Do men actually Affair down?

[OWoman]

It tickles me to no end that when I post my views about affairs, out of the woodwork come all the people with their personal justifications for why they did what they did. Why they are not liars. Why they are not the down part of the affairing down. I speak to no one specifically when I share my views.

 

It tickles me no end that when some of us post general responses, others read them as "personal justifications" rather than general discussion.

 

Unless otherwise stated, I speak of no one specifically when I share my views

[White Flower]

It tickles me that people get tickled when they know darn well their post is meant to inflame so-called justification yet when real justification comes along in a generalized manner it is somehow deemed as bait taken. Interesting.

[herenow]

It tickles me that people get tickled when they know darn well their post is meant to inflame so-called justification yet when real justification comes along in a generalized manner it is somehow deemed as bait taken. Interesting.

 

Wow, I can usually follow this stuff pretty well, but I'm lost here.

[donnamaybe]

Wow, I can usually follow this stuff pretty well, but I'm lost here.

 

I think they call it projection of blame, or something like that.

 

I would say it would be impossible to determine whether someone's OW/OM is "better" than the BS or not. It's PURELY subjective depending on each person's wants and needs in a R.

[bananalaffytaffy]

I will never respond to her..She can just choose to believe her H, or not..I am finally moving on.. Stella

This is great news, Stella. I think this is very important in your healing. I wish you the very best.

~BLT

[herenow]

OK, well, still lost, but it seems like this thread has helped the OP and that is what's most important. Since I have nothing valuable to add at this point I will bid you all adieu. Have a great day.

[stella79]

This thread has helped me alot..I took no offence to any comments made. Thanks everyone..I feel less angry towards XMM..He has to clean up his messy life, I'm just thankful I'm single and don't have a BH to deal with..Hugs Stella!

[White Flower]

Wow, I can usually follow this stuff pretty well, but I'm lost here.

It's pretty obvious. It would appear that some people are allowed to have general views while others are not. It is implied that when someone answers, debates, counters, or offers another general opinion, view, or personal experience, it is deemed as personal justification.

 

I would say it would be impossible to determine whether someone's OW/OM is "better" than the BS or not. It's PURELY subjective depending on each person's wants and needs in a R.

I think that's a pretty honest assumption. Thank you.

I felt I she had a decent head on her shoulders in my past correspondence with her, but it seems others doubt her ability on this.

Who on this thread doubted Stella's ability?

This thread has helped me alot..I took no offence to any comments made. Thanks everyone..I feel less angry towards XMM..He has to clean up his messy life, I'm just thankful I'm single and don't have a BH to deal with..Hugs Stella!

Stella, keep on looking forward.

[dreamingoftigers]

This thread has helped me alot..I took no offence to any comments made. Thanks everyone..I feel less angry towards XMM..He has to clean up his messy life, I'm just thankful I'm single and don't have a BH to deal with..Hugs Stella!

 

Glad to hear that you probably won't re-acquaint yourself with such a messy situation in the future. I find that when you become physically involved with someone that their personal baggage comes with them. I cannot imagine having real, live physical baggage coming with a relationship. Wait, never mind I can and it sucks

[angieocean]

As much as we'd like to think differently, our species survived because of genetic diversity, and that was only made possible due to men's drive to spread their seed far and wide. Women have always allowed it; and humans would not have survived to this point unless we had.

 

Where does that leave us? We all want a man and want him to ourselves. I don't know the answer, but I do know fighting biological drive is futile.

 

I don't ask for faithfulness from my partner -- just priority! And having flexibility (ahem) does have it's advantages.

[angieocean]

I think they affair up or down depending upon what is most convenient and available to them. For some it's more quantity than quality. Or up to some other factor like: who is more distant, who is more discreet.

[wheelwright]

I believe everyone who has an affair, affairs down. It isn't just men who do it either. For someone to agree to a relationship with a married person, they have to be okay with their wants impeding others, conspiracy, and sexually sharing the married person with that person's spouse. They accept being the hidden secret. They accept their sexual health being risked.

 

The spouse married someone they (usually) didn't have to be okay with these things with. They chose exclusivity and didn't hurt others to get the relationship. They expect to be acknowledged as the spouse and do not accept being a secret. They expect their spouse to protect their sexual health.

 

I don't care what gender the cheating spouse is or if they are cheating with a married person. Their devoted spouse is a better person than they and whomever they find to have an affair with them.

 

How can you affair down if you love your AP more than you MP? Isn't that the point?

 

All sorts of things will be better or worse in your AP compared to yout MP. It's just how you feel that counts. The rest is for the unfeeling jackals of loves intimacy.

[D-Lish]

I find men affair opposite rather than down.

[Woggle]

How can you affair down if you love your AP more than you MP? Isn't that the point?

 

All sorts of things will be better or worse in your AP compared to yout MP. It's just how you feel that counts. The rest is for the unfeeling jackals of loves intimacy.

 

Because the way a cheating spouse views an affair partner is ususally nothing at all like how they really are.

[D-Lish]

My exH had his affair with a woman who is my complete opposite. I am tall, blonde, thin, sometimes over-bearing, outspoken, vivacious, social...And the woman he cheated on me with is short, curvy, older, shy, calm, and more of a homebody.

 

I think he sought out what he felt was missing with us. He sought a woman that exemplified the opposite of some of the things that bothered him about me.

 

Is she better or worse than me? I have to believe not, but I think he has found a better fit. We had a very intense physical attraction when we first met, but I think I was more alpha than he was personality-wise.

I think he enjoys the arrangement he has now.

 

Did he trade-up? I guess he did sort of, because they seem to be better suited and he seems very happy now.

[D-Lish]

This was TOTALLY the case with my xMM. The only thing I had in common with his W was being female. Not saying either of us are better, just total opposite.

 

 

Well it makes sense to me. A MM isn't going to go out and seek what he already has, he is more likely to fill in what he feels is missing.

[NoIDidn't]

D-Lish and JT

 

I get what you are saying, and somewhat agree. Its just that some people are going to see "opposite" as "less than" depending on what its the opposite of.

 

OWoman responded to a post I made earlier basically implying that what the BW felt about the OW was not shared by the MM. But I think she is wrong, especially in the case of the things that I brought up. Not only would those guys have felt those things about me, their H's would have agreed. Because it was those things that they were offering me.

 

They each offered me what they felt they had to offer someone in my *station* in life. I could very well have been the opposite of their Ws. I was young (they were all mid-forties to early fifties), naive, and other apparently desirable things to them.

 

Young would certainly be the opposite of old or middle aged. Thin, the opposite of *curvy* (LOL, I am curvy - and was when I was thin too). And these things are somewhat positive. But when the W is the one that is young, thin, rich, etc., the MM is thought to have affaired down. If the OW were those things, then the implication is that the MM affaired up, or was using the OW to take advantage of those things.

 

Opposite vs. affaired down is interesting and can go in a variety of ways. Good food for thought.

[D-Lish]

D-Lish and JT

 

I get what you are saying, and somewhat agree. Its just that some people are going to see "opposite" as "less than" depending on what its the opposite of.

 

OWoman responded to a post I made earlier basically implying that what the BW felt about the OW was not shared by the MM. But I think she is wrong, especially in the case of the things that I brought up. Not only would those guys have felt those things about me, their H's would have agreed. Because it was those things that they were offering me.

 

They each offered me what they felt they had to offer someone in my *station* in life. I could very well have been the opposite of their Ws. I was young (they were all mid-forties to early fifties), naive, and other apparently desirable things to them.

 

Young would certainly be the opposite of old or middle aged. Thin, the opposite of *curvy* (LOL, I am curvy - and was when I was thin too). And these things are somewhat positive. But when the W is the one that is young, thin, rich, etc., the MM is thought to have affaired down. If the OW were those things, then the implication is that the MM affaired up, or was using the OW to take advantage of those things.

 

Opposite vs. affaired down is interesting and can go in a variety of ways. Good food for thought.

 

Well I was using curvy as a nice way of saying she was a little fat in my case. (sorry- that's a bit od residual bitchiness I try and refrain from ,but it surfaces sometimes:o).

 

In my case I might say my exH affaired "down" because she was an uneducated waitress that was heavier and from a less wealthy family. But to be honest, that's not even something I try and tell myself to make myself feel better.

 

My ex is pretty happy now- with my opposite, with a woman that may be heavier and older, and a whole lot less vocal than I am. But- he is happy, and she makes him happy. So it depends on the perspective- If he wasn't happy with me, and he seems happy now- he truly did trade up in his eyes, and his eyes are the ones that matter.

[NoIDidn't]

So it depends on the perspective- If he wasn't happy with me, and he seems happy now- he truly did trade up in his eyes, and his eyes are the ones that matter.

 

Agreed. It really depends on the perspective of the one doing the "affairing" (LOL, funny term).

 

Many MM do tell others that they chose a woman beneath their "standards". But if they are happy with her, then I too would say she was just right, and not beneath anything.

 

I'm sure the BW in stella's case only said it to put her in her place and get her away from a man that was being painted as using her.

[bittersweet memories]

Perhaps a better word is "different" rather than "opposite". I in no way meant to imply that I was better. She was older, I was younger. She was an extrovert, I was an introvert. She had brown eyes, I have blue. She liked spending money, I like making money. I'm a very independent person, she wasn't. Neither is better or worse.

We were just totally different people.

But I agree with D-Lish. He was probably attracted to me because I was different than the person he had at home. Didn't mean I was a big prize, just means I was different.

 

 

That sounds like opposite to me..

[NoIDidn't]

Perhaps a better word is "different" rather than "opposite". I in no way meant to imply that I was better. She was older, I was younger. She was an extrovert, I was an introvert. She had brown eyes, I have blue. She liked spending money, I like making money. I'm a very independent person, she wasn't. Neither is better or worse.

We were just totally different people.

But I agree with D-Lish. He was probably attracted to me because I was different than the person he had at home. Didn't mean I was a big prize, just means I was different.

 

I didn't think that you were saying "better". Sorry if it read that way. I was just saying how some people will still insert a better or worse value to those differences.

 

Sorry again.

[Apeclet74]

No man affairs down, if a guy has an affair and cheats on the woman he is with thats not a man at all, how could he be a man when he is lying and cheating? breaking his trust and bond to the person he is closest to? Nope, not a man in my book, so no, not all men do affair down, if it were my choice, none would.

[wheelwright]

You can't affair up or down.

 

People are all equally important.

 

Now if you are someone who thinks someone down and out isn't worth love, then you don't believe in love, just in making your life better.

 

Or you are too practically minded to give your life over to love.

 

The practicality of this is interesting, because practically speaking, we shouln't give our hearts to someone married either. And respect wise too, which is part of the reason not to love the down and out.

 

Perhaps someone in an A who might be considered as A upper or downer, already knows in advance that it's just an A. Those who find someone an equal, will maybe be in it for keeps.

 

I don't like that this is probably true.

 

First thread that made me consider politics in the context of my A. Big tick for that interesting prompt!

 

ps - I didn't A up or down. He was my equal. But given my politics, he would be, eh?

Edited April 21, 2010 by wheelwright
ps

[White Flower]

ps - I didn't A up or down. He was my equal. But given my politics, he would be, eh?

I would say so:cool: