On a secret sharing app, men didn’t hold back in explaining the pitfalls of dating single mothers.

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They're more expensive than prostitutes, their bodies aren't what they used to be and their children walk in during sex.

These are just some of the brutal reasons that a growing group of men have given for not wanting to date single mums.

On a recent thread on the secret sharing app, Whisper, men didn’t hold back in explaining the pitfalls of dating single mothers.

One man claimed it was too expensive to date single mums, saying they're harsher on the bank balance than hookers, while another said there is too much risk involved as they often want to get back with their kids' fathers.

Here, Sun Online, meets the men who are breaking a taboo by refusing to date single mums.

Jonathan Cass, 52, has joined their ranks, having been single for three years, and now makes a point of swiping left on dating apps and rejecting women if there’s any mention of a little one at home.

"I don’t want to be second best," he says.

Jonathan has nothing against parents of older children - but mothers of young kids are definitely ruled out. Source: The Sun

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"Women now seem to live for their kids”

“There’s a real trend in current parenting that the children always have to come first and women now seem to live for their kids” says Jonathan, who works in film and television and lives in Dunmow, Essex.

And he's by no means alone in this.

King Richez posted a video on not dating single mothers which amongst other things says: “She should be focussed on her kids – not on penis” - and Richard Cooper's YouTube talk on the Dangers of Dating Single Mothers has been viewed 583, 297 times.

This clip opens with a slide showing a woman holding a baby with the meme: “Single mother here: please take care of some other man’s ball of flesh that eats money destroys dreams and s***s stress. I offer you my ruined floppy pu**y and mental issues!”

On another a shocking blog called Everything Must Go, one of the posts is titled: “Don’t date single mothers – here is why.” Reason number five is, “A woman who has given birth can’t ever have a body close to what she had before carrying a child. This is not saying that having a child isn’t worth it, but this is not about YOU having a child. That child is hers, not yours. Her body was changed by something that is of no benefit to you.”

"I don’t want to be second best," Jonathan explains: “I’m a really spontaneous person and love the idea of saying to my partner, ‘come on, pack your bags, let’s go away for a couple of days’ but you can’t do that with kids. Everything has to be planned and organised beforehand.”

“I’ve been married twice and had a son in my first marriage"

He also struggles with the emotional burden of having to be a father figure to someone else’s child.

“I’ve been married twice and had a son in my first marriage – who is now 27 – and in between the two marriages I did date a woman with a son but I felt like she wanted me to become a father-figure to this child,” he says.

“It raised lots of complex feelings: I felt guilty to be spending more time with her and her son than my own and I didn’t like the idea of stepping on someone else’s toes as his biological father was still very much around.”

While Jonathan wouldn’t mind if a potential partner had grown-up children, provided they were no longer at home and doing their own thing, “young ones are definitely out.”

The expense of being with a single mum also puts Jonathan off. Source: The Sun

"I'm feeling selfish"

“I don’t want to be part of a family unit and splashing out on days out together. Single mums are too expensive. I’m feeling selfish and not dating women with children is part of that.”

There are two million single parents in the UK and 91 percent of them women.

The list of celebrity single mums is endless and many, including Britney Spears, Kate Hudson, Louise Redknapp, and Sun columnist Stacey Solomon, have spoken out about their experiences.

Dating coach Richard La Ruina, author of The Natural: How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want warns that dismissing single mothers as potential partners is a risky decision.

“Finding love is hard enough as it so to narrow the pool even further is a mistake,” he says.

“Yes, dating a single mother adds an extra potential complication but it’s not a total deal breaker.”

Paul is concerned that it would be awkward to be around someone else's kids. Source: The Sun

"I won't spend my hard -earned money on them"

Paul Dakers feels very differently.

The 45-year-old logistics specialist from St Ives in Cambridgeshire has never been married and has been single for over a year.

“I would very much like to meet someone and have a family of my own but I really don’t want to date anyone with their own children,” he says.

“I dated a girl for a year and she had three children and she lived a couple of hours away. She would come and see me every two or three weeks and I kept saying, ‘I’ll come and see you, I promise’ but I never did. I never met her children and didn’t want to.

“She’d talk about them constantly and I’d nod and shake my head in the right places but I wasn’t really paying attention. It puts me off that they wouldn’t be mine.

"What would they call me? Paul? Dad? Oh no. It’s weird. If they’re not mine, I haven’t brought them up and I’m not mentally prepared to cope with that kind of responsibility.”

“I might also feel reluctant to spend my hard-earned money on them.

"It is getting harder at my age now to meet women without kids and I know it narrows down the numbers but I’m trying to stay hopeful.”

This article was published in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.

Paul, centre, says it's hard to find love -but he's staying hopeful. Source: The Sun