If you had an affair with a married person

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure why anyone replies to the cheating threads. It’s just a group of bitter women sock puppetting each other. The answer to every post is cheating is always wrong. With the amount of cheating happening, not everyone seems to agree. But they can’t have an intelligent conversation about the issue with their myopic views. So stop feeding the butter mommy trolls.

[Anonymous]

It’s like a pack of flies who swarm on this carrion every time it’s posted.

[Anonymous]

When I was in my twenties and married men came on to me, I always brought up their wives in a confrontational way.

I always rebuffed them, but wanted them to know how little respect I had for them and how much sympathy I had for their poor wives.

[Anonymous]

My guy and I talk more to each other more than to our spouses. We chat all day during the workday.

Except he is not your guy. You are delusional. What color is the sky in your world?

[Anonymous]

The whole narrative of how a parent’s affair screws the kids up is ridiculous. My dad had an affair with my aunt (his sister in law), and they ended up marrying. My aunt is now my step mom now. Big whoop. You learn to live with it. My dad is so much happier than he was with my mom.

I don’t know how you could ever tolerate being in the same vicinity as your aunt/stepmom (or your dad). The level of betrayal and heartlessness that she inflicted on your mom is truly mind-boggling . . . This would usually ruin not only the AP’s own families but the nuclear family of your mom and aunt. How can your grandparents stand your dad? They must be so ashamed of their daughter. What a dysfunctional mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My guy and I talk more to each other more than to our spouses. We chat all day during the workday.

Except he is not your guy. You are delusional. What color is the sky in your world?

Not to mention a loser who isn’t working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, at one miserable point in my miserable marriage, I began sexting with men online. It was fun and I personally didn’t consider it cheating, just more of a pretend fantasy.

Eventually I landed on a married man and it was awful from start to finish. For one thing, he was funny and smart and sweet and we had a lot in common. I had feelings for him and pretended I didn’t. From what he told me, his marriage was less catastrophic than mine but I still believe it was bad. He admitted his wife wasn’t a bad person but that she refused to do marriage counseling with him and they only had sex 2-3 times per year. Maybe true, maybe not. I don’t think he had much reason to lie, honestly, some woman you are sexting with online is not going to be a paragon of virtue needing a lot of moral justification.

I did think about his wife and kids and felt awful about the whole thing the whole time. I liked him so much and I knew it was going to escalate and there could be no good outcome, so I slowly disengaged and eventually blocked him.

You describe a man like this as “sweet?”

I know it sounds absurd, but he was sweet. He would say very sweet and romantic things, he seemed to love his children. He seemed lost and a little lonely and maybe I just fell for sad puppy theatrics from someone cheating on their wife, I don’t know. I wasn’t much better. I had to end it before I got too deep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

I don't believe in karma per se, but definitely that poor choices often have a cost. As for this person, it sounds like her lack of intelligence makes her susceptible to a comforting "us vs them" ideology. Certainly that may drive people away from you, but that's a separate issue than your AP choosing to cheat rather than leave. He made his own poor choices that certainly cost him something as well. Her being unpleasant didn't suddenly absolve him of treating her with the basic decency owed to someone you once chose to marry.

My husband had an affair a decade ago. I've followed the OW's life from afar since then. There were the self-pitying wilderness years following the affair. Then her finding an older widower and getting married. Now she's 42 and posting about how she still hopes to become a mother some day. I can understand why a ready-made family seemed like a workable option to her at the time. That didn't work out for her, of course. I never wanted bad things to happen to her, but at the same time I understood that the same frailties that made the affair seem attractive were also going to shoot her in the foot in other ways as well, and maybe I didn't always feel too terrible about that.

(And yes, dear reader, obviously I ponder the same frailties and consequences for my husband, but that's a separate post. He certainly made out a lot better than the OW, and the cost paid was disproportionately paid by me, the innocent party. Guilt is only as punishing as a person's capacity for it. Though on balance, I'm satisfied with how we resolved things.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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 do you feel this is a healthy home environment for kids to learn from (cheating/lying mom, who is not in love with their father. Gets her intimacy needs met outside of the family. ) Don’t you think that is going to screw them up??? You are kidding yourself, big time.

The whole narrative of how a parent’s affair screws the kids up is ridiculous. My dad had an affair with my aunt (his sister in law), and they ended up marrying. My aunt is now my step mom now. Big whoop. You learn to live with it. My dad is so much happier than he was with my mom.

DP. Yeah you have to learn to live with crappy things but sheesh you really don’t know what you’re missing out on. Frankly I think people who undergo family upheaval and say it’s nbd have issues they don’t realize they have. How old are you? Have you been to therapy? I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually you will realize this whole thing wasn’t the minor blip you think it is now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

Maybe so but someday you’ll get what’s coming to you too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

Maybe so but someday you’ll get what’s coming to you too.

And even if it's not some obvious tragedy befalling a person like this, just the fact that you think, "It's OK that I'm helping someone cheat on their spouse because it's karma for her being a bad person" is a line of reasoning that many people wouldn't follow. Many people wouldn't cheat, full stop, because they wouldn't see the appeal in being someone's dirty secret, or helping someone live a lie. They wouldn't cheat out of self-interest and self-care; the worthiness of the potential betrayed spouse never comes into the equation.

What other kinds of things will a person like this justify with their special logic? And how many of those things will bite them in the behind at some point? Some will, for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

I don't believe in karma per se, but definitely that poor choices often have a cost. As for this person, it sounds like her lack of intelligence makes her susceptible to a comforting "us vs them" ideology. Certainly that may drive people away from you, but that's a separate issue than your AP choosing to cheat rather than leave. He made his own poor choices that certainly cost him something as well. Her being unpleasant didn't suddenly absolve him of treating her with the basic decency owed to someone you once chose to marry.

My husband had an affair a decade ago. I've followed the OW's life from afar since then. There were the self-pitying wilderness years following the affair. Then her finding an older widower and getting married. Now she's 42 and posting about how she still hopes to become a mother some day. I can understand why a ready-made family seemed like a workable option to her at the time. That didn't work out for her, of course. I never wanted bad things to happen to her, but at the same time I understood that the same frailties that made the affair seem attractive were also going to shoot her in the foot in other ways as well, and maybe I didn't always feel too terrible about that.

(And yes, dear reader, obviously I ponder the same frailties and consequences for my husband, but that's a separate post. He certainly made out a lot better than the OW, and the cost paid was disproportionately paid by me, the innocent party. Guilt is only as punishing as a person's capacity for it. Though on balance, I'm satisfied with how we resolved things.)

The bold is the only thing that matters here.

For a decade, you have given the OW a spot in your mental real estate, a place in your thoughts and apparently at the tips of your fingers as you follow her on social media. You possibly think it's no big deal, you only check up on her rarely etc. But over an entire decade? And with what end goal? To see if karma bites her and if it does, if it's biting hard enough?

I really can understand the huge satisfaction in that--initially. But I can't fathom giving this person one instant of your own precious time all these years later. It would keep the anger and the wounds fresh, like picking at a scab all the time and keeping yourself reminded of her existence. I'm just boggling at the waste of time and mental space on knowing so many details of an OW's life for years on end, if you actually believe you are "satisfied with how [you and DH] resolved things." Ten years of interest in the OW sounds pretty unresolved, somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

I don't believe in karma per se, but definitely that poor choices often have a cost. As for this person, it sounds like her lack of intelligence makes her susceptible to a comforting "us vs them" ideology. Certainly that may drive people away from you, but that's a separate issue than your AP choosing to cheat rather than leave. He made his own poor choices that certainly cost him something as well. Her being unpleasant didn't suddenly absolve him of treating her with the basic decency owed to someone you once chose to marry.

My husband had an affair a decade ago. I've followed the OW's life from afar since then. There were the self-pitying wilderness years following the affair. Then her finding an older widower and getting married. Now she's 42 and posting about how she still hopes to become a mother some day. I can understand why a ready-made family seemed like a workable option to her at the time. That didn't work out for her, of course. I never wanted bad things to happen to her, but at the same time I understood that the same frailties that made the affair seem attractive were also going to shoot her in the foot in other ways as well, and maybe I didn't always feel too terrible about that.

(And yes, dear reader, obviously I ponder the same frailties and consequences for my husband, but that's a separate post. He certainly made out a lot better than the OW, and the cost paid was disproportionately paid by me, the innocent party. Guilt is only as punishing as a person's capacity for it. Though on balance, I'm satisfied with how we resolved things.)

The “frailties” that made her susceptible to squandering her best marriageable years on your lying husband, you mean? I wish women could sue men for this kind of fraud.

[Anonymous]

I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have. I tried very hard for many years not to. And then I did anyway, one day after going through a particularly hard time. We are not having an affair. There is nothing substantive going on. And yet I feel enormous guilt about my feelings, which I cannot stop.

I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. And I sure as hell don’t judge as harshly as I used to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife. She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person. I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts

Maybe so but someday you’ll get what’s coming to you too.

And even if it's not some obvious tragedy befalling a person like this, just the fact that you think, "It's OK that I'm helping someone cheat on their spouse because it's karma for her being a bad person" is a line of reasoning that many people wouldn't follow. Many people wouldn't cheat, full stop, because they wouldn't see the appeal in being someone's dirty secret, or helping someone live a lie. They wouldn't cheat out of self-interest and self-care; the worthiness of the potential betrayed spouse never comes into the equation.

What other kinds of things will a person like this justify with their special logic? And how many of those things will bite them in the behind at some point? Some will, for sure.

As I said, I don't believe in karma, so, no, I don't think that.