But I don’t think that is what happens when someone falls in the face of temptation who normally fights it. I don’t think they say “I’m going to deliberately hurt my partner.” I think that very often, alcohol is involved - impairing judgment. Maybe some self esteem issues. Some loneliness. A particularly tempting opportunity - an offer from someone that they think is outside their “class.” (Go back to “self esteem issues” - sometimes stemming just from reaching middle age.) And in a situation where if they DO think, they think their chance of getting caught is really low - a conference where they don’t even have other co-workers present. And if you don’t get caught, then there is no pain you are giving your spouse.
I’m a woman in my 40s that isn’t lust driven. But if I were on a business trip, feeling sorry for myself, feeling dowdy and unattractive, sitting in a bar with a drink under my belt and someone ten years younger than me and hot propositioned me…I still wouldn’t - sex just isn’t all that - but I can see how people would. And if I were to give into the temptation, it would tear my kids to pieces if their parents divorced. My husband, he’s a grown up. He can throw me out or not trust me or whatever. But my kids. No, I’d lie to my husband to protect my kids from my own stupidity.
That’s a different case than sleeping with your spouse’s best friend, the person you used to date before you got married, or someone you work with. Its different than a premeditated romp where you make a date to meet in a hotel. Its different than an ongoing affair.
But if this same person had the attitude of “I have to tell,” then there would be no situation in which they wouldn’t get caught. In other words, saying, “You don’t have to tell if you don’t get caught” creates the problem in the first place.
Absolutely. I’m not saying cheating is ok. I’m saying that if a person who wouldn’t normally cheat, for some reason, screws up and cheats, not confessing is not necessarily bad (and depends on the people and circumstances involved). Its FAR better not to cheat at all. And then trying to get into the head of the person who does cheat, who normally wouldn’t, who is thinking that this is a low risk circumstance.
i.e. rather than thinking “cheaters always cheat.” I think that - while there are people (my ex-husband) who aren’t faithful by nature and will create opportunities to cheat, there are other people for whom the stars need to align in the right direction to make cheating something they would do. Since the stars aren’t going to align in that direction very often, they are low risk on being repeat cheaters. I suspect that the people for whom their is not a configuration of the stars in existence that would create a situation where they would cheat are probably a minority of the population. And those that go out of their way to create opportunities to cheat also a minority (although a larger one).
I’m simply suggesting that an attitude of it even being possible to get away with it probably makes the occurrence more likely to happen. If you would confess, you can’t EVER get away with it. Therefore, if the potential for “getting away with it” is one of the significant factors, an attitude that you’ll have to confess anyway eradicates that factor.
I’m not talking about what happens after cheating. I’m talking about the attitude toward honesty that might prevent it in the first place.
Basically, how many people would cheat if there were a flashing light on their foreheads that lit up if they did? Would it be less than cheat now? I’d guess that it would be significantly less. And people can be their own flashing lights.
This is rationalizing, as far as I’m concerned. No one is unaware that cheating would hurt their spouse regardless if that’s what they “intend” to do or not. To deliberately choose it anyway, is to deliberately choose to hurt their spouse. See my previous post for my perspective on rationalizing.
If you’re unhappy in your existing relationship, you have honest options: fix it or leave, already.
You face the consequences like a grown-up. (Also, “error in judgment” is pretty disingenuous/rationalizing, too. As I’ve already said, no one fucks someone by accident, and no one is unaware of what the potential outcomes will be. It’s not like anyone cheats believing that their spouse would be happy that you’re fucking other people without his/her consent – there’s no error, the judgment is pretty dead on. The cheater just chooses to ignore it.)
Then we are back to page two. Don’t confess - except to explain why you are filing for divorce. Be a grown up and take responsibility for your actions, don’t push the responsibility for ending the marriage or saving it on your spouse. You have decided you are incapable of a faithful relationship and the trust you have broken is significant enough that its hopeless. Why, at that point, would you give your spouse any choice?, unless in evaluating your spouse, you decide that they might be ok with an open relationship - which honestly, it doesn’t sound like someone you’d be willing to marry.
I think of an error in judgment as “I thought I was hungrier than I am” or “I thought my car would fit in that space” or “I thought opening a restaurant was a good idea” or even “I thought I could be faithful but I can’t.”
But under the circumstances of the OP, which judgment is in error?
I don’t understand this. You’re saying the cheater should unilaterally decide to leave the relationship if they’re having problems staying faithful. But at the same time, you seem to be saying it’s wrong for the other person to have the option of leaving or staying with a known cheater. Why is it right that the other person be denied choices? The cheater can stay or leave based on their wants and feelings, but the other person can’t, because they’re being left in the dark. There is no equity in this.
I think I’d understand your position better if you were saying fidelity wasn’t a major thing to you. Like, for instance, some couples have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude towards porn. Maybe the woman isn’t exactly thrilled that her husband/BF looks at porn, but as long as he keeps it hidden and is giving her sufficient attention, peace will reign. In such a scenario, I could see why the woman would rather not know how much porn is actually in his collection or how many hours he spends wacking off to it; this knowlege will cause her to overanalyze his behavior more than either of them wants, thus disrupting their peaceful arrangement. Even still, they both know that porn use, in and of itself, isn’t a dealbreaker. Knowing or not knowing…it’s not that big of a deal either way.
If cheating–even a lousy one-night stand that happened in a fit of depression and drunkness–is something that can deliver a death blow to your trust in a person, just how can you rationalize not wanting to know about it? It would be like a devout Christian, who stauchly believes that partners should be equally yoked, choosing “blissful ignorance” over knowing that their so-called Christian partner was really a fire-breathing devil worshipper.
Maybe it’s just me, but some people in this thread seem to be arguing two conflicting things at once: that a one-night stand affair is meaningless and will never happen again and is no reflection on the relationship and 2) a one-night stand affair is so corrosive to trust and love that it will automatically destroy everything you care about. In my book, either cheating is no big deal and therefore hiding it is as okay as hiding some extra freaky porn, or cheating is a big deal and needs to be brought to light so that it can be addressed.
Because the people saying “cheating is a failure condition” do not believe that someone who has cheated can be faithful. Unless you have reason to believe your spouse would be open to an open marriage - and you’d be willing to respect them for allowing this (and I suspect most people who believe cheating is a failure condition aren’t good candidates for open marriages) - there is no respect in staying with someone you are certain you will cheat on again, and no purpose in being in a marriage when you can’t even respect yourself - plus believe yourself to have intentionally disrespected your spouse. After all, when your world is that black and white and people who cheat intentionally disrespected their spouse, made a decision not to exercise self control - its irresponsible for a person like that to be married at all.
I’m of the “people can make a single mistake” belief. I trust my spouse not to cheat. If he were to cheat, and it was a one time mistake without reprocusion, I’d rather not face the guilt, self-doubt or blame - from myself or from him. If I’m going to trust him again, I don’t need to go through the period of questioning. I’d rather be blissfully ignorant.
You keep saying things to this effect, but I genuinely don’t understand what you mean. How are you trusting him “again” if you never know there was any reason not to trust him to begin with? Where does the second chance come from?
I’ll reiterate that I don’t see an act of infidelity as an automatic death knell, although I think it’s quite serious. I’d rather work through what went on and see if we can work through the situation with both of us having full knowledge. That’s (presumably) how we went into the relationship, and that’s how I’d want it to stay.
This. I hate it when “error in judgment” is used to excuse compulsive, impulsive, or just plain selfish or thoughtless behaviors.
Assuming the expectations of a typical - and good, mind you - marriage, what set of circumstances could lead someone to “judge” that cheating on their spouse is the best course of action?
I think she’s saying (and I hope she will correct me if I’m fucking this up), that if the end result of all the heartache is that she was going to end up trusting him again, she’d prefer just sticking with the trust she has and not having to go through the heartache.
But the people who are saying this aren’t who matters in this hypothetical. It’s your spouse. What would they say?
But why make this choice for them? That’s the part I don’t get. Maybe their view towards cheating isn’t as black and white as you think it is. Maybe their views have softened over time. Maybe they have a three-strikes rule. Maybe they do want an open marriage. Maybe they’d be willing to forgive you for cheating because you confessed and apologize and promised to get counseling or whatever? Plenty of couples have weathered infidelity together; it’s not impossible or unheard of.
So it’s quite possible that the cheater doesn’t know how their spouse will react. But even if they did know, it still doesn’t justify staying mum about cheating.
Me too. That’s why I don’t think I’d freak out if my spouse told me he screwed up one night. I’d rather know about it, see him acknowledge his wrongdoing, and accept his sincere apology, than be deluded into thinking he never cheated when he did…and then learn the truth one day when he and him run into his fling at the mall five years later.
If you can accept that people can make a single mistake, then I would think you’d be able to forgive him without beating yourself up. If he felt so guilty about cheating on you that he had to confess…that should mean something, right? People don’t feel guilty when they do things they feel entitled to do. That isn’t something to take lightly, IMO.
But YOURS haven’t. jsgoddess and kaio are both saying that once they were unfaithful, they could never trust themselves to be faithful again. It isn’t about whether your spouse trusts you - at that point its about if YOU can trust yourself. If you can’t trust yourself, you have no business to be in a monogamous marriage.
But if I’m going to forgive him anyway, why would I want to go through the inevitable pain? - because I’ll assure you, it WOULD hurt to know. I WAS married to someone who had trouble with fidelity. And if I don’t end up forgiving him, and I’ve blown a fifteen year long happy marriage and put my kids through a divorce or through the pain of watching their parents be unhappy because I can’t reestablish trust - that isn’t a fair trade either. I just don’t want to know.
Whoa, where the hell are you getting that? I said that if my partner is unfaithful, I would be unlikely to trust him/her again. I’m not sure why you assume that I’m a cheater. I wouldn’t, I haven’t, even when presented with the opportunity in the past. I thought that was self-evident from the whole “I don’t deliberately hurt people I care about” conversation. (And no, I still don’t find it particularly “exceptional.”)
That’s been the whole point of what I’m saying. I don’t want my partner to cheat in the first place (as there are plenty of honest options if s/he MUST get booty elsewhere). But if s/he does, s/he damn well better respect me enough to be honest with me after the fact if not before. I’d like the option of knowing who I’m really with, and the option of deciding for myself if this is something I’m willing to live with. I don’t want to be with someone who unilaterally decides to deny me my agency. I don’t want to be with someone who holds me in such contempt that s/he won’t be honest with me. That contempt will poison our relationship whether I know about it or not.
Because the fear of pain is no rational justification for sticking your head of the stand? Not when things like STDs and baby-mamas are potentially on the line? At least if you knew you could go get checked out or something, just to be safe. I’m pretty sure untreated chlamydia would hurt almost as much as finding out your man cheated, just in a different way.
And trust me, this happens. I had a cousin whose then-fiance had a one-night stand right after they got into an argument one night. Of course, she didn’t learn about this one-night stand until it came out that his fling was pregnant with his child (leading me to wonder how much this was truly a “one-night” stand but whatever). They still ended up getting married, miraculously. And they’re still married, although he’s since proven himself to be a repeat cheater. But you know, at least she knows who she married and is not under any false impressions.