The real reasons we have affairs – by the people having them

Stories of cheating, betrayal and affairs are not hard to come by – but we rarely hear from the people who are themselves unfaithful. One 2024 survey by World Population Review found 36 per cent of people in the UK have cheated on their partner – an increase from the 2015 YouGov poll that estimated it at 20 per cent.

Affairs can happen for many reasons. According to Carla Crivaro, sex, love and relationship coach, “affairs are often a symptom of issues within the relationship itself, or personal struggles that the individual having the affair finds difficult to acknowledge or communicate”.

Here four people candidly share how – and why – their affairs happened, and the aftermath.

‘He made me feel wanted and alive’ 

I fell in love with my husband the moment I saw him. But after we had a child, I started to resent him. He’d make plans and do his own thing, meaning I was always arranging everything and had no time for myself. Little things meant that I didn’t feel loved. I’d make him a coffee every single morning, and he never did the same. I tried to talk to him about it but he just ignored it. I don’t think my husband had the emotional intelligence to act on it.

I now know that sexually we weren’t very compatible either. He was quite old-fashioned and set in his ways and happy to just plod on, whereas growth and learning is really important for me.

I knew I wasn’t happy in my marriage, but I never thought I’d be unfaithful. But then in 2022, I was 41 and met someone at an event for work and got chatting to him. For the first time in so long, I felt like a full person, not just a boring married woman.

We ran into each other at another event a few weeks later, got to know each other more and ended up spending the night together. It completely shocked me. But he made me feel wanted, and alive.

I saw him a couple more times but it never went anywhere.

I was too afraid to tell my husband at first – I knew it’d break his heart, and my youngest was only 21.

But I couldn’t live with myself, and two months later I told him what I’d done. He was devastated, but we agreed to work on things together. I met a coach and we did some work on how to communicate better. My marriage did improve, but instead of feeling that I’d got what I wanted, I realised I could have had this the whole time. It was always me making the effort to improve things.

Two years later, I left him, after a 15-year marriage. I moved into a flat in another town nearby. Now I’m truly living my best life as a business owner. I don’t want to be with a man again. It took me a long time to be comfortable in my own company and I’m relishing it.

I don’t resent my husband; we get on great now. It wasn’t meant to be. He will find his person, and I will too if I want to – but right now, I can’t think of anything worse.

I don’t regret having the affair, but I regret the hurt it caused. I wish I’d just put my big girl pants on and ended it before. But in a way, it probably needed to happen. He knew that I was unhappy but never changed anything.

‘I cheated on my wife – even now, she doesn’t know’

I was in my forties when it happened. We’d been together for 15 years and married for eight, with one child, when I started the affair. When we met I had really very strong feelings for her, but we all know that changes over the course of your life.

Communication was always lacking in our relationship. We’d always struggle to have deeper conversations, it was like there was something holding us both back. And I often felt undervalued. I didn’t need to be thanked for everything I did, but whatever I did do, the response was only about what I’d missed.

There was a lack of intimacy over the last five to 10 years of the relationship. We did try to bring it back – we did various exercises, like those packs of intimacy cards that you can work through, but nothing really seemed to fix it. The attraction I’d felt for her was no longer there. We were living more like housemates really, but we both still cared for one another. We’d been sleeping in separate beds for at least five years by the time the affair had started.

I met this woman through work. She wasn’t the first person I’ve met during my marriage that I was attracted to, but this time was different. I found myself thinking about her more and more. I only saw her every three months and it was over a year before I confessed to her. It was scary and overwhelming, and I felt so vulnerable, but I wanted to take that risk. She responded positively and things started straight away. We’re still together now.

There was obviously a thrill, but it was nothing to do with it being an affair, or secretive. That side of it felt absolutely awful.

I brought up a divorce about six months later, but didn’t say the full reason why because I care so much about my wife. The process has all been very amicable. My wife has asked if I was having an affair, and I lied about it. I don’t want to lose her friendship.

Some people thrive on cheating but my therapist reminds me that this happened because I was unhappy and the affair helped me understand that. I’ve had to go through the process of forgiving myself because it goes so far against my beliefs.

I do ask myself if I could have tried harder. And I wish I’d had the power to acknowledge that I wasn’t happy in the relationship, and left before I cheated. I was scared of being alone. It takes a really strong sense of self-worth and conviction to leave someone and be confident that you will find somebody else. I’ve had to have lots of discussions with myself to say that even if it doesn’t work out with my new partner, then that’s OK.

‘I had an affair with my friend’s husband – it blew up when his daughter read my text’

I was married at 20 and we had five young children before I turned 30. My husband was a very serious tech guy and we were so busy building his career and taking care of the kids, I don’t think we took care of us. I was happy to support his career, but I started to feel invisible.

The intimacy was disappearing and he was away working all the time.

I don’t blame him at all. I take full responsibility for my part.

We’d been married for 13 years when the affair happened. I had a very good friend whose husband was very attentive with me. He’d ask me if I was OK or if I needed anything as my husband was out of town. He would say, “I can’t believe what you’re doing, you’re raising these kids basically by yourself, you’re amazing.”

One day, I was at their house and she went out to go to work. It was just me and him in the house and out of nowhere I kissed him. It shocked me and I immediately apologised but he told me no, saying, “I’m so into you, I don’t know what to do. I want to leave my wife and I think you and I should start something.” I thought, “Why not?” He made me feel so seen and so appreciated. I thought I could balance being a wife and a mother and having these small moments, keeping them secret.

I should have considered my friend, but I didn’t. I knew she was really unhappy in her marriage and they were talking about separating, so I thought I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I thought no one would know.

It was really just a lot of kissing and making out for a few months but we had sex for the first time a few months later. We’d meet at his house or in his campervan; I couldn’t face him being in my house.

The guilt began to eat away at me – even though I wasn’t really a drinker I started drinking with him.

Then it all blew up in my face. I had texted him something like “I miss you” and his daughter saw the phone and asked him why I was texting him like that. He lost it and told her mother. He blamed it all on me and said I’d seduced him. It was absolutely brutal.

He called me, told me he’d come clean and to never call him again. I called my husband. He came home, I told him, he said “wow” and then he went back to work. That was it.

We never really discussed it, but because we were in the Mormon church it completely changed our lives. I confessed at my church, and was disfellowshipped [forbidden to participate in the church for a year]. We put our house up for sale and moved within two weeks. I’ve never spoken to my friend or her husband again. I left the church, and eventually he did too, but we didn’t consider divorce. It’s a word that is so taboo in the community.

We stayed together for another 17 years. I was a teaching assistant, his career grew, and we were really good parents. We have five amazing, successful adult children and we love them fiercely. But once they left, we realised we didn’t really know each other. We agreed to separate for a year – it was my unravelling. I had felt so much guilt and unworthiness for so many years.

When I asked for a divorce I was 50 and we did finally talk about everything, including my affair, and he told me he forgave me. The divorce, three years ago, was very amicable. Our parents and our kids were devastated, though the kids never knew about the affair. We still spend Christmas together and I stay with him and his new partner.

I wish I could have spoken up more in my marriage. But I grew up in a really patriarchal society where women just didn’t question men, especially husbands. Now, I can talk to him about anything.

‘We saw each other for two years – now I regret the hurt I caused’

I didn’t go out looking for an affair. A wedding ring and a certificate doesn’t stop feelings from evolving.

I was in my early twenties when I met my husband: we married the year after that and then I was pregnant with my first child. My ex-husband was not an unpleasant person, but he was quite insecure and quick tempered. He’d had a couple of girlfriends cheat on him before me. I never really had a separate life. It was very rare for me to go out with my friends, especially as I didn’t really have the money. I ended up spending quite a long time being somebody else.

There was a turning point when I went away on a hen do with friends in 2022, at 46. Being away, and being able to enjoy some male attention, left me buzzing. It made me rethink what I wanted.

Things had been flat for a while; we weren’t very intimate with each other. We would hold hands sometimes but it didn’t often go beyond that. We probably should have looked at getting help, but I’ve never been the sort of person who can talk about sex or relationships, and my husband would definitely have struggled.

Then I met someone through work. I was drawn to his energy, and his looks – and he was so kind. We exchanged numbers and I started dropping into the cafe he runs. We would chat for hours, and he was a flirt. I fancied him, but never thought anything would happen. It was months before we kissed. I panicked and pulled away. But afterwards I felt more alive than I had in years.

We saw each other once a week in secret for more than two years. He also had a partner. But I felt my husband had an inkling, and then someone told him they’d seen us on a night out together. He spent a year trying to “win me back”, but it didn’t feel genuine – like I was a prize to be won.

I felt he was suffocating me. I was sleeping in the spare room, but he was pressuring me to sleep with him. I just couldn’t do it. I moved out to my sister’s, and told him we were done. I think we would have got divorced anyway – the affair just made it clear. I stopped seeing my new partner soon after that.

My kids didn’t talk to me for a while, which was tough, and I do regret hurting my ex-husband and the other guy’s partner. It might have been better if we’d talked more, and definitely if I’d left sooner. But I don’t regret the affair, or the divorce. I feel like I’m finally finding myself.