I read this to my wife and she said that it goes for both genders. Women have affairs, too.

I dunno about this... (Really don't: When I was married I had no mistress)

I understand that marriages fall into ruts. (Really do: I comprehend that part fully.)

And while I don't mean to put words in your mouth, Amy, I think we agree that not every mistress-keeper is by definition a horrible man, or that every marriage thus tainted should be dissolved.

But I think it's weird to tell wives whose husbands wander that it's because they lack some critical component of sparky imagination.

Is this blog comment going well? No? Well, that's because I agree with everybody, including the old mistress.

A lot of young women, including very naive and self-centered ones, are nonetheless able to manipulate men into starting large families before the men's own energies for play are exhausted. Those young women have never wanted anything more than a house full of needy, screaming brats. That's all the men's needs are to them, a means to that end.

A woman who's brought her marriage and family to an impasse like that is probably not going to be equipped to care for him enough to work their way out of it. She's got too many other things to worry about once the kids are there to read books like this. And his opinion of her has been grievously wounded, anyway.

And ten years earlier, before the kids, she's not going to be the sort of curious young woman who reads books like this. She'll see her sexuality and the excitement it offers only as tools for her manipulation, not sources of connection in their own right. It's not the connection she wants, anyway.

Shorter version: In the battle between literature and naiveté, don't wager on the library.

People cheat for many reasons, and not always because the marriage has something wrong with that (the late Shirley Glass, Ira's mother, wrote wisely on that). But I think Drury has a great point.

And I agree with everybody, including Crid.

Not that I'm an expert in affairs, or what causes them (other than I've never philandered, yet have been philandered on several several times)... but my experience is they're more likely to take place when the 'adoration' factor wanes. And it should come as no surprise the biggest contributor here (again in my experience) is complacency.
Sadly our currect state of 'no fault' (ie zero culpability) divorce industry and proclivity for the fairer gender to succeed (without merit of any factor other than the gender involved) in family courts virtually dismisses the risk of a 'wandering wife' coming out with the short end of the stick (proverbially speaking) in a divorce.
Gunner Retired

c'mon kids this is a common truism that applies in any number of issues... "It doesn't do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

The catch is that while you are immersed in the situation, you don't imagine that you are forgetting to live... and as crid points out you may not read such books depending on where you are... seems like this is something that really needs to be told to you by friends.

'course that's me being all optimistic an' stuff about people's motives. [which would be sadly contrary to experience...]

On the other hand, though, there could very easily be the mistress who is wanting and waiting for the man to leave his wife and family, who has been promised this numerous times, yet the man fails to come through, and the mistress is still waiting. Not pressuring him for a future together right now, but thinking that it surely will happen one day, one day soon. Not all of them, but some. I had a friend who had an almost 7-years-long affair with this married guy, and she kept insisting that he was going to leave his wife and 2 kids, and they were going to live happily ever after, dammit! One night, she and I were out and about, after yet another broken date (he said he had to go to one of his son's baseball games, it was a double-header, he couldn't get out of it, he would try to see her after 10 p.m., etc. and so on, oh baby please wait for me!); I told her, look, he's bullshitting you, and even if he did leave her, how do you know he wouldn't shack up with someone else while he's with you? One of my rules about guys like that is, if he does it with you, he'll do it to you. ANyway, we went to a pub for a couple of drinks, then she wanted to get dinner at this new restaurant that had opened, within walking distance of the pub. And yes, you guessed it, there was the guy, having a very imtimate dinner with his wife. I had to drag my friend out there, she was screaming at him, it was quite embarrassing for everyone. About a month later, she finally broke it off with him. I haven't seen her in a while, but our class reunion is coming up this weekend. I'd really like to see her smiling this time.

Flynne, that is a very sad tale, but probably very common. I think what is shows is that some guys are greedy and want both the security of the nice safe wifey at home, as well as the excitement of the slutty mistress.

The lesson here is that women that are having an affair with a married guy shouldn't kid themselves. They can't take him seriously because he isn't taking her seriously. She should keep her options open and definitely keep dating other guys, just to keep some perspective.

Why a woman would want a guy that is that unethical is beyond me.

I've got to agree. The writer way oversimplifies a complicated situation. I think more mistresses are like Flynne's friend overall than they are the writer if they're really honest with themselves. How many would be cool if he walked out that door after a night's tryst and never called again? Why not if they're really just living for today?

And thinking about tomorrow? Man, what a drag. If a man's turned off from his wife because she takes care of the future (which includes everything from making sure next month's mortgage/rent is paid, health insurance coverage is got and, yes, retirement, so you don't wind up broke and penniless when you're too old to work), he's not a man. He's a little boy who just wants to play with toys. And she's bumming him out, man, laying all this responsibility on him. Well, I suspect he'd be bummed out even more if he fell ill and didn't have the insurance she worried about, the house to recuperate in or if their kids dropped out and were still mooching off them at 35. Sure, with this kind of guy, a mistress has it all over a wife. He's also the kind of pathetic loser who wouldn't be okay on his own (as a real man would be), who -- without a wife as a mommy substitute -- would wind up choosing fun over responsibility until it came back to bite him in the ass.

It's a real fun or responsibility thing in comparing wives and mistresses in this bit and that's nonsense. They're people. And like most of us, have bits of both. Let's face it life is a balancing act. All work and no play doesn't just make Jack a dull boy (or Jill a dull girl) but makes them go slowly out of their mind. All play and no work winds up in jail or starving on the street. The trick is to balance the two and most of us spend our lives juggling to do just that so we don't wind up one extreme or the other.

Yeah, women who think a married man is going to leave his wife are idiots. She may find out about you and leave him, but he ain't gonna walk out on her, hardly ever.

There are nay number of cliches to be used here, but yeah. People having affairs are looking for the fun, the "spark" the excitement, not the everyday life stuff. Of course your mistress is exciting and nice, you've never seen her un-showered for 3 days with a really sick baby to take care of, and she's never told you "No, I don't think you should buy a corvette, the kids need braces". And she's never seen you sitting on your butt on the couch night after night farting away and picking your nose. It's easy to be fun when you have no responsibilities in the situation.

Uh on, someone perhaps lacking all the relevant equipment is explaining male sexuality to the world:

"[Men] having affairs are looking for the fun, the "spark" the excitement, not the everyday life stuff. Of course your mistress is exciting and nice, a really sick baby to take care of, and she's never told you "No, I don't think you should buy a corvette, the kids need braces". And she's never seen you sitting on your butt on the couch night after night farting away and picking your nose. It's easy to be fun when you have no responsibilities in the situation."

Contrary to this view, my male friends who are unfaithful generally tell me they did so because the wife was only interested in the most unthrilling sort of sex ("Kids are in bed, I am in my threadbard but comfy flannel jammies, and it is ten minutes before I roll over to sleep! You can do it now." Gee, that a thrill...) about once a year, although they seemed to tolerate it at other times.

Frankly, to paraphrase another advice columnist, if a woman sees frequent and fun sex with her husband as relatively unimportant on the to do list, she should not complain too bitterly if he starts doing that unimportant thing with someone else. Because for most men, frequent and fun sex is *really* important. Corvettes, braces, baby spit up, and farting are not really all that big a deal to most guys if the wife is actually putting out with enthusiasm.

""No, I don't think you should buy a corvette, the kids need braces". momof3...

So little change needs to be made to this statement to make it work, but it is a bit similar to what spartee said... We are speaking the same language in different ways, ultimately.

The statement says, "Your needs are of no consequence, your responsibility to the family is the only important thing."

If you say: "a corvette? you mean like the one you used to pick me up in when we were dating? mmm... if we start socking money away for that now, we can afford to get the braces for the kids this fall, and the covette next year. so, where are you going to take me in it?"

The outcome is the same. Braces have to come before other things... but it shows that those other things are important too. This is something that both parties have to learn how to do, and it isn't that easy, unless you get together and talk about agendas. Compromise? Imagine that.

Even if the mistress doesn't want the guy to leave his wife, I still don't see what she gets out of the arrangement. If the wife finds out, she will blame the mistress, not her husband, and the husband will also point the finger at her, saying she seduced him. The wife would probably make a lot of trouble for her at work or at her house, and then the guy would dump her anyways.
It's also a given that he will have sex the odd time with the wife, so it's not like he's sexually faithful to the mistress.
Spartee, these guys whose wives only like boring sex-it's possible that they were always like that, which is why they were considered suitable wife material. I can't tell you how many guys weren't too happy with me because I actually enjoyed sex. They were terribly insecure, obviously, so I was better off without them, but still-you can't marry the Church Lady and hope she'll turn into Pamela Anderson.

One of the decisions I wish I'd made better was not being the other woman for a while, but a life lesson for me anyway. I can vouch that I had no interest in him leaving his wife for me. He was fun and a good boost to a beat-up view of myself, and seemed like a good option because he WASN'T available. And he was out looking. We were friends and his marriage was in a slump. In the end, I got some fun for a bit, he got the itch out of his system in a relatively safe way (no threat of the mistress showing up at a restaurant and screaming at him) and they had a couple more good years. Not sure how things are going now as last time I ran into him, he wondered if I'd be interested in a second round. For the record, I declined saying I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for hurting his wife if he got caught.

When I was living in Germany some years ago, I kept a mistress, what did she get out of the arrangement?

She had a good time, feel like going to a nude beach for a weekend in eastern Spain, sure, why not? She got help putting herself through school as a massage therapist, (best mistress EVER) she got the ease of having a boyfriend, without the stress of working to keep one. In short, all the benefits, none of the burdens.

But what about my wife? Hell she had a happier husband, and of course the chore, and lets face it guys AND girls, it IS a chore sometimes to deal with even the beloved ones of the opposite sex, no harm in saying that, we are after all "opposites", with all which that entails. She regularly got time to herself to tend to her own projects, artistic and educational. What about the lying? Well there was no lying, oh it wasn't a regular topic of discussion unless their was a schedule conflict, but she always came first. I had time with the mistress to unwind, then had time with her, unwound. I certainly never felt the need to lie to her. When you get right down to it, I suppose all of us got pretty much the same thing out of the arrangement. Great sex, relaxation, time to one's self, security, and companionship.

I'm not saying a man ought go out and screw everything in a skirt, but to much of anyone for to long can be suffocating, and what is one supposed to do in time apart? Be alone? How is that better? Bah, I love the U.S. but it is such a prudish place, and its women so insecure about the men in their lives, I never knew how tense we were about all those things, until I went overseas. Now, frankly I feel bad for my fellow Americans.

Robert, how would you feel if your wife had a 'Mister' on the side as well, in liberal Europe, just 'to make her feel better'. If both parties in a marriage are stepping out, and they're both OK with it, then it's nobody's business. I believe that's called an open marriage. I just don't like the dishonesty, and the emotional scenes, especially if I am the one being screamed at.

Uh, Robert, what makes you so sure that your wife's time to herself was spent on artistic and educational pursuits? After all, she wasn't getting any at home either. At least not while you were there.

My point, maybe she was, maybe she wasn't. I don't know you; I don't know her; so I don't know and don't care.

But your attitude is exactly the baby boy attitude to which I was referencing. I kind of hope, for her sake, your wife was "unwinding" with someone else in your absence.

And, frankly, prude? Because we call you out on being a spoiled brat?

We all make our mistakes and that's the problem with judging. I wasn't judging. Just calling them as I see them. If other women want to forgive an asswipe screwing around on them, that's their biz. Catch my man doing so and he's over. And reasons why wouldn't matter as I could never trust him again. End of story. Too many risks involved -- to me, not him. As Judge Judy puts it, I'd simply put a period at the end of that sentence and move on.

Robert claims - "But what about my wife? Hell she had a happier husband..."

Robert,

I've heard this sort of arguement a few times in recent years, but previously only from women who claim that their husbands benefited by their cheating because, after all, they were happier because they were cheating. You're the first man I've heard make such a claim.

Rather than try to put some positive "my spouse benefits too" spin on one's selfish acts, I'd like to see those who engage in affairs just come right out and admit that they couldn't care less about how their husband or wife feels about it, they're doing just because they want to, and in their mind, that's all that matters to them.

And, just for the record, would you also benefit if your wife was happily in an affair with another man?