Put me in the camp that doesn’t blame the third party. They made no promises of exclusivity and I don’t buy the argument that they have a duty to honor someone else’s promises. That said, it’s definitely not a good way to make friends. There are also health concerns to think of, some of which may involve fists moving at high speeds toward your face. Proceed with extreme caution.
The part I find interesting is how much more scorn I have observed for “the other woman” than there is for “the other man.” I wonder if part of it comes down to the cheated-on wife being a victim, while the cheated-on man is more a putz who can’t keep his woman satisfied. Or perhaps it’s as Thudlow pointed out earlier, and women’s traditional role as sexual gatekeepers leads to them being held to a higher standard.
I’ve known a number of people in open marriages - some have been married thirty years now successfully. Some involve kids. The healthy ones have absolutely no issue at all meeting their spouses prospective partner to say “yeah, the marriage is open, go for it.” In a few cases, its part of the ground rules.
(Open marriages are NOT for me, but they aren’t that uncommon in the circles I’ve been known to travel in. However, they are not the norm in our society, and I’d never assume that someone’s marriage is open. And I’d want confirmation of some sort from both partners - one of my friends posts about his open marriage on Facebook - although I’ve never talked to his wife about it, I suspect she knows.)
If my spouse were to go on a business trip, take off his wedding ring, and have a fling with someone he met at a conference, I wouldn’t blame her. However, if he has a fling - or an affair - with someone at work where there is a picture of the family on his desk, or with a friend of ours - who has been to our home and has met me - yes, then I’m absolutely putting some of the blame on her.
I think much of the concept goes with the supply and demand theory.
A. Any woman can get a stiff one anytime she wants (within all reasonable standards). If you don’t agree with/understand this, read no more.
B. Woman 1 with Husband 1. Woman 2 doesn’t need Husband 1, because she can find Single Man 2-Infinity, anywhere.
C. Therefore, Woman 2 doesn’t need Man 1; ergo, she’s doing something outside of the proper order.
1-3: See my above “(within all reasonable standards)”.
I said “Can” not ‘goes out and gets one every night’.
I said a stiff one, I didn’t say Brad Pitt.
Reasonable standards for women is extremely, EXTREMELY lax, as opposed to men. Clearly ugly women get laid 10X more than clearly ugly men. They can get one from higher in the rating scale than clearly ugly men can.
A 2 woman can get a 4+ man, while a 2 man can get a 0-2, if he’s extremely lucky.
You’re going all over the fucking place. You’re trying to interject something other than the fact that women have a much easier time getting laid than men, and how it relates to this thread.
So many to choose from, but my favourite thing from the ‘other woman’ (who was only about 17 or 18 to my ex’s 47): when she would call me up to mock me and tell me how she was going to take care of him, how I had treated him so badly, and how she was his true love and helpmeet.
It was as if she were reading off a really bad film script.
She was just a dumb kid taking him for his [our] savings; the people I found mind-boggling were her parents, who apparently welcomed him into their home (she still lived at home) and supported her daughter’s decision to date a not-yet-separated (or been yet been served divorce papers) man who was 25+ years older than she was (yep, they knew – I think at first they thought he was divorced and had been treated badly by wicked ol’me, but even after they found out that, nope, he was catting around with their kid, they were still like ‘meh.’)
And as I wrote several times above, does this include the example of the poster whose spouse didn’t have sex with him for years, didn’t even want to kiss him, but stayed married “for the children”?
On what reasonable ground can this person demand that her husband won’t have sex with someone else? In fact, to what extent is it any of her business?
In that case, all parties need to address it like adults. If one party cannot or will not participate in the sexual aspect of a relationship, then the other party is well within his/her rights to pursue some sort of resolution, such as a demand for marriage counseling to hash out any issues in front of a neutral third party, or permission to open the marriage, or something else that is acceptable to both parties. Seeking sex outside the marriage without the knowledge of both sides is never acceptable for any reason, period.
I know there are situations where one side is digging in on the issue of divorce because of religious, social, cultural, or economic reasons. That doesn’t give anyone permission to sneak. It just doesn’t.
Then you don’t believe in marriage, that’s explicitly what a marriage is. You sign a contract with the State and make a verbal contract with each other with witnesses present. You’ve made a special contract that requires the State to be involved in order to end it. And you have other people who know you are supposed to be married, and thus can catch you if you cheat.
But, ultimately, all monogamous relationships are contracts. You are saying “I will only have romantic and sexual relations with you.” And, being a decent person, you follow that.
Are you saying you regularly tell women that they are your one and only, but then go out and have sex with someone else? Do I really have to point out that most people would think this was unethical?
So we have the cheating without telling the original partner as being unethical. So why wouldn’t the person who is aiding you in the process not also be unethical?
It doesn’t matter that you and the other woman would be happier. A promise or contract explicitly mean you are putting this above your own interests.
Putting your own interests first while hurting someone else is pretty much the textbook definition of someone who is a jerk. There’s no “only if it’s someone I’m in a relationship with” clause. The other woman is being a jerk to the original woman.
The promise and the contract–the things you conveniently want to pretend don’t exist. They are married, and they made a promise not to have relations with anyone else. Until this agreement is changed, they are beholden to it.
The wife would like to know that the husband is reneging on the agreement so she knows she can do so, too. How bad would it suck if one person stayed faithful for the sake of the marriage and found out the other person didn’t?
That’s the contract. You stick with me, I’ll stick with you. Not knowing when the contract is broken means the other person doesn’t know they don’t have to keep up their side.
If I recall correctly, it was the poster who didn’t want a divorce - it wasn’t the wife who was somehow keeping him trapped in a sexless marriage. What reasonable ground does he have for deciding his wife should stay married to someone who is sleeping with someone else without allowing her any input into the decision?
When I was single I fooled around for a while with a married woman who basically threw herself at me. Before we did anything I said “Are you sure?” and yeah, she was pretty sure. As far as I was concerned, my conscience was clear at that point. I had made no vows.
I never met her husband, but had he ever confronted me I probably would have told him some version of the above.
Affairs (I am making an assumption here) typically don’t happen in a vacuum. Blaming “the other (wo)man” makes about as much sense as solely blaming the person who strayed. Look, if your partner is looking for some action on the side, then something is missing in the relationship. You as the cheatee share some of the responsibility for things getting to where they are.