i cannot speak on behalf of AP's. But I will explain what I knew about my husband's AP.
I met my husband's AP when he invited her over for supper at our house. He simply asked me if I would be ok to invite a lonely widow that he met at the gym. I said sure. i did not know for another 10 months that they were already having an affair.
It was a most bizarre meal...and I just shrugged it off. I did not like her as she basically ignored me the whole meal. Sigh, I was so blind.
During our reconciliation, I know from what my husband told me, if he was accurate, that she was afraid if I found out, he would drop her so she kept up being number 2.
So in my eyes, she was not pathetic, I would say she's one calculated and shrewd idiot. Knew what she wanted and she fully figured out what my husband wanted and then all she had to do was dish it out. She wanted my husband to leave me. Not for me to find out. She was patient. But my husband never left me. And so gradually she began encouraging him to leave me. My husband said that they were infatuated with one another. I believed him. You know, that honeymoon phase?
But on Dday obviously I found out. I kicked him out, he left me to go live with her. Of course, she welcomed him!
My husband was the instigator and she made the decision to continue with him secretly, after he told her he was married. At that time both of them selfish , functional alcoholics and idiots really, IMHO.
In affairs, I think that if one gets what they want , they will pursue that. I believe the AP was like that. But then so was my husband.
Today, I feel pity for the people they were at that time bent on creating a mess in the lives of others while their honeymoon phase faded into oblivion.
In time, I gave my husband another chance at us.