You can apply whatever nasty, arbitrary labels you want to them, and it still doesn’t change anything from a moral standpoint.
For all Z knows, A’s real kink (which she shares with B) is that they entice some stranger into their house to start to have sex with her, then B bursts in with a shotgun and kills Z, then they have sex in the spilled blood and guts and brains.
And, uh… it’s immoral. Don’t do it.
Well, he obviously reversed the sexes from the more stereotypical example of the guy whose wife decides she’s done with sex for the rest of her life. Change the sexes if you like, it doesn’t make any difference except I guess we’re used to accepting the idea that choosing celibacy is easier for women than it is for men. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, I have no idea.
But sure, it’s fucked up situation no matter what you chose.
Remain celibate for the rest of your life and suffer in silent martyrdom?
Walk out the door and divorce your paralyzed helpless spouse because now that they’re broken you’re done with them?
Cheat, and rub your spouse’s nose in the fact that they’re not a real man/woman anymore all in the name of “honesty”?
Or cheat but keep it secret from the spouse?
Sure, those all sound bad. What other options are there? But it seems to me that the last option isn’t noticeably more horrible than the first three, and certainly isn’t particularly more horrible than the third.
Of course that’s not the situation A, B and Z are in, but that’s not an interesting thing to argue about because the answer in their case is obvious. So we change the terms of the hypothetical into something we CAN argue about.
It’s a “do unto others” thing, a “long term over short term” thing, and a “societal norm” thing. By “do unto others”, you put yourself into the other guy’s shoes, and realize that if you were him, you probably wouldn’t like to be cuckolded. (This works much better if you yourself wouldn’t like to be cuckolded.) So, if you have any sympathy for the other guy’s plight, you’ll refrain from cuckolding him. Otherwise you’ll feel bad about your actions afterwards.
If I read the OP right, this affair could screw up a not unhappy marriage, and therefore has a decent probability of making both the husband and wife unhappier or even miserable down the road. The wife has elected to ignore this probability in favor of short-term pleasure. If you care about the wife, you might elect to protect her from making a foolish, short-sighted decision by removing her ability to do so. Otherwise you risk feeling bad about your actions later on if the marriage goes to pot.
And thirdly, a guy who goes around knowingly screwing other peoples wives is generally seen to be sort of a dick. (Which is not entirely unfair as that’s the function he’s serving.) The severity of this perception will of course vary depending on whether marriage is strongly respected in your community. If you don’t want to be thought of negatively, or even if you don’t want to think of yourself negatively (if you have such social mores yourself), then you refrain for the sake of your own self-image and reputation.
That’s pretty much what I’ve been trying to say. And while I know it doesn’t apply to the OP here, I was just trying to see if there was a chink in anyone’s “Honesty/Fidelity are Absolute!” armour. And Jodi, you seem to think I pulled together some fictional heroine? I did say “What if Dana Reeve had taken a lover?”, an well known real world example. I guess you can all assume she went without sex for 9 years but I personally wouldn’t think less of her if she hadn’t, assuming she was discreet.
On re-reading that huge misogynist slant you put on my paralyzed spouse hypothetical, Jodi, all I can say is “Holy Crap!”. I used the word “abandon” because a loving spouse would probably feel themselves as though they are abandoning their mate in a time of need. They, like you, probably wouldn’t want to leave “just” for sex but their choices are as Lemur866 spelled out, including that final option to unilaterally make an unannounced “compromise”.
(bolding mine)
Well, as long as the bolded part is true, I don’t consider it “infidelity”, so we can agree on this part. It’s at the next step, *assuming *that this would be acceptable to the spouse without actually getting that permission from them, that I draw the line.
VarlosZ, I agree with everything you’ve posted in this thread. I’d add to it, but I think you’re doing an admirable job of stating your position.
VarlosZ
Our discussion seems to have made the big-time! Agreed with all you’ve said here and my duty arguably goes much further than simply lying to the ax murderer.
I’m finding it very hard to disagree with you on the general case although I have reservations on where the line could/should be drawn. As a sort of full-disclosure thing, I have done exactly what you’re talking about.
My wife died last December after 6 years of fighting cancer. During the entire ordeal; six rounds of savage chemo, four major surgeries, and enough radiation to kill a cockroach, I never told her that the tumors were inevitably 100% fatal. All the stats said she wasn’t going to survive, and she didn’t know, and I not only never told her but actively lied. So yes, I’m forced to agree that sometimes a person must lie/cheat/steal/whatever for a greater good. Someday I’ll make a thread like the OP’s and discuss the morality of my actions.
After some reflection, I concede the argument to you.
Best regards
Testy
WhyNot, on review, I was a bit careless when responding to your post. I didn’t mean to imply that I think the spouse has to know about it, just that the on-the-side business must be extremely discrete and unobtrusive. I also would guess that, in most cases where this scenario is working satisfactorily, the spouse will have an inkling about the possibility, at least subconsciously, but will not wish to ask questions.
Thanks for the kind words, jackelope.
Testy, I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. A final comment about our discussion: the “simple” moral rules about lying, cheating, etc. are there for perfectly good reasons, and any time those rules are disregarded it’s right that it should raise suspicion. The downside is that it’s usually difficult to see past those rules when they happen to contradict the moral ideal we’re ultimately striving toward.
Similarly, as you pointed out, it’s also frequently difficult to know when we’re doing too much harm on the way our otherwise honorable goal.
I actually agree with you that there are times (and places) where it is entirely moral and even laudatory to lie, actively or through omission. I just don’t think this is one of them.
Just so’s we’re clear. I’m not a “never lie under any circumstances” kinda gal. I lie through omission quite a bit, actually, and for the reasons already explored in this thread that don’t involve sex. But I haven’t heard a sexual hypothetical yet that has met my rubric for “lying is better and more moral in this situation.” I won’t say there isn’t one, but just that I haven’t heard it yet.
You’re right, there are clearly are other problems in their marriage if she’s willing to put it all on the line to explore a kink with a stranger.
She’s underplaying the problems in her marriage for the OP just to have an affair without making the OP feel guilty - there are huge problems in the marriage that she hasn’t shared with him. Maybe she doesn’t want to burden the OP with all her problems at this point to make her seem needy?
I seriously doubt that she is willing to travel all over hell and creation just to explore a kink.
An update: Z and A have decided not to go through with it.
Many thanks to those who read and understood the OP and responded to it. To the others who maybe thought they’d read it properly, well - at least you gave your imaginations a bit of a work-out.
Excellent.
What does this mean? Are you implying that you two are really in love and that we’ve downplayed that part?
Barrington
Just in case the kink was “shoving a live chicken up her ass,” I want pictures! 
Aside from that, thank you for the thread. It clarified some things for me and I wish you the best of luck.
Regards
Testy
Barrington, could you tell us what country A is from? I’m just wondering how far some people might consider going to meet up like this.
Answers to the above questions, and some other comments, addressed to various posters in this thread:
- Yes, we really are in love. People who say that it can’t be real because we’ve never met in person are people who’ve never experienced it - a bit like saying that Tasmania doesn’t exist because you’ve never been there. I know several people who’ve had very successful relationships offline after falling in love online (one couple have been very happily married now for 16 years) - just because you don’t even know someone who’s been to Tasmania still doesn’t stop that country from existing.
Also, I’ve known love myself before, been married, etc, and see no reason to distinguish offline and online love, or to say that the latter is somehow false. It’s not, and you have no evidence of a difference, so please STFU about it until you have at least that. In fact, your assertion that online love is a fantasy is a hypothesis without even an observation; it’s simply a prejudice. I thought an SDMB member would do better than that. It’s astoundingly presumptive to assume that someone’s feelings aren’t genuine simply because you’ve never experienced them yourself.
I explicitly said in the OP that I wasn’t interested in this discussion, simply because I knew beforehand that the “it’s not real love if it’s online” fallacy would rear its head and overshadow the fundamental question. I’ve seen that happen so many times.
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Several people have assumed that the reason we wanted to meet was simply to fulfil a sexual need, despite the fact that I didn’t say that. Although a meeting would inevitably have led to sex, this wasn’t the primary reason. The primary reason was that we’re deeply in love (see above). Got it?
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Where does she live? Europe, is all I’ll say. Not that far.
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And no, she’s not a “lying bitch” - she’s a very wonderful woman who, like me, has got caught up unexpectedly in a love she didn’t want and wasn’t looking for. For those that have never had that happen to them, let me say that it does happen. Just like Tasmania exists.
Fair enough. But the only moral thing for her to do is to break it off with you, or tell her husband that she loves someone else. And the only moral thing for you to do is withdraw until she does.
Listen, you limited the hypothetical woman’s choices to:
(A) Leave the guy (which you term “abandonment”);
(B) Be faithful and take care of herself (which you term “pathetic”); or
(C) Cheat on the guy.
There’s no need for me to inject misogyny into that scenario; it’s already there: She’s an abandoner; she’s a cheat; or she’s pathetic. That’s YOUR spin on YOUR scenario. And unilaterally making an unannounced decision is NOT a “compromise”, in quotes or out of it; that’s not what the word “compromise” means.
My family knows a man in Lancashire (the county next to Barrington’s for the non-Englishmen on the board). He, too, fell in love with a very wondeful woman who got caught up unexpectedly. Unlike Barrington, he chose the dishonorable course of action and walked on his wife of 40 years, devastating her. Did Barrington’s woman (I won’t call her a “lady”) deliberately lie to her husband? I don’t know from what he’s told us in this thread. I do know that by choosing to pursue a course of action which could harm her marriage and hurt her husband, she behaved dishonorably in my opinion. She and Barrington didn’t do the decent thing and break things off or cool things down when the attraction grew stronger. Instead, they continued to act on their mutual attraction, regardless of the consequences, including those to her husband, who she’s supposed to love very much.
Cut your losses now, Barrington and walk away lest she once again get caught up unexpectedly in a love which she wasn’t looking for, despite her great love for you and walks out on you.