I thought about asking this in GQ, but I feel that there is potential for it to turn into a debate… perhaps if a sudden rash of purely factual answers breaks out, the mods would be kind enough to move it for me…
Anyway, [anecdote]a friend of mine(who we will call A) recently left her husband (who we will call B) to marry a younger man(who we will call C) with whom she had been commiting adultery (C has boasted on occasion that they broke the news to B by letting him catch them in the act, but I suppose that is largely irrelevant)…anyway, at the time, I remember wondering why on earth A and C would feel able to trust one another based on the perhaps dubious reasoning that A had left one man for another and might do it again, plus C clearly did not have a terribly high regard for the institution of marriage.
Aaaaanyway… a few years later and C has disappeared from the scene (I was not terribly surprised).[/anecdote]
My question: are relationships that begin with adultery more likely to fail than those that don’t?
I would think so. It’s not so much a question of whether the adulterer is likely to repeat the offense, as the fact that the adulterer is clearly not a person of his/her word. Adultery (at least in this particular instance) points to this person not being trustworthy. What I mean about this particular instance is just this: I could understand, and probably forgive one “mistake”. I understand how things can get carried away. But A had an ongoing relationship with C. This means she did not keep her original vow, and lied in an ongoing manner to maintain her relationship with C. This is not the kind of person I would want to be married to.
My anecdotal evince supports the idea that those who wander are, unsurprisingly, inclined to wander.
What is a little interesting, for me, is the notion that fidelity is the breaker in a modern marriage; that ‘adultery’ is the marriage equivalent of, say, using a weapon of mass destruction. From what I see, ‘adultery’ is often the means to end a relationship that was going west anyhow.
Thus those who commit ‘adultery’ may actually be demonstrating no more than their personal discomfort with the social convention / status quo of life-long relationships, or the coices they’ve made (‘we all make mistakes’, ‘It’s run it’s course’, etc…)
I’ve also seen an affair / ‘adultery’ save marriages.
I believe, also, there is some interesting data coming to light about the nature of modern relationships and the declining role of the ‘Church’ in defining, or at least offering a context, for acceptable behaviour within that which the Church defines as ‘marriage’.
‘Marriage’ and ‘adultery’, in their most simple terms they already sound very Victorian to me, I’m afraid. Very pre Darwin, almost.
I’d be very much surprised if ‘wandering’ as we put it was much more frequent today than 100 years ago (or 1000 years ago, for that matter).
You’re dealing with some pretty fundamental human drives in this question. Those who are driven to wander will do it regardless of their socio-cultural status or environment. They might just hide it better.
Remember, ‘if s/he cheats with you s/he will cheat on you’ has been around for a while.
Meh. “Fidelity” is about keeping promises and vows and being trustworthy, which means that something that violates “fidelity” is going to be a dealbreaker in a lot of relationships, especially those in which the other party is not a doormat. (As someone who doesn’t have sexual or emotional exclusivity commitments, I tend to get wound up when “sexual or emotional exclusivity” is conflated with “keeping faith and upholding promises”.)
Someone who breaks commitments to a partner has either demonstrated that they’re willing to break commitments to that partner or that they’ve overreached on the commitments they made and should be very, very careful about making those commitments again. An adulterer or other commitment-breaker who comes out and says, “I have not been able to comfortably keep such-and-such commitments in the past, so I am not going to offer them; do you still want to be involved with me?” is, I suspect, significantly less likely to perpetrate a repeat offense than someone who is caught up in the serial monogamy thing.
As far as my beliefs – one of the major points of damage from adultery is a culture of serial monogamy and a fairy-tale belief in “The One”. If someone has a bad case of fairy tales and falls in love with someone other than the current spouse, clearly the spouse isn’t The One. . . . This is enhanced by some people’s tendency to mistake the fluffy energy surge that happens at the onset of many relationships for love, and when the sparkle wears off, well, that person wasn’t The One. . .
Every so often an adulterer will wander into the polyamorous community and say, essentially, “I’m cheating on my spouse, but I heard about this ‘polyamory’ thing and that’s what I really want to be doing, so help me out!” The usual responses are, essentially, a) polyamory is not a fix for a broken relationship, b) restoring trust when you’ve been cheating is wicked hard, and c) your spouse, even if willing to accept you having other relationships, may very well not accept you having this other relationship, so you may well wind up in a “Pick that person or me” situation.
I have an example that is most probably the exception, and not the rule.
My parents met in a December. In September of the following year, my dad got divorced from his then wife, married my mom, and helped deliver my oldest full-blood brother. That was more than twenty years ago and they are still happily married.
This is only personal opinion of course, but I think if the person has consistently cheated on their partners, then yeah, they cannot be trusted. If they’ve only cheated on a partner once or twice over the course of their adulthood, well, then it’s not as easy to pin a label.
I have cheated on partners in my lifetime. However, I know I am capable of being faithful because I have had long-term relationships and never once wanted to stray. I really don’t think I’m destined for being a life-long cheater.
I’ve been the partner that was cheated on, and yup, it’s a crappy feeling. I’ve also been the “other woman” and that wasn’t a bowl of cherries, either. I did find that I trusted that partner less (because he had cheated on someone to be with me), but I didn’t completely write him off. I know from my own experiences that sometimes shit happens. Not to say I wouldn’t care if he did cheat on me. I guess I’m just more realistic.
I think sometimes a person cheats simply out of lust. And sometimes a person cheats because they feel themselves drawn to someone else. Obviously, the person who cheats out of lust alone is likely to reoffend, whereas, the person who found themselves inexplicably drawn to someone new may find satisfaction in that new relationship and not wish to stray again.
Anyone who is capable of breaking their vows once will rarely have compunctions about doing so again. Their prior offense is wholly indicative of their mindset. It is precisely why infidelity is so unforgivable.
Anyone who is capable of breaking their vows once will rarely have compunctions about doing so again. Such prior offense is wholly indicative of their mindset. It is precisely why infidelity is so unforgivable. If you do not value the importance of your own vows, how can they mean anything ever, to anyone?
I have to agree w/zen. Like everyone else on this lonely rock, I have sure been tempted and even recieved my share of offers for such ventures, but was always smart enough not to do that.
Funny thing is that it was not hard for me to do the right thing, so of course I will NEVER buy that old story about relationship confusion, or momentary dissatisfaction or lust or any of that.
The real question is what are the ethical issues surround the sumary termnination of a relationship based on the suspicion of infidelity. I will admit that I have done that one a few times (under the stipulation that a man/woman leaving their partner for someone else is exactly the same as infidelity; there is no doubt that it is.)
There is the the trust issue, and then the is also the issue of that person not caring what kind of filth and disease s/he will bring into your bedroom.
So, key note here. If you are a person who has this in your past and truly believed you have changed, understand that your newest partner may not agree with that somewhat opaque principal. In that case, it is best that you not mention such things if it is your intention not to repeat the offense
FTR, yes, I would term a new relationship upon finding out that such an occurence was in her past; doesn’t matter if was third grade or last week. She’d be outta there! Conversely however, I would not “Fact Check” or investigate. Generally speaking, I know when I am being lied to. However, since I am not perfect there, the suspicion of being lied to has the same value as knowing it outright does to me.
As for the OP, I think a lot depends on why the adultery took place to start with. People in happy, healthy, well-functioning relationship generally don’t just start sleeping around (unless that’s a mutually agreed part of said relationship), so I tend to look at adultery as a symptom rather than a root problem. There’s always a contributing factor: boredom, loneliness, differing sex drives, insecurity, anger, lack of commitment or respect, something to add to physical lust and make you think that it’s worth risking your current relationship over.
Sometimes, the affair ends and the couple addresses those contributing factors, building a stronger, better relationship. Sometimes the new relationship adrdresses those problems and is much stronger than the original relationship. If the root problems aren’t addressed, one of two things tends to happen. Either the adulterousl relationship ends and the straying partner tends to keep on straying with other people, or the original relationship ends and the same problems crop up there.
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?
My wife was married when I met her. They were not living together while she attended college, but she did go back on the occassional weekend. I spent many an evening there, and did not find out until her roommate did, which was months after we started going out. So, in a sense she was cheating on both her husband and me.
We have been married for almost 18 years. I trust her. I know her well enough to know that she didn’t leave her husband because she confront him and hurt him until she had someone else not to hurt. She couldn’t tell me about him, because she couldn’t risk losing me. Obviously, her marriage was crap. How can it take months for her roommate and her boyfriend to find out. There wasn’t one phone call!
To answer the OP’s question, I think it depends on the reasons for the adultery. If adultry is committed for the “right” reasons - love, than no. If adultry is committed for lust, probably not, as that kind of relationship tends to have a time limit regardless of the marital status of the partners. If adultry is committed because one party just can’t keep their pants up or skirt down, or to show up their partner, etc., than I think the subsequent relationship is more prone to failure. Relationships based on one party using another are doomed to failure.
Will, no. All extra-marital affairs are malicious. Ther are no ifs ands or buts. Here’s why.
The logic you use is seriously flawed for one major reason. What you are considering is only your feelings (and the feelings of whomever is ok with that sort of behaviour; something you should look askance at anyways…), in that instance, and not at all why any person with self esteem would have a problem with the behaviour.
See the thing is that it is a multi-dimensional issues. If you have no problem (feeling guilty after having done it is the same as having no problem with it in the first place…), destroying yours or someone elses family just because your happiness is at stake (something that goes to the back of the bus if you have children…), for a few minutes, than it really doesn’t matter a flip what the reason is. New Soul Mate or roll in the hay with your cousin; it’s all the same at that level. The bottom line is that You are Intentionally Hurting Someone who has put their faith & trust in you.
The only acceptaable solution should you flake out and decide you want a new soul mate is to term the realtionship. Do not mention the reason (as no good can possibly come of it), and kindly remove yourself from the situation before you bring harm to someone who’s only crime was trusting you.
At least that’s what I would do, but then I realise that having an actual morale composition makes me something of a minority in today’s world. Guess I am big sqaure peg that way…
If you are seriously considering falling in love with someone else, you had d@mn well better completely divorce yourself from your first partner before taking up with another. Anything less is cheating and pretty well disgusting.
IEatFood!, you do have a valid argument, a quite popular argument I must add. I’m not saying that having an affair is right, just that maybe in some cases it isn’t exactly wrong.
And you say new soul mate as if we have a choice as to who our soul mate is and when we meet this person. You could get married today and then 10yrs down the road meet your soul mate. I do not use the term soul mate loosely, I believe there is only one person out there with whom you can connect on a level of sharing the same soul.
Is it wrong if you find this person and, if even for only one night, you forget your wedding vows and share your love with this other person? Why would you feel guilty for sharing true love with another person?
And why would one person be so selfish and not allow their SO to have happiness? If my SO came to me and said she has found her soul mate, I would want her to be happy. Isn’t that what love is about, making sure the other person is happy?
And I don’t mean a back alley affair where getting your rocks off is your only quest. I mean true love - true happiness.
Zenster on the lines of what I said above, I don’t think most people consider or have a choice who they will fall in love with, it just happens.
IEatFood and Zenster, the OP did not ask if it was ever right, she asked if such relationships were more likely to fail. I stand by my position that it depends on the reason for the affair.
Why exactly do you believe this, Will? Why would the universe be set up that way? What if my soul mate was born in 1150? What if I’m straight, and my soul mate is female?
Nope, sorry, I don’t buy the ‘soul mate’ theory. Everyone is unique, and there are people out there who are more or less compatible. Marriage (and other relationships) always takes work, and it takes work from both partners.
Adultery is not cool. If you have to find someone else, then I agree with Zenster. For the OP, it probably does depend on the reasons; but I do think that the new relationship is, overall, less likely to be a stable one for having been built on a foundation of cheating in the first place.