Why are there so many As??? Why???

[findingnemo]

There's a thread about MPs using the excuse of not leaving their kids to stay in their Ms and end their As. Heck, this whole board is about people either having As, or suffering the consequences of their partner having and A, or being the willing participant in an A.

 

I wonder though. With all the As going on, something is not right. After all it's happened from time immemorial. If people who participate in As are selfish, delusional, have sociopathic tendencies etc which in most peoples' view are fringe behaviours, why are there so many of them? Are we saying that MPs having As are a lot less in number than those who are faithful? are we saying that most people don't have As and are therefore selfless? I guess that's why we discuss these things. The more I read peoples' views, the more I think that it makes no sense that people would risk so much for pleasure that they themselves know can't compare to the worth of thier own families. So WTF makes them risk it all? Why are so many people having As?

 

What do you think is the fundamental problem here? Why are there so many As?

[Owl]

I don't think that there is "A" fundemental problem here...but several underlying "reasons".

 

Just as there are several "reasons" for affairs.

 

Some people simply aren't capable of being faithful or don't want to be monogamous....and yet marry.

 

Some marry and find out that marriage isn't what they thought it was...or that their partner wasn't who they thought they were.

 

I could go on and on...but I think the bottom line is that it's going to happen...the trick that people need to get is how to learn from it.

[carhill]

What do you think is the fundamental problem here? Why are there so many As?

 

My datapoint is I meet a lot of people in life. The more I meet, the more I may find attraction and compatibility with and whom also feel the same way. Essentially, the only thing which separates polite and proper relations from affairs is the personal boundaries of the people involved. It appears that such is transitional. Where it's going, IDK. I had a taste of it, didn't like it, so perhaps can entertain the thought but keep the actions in line with healthy boundaries. Know the enemy and the enemy is me. Good luck.

[woinlove]

It is difficult to get reliable estimates, but the estimates of the number of people who cheat on taxes is typically at least equal to, and often higher, than the number who cheat on spouses. The reasons seem to be similar - people who cheat on taxes are selfish and think they won't get caught. Of course, the immediate cost to loved ones is quite different for the two. But I don't think people who cheat actually think they are risking their family - at least not when they start cheating. I think many start thinking they can get away with it.

 

Yes, the statistics on cheating - both taxes and spouses - does suggest there are a lot of selfish people who are willing to take risks to satisfy their desires, whether emotional, physical or financial. However, some people don't cheat on taxes and some people don't cheat on spouses. A broad average of the statistics would suggest it is about 50/50, maybe lower for infidelity and higher for taxes. Also, many may only cheat during some limited period of their lives and spend the rest being more honest.

[skywriter]

Maybe it's a sign of the times? In a world where folks want everything when they want it.

 

I'm glad you started this thread, because I've asked myself this question many times since becoming involved with a MM.

 

I must have been one really sheltered naive woman, because when I was married, I would've never entertained the idea of being involved with another man.

 

In fact I was just plain ole ignorant whenI was involved with the MM. I remember saying, "Let's go tell everyone we are seeing each other"!

 

He was like, "Uh, no, we can't do anything like that". I was just so happy to feel like I'd moved on from my failed marriage. Happy, I could have butterflies in my stomach when I saw him. I thought that part of life was over.

 

I have often considered the MM that I got involved with to be an opportunist. In fact, I told him that once. Really pissed him off.

 

He swore I was the first A, but he just seemed to glide through it, like

he already knew what would happen. He wasn't nervous about anything at all.

 

I'd say, people do it, well...because they can.

[jwi71]

All human action requires two things: opportunity and will.

 

Clearly, people who choose to cheat (and that includes the AP) have not only the chance (hell, everyone does) but the desire (not everyone does) to do so.

 

And its a powerful desire -one that overrides moral, legal, societal and interpersonal boundaries as defined by marriage.

 

Ultimately, for me, cheating is an attempt to fulfill some unmet need within themselves. An attempt, misguided to be sure, to be happy with THEMSELVES. Its not about the M or the BS or even, in most cases, the AP. A sad attempt fueled by a powerful unmet inner need leads to cheating.

 

And since opportunity abounds...its just a matter of time really.

[findingnemo]

I like the comparison of tax cheats with marriage cheats. 50/50? That would be really high. When people post their comments, there's an underlying assumption that all cheaters have negative traits ranging from selfish to sociopathic. But many (MMs & MWs) have posted here. Some found themsleves inexplicably attracted to someone else. Others were having issues in thier Ms. I see people who are intelligent, seem to know right from wrong, and/or are essentially "good" people. Hardly do you see some evil Machiavelli type person and yet they still engaged in what I'd term as horrifying acts against their own "beloved" familes.

 

Is it possible that anybody could get tempted and proceed to cheat? Is it possible that a man/woman who has been good and kind and responsible loses it and engages in an affair? Can an otherwise normal (fair, knows right from wrong) person suddenly engage in something as hurtful as an A and become the manipulative lying SOB they usually are? Or is someone who has an A a "bad" (for lack of a better and concise word) person from the get go?

[bentnotbroken]

I don't really think there are more affairs, I just think that people are more open with what they do now. I do believe that the more self centered society gets the more people want to say, "hey, look at me, I can do what I want to make me happy...damn the consequences". I don't think most people are as ashamed as they used to be. It's like having children outside of marriage, it is no longer considered an automatic ticket outside of "proper society"(whatever the hell that is). I also believe affairs are being glamorized more by movies and the celebrity royalty:rolleyes: I think people tend to blur the lines of reality and fantasy which leads to whole boat load of mess.

[thomasb]

People have been robbing, raping and killing since time began too. It still doesn't make it right.

[OpenBook]

I like the comparison of tax cheats with marriage cheats. 50/50? That would be really high. When people post their comments, there's an underlying assumption that all cheaters have negative traits ranging from selfish to sociopathic.

 

I would throw in with the percentage estimates the fact (well-demonstrated on this board) that 50%+ of people are very judgmental of their fellow human beings!

 

And therein lies the answer. Bottom line, we are all human beings with our own varying percentages of strengths and weaknesses. We also have a choice in our regard for others. Some go thru life hating on others, literally stewing in their own hate and bitterness.

 

Others take a different path.

 

Even though we're social animals, we struggle with it mightily - and marriage is the toughest challenge of all. Knowing someone so thoroughly like that, putting up with them on a daily basis... I don't know how married people do it. Maybe a lot of people choose to step outside their M to grab a little happiness for themselves so that they CAN tolerate their S at home!

 

I don't know what else to say. We're all just... human. With an extraordinary ability to make each other happy - and just as extraordinary an ability to inflict intense misery on each other.

[TurboGirl]

Are you writing a book?

 

Why does anything happen in this world?

[blissfullyoblivious]

Because the WS decides that the risk is worth taking. Or, there is no risk. Either way, they do what they want and to hell with the consequences.

 

My bugbear is that the BS will, in the majority of cases, keep the cheater. This is normally after a period of the wayward behaving as s/he should have done in the first place.

 

Dates, cards, flowers, kid-free vacations, loving words are normal in happy marriages. They are only expressions of remorse for cheating in unhappy marrriages.

[findingnemo]

Are you writing a book?

 

Why does anything happen in this world?

 

I must have sounded like a sociologist, right? My worry is what are we teaching our kids about love and marriage? If As are so prevalent, then how are we supposed to teach them that love lasts forever, or that marriage is lifetime partnership?

[East7]

Among lots of valid reasons posted here, I would add:

 

Because an A is cheaper and easier than a divorce.

 

Cheaters are conflict avoiders. Instead of facing their relationship problems and fixing their marriage they find the unmet needs elsewhere.

[Buck Turgidson]

I wonder though. With all the As going on, something is not right. After all it's happened from time immemorial.

 

If it's prevalent and has been going on since time immemorial, perhaps the problem is not with the behavior, but with an unrealistic set of social expectations and relationship rules.

 

What do you think is the fundamental problem here?

 

The socially imposed rules and expectations of relationships in western society are incommensurate with human nature.

[fooled once]

There's a thread about MPs using the excuse of not leaving their kids to stay in their Ms and end their As. Heck, this whole board is about people either having As, or suffering the consequences of their partner having and A, or being the willing participant in an A.

 

I wonder though. With all the As going on, something is not right. After all it's happened from time immemorial. If people who participate in As are selfish, delusional, have sociopathic tendencies etc which in most peoples' view are fringe behaviours, why are there so many of them? Are we saying that MPs having As are a lot less in number than those who are faithful? are we saying that most people don't have As and are therefore selfless? I guess that's why we discuss these things. The more I read peoples' views, the more I think that it makes no sense that people would risk so much for pleasure that they themselves know can't compare to the worth of thier own families. So WTF makes them risk it all? Why are so many people having As?

 

What do you think is the fundamental problem here? Why are there so many As?

 

Me personally? I think people are selfish and self centered (who have affairs). I think they are only out for themselves and THEIR needs. They don't care who they hurt. Some have over blown egos to think they can do whatever they want and won't get caught.

 

I would much rather see a person divorce than to lie, betray and gaslight someone else. If kids are hurt by divorce; what the heck do these people think kids go through when they find out about cheating!!

 

Cheating to me is wrong and cowardly. To agree to be with someone married to me is desperation and needy. I know I know - the heart wants what the heart wants but there is this think called pride and this other thing called dignity. To be in an affair to me is nothing having pride or dignity.

 

I am sure my thoughts aren't shocking. But they are MY thoughts. I especially hate to see the young women who get involved and believe "they" are different; "they" are special.

 

What is so special about sneaking around and being a hidden lover? Where is the pride? Where is the dignity? Where is the self respect?

 

I understand loneliness. But I don't think the cure is a married person. I understand being naive and believing the baloney .... for a bit. But when a married person lets an affair linger on and on and on and the affair person doesn't demand better? Shame on them.

 

It all goes back to selfishness and lack of respect for me. These 'men' who have affairs have no respect for their wife OR the OW. The OW has no respect for herself for staying in an affair for years. The wife has no concrete knowledge of the affair because her husband lies to her face. If he was so miserable and so unhappy, why doesn't he leave? Because he doesn't have to. Few OW demand they leave. Few OW will want to be 'the reason' he left; but again, if he loved her sooo much like they believe, he would be RUNNING out the door and into her arms.

 

And FYI - everyone judges - everyone. We judge people by looks, character, what they wear, how they talk, etc. Even the most devout Christian judges. Its silly to use judgment as a negative; because we all do it.

 

That's my view

[SoMovinOn]

What do you think is the fundamental problem here? Why are there so many As?

 

The divorce rate in the US is around 50%. Of the remaining 50% who stay married, half of them only do so for religious or other reasons - otherwise they would also get divorced. That tells us 75% of the people who get married should have never gotten married in the first place.

 

That's why there are so many A's.

[Severely Unamused]

Considering my current circumstances, I've thought about this a lot.

 

To answer the question of why there are so many affairs, I think that we would have to ask the slightly more specific question "what are some of the reasons behind affairs?"

 

In exit affairs for instance, I see three possibly reasons (feel free to add onto this). Some people don't want to be alone after the divorce, so they jump from one person to another. Some don't have the emotional strength to divorce on their own, so they need a big push. Some are still on the fence about leaving (perhaps because they don't want to lose what they have), or still wish to salvage the relationship, until somebody better comes along, which raises quite a lot of questions.

 

For some, I think that it is a reflection of the problems already in the relationship. Problems from either the WS, the BS, or both. In which case, the affair acts as a bandage for the problem, but not a solution. The relationship either ends, or both parties get of their asses and work things out.

 

Some just like to f_ck a lot. So yeah, a more open marriage for them. But I do remember a point that some OWs brought up with their MMs: Why not discuss an open marriage with their wife, or be completely honest, instead of sneaking around? As I recall, the answer was often "I don't want that".

[eleanor01]

Reading this thread I thought of Jared Diamond's book The Third Chimpanzee. Diamond is an evoloutionary biologist and this particular book is about sex and mating and they whys and wherefores involved in that. I'm not going to go into much here, but I thought that the following might interest people:

Cold-blooded analysis of adultery views life as an evolutionary contest whose winners are those individuals leaving the largest number of surviving offspring. This view helps one understand why humans reinvented adultery after the other two chimps had bypassed it.



 

People have many reasons to lie when asked whether they have committed adultery. Consequently, it is notoriously difficult to get accurate scientific information about this important subject. One of the few existing sets of hard facts emerged as a totally unexpected by-product of a medical study, performed nearly half-a-century ago for a different reason. That study's findings have never been revealed until now.

 

I recently learned those facts from the distinguished medical scientist who ran the study. (Since he does not wish to be identified in this connection, I shall refer to him as Dr X.) In the late 1940s Dr X was studying the genetics of human blood groups, which are molecules that we acquire only by inheritance. Each of us has dozens of blood-group substances on our red blood cells, and we inherit each substance either from our mother or from our father. The study's research plan was straightforward: go to the obstetrics ward of a highly respectable US hospital; collect blood samples from 1,000 newborn babies and their mothers and fathers; identify the blood groups in all the samples; and then use standard genetic reasoning to deduce the inheritance patterns.

 

To Dr X's shock, the blood groups revealed nearly ten per cent of those babies to be the fruits of adultery! Proof of the babies' illegitimate origin was that they had one or more blood groups lacking in both alleged parents. There could be no question of mistaken maternity — the blood samples were drawn from an infant and its mother soon after the infant emerged from the mother. A blood group present in a baby but absent in its undoubted mother could only have come from its father. Absence of the blood group from the mother's husband as well showed conclusively that the baby had been sired by some other man, extramaritally. The true incidence of extramarital sex must have been considerably higher than ten per cent, since many other blood-group substances now used in paternity tests were not yet known in the 1940s, and since most bouts of intercourse do not result in conception.

 

At the time that Dr X made his discovery, research on American sexual habits was virtually taboo. He decided to maintain a prudent silence, never published his findings, and it was only with difficulty that I got his permission to mention his results without betraying his name. However, his results have more recently been confirmed by several similar genetic studies whose results did get published. Those studies variously showed between about five and thirty per cent of American and British babies to have been adulterously conceived. Again, the proportion of the tested couples of whom at least one practised adultery must have been higher, for the same two reasons as in Dr X's study

 

We can now answer the question posed at the end of the last chapter: whether extramarital sex is for humans a rare aberration, a frequent exception to a 'normal' pattern of marital sex, or so frequent as to make a sham of marriage. The middle alternative proves to be the correct one. Most fathers really are raising their own children, and human marriage is not a sham. We are not just promiscuous chimpanzees pretending to be otherwise. Yet it is also clear that extramarital sex is an integral, albeit unofficial, part of the human mating system. Adultery has also been observed in many other animal species whose societies resemble ours in being based on male and female co-parents with a lasting bond. Since such lasting bonds do not characterize common chimpanzee or pygmy chimpanzee society, it is meaningless to talk of adultery in chimps. We must have reinvented it after our chimp-like ancestors had rendered it obsolete. Therefore, we cannot discuss human sexuality, and its role in our rise to humanity, without carefully considering the science of adultery.

 

 

 

Most of our information about adultery's incidence has come from researchers asking people about their sex lives, rather than from blood-grouping their babies. Since the 1940s, the myth that marital infidelity is rare in the US has been publicly exploded by a long succession of surveys, beginning with the Kinsey report. Nevertheless, even though this is the supposedly liberated 1990s, we are still profoundly ambivalent about adultery. It is thought of as exciting; no television soap opera could attract many viewers without it. It has few rivals as a basis of humour. Yet, as Freud pointed out, we often use humour to deal with things that are intensely painful. Thus, throughout history, adultery has also had few rivals as a cause of murder and human misery. In writing about this subject, it is impossible to remain completely serious, but it is also impossible not to be revolted at the sadistic institutions by which societies have attempted to deal with extramarital sex.

 

Hope you enjoy the above,

Ellie

Edited August 16, 2011 by eleanor01

[threebyfate]

There's a thread about MPs using the excuse of not leaving their kids to stay in their Ms and end their As. Heck, this whole board is about people either having As, or suffering the consequences of their partner having and A, or being the willing participant in an A.

 

I wonder though. With all the As going on, something is not right. After all it's happened from time immemorial. If people who participate in As are selfish, delusional, have sociopathic tendencies etc which in most peoples' view are fringe behaviours, why are there so many of them? Are we saying that MPs having As are a lot less in number than those who are faithful? are we saying that most people don't have As and are therefore selfless? I guess that's why we discuss these things. The more I read peoples' views, the more I think that it makes no sense that people would risk so much for pleasure that they themselves know can't compare to the worth of thier own families. So WTF makes them risk it all? Why are so many people having As?

 

What do you think is the fundamental problem here? Why are there so many As?

What you're seeing is confirmation bias. The people that participate on this subforum are people who are either currently or have been one corner of the affair triangle.

 

It's like going to an gay site, wondering why there are so many gays. Or going to a weight loss site and asking where all the skinny people are.

[eleanor01]

What you're seeing is confirmation bias. The people that participate on this subforum are people who are either currently or have been one corner of the affair triangle.

 

It's like going to an gay site, wondering why there are so many gays. Or going to a weight loss site and asking where all the skinny people are.

 

That was funny. Mind if I use your example of these sites to explain "confirmation bias" in my real life?

 

Thanks,

Ellie

[Syzygypassion]

If it's prevalent and has been going on since time immemorial, perhaps the problem is not with the behavior, but with an unrealistic set of social expectations and relationship rules.

 

 

 

The socially imposed rules and expectations of relationships in western society are incommensurate with human nature.

 

Interesting points. I often wonder how authentic the things people do and say actually are and whether they are reflections of what we are told to believe. An "expected" or "right" way to behave, rather than out of true emotion.

[threebyfate]

That was funny. Mind if I use your example of these sites to explain "confirmation bias" in my real life?

 

Thanks,

Ellie

Go right ahead.

[Syzygypassion]

I would throw in with the percentage estimates the fact (well-demonstrated on this board) that 50%+ of people are very judgmental of their fellow human beings!

 

And therein lies the answer. Bottom line, we are all human beings with our own varying percentages of strengths and weaknesses. We also have a choice in our regard for others. Some go thru life hating on others, literally stewing in their own hate and bitterness.

 

Others take a different path.

 

Even though we're social animals, we struggle with it mightily - and marriage is the toughest challenge of all. Knowing someone so thoroughly like that, putting up with them on a daily basis... I don't know how married people do it. Maybe a lot of people choose to step outside their M to grab a little happiness for themselves so that they CAN tolerate their S at home!

 

I don't know what else to say. We're all just... human. With an extraordinary ability to make each other happy - and just as extraordinary an ability to inflict intense misery on each other.

 

Interesting thoughts on human nature!

 

Does seem unfair though to question how married people put up with each other. Two people choosing to spend their lives togther till death could be seen as a beautiful enduring relationship. A spiritual union which sets us as humans far apart from other lifeforms.

 

You can try to quantify why affairs take place, but would miss out on the depth/detail and intricate differences that make each individual unique.

[fooled once]

The divorce rate in the US is around 50%. Of the remaining 50% who stay married, half of them only do so for religious or other reasons - otherwise they would also get divorced. That tells us 75% of the people who get married should have never gotten married in the first place.

 

That's why there are so many A's.

 

Is this a fact or a generalization?

 

What about the countless couples who have recovered their marriage and are very happy and have a stronger foundation than ever before? You know for a fact that 25% of marriages are only married because of religious or "other" reasons? Is recovered marriage an "other" reason? And why are you deciding the reasons why people do and do not stay married or get divorced?