My take on infidelity and leaving wife for OW.

[2sunny]

How do you KNOW? You are not in their marriage. Only the two people in the marriage know, right?

 

I said - I've seen. This is what I've seen. This is what my experience has shown me.

 

 

Apparently, from your perspective - it was 3 people in THEIR marriage... So you've just contradicted your theory.

[So happy together]

Since he cheated BEFORE he left - that will always mean he earned being the cheat.

 

It's part of his character. Yes, he's one who cheats.

 

Watch out - those types don't generally change the core being of themselves.

 

I'm trying to figure out, if this is how most feel, why does ANYONE stay with someone who cheats? If there is no forgiveness, no redemption, what's the point? Clearly each person who ever cheated at anything ever should be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered.

[So happy together]

I said - I've seen. This is what I've seen. This is what my experience has shown me.

 

 

Apparently, from your perspective - it was 3 people in THEIR marriage... So you've just contradicted your theory.

 

I should clarify I suppose. Whenever I say something about my bf's unhappiness in their marriage, BS's are eager to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, that I wasn't in the marriage. I was really just making a point. It was not specifically directed at you. My apologies.

[veryhappy]

I'm sure there are happily married men who cheat, there are also people too unware of their own feelings who think they are happy when not really. There have been posts here, from both men and women, starting with "I am happily married" and continuing with things that baffle us. They contradict themselves, so when people say "I am happily married", what does it mean exactly?

 

My conclusion after my own experience is that as evasive as the issue of the happiness is, I can guarantee most cheaters do not respect their marriage at the time they are cheating. Lack of respect is essential if that person has some moral views normally.

[janedoe67]

I can guarantee most cheaters do not respect their marriage at the time they are cheating

 

I would say this is definitely accurate.

 

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was miserable in my marriage before I cheated. My husband wasn't all that happy either, but for different reasons.

 

However.....what is it they say, two wrongs don't make a right? My choice to cheat was a choice, and my husband didn't "make" me do it. My unhappiness didn't render me incapable of making any other choice.

 

I mean, even the kids I teach figure out by 2nd grade that "well, he made me mad" isn't an excuse for hitting a classmate.

 

The real issue isn't inherently happiness vs. unhappiness. It's whether or not people understand the concept of personal responsibility.

[HopingAgain]

I would say this is definitely accurate.

 

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was miserable in my marriage before I cheated. My husband wasn't all that happy either, but for different reasons.

 

However.....what is it they say, two wrongs don't make a right? My choice to cheat was a choice, and my husband didn't "make" me do it. My unhappiness didn't render me incapable of making any other choice.

 

I mean, even the kids I teach figure out by 2nd grade that "well, he made me mad" isn't an excuse for hitting a classmate.

 

The real issue isn't inherently happiness vs. unhappiness. It's whether or not people understand the concept of personal responsibility.

 

 

 

Exactly! You hit the nail on the head. Respect and personal responsibility are the factors needed to sway one from cheating. A person can be happy as a clam yet feel no respect for their marriage or take responsibility for their actions within a relationship.

[2sure]

There are plenty of people who are happy with the marriage, happy with the spouse but not happy with themselves. The insecure often need new outside validation to temporarily feel better about themselves. They Cheat.

[MissBee]

There are plenty of people who are happy with the marriage, happy with the spouse but not happy with themselves. The insecure often need new outside validation to temporarily feel better about themselves. They Cheat.

 

Sounds like my dad...

[2sure]

I think these types of cheaters are the root of the term "once a cheater always a cheater". They cheat in all of their relationships because this is how they fill their hole.

[Pierre]

In the most possibly sensitive way I can' date=' all I can say is that you have been fooled..... i am so so sorry. No one in a happy marriage will stray. They do not even think about it. But one can pretend.[/quote']

 

I think you are almost correct, but not quite.

 

Happy people do not cheat. Some unhappy people cheat.

 

The problem with your hypothesis is that ALL marriages hit low points and no spouse in the planet can keep another spouse happy 24/7. Happiness is intrinsic. Those that depend on the spouse to be happy can cheat.

[2sure]

I think this is an appropriate time for me to point out that when I was OW prior to getting married....I had no idea what marriage involved or was like. I think that's very common. I had even been married once before, but no kids, no real life history, short term thing.

[2sunny]

I should clarify I suppose. Whenever I say something about my bf's unhappiness in their marriage, BS's are eager to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, that I wasn't in the marriage. I was really just making a point. It was not specifically directed at you. My apologies.

 

Apology accepted.

 

But on the note that you brought up - YOU were in their marriage since you were his OW... Yes, you were distracting him while he COULD have been focused SOLEY on fixing his M and getting honest with his wife - but that's very difficult for any cheater as soon as they decide to cheat.

 

And that's why you were involved the minute you distracted him from HIS primary relationship.

[2sunny]

And how about me - when I was unhappy in my marriage I still NEVER considered cheating.

 

That wasn't a solution to my unhappiness at that time.

[JourneyLady]

In the most possibly sensitive way I can' date=' all I can say is that you have been fooled..... i am so so sorry. No one in a happy marriage will stray. They do not even think about it. But one can pretend.[/quote']

 

People can be in a happy marriage and yet be unhappy with themselves or have issues. Sometimes people expect the partner to "make them happy" and that simply cannot be done. It creates expectations and resentment - even the best of friendships can go south when that happens.

 

My marriage... we had differences in desire for sex. He was getting plenty for him, but I didn't feel desired and it played upon my self esteem. I guess you could say I "cheated", but that's sort of a half label because he KNEW about it - I told him while it was going on. It was a long distance emotional affair really and I never left him out of it, in that I told him what we talked about, what we did, etc. I was in the center of a mid-life crisis and felt undesirable. I was vulnerable, but I kept my husband in the loop. And I was selfish to boot.

 

He had a revenge affair and became infatuated and is now with her and maybe really does love her more than I. What SHE doesn't know, is that his physical needs were being met almost every day because I learned to be more assertive about sex, that I got flowers on every single occasion, that six months before he asserted that he was happy with me and wanted 30 more years and that he wrote poetry specifically for me.

 

I'm sure he keeps quiet about the fact that I almost have to cross his mind every single day - that just happens after 30 years of marriage. That certain places or subjects will remind him of me constantly. That his fear of being in contact with me is that he is avoiding his emotions and wants to not feel close to me. I don't think he will EVER mention that to her - he's always been avoidant (except when pushed from behind) and as far as I can tell, that has not changed.

 

I was happy with the >marriage relationship<. There were some major issues WITH ME, not to mention the fact that I was almost totally dependent on him and on top of that, a very selfish person. The OW hates me even though she likes to appear so sure of him... I'm sure it's fear-based. They are both avoidant personalities, while I tend to be more confrontational (although I have mellowed considerably in that respect since then... I listen better).

 

He had major self-esteem issues despite his workplace successes. He was the offspring of an affair himself, his parents were alcoholics, and he had a wife (me) who couldn't be controlled or tamed. The two years up until my emotional affair, we were extremely happy.

 

The problem wasn't so much the marriage. The problem was us and our inability to each deal with our own issues. We could have dealt with them in a more responsible way and that would have repaired the marriage. But no, this is how we dealt with it and irretrievably broke the family. He tries to hang on (to my relatives) but will never again be in their lives the way he would have been if it hadn't resulted in divorce. My regret, among other things, is that my mother is not able to get the kind of care from me that she would have if we had stayed married - because I can't afford a place large enough to house her and I both with the needed accommodations. He loved her enough to go visit her once since the divorce...

 

He refused to go to counseling and repair the marriage while I definitely wanted to, by the way.

[JourneyLady]

I'm sure there are happily married men who cheat, there are also people too unware of their own feelings who think they are happy when not really. There have been posts here, from both men and women, starting with "I am happily married" and continuing with things that baffle us. They contradict themselves, so when people say "I am happily married", what does it mean exactly?

 

My conclusion after my own experience is that as evasive as the issue of the happiness is, I can guarantee most cheaters do not respect their marriage at the time they are cheating. Lack of respect is essential if that person has some moral views normally.

 

I agree with you on that. I did not have "respect" for my marriage and as a result, neither did he.

 

What happily married meant to me was that I was with a person I loved (still kinda do, if from afar -- but he "belongs" to her now and I don't stoop to her level. Also I am not "in love" with him and therefore do not desire him.)

 

Boundaries has a lot to do with it. I didn't have good ones in any of my relationships at the time. Not with my kids, not with my parents, and certainly not with him.

 

When I look back on it, things had been getting even better with us for a long time. But I didn't have great self-esteem and his decreased desire for and ability to have sex crossed with that and I made the bad choice to succumb to the pandering of another man at a distance. He had the ability to make me feel desirable; which my then husband did not have. He simply lacked the confidence to say the kind of things which would boost my self-esteem.

 

"I" was my own trouble. Given a different person and the same set of circumstances, I would still have been unhappy. My unhappiness resided within and in depression, it was reflected outside myself. Depression is sooooo under-diagnosed these days. I think probably a third of marriages could be saved if it was adequately treated.

[Spark1111]

Five long, hard years left me unhappy in my marriage but STILL in LOVE and in LUST.

 

He was pretty happy with it and me, but very unhappy within himself and his perceived failures.

 

I didn't cheat, but he did when he crashed into someone who did not know of his past, his issues.

 

he found someone validating, complimentary, flirtatious and stupidly thought what I didn't know, couldn't hurt me.....and he lapped up her constant ego-stroking and hot sex like a hound.

 

me, I was working three jobs, so I didn't have all that much time to stroke, stroke, stroke his ego, let alone ponder the state of our marital happiness for too long.

[Furious]

Anytime a married man has eluded to me that he's in an unhappy marriage I smilingly offer to talk to his wife and offer my assistance in helping them out.

 

Strange, but not one of those married guys took me up on my offer. I wonder why.

[jnel921]

Men who are selfish cheat. Doesn't matter if there is happiness with someone else or not. Adultery is a self serving act. The wife has nothing to do with it.

[waterwoman]

I disagree. I think it's a case of those happily married people loving 2 people at the same time, which is entirely possible.

 

I don't know that I entirely disagree with j'adore. If a marriage is 100% happy, still shiny and sparkly and wonderful, it takes up too much of your headspace to give room for infidelity. Even when some of the shine is gone, it's unthinkable. But at some point it starts to become 'thinkable'. And that might be because something is missing. The issue for me is that that 'something missing' can be found again, that in fact it might come back on it's own as all relationships are cyclical unless entirely dead, that it isn't hopeless and there are ways to address this situation, one of which is NOT to have an affair. In fact extensive and unhealthily obsessive readig on here indicates to me that an affair is a damned good way to eff it up completely and gradually paint the marriage as a loveless hellhole when in fact it probably isn't but it suffers by comparision.

 

My marriage was in a bad way. I could spend hours telling you who is to blame, and how it happened but it's irrelevant. But I will say that while I can see how an A was appealing to H, I think he is utterly selfish and short-sighted to have done it and there is no excuse. A lazy and deceitful response to a situation that needed hard work and honesty.

[janedoe67]

It's an interesting response when someone is in an unhappy marriage that you'd offer to date them lol .

 

Actually, she said she would help the WIFE and help their marriage, not date him.

 

The OW have the dating part covered. She wants to help the marriage

 

That is why I said it is what character looks like.

[KathyM]

There are men who claim to be happily married, but still cheat. They just want to have their cake and eat it too. I wouldn't call the marriage happy, obviously, since he is cheating on her and the marriage is based on a lie, but the MM might claim that the marriage is happy. Especially with serial cheaters. They want the nice wifey at home and go chase after whatever else he desires at the moment.

[So happy together]

I hear a lot of talk about men saying they are happy, yet cheat. I hear a lot about men who say they are unhappy, but are really happy, and cheat. So... it's improbable that the cheating people are unhappy and cheat to find some solace, some happiness in their lives? Come on.

 

In my situation, it was out of sheer misery. I see a lot of others that are the same... miserable. But they are afraid to make the leap out of the marriage and into the unknown. I feel sorry for them. Nobody should be stuck in a miserable situation.

 

Just my opinion.

[Betrayed&Stayed]

I disagree. I think it's a case of those happily married people loving 2 people at the same time, which is entirely possible.

 

That might be possible in some situations, but not in mine.

 

I've covered this prior, but I'll give the highlights. Her affair was the culmination of a perfect storm:

 

My wife's affair had little to do with "love" for her AP. She was not in love, she was in lust. She had terrible boundaries and convinced herself that a platonic relationship was possible. Socializing at work progressed to group lunches. Group lunches progressed to one-on-one lunches. One-on-one lunches progressed into outings. Outings progressed into visits at my house/his house. Visits to my house progressed into sex. She was in denial of the sexual tension the entire time. She did not want to sit at home while I was away working on a project. She wanted to "casually hang out and do something fun."

 

She had to do psychological contortions to "justify" her affair. She quickly turned cold towards me and avoided me. Emotionally she couldn't handle it and shutdown when around me. She projected my parent's marriage onto our future marriage. (Is that how our marriage is going to be in 20 years?" type of projecting.) She blamed me for being too responsible (newly married, first house/mortgage, new career, car payments, etc). She missed our dating days when everything was fun and not bogged down with real life responsibilities. She took these so-called cracks in our marriage and made them into the Grand Canyon in order to make me the "bad guy". She could continue to be the first-born "good girl".

 

When we got married, I had been out and living on my own for 5+ years. 9+ yrs if you include college (which was 11 hours from my parent's house). She had only lived on her own for 1 year; and we were engaged during that time. She missed out on having the adult single life.

 

She had low self-esteem which included eating disorders during her teens.

 

After 3 months or so of her emotional contortions and guilt, she called it off and checked back into the marriage. After that she never mentioned any marital issues. Never suggested MC. Whatever problems/issues she thought we had during her affair, she never addressed them. She did not consider seeking any help with her issues with IC. Her ability to compartmentalize all of this is hard for me to fathom.

 

Was she happily married? She definitely thought so until she fell for he AP. She was happily married enough to break off the A and return to the marriage. She was tempted to take a test drive of the single life and did it. How much of our marriage played a role is debatable. We both agree that much of it was because of her insecurities and bad boundaries.

 

I will acknowledge that over the years she had built a small deposit in the resentment bank that she cashed in for her affair. This stemmed from different communication styles from our FOO. She was conditioned not to voice her wants or preferences. It was not normal to "ask" for something in her family. The father made all of the decisions; no debating it. Is that a "marriage" problem or a "her" problem. They overlap, but I can not address that which is not brought to my attention.

 

I'm not here to convince anyone nor to receive validation. This is just my experience and lessons learned. Lessons learned at a steep price.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Betrayed&Stayed

[MissBee]

Actually, she said she would help the WIFE and help their marriage, not date him.

 

The OW have the dating part covered. She wants to help the marriage

 

That is why I said it is what character looks like.

 

I actually wasn't talking about Furious I thought what she said was funny and sensible. I was referring to those who date MM upon him spewing about his unhappy marriage and that being an interesting response.

[jlola]

people in happy marriages do cheat at times. To say it is not possible is to ignore human nature. We tend to think everyone is the same. We tend to ignore the fact 16% of people have personality disorders. 9% cluster B are the relationship destroyers. They are in search of romance highs, just like sex addicts search for sex highs.Even in happy marriages. They have bad impulse control, no boundaries,seek excitement,drama and romance. Not saying everyone is like this. But to say noone can be happy if they cheat is not true. It's like saying all rich people are happy and satisfied. Many no matter how rich want more.

 

It's like saying a man who batters is made unhappy. Not likely. Most men who hit women usually are treated well by the women who walk on eggshells around him afraid to rock the boat. His unhappines, if there is any is usually caused by him and his ability to put a negative spin on everything.

 

Even polyamorous people who are in open relationships understand the lure of what is called "new relationship energy" and why that can potentially threaten a happy open relationship. read about it.

polytripod.blogspot.com/2013/01/polyamory-101-new-relationship-energy.html

 

Quote from a Shane Perrault Ph.D

"On the other hand, experience has taught me it can be a more complex issue when happy people cheat. First, I have found that sometimes one partner's sexual drive might make it impossible for them to be satisfied by one partner. Next, I have found that some people need the adrenalin rush and excitement that comes with the pursuit and conquest they experience while cheating, having sex with different partners and in clandestine places.

Alternatively, I’ve found that in some case cheaters may have ADHD or a co-occurring sexual addiction. Actually, these two frequently go hand-and-hand with each other and infidelity, and directly contribute to cheaters engaging in impulsive, addictive and risky activities.