I didn’t suggest that you have a serious talk or get couple’s counselling *just *because of the ex-girlfriend issue. From your OP’s description of your marriage being “not in perfect shape”, I’d suggest the same things even if there was no lunch date. I don’t know what your issues are, but it sounds like to me that your relationship may have communication problems and it could help if you addressed them.
Ach. Whose marriage is in perfect shape?
But the line is clear. If you are hiding a relationship with another person from your spouse, then you are in violation of the trust of the relationship. That is different then just not telling that you ate with so and so because it really wasn’t significant enough to mention. Pretty or not. When does that violation get labelled as cheating? Who cares? It is a violation of trust and that is enough.
I would disagree. The ex-flame is far more likely to be rekindled than a new flame starting out. From what I have seen it is far easier to go back to old habits (even really old habits) than build new ones. You can’t ‘unkiss’ someone.
Disclaimer: I am assuming that you were once intimate with the ex on the level that, should this intimacy resume, you would consider cheating.
I still have email contact with my ex-wife, and I keep in touch with a couple of ex-girlfriends. Of course my wife knows about it – I wouldn’t for a moment even think about keeping it a secret from her. In fact, we’ve had dinner several times with one of the ex-girlfriends and her husband (who also, obviously, knows all about her and my continuing friendship.)
I find your use of the term “confess” disturbing. I don’t “confess” to my wife when I’ve heard from an ex. I simply pass it along as part of my day. And that’s all it is. If your mind thinks in terms of confessions, then you’re already feeling guilty, even if you haven’t technically done anything wrong.
I guess if you’re doing something that you believe should be done only with your spouse, then yes, it’s cheating. Having said that, there are degrees of cheeting, starting with a harmless flirtation and ending with full-on boot-knockin’.
If you feel guilty about it and don’t want your loved one to know, then you’ve already crossed the line. Your marriage and your personal life won’t be made one iota better by catching up on your ex-girlfriend’s life.
Did he stop mentioning it out of consideration for her, or do they have an understanding that he shouldn’t work with women and/or that he should let her know when he does? That would be the difference IMO. If he does something that he knows his wife is trusting him not to do, a trust he accepted, it’s a form of cheating. Do I necessarily think it’s a reasonable expectation to set in this particular example? That’s a different question.
I do agree with the notion of a linear scale of degree in the sense that not all violations of trust are the same. But they’re all violations of trust.
Yep, well put. The OP wants to have a “How many cheating angels can dance on the head of a pin?” discussion that amounts to the question, “Is this cheating? Or is it only another type of a violation of trust?” Or at least it appears to be. Call it whatever he’d like.
Cheating, to me anyway, is in the intention behind your actions. You feel the need to deceive which means for you, your intentions aren’t all that innocent. And you know what, you aren’t automatically bad because of that. Your attraction, your curiosity, that’s all normal. You are human. But so is your wife. So is the jealousy she is likely to feel. Why don’t you own up to how you feel, allow her to react and then talk. Let her be the judge if you are cheating. You should also be honest for another reason. We women always find out. I don’t care how good you think you are, we know. Even if we don’t call you out on it, we still know when you lie.
Someone else said this already, but the biggest betrayal is in the deception and the lie is not just in the one night you may cheat. The lie exists in ever moment of everyday you wife goes on thinking your marriage is one way, when in reality it’s another. Even if you don’t agree, that is how she will see it, and that is the mess you will have to clean up.
You being honest will show her that not only do you trust her and your marriage enough to handle the truth, but that you have faith in her trust of you.
Like Shawn1767 said ”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."
Word.
I am seriously considering going from Canada to Europe to have coffee with a woman who interests me.
(If I could just get back in contact with her, and she was available, I would do it in a heartbeat. I found out too late that she actually liked me; she had gone back to Hungary. Smart, strong, determined, a stocky curvaceous “peasant” build, just what I like… sigh)
I feel I have to come back to add that I think my marriage could have been saved if a third party hadn’t come along. He was vulnerable, he was making bad decisions, he was feeling unhappy in our relationship. He’d finally acknowledged that he had a problem (depression) and was taking the very first steps to working on it which in turn would have brought our marriage back around, but then she came along and all the effort that he should have been putting into working on himself, on us, on our marriage was instead used on hiding what was going on from me, on his growing feelings for her and on what their future together could be instead of ours. They were both adults, they were both to blame for their actions but I can understand how a person in his state - feeling unhappy with life in general - would find it easier and more instantly rewarding to find new love than to work on repairing the old relationship. In the long run that’s just brought more misery to everyone - once they were free to be together, it took him less than 3 days to realise that he didn’t even like the girl, let alone love her.
You say your marriage isn’t in perfect health right now. You owe it to yourself and your wife to focus all your efforts on repairing your marriage. If you are being distracted by another woman then you aren’t giving your marriage a fair go. Right now it’s innocent, but if you’re both unhappy at home then it won’t take a lot to push it into something more, simply because a 24 hour a day marriage with all it’s realities can’t compete with 1 hour lunches that are full of only the good stuff.
Once things are better between you and your wife, then you’ll be in a better place to be friends with this woman from your past. Right now she’s little more than a fantasy to distract you from your real life and the work you need to put in to your relationship.
I disagree that it’s cheating, however he has boarded a train making stops at Harmless Drinksville, Mywifedoesn’tunderstandmetown, West Motelsex and Court Injunction Junction.
It’s the former. (How could you refuse to work with women? You’d be fired in about two days.)
As I pointed out, that wouldn’t make it a reasonable expectation, just an expectation.
Please add my signature to this.
“Confess” that you have lunch with a co-worker?
Dude, if you feel that if it ever came up in conversation it’d be a “confession”, you have even more serious problems than I thought. Do you mention your male coworkers to your wife? Do you treat your relationship with this coworker differently because this one happens to pee at the ladies’? Do you seriously believe that she’d have sex with you just 'cos you’re “available”? Is that your main reason for having sex with someone?
No offense and I’m sure you’re a nice person and all, but maybe he was simply depressed about being married to you (or anyone for that matter)? I don’t care what anyone says, marriage is essentially a prison people create for themselves. No longer can you simply do what you like, when you like doing it. Eventually, you become like a domesticated animal - too fat, too old and too settled to even want to go back outside. I have this one friend who can’t even go to a bachelor party with us because his wife “forbid it”! Of course he’s fucked because unlike unmarried me who can say “well…I’m going anyhow so seeya!”, he has to worry that his uneducated wife will divorce him and take half the house and his six-figure salary with her.
I don’t get why people think unhappy marriages need to be “fixed” with anything other than divorce papers. If my job is making me miserable, I go find a new job. Eventually I figure out work sucks and I find a job that bothers me the least.
Here’s the deal. You up and got yourself married. You found out it sucks and that your desire for other women didn’t magically disappear. You have a couple of options:
-Suck it up and be faithfully miserable in your marriage (maybe some counselling will distract you for a bit)
-Cheat and enjoy yourself, living with the various risks that entails
-Get a divorce and take your chances out there
I had been concerned that this sounded more like Dear Abby or daytime talk shows than Great Debates. Thanks to msmith for breaking the ice. Here’s my two cents.
I find it really shallow to try to escalate our culture’s already excessive obsession with maritial fidelity by catagorizing deception as “cheating”. Deception (or keeping a secret) about seeing someone of the opposite sex is no more “cheating” than any other deception, like not saying you spent money on something foolish or that you had a cigarette when you were supposed to have quit. “Cheating” means having sex, as far as I’m concerned. Marriage vows are amazingly vague, but I would agree there is a definite understanding that you won’t have intercourse with someone else, and in many places there are laws involving that. Beyond that, I don’t think a person getting married has made any commitment not to interact with someone else they may be sexually attracted to.
This doesn’t mean that deception isn’t a bad thing - it just should not be confused with adultery. There are many ways to be a bad spouse - lack of attention, wasting money, avoiding responsibilities, and many forms of overt nastiness. Deception is one of them, although in a case like this, assuming he gets away with it, it may be kinder than truth, which might cause diggerwams wife to agonize pointlessly.
I have to wonder about those who say it isn’t the infidelity that’s the problem, it’s the deception. It strikes me that they are trying to pretend that they’re not being sexually uptight or jealous but still want to have an excuse to be outraged. Are we really assuming that they wouldn’t be upset if their husband (or wife) said “I’m going to the Holiday Inn to have sex with Pat - I’m just telling you because I knew you would want me to be honest.”
Then there is the idea that marriage should be preserved at all cost. If diggerwam meets the old flame and they hit it off and it winds up breaking up his marriage, is that a disaster? If he is actually happier with the old flame, may she’s the one he should be with. The fact that he and his present wife made an agreement a decade or more ago based on social pressure and a fantasy of “happily ever after” shouldn’t trump being with the person he really likes. Of course he should be aware that dating and living together aren’t the same, and if there are kids involved their interests are essential.
As for me, I have been married almost 34 years and haven’t “cheated”, although lack of opportunity has no doubt played a big part. But I’ve long felt that marriage is a bad institution that is unnecessary for keeping people together who want to be, but only keeps people together when one or both want out. It turns a romantic relationship into an obligation. And when relationships do break up it adds an excuse for bitterness.
raises hand
Uh…yeah? For some of us, anyway. I know, it’s shocking and all, but there it is. Been working for us for 8 years now. But yes, we’re entirely in the minority.
The rest of your post, I agree with, frankly. My only hesitation is if children are involved, which I don’t see in the OP. I do think parents have a bit more obligation to try to work things out. Divorce is hard on kids, no matter how “amiable” it seems to the parents. Then again, a sucky marriage might be even harder on the kids. So it might behoove one to try to work things out, but I’m not in the “stay together no matter what” camp.
I’ll change my answer to “it may not be “cheating” as generally understood, but it’s still breaking her trust, and that’s a shitty thing to do, and a dangerous thing to do if you want to keep your marriage intact.”
WhyNot, there’s no question that my comment doesn’t apply to you. Your relationship sounds cool and I hope it continues to work for you.
Exactly. If I had a standing weekly date to lunch with anyone my husband would know about it and vice-versa. It wouldn’t be a question of ‘confessing,’ but just come up when we talked about our days. You know: “So what have you got going today?” “Not much – it’s my day to lunch with Patty, and I’m still working on that PowerPoint presentation…”
Same with speaking to exes. My husband and I have both caught up with exes in the past, but it was never kept secret. If it ever came up that we got the chance to meet with an ex in person and we wanted to do that, we would. But not in secret.
IMO, your biggest problem is the secrecy… and the lack of communication that the secrecy seems to go hand in hand with.
As for your original question, I consider the 'cheating line" to be crossed at the point where, if my husband was doing it, I would consider it to be cheating. How would you feel if your wife, without mentioning it to you, looked up an old boyfriend and started a regular email exchange with him? How about if she – again, without telling you about it – made arrangements to meet with him in person?
His depression coincided with discovering he was infertile. Perhaps you’re right, but I’m still inclined to blame the infertility. Our relationship wasn’t unhappy until after he was diagnosed.
If this is how he felt, the time to reveal it should have been before we got married, back when we were discussing what marriage meant to us and what our expectations for each other were. I told him, and he agreed, that I believed marriage should be forever. We discussed the fact that marriage is hard and takes work and effort to maintain, and we agreed that we were both committed to doing whatever it took to make sure it worked. He didn’t have to marry me; we were living together already and had been for several years. If I’d had any inkling that he wasn’t prepared to be there for the long haul, I’d never have gone through with it. That was a commitment I took very seriously and I took him at his word when he told me that he felt exactly the same way.