One x-mas eve we were playing “scruples” and a question came up: If you were happily married and on a business trip 2000 miles or so from home, you met a member of the opposite sex who was attractive and whom you would never see again and had a fling that nite, would you tell your spouse or keep that secret from him/her forever? I, for one, believe that there is no “need to know” and would keep silent. How about you?
A difficult conundrum to be sure. I often times found myself in such a similar scenario (we were playing Monopoly). My tactic was to put out the window and say, “Look! Isn’t that a Cyclotronic Womble Bat?!?” This distracted my spouse until I was able to flatulate with the force of a Neutron Bomb, after the air cleared with my near miss with honesty I quickly plugged in the vacuum cleaner and sucked off most of my hair. This was all it took to distract her…at least until we went to bed…as I was just drifting off to sleep she said, “Well, would you tell?” I started fake snoring and we never talked about it again.
It all depends on your situation. Personally, I’d never have the fling in the first place. It’s just not right, and no amount of alcohol could change my mind on that one.
In the age of AIDS, cheating could be a death sentence for you AND your spouse. The man that takes that fling is among the lowest forms of human SCUM in my eyes. (Exceptions, of course, include cheating on an abusive spouse, which is fine and dandy in my book.)
For those that would do it, there are generally two types.
Type One would tell their spouse. Many argue that this is a (sometimes subconscious) effor t to destroy the relationship. Type Ones are
generally not lifetime cheaters. They cheat because they’re bored with the relationship and want to move on. He wanted a divorce anyway and the cheating provided an easy catalyst. It’s easier to tell someone you cheated on them than to tell them you just don’t like them anymore.
Type Two’s are career cheaters. No matter who they’re with they’ll have a mistress or two and will NEVER 'fess up unless confronted with undeniable proof. Clinton is a good example of a Type Two.
Of course there are exceptions, but I’d say at least 90% of cheaters fall into one of these two categories. Also note that all of the above is merely my observational opinion.
no fling = no story.
simple solution to a silly problem.
using that same equation again you would get
fling = story.
so you should tell. or else
fling = no story and you have got a NO missing.
that NO propably meaning NO relationship, so forget about it buster and start the story
bj0rn
So, puffington, no mention of women in your answer? Just who are these men you’re lambasting cheating with, anyway? Takes two to tango, my friend.
“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather
No, you don’t tell. You shoulder the burden of guilt yourself, and you don’t burden your spouse with the knowledge of your infidelity.
Telling is the easy way out. The cheater comes out ahead: s/he confesses the sin, and gets forgiven by the spouse - before the reality of the offense has had a chance to sink in.
The spouse then has to deal with the mental images of the cheater in bed with someone else, and is in the rotten position of feeling it’s unfair to express any anger over what’s been done to him/her, because s/he has already ‘forgiven’ the cheater before the spouse really knew how s/he would be affected by the knowledge.
So telling works out great for the cheater, and sucks for the innocent spouse. The moral: don’t tell, and don’t do it again. Keep it to yourself, or confess to a priest or psychologist if you feel the need to talk to someone. But don’t dump the news on your spouse; that’s unfair.
BTW, this is a more-or-less direct steal from Ann Landers, who has some pretty good advice most of the time, IMO.
Personally, I generally stick with “honesty is the best policy.” However, I also stick with, “Taking your marriage vows seriously is the best policy,” so, as several people have said, not having the affair in the first place would mean you don’t have to worry about this.
Also, and this is something I don’t particularly care for regarding such questions, there is no way you could know if you would never see this person again, if there would be any repercussions (like STD), etc. So if you don’t tell your spouse, and your spouse catches something from you or finds out another way, you’ve multiplied your problem several-fold.
I’d tell, and we’d giggle and gossip over it like best friends. He’d tell me, too. Actually we’d probably have already told our intentions beforehand, so there wouldn’t be some big mysterious secret to “divulge”. Oh, and my marriage vows didn’t say we would never have other relationships.
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I didn’t mean to imply that men were the only ones that cheated. I use the word “he” for the simple reason that it’s a lot easier than typing “him/her” or “he/she” every time.
Of course women lie, cheat, steal and do every other evil thing that humans are famous for.
David - yes, the best thing is fidelity to begin with, but we were in a particular ‘what if’ scenario. As far as STDs are concerned, I suppose the best thing would be to not be in the mood, so to speak, until one could get checked out by a doctor. And if you had anything that couldn’t be treated with antibiotics, you’d obviously have to tell.
Aside from that, I still think this is an exception to the ‘honesty is the best policy’ guideline, for the reasons I’ve given. If you just slip the one time, and genuinely believe you’ll never do so again, telling the truth would hurt your marriage more than the infidelity itself, IMO.
You come back home after the fling and break off your relationship, telling her you violated her trust and are the lowest scum on earth.
She is Very Angry, but very sad to have lost you.
She thinks about it for a while and either puts the whole thing behind her allowing everyone to move on, or much more likely, forgives you, asking for you back.
Not that I’ve ever done this or anything.
Hell is Other People.
Yik. Having been in a similiar situation in the past, I’d have to say that the first thing I would do if I found myself 2000 miles away and seriously considering a fling is start to think loooong and hard about what it is in my current relationship that is making a fling seem attractive to me. I know myself, and I know from past experience that if everything is well and good at home that cheating doesn’t have much attraction to me.
If I DID have a fling, I’d tell, and I’d want to be told if my SO had one. I don’t believe there’s much hope of having an intimate, open relationship if one partner is covering something like this up. Plus, I’m striving for the type of relationship that you can tell the other person anything and have a reasonably good chance of coming through it without splitting up. If he came to me and confessed an affair, there ain’t no way I’d let him off easily by throwing him out. Nope, for us, we’ll work through it no matter how painful that process might be, cuz the end result is worth it.
RTF said:
I’m not sure these days, but I thought that with HIV, you might not know for months or longer. It would be hard to tell the wife “I’m not in the mood” for 6 months without her getting a teensy bit suspicious…
All I can say is that if the situation were reversed, and my wife had a one-night-stand, I would want her to be honest and tell me. First for the illness reasons, but also because honesty is that important to me.
I’ve actually been in the roles-reversed situation, long ago, with a former girlfriend. I still think it would have been better if she hadn’t told.
David B wrote:
True, it can take up to 6 months for HIV antibodies to develop. (An HIV test searches for these antibodies, not the virus itself.)
Then again, if your condom didn’t break, the chances of picking up HIV from a single random protected-sex encounter are probably lower than your chances of catching any of a number of other fatal incurable contageous diseases simply from being out of town to begin with.
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It would be hard to tell the wife “I’m not in the mood” for 6 months without her getting a teensy bit suspicious…
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I thought that was the normal state for all marriages in the U.S. over a year old.
The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.
Hypothetically, if you had taken a knife and plunged it thirty-seven times into the heart of a homeless person, but you were sure there was no physical evidence left behind . . .
Please.
I just love hypothetical questions with a premise which requires me to betray me ehtical and moral values. Hey, wht not just go all the way and ask whether I would hide my identity after leaving my job at Aushwitz?
Okay, if I was so bereft of moral character that I would cheat on my wife just because I thought I could get away with it then I doubt I would tell her unless I were employing a perticularly sleazy method of driving her away from me. In real life, I have been faced with this situation more than once and have managed to make it all the way back to my room without assistance every time. Sometimes I have even had pleasant dreams afterword.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Good points, Spiritus. That is exactly what I meant about hypotheticals – they are, by nature, unreal. And that’s why I don’t play Scruples.
David, If we didn’t deal with hypotheticals, we’d all be in trouble. True, some are unreal (i.e. if the earth was flat). but those such as (if a car was heading toward you on the wrong side of the highway, are you better off to turn right or left to avoid him? Or if an earthquake should begin its roll, are you better off under a desk or run outside? Hypotheticals certainly have their place. Just ask any lawyer. “Scruples” is a fun game nonetheless.
You’re right – hypotheticals do have their place. But these are realistic hypotheticals. It is indeed possible that you will be faced with a car speeding towards you in the wrong lane. It is possible that you will be in an earthquake and need to know what to do. It is highly unlikely that you will have a one-night-stand and know that the information has absolutely no chance of making it back to your spouse. That is something we simply cannot know.
Personally, I don’t find Scruples to be a fun game because it partially involves your friends voting on what they think you would do. I’m sorry, but my morality is not up for a vote. I know what I would do and would be rather offended if my friends (or anybody) took a vote and said that it isn’t what I’d do.
An example: My parents were playing the game with some of their friends. My father is known for getting some good deals by using, for example, the letter of an ad rather than perhaps what they meant (example within an example: A local electronics store had an ad that said if you bought their camera and found the same one at a better price, they’d refund the difference. He bought it and later found it at a better price. Several times over. They weren’t terribly happy, but that was what they had said). He was also a good bargainer. If you went to buy something major, you took him with you. Anyway, a question came up about what would happen if you were at the bank and the teller gave you back more money than you had asked for. He said he would give it back. His friends, however, thought there was no way he would do so and voted against that answer. What they didn’t understand was that there is quite a difference between getting a good deal and stealing. In fact, he had been in a similar situation and knew that the teller could get in quite a bit of trouble if she came up that short (however much the “extra” was in the question). He had returned extra money in just such a situation. While I don’t think he was particularly insulted by their vote (he’s a bit more easy-going than I am 
), I think I would have been in his situation.
I was in this situation, and I told my husband before I did it that I was thinking about doing it. But it wasn’t a “fling” so to speak. It was very hard on both of us, but it worked out and we are now very happy. If it was just a fling (which wouldn’t happen for me anyway) I wouldn’t tell. It would just hurt him. I don’t agree with lying, which is why I told him before it even happened. Not a happy chapter in my life.