Here’s the question:
In your circle of acquaintances, have those that have had broken relationships as the result of infidelity done so as the result of “chronic infidelity,” (that is, cheating from the get-go), or is it more often the case that the relationship becomes more and more strained (for whatever reasons), with infidelity simply becoming the final straw?
I think that among the people I know, it is the second case most often.
I agree that the second case is far more prevalent. So much so that I think the first case is just one aspect of the second.
I don’t buy for a minute that someone can be happy in a relationship but be somehow compelled to cheat. When one cheats, they do so because they are dissatisfied in some capacity with the relationship they are in. Different people have different thresholds of dissatisfaction before the fidelity fuse blows, but I would say that every episode of cheating is the result of a relationship that is strained to some degree.
I’ve got to disagree with you, Nurlman. There are people out there - my ex-boyfriend among them - who cheat because they think they ought to be able to have sex with whomever they please and don’t understand what all the fuss is about. It’s not limited to men, as I’ve known/known of a fair number of horndog women as well.
Most relationships I’ve seen break up due to infidelity break up after one or two instances of cheating. Chronic cheating doesn’t get that way unless (obviously), the person being cheated on puts up with it. I think, however, that’s becoming less common as men (in a broad, sweeping generalization) tend not to put up with cheating at all, and women are (in another broad, sweeping generalization) no longer economically dependent on the men who cheat on them.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good dipped in chocolate.
I think that this kind of misundertsanding comes from people not being honest on their views about sex.
Some people believe that sex has many different meanings; it can be a loving act between two committed people, or it can be a fun roller-coaster ride that means nothing at the end. Some people go to either extreme, and feel that sex should only be a result of love and commitment, etc., or that sex is totally meaningless.
Sex is an empty vessel. It has whatever meaning people choose to put into it.
Conflicts around fidelity come when someone who values fidelity as essential becomes involved with someone who does not.
For some people, love is not necessarily (or, in some cases, ever) associated with sex, so they can have sex with people they are not in love with. If they are involved with a person who thinks that love cannot exist independently of sex, there is going to be a serious problem.
I think cheating is the subconsious’s way of deciding an unresolved issue. Breaking up with someone is really hard, you tend to feel guilty because you hurt someone you still really care for. If you cheat it backs you into a corner and makes it possible to do something you couldn’t do before. That’s the reason people, “just have to tell them”…no you don’t, there is plenty of shit people do in your life that they’ve never told the closest of people, the reason the cheater must tell their SO about the infedelity is because that’s why they did it.
A few years back, three couples who were all good friends of ours went through divorces–all after at least ten years of marriage, so it was a big shock to us. In all three cases, the infidelity happened only after they drifted apart due to other things.
In one case it was career incompatibility–she got tenure at a small-town college and he was a budding playwright who had to be in NYC or LA. In the other two cases the women’s long term anxiety/depression/eating disorder problems just got to be too much for their husbands, who wanted to have kids.
Personal experience - The SO in this case did not want to be viewed as the “bad guy” or be emotionally honest so she did what she figured would be the “unforgiveable” and had an affair. I guess her logic was, he’ll kick me out and demand a divorce, I’ll get to be single and everyone is happy.
Pretty twisted logic… ain’t love a many splendid thing?
The Sleeper has AWAKENED!
/ramble mode on
Couple of different “case studies:”
A friend of mine is married. He is reasonably happy, inasmuch as he is willing to admit to. He tries to sleep with anything female that so much as glances in his direction, and has been that way since long before the marriage. She is in denial of this behaviour - she must be, as she is too intelligent not to see it. All of their friends are aware of it (he has tried to sleep with most if not all of the female friends, myself included). They are still married.
Another couple I know of has a similar situation. He is an ex-boyfriend of mine; I was the cheat-ee, and walked as soon as I found out about her. She knows he cheated. I told her. It was backed up by a mutual acquaintance of mine and hers, a very good friend of hers - that is how I found out about her. She married him after this! I was not the only one, either, and she knows it. She also has incredibly low self esteem, and believes that he is it for her, that she will never find anyone else, and so puts up with it. Does he love her? He certainly claims to.
As for myself, I see sex as a recreational activity. When I was single, I saw no problem in having sex with male friends who were also single, with no change to the status of our friendship. I still see it that way, with a major exception. My husband does not see it that way - therefore, out of respect for him, I will sleep with no one but him. And I think that right there is the key. RESPECT for the other person’s feelings, regardless of how you feel about it personally. While I think that sex between any two consenting adults is acceptable, I respect the fact that my husband does not, and that we have committed to an exclusive relationship.
Any similarities between your reality and mine are purely coincidental.
And by the way, forgot to add: I have known more than one person, both male and female, who have done the “have the affair as a solid excuse for ending the relationship.” And I agree that it is damned twisted logic.
/ramble mode off.
Any similarities between your reality and mine are purely coincidental.
Ahahhah … lemme at ya’s …
Just kidding. I’d like to approach this topic from a few different angles. The first angle is the victim.
I have been a victim - I have had three what I call relationships, all of which ended when my then girlfriend cheated on me in really big ways. Not just a one night stand here and there … major disharmony.
First there was, well, we’ll call her Amber. Whilst I was visiting my parents after a gruelling week at college I received a phone call from a friend of mine, high as a kite, telling me he just nailed my girlfriend.
Second - we’ll call this one Paula. We lived together for about a year. One night she was using my computer at work for a university assignment, I left her there and went home. I returned to get something out of my desk about 20 minutes later, and there she was with a guy I worked with, who happened also to be her ex boyfriend.
Then there was Sarah. I thought she was different, it was love blah blah …
well, while I was in hospital she slept with someone else.
Up until recently she was still dating this guy - but he went to hospital and she cheated on him. True story. The funny thing is she can’t understand why I find it amusing in that ironic sort of angry jilted lover kind of way.
But I digress.
I have also been the cheatee. Someone cheated on their boyfriend with me. In some ways that felt worst - knowing I was just there for sex. There was no emotional involvement - no a good feeling. I haven’t done that since.
And I’ve cheated once. If I have to be honest about this, I have to come forward and say - yeah I made out with a girl while dating someone else. (Dating is outside the three relationships listed above)
I felt horrible. Even though Nicole, the girl who I was dating and I hadn’t talked or even felt commitment - I still felt sick.
So then I ask - which is the worst feeling. Hard to compare, so why do we cheat? (we being species generalisation.)
Quite simply because people are too caught up in themselves to really care about the emotions of their SO.
I am just looking forward to breaking off a relationship one day for reasons other than infidelity. In fact I am looking forward to not breaking off a relationship at all. Hasn’t happened yet - but fingers crossed.
One evolutionary psychologist’s take on human infidelity, among other things:
http://www.skeptic.com/04.1.miele-immoral.html
It should be noted also that other pair-bonding species (such as foxes and chickadees) have been shown not to be as monogamous as once suspected. A study of one area’s chickadee population showed that 50% of all eggs carried no genetic material from the male nest-mate, meaning they were fathered by someone other than the female’s “husband”.
I don’t think cheating is a neccesarily pointless way of breaking up…actually it makes a lot of sense (not that I support it).
If you cheat, you don’t feel so bad because then your s/o wants to break up with you too…for completely different reasons, but it takes the direct pressure off of the cheater…just coming out and telling an s/o “I want to break up for no apparent reason that you could have anticipated…” is a tall order, believe me. In many ways this “twisted logic” is very logical.
I have to kinda agree with what oasis325 is saying – from the cheated-on-person’s end. To be perfectly honest, I would rather my honey dumped me for another man than if she dumped me for no one at all. The latter case triggers much stronger feelings of inferiority in me than the former case does. If she breaks up with me and runs into the arms of the studmuffin down at the health club, I can say to myself, “Ah well, I just don’t measure up to him.” If she breaks up with me and stays alone, that’s almost like saying “You are such a pathetic boyfriend that I would rather be with no one at all than be with you” – i.e. that I don’t measure up to even the barest minimum standard of desirability, that I am utterly undesirable.
Hmmm … something tells me I have some “issues” I need to work out here…
Hence the phrase: A fox in the henhouse?? 
In regards to cheating so you can break up with someone - i.e. get them to break up with you. You do that to avoid hurting them by breaking up with them? The hurt of being cheated on is worst. Tracer mentioned the still desirable factor - how desirable would you really feel if your SO felt they needed it from someone else?
Just some food for thought …
L.
But, alas, that is probably why most women dump most men. There may be another man involved, but the real reason you got dumped is not about the “other Man”. It is about “you”.