Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to hear from others who feel this way...and maybe others that find it so devastating when their DH cheats. I feel so bad bc I see the hurt it causes some people, but I just don't think that my reaction would be all that intense. I also don't really know why I feel this way, so I'm hoping that if I hear others maybe it'll help me figure it out.

OP, I'm with you on this and I often think about it and even tell DH sometimes (although he thinks I'm joking). I really wouldn't care if he has sex with someone else. If he falls in love, I'd be hurt. But sex, m'eh.

That is what someone else wrote - in general, men are upset by the sex part, women by their husband falling in love with another woman. I do think the sex part would hurt many women, especially if it was not a one-not stand but an ongoing practice. For me, a one-night stand would not be automatic divorce fodder but it would definitely impact the trust that I have and might lead to other problems in the marriage that would eventually cause a split.

My first wife told me this.

I thought that sounded cool because I'm a guy and was in my early 20s, even though I didn't feel the same. Even so, it seemed very impractical to me since I didn't really want another relationship and it seemed unlikely that I'd find someone who just wanted sex. That is, until I found myself at a party talking to an attractive woman who was not only from another country, but was leaving DC the next day. It seemed like if there ever was a perfect opportunity, this was it. We hooked up but didn't have sex. I told FW about it the next day and it was like a nuclear bomb went off.

This is all to say that if you tell DH this, you better be sure you mean it.

Anonymous wrote:I want to hear from others who feel this way...and maybe others that find it so devastating when their DH cheats. I feel so bad bc I see the hurt it causes some people, but I just don't think that my reaction would be all that intense. I also don't really know why I feel this way, so I'm hoping that if I hear others maybe it'll help me figure it out.

OP, I'm with you on this and I often think about it and even tell DH sometimes (although he thinks I'm joking). I really wouldn't care if he has sex with someone else. If he falls in love, I'd be hurt. But sex, m'eh.

Anonymous wrote:I want to hear from others who feel this way...and maybe others that find it so devastating when their DH cheats. I feel so bad bc I see the hurt it causes some people, but I just don't think that my reaction would be all that intense. I also don't really know why I feel this way, so I'm hoping that if I hear others maybe it'll help me figure it out.

I'm the poster who's husband had an emotional affair (got way too close/connected to a coworker). In a way I was in your boat, while it was happening things were so bad between us that I ignored signs, or confronted him and accepted his explanations. He was talking about this woman all the time and I knew they were spending time together, but I didn't do anything to stop it. I didn't say, hey, what's going on with us? Should we do counseling? Our sex life is really stale, let's talk about the reason we aren't connecting. Since becoming parents things have changed. Let's deal with it.

Instead I just retreated to my own life - our child, work, my friends and family, etc. So I enabled it, because like you, I didn't care. I think a part of me was thinking "she can have him. he is a jerk. I'm the breadwinner, I do way more of the parenting, I support him in all his extra stuff and interests outside work, and he doesn't see me as anything other than a mom. he doesn't desire me, and in response I can't and won't care. I'm just going to shut down."

An EA would never have happened our first 5 or more years together. We were connected and I would have nipped it in the bud. So yes, I can relate. You are not feeling connected to your husband right now. The good thing is you have identified it hopefully before either of you had an affair. Now is the time to take action if you want to save your marriage. Counseling is one option, either for you both or just you.

I find it amusing how TSFG knows so much about everything but he/she leaves the thread when it veers off explicit conversation. Go back to your basement and eat your pizza, TSFG.

Ok thanks for clarifying. Well I don't know that you necessarily need to figure out if you'd care or not unless you want to officially have a "random sex is ok" policy. If you don't want to be open about it, then he'll either cheat on you or not and you'll find out then how you'd care.

But for te sake of discussion, I'm the one whose husband had a one night stand on a business trip. I was devastated. We're still together a year later though. I personally didn't consider it a divorce able offense, combining what happened with how totally remorseful he was and how much better of a husband he has been since. So I'm with you on just sex not always being a huge deal. In fact, I'd be open to have approved sex outside of the marriage. I wouldn't be in love with the idea, but I wouldn't take it personally if it was just fun sex.

So why was it so devastating? Well we were in a bad time in our marriage and he was being a shitty husband for a couple of years when it happened. So I was already not thrilled with him. Mostly it was because we were in a monogamous relationship - if he had asked or if we had talked about it, I could have discussed it. But he cheated. He lied about it briefly (although he told me as soon as he got back from the trip). He didn't use a condom, so he could have gotten STDs or made her pregnant. She was also a sort of friend of hers, so that was pretty painful too.

He knew that it would devastate me and possibly blow up our marriage and he chose to do it anyway. That's the worst part. At that moment, having sex was more important than anything we'd built together. THAT was what was so upsetting - not the sex itself necessarily.

OP again. Maybe I see cheating (versus long emotional affair) as so common that I just wouldn't take it so personally? I'd probably think...people do this...they have for thousands of years and will continue to do so. Its not necessarily anyone's fault. If he left me though, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

I want to hear from others who feel this way...and maybe others that find it so devastating when their DH cheats. I feel so bad bc I see the hurt it causes some people, but I just don't think that my reaction would be all that intense. I also don't really know why I feel this way, so I'm hoping that if I hear others maybe it'll help me figure it out.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. You're right. I think an emotional connection would upset me. Random sex though...I don't think I'd care.

Ok OP. what's the point of telling us? My husband had a random night stand and it was devastate to me for a number of reasons. But you're hardly unique in your "look the other way" stance. So I'm just curious why you're stating this on DCUM. Do yu want to tell him? Do yu want to hear from others who feel this way? Do you want to be unconvinced? What's up?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. You're right. I think an emotional connection would upset me. Random sex though...I don't think I'd care.

Ok OP. what's the point of telling us? My husband had a random night stand and it was devastate to me for a number of reasons. But you're hardly unique in your "look the other way" stance. So I'm just curious why you're stating this on DCUM. Do yu want to tell him? Do yu want to hear from others who feel this way? Do you want to be unconvinced? What's up?

I wouldn't be either. It would mean a possibility that DH might leave me. Ah, the clean and the quiet if he moved out!

No...random sex with a guy I wouldn't care. My best friend...yes that would upset me.

OP, what happens if you DH was having random sex with a guy? You still wouldn't care? C'mon. Even if it was random sex? What about if he was having random sex with your best friend? Still you wouldn't care?

OP here. You're right. I think an emotional connection would upset me. Random sex though...I don't think I'd care.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe, in theory, the thought that he would be attracted to someone else and acted on it doesn't upset you. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't be hurt if it actually plays out. Think about it - if you found out that he's been lying and hiding things from you (which goes hand in hand with cheating unless it's an agreed-upon open relationship), spending time and money and energy on someone else - would you really be that okay with it?

I thought my husband wasn't the type and would never cheat, and at one point I thought I wouldn't mind if he went looking for sex elsewhere. But when I found out he had actually done it, and how, and for how long, I was horrified at his duplicity, the degree of dishonesty and hypocrisy, as well as the time and mental energy he was putting into it. It wasn't so much the fact that he had acted on his attraction to someone else but the deception, lies, and shenanigans that he came up with in order to do it.

I'm sorry this happened to you. Are you still together?

In my case DH didn't get physical with her but I too was shocked and hurt when I found out how far he had let a friendship go with a coworker. He was falling for her pretty hard after a while, and keeping secrets from me about how much time they spent together, what they talked about, and how they each talked about problems in their marriage without talking to their spouses. It sucked. I was growing concerned, but he got a new job so I blew it off. I found out about 6 months later they were still in daily communication and had gotten together a few times for lunches etc., that he had lied about once he knew I was sensitive to it.

That's what hurts, the lying and the secrecy, and then finding out he was comparing her to me and concluding they had more in common, she understood him more, they had a stronger connection.

As far as you know, are they still communicating with each other? He is way overboard.

Yeah it was overboard. It was an emotional affair but some people on this board have trouble with that phrase so I just described the actions. It almost ended our marriage (that, and other issues we had). He is not in contact with her anymore. They are still in the same field so he will ocassionally tell me that he may run into her at X event or whatever, but they aren't in contact like they used to be.

It was incrdibly painful and awful. Still is, but it is getting better as we move farther away from it.