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A few weeks ago, my 2nd oldest son and I were talking about my WW affair.

It came up during a conversation about my oldest son leaving his wife and kids for one of the admen girls at his work
It f**ks me off and triggers me big time again. He of all people would know how hard it was on me and him at that time and still is to me this woman is married also with children. Vent over.

My wife’s A was back in 2000 so a long time ago. The two older boys were young teenagers when it all went down, I asked him if he and his brothers talk much about that time and what they thought of their mother doing this to myself and them. His answer you mean mum’s mid-life crises.

That got me thinking and after a lot of Googling the results are conflicting.

So, my question.

Is it an excuse or something that some people go through that don't have the mental ability to deal with it in a less destructive way?

Or just another very poor excuse for cheating?

You hear it a lot when families or others talk about someone cheating.

It's like he was having a mid-life crisis, just like he’s not that bad a person and wouldn't normally do anything like that.

Here's just two little bits off the net.

-A midlife crisis is typically defined as emotional turmoil marked by a strong desire for change.

-Many factors come into play: empty nest syndrome, loss of youth and vitality, realization of one's own mortality, and desiring to "live now."

[This message edited by fhtshop at 6:21 PM, Tuesday, June 10th]

It’s just WS excuses, Lots of people go through mid life and don’t cheat. It’s like blaming debt for bank robbery.

Yes, I'm sure they do me included. I think this most common excuse for a remorseful cheater but not the unremorseful cheater. It wasn't me it's a stage I am going through.

But what I am wondering could there genially be people that are not wired mentally for this emotional turmoil?

I know my wife was brought up by a very emotional and physically abusive mother. My wife has some very bad traits.

She has no empathy for anyone or anything. Example on a few occasions my daughter in law has made it hard money wise on my cheating son.

My wife gets upset and when I try to explain that poor old daughter-in-law is going through hell, she just can't see it at all. My son's wife should just except that he has chosen another woman over her and if she had been a better wife, it would not have happened.

I try to tell her that basically in the course of one day she has lost her husband her house (they will have to sell it they cannot afford to buy each other out it's a big house on a 4-acer lifestyle section in the country with still a lot of mortgage to pay. live in a crap small rental in town and have her kids only 1/2 the amount of time 50/50 custody.

When confronted by anything my wife doesn't like she will ether lash out verbally or shut down.

Example, she has cut all contact with two of her brothers and her little sister she will only talk to on the phone if necessary.

If you wrong, her lookout.

I don't know what I am looking for here really probably nothing. I have never found out my wife's why's and she is just too difficult to talk to. our marriage is great now and retirement is close for both of us.

Maybe I married a mentally and emotionally unstable woman coursed possibly by her upbringing.

But I do love her a lot. But I wish I had had the knowledge I have now about affairs when it happened, I done everything wrong like a lot on here. I would have pushed for answers way back then. Just the old pick me and rug sweep.

PS-Please excuse any grammar or spelling mistakes this is not my first language.

[This message edited by fhtshop at 7:49 PM, Tuesday, June 10th]

This is a classic, there can be two truths at the same time.

Yes, many people go through a lot of mental issues as they go from their 30's to their 50's (yes, in reality is a broad range of years possible). Many people have identity issues, or struggles with how they're interpreting their place in their life, etc. and it can be a difficult, soul searching period.

A dissatisfaction of themselves and/or their life, can make a person vulnerable to having an affair.

That said.....

Having an affair is a series of choices someone makes. There are always other choices so yes, it is still a poor excuse for cheating.

He could've bought a motorcycle and joined a club. He could've taken up skydiving. He could've quit his job and started a new company based around his hobbies/interests.

Blowing up your family is always the lowest and worst choice someone can make. There's a reason why, in Dante's Inferno, the lowest level of hell is reserved for betrayers.

My wife will not admit it, but she is absolutely going through a midlife crisis.

It’s no excuse for an affair though, that’s a character flaw that needs fixed.

I think it’s fairly easy to understand the difference between the two.

I’ve never cheated on anyone despite having the opportunity, the means, and all the excuses in the world (including a midlife crisis).

People need to call a spade a spade and a hoe a hoe.

Mid life crisis is a "stress" (equals heat in my fire analogy) that adds to the environment in which the cheating happened.

The WS is responsible for the "deception" (equals spark in my fire analogy).

EDIT: Since it's been a while since I posted about this. The other aspects are "opportunity" = fuel, and "attraction" = oxygen. I find this a useful way to think about what contributes to "the environment" of the affair, and the part the WS is entirely responsible for. Choosing deception is always on the WS.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 11:51 PM, Tuesday, June 10th]

I could see that being just a part of the motivation to do something stupid and destructive like cheating. My wife had a very long term affair that started when she was 49 years old. I think that's close enough for the midlife definition. Through all of my research of all of the years she was living that double life I realized that there were many things motivating her to do this and I really wasn't one of them but she still pointed the finger at me on Dday. What I'm trying to say is mid-life was just part of the puzzle for my wife as she had many personal issues and weaknesses that she had failed to address and her motivation changed as the years went by. I'll bet that there was a lot more than midlife crisis for your wife too. No spouse can be perfect and please their mate 100%. Whatever issues our spouses had there are many ways to address them other than infidelity. Sometimes I think the unfaithful should look in the mirror before pointing fingers at everything else for their choices in life.

Lost1313

Lost1313

Your wife and mine are not sisters are they lol.

As usual it was me that was the one that made her make that decision. All the things I did or didn't do in the marriage.

Believe me I am no saint and did a lot of things I am not proud of over that time, but I always tried my best and to be a good provider and husband/dad. If she had only spoken out or asked for counseling even left me rather than go down that road, I am sure I would be in a better space now.

My wife didn't have a double life though. I picked up on the EA very early by reading an e-mail before it turned into a PA. After a few weeks of me doing the pick, me dance she left for a few months for a full-on PA.

The closest I ever got to an apology was when he had finished with her was this.

She came back with all her clothes and stuff. She was standing by the front door and said to me "you were right he was just using me"(part of my pick me dance)

She made a complete fool of herself thinking this un-married player with no kids wanted a married mother with 3 kids.

[This message edited by fhtshop at 10:52 PM, Tuesday, June 10th]

I will start by saying I would be far more troubled with her lack of empathy for your daughter in law and some of the statements she makes around that. In fact those statements would give me great pause if my ws had learned anything at all.

In terms of midlife crisis, like others have stated it’s more some of the circumstances surrounding, but it doesn’t excuse the decisions to cheat. Lots of people have identity crisis, and do not cheat. It’s a piss poor coping mechanism to choose. It is. Growing thing because I am seeing women between 41-45 are the biggest growing group of cheaters.

I can say that I was having such a crisis when my affair started and having done so only made the whole thing worse, not just for my husband but for me as well.

I was questioning everything. We had moved towards almost empty nest (last kid at home was getting ready to graduate), and the amount of sacrifice, well to the point of martyrdom, had left me not knowing what my purpose now would be, what I liked, who I was. I questioned leaving my career, going to back to school, whether or not I wanted to be married or not. At the time I didn’t even think my lack of decision on that last one had much at all to do with my husband. I blamed marriage in general for my unhappiness. When I would think about if I ever wanted to be married again the answer was a clear no, because if I did I want to be married it would be to him. I really hadn’t made him the bad guy until I started trying to justify the affair.

The affair for me was a subconscious way to blow something up that I didn’t have a good reason to give anyone. It was based off who I thought I needed to be in order to be married, and really wanting instead to know my true identity without compromise or consideration of meeting someone else’s needs all day. It’s because I was a people pleaser, and couldn’t see that I was the one holding the keys all along.

So yes, I do relate some of my thinking and the pain I felt at that time to how I used escapism of an affair to bury my head. But I wasn’t insane, I made every choice, formed every word, and did all the physical things because that is what I decided to do.

At the time my empathy wasn’t there. I think it’s because when you are doing something so wrong you spend a lot of time lying to yourself. I also think I had reached a peak in my pain that I no longer cared what happened to me. I was very numb before my affair, and those big adrenaline/dopamine releases were the first feelings I had in months and months. I thought that meant something about my connection to the ap. Which is also not a excuse, I am simply just telling you what I felt.

But generally I am an empathetic person. I am quite intuitive about other people’s feelings even in the workplace where such things are not generally discussed. I said this part not to say look how great I am. I said it for this:

If your wife’s affair was only based on her midlife crisis, but her empathy has never been there nor is it there now, I would say strongly that some of the whys of her affair have not been looked at or addressed.

You mention her having a terrible childhood. Lots of people it’s a terrible childhood don’t cheat. And some people who cheat didn’t have bad childhoods. I think for me, it created the tendencies that you see ws often have in common- avoidance, the belief I had to work hard to earn love, the toxic shame that my personality had formed around, etc.

Lack of empathy means lack of remorse to me. You can not take accountability over the damage you have caused without it. The fact she thinks it’s fine for your son to cheat under any condition, much less blame it on his wife, is a very bad sign.

I suppose if I found out one of my children were cheating, I would sit them down and try to talk some sense into them. I would tell them it’s all an illusion. I would talk to them about getting some therapy, or at least pushing pause on everything- go NC with AP. I would have tons to say about all the mistakes I made and not to be like me. That I traumatized myself by doing it, and that it can derail your life for years on end. I would be so disappointed.

Your wife still has a lot of work to do, 25 years later.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:02 AM, Wednesday, June 11th]

Midlife crisis is real. My H had one at 49.

He was unhappy with his life & career and thought an affair was the answer. With a much younger woman (20 years younger) so he could live the "single life".

He became someone I didn’t even recognize. He was mean and nasty and angry and blamed me for everything.

I could see the looming disaster but he was convinced she was his true love.

Once he snapped out of it and got out from under, I think he was scared at how close he came to making a huge mistake and making a mess of his life.

He’s lucky I took him back after he decided to kick me to the curb.

Every single reason ever offered for infidelity is merely an excuse. If we collectively agree that, in the vast majority of cases, cheating is inexcusable, then all the "why's," all the elaborate justifications, collapse into nothing more than excuses.

My most sympathetic stance is reserved for the victim of an abusive relationship who genuinely sees no viable escape—where divorce or separation seems impossible—and cheats out of a profound desperation or even utter contempt for their tormentor. This scenario offers a sliver of excusability.

Beyond this singular, harrowing exception, every other "reason" for infidelity descends into the realms of cowardice, naked selfishness, or underlying personality disorders.

Personally, I find the most triggering aspect of engaging with infidelity narratives is encountering the justifications waywards expose when describing how the affair came about. They invariably preface these accounts by declaring their "reasons" are not excuses, yet they feel an inescapable compulsion to offer them nonetheless.

It's astounding to me how readily childhood trauma is deployed as a convenient explanation. Individuals somehow manage to meticulously preserve the debilitating effects of childhood trauma for two decades or more, only for it to miraculously manifest itself precisely when the opportunity arises to gain additional orgasms from an attractive new partner. What a truly astonishing coincidence! It couldn't possibly be that they are simply individuals of low moral worth; no, it must be the trauma, conveniently erupting at the most opportune moment.

The same cynical observation applies to the mid-life crisis. Isn't it profoundly strange how millions navigate the turbulence of a mid-life crisis, yet the overwhelming majority of these individuals do not cheat? What divides those who succumb from those who do not simply boils down to principle. To moral fortitude. Or, quite simply, what I would unapologetically call, being a good person.

Having a midlife crisis is irrelevant.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 8:39 AM, Wednesday, June 11th]

What divides those who succumb from those who do not simply boils down to principle.

Completely agree.

However it is a recognized "syndrome" and does include a set of conditions or behaviors that are typical across the board.

Midlife crisis affairs often involves a radical lifestyle change, often a divorce and sometimes abandonment of children.

Not all cheaters throw away their life / family / career for an affair. But often midlife crisis affairs involve drastic changes on the part of the cheater.

My H was convinced the OW was his true love I was watching this affect him at lightening speed and realized this is now an exit affair because he’s got one foot out the door. He became someone I no longer recognized.

My close friend who was married to a serial cheater never had this experience. Her cheating H maintained the same persona for 25 years of marriage. He never once considered leaving the marriage - he just continued to cheat.

Just to be clear, not everyone who has a midlife crisis cheats in their spouse or partner. I’ve witnessed people who radically change their lifestyle and get into extreme sports or train for marathons etc.

But midlife crisis is a documented syndrome. And yes millions of happy people hit 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 and don’t have a crisis about it. I used to laugh at people who turned 50 and were driving sports cars and hanging out in clubs trying to pick up women in their 20s. They didn’t realize how desperate and ridiculous they looked.

When it happened to my H it was no longer funny. It was sad.

I absolutely agree with you; mid-life crises undeniably exist. It's a very cliched, yet well-recorded, phenomenon that some individuals do indeed run off with a younger secretary or colleague in response to this. However, the fact that infidelity is a recognized symptom of a well-noted phenomenon does nothing whatsoever to excuse it. Arguably, I can't even see why this fact would be in any way soothing to a betrayed spouse. Would it make me feel any better to know a mid-life crisis fueled the betrayal, as opposed to someone simply succumbing to out-and-out lust? No, I can't discern any difference that would alter my view on the matter.

I want to present this analogy as gently as I can, and it's important to note that this is somewhat secondhand knowledge from a reliable source. My mother's psychology dissertation focused on the long-term effects of sexual abuse in children and how these can manifest in adulthood. What's particularly disturbing is that many pedophiles were, in fact, victims of the crime themselves as children. Some even refer to it as "the vampire disease." One could delve into multi-page theories explaining why they then go on to inflict the very pain that was enacted upon them, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's just accept this as a documented correlation.

Now, this is definitively not to say that all those who were abused as children go on to be pedophiles; that is certainly not the case. Very similarly to how not all those who have mid-life crises go on to cheat. However, if you hear of a serial pedophile who is caught, and you later discover they too were molested as a child... I suppose you may think, "Okay, that's what triggered that behavior." But do you see them as any better of a person? Nope. They're still a monster who did unspeakable evils.

This is very much how I perceive almost any excuse offered for cheating. You acknowledge the reason. Perhaps it helps you make more sense of it intellectually. But it does absolutely nothing else to make the betrayed spouse feel better or to render the wayward spouse any less morally culpable.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 11:03 AM, Wednesday, June 11th]

This is very much how I perceive almost any excuse offered for cheating. You acknowledge the reason. Perhaps it helps you make more sense of it intellectually. But it does absolutely nothing else to make the betrayed spouse feel better or to render the wayward spouse any less morally culpable.

We all know some betrayed, desperate to R at any cost, will grasp on to any tonic to help the sandwich-ala-merde go down. The mind’s ability to self-delude is immense.

This is very much how I perceive almost any excuse offered for cheating. You acknowledge the reason. Perhaps it helps you make more sense of it intellectually. But it does absolutely nothing else to make the betrayed spouse feel better or to render the wayward spouse any less morally culpable.

To answer the initial question, IMO "2 things can be true". Mid Life crisis ARE a real thing AND just an excuse for cheating.

On D-Day 1 I scrambled to figure out what "made" my wife cheat. Was the marriage bad? Was it me? Does she have a mental disorder? What could it have been because that is so "unlike her"?

My wife had an affair at 41. Our youngest child was graduating High School and moving away for college. My wife’s whole identity was wrapped up in "being a mom". My career was exploding. Hers was not. She met a guy at work, one thing led to another, she "fell into an affair". Yada, yada, yada……obviously, this was a mid-life crisis, right? OR it was her 11th affair over a 20 year career of affairs. She started at 21 (married too young and scared, obviously) and through the next 20 years of "bad marriage" to "good marriage" to seemingly "great marriage" kept on cheating.

She also had CSA, avoidant attachment style, bipolar disorder and type B personality (all diagnosed by a pro FWIW). Surely, some or all of that is "to blame".

My wife cheated multiple times for 20 years. We lived in 3 states, she had 7 different jobs (90% of APs were met at work) and we went from dirt poor to VERY well off. The one common denominator? Her! She was MIA the day morals were being passed out…….

Every single reason ever offered for infidelity is merely an excuse. If we collectively agree that, in the vast majority of cases, cheating is inexcusable, then all the "why's," all the elaborate justifications, collapse into nothing more than excuses.

Not picking in you Dr. Just holding this up as a common refrain here to maybe expand on why we even talk about such things. You do seem to understand why, I just wanted to elaborate on it from a ws perspective mostly for others.

There is no excuse for an affair. Period. People have affairs because they want to. Part of a ws’s work is to figure out why they would want to and how they could do something so terrible to the person they pledged vows to, who they often claim to love, the person they likely sleep next to every night.

I do not think about a ws’s why’s and how’s to be something thy gets them out of trouble or that it makes the cheating more palatable.

The reason we ws need to understand our how’s and whys is to become self aware we have to look at and face all the things about us that led to cheating. And then use that information to make self modifications. I find that important regardless of the outcome of the marriage.

Any crisis one has can lead to a richer self understanding and can really change the direction you thought you wanted to go in life. I think about a ship changing course. Those who have an affair is like adding a Hurricane to the ships direction. You have to figure out what the hell happened to the navigation system that led you deeper into the storm instead of something more proactive.

Very little of this has to do with alleviating a bs’s pain. However, in cases of reconciliation, and even some divorces, a ws realizing all the ways they mismanaged their life that spurred in this crisis, and seeing them take better steps, display better coping, and changing that management can help begin to build trust back up. It takes lots of things to build back trust but knowing your whys and how’s that led you to a place where you thought an affair was a great idea is a fundamental piece of that.

Understanding things does not excuse them, nor will it mitigate the trauma that you inflicted. But working on yourself and communicating what you have learned is a good thing.

If someone is still acting without any understanding of the damage of cheating or how wrong it is 25 years after their own affair, this person has not gone through that soul searching process and is not a safe partner. Op has bigger issues 25 years after his wife’s crisis. Anyone who condones cheating and excuses it by blaming the cheaters wife hasn’t learned a thing.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:57 PM, Wednesday, June 11th]

Think of cheating like a balancing scale. With love, empathy, character, and integrity on the side that weighs against the betrayal. We all have issues that might weigh on the wrong side at times. Every person has differing collections of weights on the scale and those weights are never static. Love in particular ebbs and flows as we move through life.

Midlife crisis and fear of missing out are just one of the minor weights on the wrong side. Need for external validation/Low self-esteem. The bigger ones I see are Selfishness, Narcissism, no integrity, and lack of empathy.

Some people don't have much character, empathy, and integrity to help cover for any temporary loss of love. There are those they may have enough already on the wrong side that love is never enough. These tend to be the serial cheaters. They don't need much if anything to stray. I think more people than you think will stray if enough lands on the wrong side while the good side is lightened. But there are people that go through the same levels and manage to stay true to their vows.

What I take from your story is not that your wife had an affair that was caused by a mid-life crisis, but that she learned nothing from what she did. She has no empathy at all for spouses that were betrayed. That she is so outspoken about it to you means she doesn't really have empathy for what she did to you. It seems your oldest son has more of the traits of your wife more than you.

[This message edited by grubs at 3:07 PM, Wednesday, June 11th]

What divides those who succumb from those who do not simply boils down to principle. To moral fortitude. Or, quite simply, what I would unapologetically call, being a good person.

See, this is where I really question how true that might be. While it's easy to think of principle as black and white, it's almost more like a dam holding back a flood (sorry to use a new analogy).

I think many of us are never tested in a way that really pushes the water high enough to overflow. We may claim superior principle, but it may also be that we haven't been as challenged. We may also simply have a much taller dam. Perhaps some people would never overflow or crack regardless of the pressure, but I think those people are far fewer than those who believe they are that sort of person.

I do think there are those with higher and lower dam heights, and those with no dam at all.

I think I've talked about the "two kinds of cheaters" with you before. And the kind that has simply had their principles tested beyond their limits can rebuild a better dam. Those who never had a dam in the first place are unlikely to make one at all.

Hikingout

Sorry I don’t know how to highlight text plus I use Google docs for most writing to help with Grammar and some spelling then cut and paste so I put your comments in brackets.

There were some very good points you made.

( will start by saying I would be far more troubled with her lack of empathy for your daughter in law and some of the statements she makes around that. In fact those statements would give me great pause if my ws had learned anything at all.)

Like I said my wife doesn't know what empathy is. I have to bite my tongue very hard at times with her comments. I have told her she is the last one that should pass any judgment on my son’s cheating and that did strike a nerve with her. She just went quiet and started tearing up.

(If your wife’s affair was only based on her midlife crisis, but her empathy has never been there nor is it there now, I would say strongly that some of the whys of her affair have not been looked at or addressed.)

The only why’s I got from her were at the beginning when I was not a great husband so in her head that gave her the right to do what she did, the typical rewrite of the marriage thing I have read about here. You know that if you hadn't done this, I wouldn't have done that bull shit. She did tell me some years ago that she nearly took her own life after it ended and I do sort of believe her, but I don't think she is the type that could carry it out anyway. She did make a big fool of herself with him this good-looking single guy showing him off to friends going to concerts living like a single woman having so much fun just like a teenager gee he even had a two-seater sports car be it a cheap Japanese one.
I really believe she thought he was interested in a long-term relationship with her; it never crossed to her mind that all he was interested in was what was between her legs until the next vulnerable woman came along. She was just another conquest to add to his list. I tried so hard to warn her during my pick me dance before it turned into a full-on PA, but she was too much into the fog to hear it. She just got used like an unpaid hooker. It would have been better if she just stood on the street corner and at least get some money for it.

She is not dumb though university trained teacher and she has done all the royal school of music exams but in saying that she is very gullible. It's very easy to pull one over her.

(I suppose if I found out one of my children were cheating, I would sit them down and try to talk some sense into them. I would tell them it’s all an illusion. I would talk to them about getting some therapy, or at least pushing pause on everything- go NC with AP.)

It’s way past repair now. They are living together now just like a happy family. When he left Maxine, he asked my wife if he could stay with us. Over the course of a few beers in my garage I did talk to him about his situation he told me all the blame shifting reasons for leaving her but never mentioned OW, so I told him to get some marriage counseling don't throw away everything without trying to fix your marriage. It was Maxine that found the truth, another co-worker that obviously hates cheaters let her know. It did piss me off a lot if I had known the full story I would not have let him live with us and I let him know. I now feel like I helped him to a life with OW

There is no way Maxine will ever take him back now and I don't blame her. If he was just honest and said I have found a more desirable woman that I am willing to blow up my wife and kids' stable lives for would have been better. But cheaters never say that they do, they only say if the BS had done this or not done that I would not have been tempted to go with another partner.

[This message edited by fhtshop at 6:16 PM, Wednesday, June 11th]

Perhaps some people would never overflow or crack regardless of the pressure, but I think those people are far fewer than those who believe they are that sort of person.

That's a well-reasoned argument. With no data available for either side on this – and I'm not even sure how attainable such data would be – I don't think people with impenetrable walls are as rare as you do, and I certainly hope I'm right about that.

Maybe that's a coping mechanism on my end, hoping the world isn't so filled with betrayers and moral reprobates - guess that should make me hold onto those I feel have integrity even tighter. Excuse me, going to go hug my fiance and pray (not literally pray)