Cheating and Affairs

I think that it is very important to cover this topic in my blog so as to give you some perspective on the dynamics of these difficult situations. I am very nonjudgmental, and in my practice I work with people on all sides of this issue. Please do not read any further if you are stringently offended by this subject matter.

There are many different types of Affairs to consider. We have the situation where a single woman gets involved with the married man, the reverse of the same by gender, two married people becoming involved with each other outside of their marriage, and the brief encounter type of affair that is more like a fling, to name just a few.

Let’s examine the affair where a single woman starts to date a married man, knowingly. This scenario will not apply to any of the other “types” of affairs, but there is some cross-over to the other types.

We will focus on the involvement of a woman with a married man with full knowledge of his marital status, this will not apply to those cases where he misrepresents his marital status.

This situation is much more prevalent than most people think. A lot of people still think in the archaic mindset of the secret “mistress” being kept by the married man. This is extremely rare. Most “other women” are extremely self-sufficient and many times they are actually helping the married man meet his obligations in some way.

So, how does this all begin?

People fall in and out of love all of the time. Affairs of this nature can spring up when a marriage begins to turn stale or cold. Many times affairs like this can pop up without the wife ever even realizing that there is a problem. Sometimes we just can’t control who we fall in love with, or when. Of course there are the types of affairs where men cheat purely for sexual gratification, those types of affairs are rampant, but they are usually the fling type of affair and not the type where the married man builds an actual relationship with the single woman.

Let’s talk about the extramarital affair that occurs due to a pure attraction physically and emotionally to someone other than the original spouse. Frequently, when we are not having our needs met, we will seek to have those needs met wherever we can. The business of marriage is not the “happy ever after” story that many of us fantasized about during our youths, but a partnership in dealing with the business of living. Paying bills, raising children, shopping, housekeeping, financial planning, buying homes and other assets, this is what marriage truly boils down to. You do all of these things together, you share each other sexually and emotionally and perform the duties and tasks required to live from day to day, together. We sometimes can go on for years in a marriage, practicing the business of living, and someday, somehow, we manage to meet “someone else” and something within changes.

In the scenario I am presenting, there may be no major issues between the spouses to act as a catalyst for change, but in meeting this new person, sometimes a married man will feel that “old feeling” of falling in love again, and even though the marriage itself may appear stable, the foundation begins to crack.

Some men are of such high moral standards that they will never cheat, no matter what.

Some men hit a situation like this and are tempted, but do not go beyond the level of flirtation.

Some men hit a situation like this and do decide to pursue an affair, but they know that they will never divorce, they will just continue on with the marriage and the day to day business of it, and build a relationship concurrently with another woman. This is the ultimate in self gratification and honestly, it is the primary scenario that occurs. They do not want any disruption to the pitter patter of their daily lives with their wives and families, but they also want the gratification of the birth of the new relationship outside of the marriage. They may very well fall in love with the other woman, but, they will always find a reason not to leave the wife. This is a very dangerous situation for a single woman to be in if she truly wants a full-blown relationship with the man in question.

Time and time again these women will be let down, put on hold, asked to wait, or told point blank that the man is never going to leave by the man himself.

Then we have the final scenario.

This is the rarest of the extra-marital affair situations.

In this situation the married man actually does fall completely in love with the other woman and he does leave his wife. It does happen, although it is not the norm. I know of at least seven cases where the man in question did divorce and successfully move into the new relationship with the other woman, however, I know of no less than one hundred cases where the man never left the wife and continued to live a double life. I know this through personal experience and knowledge and also through my practice as an Advisor and Relationship Coach.

This last case is what most women who find themselves in this precarious position are hoping for, but honestly, it does not happen very often for a variety of reasons.

There are several things that you need to know if you allow yourself to take the risk of becoming involved with a married man on a relationship level.

Know that he will never be able to be brutally honest with you while he is still married. How can he be honest, he has to lie and steal time BOTH ways. He’s not going to give you the full story on his home life. The marriage may not even be difficult, it could just be “lackluster” and that could be why he is cheating. Odds are the married man is getting along with his wife much better than how he presents it to you. It is extremely rare for a married man to tell you that his relationship with his wife is amicable, so he will exaggerate any problems that may or may not exist.

Know that on his list of priorities that you will always be second behind his wife and if he has children, you will drop down to at least a priority three. This means that you will be dealing with a lot of cancellations, broken promises, missed calls and postponed events during this relationship. You will experience more last minute cancellations and postponements in a relationship like this than in any other type of relationship. If his wife decides, on the morning of the day that you two promised to spend together, perhaps even a special occasion like your birthday, that she needs him to go with her to the shopping outlets two hours out of town, he will be going shopping and you will be waiting at home alone. If he can’t break free to call you out of her earshot, you will be sitting by a silent phone wondering what happened.

In 90% of cases like this, discretion is a must. There are cases where the man may not care if he gets caught or not, or he may be somewhat of a risk taker for being found out, but these are rare.

No one likes to be cheated on, so even if he truly does intend to get a divorce at some future time, he is not going to willingly allow his future ex to build an arsenal of weaponry against him.

This means that your public time together will be limited at best, some couples in this situation do not socialize at all for fear of discovery, many travel out of town to see each other, etc. Don’t expect to be able to do the “normal” things like going to a popular restaurant in your locality where you might bump into mutual acquaintances etc., be prepared to accept a very clandestine social life together. Some people find this exciting and romantic, but usually the women get to a point where they do want some normalcy after a time. This may never happen for you.

Expect to spend all major holidays alone. You will have to schedule your New Year your Christmas etc. on days that aren’t actually the holiday as it is very rare for the married man to be able to make contact at these times. It makes for a lonely existence.

The most frequently told lies by married men are that they no longer have sex with their wives and that they do not sleep in the same room in the house as their wives, perhaps they say they have a separate bedroom or that they sleep on the couch. This is utter nonsense. If they are still married, they are having sex, it may be perfunctory sex and it may not be frequent, but they are still having sex. As far as sleeping arrangements go, that’s a lot of baloney as well, if they are still married, in the same home, they are sharing that bed in the master bedroom.

The most frequently used excuses for not getting a divorce even though they love you are that they are concerned about their finances, they are waiting for the kids to graduate high school, they are waiting for the kids to finish college, they are waiting until after their daughter gets married, has a baby, their son launches his law practice, etc. etc. etc. The list is never ending because there is always a future responsibility or concern within a family, and his wife is part of that family.

If a man wants a divorce, he will get one. It will not matter how old his children are, how far along they are in their pregnancies or law practices, he will file.

Does the married man love you? If this has been going on for some time and the time you spend together consists of more than just sexual experiences, then it is possible that he does.

Will he leave his wife? In the majority of cases, the answer is no.

If you are entering into or already in a situation like this, you have two choices, either accept it as is and realize the down side of the situation or tell him you are ending it if he doesn’t get a divorce, and end it until he does. Those are the choices. That’s it. You don’t wait, you don’t give him time. And while he is married you should definitely not be exclusive to him, you should continue to date other people, preferably single, until he can be exclusive to you. Period.

And remember this, while he has the support and companionship of his wife as he goes about paying his mortgage and his light bill and buying a new car and feeding the cat and walking the dog, YOU are alone, and must handle the mundane matters of life ALONE. This is a very difficult way to live, and usually you can't just pick up a phone and call the married man in question, you have to communicate on some sort of "schedule". If you can avoid this situation, please do so.



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