Eh? She was married and slept with another man–that’s pretty much the textbook definition. I for one don’t think she did anything she needs to regret or be ashamed of, but I don’t need to play semantics and pretend she wasn’t *really * cheating to come to that conclusion.
You can’t say that “X is never okay” and then tack on “except when I think it’s OK, which makes it Y instead of X, so X is still never OK, except when I think it’s Y”. Talk about self-serving bullshit.
Actually I appreciate the cheaters coming in here and explaining themselves. I have respect for their ability to admit to an attackable behavior and to try & explain why they done what they done. I apologize if anyone thinks that I followed them in here to piss on them for wrongs done to me by someone else. That’s not my objective at all.
What lit my fuze is when certain elements of that group crossed the line and insinuated, or just plain said, that the only reason I and other non-cheaters haven’t cheated is because we haven’t been given the right circumstances. It’s like saying every male has the mental ability to rape a baby because it has been done by a few people who otherwise are no different from the rest of us. I’ve been alone with babies, and not only did I not rape any, it never even sounded like a good idea, and not just because I didn’t wanna get caught!
Yes, I’ve been involved in mutual crushes, and have been working out of a hotel room on business trips, far from home with those same people. Know what? Never even kissed one. Because I am mentally incapable of doing so. And to tell me that I’m naive for saying “never” is almost as infuriating as having a child molester look me in the eye and tell me, “Aw, you’d have done the same thing.”
It’s not self-serving bullshit, and has nothing to do with semantics. Unless, of course, you think that it isn’t cheating if you get an easy divorce and then go screw someone, but it is cheating if you tell someone you hate them, you ask for a divorce, but cannot get it because the person will beat the living shit out of you if you try to obtain it. That’s called physical coercion, and not acting openly in response thereto is not “cheating,” it’s “not being murdered.”
You know, if I hold a gun to someone’s head and force them to perform a criminal act, they are not a “criminal.” Sometimes the use of the word does hinge on intent; there are words that do that.
Cheating implies deception and/or wrongdoing with respect to a relationship. It does not relate solely to marriage, and if it hinged on marriage, as you seem to imply, you could never cheat on a mere boyfriend or girlfriend, and every act you took in connection with a marriage that the spouse did not want could be deemed “cheating.”
I’ve never actually cheated on anyone, but I was the “other woman” for nearly a year. I didn’t want a real relationship, but still wanted someone to sleep with. The guy was married and worked less than five minutes from where I went to school.
We slept together with some regularity for a long time, and when he told me he was beginning to get attached to me I broke it off.
I thought I had made myself clear that I was just in it for the sex, and I thought he felt the same, but apparently I was wrong. His wife found out, and nearly left him over it. I haven’t seen or spoke to him in months.
I’m now engaged to a wonderful man and I cannot ever see myself cheating on him. I just hope that my immature escapade with the married guy doesn’t come back around and bite me in the ass someday!
Well maybe the “right” circumstances are just different for you ? Your level is just higher than others ? I don’t think anyone is implying you’re a “closet cheater” or a repressed baby abuser. One day who knows you might cheat ?
I understand those that sneeze at “never” sayers. I think humans aren’t perfect… and that in the right circumstances anyone might slip and have an affair or cheat. If you don’t in the meantime it doesn’t make you any worse or better than anyone else IMO. Ceding to one’s desires and impulses is natural and not the end of the world. I think its worse when someone is drooling to cheat and doesn’t do something about it… either getting divorced or getting it done.
Using the Jimmy Carter definition of cheating, I cheat on an hourly basis. I won’t say “never” to other definitions. Two-ish decades ago, I probably would have, if given opportunity, but the closest I came was light petting. Each can apply their own definition as to whether that counts as cheating.
I have avoided putting myself in situations where I would be in a position to cheat. Women do not throw their bodies at me when I’m alone. I don’t actively try to seduce women. I’d like to believe I wouldn’t, but IMNSHO, that’s like saying, “Sure, if I saw a baby in a burning car, I’d pull it out,” only to find that when I actually encounter a baby in a burning car, I run away screaming like a scared wuss. The only time I’ll truly know how I would act is when an attractive woman throws herself at me. Plus, considering how dense I’ve been in the past (while single and looking, no less) regarding women making passes in my direction, unless it’s extraordinarily blatant, I’d probably miss it.
See here’s where you sound CRAZY. A relationship between two consenting adults… does not swirl around and around in the same soft serve as CHILD RAPE.
You and other people keep equating -or atleast are making parallel arguments- physical betrayal of fidelity with murder and rape and other heinous violent crimes. It’s not… shitty and self-centered yeah…and emotionally devastating but christ… This thread is evidence that people move on and hearts heal.
Inigo right now you are torn up and crazy… Two years from now. You might still be angry when you think about it but hopefully you will have moved on and your life will be better…
Bella… you and I should get married…but then I’d probably cheat on you… 
Just kidding… I’d never marry you. Haaaaaaaaaaa… I kid I kid.
I read Slyfrog’s response… It doesn’t hold up. He sets up a slippery slope.
Slyfrog-
So if my SO had actually been suicidal and was holding killing herself above my head if I ever broke up with her…and then I cheat on her… Would I be in the clear?
HEHE... I suffer from the same "blindness" and I feel your pain. I certainly don't seek out women... but being dense more than anything has kept me faithful.…looking for the frothing at the mouth smiley… :mad: :eek:
(use your imagination I guess)
OK. My head is hurting now. This is the point at the party where someone grabs Inigo by the ears, says politely but firmly: “Dude, no more beers for you, you’re outta control. Go home now.” Inigo will now slink away fom the thread…the piano has been drinking again.
: wanders off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet :
If this sounds holier-than-thou then so be it. While I can understand where cheaters are coming from, I have no desire to join them.
I have never cheated or (to the best of my knowledge) been cheated on. I knew I was a monogamous type of person from the get-go and made that clear at the start of any relationship. No guy in a relationship with me could possibly claim that we had not talked about this at the beginning, because we had - in detail.
After dating me for a number of years, my BF came to me and said that he would like to date other people, and me at the same time. While I respected him for his honesty and willingness to broach this sticky discussion before succumbing to hormones/libido/whatever, I stuck to my guns and said no. Either he dates me exclusively OR he dates other people, but not both. I knew that in taking this stance I was taking the very real risk of losing a BF I adored, but gosh dang it - I respected myself more than that; I was worth more than that.
I am now happily married for about 10 years now. To the never-naysayers, chalk another woman ready to say “My word is my bond” and to say that I will not cheat on my spouse. Not for lack of opportunity; not for lack of libido - just too stinkin’ proud!
I’m not sure how this become a slippery slope, at least as I’ve seen it defined.
As to your particular example, you’ve created a false question by giving your own loaded description of the situation (“and then I cheat on her”) and then asking if your loaded answer is right or wrong. This is the equivalent of setting up a situation where someone killed someone for what ever reason, saying “and then he murdered her . . .” and asking if it was okay. Of course murder isn’t okay, but the question is really whether it is murder, or simply a killing, just as here, the question is whether it is really cheating.
So we take out your statement that it was “cheating.” I would then, based on your remaining scenario, answer that there are levels of moral culpability. Your situation is certainly less problematic than the situation where someone starts “falling out of love,” and just starts screwing some other woman. I would probably ask why you didn’t try to get the woman committed or other mental help, but assuming we’re in a fantasy world where that couldn’t be done (or you truly believed she would kill herself before it happened), then I would say it probably not cheating.
It is a fairly common and understood thing that people who make bad decisions, or who are immoral, often try to mitigate it not by making better decisions or admitting what they did has no excuse and was wrong, but by trying to cast their muck at better people. Again, the tendency of the masses to want to turn the hero into a valet; “He isn’t so hot, I bet he’s one of us.” If everyone is mediocre, no one feels threatened. It makes us feel better to think that others who do not behave in a similarly sleezey way just haven’t had the opportunity, or are otherwise not as pure as they think. There’s no way they could just have more discipline, willpower, and morals than others. Consider the strange jealousy and anger some feel toward people who just seem “too perfect.”
That doesn’t make it right. The response by people who have failed should not be to attack those who haven’t yet and say, “Yeah, I bet you’ll fail too.”
Being dense, and not trying to break my vow, combined. As I said, if somehow it landed in my lap (pun intended), I’m not sure how I would act, nor that I would even act consistently in the case of multiple landings. I do know that, once out of school, I only ever engaged in a single relationship at a time (and wondered how those that juggled found the time and/or money to handle multiple relationships).
I was the original “never say never” poster, so I’ll try to clarify that. There are people here saying that they have never even been tempted. My point was that it’s easy to do the right thing when there is no temptation, and also that sometimes in life you find yourself doing things that you would never have thought possible ten years earlier. That’s been my experience, anyway. I was a very judgemental teenager, but as I get older, I find I know less about what’s best for everyone else.
Sly Frog, I appreciate your willingness to have this discussion.
So we are arguing semantics now? I thought we weren’t… but okay…
There’s the slope… So what is the equation for it being okay? You don’t want to call it “cheating” even though it is… What do you want to call it?
So because a woman thought her husband MIGHT beat her if she asked for a divorce and then she goes out and sleeps with someone else… That’s not cheating :rolleyes: … I still say bullshit.
So a guy with a suicidal girlfriend strays… etc etc etc. *
We could come up with scenarios that excuse the behavior all day…
At what point does it become “immoral” to you?
- the suicidal girlfriend scenario is fictional and does not relate at all to my backstory in this thread.
I don’t know if there is a term for it; nonculpability due to wrongful coercion?
We certainly could. In fact, it’s what we do when deciding what is right and what is wrong. For example, it can be difficult to determine whether physically punishing your child is permissible parental discipline or child abuse. So that somehow means that we can’t tell that certain acts are clearly child abuse?
It depends on the scenario. The inability to posit in writing every possible scenario that occurs does not mean that it is impossible to judge a given scenario. Some scenarios are harder to judge than others. Some scenarios are pretty crystal clear.
Well, I hope that’s sincere. I understand that I’m grabbing your example and pontificating on it, which certainly isn’t intended as any type of slight against you. I think these are interesting issues.
I think that there can be too much judgment, but also that there can be too little. I think there is a place between being sanctimonious and judgmental, and between sick moral relativism where no one can stand up and call wrong behavior wrong. It’s my opinion that for this issue, we probably lean too far toward the latter, but I recognize that is my opinion.
I would agree with your last bit… And that’s the whole fucking point… There are people in this thread throwing these ridiculous blanket condemnations around when they don’t know jack shit about the back stories and history of these people who they are calling scum and equating with murderers and rapists. The people standing up for themselves and the people pointing out the flaws in these saints (Bella) aren’t trying to drag them down, they are simply saying “You can’t make a complicated situation black and white.”
I will say this; I am a better person for what I did. I learned from it. I learned a lot about myself. And ultimately it was like an episode of the A-Team… No one got hurt. I would also never do it again.
So if I’m understanding this correctly, you cheated on B.A. Baracus with Face?
I think you read those statements a bit differently than I did. I think there are situations where people are scum. I think there are situations that are more grey. I think the people in this thread being hypercritical are being hypercritical of the pretty basic, “Yes, I said my vows, but things weren’t working out how I wanted so I shagged someone else,” situations. For admittedly implied proof of this, I haven’t noticed people going hard after Dung Beetle, for example.
And it’s more irritating when the people who say on the one hand, “Don’t judge me, you don’t know the reasons,” then use the defense of, “I don’t know you, but I’m going to judge you and say you must be flawed too.”
When someone is screwing around on a spouse or other partner, I think that most of the time the person is likely scum. There are some limited situations that I think are mitigating or make the action not truly reprehensible. I just think that in far more common vanilla situations, where the excuse is, “I discovered I didn’t love him, so decided to screw his best buddy for half a year,” people evasively try to come up with reasons the situation is “complicated” when it really isn’t that complicated. The person betrayed trust and a relationship because they wanted to build their self-esteem, hurt their partner, enjoyed getting bent over a couch by someone different, or what have you. The excuses (or reasons) given almost always sound like bullshit to me.