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Lots has been said on here about affairs etc, and it has given me food for thought. Just about everyone in my french village knew me, the only anglaise in the village, but I knew a lot of people in return, 25 years was a long time after all. I have been thinking about all the couples I knew, where one of them had extra marital affair(s) and I have to say that around 70% of them got divorced  acrimoniously, when they found out that their significant other had been unfaithful.  And I learned some really bad language from these people with unfaithful spouses. Of the other 30% some stayed, some left and they got back together. I am really wondering if my village was that different to any other countries figures. Ofcourse there will be some who have been discrete and no one knows that they are having an affair, so they remain married, or with their S/O.

And to add to that a good friend of mine, who in exclusively talking to me now, as I am not 'there' but here. She found out her husband was having an affair and after 35 years of marriage, they were divorced last year and she is not talking to any of our friends as she believed that they knew and had not told her, but they assure me that they really had not known either. I'm pretty sure that he must have been at it for a long time, but no one knew. 

So the french being cool about affairs, nah, don't believe it. I've seen too much hurt and attempted suicides etc. Still,  I wonder if it pleases the general population in some way,  that  idea that the 'world' think it's sophisticated frenchness to be so liberal with their affections. I would worry more about 'infections' to be honest and I don't think it is sophisticated, just fornication when it boils down to it. 

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It is all down to women being brainwashed into looking after families staying close to their parents and not developing along with their husbands, and husbands being brainwashed into thinking they have to be macho and shag anything they can get their hands on.
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Very interesting subject, idun.

It's in fact quite difficult to know for sure how you would feel if it happens to your marriage.

It's not so terrible if you do find out and have a choice as to how or whether you'd accept it.  And, of course, if you don't know, then it isn't going to affect you!

I think the hurt could be when you don't know but, when you find out, you feel stupid about having been overly trusting and you are mad with yourself for not knowing and you are mad with him for being deceitful

Oh, I don't know, idun, because I feel too confused to think about something so momentous......

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[quote user="idun"]...the french being cool about affairs, nah, don't believe it. I've seen too much hurt and attempted suicides etc.  Still,  I wonder if it pleases the general population in some way,  that  idea that the 'world' think it's sophisticated frenchness to be so liberal with their affections. .... [/quote]

Thought-provoking, idun.  And I have to say that I know of far more suicides in my French area than in my British one.

Angela

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[quote user="idun"]So the french being cool about affairs, nah, don't believe it. [/quote]

I think it has some truth with BCBG* women, but these tend live in large towns rather than villages in the middle of nowhere.

I can believe some women choose not to see their husband's infidelity, simply because they prefer the status quo and a quiet life.

As long as he comes home to them and keeps up the pretence, then let him do what he wants.

Anne Sinclair did say she was proud ("j'en suis fière") when discussing her husband being a seducer.

* BCBG = Bon Chic Bon Genre = bourgeois (nearest English language meaning is sloane)

In a great many Anglo-American news articles I've read this week, they describe the typical Frenchman describes him as having a "5 à 7", which invariably refers to middle-to-upper-class working hours.

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[quote user="woolybanana"]It is all down to women being brainwashed into looking after families staying close to their parents and not developing along with their husbands, and husbands being brainwashed into thinking they have to be macho and shag anything they can get their hands on.[/quote]

OK Wooly, I am not that woman. I'm sure I wasn't brainwashed into looking after a family.    I was not really that 'close' to my parents as I would see my friends were with theirs and I did not get on with my mother at all, not much nurturing there, she's been dead a long time now and I have a decent relationship with my Dad these days. However,  I feel nurturing is in me, not something I needed teaching or something to be worked at, it is just there.  

What alarms me is the 'not developing along with their husbands'........ how not developing? Please explain what you mean by that, I would like to know.

We must be a strange family as my sons are not letharios. Neither of them. Both very different and the young one is not always a good lad but there is one thing, if he is seeing anyone he is always faithful, his brother too and neither goes in for casual encounters. Have I brainwashed them to decency, or is it just natural to them, like it was to me.

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BCBG women could also be pretending they don't care?

OTOH, these men have to be having affairs with women (perhaps with men in a minority of cases).

So, how do the husbands/partners feel about their women having affairs?

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[quote user="sweet 17"]

It's not so terrible if you do find out and have a choice as to how or whether you'd accept it.  [/quote]

This is very true.  A lot of women have no choice in the matter.  Many are financially tied to their husbands; leaving could mean being on the streets.  Many have children and that adds to the dilemma.

[quote user="sweet 17"]

And, of course, if

you don't know, then it isn't going to affect you!

[/quote]

Oh it could affect you.  Idun's comment about infections is a serious one.  Many women find out after becoming infected with an STD from their husbands.  Not a nice way to find out.  The fact that two of the recent headline grabbers - both DSK and Schwarzeneger (sp?) apparently did not feel the need to use protection.  I can't decide if that was extremely arrogant, insensitive to their wives or just plain stupid.  I'm leaning towards stupid.

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I used to scream at my students about this a lot.

Too many couples get together too young and fail to develop together - he does one thing and goes along one way, she another, but for some time they run in parallel, then diverge in interests, culture, lives and if there is no real tight glue, they come apart.

I had a wife who cried for her mother every day, wanted her family, all the little fetes, which i hated, so I gave her back and carried on with my career and life, found someone else.

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[quote user="woolybanana"]

Too many couples get together too young and fail to develop together - he does one thing and goes along one way, she another, but for some time they run in parallel, then diverge in interests, culture, lives and if there is no real tight glue, they come apart.

[/quote]

So well said.

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I know BCBG Clair, and the vulgaire version, beau cul, belle gueule. My I do know some 'bad'  french.

My village wasn't  quite nul part, 20 mins from a big city and a mobile population often working in the cities that were not too far either. So we had a mix of a population really. And I also knew quite a lot of people in the surrounding area and in the cities too. Still I only two  truly BCBG families and a few others who thought that they were and were not, buying pleated skirts from expensive shops and wearing the uniform, doesn't mean one has really joined the club. 

However, you are right about the status quo, when one of the pretend BCBG women's husband had an affair, with a man, she stayed. Still I had counted them in my mental count of those I know of whose other halves have had affairs.

Sweet, I cannot imagine living with someone and being told or however someone confers this information that I was not 'exclusive', especially as I am a bit of a handful already. There again, I cannot imagine finding out later either. Both ideas are abhorent to me really.

 

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[quote user="woolybanana"]

I used to scream at my students about this a lot.

Too many couples get together too young and fail to develop together - he does one thing and goes along one way, she another, but for some time they run in parallel, then diverge in interests, culture, lives and if there is no real tight glue, they come apart.

I had a wife who cried for her mother every day, wanted her family, all the little fetes, which i hated, so I gave her back and carried on with my career and life, found someone else.

[/quote]

Thanks for the explanation. I suppose that it all depends on the couple then. I would hate to be in any relationship where we were always on the same track. It would bore me to death, to be honest and I'd leave. Thing I do know is  that a relationship needs work and if the work isn't put in then the couple will drift apart, whether they like to be on a single track or running parallel most of the time. And as you put it, that is the glue that keeps them together.  I left my family and didn't see them for a couple of years when I moved in with my boyfriend, now husband. And I do the fetes because people like them, but I'm not bothered, must be my nurturing side coming out  accomodating others.ps My mother never went out of her way to accomodate anyone. 

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Well Carla Bruni said that men don't leave their wives, their wives just don't know how to keep their husbands[Www]

I know one couple whose husbands infidelity made their marriage much stronger and they now have a relationship which I quite envy. And as for women not developing with their husbands, I read that it's women over sixty who are now asking for a divorce because their husbands haven't developed at their pace. Marriage requires a lot of work on both sides and the hardest part of all is to address ones own responsibility when cracks appear. 

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[quote user="woolybanana"] I gave her back and carried on with my career and life, found someone else.[/quote]

Trouble for many (not me) is that somethings can't be put back, the children usually get impossibly screwed up and you can see this generation is leading to another screwed up generation.

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Hmm.  I do find this subject fascinating, not least because we (Mr C and I) have had what used to be called an "open" marriage from day one.  We've never wanted kids (it was a condition of my saying yes - I made it clear that I couldn't spend my life with a guy who wanted to be a father) so whether with them it would have been different, I can't say - I suspect it might have been though.

It has always seemed to the two of us that it is the secretiveness, the "betrayal" which is what tears relationships apart.  To me, sex is a pretty insignificant part of a marriage, although it might well be significant to a casual relationship, and the more significant you let it become, the more devastating are casual affairs.  Our partners outside the marriage have always been aware that the marriage was the core, the "glue" to use Wooly's choice phrase, of our lives and that any other relationship was secondary and will always be so.  So far, 38 years on, it has worked.  I realise that it wouldn't suit everybody but it's certainly fine by me.  Variety is the spice of life in all things, after all.

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[quote user="Gemonimo"]

Well Carla Bruni said that men don't leave their wives, their wives just don't know how to keep their husbands[Www]

I know one couple whose husbands infidelity made their marriage much stronger and they now have a relationship which I quite envy. And as for women not developing with their husbands, I read that it's women over sixty who are now asking for a divorce because their husbands haven't developed at their pace.I have also heard of that.  Marriage requires a lot of work on both sides and the hardest part of all is to address ones own responsibility when cracks appear. 

[/quote]

Elizabeth Luard (cookery writer) said about marriage, you learn to paper over the cracks. [I]

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Development works both ways, but I reckon that unless a woman keeps her eye on the game and adjusts accordingly then it will all be doomed. Women get excellent results on looking at emotions on peoples faces. We should remember to keep our eye on those at home.

We are different creatures men and us women. I believe that women are equipped to keep a happy balance and they should use this talent. I'll give an example, I could go outside now, (as I am 'her indoors' today) and I could start a row which would finish us completely, just like that. I won't, but I could. I would know which buttons to push to start a bit of an argument and how to put some accelerant on to fan the fire and then keep it going. But why, when I can use my energy to much better purposes to put a smile on a face or a twinkle in an eye.  And I like to be happy and make people happy.

We still  have a son at home  and he like his Dad is basically clueless as to what women want. I don't think that most men really know, as I talk to my son's friends too. The thing is if they are not told or put on the right path then they won't. And women will complain about them not knowing or understanding, but a little  friendly gentle communication would sort that out.

I'm not traditional Wooly, some think I appear it, but I'm not, but I know women who are. Tradition can also say that you love the one you're with and make sure that if you don't go out to work for what ever reason, that when the other half sets off for home, that is where they will want to be and not be wanting to go somewhere else. Crying, nagging, indifference are bad, very bad.

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Thanks Coops, that works for you, that is good. I couldn't have done that.  If I found myself single and up for a new relationship, which I would want,  I don't think I could share anyone or want to be shared either. My friend was shocked to be honest, she asked why, and then asked how I would find someone, but frankly I don't believe that that would be a problem at all and that is what I told her.
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I often think that should the worst happen and Mr C drops dead before I do (likely as he's older than I am) that being the other woman would be perfect.  A bit of fun and companionship without the permanence - I cannot imagine anybody else I would want to or could live with after Mr C who, in spite of the odd fault, is as close to being the perfect parter as it could get for me.  I can tell you one thing about him (which might explain his success in that departmen) - he understands women perfectly- especially this one.[:)]
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[quote user="idun"]

We still  have a son at home  and he like his Dad is basically clueless as to what women want. I don't think that most men really know, as I talk to my son's friends too. The thing is if they are not told or put on the right path then they won't. And women will complain about them not knowing or understanding, but a little  friendly gentle communication would sort that out.

[/quote]

I agree entirely, Idun.  My son has been raised in a household of females and has certainly been put on the right path by his sisters to whom he listens (more than me - question of generation). When he was at Bristol Uni for his Erasmus year he wanted to break up with his girlfriend left behind in France so he bought himself an Easyjet ticket, flew in to Bordeaux broke the news and flew back to the UK, all on his measly grant and because his sisters told him that was what we expected of him. 

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The best advice I've ever had was to treat your OH as though s/he is your best friend.

That means no hurtful criticism (you can say what you don't like, of course, but not in a carping way), no holding of grudges and lots of consideration, common politeness and affection.

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Best advice I ever heard to couples planning to marry:

"Love's not just an emotion, it's a decision".

Easy to say if you've got a loving, considerate partner of course, on the other hand we all all know people with one of these but who still think the grass is greener...
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