what is cheating on a spouse and when does it start

In My Humble Opinion
1

This question has always bothered me. Like the title says what is cheating and when does it start.

Does looking at pornography constitute cheating…after all you are getting some pleasure out of someone or something that isn’t your spouse.

I’ve recently sought out an old girl friend on the internet and have been e-mailing over the past few weeks. Just getting caught up on our lives, reminiscing about the old days. Both of us are married. Is that cheating, I’m definitely hiding something from my spouse? I’d be very uncomfortable if this information came out and I will not offer it up…is that cheating?

This young lady agreed to meet up with me for lunch next week (we are in neighboring cities). I don’t feel I should brag about this to anyone, but on the other hand all I’ve done is e-mail so far. I don’t feel I’ve done anything wrong, but I still feel a little guilty.

What was my goal in seeking her out? I honestly don’t know other than talking to someone I used to know. But I’d be lying if I told you that my marriage was in perfect shape and hearing from her, she’s got some of the same issues. Then again, she’s always held a spot in my heart and she is the only ex I’d ever be interested in talking to again. We broke up on good terms, no fighting.

I suppose I’m just used to things being black and white and this is a huge shade of gray. There should be no guilt (nothing has happened yet) but on the other hand I’m keeping secrets. I suppose I could cancel lunch next week, but I’d have to be convinced that I was actually doing something wrong, that I was cheating.

Thanks for your advice and life experiences.

2

You’re on a slippery slope for sure. You haven’t cheated, but you sure have fantisized about it. And your taking the first baby step to change fantasy into reality. And you’re creating a secret and hiding it from your wife.

You could ya know try to work with you wife on mutual issues instead of looking up a blast from the past and commensurating with her on the sly.

You haven’t cheated, but you sure have taken started in motion a series of events that my turn that into reality.

3

In your wife’s shoes, if I found out you’d been communicating and meeting with an old flame on the sly, I’d feel insecure and suspicious. I’d have trouble believing that you didn’t have anything going on with this woman because if there was nothing to hide then you wouldn’t have hidden it.

FWIW, I could have forgiven the cheating if that’s all my husband had done, but it was the deception that I couldn’t forgive (well… the deception and the bragging about how clever he’d been - I took news of the affair too well apparently and he was lulled into a false sense of security so he couldn’t resist tooting his own horn).

4

Rule of thumb: If it’s something you won’t tell your wife, it’s probably a form of cheating. For me “cheating on someone” doesn’t have to go as far as having sex with someone else. It means that you’ve violated a trust that you both knew existed.

5

I believe there are many ways of cheating on a spouse, some through an affair, some through neglect like:Never being around, going out every night to a bar, treating a spouse like a maid or handy man. Lack of respect.

I have never heard of a spouse that had an affair that was proud of it, it doesn’t solve any thing and hurts too many innocent people, If one feels the need to have an affair it is a indication that one needs counceling.

Monavis

6

You’re cheating. It started the moment you made a commitment.

You’re hiding something and you’d be uncomfortable if the information came out. End of controversy.

Welcome to life. Everyone hides their feelings to some degree and the process of adjusting your life so that you can be in a partnership with someone else, to support each others needs and desires without hurting each other, sometimes requires the kindness of shutting the fuck up. But when courtesy shades into deception things can start to go wonky pretty quickly.

My advice is to step back a bit and take a good hard look at what you want from marriage, what you’ve agreed to explicitly and implicitly, and how that squares with what you really want from life, and what you’re willing to sacrifice in order to get it.

7

[QUOTE=sunacres]
You’re cheating.
[/QUOTE]

I have to agree.

In of itself, there’s nothing inherently wrong about meeting an old girlfriend for lunch. Had you been open about contacting her and wanting to catch up over a sandwich, most wives (except for the insecure) wouldn’t mind. Hell, some wives would ask to come along to meet her and learn some amusing stories that they can use later to tease their husbands.

The fact that you feel you have to hide it means your conscience is telling you that you’re doing something wrong. The fact that you mention she’s the only ex you wouldn’t mind hooking up with again raises further red flags. Even if you no more than shake her hand, you’ve betrayed your wife’s trust in sneaking off to be with her.

I know it’s difficult, but you need to take a good, long, hard look at your marriage, like Shawn1767 said. Do you and your wife want to make things work? It has to be a two-way street-- if one of you isn’t willing to put in the effort it will take to repair it, then the two of you should consider divorcing and* then* moving on with your lives. Right now, you don’t need further complications. It’s like putting a brick on top of an already over-loaded shelf.

Do you love your wife? Does she love you? Have you sat down and really talked about your problems? Have you considered couple’s counselling? If you want it to work, these are the things which should be occupying your thoughts, not another woman.

If you’ll pardon my saying so, I suspect that you’ve likely already made up your mind about what you’re going to do and nothing we say will really change that. Was this post made hoping for support than a judgement of your actions? If I’m incorrect, I apologize, but I know that sometimes all of us have a tendency to look for support even if deep in our hearts, we know that we shouldn’t be doing what we’re doing. It’s human nature.

Put yourself in your wife’s shoes. Would you be hurt if you knew she was doing the same thing? How would you feel about a spouse in a good, solid marriage doing it? Does it really matter one way or the other that yours isn’t in a really good place right now, except that this course of action might make things worse?

8

If you have to ask, you are.

What’s acceptable in a relationship varies with the particular couple. There’s nothing inherently wrong with your actions, even the fact that you haven’t disclosed them to your wife, but the fact that you know that knowledge of your activities would upset your wife, but the fact that you’re doing it anyway and seeking outside validation, means that you already know that you’re cheating.

9

Whoa, I came in her to post and found that Lissa is quoting me already. Weird. I think you meant sunacres though.

Anyway. After being in several relationships and seeing others in relationships, to me it seems as if it’s always the deception that gets people. It seems that the sex act is so fleeting that once you done it, it’s over and that’s it. I think people can usually try to get over the little fling. It may be difficult, but if someone had sex behind my back, I would probably get over it. However, it’s the violation of trust that gets me and I think a lot of other people. In general, when a significant other finds out that you’ve been having an affair, the first thing that pops into their head is that you’ve been having sex with someone new. But also popping into their head is that they must have been lied to several times in order for this affair to be carried out. It makes them feel like a fool to have trusted you and you took advantage of it. This is the main violation to me. The “having been lied to” violation. The sex, eh? Who cares? But the lying… Well, it would take a hell of a long time and proof before I trust you on any matter again.

In your mind what you are debating about is whether what you have done can be considered “cheating.” However, has it not occurred to you that you are already lying to and deceiving your spouse in some form? Right there, you’ve already violated her trust.

10

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Rule of thumb: If it’s something you won’t tell your wife, it’s probably a form of cheating. For me “cheating on someone” doesn’t have to go as far as having sex with someone else. It means that you’ve violated a trust that you both knew existed.
[/QUOTE]

Yep.

And it can go the other way, as well. My husband and I have each other’s consent for other sexual partners. So me having sex with another man isn’t cheating within the context of our marriage. Me emailing a specific ex for whom I still have very complicated feelings who I’ve agreed not to contact because in my rational moments I know he could destabilize my marriage *would *be cheating.

A marriage can survive any “rules” you and your spouse honestly agree to. I’m generally of the opinion that if you feel guilty, you know you’ve violated a rule, whether it’s been explicitly stated or not.

11

[QUOTE=diggerwam]

Does looking at pornography constitute cheating…after all you are getting some pleasure out of someone or something that isn’t your spouse.
[/quote]

But there is no personal interaction. In most cases, there is no interaction. Not cheating.

Cheating is about deceit. You are already deceiving your wife by interacting on the sly with another woman. Worse, an ex-gf.

You are deceiving yourself, or trying to, and trying to snow us. The reason you are asking the question is that your conscience is already speaking to you loudly and you’re trying to drown it out.

And so you two can weep on each other’s shoulders about your wretched spouses. This is an affair in the making. Affairs, more often than not, happen exactly this way - someone seeks outside of the marriage something they’re missing within. In many cases, understanding and companionship.
Then the emotional intimacy which arises because you are discussing personal issues leads to physical intimacy.

Bottom line; you should most emphatically not be discussing your marriage with anyone outside the marriage, and that goes ten times over for an ex. You got issues, take it to a counsellor or to an anonymous forum (there’s lots of relationship forums) but not to an old gf.

If you sincerely want to fix your marriage, this is absolutely not the way to go. If, on the other hand, you want out, then man up and tell your wife so and exit the marriage. Even then, however, it would not be decent to go after this gf until she, too, does the right thing and leaves her own marriage.

Quit pretending to yourself. You are headed straight for an affair. Don’t do it - you will get caught and you will break up your family.

12

Part of the uncertainly people have around this issue, I think, is the assumption - repeated in the OP and then repeated again, in a different form, in several replies - that “cheating” clearly begins at a certain point. The OP seems to assume “cheating” begins at the point you screw someone else. Several posters then assume “cheating” commences the instant you hide something from your spouse, or at some other sort of clear delineation.

In fact, there’s NO point at which “cheating” clearly stop or starts. “Cheating” comes in a linear scale of degree; it doesn’t begin or end at a discrete point. And I think it’s unquestionably NOT the case that cheating is completely correlated with hiding something. In fact, I would argue that it’s not even necessary that there be deception for there to be some relationship issues with intimacy.

Let me give you two current, real life examples. A gnetleman I work with will not tell his wife if he ever has to work with a woman, because it makes her jealous. She’s a nice lady, but if he mentions he did some sort of work with a woman - and it doesn’t matter if she’s twenty years older and as ugly as a bag of bugs - she becomes insecure and jealous. She doesn’t bitch at him or even not trust him, but it clearly bothered her, so he stopped mentioning it if he worked with another woman. Is he cheating on her? It seems preposterous to me to suggest he is. He’s not trying to hide his own behaviour at all; he just doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. It’s HER issue, after all.

Now, take my wife’s best friend, who I’ll call Julie. Julie has for a year been living with her boyfriend Steve. Steve had previously been living, for a number of years, with Pat. Steve is a prince of a guy and would never cheat on Julie, but he also avoids conflict to a fault and so hasn’t been able to entirely extricate himself from Pat; he still plays on the same sports team as her, sometimes does things like goes to weddings on mutual friends, crap like that, and occasionally lets her come over, all to be nice to, and accomodate, Pat, who CLEARLY has not gotten over him and occasionally drops snide comments about doubting they’ll last. None of this is hidden from Julie; it’s all out in the open. But it really, really hurts her; he’s actually gone to weddings just with Pat, leaving Julie at home, shit like that. She’s not comfortable having Pat around, and it’s obvious her feelings are being hurt. But it’s not at all deceptive. So is this not a problem because she’s not being lied to? I simply can’t agree with that.

13

[QUOTE=Shawn1767]
Whoa, I came in her to post and found that Lissa is quoting me already. Weird. I think you meant sunacres though.
[/QUOTE]

:smack:

My apologies. God only knows where I got that from.

14

[QUOTE=Lissa]
:smack:

My apologies. God only knows where I got that from.
[/QUOTE]

Psychic powers!

To the OP: There’s physical cheating, and then there’s when you start withholding parts of yourself from your partner and giving it instead to someone else. It doesn’t have to be in secret, but secrets definitely allow a situation to flourish, while shining a bright light on them can often make them die.

15

RickJay, in your second example, you are correct in that no one is being deceived. However, because it’s all out in the open, people can then make informed decisions about whether they want to live in that situation. When someone does it behind your back, you and your choices are taken out of the equation. Surely, Julie is bothered by the situation, but knowing the situation gives her a power that people who are being deceived do not necessarily have. It kind of puts the ball in her court if she wants to do anything about it. If she can live with it, then she can continue to let it occur. If she cannot live with it, then she needs to decide what is best for her.

But again, I reiterate that I feel that it’s usually the deception part that causes the problem. I am not saying that there are no problems even if everything is out in the open.

16

Me again, I have to ask a follow-up question.

I have a standing lunch date w/ a unattached young lady at work down in the cafeteria every wednesday. We started talking about work and now we talk about everything. Does that relationship need to be confessed to spouse? If not, why not? What’s different? Weekly conversation versus not seeing someone for 15 years, which one should I confess? Both? Why?

If physical cheating was on the horizon, I would argue that it’s more likely to happen w/ work “friend” than ex-girl friend. Work friend is available and local. Ex is married and an hour away.

Am I ever allowed to talk to an attractive woman and not confess to spouse? If I’m not, then are we at the old cliche that men and women cannot be friends, sex or the possibility of sex always gets in the way.

I’m serious when I say I don’t understand the line. At this point I’m simply talking to an old friend, nothing more nothing less. Logically I don’t see why I should feel bad, even if we hook up for lunch, what have I done other than talk to a dear friend.

For someone to say on this forum that simply because I talk to an attractive old friend that I should get counseling or have “the talk” with the spouse is, in my opinion absurd. Again, all I’m doing is talking.

Or am I thinking about this back-asswards.

17

But you aren’t planning on telling your wife about your lunch date with your ex-girlfriend, right? Why not? It’s one thing if you tell your wife about your email exchanges and your plans to catch up–entirely different when you don’t.

Every couple of years I have a short email exchange with a married ex-boyfriend and we do a little catching up. I always tell my husband about it. If we wanted to get together for lunch, we would both bring our spouses along and have a friendly lunch for everyone.

And actually, I’m not at all sure that a weekly lunch alone with your friend is all that great an idea, either, esp. if your wife has no knowledge of it. Many, many affairs start in exactly that way; you (generic you) start telling her more and more, pretty soon you look forward an awful lot to that lunch, then you enjoy spending time with her more than with your wife, and before you realize where you are, you’re in full-blown attraction mode and don’t want to quit. There has been heated discussion about this topic on the Dope and I’m sure quite a few will not agree with me, but my personal take on it would be that you don’t need to have lunch alone with each other; why not have more of a group thing? Then you never need to worry about it. Your wife is the person you should be putting effort into; intimate conversation and enjoyable companionship is firstly for her.

I’m also confused as to why you say “confessing”–unless there is something wrong with the relationship now and you’re hiding it? You would just be telling your wife about your life, how your day went, wouldn’t you?

18

Diggerwam, your second scenario…. hmm…
First a little background about me. I have recently gone back to school to become an elementary school teacher. I am married and have been for 8 years. I am teaching now and for the last 3 years have been taking education courses. Now, in my line of work, I am usually the ONLY male on the staff. Right now, I am the only male teacher where I work. In the education courses, I am usually the only male or one of 2 males in the class. Being an outgoing person, I usually strike up friendships with my classmates or coworkers. This leads to my having almost exclusively friends who are female. In fact, I have more female friends than male friends given the nature of the career I have chosen.

Let me give you a scenario that actually happened. I was in a class and made friends with two classmates. Both female grad students. I stated to one of them that I wanted to see “Silent Hill,” but that my wife would never go because she hates scary movies. That friend said she’d go with me if I wanted her too because she wanted to see it too. So, we planned on seeing it after class one evening. She came over to my apartment, met my wife and we both went to the movie in my car. I lost my keys at the movies and her boyfriend had to come pick us up and bring us back to my apartment to get my extra car key. So, here were two opposite-sex people doing something friendly, without their significant others, providing evidence that members of the opposite sex CAN be friends and it can be kept open and above-board. If I have a male friend with a regular lunch date, I can tell my wife. If I have a regular lunch date with a female friend, I can tell my wife. It’s second nature. I can even tell my wife if I find someone attractive! She’s not going to flip out on me because she knows I will tell her everything. And I know she will tell me everything.

You ask if you can ever be allowed to talk to an attractive woman and not “confess” it to your spouse. I don’t know. If there is nothing to fear, then why not tell? Would you tell her if you went to lunch with an attractive male? Why? What makes the difference? Maybe you simply can’t trust yourself.

19

[QUOTE=RickJay]
In fact, there’s NO point at which “cheating” clearly stop or starts. “Cheating” comes in a linear scale of degree; it doesn’t begin or end at a discrete point.
[/QUOTE]
Although I more or less agree with the thrust of RickJay’s post, I would reiterate my point that cheating begins when the relationship begins.

It’s not possible, practical, nor even very desirable to share every thought and feeling that flits through your body. So we can never fully disclose. Even when she asserts that Jude Law makes her cream her jeans, does she tell you about the swollen glans she envisions nudging her labia?

So it’s up to you to decide what needs to be shared and what needs to be private. And one of the considerations, the main one, that bears on that decision is what is at stake, what is the risk associated with not disclosing?

When you exceed the speed limit by 5mph, you are taking on the risk that you’ll get a citation. But you’ve decided that it’s worth the risk. If it’s really important to you to have lunch with your ex lover and you don’t have enough faith in your own motives to share them with your wife, go for it. Do it. But don’t whine about it when she eventually finds out and freezes you out. You’re a big boy now, you have to decide what risks you’re willing to take.

20

[QUOTE=diggerwam]

I have a standing lunch date w/ a unattached young lady at work down in the cafeteria every wednesday. We started talking about work and now we talk about everything. Does that relationship need to be confessed to spouse? If not, why not? What’s different? Weekly conversation versus not seeing someone for 15 years, which one should I confess? Both? Why?
[/quote]

Because keeping it between yourself and the other woman creates intimacy. It is a relationship with walls to keep others out. Emotional intimacy is the road to an affair. I have spent a lot of time reading about relationship issues. One biggie is friendship turning into love; and it happens to married people all the time.

It is much less likely to happen, however, if your relationship is completely open to others, particularly your wife.

That hasn’t stopped people. Do not mistake the powerful motivation that lust awoken can exert.

No, but it depends on the friendship. If by ‘friendship’ you mean casual acquaintance that you talk about politics and the latest movies with, that’s fine. Once you start confessing your hopes and dreams, talking about your relationship, then you’re lighting a match near a gas can.

You know darn well that’s not all. If you thought that was all it was, you’d tell your wife.

Talking turns into sharing (already has) which is how people fall for each other.

How many people that you know say they knew exactly when they were falling for someone and stopped before they fell? Nobody. You realize you’re in love, you don’t fall gradually - or, rather, you don’t realize you’re falling until after you’ve fallen. The cliff you fall off to land in love is the sharing and friendship that creates intimacy. So in order to not fall off, you can’t climb the cliff. At all. You will be no more successful at avoiding an affair than the thousands of people before you who tried to pretend to themselves they would be ‘just friends’ only.

She’s already ‘dear’ to you. She’s halfway to becoming ‘loved’. Really, you can’t do this and succeed and you know it.