Affairs

So have you...

• been the partner of someone having an affair
• had an affair and are willing to admit it?
• know people who are or have currently done this?
• have no chance of ever having a relationship - please move to question 8.

That figure seems large to me but when I start looking around me...hmmm. Even the vicars wife here, had one.I know a 'pillar of the community' who regularly tells everyone how lovely her husband is and how lucky she is... yet seems to need the attention of other men to bolster her? My workplace is a spiders web of relationships often overlapping. (Why? just why in the workplace?)

Cue thread on how morally upright RW Forumites are and how awful the rest of society is!

(Watch this space)

I am a very Happily Married Man

My wife says I have to be

I've been the partner of someone having an affair.

I was unknowingly a partner to someone having an affair a long long time ago.

I was always faithful to my husband, but now that we are separated but not yet divorced would any realationship I had been seen as an affair?  I don't feel that it is, but technically we are still married.

I wouldn't have said so Caz, since you're separated.

I've been with a guy who had a girlfriend once.  I found out after we'd been together, but then it did happen once more, which is just as bad.  I regret that, as I would never sleep with anyone else if I was in a relationship.  If I was wanting to, then to me that means the current relationship isn't working, so i'd end it.  Anyway, been single for so long I don't have to worry about such things at the moment!!!

I never have or will - me and MrGFB are together 24/7/365 so he'd have to be very inventive to have an affair!

(Friends of ours are going through this at the minute - apparently he cheated on her - he says only kissing, no sex and that it was more an emotional affair than physical...they've decided to make a go of their marriage - the weird thing is that they have lost a lot of friends from this...as if she did the weak thing by forgiving him...it's mental!!  She says she feels more betrayed by how their friends are treating them/him than by the affair itself!)

• been the partner of someone having an affair
• had an affair and are willing to admit it?
• know people who are or have currently done this?

Yes to all three.

In my first few relationships I was cheated on and in my head I rationalised it as 'normal' phase of the relationship. All of my friends cheated on each other - and I just classed it as being teenagers. It really messed with my idea of what a relationship should/could be so I couldnt understand why the guy I cheated on was so upset when he found out.

It took losing him and a fair few friends a long the way that I really truly understood what a relationship should be. I'm not defending my actions - I hurt someone because I was so blind or stupid to realise that I was doing was wrong.

I grew up and saw the destruction very first hand that cheaters do to relationships and saw it from the other side.... I think this was the biggest thing that impacted me. We've spoken about it in my current relatipnship and I've made it very clear - I can't handle a cheater and refuse to be with one if that should ever happen. I wish I could like GFB's friend.. but I cant' forgive.

A friend of mine is cheating on his wife.... purely because he hasnt' got any for the past 3 years. I hate to say it but for them - it's the best thing that ever happened to them. He's gone from being moody and constantly plaguing her for it to being loving and genuine.

Cinders wrote (see)

I've been the partner of someone having an affair.

me too ...the ex Mr Saffy...I walked when I found out

Dave - I'm not saying that. I'm just giving you my observation of their relationship and how it's changed before/after. I think that the wife knows but because it makes everything happier - they deal with it by ignoring it.

I gave it another 4 years Saffy but he did it again so then I walked!

Edited...too many *thens*

Dave The Ex- Spartan wrote (see)

So if you aren't getting any it's ok to play away ?

Isn't that the stereo-typical reason?  That once the wedding ring is on the finger, sex stops?

Or is that just what blokes say to get the 'other woman' to feel sorry for them?

@Wilkie - no idea. I know from both sides that they werent getting any. The guy tried everything but she wasnt having any of it...

@Dave - I know a lot of women like that.

Nice honesty emmy_bug

SuperCaz wrote (see)

I was always faithful to my husband, but now that we are separated but not yet divorced would any realationship I had been seen as an affair?  I don't feel that it is, but technically we are still married.

I don't think if a relationship is over that it is an affair as such however the divorce courts see it differently. It depends on your conscience. Mine would be clear.

gingerfurball wrote (see)

(Friends of ours are going through this at the minute - apparently he cheated on her - he says only kissing, no sex and that it was more an emotional affair than physical...they've decided to make a go of their marriage - the weird thing is that they have lost a lot of friends from this...as if she did the weak thing by forgiving him...it's mental!!  She says she feels more betrayed by how their friends are treating them/him than by the affair itself!)

Emotional vs physical - why is physical deemed to be worse when tbh it can be just one quick mistake?

I really hope I'd never shun a friend but I would also find it hard to lie and minimise the betrayal. Not my business however.

Really impressed with the rest of the forum. A moral upstanding lot.

Oh dear... i'm no longer moral and upstanding?  

SuperCaz - for me - if both parties have agreed it's over then it's not an affair.

emmy - makes you 'interesting'

tbh you learnt from it so it's fine. I would never forgive. If I'm honest I'd regard it as a weakness to do so. I'd end it there and then. Zero tolerance and I'm worth more ?

I don't see the point in hiding it. It's made me who I am today and I hope it makes people more open to discussing it and it's causes. For all of the people that i've known who have cheated it's been because they were scared. Scared of having a conversation which could leave them alone or they wanted to feel something... feel the excitement of being wanted again.

I wouldn't forgive but for me it's different reasons - i'd never be able to trust them again. Never be able to get the thought that there was a time when I just wasn't "enough" for them.