My H is not into kids really either....never was......which is ironic because I am a huge child advocate and could have a family of 6 or more.......my AP was also, but that is not why I had an affair. In fact my children have nothing to do with it.

I, too, appear I have a picture perfect life.

In therapy, I learned that my A's were a result of a bunch of events. A few were childhood and learned behaviors (I prefer not to mention details on this forum), but events that do lead to cheating, sexual promiscuity, affairs. I also think my marriage was such that we weren't connecting. I think when I asked for a separation, I was brushed off and told everything was fine.....maybe for him......I felt that I tried to reach out to him and he just wasn't getting it....... I was experiencing so many life events/stressors in my life that I needed/craved the distraction --- the passion, the laughs, the connection, the freedom again---which is why I felt (wrongly) justified to have an A for so many years.

I think the reason that having A's are a primal response is PART of the reason we all cheat.

Also, there are so many pressures in life and people turn to an A for escape the same way people turn to drugs for escape.

Like turning to drugs people can and do get addicted to their AP's; like me.

I became vulnerable to an affair because I felt suffocated in marriage and increasingly had my own needs and feelings ignored or invalidated by my husband, when I even had the nerve to express them (I don't do emotional intimacy well because of my family of origin). I was also overwhelmed by my career and children and struggling with the thought, "Is this all there is?" I tried to get by on the obligation of marriage but had given up on feeling fulfilled there.

Eventually, an AP came along and aggressively pursued and wooed me. He was exciting and creative, and I felt like I was making a choice for myself for the first time ever as an adult.

I have ended it, and I am still working on my marriage, but that means dealing with the same feeling of suffocation and learning to have healthy boundaries with my husband, not just couple boundaries to keep others out.

I do agree with desertflower1234 that there is an inherent human desire for a variety of connections, and monogamy is an active choice that takes effort. I suppose when I was younger, I thought if I found my "true love," I would never want to stray. I now believe that the "true love" feeling does not always last in a long-term relationship and that we have to make a real sacrifice to stay faithful in one.

Abetterman, I can also relate when it comes to children, so it is not gender-specific. I struggle with the "chaos" of them and always have.

Only after I recovered from my A did I realize why it all happened. It was an escape from dealing with my present life. Someone came along & said...it's not your fault Clove. Let me make you feel better. Well, not in those exact words but you get the drift.

What everyone else said (more or less): escape. Also: attention; something I felt I was getting none of in my M.

The 'feel good' chemicals had a big role too.

Distraction, passion, connection, freedom, suffocated, escape, ignored, feeling better, attention......... all very strong words needing to be addressed otherwise our hearts look to fill the void.

Boredom, Opportunity, Loneliness, mostly loneliness. My old flame walked into my life during just the right time when I was feeling most vulnerable and alone. It started slowly as a rekindling friendship, then EA, then PA over the course of about a year.

The fact that cheating is a primal response explains so so much why cheating is an EPIDEMIC.

When people stack on individual problems and dramas on top of the fact that cheating is a primal response, it is so so easy to see why so many of us descend into cheating.

Interesting trend here. I can say that Gabi (who's been too busy and her mind is no longer focused on the affairs, which is good for her, but is why she's not been on in a while) expressed to me that when her emotional affair started up with AP#1, who was seeking to get her, she felt unusually distant from me. Not that she didn't love me, but the flirting and sex chatting she saw as a welcome distraction, and it all went down hill from there as desire was stoked into a fire by AP#1. She doesn't know why she felt distant from me then. I could speculate, but nothing had significantly changed in our relationship from the prior years. So we don't know, but that's what happened.

Not that it justifies having the affair, but it did make it more tempting when someone was pushing all her right buttons. Which is why I say marital improvement needs to also happen in rebuilding. Not only to reduce temptation, but also to make the marriage better which makes rebuilding rewarding and effective. Few want to just go back to the way things were, as that can never really happen.

I agree.....work needs to be done to improve the marriage otherwise it will happen again, or for me it will become a PA next time.

One of the biggest challenges after discovery (if repairing the relationship) is how to make amends to the BS for the betrayal and help the BS heal while also giving consideration to marital problems that helped set the scene for an affair. It's definitely not about blaming the BS for the affair, and it's also not about dismissing the CS's real feelings prior to the affair. We had an excellent discernment counselor who could walk the line.

When my EA then PA started, my H turned into super H. He had to of seen my emotional 180. I had mentally threw in the towel. For years I talked to him, tried to explain to him that I was lonely, I tried everything. Now that I'm in an A, he is making an effort! He is now Mr. Romantic, talks to me and comes out of his world for me. He even bought me a present for my BD (which I had never gotten more than a "Happy BD" from him in 15 years!) It sucks. Now I'm in this A and can hardly get out of it. I know I can and I want to, but it's so, so hard.

Great question. I was going to write a journal entry on the subject but I saved it to drafts and then I couldn't edit or publish it so I just said forget it. Really not liking the new site. But I digress.

My reasons are much the same as yours, betterman. Just a very stressful point in my life, I think, just feeling very overwhelmed, and I started to confide in my wife's friend, and she in me, since she has been going through a lot also. (She actually started it, not that it matters).

I thought it was ok since we were all friends. But then it started to go a little too far. And then, like the proverbial frog, before I knew it the pot I was in was boiling.

That's it in a nutshell. The degree of stress at that time was astronomical. Now things are a little better. Babies and small children are very stressful. Don't underestimate it. It gets better. Mine are still relatively little but it is getting better. I love them with every molecule of life in my being. But they can be a trial, no doubt about it. But I am very afraid of how this affair will play out and how it will affect them. I regret my actions very much. In retrospect it seems very stupid. I didn't even think it was a good idea at the time but I did it anyway.

Funny you mention pets. Since I had kids the pets have just really added to my stress and I have no desire to ever own a pet again in my life. It sounds terrible but I'm really just waiting for them to die. I don't mistreat them, of course, but I don't like them anymore either.