I had the same experience when I was young, and I reached the same conclusion that you did. I felt sorry for their wives, too, and I worried that, if I did marry, I could end up in the same position.
I did marry, though, and sure enough, I ended up becoming one of those wives, just as I'd feared.
There are good husbands who are devoted to their wives. I do wonder sometimes if they represent a small minority, though. lol
I hear you! At least we had the decency to consider the wives’ feelings. I knew a lot of girls who slept with married men and eagerly fell for the tales the men told them...”Oh, my wife doesn’t understand me, she’s cold and won’t sleep with me, she’s insane and will kill herself if I leave her, just give me a little more time and I’ll leave her for you,” etc., etc. The women believed it because they WANTED to believe it. They wasted years of their lives sleeping with married men who had no intention of ever leaving their wives, because the wives were actually nice people and not at all as the husbands described them. The men just wanted to have their cake and eat it, too!