# How would you prefer your spouse cheat on you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 13, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476 "2008-09-13T20:10:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/21 "2008-09-14T13:59:43Z")
#5 I would want my spouse to be as fulfilled as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/22 "2008-09-14T21:29:42Z")
My opinion? He’s not gonna cheat, but if he did, I don’t know that I’d particularly care which situation. Especially if I only find out about it after the fact. At that point it’s a done deal, nothing I can do about it, why worry? Or in other words, if I found out now that he’d had any of the situations listed in the OP at any time during our marriage, the only thing it would change would be whether I need to worry about STDs. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/23 "2008-09-14T22:11:37Z")
3 is obviously the best, but I don’t think it is realistic. Can there really be absolutely no emotional component involved? It is more of a hypothetical best case scenario. 1 and 2 imply other issues beyond just cheating, and without knowing what those issues are I don’t know how bad they would be. For example, if they had a sex addiction 1 and 2 would make more sense. 4 would be the worst (depending on the other issues in 1 and 2). Falling in love with someone else is the worst case scenario for a relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Capcha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Capcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capcha)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/24 "2008-09-14T22:17:38Z")
I’m with **Hilarity N. Suze**. It doesn’t matter if it was with the most upscale or dirtiest hooker, friend, passer-by. With the best protection there’s still a chance to get infected. The moment my partner decides to cheat, there’s a giant problem in our relationship. The fact that they’d rather not talk to me and go through that signals _Game Over_. Grow a pair (of balls / ovaries) and talk. You do not know how i would react. Heck we might come to a compromise. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/25 "2008-09-14T22:26:21Z")
1. Be glad because then you can end the marriage guilt-free! Like that scene from _Dogma_. (I don’t have a spouse currently, although most of you already know that.) ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/26 "2008-09-14T23:37:51Z")
I was going to say only #2, the rest are completely unacceptable, but after reading a few of the posts, I will (reluctantly) add #1 to my option list. The worst to me would be the fuck buddy–what is that but an excuse to use another person, yet attempt to be “guilt free” by calling them your friend? Some friend. How is there no emotional component? If there is none, then that person is not a friend or “buddy”. The longterm affair would be the worst, IMO. But they’re all bad. Either way, any way, he’s a lying SOB who will be taken to the cleaners by me for betraying me emotionally and physically and putting my health at risk (not all hookers or convention fucks are “clean”). But you didn’t ask me that… Like **DianaG** said–I would need to know the terms beforehand, no changing horses in midstream. And btw, IMO, ALL the sex is calculated. He thought about her, he called her, made contact, built a relationship (even if that relationship is only haggling over rates), decided to fuck her, decided to lie about it, decided to do it again etc. There is no “grand passion” that just takes people and “carries them away” etc. Only in the movies and in beach reads. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/27 "2008-09-14T23:50:06Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > Frankly, if he has to cheat, I’d rather it was with a safe, clean (and preferably legal) hooker. I would not want him to be with someone with whom he had an emotional attachment, because while I can get myself to understand him being sexually attracted to someone else, I can’t accept him forming an emotional bond like that with another woman. That, at least, should be sacred, even if sex is not. > > A hooker, like the women in the brothel on the HBO show Cathouse, not some random crack whore off the street, is disease-free, will not fall in love with him, try to get pregnant, be jealous of me, talk about the affair openly, or involve herself in my life whatsoever. That, to me, is the safest, least offensive venue for marital infidelity. It’s separate and walled off from our marriage. > > Of course, any infidelity, sexual or emotional, is grounds for the immediate dissolution of the marriage, so the question is moot for me anyway. What **Rubystreak** said, with a Dick Armey inspired comment/misquote “I do know how to reload this damn thing!” ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/28 "2008-09-15T03:38:24Z")
I think 3 is the best, especially if you mean not romantic emotions, just a really good friendship. Honestly, I don’t think I would even mind if this were the case. As for the rest… 4 sucks because I don’t want him falling in love with anyone else. 2 sucks because of the risks of disease, etc. 1 sucks because it would cost money. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/29 "2008-09-15T04:23:30Z")
> [@Capcha](#): > > I’m with **Hilarity N. Suze**. It doesn’t matter if it was with the most upscale or dirtiest hooker, friend, passer-by. With the best protection there’s still a chance to get infected. The upside about the legal prostitutes in these upscale brothels is that they have mandatory regular (weekly?) disease testing and have to use condoms. This makes them many magnitudes safer sex partners than the average person you would pick up in a bar. They are also quite likely to be using another form of birth control, so your husband won’t wind up with a love child for whom he will have to pay child support. ---
**Author:** ![dba\_Fred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c37758/32.png) [@dba\_Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dba_Fred)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/30 "2008-09-15T05:49:59Z")
I’ll take #5 if Other = posthumously ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/31 "2008-09-15T23:31:51Z")
I’m pretty much with the OP. 3 & 4 followed by 2 & 1. If my SO is having sex with someone else, I’d rather it be with someone he like or loves rather then someone he picked up in a bar or a brothel. Hell, I’d rather it was a mutual friend and either she was having a rough time and needed the contact, or they both got drunk and stuff just happened. We all make bad decisions some times. You work them out and move on. To me, a prostitute or a string of one night stands seem to much like “I was bored and didn’t have anything else to do”. I’m also with **DianaG** in that I can imagine an open relationship, but I’d prefer to have the ground rules laid out and agreed upon. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2008, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476/32 "2008-09-16T00:24:15Z")
Killer cyborgs are on the loose, chasing after a woman identified only as ‘Sarah Connor’, and my husband reveals he is in fact a time-displaced soldier from a post-Apocalyptic dystopian future, and that he had to rescue and mate with this Sarah Connor person to conceive John Connor, the child that will ultimately save humanity. I mean, if I’m married to Michael Biehn circa 1984 I could eventually come to grips with that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-prefer-your-spouse-cheat-on-you/463476.md?page=1)