To not hijack Mangetout’s thread anymore that it already has been, I ask this about adultery: It is never right, but is it ever not exactly wrong? Gray area?
If you’re in a relationship with someone who is an awful person, and threatens to kill you if you ever leave them, then sure, adultery is fine. Short of that, I can find little justification for it.
Of course, I’m assuming that by “adultery” you mean that the adulterer doesn’t have the consent of their spouse. If they have an agreement, and nobody’s being hurt, then hey, boff away - as long as no children are being affected by this.
Jeff
When you and your partner have an “open” marriage. I was sceptical that this was ever really the case, but a female coworker of mine claims she has one. There’s nothing between us, so this isn’t my own rationalization. We’ve discusses the mechanics of it at length, and she really does seem to have an arrangement with her husband that they can both have their liaisons with other people.
That may not be the case you’re thinking of, since the adultery is right out in the open. But legally, it is adultery, meaning that in a divorce case, it counts as fault against the adulterer.
Hansel -
Really? I had no idea that was legally considered to be adultery. That’s fascinating, and actually doesn’t seem right to me.
Assuming, though, that what the OP refers to is what we normally think of as “adultery” – ie, Person X has a sexual relationship with Person Y, given that Person Z is the spouse or committed partner of Person X and does not know about or condone the affair - I’m going absolutist on this one.
It’s always wrong. That doesn’t mean it’s evil, or that I can’t understand why it might happen under some circumstances, but it’s wrong, and if you do it, you’ve done wrong. The bottom line is, Person X made a promise, and ought to keep it. No one ever said it would be easy.
Simplistic, I know, but I see no shades of gray here.
- FCF
I’m not so sure about this. Here in Maryland if one of the spouses cheats and the other forgives them then it is very difficult to use adultry against them. I asked about this in my divorce case last year and was told this. I would say that in an open marriage you would be hard pressed to use adultry for grounds for divorce.
I can say that maybe there is no good reason for adultry but what does one do when your wife doesn’t come home til 1am 2-3 nights a week. Isn’t home on your anniversery, her birthday, valentine’s day etc. I can say it gets old real fast.
What if your husband begs you to? What if you both accept another into your family and love them dearly as well? This it the US, one spouse under law is allowed, so by law the relationship remains adultery.
Lee -
Well, I agree with your (not explicitly stated) position here: the legal situation as it stands just silly. If a couple decides together that what they want is an “open” marriage or some variant thereof, there’s no reason I can think of that this should be classified as adultery.
Edward: The question isn’t really, is there no good reason for adultery? The question is, is it ever not wrong. I can think of some good reasons why I might commit adultery, including those in your post. For me, however, it would still be wrong. I said I wouldn’t. 'Till death do we two part. Again, not that I think that it’s evil, or that I can’t ever conceive of a situation where I might succumb to temptation. But it’d still be wrong, right?
What does one do when one’s wife is out all the time, stays out on every major holiday, and is sexually (and, one presumes, emotionally) unavailable? In my opinion, one secures a prompt divorce, acknowledging that one’s wife has long ago withdrawn from her portion of the marriage vows, and wait to begin a relationship until the commitment you made has been mutually dissolved.
All MHO, of course, and worth about what you paid for it 
- FCF
well, how about when one spouse is mentally incapacitated and institutionalized?
I think this actually comes up a lot when a spouse is suffering Alzheimers. The the person with Alzheimers still requires care, even if in a nursing home, and is indeed still loved. The other spouse has effectively lost their life companion and may desire companionship.
Personally, even in the described situation, I would not feel OK with an extramarital relationship, but I don’t think I could judge someone who would.
I believe that at least one legal interpretation is that, yes, the case is technically adultery where someone has partners in addition to their legal spouse, whether or not that spouse consents. However, the only person who can bring charges of adultery is the “wounded party”, that being the spouse, and if said wounded party doesn’t consider themself wronged, they’re not going to bring charges. I don’t know how accurate this is in practice, and I don’t know that it’s applicable in all jurisdictions even if it’s accurate for somewhere.
I know of one polyamorous network that broke down on matters of adultery, actually. (One person having a relationship with someone who was not permitted according to agreements with spouse.) I’ll give the wronged party credit for one thing (though I believe that said wronged party is also a complete asshat at best) – when the lawyer in the divorce said, “You have evidence for all these other relationships, let’s bring them into court for a big adultery law-fest”, the response was, “I gave my consent to all those other relationships. This one is the only one that was adultery.”
I should have prefaced this by mentioning that it’s legal advice that I received in Canada. A friend wanted me to impregnate her because both her and her husband had a high chance of inherited health problems in their child. Since artificial insemination has about the same odds as natural methods, other things being equal, and since she was a free-lovin’ kind of gal, she thought we should just have sex.
I went to a legal clinic to get advice on my obligations as the biological father should I actually do it, and that was one of the things the lawyer said: In Canada, regardless of the arrangement the spouses have, if she and I did it, it was adultery under the law, and grounds for the husband to divorce her for fault.
I can think of at least one situation where I would not consider adultery wrong. Once one spouse has committed adultery, I think he or she at least temporarily loses all right to complain about the other spouse doing the same thing. If they patch up and the wronged spouse forgives the adulterous one and the adulterous spouse promises never to do it again, then I can see it still being wrong for the spouse who was first wronged to commit adultery herself. But if one spouse is just out wildcatting all the time I think it’s absurd to consider the other spouse’s own vow still binding on her.
I would hesitate to consider extramarital affairs in “open” marriages to be adultery at all. If there was no promise to be faithful to begin with, then you can’t commit the breach of faith that to me is implied by the word “adultery.”
An open marriage may very well include promises to be faithful.
They do not, however, necessarily include promises to be sexually exclusive.
As someone in an open relationship, I object strenuously to language that suggests that only a promise of sexual exclusivity qualifies as “faithful”. I keep the promises I made. I am faithful to my partners and to those promises. Those promises are just as valid and just as significant as those in a monogamous marriage, and language use that presents them as inferior really grates on my nerves.
If I were to break my promises, I would be unfaithful; why can I not be faithful for keeping them?
** As posted in Mangetout’s thread:**
What if you truly fall in love with another person, find this person is your soul mate? Why not divorce your current SO, you say? I’m sure you can find many reasons not to (stay for the children… etc). Is it unforgivable that your spouse is seeking happiness, and shouldn’t you be willing to let him/her be happy, even if it means him/her being happy with someone else. Not all affairs are malicious. IIRC the movie/book The Bridges of Madison County was a huge success and you didn’t hear the teeming millions complaining about how wrong the story was. And yes I know it was just a movie/book, but is it unconceivable that two people can love each other, emotionally and physically, while married to others, and not be wrong?
I.e., your promise is to “love, honor, and cherish,” and you are “faithful” to that?
OK, I can see that. It’s just a very different use of the word “faithful” from what I’m used to. Most people when they say someone is “unfaithful” specifically mean that they broke the “forsaking all others” bit and not the other promises.
With that in mind, I would modify my comment above to say that extramarital affairs in open marriages are neither adulterous nor unfaithful in my view. I.e., not only is it not wrong, but it’s not adultery, since there is no betrayal.
EdHead,
First of all, nice to see someone else here is from MD.
Secondly, I had no idea it was “difficult,” to take an ex to task after a forgiveness was issued. In my case, the divorce was filed technically based upon my suspicion alone of her being unfaithful. She Quasi - confessed (as in “Well, if that’s what you are thinking then I am sure you don’t need to know the answer. It’s over isn’t it?”) Since she was smart enough to say that knowing I had about four people listening in, though she never admitted anything outright, it was enough of a proponderance that she essentially lost everything. She gets no alimony, child support (she lost custody over this issue too; though I am now considering allowing some visitation, but we will have to see about that…), and came out of it owing me for my legal expenses.
With things like that happening, we must live in one weird state for “forgiveness” alone to essentially negate all that.
Danimal,
Though in my opinion, it does not get more black & white than this issue, I can see your point there. Of course an adulterer has no expectation of fidelity, but at that point, why is it an issue?
For me, two things stand in the way. First, if I were in that situation, I would recognize that I did indeed, make a promise. As a matter of principle, I not make promises lightly, as I have yet to break one since having been an adult (& long before that for that matter…) So, with that in mind, I would not soil my record of that because some whoring soon to be ex “has it comming.” If she isn’t good enough to share a bed with, she isn’t good enough to stain my ego, I guess is what I am trying to say. Again, that’s just me though. To each their own.
Secondly, Adultery itself, voids the agreement anyways, so whatever you do, much like an open relationship, is not adultery. Again, MHO. So, why have the first reason you may ask? Assuming that since it’s not adultery anymore, it shouldn’t be an issue to the offended or the offending party? Because not everybody will see it that way (reffering to possible future litigation opportunities.) Also, whatever the case, that someone did it to you & you left their sorry excuse for company instead of getting enmired in a game of tit-for-tat, automatically makes you the better person anyway. And that is leverage I would never trade away.
The dynamics of an adulterous relationship are as variable as the participants. As WillSantini noted, they are not necessarily malicious. Nor are they always destructive. I’m damned sure that many marriages have ‘survived’ because one or both partners have dabbled in relationships outside the union.
There are all sorts of occasions when I could see reason to excuse or justify extra-marital affairs: I guess they can can be summed up as when one partner has an illness or disability or dysfunction that denies the other partner the physical or emotional intimacy they need. Sometimes it is just not possible to get all of one’s needs fulfilled by another person. Sometimes all other avenues have been explored and exhausted. Sometimes people still madly love their partner, but realise that the partner cannot or will not satisfy certain needs. They’re not always sexual; sometimes the intimacy that is craved is of the emotional variety.
So IMHO, no, adultery isn’t always ‘wrong’ or damaging. Sometimes it works to keep an otherwise successful marriage together.
Yes, it is inconceivable (that it not be wrong, not that you can fall in love with someone who’s not your spouse). It doesn’t matter how pure your love for your mistress, how hot the encounter, how romantic the circumstances, there’s still a moral and emotional obligation to be faithful, or to end the relationship honorably. It may be tough, it may be a sacrifice, but in no way does the “soulmateness” of the affair excuse not doing the right thing.
Picture it this way: your spouse has confronted you about your affair. Do you actually plead “but I’m really, really in love with her, so I haven’t done anything wrong”?
You’re going to have to propose a specific exception if you want to plead this case further.
Will, when a couple marries, they essentially enter in a contract with one another. For my husband and I, and for most couples, not playing Hide the Salami with other people was part of the deal we made. (Polyamorous/open marriages did not have this as part of the agreement, and are thus exempt from the following commentary.)
If one partner meets his/her soulmate, but doesn’t want the divorce offered by the spouse, he/she has some choices to make. You can either dissolve the contract (divorce), or you can stay in the contract and abide by its rules. If staying married is important to you for whatever reason (kids, tax breaks, whatever), you have to decide which is more important: sleeping with your soulmate, or staying married. Your partner has made a good faith offer to dissolve the contract for your benefit, but if you stay in, she has a right to hold you to your part of the bargain.
To tell someone, “If you really loved me, you’d let me be married to you and sleep with that person,” is a blatant and highly dishonorable attempt at manipulation. Frankly, no soulmate of mine would treat someone who loved him that way.
IEatFood, you’ll be glad to know I agree with you in this thread.
But, I can think of two exceptions. First, suppose that one adulterer did not know they were committing adultry? (My case.) I can even see where two sides did not know. (“You mean his signature on the divorce papers werent valid!!..” or “but, we thought you were dead …”)
I would also be hard put to call committing adultry wrong if the “cheated on” spouse were mentally incapacitated. Think about it. Suppose my wife was in a car accident and reduced, mentally, to a three year old. I stay married so she is covered under my medical care. Would it be right for me to sleep with her? Would it be wrong for me to sleep with someone else? I know one guy who faced a similar situation. I never asked what he did. My sense of right and wrong is inadequate for this situation.
Slow,
Unfortunately, that is beyond my experience. I think though, at that level, you have to look at whether or not it is really adultery as opposed to wondering if that type of adultery is ok.
To me, adultery implies defieing a trust that continues to be valid. I don’t know.
In the case of disappearence, I would tell new wife that she needs to split if old wife should ever return somehow. Assuming that the POW/MIA or lost from a plane crash in a tropical island or whatever wife is of similar mind when she returns, & has not say “gone native.” 
All I know for sure from thinking about that for the two minutes that I have is that I hope that never ever happens to me.