Oops.
At least I remembered the S. Most people forget the S.
although on the continum of action, there may be some question - getting in the car to go cheat - probably not, renting the motel room? probably…
“whatever your SO thinks is cheating?” well… my ex husband (the scum-sucking, bottom feeding waste of oxygen), thought sex with a member of the same sex WASN’T cheating… or at least when HE did it, he also thought that going out on a date with another woman while I was at home with second degree burns covering my torso wasn’t really cheating, either. I thought both were. So the key seems to be an agreement, and if you and your SO don’t agree on what consitutes cheating, I would think that the relationship is doomed.
re: the orientation question being held secret: again, I think the key is action - if you act on your thoughts, then it’s cheating. but hey, my ex would think it was ok… (one of the 3,487,329,498,387 excellent reasons we’re divorced today).
Not a full hijack here, but…
While I agree in general that it should be your SO who defines cheating, what do you do with the example of an extremely jealous SO?
When I married my first wife, I had several woman friends. My wife made it clear she did not want me to have any communication whatsoever with them, not a Christmas card, not nothing. Nor did she want to socialize with them as a couple. It made no difference whether they were married or single, and the fact that I never had a romantic relationship with them was immaterial.
(I should point out that Mrs. Kunilou is much more tolerant of these type of friendships.)
I broke off contact with all of them. Do you think it was within my wife’s rights to insist? Would I have been cheating if I continued contact on the side?
Sadly, it was my wife who started having affairs and wound up running off with someone else. I guess she figured it was all right for her.
Add me to this club.
Cheating is in the heart, not in the pants.
i’m with handy and lola on this one.
Should you feel the need to even ask, think twice and no need for an answer.
I think this has already been answered pretty well.
My gal told me a long time ago, “I better never catch you with another woman.”
I responded, “Don’t worry. You’ll never catch me.”
Xizor: Shoulda clarified myself: the other person would have to be actively involved.
I know I’m just repeating what a lot of other people have said, but if you go behind your SO’s back…it’s cheating. Period. If you can tell your SO about it, plot it with your SO, have your SO cheer you on and so forth, it’s not cheating.
And yes, that means, “no matter what it is.”
I would no sooner sleep with another man without my husband’s knowledge than I would take $500 out of the bank account and spend it without his knowledge. Y’see, though, if he APPROVED the purchase…
I’m just sayin’.
Once again, I find myself responding to handy. I used to think this, too. Hey, so what if I was getting off elsewhere, I didn’t love the guy, right? Eh, as long as The Hubby wasn’t hurt, where was the harm?
Weeell, lemme tell ya. I got divorced from that Hubby, and he was never the wiser that I had misbehaved so often, and with men that he knew I was with and trusted me to be so. But I WAS A HO!!! A Ho with deep damage that I had to work through to get real with myself. To This Day, if I knew that ex-hubby had found out about any of that crap, I would be heartbroken and mortified. His idea of me, we parted friends, is worth much more than the reality of me. So, just because he never knew, and wasn’t hurt, and I never loved him less–I cheated. Yuck. Gross.
That was 8 years ago, and I’m remarried now. I would sooner stick a pin in a sleeping bears butt than screw around on this guy. Whether I could rationalize it or not. I shudder to think of my former rationalization skills…presidential in quality.
So, in the heart OR pants, cheating is cheating is cheating.
’ he was never the wiser that I had
misbehaved so often.’
I once went with this lovely lady for a few years. During that time she said that her stepfather bought her the new car she got then. Fifteen years later, I asked about the car as she has it still & she mentioned the guy who gave it to her & it wasn’t her stepfather [she forgot this lie]. Some people just like to wait years later & confess. ick
Too often this is the case. Me thinks (she) doth protest too much, type thing She accused you of what she was capable of, to alleviate her own guilt. So says this shithouse shrink.
She had no right to ask you to dump significant friendships. Nice of you to try to appease her, though.
In her estimate it would have been cheating for you to contact them without her knowledge. In mine, no. You knew your own motivation, your intentions were good.
I certainly hope that you contacted your friends once ex had showed her true colors and split. and I bet they said “Right on. Never liked that bitch any ol way.”
Well done finding a decent woman the second go round. A person that truly loves and trusts you would never force you to do anything you wouldn’t suggest doing first. did that make sense?
See? I would CROAK if this happened to me! I would endure a hundred…well, maybe 25… tortures before I would leak my deeds to my ex. She just forgot, but that’s the true ickiness of deciet. Lies are just one more thing to keep track of.
Did it hurt your feelings, even all of those years later?
My standard for interacting with women in general is would I allow my wife do the same thing with a guy. If I wouldn’t want her doing it with a guy (whatever it is), then I shouldn’t be doing it with a woman. That sets my limits in my mind. We usually see thing pretty much the same way jealousy-wise so this works for me. I really don’t know what her standard is but I think this system will keep me from crossing her limits for me.
Ya know, I actually gotta disagree with a lot of the posters, which is odd, as I didn’t think I would. I don’t think that, within certain boundaries, an emotional relationship with another woman would constitute cheating. There are things I don’t tell me SO’s, particularly about them. These are usually the little things about them that aren’t worth a fight. However, even with those things, I need someone to rant about them to, if only to blow off steam so there won’t be a fight. I talk about these things with certain female friends, with whom I have extremely close relations (and some of whom I’ve been romantically/sexually involved with). I don’t consider that cheating. In general, I don’t consider non-physical relations cheating.
Sua
Oh that’s excellent, PLgirl! I think the only other thing I’d add to that is:
- At some point in your relationship (before #1 and #2 occur), sit down with your SO and lay out the groundrules of what is acceptable. That is, do #2 in advance, but in a non-threatening way. Is it okay to be alone with someone of the opposite (or if gay, the same) sex alone? What sort of touching is okay? How about private email/chat/message correspondence? Exchange photos? Phone numbers? What you might think is fine might be very difficult for the other person, and it’s best you know about it in advance.
So is phone sex, or cybersex okay? Maybe you have a higher tolerance in close relationships, but my thought is that it’s still best to lay out the ground rules with your SO. Sua, you mentioned that sometimes you feel like ranting about your sweetie to another friend. How would your partner feel if this information (about your blabbing) were known? Would your partner handle it okay, understanding it was your way of just venting a bit? Or would your partner get upset that you are confiding to someone else about the relationship without trying to talk about it directly?
Optimally, your partner should be your closest friend. If you can’t speak openly and you have to keep some things hidden, what does that say about the relationship? Eh?
'2. If you are unsure if you are cheating or not, ask your SO. He/she will let you
know. "
Most of the time in a relationship it should be expected that when someone has an affair they are supposed to tell their partner. Not the partner asking if they had a affair. Because then they would have to ask every day…and who wants to do that?
I can see the value of having close friends to vent to, even if of the opposite (again /same if gay) sex. There is the ufortunate side effect of having your friend have a negative opinion of your SO it you’re not careful, so you have to be sure to talk about all the good things too. Still, even your best friends piss you off sometimes, and you just need to talk to someone. Since talking to them right away might cause more trouble than it’s worth, I don’t see anything wrong with talking to someone else until things cool down enough to have a real discussion w/ SO.
Well, Baglady, my first caveat is that, while I’ve been engaged twice, I’m 31 and still single. So perhaps I’m not the best person to talk to about such things. 
OTOH, I haven’t cheated on anybody since my wild college days, and when I did, I broke off the relationship immediately. (Being the coward that I am, I never told the GF that I was breaking up because of the cheating – I always considered it a symptom, not a cause. 'Course, having a conscience, I took the full blame for the break-up on myself.)
As for phone- or cybersex, I can’t speak from personal experience, but, if they are analogous to fantasy, pornography, or even masturbation, I don’t think they are cheating.
Finally, as for talking to someone else about a relationship, one of the things I often lack when dating someone is perspective. “Is whatever’s bothering me really a problem, and, if so, how big of a problem?” is a question I have sometimes been unable to answer on my own. Having had one or two relationships end because I’ve made a big deal out of nothing makes me want to get advice from people I’m especially close to before I bring it up with the SO.
Would the SO get upset at me for doing this? It depends on who it is, but it is definitely a risk. Am I ashamed of doing it? No. Do I tell my confidant not to mention it to my SO? Yes. Is that cheating? I don’t think so.
As for emotional relationships in general, if I were to find myself more emotionally bonded with another female than to my SO, I would take that as a sign that I’m either not trying hard enough with my SO, or that our relationship is not going to work out. I would not consider it cheating, unless I didn’t try harder or I kept the relationship going knowing it wasn’t going to work out.
Sua