You should feel guilty because you’re doing something you specifically promised, in a public ceremony NOT to do. Even if your vows included nothing about faithfulness, they generally do include either honoring someone, or at least not deliberately hurting them. Sleeping around on someone without their knowledge or consent is, if nothing else, disrectful and hurtful, and it’s not exactly an accident.
(On a side note, I’ve never really believed folks who say, “I never meant to sleep with him/her.” What, you were walking down the street fully clothed, tripped, and landed on a dick? I don’t really think so.)
Sure, I think loving someone means wanting them to be happy. I certainly want my husband to be happy more than I want him to be with me. If he found someone that important to him, I’d want him to be with that person forever. I’d also want him to respect me and the promises we made to one another enough to tell me before starting a romantic relationship with this person.
I believe it due to personal experience.
The universe is not a fair place.
Again, this life is not fair, wait til your next one.
Then you just become very good friends, or is sex such an important part of your life that you equate sex with love?
More or less compatible? Do you want to spend your life with someone who is more or less compatible? Yes, any relationship takes work, but much less work is involved when the other person is essentially you.
“Essentially you”? Maybe I’m just dense, but I already spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with someone who’s essentially me…me. Why would I want to spend even more time with me?
What she said. I like my husband because he’s different than me, not because he’s the same. We complement each other and strengthen each other’s weaknesses.
What bugs me about your philosophy is that you seem to feel that people have no choice about these things, when in fact they do. “It just happened, I couldn’t help it” is not a reason, it’s an excuse. As CCL has already said.
Emotions often just happen. What one does about those emotions, however, is always a choice, and having the emotion doesn’t justify making a bad or hurtful choice.
Personally, I don’t believe that breaking an agreement is easily justified. Renegotiating an agreement, yes. Just unilaterally breaking it? No. I can imagine circumstances where it’s an appropriate response, but “I just found this new person and I’m feeling all sparkly” isn’t one of them.
If the whole “soul mate” concept is going to fly with me, it’s going to have to be flexible enough to grasp that I have two; if it’s not going to accept that, I think it’s just another manifestation of the derangement of “The One” and fairy tale logic.
You are right. I dodged it pretty good.
Hmmmmmmmmmm… I think the odds are bad only if the parties involved don’t value trust in a relationship. Otherwise, how you can you trust someone who violated someone else who put their trust in them? I’d have a hard time dealing with it (Of course I wouldn’t be in that sitch in the first place, but FTSOA, lets say…)
It works that way on a professional and nationalistic level too. Though double agents are glorified heavily in action movies, the reality is that places like CIA, NSA, etc… hell, even the old CFSS (KGB), avoided doubles like the plague for their obvious ambiguity.
Well I have said all I can on the issue, so I will leave it at that. Just one more sidenote though…
I am truly amazed that there are such differences of opinion here, when there really are few issues more black & white. If I wanted to throw someone’s baby over the side of the WTC, whether it’s out of love, insanity, or just plain sadism, it IS wrong. There is no way this can be different.
CrazyCatLady has already said most of what I think.
I have to add an opinion.
This might be true, if you use the same logic that says having a teenager run away, become addicted to IV drugs, and contract AIDS can bring a family closer together. I’ve seen that happen, but never in a case where that was the only way. Always - ALWAYS - better communication and better bahavior form everyone involved would have solved the problem as effectively without so much trauma.
Obviously, I am (and probably everyone is) more likely to hear about adulterers when things when wrong. In most cases, I think, adulterers are people who have other problems (usually not with their marriage or partner, exactly) and act out. They will do so again until they learn to manage their own lives better. Ironically, these are usually people who would benefit greatly from some time alone, building up and learning to appreciate their strengths.
There are also cases where, as the cliche goes, “it just happened.” There’s proabably a small minority of people who, for whatever reason, had a one-time or brief affair, kept it to themselves, and will not repeat. (This echoes CrazyCatLadys view on “why.”)
Actually, that might be the test - adulterers who really can keep it quiet are probably the adulterers who are least likely to repeat. An awful lot of the adulterers I see, while not following for the Hollywood cliche of wanting to be found out by the spouse, spend a lot of time talking about the affiar with friends. Boasting or giggling depending on the gender.