Steve Kroft had a 3 year affair and it sounds pretty intense. I don’t understand why his wife is staying with him.
http://www.people.com/article/steve-kroft-admits-affair-60-minutes
I firmly believe that no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage but the two people in it.
I used to have very black and white views about this but someone once said why should I forget all the many good things he did and remember the one bad. It really depends on the circumstances. Having said that, I am not sure I could get past an affair of 3 years.
She doesn’t like change?
“I firmly believe that no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage but the two people in it.”
And those two people won’t recall/view things the same way. Relationships are complicated. Marriages even more so. And they are nuanced and gray. I think it is appalling when personal, intimate information/correspondence is made public. No one deserves this type of humiliation IMO.
You’re only immune from it if you have some means to retaliate, or if the details of your life don’t matter anyway.
As far as the staying with someone, I think its a complex calculus. Not unlike the marriage decision for older singles (let’s say 25+), and complicated by the existence of children, and the unpleasantries of starting over (at some advanced age. And sometimes the “innocent” party isn’t that blameless in an overall sense. Lots of life decisions are more like a balance of lots of intangibles, and sometimes people don’t recognize that the balance of things has tipped to the other side until years after it has.
In my younger days, I’d have said and probably would have meant it, that I’d be out the door As you get older and more tired, you look at the more pragmatic aspects. I’ve known many who have ended marriages over some things that might have fixable but it went over the line they drew in the sand and the results were disasterous. Many older women, particularly barely making it, getting out with child support and their jewelry, now working low paying jobs barely making ends meet, some with serious issues due to the fall out.
Also as someone said, you never know what the story is in a marriage.
I would flip burgers at McDonalds before I would stay with a cheater.
I agree 100% that these sorts of things have no place in the public arena, but they make good headlines. It does bother me to see peoples personal lives and struggles paraded in the public eye. The press is often used as a shaming mechanism.
I have been a “sounding board” for an acquaintance who is going through something similar. Married 20 years, 2 beautiful children and her H is having a great time with a somewhat younger woman. Travel, gifts the works. She was tipped off by someone who saw them at an airport together. The “other” woman is a very attractive recent divorcee herself. She has stayed and her reasoning is that she still loves him and hopes to bring the marriage, which is now in shambles, back to it’s former glory. I have given little in terms of advice as “what I would do” in her situation seems irrelevant and I do know her H so I have to be careful. I did give her the name of a good divorce lawyer so she could begin to protect herself financially. She also leads a very nice life style, which has not changed, and this may also have something to do with her decision to stay as she herself was never career oriented.
My friend has a lot going for her - charming, beautiful and extremely social but this seems to have taken away all her self confidence. In my own opinion, that is why she is staying right now - she cannot see a life for herself beyond this marriage.
Well, someone sold those horrifyingly sleazy texts to the National Enquirer. And, I would be surprised if this was a surprise to the wife although the details are excruciating.
I have seen people face this issue and it seems that it depends a lot on the stage of the relationship - the deeper in, the more likely the spouse is to stick around. A friend of mine caught his wife cheating less than a year into their marriage (with his best man, no less!) (no, not me!) and he was out the door before she could even try to explain. Another friend of mine found out after a decade of marriage with two kids, and she decided that staying together was the “prudent” thing to do.
Let me begin by saying under no circumstances do I think cheating is a good option, no matter the reasons - never is it right. But there are factors that I think some people consider. Is it a chronic issue? with many people? is it a one time incident? Does the spouse know about it? What if this is something they allowed in their relationship? It is hard for me to look at another’s choice and make a blanket judgement. And what you do after you make a huge mistake, how you handle it, how you respond is usually more of a deciding factor in how things turn out. The older I get, the more I realize that “normal” has many definitions.
I also believe that one’s response to spousal cheating may depend largely on the “age” of the relationship. I know this was true in my case: My first husband was a serial cheater, and I caught him cheating 6 months after our wedding. 
After a lot of crying and screaming, I kicked his sorry a** to the curb and filed for divorce.
This was relatively easy to do since we had few joint financial/material assets and no children. I think that few divorces are “easy” but it’s definitely much, much harder when there are children and/or money involved.
I loved Elin Nordegren’s response, but I have always liked strong women.
My wife and I had this conversation even before we were engaged. I have a long memory, I don’t do jealousy, and I will not live with someone I do not trust. There were not going to be any second chances. I consider cheating a demonstration of unequal power over your spouse, disrespectful of the promise you made.
Not everyone marries for love. And you don’t know if she cheated before, or if they have an open marriage and as he says, his affair did not affect his job so leave him alone.
If a couple is no longer having marital relations, sometimes they just admit it to each other and agree “just don’t get caught”.
I have a friend in a loveless verbally abusive marriage who is resigned to stay married for at least 12 more years. If he cheats on her, she would likely not get divorced. She’d probably much rather he cheated on her than bothered her for “romance” when he treats her poorly so much in front of their children. She is not interested in cheating, she focuses on her kids and has no time because he is away for business every week and only sees the kids on the weekends. If they got divorced, it would take time, energy, and she believes would harm the children.
I agree with MYB, it’s no one’s business and he doesn’t have to answer to anyone, nor does his wife. It is possible that the affair is over and the “fling” kept the texts for financial security.
Most marriages aren’t normal anyway, if you define normal marriage as being in love, caring about each other, regular marital relations, and working every day to make things better. It is exceptional that my spouse is so caring, I certainly had no role model for caring for each other, and he certainly did not either. Neither of our sets of parents really spoke to each other, even about stuff like how to raise the kids and so on.
I know too many people who are unhappy without cheating who rationalize staying together for the kids or for the lifestyle. Cheating is just another aspect of not caring for your spouse.
Another reason I think government should stay out of marriage, and let people marry within their religion, and get no tax or other financial benefits from it. Pre-nuptial agreements should be required signed by both parties. And the financial benefits of being married should be linked to the children themselves, because it is for families having more children = more taxpayers that there are marriage benefits.
No one should stay married if their spouse cheats and that is a dealbreaker for them, but finances or children sometimes mean they do. An abusive spouse is worse than a cheater who treats you well, to some people.
That is an “open marriage”, not cheating. Can’t cheat if it is allowed in the rules.
It is never a good idea… if you view the situation objectively. Cheaters aren’t objective on this issue. The overvalue the benefits and understate the risks. It’s like going to a casino - the fact that the vast majority lose doesn’t stop people from thinking that they personally will win.
A friend’s cousin was in a similar situation. She stayed because of financial reasons. She worked for a small pay and because of that she won’t get much in divorce. No idea if that’s true or not.
Those texts were quite sleazy! Who can look at champagne and pudding the same way again?!
Maybe for the kids?
Anybody who says they are staying for the kids are IMO doing their children a disservice. Kids are not idiots, they know when parents are not happy. Staying in a marriage for the sake of the children is teaching your kids a wrong message.