I guess I’m just an old fashion girl. I believe that when two people marry, all that other claptrap stops with anyone else . No kissing, no sex, drunken or otherwise (and who would want drunken sex? Ewwwwwww!) No secretive online chats, cybersex, phonesex, or long hours of intimacy to which the spouse is not invited. If the two people haven’t committed to marriage, then they really ought to rethink the relationship, 'cause if this crap is starting now, it’s only going to get worse.
If the spouse seriously was asking for forgiveness and was willing to make amends? Well, maybe forgive, eventually, but trust again? Never. And without trust I think the marriage is broken – whether or not the people stay together.
Like I said – I’m an old-fashioned girl and marriage means something to me.
I voted “cybersex” but that was before I read the OP- whoops. The idea that it would have been going on for MONTHS is more hurtful than the fact that it would happen once or twice. Like someone mentioned upthread, I have a pretty high sex drive and I’d like my partner to come to ME for that satisfaction, not to go somewhere else when it means that I won’t get any.
Now I’m thinking sober kiss. Other people will always have crushes on your SO. It’s entirely likely that these people will try to take advantage of their emotional weaknesses from time to time. It’s happened to me, with people hitting on me KNOWING that I’m unhappy about something in my relationship. Fess up, be more careful around that person who obviously has NO regard for you and your commitments, and it’ll be fine.
I voted cybersex. Depending on the level of personal connection, that could be anything from damn-near-cheating (which I’d have a hard time with) to maybe a half-step above regular old fetish-indulgence internet porn (which I’d be hard pressed to give a rat’s ass about). My limited understanding of the practice leads me to believe that these interactions fall far more often toward the latter end of the spectrum, so there you have it.
That said, if I’d had a long, loving, intimate — physically, intellectually, and emotionally — relationship with this woman, and I truly believed her sincerity in regretting her actions and wanting to work together to mend things, I could probably forgive any of these choices…once. I suppose I’m a bit of a [romantic/naïve/trusting soul/sap] that way.
The thing I would find hardest to forgive is the telling. If I had no idea and the incident was ended with no intention of a repeat, why the need to come clean?
The only one I can even imagine hearing from my husband is #1, and the confession would probably be so we could go get a check-up. I might question his judgement and taste (I’ve seen his co-workers), and he would get some shit from me about hygiene and discretion, but assuming it was a one-off and no permanent harm was done, I’d let it go.
An angry kiss or emotional affair would indicate deeper issues that would probably cause a lot more disruption to the relationship. This is based on two decades of knowing each other pretty well. Early in our marriage I might have felt differently.
As you said, none of them are easy, but for me phone and cyber would be tied as the least awful. Drunken sex…well he went all the way. Sober kiss…well a kiss (for me) denotes at least somewhat of an emotional infidelity, and that brings me to the last. An emotional affair would be the hardest for reasons others have stated above.
Assuming I was in the kind of relationship where my partner wasn’t supposed to be even kissing other people, the kiss would still be pretty easy to forgive. For me, the act of cheating is hurtful, but the more planning that’s gone into it, the worse I’m hurt. In the case of the kiss, the other person initiated it, so it’s not like my partner planned it or even had more than a few seconds to decide what they were going to do. The longer they have to think about what they’re doing, the more I’d be disappointed in poor choices.
On the other hand, if the story went more like “I was mad at you so I took Sandy out to a nice restaurant and we drank some wine and I complained about our relationship, then Sandy and I went for a walk, and back to my office which was empty, and we sat on the couch next to each other, and hugged, and then all of a sudden Sandy kissed me!” I’d be pretty ticked off.
I’d get angry at her for confessing to me. Why should she make me miserable to help soothe her conscience? If she thinks she did me wrong, she should bottle it up inside and suffer alone. I want no part of it.
The thing that would really be hard for me to forgive would be deception. A night of drunken sex, confessed pretty much immediately after, would not be as big a deal as months of hiding even a pretty chaste online relationship from me.
My relationship is polyamorous (theoretically, at the moment, but still), though, so my answer is going to be coloured by that.
I’ve never gotten this. If you love someone, why do you value your own feelings above hers? And do you think the problem will just suddenly go away? Unresolved guilt can tear a relationship completely apart. Her breaking up with you would probably hurt a lot worse.
As for my answer, the first two are the only ones that don’t involve deliberately setting out to be unfaithful. While the kiss does seem to have a moment of unfaithfulness, sex means a lot to me, as does knowing any significant other is not stupid enough to get that out of control with alcohol. Plus, I don’t believe being drunk makes you completely not at fault. I mean, we don’t use that for drunk drivers. No, you chose to get overly drunk, and put yourself in a situation where you could wind up doing something you’d regret, rather than taking reasonable precautions.
So I’m going with the kiss. Which is odd, as it’s the only one that involves deliberately trying to hurt me.
And how will her confessing make things better? All it’ll do is make me misearble and undemine the trust at the basis of our relationship. Frankly, I’d rather not know. If she feels bad about what she did, the proper thing to do is not to do it again, and then to act to improve our relationship - together with me, of course. If she’s not happy with me she should tell me she’s not happy; she doesn’t have to tell me what being not happy led her to do. That won’t help matters.
Sober kiss: Sometimes people get carried away in the moment, or perhaps the other person kissed them, etc. But my spouse stopped before anything bigger happened.
Can’t decide between 1, 2 or 5. If he really can’t remember if he had sex in #1 I’d sure as hell want it verified through his coworker(s), and AIDS/STD tests for safety’s sake. 2, I wouldn’t be thrilled with, but if he was already apologizing at a kiss it’d probably indicate it wasn’t going to go much further. 5 doesn’t seem like a huge deal, especially in the age of Facebook, but if he were apologizing for it profusely something tells me he’d have a reason for feeling guilty. But again, if he were already apologizing, and it’s not a ‘Sorry you caught me’-type apology, l it’s probably a good sign.
I didn’t see an option for “none of these would bother me”, but the emotional infidelity would be something I’d actually be kinda upset about. I’d also be upset at ‘confessing’ some of these, because I wasn’t there to watch!
I’d say the latter three would be easiest to forgive–in all cases, they can sort of fall into that “not really appropriate fantasy but still just that” level of pseudo-infidelity–not necessarily, mind you, just potentially.
Realistically, given my circumstances, it’d be the initial “I didn’t tell you but…” that would be the deal breaker–my marriage is structured such that just about anything is potentially okay as long as we’re up front about it.
