^^. Awesome
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What's the saying? "Happy people don't cheat"? |
Statistically they don't have the same shot at all. First, very few affairs end up in marriage. The biggest study on this shows it is 3% (among educated professionals). Of those 3%, 25% make it to five years. So it is possible but is rare. I think it depends on circumstances. If you are using an affair to escape, and you develop a relationship, after a while like all relationships it can lose the allure. Real life gets in the way. Another big one for people with kids is that there is a challenging history. If family finds out it could be awkward when you bring the affair partner over (if it's obvious, like you were married, now you are separated, there is a new person who was your co-worker, not hard to figure it out as I can't imagine the jilted spouse keeps quiet to family about it). So that can create tension. Second marriages are statistically more likely to fail anyway but I think one that has started as an affair has so many more challenges. I don't know, I think even if your marriage was horrible, you need a bit of time to adjust and heal from a bad marriage. It takes its toll on you and if you get started in a relationship before you've separated/divorced I just think you are not being fair to yourself. Also imagine it would be confusing as hell for the kids. |
The reason the 2nd marriage does not have the same shot is because the 2nd marriage has people in it that could not figure out marriage the first time. The statistics change if individual counseling is done to figure out why the marriage failed. Otherwise the person goes into the 2nd marriage assuming their 1st wife was to blame and then find out it is them. It's not that they don't have a shot at it actually 35% do stay married and when you are talking about millions of people that is a lot. 70% of people that divorce and remarry say they wish they would have stayed and worked on their 1st marriage. |
If you read the research done by Shirley Glass she found that for men - "happy men cheat as often as men that are not happy". So if your husband is happy you have just as much of a chance of him cheating as a husband that is not happy. |
I'm also assuming that people find it easier to divorce the second time around because they've already been down that road and its not as scary. |
As a person who cheated in my marriage, and left my spouse for the other person, I can say I definitely changed for the better. That was almost 20 years ago and I've since remarried and am now divorcing again due to my ex cheating on me. I could certainly have justified cheating on him, but didn't because I would have compromised my integrity and wanted to be able to prove to myself I'm better than that.
Once a cheater, always a cheater - - not true if the person truly regrets their decision. |
Yep, and I think the pain of ending a marriage is so great that some people's defense mechanism is "I deserve better!" Unfortunately that means they have even more unrealistic expectations for the next person and even more scars from the divorce, so even less tenacity to work through things. |
well put PP. |
Wow, you really must be something...maybe in your marriage, cheating was justifiable (not), in others', it actually IS the cheater who is to blame. And no, I'm sure your marriage will fail, as this type of relationship rarely ends well...it would be pretty funny and deserved if your current husband cheated and left you, but then it wouldn't be his fault, correct, as you would be to blame as well? ![]() |
I don't think anyone is saying there cannot be happiness when someone moves on from a marriage. But come on --- if you're so miserable that you're out actively looking -- have some self-respect and get a separation or a divorce first. It's sleazy. |
Another no way person here. I wasn't caught. Affair person was an old boyfriend. It was a long-distance thing, mostly emotional, only "actually" cheated once (I am distinguishing from emotional cheating, which I was doing in spades). Turned out old BF was as much of a disaster as I thought in my clear-eyed moments, except since he dumped me all those years ago I always wondered if really I wasn't good enough. At least I got that answered.
It also made me look hard at my marriage and take the steps necessary to end it. It is true that I cheated because things were miserable, but I am NOT saying that was all DH's fault. When I started acting like I didn't care if we did divorce, DH responded. He changed some things, I changed some things, and now we are better than ever. No, as far as I know he doesn't know, and honestly, if he was cheating then (as I sometimes suspected) or had a porn habit or whatever, I don't want to know either. That wasn't us. It was really painful to go through fixing all the bad stuff. Only several years later was I able to finally admit the pain was worth getting to where we are now. I've got the guy I want now, and I don't need anyone else. |
Why the need to actively hate and wish ill upon this woman? Her ex seems to be happy with his new life as well. Six years into marriage with one kid and, by her account happy- this relationship is not the huge failure you so desperately wish it would be. Why should you care? This woman's happiness does not affect yours. Her ex's happiness is not your problem either. Maybe you should accept that a not-so-great event actually had favorable outcomes for everyone involved. |
I still believe that both parties in a marriage are responsible for it faltering. Maybe one spouse doesn't open up about his or her feelings. Maybe one spouse withholds sex. I don't believe that there are too many marriages in which one party cheats, and the other partner thought that things were going along perfectly. The cheating spouse isn't getting everything he or she needs from the non-cheating spouse. Cheating isn't the right thing to do, but I think that 99% of the time, both parties are too blame. |
Of course both parties are to blame. But cheating doesn't justify the fact that someone else did something wrong. That's why you divorce, or work on things, not when you cheat.
Cheating is not about a bad marriage, cheating is about filling something in you that you should be filling for yourself. People seek shit out all the time from other people and it's temporary, it won't get you anything in the long run. I don't give a crap if people cheat or not. But don't blame the other person or say stuff like "it's complicated. life is not black and white." Bullshit. At least own it. If you wanted temporary fun, a thrill to avoid dealing with the pain of real life, to numb yourself for a bit, fine. But why not just say, yeah, did that. It was selfish. Oh well. I moved on. I don't get the justification. Just own it. It's called cheating for a reason, and everyone gets cheated to some degree - the spouse, the person who in the affair, the affair partner. |