There’s a thread about gossip columnists advice to a reader to not tell her husband about a night stand and go on with her marriage. The opinions of dopers is split on whether one should be forthright and honest about a one night stand or should they just keep it to themselves. Clearly the one-night stand is about physical sex and cheating on your SO.
But for those that believe that truthfullness and honesty about everything in your relationship should be out there…does that extend to emotional cheating? Fantasies about the cube mate at work? On-line flirting, that you know will not go anywhere beyond your ISP?
I don’t think everything needs to be divulged in any relationship. There is room for privacy in a marriage, provided that nothing you are doing is threatening the marriage.
I’m sure I don’t speak for all men, but the great majority of us are probably this way: If fantasizing or having sexual thoughts about a woman other than my wife constitutes cheating, I haven’t been faithful for a day in our marriage. Seriously, if women knew half the shit that pops into our heads…
But on the other hand - 15+ years of marriage, and I’ve never been with anybody else or even seriously entertained pursuing it.
If I had a SO who, say, emotionally cheated on me via IM with a guy she never met in person, and went on to feel guilty and end the relationship with him, I probably wouldn’t want to know. She stopped things before they went beyond the event horizon. Once a SO has actually slept with someone else- yes, I’d want to know. Yes, so that I could end the relationship with her.
Its only cheating if it something threatening to the marriage. Everyone has thoughts its those who act on it that are cheating. Im sure women think just as much as men.
If this is someone they actually interact with, either in person or through some form of communication (email, phone, IM, whatever), then yes.
If nothing else, sharing fantasies can be a fun way to add some spice to your sex life. Added bonus is that if you communicate honestly with your spouse, you’re less likely to move from the emotional cheating phase to the physical cheating phase. While not all emotional cheating leads to physical cheating, physical cheating invariably starts with emotional cheating. Absent coercion/force, people just don’t have sex with people they don’t want to have sex with.
Also, if the emotional cheating is fairly serious, it allows the couple the opportunity to address the issues in their relationship that underlie the desire to cheat.
On the other hand, if s/he’s just wanking off to a magazine or fantasizing about a celebrity s/he’ll never even have the opportunity to talk to… whatever.
It’s all about tact, and individual circumstances. I had absolutely no problem hearing that my ex-husband thought that Alyson Hannigan was super-hot. I had trouble hearing that he thought our mutual friend was super-hot and he’d like to do her, but that was partly my issue. I had a lot of trouble hearing that he thought a mutual acquaintance was super-hot and that he liked talking to her and felt that he had “new relationship energy” with her, even though they were just talking.
Of course, those relvelations didn’t count as confessions; he wasn’t apologizing. He was sharing. He had no intention of changing his behavior, and didn’t feel guilty. For him, that was being open and honest; for me, it was pretty horrible. It put me in the position of having to either not say anything, and give tacit permission (at least in the last case, where he was staying up until the wee hours talking to her), or else tell him to stop and be put in the position of being the bitchy wife. In that sort of situation, sharing is entirely selfish.
Were I ever in that sort of relationship again, I’d want to know if it were something that he felt was undermining the marriage. I wouldn’t want to know if it’s just something he’s fantasizing about, or if it’s the sort of idle flirting that’s more a social nicety than a courtship dance. I mean, it’s not like I never looked at people and thought, “hm, it’d really be nice to spend a torrid evening with him/her.” It just doesn’t bear sharing, is all.
People vary a lot in what they do or don’t consider cheating, and what needs to be divulged and what doesn’t need to be mentioned. The important thing is to talk about it with your SO to make sure you’re both on the same page.
As an example, I’ve never considered kissing (yes even with tongue) to be a big deal. If I was in a monogamous relationship and my SO kissed someone else, I’d be pretty “meh” about it so long as that was all that happened. One of my exes, however, considered it to be a HUGE betrayal. I found this out the hard way. :smack: