I also wonder if the reason women are more forgiving of this is because they are more often in a situation where they are financially dependent on their husbands than vice versa. They might also be more worried about “staying together for the kids” since being a good mommy is such a big part of many women’s identities. Those kinds of things will keep people in relationships they really aren’t happy with.
I’m female, but I’m also the breadwinner in my family. If I ever found proof that my partner was cheating on me, his ass would be out the door. It wouldn’t matter if it was meaningless sex or not. He knows the rules.
If we had kids, I could see it being a harder decision, but I still think I’d boot him out since it would be impossible for me to ever completely trust him again. When people do things like this, it changes your image of them forever.
This is a fair observation. But in a case where the marriage is dead before either person is really aware of it, and one person ‘strays’ your best bet is that the deed is the final nail in the coffin. In a case like that, where the sincerity of any word or action of the past is in doubt and nothing but hurt and anger remians, it’s far more likely that two total strangers can find each other and make something good, than for two people with a history at least one of them no longer believes, can start from less than zero and achieve anything like a satisfactory result.
Me and my current SO, me + affair = long talks and make a commitment.
Me and my current SO, her + affair = long talks and make a commitment.
These affairs are maybe 8 years ago and have never been mentioned since the long talks. Mind you we don’t bother keeping an eye on each other about such things. Who cares? There is plenty going on anyhow,
IMO, reconciliation can’t be only about the cheating partner changing his or her ways. Part of what has to happen is both partners have to realize that the relationship they had was flawed. The non-cheating partner also has to ask, “what can I do differently this time around to make the relationship work better?” Or, more bluntly, “what was I doing wrong before that now needs to change?”
Of course, there are no universals, and there will be some relationships where only one partner was totally in the wrong. Those relationships, as I see it, probably aren’t worth saving, because the partners were a bad fit from the outset.
I agree with the deal breaker part, but I think that your post hit the nail on the head when referring to the one night stand. While the sex thing is a huge deal, I would think that the bigger issue would be one of “love” and caring.
Maybe because it never happened to me I don’t know what I am talking about. However I think a relationship can recover from a person cheating for sex only, but not one that cheats and “falls in love” with another. The emotional connection is so much more than the physical. I hope what I am saying makes sense.
The reason I consider infidelity a deal breaker has very little to do with sex or even “love” and everything to do with trust. In most (not all) intimate relationships, the participants make a promise to each other not to participate in sexual or romantic activities with anybody else. For me, once that promise is broken I can never again attain the level of trust that is necessary for any kind of significant partnership.
I will agree with the “trust” issue to a point. However, I think that it is possible for a relationship to be put back together if a spouse cheats for sex, but impossible to do if the spouse cheats for an emotional relationship. Once someone is looking elsewhere for the emotional component, there is zero chance I think of rebuilding.
I lost the love of my life due to circumstances in our relationship (and my fucked up life) that led to me behaving in an emotionally deceptive manner in which I found myself spending time with another girl. There was never any physical contact between myself and this other girl, but I spent time with her without telling my girlfriend and I didn’t want her to find out.
Of course, she did find out, and her reaction was more than I ever anticipated. She felt betrayed, she felt cheated on; as if I had been sleeping with this girl. At the time, I felt overwhelmed. Overwhelmed that there could be so little difference to her between what I had done and if I had actually fucked her (or even just kissed her). But I do understand, now, somewhat the intimacy and trust components. However, I was in a very confused place in my life at the time; sexually, spiritually, mentally, in every way. I loved her with all my heart. I still do. I never trusted anyone like I trusted her.
I messed up righteously. Maybe I should have just hit that while I had the chance. 'Cause it fucked my life up just the same.
I’ve never been on either end of cheating, but I was involved in the aftermath. My previous gf, from what she told me, had been cheated on by pretty much every single one of her boyfriends. Her previous long term relationship had cheated on her twice, with the same girl. The relationship ended when she found pictures of the other girl as his screensaver. Skip forwards a few months and in I come. She had serious trust issues, aggravated by the fact that my best friend was a woman. We could just not make it work.
That’s the thing - I don’t know either. While I think it would be a deal breaker, I’d probably try to work things out and feel like I’d failed if the relationship ended.
It gets very complex.
I’ll use the couple I know best as an example. When they were young (>25), he would bolt for one nighters after arguments, I don’t know how often but more than a half dozen. She hated these nights and eventually she buggered off one night (not to meet anyone, just “out”) so that he got to stay home and wonder where the hell she was and what she was doing and if whe would come home at all.
He stopped having one night stands. Has never been tempted to do that again.
Years later, during a very hard time, she had a several months, openly admitted affair but ultimately wanted to stay together. There was no question that he wanted that also and they changed location to get away from stalking ex-lover.
Several more years go by, he falls for younger woman and kicks wife out of house for several months before realising he’s made a colossal mistake.
They had been married for 20 years at this point.
They went to counselling and decided their counsellor was an idiot as he kept talking about trust. They had told each other about every indiscretion, trust wasn’t the issue for them. They worked out that what they really wanted was to be married to each other and they’ve been working on that for 30 years without any further infidelity on either side. They have a weekly sit down talk that is just about working on their marriage.
Another couple I know, she was faithful, though offered temptations regularly. He was always falling for other women and conducting drawn out dramatic and secret affairs which always seemed to end messily when the lover told the wife (his schtick was that the wife knew about the affair but wouldn’t let him leave - hah). She kept taking him back because he was actually nice to her for up to a year after each affair.
She reckoned if she couldn’t trust him to buy milk on the way home from work, why expect to trust him on the big issues.
He was a total drama queen and the affairs were only one aspect of that.
My SO had an emotional affair a few years ago. I found the email string one day at work when I became very suspicious of his online behavior and finding him in the basement after I had gone to bed (communicating with her). Although she lived in another state, it was clear from the email correspondence that they were confiding in each other. It was clear from the emails that she thought he was separated/divorced. They spoke numerous times of meeting, using birth control, meeting up in Colorado together, etc. Let’s just say it was DEVASTATING for me to find this. His defense/justification was that they never met or slept together. It was all “fantasy”. We’ve been going to therapy for awhile now, and he has done (and is still doing) everything in his power to build the trust back. I do love him, but it is HARD sometimes. Broken trust is horrible. No matter what, you are constantly on the lookout for deception. It has taken its toll both physically and emotionally on me. Oddly enough, our intimacy has not suffered at all. I have always felt that is was my fault for him finding emotional comfort with another woman, so I’ve tried to be the “perfect” wife for fear he’ll find someone else again.
I’m not going to get into details because it’s a really long, complicated story that I’m not quite sure how to tell, but I am a cheater. I’ve been with my partner for seven years and I’ve been caught in affairs twice. First time nothing changed in our relationship. Second time everything changed. For the better. Seriously.
I’m sure the details would sicken most of you, but we are deliriously happy. We were never really open with each other before but now everything has come out and we are honest about our desires and feelings. Will it last forever? I don’t know-and that’s what I’ve told him. The “me” of today has no friggin idea what the “me” of next week is going to do. And he’s decided that’s acceptable.
Anyways, it’s hard to judge based on the little I’ve said, maybe one day I’ll share our story but I just wanted to say that, in our case, intimacy (that barely existed for years) was regained tenfold.
…and btw I hold doors open for strangers, and tell clerks when they’ve given too much change, help friends in need, brake for squirrels, I just never was very good at the whole girlfriend thing.
And that’s the rub. I can’t say my wife was unfaithful, but she was straying because she was unhappy and searching for something to MAKE her happy. She was dealing with loss and post partum depression, and scars from childhood. I was dealing with my own battles and demons. A marriage is where one helps the other in times of need, it was awful when we were both down and had no support.
But things turned the corner when we realized that, of all the crap that was happening in our lives, none of it stemmed from the marriage. I came to the conclusion that, if she had been unfaithful, it just couldn’t matter, if we were to work things out. It’s not so much a betrayal of trust as water under the bridge. No one can earn trust back if the other person can’t let go of what’s happened. Earning back something is just keeping score, and keeping score is…counterproductive.
That was about 6 years ago. Our marriage has been great since that.
It’s marvelous that you and your wife were able to work through that, but it wouldn’t be possible for me and my husband to do what you did. We discussed this in great depth before we got married, so we are both very clear on what the consequences of that level of betrayal would be. It’s not a question of retribution or of “keeping score” or of demanding the transgressor earn back the other’s trust. That trust would simply not be available to be earned back.
Assuming the transgressor was earnest in their desire to repair the relationship, that speaks more to the transgressed’s capacity for forgiveness than anything else.
Are there slime balls out there that’ll bed anything that looks at them twice? Certainly. Is there, in most situations that result in affairs, a situation that drives a person to being unfaithful? Absolutely.
The REASON for the infidelity dictates the terms… If the spouse is a schmuck, yeah, I agree with you whole heartedly.
I don’t think this is true in couples that have discussed the consequences for cheating, like Sudden Kestrel says they have. If your partner flat-out tells you that if you ever cheat, it’s over, and you cheat, it has nothing to do with their capacity for forgiveness. Cheating is a choice, and if you make that choice knowing absolutely what the consequences will be, then you’re accepting them and choosing to cheat rather than continue the relationship. I don’t see anything weird with that.
Claiming someone’s capacity for forgiveness is superior merely because they are willing to continue living with a cheater is kind of insulting to people for whom it’s a deal breaker, especially those that made their requirements clear. You can be a very forgiving person in general and still unwilling to stay with a partner who cheated.
In the cool calculated calm of an internet forum, I’d agree with you.
Being in a maelstrom of: Not enough sleep, money issues, loss of self, two constantly needy twin boys, the death of a father and grandfather, the loss of the wife’s income, the death of two long loved pets…an unhappy career you feel trapped in…
I could see how a little interest from a 3rd party could make someone stray. A little selfish comfort. I didn’t do it, but I wasn’t far away from the temptation.
“If you screw up, it’s over” is another one of those ultimatums that sometimes isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, if only because it’s made without the benefit of experience.
How may unhappy marriages are you aware of? How long did they take to get that way? Who’s fault is it? It’d be nice to insert a pithy saying about keeping the homefires burning, but I think you get the point.
It takes an unhappy union to breed an affair. It takes a lack of communication. It takes a lack of teamwork. Something like that can happen easily over the course of a relationship that spans decades. I’m not including the relationships that suffer from a lack of maturity…Kardashians need not apply.
I don’t see why that statement would have to be made without the benefit of experience. I can easily see someone who’s been cheated on before being simply unwilling to do it again.
Everybody’s got stuff they simply will not tolerate in a relationship. Cheating may be a symptom of other things being wrong in a relationship, but so what? Plenty of awful things people do to each other can be symptoms of larger issues, from drinking too much or gambling to physical abuse. That doesn’t mean your partner is obligated to tolerate it in the name of forgiveness. Everyone’s got a line, and it’s fine for someone else to have a different one than you without you smugly deciding that their maturity or ability to maintain a relationship is inferior.