Yes of course. Who you sleep or don’t sleep with and your reasons for doing so have nothing to do with me.
Adultery might not affect me directly, but it has the potential for non-trivial consequences, and I feel free to have opinions on those.
Did one give one’s spouse chlamydia or HIV? I’m a taxpayer. If they get treatment at a government-subsidized clinic, that affects me.
Is the husband going to spend the next 18 years working 2 jobs to support other men’s children? I’m a taxpayer. If the wife and kids end up on welfare, that affects me.
Remember Clinton’s line, “it takes a village to raise a child”? That gives the villagers the right to be judgmental.
In other people’s inter-personal relationships, hell yes. Define “all areas”. What two people do within their own relationships, if it doesn’t affect me (and if it isn’t against the law) I have no trouble
Not my business to get involved in the marriage, or inform, or to tell anyone off.
But you build your opinions of people based on evidence, and cheating is certainly evidence.
If the other spouse knows about it I don’t consider it cheating, and my opinion would not change. If I knew of significant issues (they are no longer really married, but stay together for the kids) I’d probably be okay. One time, probably okay.
But a significant secret relationship in a “good” marriage - the cheater is not someone I’m going to trust.
But if that person starts complaining that the married person is cheating on him/her I’ll laugh in his/her face. You don’t get to complain that the cheater you are involved with is cheating on you.
No, the question was if we as individuals trusted cheaters. I was explaining my thought process on it. I think even posing the question in the first place implies that it is an act that one might reasonably feel is worthy of erasing all trust in a person. I don’t feel that way.
People are human. They get drunk and do stupid stuff, feel lonely and seek out companionship, temporarily lose their minds for a number of reasons, get miserable and depressed without the tools to communicate their feelings effectively, and hurt the people that they love the most sometimes for no reason at all.
So, in general, I respect cheaters about as much as I respect anybody else. I know of a handful of people who have cheated on spouses for various reasons, and they’re generally parents to their kids, partners to their current SOs, and friends with me.
Others are total dickheads. C’est la vie.
Put me down as a tentative yes. On the information given I see nothing that would make me distrust or not respect the person. If they did it multiple times basically just to hurt their partner, change me to a probable no.
As far as trusting a cheater, it depends. I don’t agree with the old chestnut that if they’ll break their promise to their spouse, they’ll break any old promise.
But that isn’t true. I know lots of people I could trust with a duffel bag full of hundred dollar bills, but I couldn’t trust them to show up at 10:00 on Saturday. And vice versa. People aren’t all good or all bad, or all trustworthy or all untrustworthy. I know people who are compulsive truth-tellers, they would never tell a lie, or withhold information. Does this make them admirable? Not really, people of this sort are often assholes who enjoy the pain and chaos their brave honesty causes.
So a person who honestly tells his wife all about his extramarital dalliances is supposed to be better than the guy who keeps it a secret. But is that always the case?
Anyway, of course cheating affects my opinion about a person. But I’ve known plenty of decent people who have cheated, and plenty of assholes who haven’t.
But your talking “open” relationships there. That isnt cheating.
To me, if your having trouble in your marriage you need to talk it thru. If you feel the marriage is suffocating you and you feel no alternative, then do a separation. But dont lie and go behind the other persons back.
Well said, Lemur866, well said.
Think about all the time, money, and effort it takes to cheat.
Frankly I’m to darn busy and the thought of spending money on hotel rooms and such - no way.
And then the whole effort it would take to actually develop a new relationship and keep it going.
Now it’s one thing if it was a one night stand while you were on a business trip but to keep something going on the side - no way can I respect that person.
However, we are a crazy species ! It’s not altogether rare for people to get themselves into complicated predicaments involving webs of deceit; and in some instances of that, to genuinely consider it to be – in the situation concerned – their least bad alternative.
Overall on the “cheating” question, I’m with those here who consider that re respect-or-nor, it’s situational; and that there are folk who are strictly upright and moral about some things in life, but less so about others. People are not “all of a piece”. And I think many would agree that monogamy is basically not in accordance with human nature, and is liable to be a very difficult road to walk; albeit that monogamy is, likely, the least unsatisfactory way to attempt to reconcile human sexuality / reproduction, with living in a – somewhat, anyhow – ordered society.
It takes time, money and effort to do anything.
I’m not sure how this makes the infidelity any different except for the time, money and effort.
So an affair’s okay as long as it involves none of these things, and you have no respect for anyone doing the exactly the same thing but spending some time, money and effort on it.
I salute you, drunken back alley corporate Christmas party rutters!
In a word, no. That shows a total lack of integrity on their part. Of course, that assumes that they are cheating on their own spouse or that they know the other person is married. If they get conned by someone else, then they should break it off as soon as they find out about the existing marriage.
People in general, and Dopers specifically, are so weird about this. They think it’s perfectly ok to get divorced, but cheating on your spouse violates some promise that’s obviously much more important than “till death do us part.”
Let’s look at this logically, which people in the heat of passion are unable to do. Adultery happens everywhere and apparently always has, throughout recorded history. Penalty for adultery is stoning to death? Still happens. Her relatives are going to tear you limb from limb? Still happens. You’re going to lose out on all his money? Still happens. Obviously this is some big-time compulsion here.
Compared to all that, losing somebody’s respect is–well, it’s not nothing, but less compelling a threat.
Depends on whose respect you’ve - as you say, honour killings are a pretty compelling threat and they’re pretty much based on the loss of respect.
I get what you’re saying though - I too think the whole monogamy thing is overrated. Unless it’s workin’ for you.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see conflict between those two points of view. If you’re unhappy in your marriage, end it.
I would prefer not to respect them, while having sex with them.
True, but a lot of cheaters don’t develop relationships. Right now, some middle-aged wife on Facebook is offering a BJ to a high school Ex while playing Words with Friends, and some bored husband is swiping Tinder or running game on OkCupid.
But I’m with you. I feel like I would HAVE to make such an investment to even have a one night stand or whatever. It’s not something that comes naturally to me, and the thought of it seems exhausting. At the same time, I know plenty of people have an easy time doing it, and IMHO it’s very easy for women to get offers of sex (and similar situations to that prison guard are pretty common, for example). And I guess for aggressive men who choose to pursue, they are going to get some easy scores.