Is the mistress (or male equivalent) ever to blame for an affair?

Ellsbells

Do you think it's only the person who is attached is solely to blame for an affair or does the 3rd party have a role to play?

I think they do if they knowing have an affair with someone who is attached.

No because some other woman dose not control your partners sexual behavior, everybody has to take responsibility for their own choices and behavior.

cheesefiend

I don't think it's that black and white. Does she know he's married, is she the wife's best friend? I don't think the third party is ever the only one to blame nor do I think they have zero responsibility. Every situation is different.

Scortho

No its not.
If I decide to cheat on my girlfriend its hardly the person i cheated with who's at fault and vica versa.
It'd be totally my fault.
While you may want to wring the mistress/male equivalent(mister?) neck I'd be targetting my anger at the cheater.

ted1

No, blame is solely on the attached person. Generally the third party is being fed a line. Like the marrriage is over or the likes.

Carlos Orange

Ellsbells wrote: »

Do you think it's only the person who is attached is solely to blame for an affair or does the 3rd party have a role to play?

I think they do if they knowing have an affair with someone who is attached.

Both are to blame (assuming they both know it is an affair) but that doesn't reduce the of culpability of the attached party. It isn't like a mistress can force a man to have an affair against his will.

Melion

Jesus i wish my ex could see this.

I did a bold thing and for some reason she blames the person i did it with more than me, i really cant understand it.

Scortho

Melion wrote: »

Jesus i wish my ex could see this.

I did a bold thing and for some reason she blames the person i did it with more than me, i really cant understand it.

the most important question...was it worth it?

Melion

Scortho wrote: »

the most important question...was it worth it?

I dont see my daughter as much as i would like but i wasnt happy in the relationship. I obviously could have just told her i wasnt happy(bleading hearts, dont bother stating the obvious), 2 years later and im with the "mistress" so it worked out.......kind of.

Scortho

Melion wrote: »

I dont see my daughter as much as i would like but i wasnt happy in the relationship. I obviously could have just told her i wasnt happy(bleading hearts, dont bother stating the obvious), 2 years later and im with the "mistress" so it worked out.......kind of.

Ah thats why she hates her! She thinks that the 'mistress' stole her partner!

It'd be worse on your daughter had she been growing up in a household where neither of you were happy.

Melion

Scortho wrote: »

Ah thats why she hates her! She thinks that the 'mistress' stole her partner!

It'd be worse on your daughter had she been growing up in a household where neither of you were happy.

There was no stealing involved, thats the thing. I made a conscious decision to do what i did, fed the usual line as mentioned above and did what i wanted.

ted1

Scortho wrote: »

Melion wrote: »

I dont see my daughter as much as i would like but i wasnt happy in the relationship. I obviously could have just told her i wasnt happy(bleading hearts, dont bother stating the obvious), 2 years later and im with the "mistress" so it worked out.......kind of.

Ah thats why she hates her! She thinks that the 'mistress' stole her partner!

It'd be worse on your daughter had she been growing up in a household where neither of you were happy.

There's a great line in French kiss where the wife meets the girl who stole her husband, her response is " I did not steal something that did not want to be stolen"

Scortho

Melion wrote: »

There was no stealing involved, thats the thing. I made a conscious decision to do what i did, fed the usual line as mentioned above and did what i wanted.

As you already said though, try tell that to her!

You could use the trading in the car analogy

Melion

Scortho wrote: »

As you already said though, try tell that to her!

You could use the trading in the car analogy

I think the fact i "traded" her (25) in for a 19 year old might make it too mean that i "traded her for a younger model"

ted1

Melion wrote: »

Scortho wrote: »

the most important question...was it worth it?

I dont see my daughter as much as i would like but i wasnt happy in the relationship. I obviously could have just told her i wasnt happy(bleading hearts, dont bother stating the obvious), 2 years later and im with the "mistress" so it worked out.......kind of.

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Glad it worked out with the mistress. Not sure if I would be brave enough to give up the family to follow.my heart.

Melion

ted1 wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your daughter. Glad it worked out with the mistress. Not sure if I would be brave enough to give up the family to follow.my heart.

Like i told my ex, if it wasnt her it would have been someone else. I didnt want my daughter being brought up around an unhappy relationship.

Scortho

Melion wrote: »

I think the fact i "traded" her (25) in for a 19 year old might make it too mean that i "traded her for a younger model"

She would definitely pick up on that part as well me thinks. Once you're both happy and your daughter is growing up in a happy home, thats the main thing.

Ellsbells

Melion wrote: »

Like i told my ex, if it wasnt her it would have been someone else. I didnt want my daughter being brought up around an unhappy relationship.

Why do you say it 'kind of' worked out?

oldyouth

If the mistress is a free agent, the responsibility rests solely with the person already in a relationship. The mistress isn't cheating on anyone

Ellsbells

And what if the 3rd party makes a beeline for the attached person fully aware they are married / attached?

Jerrica

Ellsbells wrote: »

And what if the 3rd party makes a beeline for the attached person fully aware they are married / attached?

They are at fault and morally vacuous, but no-one can be forced into an affair, the partner makes a conscious choice and has to take part blame.

Ellsbells

Of course but 3rd party is partly to blame

doolox

In my view single people in an extra marital relationship are enabling wrong to be done and if they know that a person is married they should steer well away and leave them alone. Not always possible but the head must rule the heart in most things in life or pain will result.

In this world full of grey areas a relationship may be loveless, the other partner may be engaging in acts of cruelty, omission or may even be having an affair with someone else already so that the existing relationship is already broken down and on the way to an end but with most normal relationships third parties should stay clear of married partners to allow time and space for a possible reconciliation and healing.

In our fast-moving pressurised world this is not often allowed to happen.

oldyouth

The 'other party' is not breaking any commitment to someone else. It is the person in the relationship who has broken the trust.

Now as for the character of the other party who enters in to an affair, knowing the circumstances, that is another matter entirely

Yes, of course they're partly to blame. I don't get this attitude (which I rarely encounter aside of boards.ie) that only the person in the relationship is doing something wrong.

Having a relationship with someone who is married or seriously attached is a despicable thing to do. It's just unethical. You're willingly taking part in something that could destroy someone else's life. It's just a cop out to say 'oh but if it wasn't me, he'd be doing it with someone else' and things like that. There is absolutely no good reason for being with someone who is attached when there are plenty of unattached people around. It's selfish, grimy and sordid. Before anyone comes out with the old 'life isn't black and white', I know that. It's normal and common to be attracted to people who are attached. It's happened to me several times. Yes, it is very tempting. Yes, it is exciting. But as a decent person, you put a stop to it and make it clear that you're not interested in helping someone cheat on his wife. If you're someone who sleeps with married men/women and claims it's perfectly fine, then I consider you a sh!tty person and not someone I'd ever want as a friend. I'm very liberal in most ways, but loyalty and integrity are hugely important to me and I guess that's why I feel like this.

Melion

Pearl Wailing Rancor wrote: »

Yes, of course they're partly to blame. I don't get this attitude (which I rarely encounter aside of boards.ie) that only the person in the relationship is doing something wrong.

Having a relationship with someone who is married or seriously attached is a despicable thing to do. It's just unethical. You're willingly taking part in something that could destroy someone else's life. It's just a cop out to say 'oh but if it wasn't me, he'd be doing it with someone else' and things like that. There is absolutely no good reason for being with someone who is attached when there are plenty of unattached people around. It's selfish, grimy and sordid. Before anyone comes out with the old 'life isn't black and white', I know that. It's normal and common to be attracted to people who are attached. It's happened to me several times. Yes, it is very tempting. Yes, it is exciting. But as a decent person, you put a stop to it and make it clear that you're not interested in helping someone cheat on his wife. If you're someone who sleeps with married men/women and claims it's perfectly fine, then I consider you a sh!tty person and not someone I'd ever want as a friend. I'm very liberal in most ways, but loyalty and integrity are hugely important to me and I guess that's why I feel like this.

Did you read anything that was posted above?
Normally the fella will feed the woman a load of lines about how the marriage is over etc. I know thats what i did(not marriage)

sweeney1971

If you are NOT getting love and affection at home, it is Human nature to look for it somewhere else.

There are women out there who could not give a dam if a guy is married or not.

Ellsbells

Melion wrote: »

Normally the fella will feed the woman a load of lines about how the marriage is over etc. I know thats what i did(not marriage)

But sure any woman with half a brain will know it's a line whether or not she will admit it.

Melion

Ellsbells wrote: »

But sure any woman with half a brain will know it's a line whether or not she will admit it.

Not true im afraid.

Of course getting involved with someone who is in a relationship is not a nice behavior to engage in but that dose not mean that its the fault of the other party, as I said every one has to take responsibility for there own behavior and decisions.

Its not about what the relationship is like loveless or what ever, your partner made the CHOICE to be with someone else they were not stolen by someone else, in fact that sort of reasoning seems to imply that your partner is some sort of weak person with no mind of their own and that they have to be protected from evil predators who are waiting to steal that away.

28064212

A common mistake people make is that there's only one "scale" of fault i.e. if cheating happens, that's a level of 100, and it's there to be divided between partner and 3rd party. It's not true at all.

A 3rd party may be at fault. But their fault does nothing to reduce the fault level of the partner at all.

Melion

Melion wrote: »

Did you read anything that was posted above?
Normally the fella will feed the woman a load of lines about how the marriage is over etc. I know thats what i did(not marriage)

Well, any woman who falls for that is a bit dim. But obviously in cases where the woman genuinely doesn't know the guy is attached, she's not to blame and is as much of a victim as the girlfriend/wife. Knowingly sleeping with someone attached is the point here, surely?

Lumie

To be honest, logically I wouldn't blame the mistress at all, if not attached themselves, I don't think they're actually doing anything wrong. It's up to my boyfriend to keep himself in check. It would be different if they knew me, if we were friends, and then they slept with my partner. That's definitely a betrayal.

Emotionally though, I'd be really really angry at both, but it would be easier for me to transfer my hatred to the other women, to think that she seduced him away from me. I think if your in the relationship, it's easy to hate the mistress, the "temptress". I would of course kick him to the curb, no forgiveness. I'm 100% not a fan of second chances in cheating, no matter what the reason for cheating.

Lumie

Pearl Wailing Rancor wrote: »

Well, any woman who falls for that is a bit dim. But obviously in cases where the woman genuinely doesn't know the guy is attached, she's not to blame and is as much of a victim as the girlfriend/wife.

I think that any woman, or man for that matter, in love or lust, wants to believe what they're told. They have no reason to automatically assume that they are being lied to.

Ellsbells

When you know someone is attached, there is a time before you are in love or beyond a point of no return where you make a conscious decision to pursue the 'relationship' or not so if you knowingly get involved it's a conscious decision and therefore you are complicit.

nowyouresix

Sometimes, yes.....and sometimes, no.
In general , if someone is content within their marriage, they won't stray. Something has to be amiss for them to seek companionship elsewhere.
While one should never nip out for a burger when they have fillet steak at home....the temptation of a big mac every now and then can just prove too much for some hungry folk. Thing is with fillet steak, you tend to plan what you will have to accompany it, nice wine, lovely veg etc etc, almost an occasion in itself to prepare....a burger will always just be a burger.

And such is life. Things sometimes happen when brains are momentarily turned off. And maybe it's the husband/wife of the person who is having the affair who is at fault. Who can say.

I'm on the fence here.... It's been done to me, and I blamed her, partly because it was easier than actually coming to terms with the fact my judgement was so obscured to marry a certain type in the first place... And would I ever be a mistress?? I can't say.... Like I said, things happen, such is life!

The Big Red Button

I've never been in that situation, but the way I'd see it is ... even if the "other woman" was in the wrong, if she'd flirted with him and "tempted" him or whatever, and even if she knew that he was with someone, and whether she was or wasn't in a relationship herself ... none of this would matter to me, and none of this would diminish his responsibility at all, in my eyes.

I'm not saying that in a dramatic way - honestly, cheating (in certain circumstances) mightn't even cause me to end a relationship. (Although I guess that's easy to say when it's never happened to me. )

However, if I was cheated on and if a boyfriend tried to deflect the blame by saying "she came on to me, it was her fault, she took advantage of me", etc, I'd just see him as being so weak and pathetic - firstly, for letting it happen, and secondly, for being unable to accept full responsibility for it. Sure how can you trust that it's unlikely to happen again, unless he can accept fully that he was wrong in the first place? If he really sees himself as being so cowardly and helpless that he could be "taken advantage of" like that, how would I know it wouldn't happen again? I couldn't stay in a relationship like that.

As far as I'm concerned, even if the third party was in the wrong, too - unless she was someone close to me, I simply wouldn't care! It wouldn't change what he had done. I wouldn't care who she was, I wouldn't care about her reasoning behind it, or how she felt about it - the way I'd see it would be that, if it weren't her, it would have been someone else down the line.

Of course, if she were someone close to me, that might change things. I think it would be very hard to repair a friendship after that sort of thing.

It still wouldn't make him any less to blame, though.

(Obviously I'm writing the above from a female point of view - my views would be the exact same if the genders were reversed.)

Stepping Stone

I don't think that the third party lessens the blame of the attached party, but I do think that they can shoulder a lot of the blame at the same time on occasion.

I was discussing this with a friend of mine recently. We both have experience of women who seem to see no value or perhaps attractiveness in single men. We put this down to insecurity or something along those lines. Two very attractive women, intelligent, successful but pursue, and very actively pursue taken men. The one thing that they both lack are friends. Everyone sees them as some sort of predator that nobody wants in their lives. Male or female, nobody wants to be responsible for introducing the 'other' woman into their family or friends.

In my friends case, she works with this woman. A good few years ago, a new guy started and she paid no attention to him until she found out that he had a girlfriend. Suddenly, she was flirting with him, asking him for small favours, etc. It escalated to her organising to go to the same conferences as him, constantly emailing and calling him. He quit about a year after and told some people that in his exit interview he had made it perfectly clear that it was her behaviour that made him leave.

Six months later, she very aggressively pursued a married man at work. It was a serious affair and very unprofessional. They were both reprimanded for it, but continued. He left his wife and kids for her and even changed offices to make it easier for them since management weren't happy. She is now constantly complaining about him and is now pursuing another married man, to no avail because he apparently thinks that she reeks of desperation.

While the idiot who left his wife would probably have cheated given the chance, you do kind of have to wonder if he would ever have had the opportunity if she hadn't been there?

My similarly insecure woman would admit that she never realised that men were attractive until she saw that another woman found them so attractive that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with them. Her tactics involve pointing out that they can do better, because she is invariable (in her eyes anyway) more beautiful, sexy, clever, successful, fun and generally better than their girlfriends and wives. Nine times out of ten, she isn't successful, but it only takes one idiot to cause someone else massive heartache.

While these are two in a million probably, I would be inclined to spread the blame to them too. It does not diminish the blame that should be allotted the the attached person though. I am not suggesting that this behaviour is restricted to women either, but I suppose that it is a conversation that I am less likely to have with a man.

I suppose my point is that it is never black or white, there are always shades of grey. You can never judge anything unless you know the whole story and realistically, nobody ever will. No one person is ever going to know how the relationship or marriage was, how the cheating started, how many lies were told, how many were believed, how someone only heard what they wanted to hear, what decisions were made, how long heads were buried in the sand.

Millicent

^^^

Those two women sound to me like people whose maturity never progressed past the toddler stage of wanting someone else's toy. I'd wager there's some serious issues going on with them too, in particular, wanting to "punish" other women or prove to themselves that they are better than the average woman.

Really sad.

Boombastic

No, if someone decides to cheat, it is their choice and their decision. They can't be lured by someone else, unless they are currently unhappy in their relationship.

Stepping Stone

Millicent wrote: »

^^^

Those two women sound to me like people whose maturity never progressed past the toddler stage of wanting someone else's toy. I'd wager there's some serious issues going on with them too, in particular, wanting to "punish" other women or prove to themselves that they are better than the average woman.

Really sad.

They are really sad, and the saddest thing is that they seem to have alienated most people.

I think that the comment about one reeking of desperation is probably spot on. Desperation for what is the big question.

I dunno, you do encounter some strange people in life. I suppose that my big point was that there are (very few) people out there with an entirely differently aligned moral compass. You can't write them off as blameless in some situations.

WhyGoBald

I think letting the cheater off the hook and putting all the blame on the third party is certainly wrong, in the sense that the cheater is the one in the relationship. However, the third party is answerable or culpable in a different way. It's the responsibility everyone has to society in general not to cause egregious harm. You don't supply a thief with the means to break into a house and steal a pensioner's life savings. Cheating isn't illegal but it's breaking a similar kind of compact.

Arawn

Nope, completely the persons who cheated fault. I was known as a bastard for it in my youth, currently in my first faithful relationship in years. Do you know why some the reasons were? Because i could, i like women, sex with the same person gets boring.

The person thats cheating is always to blame

In terms of the relationship affected it's the cheating partner's fault. However recently I've noticed my view on being the "other person" changing somewhat. I've had several chances to be the "other person" with some quite close friends and always stopped it. At this stage given the "right" circumstances I could see myself letting them make the mistake with me if they wanted to.

WhyGoBald

Deleted User wrote: »

At this stage given the "right" circumstances I could see myself letting them make the mistake with me if they wanted to.

Just curious, and this isn't meant as an attack, what would be your rationale for this? Why would you willingly put yourself in that position?

WhyGoBald

WhyGoBald wrote: »

Just curious, and this isn't meant as an attack, what would be your rationale for this? Why would you willingly put yourself in that position?

It'd have to be specific enough circumstances but if someone wants to cheat on their partner with me then I don't particularly want to be friends with them. At this stage the way I see it, and it's not something I'm particularly proud of, in future I may well say "**** it" and get something out of the situation.

She Devil

My ex cheated on me for months with a girl who lived on my street.
She used to pass me on the street and start sniggering in my face, I never realised why until it all came out. I blamed him though, always blamed him, even though I didn't like the girl, I could call her all the times under the sun, she knew what she was doing, she knew me, she laughed about what she was doing to my face, but at the end of the day, it was him with the obligation to me, and if he couldn't stand by them, then she was welcome to him.

Last laugh however is on me, because by all accounts even though they are married now, I hear that girl is terrified of him doing the same to her, there will always be trust issues in those relationships because deep down they know how easy it was to "snatch" him.

Ilyana

While the 'primary' fault as such lies with the cheater, I think that the mistress/other man cannot be completely absolved for knowingly contributing to the inevitable break up of someone's relationship.

Fair enough if it was a one night stand or short fling where the other man/woman was totally unaware of the cheater's relationship, it's unfair to blame them. But when you know that person is cheating, and you are complicit in infidelity, it doesn't say a lot about your morals. Don't expect to come out of the situation blameless.

I know that people make excuses about loveless relationships and seeking love elsewhere, but infidelity is infidelity in my eyes. Yes the married/taken person is mostly to blame, but the other person got into that bed too.

xDramaxQueenx

I don't know, I feel that its morally wrong to be with someone you know is taken, obviously. But the happiness of their partner really isn't your responsibility. The best thing about being single is only having to worry about yourself.

When you're in a relationship, it stops being just about you. You have to consider the needs and feelings of the person you're with, therefore, if you decide to cheat, then really, its completely 100% your fault. There is nobody in this world thats so irresistable that you find yourself having no other choice but to sleep with them.

Stench Blossoms

I think the blame lies with both but more so the person in a relationship.

I stupidly blamed the 'other woman' when it happened me and I cringe at the thought of it now. I changed my view and would put full blame on the person in a relationship.

But then I changed my view again. A friend of mine was seeing a guy who we knew had a girlfriend. When his relationship with the girlfriend broke down and we heard about how upset etc she was I asked her did she have any guilt. She said no.

I lost a lot of respect for her that day.