XXXConnect looks at what happens when you hook up with someone who's married, and the morality of it. Is it okay to date them or not? What are the big risks?

Whether or not it's okay is something that you have to decide on your own. If they're hooking up with you behind their spouse's back, then there's always going to be the risk that they find out, and your hooking up could be the source of a lot of pain to that person, and perhaps the end of their marriage. There are valid arguments for each side of the 'Is it okay or not okay?' debate, and we're going to delve deep into them in this article. The short answer is that it can be okay to hook up with someone who's married, but it all depends on your own personal beliefs (as is often the case when there are moral grey areas involved). Read on and we hope we'll help you make the difficult decision that's perhaps ahead of you, a more educated, and hopefully easier one.

There doesn't seem to be a record of the first extramarital affair, but when sex studies became popular starting in the 1940s and 50s when Alfred Kinsey rose to fame, it was quickly obvious that regardless of how long they had been happening, they were happening frequently. In the coming years, various studies showed that the percentage of men and women who were having sex with partners other than their spouses. The rate of infidelity among married couples increases significantly after living together for over a year, so it's fair to say that affairs are fairly common. That doesn't mean that when they happen, there aren't a lot of hurt feelings and drama to deal with, but just to say that if you decide to hook up with a married person, there have been many before you, and there'll be many after you.

The easiest and best way to hook up with someone who is married, is to hook up with someone who's in an open marriage. This removes almost all of the stressors and potential problems that could arise from the hook up. You don't have to worry about their partner finding out that you slept with their spouse, and then showing up at your house in the middle of the night with bad intentions. A scorned spouse who's out for revenge is probably the scariest part of hooking up with a married person. If you're considering hooking up with someone who's married, this is your dream. If you decide to hook up with a married person, you should definitely ask them if they're in an open relationship because if they tell you that they are, your hookup will be so much more liberated, and you'll be able to give it your all without having a small voice in the back of your mind chiming in with unwanted commentary about all of the potential harm that you're causing to another relationship.

For a lot of people, this is the big deciding factor. If the married person pursues you, do you really have to shoulder any of the responsibility for the damage that your hookup could do to their marriage? It's not unanimous, but most people take this stance. It's a bit convenient for them, but also, it's one of the most straight forward ways of thinking about affairs. Even if you disagree with the idea, it's an easy to understand a person feeling that way.

When a person hits on someone, they're sending out a very direct and clear message to that person. It's showing that they're attracted to them, and want to hook up. Thinking of it that way, there shouldn't be any "oh, by the way, I'm married" asides involved. If you're being hit on, you should be able to assume that the person hitting on you is able to do so without overcomplicating your life with something huge like a wife or husband sitting at home, unaware that they're out at a bar hitting on you.

If you're attracted to this person, and they're willing to risk their relationship to hook up with you, there's going to be an intense attraction that will be difficult for a lot of people to resist.

There's a trick that a lot of married people like to pull, so if this happens to you, don't let it come as a shock. Some marrieds on the prowl love to hit on you, buy you drinks, talk you up, and be as charming as can be, letting you think that they're available right up until the point where you're about to get it on, AND THEN they let you know that there's "something they should tell you before you have sex". We are not fans of this move, and think that it more often than not lets you know that you're about to hook up with someone who maybe isn't the most emotionally available or reliable person you're going to meet that week. By waiting until the last possible moment to tell you, they are saying that they're worried that you wouldn't want to sleep with them if you knew they were married, and have taken your evening away from you. If you were to object to spending the night with someone who's married at the start of the night, you could have hooked up with someone else. They've essentially taken that freedom away from you though, by attempting to get you to to a point where if you really want to have sex that night, they're your best option. Hooking up with a married person can be challenging enough as it is, without adding these weird games to the situation.

If you're the aggressor and are the one hitting on the married party, of course then any potential guilt shifts a little bit more towards you. It doesn't absolve them of any wrong-doing (if it even is wrong-doing), but some of it is in your lap more than it would be if roles were reversed. For a lot of people, this doesn't make a bit of difference for them because they think that 100% of the responsibility is on the married person since they're the ones who swore in front a bunch of their friends and family that they were going to remain faithful to their spouse for the rest of their lives. Their instinctual reaction to getting hit on is to say, "Oh, thank you, but I'm married."

It's very common however for public reaction to turn on the person who isn't married. The term 'home wrecker' is very quickly thrown at the person in a relationship that isn't married. For the majority of the people who know anything about your hook up partner's marriage, their image of their friend is likely to be an extremely faithful wife or husband, and the only reason for the affair that they'll be able to easily accept is that you are a home wrecker to your core. So especially if you're the one who made the first move we suggest that keeping your hook up a secret because public opinion will be very difficult to sway in your favour if it's discovered.

A great argument for making the first move on a married person though is that it puts you in control of the situation. If things aren't going the way you like or want them to, you're in a much better position to end things without there being any sort of emotional blackmail from your married partner who if they're out sleeping behind the back of their partner, is probably used to doing whatever they want. It's good to have the power dynamic in the relationship on your side of the table. It will keep them in check to know that you could at any time expose them to their spouses. We're not suggesting that you say that part out loud, but quietly know that your partner will be on their best behaviour because of their understanding of this.

If you meet someone and you begin to hit it off, a good habit to form is to look to see if the person is wearing a wedding or engagement ring. If they're not, they're actively trying to hide that they're single, and you can free yourself from most moral responsibility when it comes to the relationship. It's also a great way to get the issue out in the open early if you're not interested in sleeping with someone who's married. You can make reference to their lack of ring, and say that you're shocked that they aren't married. That way you've very clearly said, "I BELIEVE YOU TO BE UNMARRIED," and they'll have to fess up to being married if they are.

The burden is no longer on you if you want this hookup to happen.

Being able to keep a secret is one of the most important skills that someone who's planning to hook up with a married person can have. If you're a blabbermouth, we suggest you stick with dating single people, because it really doesn't take very long for a spouse to become suspicious of a wife or husband who comes home late more often than they usually do. As soon as that happens, the cheated on partner will begin investigations to find out where their spouse really is on all of those late nights.

The emotional damage to a marriage when a spouse finds out that their partner is having an affair can't be dismissed. It's considerable, and if you're not careful enough, it will become a part of your life. Some people think that it's worth the risk to hook up with someone who they really like, even if they're married. If you think you might be in that situation, we encourage you to picture the worst case scenario if your hook up is discovered, and then think about if you're okay with that.

There are lots of dating websites for married people who're looking to hook up with other married people who're looking to sleep with other people. This is the best fit that we can figure for extramarital affairs. Both parties are in the same boat, and neither is typically more vulnerable than the other if things end up going sideways.

The fact that affairs increase the longer a couple has been together says a lot about the reasons that people end up having extramarital sex. Though a lot of times it's not as noble a cause as it may seem, one of the biggest reasons that married people have sex with people other than their spouses is to avoid breaking up. Monogamy and the idea of spending the rest of your life only sleeping with one person is a difficult idea for a lot of people to accept. They love their partners deeply, but as their relationship ages, so does the excitement of their sex lives. Instead of having a discussion about how they can spice things up in the bedroom with their partner, these people end up sleeping with other people, and keeping it a secret from their partners.

If you're worried about being to blame for breaking up a marriage by hooking up with someone who is married, the reality of it is that if you're able to keep your affair a secret, you're actively helping their marriage rather than hurting it. Of course if you're adding a lot of emotional content to your hookups, and have intentions to make the person leave their spouse, there isn't much left in the positive side of things for your situation. The consequences of those emotions are laid out pretty clearly, and you then have to decide if you're okay with that.

We think that the key to successfully hooking up with a married person is communication. If you're openly discussing all of the surrounding factors of your hookup, it will be a huge help in deciding whether or not YOU are okay with hooking up with someone who's married. It's okay for some people, and not okay for others. We hope that this article has been of some help to you in deciding which side of the discussion you stand on.

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