I just wondered how important fidelity in a relationship was to people here.
Forget, for the moment married couples or married couples with kids.
Leaving aside the issue of kids.
I just want to concentrate on the infidelity issue. As it affects the relationship between two people.
Is infidelity an automatic splitting-up offence?
Or do you think that just because your SO has a relationship with somebody else doesn’t mean they love you any less?
That depends entirely on the relationship you have, your belief system, and the groundrules laid out by you and your SO.
I have an open relationship with mine. As long as we’re careful and have full disclosure (well, not necessarily the gory details) it’s good. After all, we always come home to each other.
At least two posters are married and have their girlfriends living with them, which is very cool and works well for them but wouldn’t for someone else.
If I could then refine the OP to exclude open relationships.
I meant relationships where the SO has some kind of “affair” secretly and you find out about it.
So there is a breach of trust issue involved.
Is this a splitting-up offence?
Or should you now accept the idea that you have an open relationship?
And while we’re on this subject, are open relationships better than closed relationships? Or vice versa?
I’m not in a relationship now, but I’d generally tend to agree with Arden (well apart from the “full disclosure” part - I don’t mind it happening, but I really don’t want to know about it). I’ve never understood the insistence on strict monogamy.
Having been cheated on by an SO, I am sensitized to the subject. For me, it is a splitting up offense. I could probably tolerate other traits with equanimity, but I am adamant about fidelity.
Of course, I would make sure any man I was involved with understood this upfront, and I would never cheat on a spouse or SO. I’d break up with them first. Mileages vary, and if all concerned are consenting adults, fidelity can be an arbitrary standard, agreed upon or laid aside as circumstances fit.
Phouka phrased what Im trying to say.
If its agreed upfront at the beginning that you will both be faithful and then one of you errs - is that an automatic splitting-up offence?
I grew up with parents who never parted from each others side as did my wife. I am also an extremely emotional person and this carries right over to sex. I am not physically capable of cheating because of this. I expect complete fidelity and say this at the very beginning of the relationship. For me it’s grounds for a split.
It’s just how I"m wired. If an open relationship works for both parties, more power to you.
Open vs. closed relationships depends on the people involved and absolutely should be explicitly agreed on at the beginning. I am 100% monogamous when in a relationship and would end one if there were infidelity.
Now, I’m all about the casual sex when I’m not in a relationship, but that’s another thread.
In the USA sex is overrated while sexuality is often ignored. Any willing partner in the dark feels great, but when the sun rises who do you want to look at and flirt with? Sneaky sex is really a sign that the relationship is probably doomed.
According to Mrs. Alessan, infidelity is not a splitting-up offence. It’s a plier-and-blowtorch offense.
That’s the deal, and I’m sticking to it. Believe you me, it’s worth the effort.
I always thought cheating was a breaking-up offense.
So did my husband.
I cheated, thereby proving us both wrong.
I refuse to go into details - this isn’t the thread for it - but we started out monogamous and have changed…not as much as you might think…and we’re both still deleriously happy.
So no, cheating doesn’t HAVE to be the end of the relationship.
I wish when people said, “It’s not all about sex,” they’d actually mean it.
To me, cheating is a divorce offense. If I cannot trust my life partner then there is little basis for the relationship. This is an issue that my husband and I both covered before we were married. If either of us decides at any point in our relationship that we desire someone else, we split first before it happens. I can have sex with anyone, but my trust, hopes, dreams, desires and secrets are to be shared with the one I married. When dishonesty and cheating enter the picture the rest leaves.
I also have no desire to sleep with someone who has slept with everyone else. What’s special about that person when everyone’s had them?
I always try to conduct myself as I would want my SO to conduct himself, makes it easier to face the mirror every morning. JMHO
I think fidelity is more about truth than sexual exclusivity. While most people who feel strongly about it include the latter, it is the absence of honesty that makes the failing of infidelity hurtful. If you and a partner have a relationship that includes an understanding that you will be involved in other sexual relationships which include actual intercourse, but will always disclose those matters to each other, then you have defined a fidelity. It would not meet another person’s definition, but it is what you have promised.
Under that understanding, secret make out sessions not including intercourse might well be considered infidelity. The simple fact that intercourse did not occur does not abrogate the stated intent that disclosure is expected. Fidelity means truth.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle ~
I dont think that one incident is enought to call off a relationship with years of happiness behind it and years of potential joy ahead. It might make you take a close look at your relationship, and lay out some ground rules for the future. But, we are all humans and we cannot really say with one hundred percent certainty what the future will be. Why is important to me is my partner’s commitment, intentions and love. If he slips up, I won’t like it, but it won’t be an instant end to the love we have built. It will be hard, and I will be hurt, and we will have a lot to work through. I hope it never happens, and I doubt it will, but if it does, I will look at it as just one more things that our love must prevail over.
For me its the trust and honesty bit. Depending on the relationship (and I mean depending on the relationship between me and a specific other, the relationship as an identity) open or closed has been know to work just fine.
Lying and sneaking around does not work though. (even in an open relationship there can be cheating, its just on different rules.)
Is it a breaking up offence? Depends on the offence. If we have a strict monogamy deal and I find out undeniably from other sources that the SO has an ongoing affair he’s lying about? Bad and probably done. If its open as long as we talk about it beforehand and the SO falls into some fun on the side but tells me soon thereafter? Probably okay. Not great, but along the lines of forgetting to take out the trash.
I love my husband dearly, and I would really hate to live a life without him, but if he cheats, it’s over. To me that is pretty much the ultimate betrayal of trust. And it would also force me to doubt myself. I struggle with self-esteem issues anyway, and the very last thing I need is the constant self-doubt, self-blame, and questions.
“Why wasn’t I good enough for him? What could I have done differently?” Or, “Does this mean I’m ugly? That I don’t attract him anymore?” or “If he lied to me about this, what else would he lie about?” and it just goes on and on and on. I refuse to go through that type of torture for anybody.
Given the confines of the OP and subsequent posts, I’d have to say that it depends on some variables…
…given a monogamous relationship, if I found that my SO had a fling…it wouldn’t necessarily be time for the “so long, farewell” song from The Sound of Music.
…was the sex protected or unprotected? How soon did he 'fess up? Or did I find out from a third party? Or a tabloid magazine? (For the record: The greater the amount of time between unprotected sex and a confession, the greater chance of “so long, farewell.”)
…if I found my SO had been carrying on an affair, well, the intent, the sneakiness, the breach of trust…all that is greater. High probability of “so long, farewell.”
…if I found out that he had been having a number of casual sex encounters (oooh, let’s throw in an acronym: CSEs!), “so long, farewell” is certain to follow.
My two cents.
–moi
For the sake of clarification, when I cheated we were supposed to have been monogamously married, forsaking all others, etc. It was not an “open marriage” or “swinging” situation.
For those who say it would be over…would you divorce your spouse for telling you (s)he had been at a meeting when (s)he had actually been at a baseball game? Or for spending that extra $100 on a new video card instead of the (needed) clothes (s)he said (s)he was going to buy?
And if not, why? If it’s not about the lying…but about what (s)he is lying ABOUT…then you might want to rethink whether or not it’s REALLY a “trust issue.”
I have cheated on a girlfriend in the past. I rationalized it by saying that the relationship was on the skids (it was) but once I decided to be honest about it I realized I did it simply because I could.
I’ve never cheated on my wife and I don’t think I would, but the syaing goes, “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” By the same token, if I found out my wife cheated on me, it would be a bit hypocritical for me to be outraged by it. Then again, we’re both ten years older than I was when I cheated on that girlfriend, so I think it’s fair to assume some growing up should be taking place.
As you can see, it’s not a simple thing for me.
It depends. My first husband cheated on me alot… and I kept taking him back. Even when I said “this is the last time.” He finally got a girlfriend who had a tight grip and didn’t let him come back (thank heaven).
My guess is some of the people who say “its a leaving offense” would find themselves working it out if it happened. And some who say “it would be ok, I’d try and work it out” would have their bags packed within minutes. You don’t REALLY know until it happens, and then there are the variables. Is your SO contrite? Was it a full blown affair or a drunken “I should have known better, but I lost it and I’ll never do it again?” Is the relationship basically good? How big a deal is it to split up the CD collection?