreeable terms or they can divorce. I would tell him that seeking sex in secret outside the marriage “for the sake of the kids” was really a disservice to the children - better that he models respectful conflict resolution, honesty and resilience than secrecy, manipulation and false facades.

I’m the PP that the cheater was responding to. Thanks for your answer, I would tell my son similar things. I would also tell him that he and his wife need to be honest and respectful of each other, and that he should not let her decision compromise his own morals. I would tell him that, while his wife’s decision may be upsetting and not one he agrees with, she still has the right to her agency and he needs to be honest with her about how he intends to react to it, so that she can make her own decisions with full information. Honestly, I hope that I would not have to have this conversation with my son or daughter, not only because I hope they end up in fulfilling marriages, but because if they were to end up in a situation similar to the cheater’s I hope that the lessons about honesty and respect my spouse and I have tried to impart to them and model for them would guide them.

[Anonymous]

This back and forth is all about power.

Often, the rejecting spouse does the rejecting to assert power in the relationship. Usually due to resentment, they use rejection as a method of getting revenge on their spouse. If the rejected spouse gets sex elsewhere, they are destroying the weapon that was yielded against them.

Thus the anger.

Because truthfully, if one were truly uninterested in sex, and wanted to remain married, and loved their spouse, they would be happy to have them discretely find an alternative. A sexless marriage is rarely a happy one, and usually the result of deep resentments over time. The people objecting to discrete affairs are almost all rejecting spouses flexing their muscle.

[Anonymous]

To “Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady?”

It can’t happen to my daughter because she has an IQ above 3 which means she understands what happens if she stops having sex. My daughter has also been raised with enough common sense and gratuitude that she would send her husband’s AP a nice gift every year on their wedding anniversary as a Thank You for preventing divorce and allowing happiness in their marriage.

Sorry to hear about YOUR daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To “Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady?”

It can’t happen to my daughter because she has an IQ above 3 which means she understands what happens if she stops having sex. My daughter has also been raised with enough common sense and gratuitude that she would send her husband’s AP a nice gift every year on their wedding anniversary as a Thank You for preventing divorce and allowing happiness in their marriage.

Sorry to hear about YOUR daughter.

Not the PP to whom you respond but.... My exDH cheated on me. When I found out and confronted him he told me a believable story about the cheating (one time relationship during overseas work trip), which I later found out was an extensive lie which he had continued to tell in and out of therapy while begging me to stay with him and my continuing to have sex with him as we always had.

While we were dating, I was very explicit with my DH that I was only interested a monogamous relationship. After his first “affair” when he begged me not to end the relationship, I made it clear again that I was only interested in monogamy and didn’t want to stay together unless he could be monogamous. He could have expressed at any time that he did not feel the same. Instead he lied to me, had our second planned children with me and then lied to me some more.

I finally figured out what he was really doing after some serious sleuthing. What he did to me — there isn’t even a word to express it. It was like a life theft. He lied to me in a way that stole my agency about what my own life would be. The sex part - continuing to have sex with me on terms that I thought were monogamous - that honestly felt like a kind of rape in the sense that it was a kind of sex I hadn’t agreed to. In the law, there is a concept of rape by fraud and what he did really fits in with that idea even though it is not prosecuted (but neither was marital rape for a long time) I deal with a kind of complex PTSD from the whole situation. It has really done damage psychologically to me - my sense of safety is non-existent as well as my desire to form new relationships with anyone. (If he, who appeared so normal and trustworthy, was lying so deeply, what does that say about our ability to know anyone?)

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me and my family on my worst enemy and certainly not on my daughter, let alone train her to expect or tolerate it. That is a big part of why I ended it. I didn’t want my son to grow up to be like him. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up to accept being abused in that way.

You, PP, actually scare me. Your anger and disrespect of women are palpable. I feel sorry for your wife and children. You are actively teaching your daughter that she can’t say no to sex and your son that women should not say no to sex with him.

And so, the cycle of sexual violence continues.

[Anonymous]

It would be interesting to see a survey to determine what % of the population sees cheating as always wrong no matter what vs. those who aren't surprised and accept to some degree that cheating is going to happen if one spouse cuts the other one off from sex and intimacy. My guess is the extremes on this board are not representative of widespread opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To “Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady?”

It can’t happen to my daughter because she has an IQ above 3 which means she understands what happens if she stops having sex. My daughter has also been raised with enough common sense and gratuitude that she would send her husband’s AP a nice gift every year on their wedding anniversary as a Thank You for preventing divorce and allowing happiness in their marriage.

Sorry to hear about YOUR daughter.

Not the PP to whom you respond but.... My exDH cheated on me. When I found out and confronted him he told me a believable story about the cheating (one time relationship during overseas work trip), which I later found out was an extensive lie which he had continued to tell in and out of therapy while begging me to stay with him and my continuing to have sex with him as we always had.

While we were dating, I was very explicit with my DH that I was only interested a monogamous relationship. After his first “affair” when he begged me not to end the relationship, I made it clear again that I was only interested in monogamy and didn’t want to stay together unless he could be monogamous. He could have expressed at any time that he did not feel the same. Instead he lied to me, had our second planned children with me and then lied to me some more.

I finally figured out what he was really doing after some serious sleuthing. What he did to me — there isn’t even a word to express it. It was like a life theft. He lied to me in a way that stole my agency about what my own life would be. The sex part - continuing to have sex with me on terms that I thought were monogamous - that honestly felt like a kind of rape in the sense that it was a kind of sex I hadn’t agreed to. In the law, there is a concept of rape by fraud and what he did really fits in with that idea even though it is not prosecuted (but neither was marital rape for a long time) I deal with a kind of complex PTSD from the whole situation. It has really done damage psychologically to me - my sense of safety is non-existent as well as my desire to form new relationships with anyone. (If he, who appeared so normal and trustworthy, was lying so deeply, what does that say about our ability to know anyone?)

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me and my family on my worst enemy and certainly not on my daughter, let alone train her to expect or tolerate it. That is a big part of why I ended it. I didn’t want my son to grow up to be like him. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up to accept being abused in that way.

You, PP, actually scare me. Your anger and disrespect of women are palpable. I feel sorry for your wife and children. You are actively teaching your daughter that she can’t say no to sex and your son that women should not say no to sex with him.

And so, the cycle of sexual violence continues.

I am sorry for what you have gone through. It is betrayal at its worst. It is also entirely different than the marriages where one spouse decides that sex is no longer part if the arrangement. I think in theses situations many have an unspoken don't ask don't tell dynamic. If the one stepping is discrete this can probably work, although long term, I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
To “Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady?”

It can’t happen to my daughter because she has an IQ above 3 which means she understands what happens if she stops having sex. My daughter has also been raised with enough common sense and gratuitude that she would send her husband’s AP a nice gift every year on their wedding anniversary as a Thank You for preventing divorce and allowing happiness in their marriage.

Sorry to hear about YOUR daughter.

You make yourself sound worse with every post you write. Your disdain for women is clear. Women’s IQ is tied to their desire to have sex with their spouse, a daughter’s role is to serve her husband in bed, a son is owed sex by his spouse no matter what. APs deserve gifts from spouses for “saving” marriages. Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for anyone else’s kids, as your own are bound to need therapy to counteract your influence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To “Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter, lady?”

It can’t happen to my daughter because she has an IQ above 3 which means she understands what happens if she stops having sex. My daughter has also been raised with enough common sense and gratuitude that she would send her husband’s AP a nice gift every year on their wedding anniversary as a Thank You for preventing divorce and allowing happiness in their marriage.

Sorry to hear about YOUR daughter.

Not the PP to whom you respond but.... My exDH cheated on me. When I found out and confronted him he told me a believable story about the cheating (one time relationship during overseas work trip), which I later found out was an extensive lie which he had continued to tell in and out of therapy while begging me to stay with him and my continuing to have sex with him as we always had.

While we were dating, I was very explicit with my DH that I was only interested a monogamous relationship. After his first “affair” when he begged me not to end the relationship, I made it clear again that I was only interested in monogamy and didn’t want to stay together unless he could be monogamous. He could have expressed at any time that he did not feel the same. Instead he lied to me, had our second planned children with me and then lied to me some more.

I finally figured out what he was really doing after some serious sleuthing. What he did to me — there isn’t even a word to express it. It was like a life theft. He lied to me in a way that stole my agency about what my own life would be. The sex part - continuing to have sex with me on terms that I thought were monogamous - that honestly felt like a kind of rape in the sense that it was a kind of sex I hadn’t agreed to. In the law, there is a concept of rape by fraud and what he did really fits in with that idea even though it is not prosecuted (but neither was marital rape for a long time) I deal with a kind of complex PTSD from the whole situation. It has really done damage psychologically to me - my sense of safety is non-existent as well as my desire to form new relationships with anyone. (If he, who appeared so normal and trustworthy, was lying so deeply, what does that say about our ability to know anyone?)

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me and my family on my worst enemy and certainly not on my daughter, let alone train her to expect or tolerate it. That is a big part of why I ended it. I didn’t want my son to grow up to be like him. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up to accept being abused in that way.

You, PP, actually scare me. Your anger and disrespect of women are palpable. I feel sorry for your wife and children. You are actively teaching your daughter that she can’t say no to sex and your son that women should not say no to sex with him.

And so, the cycle of sexual violence continues.

Your story is sad but irrelevant to the post you are responding to. You had an active sexlife. That’s the crucial difference.
It is exceedingly rare for cheating to happen in situation like yours. The vast majority of cheating (especially husbands) is because of a sexless marriage. And yours was not, so again your reply is not at all applicable to the “ Mrs. What if this happened to your daughter“ scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be interesting to see a survey to determine what % of the population sees cheating as always wrong no matter what vs. those who aren't surprised and accept to some degree that cheating is going to happen if one spouse cuts the other one off from sex and intimacy. My guess is the extremes on this board are not representative of widespread opinion.

I know lots of cheating men. Every single one of those is in a sexless marriage. These men would not be cheating otherwise.
Most men are opposed to cheating, but most men exclude sexless marriage as a separate category that is not cheating but necessary to avoid divorce.

[Anonymous]

The mindset and your reaction depends very much on your culture. Most French don’t see anything amoral about an affair. In Finland they refer to affairs as parallel relationships. In Thailand they refer to minor wives. I also think younger generations are much more fluid in the way they view relationships. To be honest, if my DH has an affair, as long as our relationship continues to be strong and he used protection, I wouldn’t want to know.