A few years ago one of our friends divorced her husband for a work colleague she had been having an affair with. By the time the husband learnt of the affair (which was well after us) she had already irreparably checked out of their marriage. I was discomforted at the time as I had a (ridiculous) preconceived idea on the type of person who might have an affair, and she was the opposite of it. She was – is – the loveliest of people.
Fast forward a few years and she is still with her work colleague, still a lovely person, and still a close friend. Her father suffers from Alzheimer’s – and she was discussing yesterday how every time they catch up he is confused by the strange man she arrives with. She has to repeatedly explain to him that she is divorced and what happened. I know it is childish, but I quietly applauded the karma of the situation.
Christmas has been tremendously busy in the Hermit household. Being jobless, I indicated to my wife that I would be willing to partake in more social events than normal. She then busily set about abusing my momentary niceness, filling every day with travel and happenings. I won’t make that mistake again. I am finding it exhausting – made worse as my wife has come down with the flu a week ago, and has done little but look and sound miserable, shuffle from one chair to another, and sleep.
That has meant very little time for EVE. When I have found a spare 15 minutes here or 30 minutes there to log in, I have mostly just been running anomalies and exploration sites. Those frostline sites have still been very elusive.
I hope you are all enjoying your holiday period.
Evehermit 
Can you control who you fall in love with?
One of my uncles cheated on my aunt. We all think he is a douchebag because it’s not the first (nor second) time and he isn’t really showing any remorse. Pretty clear case here.
Another uncle of mine had an affair with a collegue at work and the family generally thought this was totally not OK.
Several years later and everyone (including his children) has accepted his new wife. To make it totally weird, the woman is question was married as well, her (now ex-)husband and my (now ex-) aunt took comfort in each other and they both married as well. Elaborate but unplanned partner swap!
Please let me state that my 6 other uncles/aunts all appear to be happily married. (Conventional marriages)
The unplanned partner swap is not uncommon.
I know affairs are not always black and white.
One of my closest friends had constant affairs – which we understood and didn’t think all that negatively of as his (now x) wife was one of the most horrible people you could ever imagine. (If Karma works – the person he finally left his wife for turned around and cheated on him.)
My Mum was just talking the other day about how my great grandfather had an affair with one of his son’s wives, which produced a child that was adopted by another of his sons. That boy grew up never knowing his adoptive Grandfather was his Dad, and his adoptive Aunt his mother.
I do think people have a choice to first work on any issues they have in their current relationship instead of seeking comfort with someone else. I also think they have a choice about what situations they put themselves in, and to step back if they feel things become inappropriate. There usually seem to be a chain of choices made before they mistakenly fall in love with someone else.
Of course – there are plenty of people who have no qualms about having an affair.