Nevertheless, cheating sucks. If your marriage has problems, deal with them. Don’t wander off and start a new relationship and leave the old one to molder. If the problems can’t be dealt with, then have the honesty to end it before you turn into a liar.
It’s been my experience (and a few friend’s) that the marriage really goes into the toilet when one partner decides to cheat. I suppose this is largely because all the effort is now expanded on behalf of the new relationship.
Yeah, I agree with the OP’s pitting. Cheaters deserve it.
And I hope there’s a special hell reserved for anyone that knowingly has an affair with a married person. And a very very special place in that hell for someone who has an affair with someone who has a family.
Occasionally this is what happens, but as a truism it is complete self-exculpatory baloney. Sometimes cheating is just a symptom of a flighty doofus who is incapable of recognizing a perfectly good marriage (as evidenced by their pattern of flitting from relationship to relationship, nothing ever quite being sufficient or ideal).
I suppose you could argue that the mere presence of that person in a marriage makes it a bad marriage, but if that’s the case then you’re being dismissive toward the person who is putting in a good faith effort to make it work (“pats on the back”, etc).
(in the above scenario, make the man the bad doofus person and it may seem clearer)
People (not to generalize, but they’re always women) often talk about cheating with language like this, where the betrayal is >99% the lying and only peripherally about the sex. Maybe that’s true, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around. I mean, really, are you really going to be that much less pissed if your husband walks in the door and announces “you know that 19 year old intern at my office? I had sex with her at lunch.” Because now there was never a moment of deception, just the infidelity itself.
Me (and probably most guys, IMO): no less pissed. Sure, it’s great that they were honest, but that’s just a little parsley garnish on the overall shit sandwich.
I would hazard to guess that in most cases affairs are the result of an already bad marriage. If your marriage is good and sound, there’s really no reason to risk damaging it by being a selfish prick. However if there are underlying issues and resentment anyway, it becomes easier to justify your behaviour to yourself. Not that it’s right, it most certainly isn’t.
I mean, label things however you please, but that sure sounds like a marriage with a pretty major problem–ie: both partners either aren’t in the same maturity station in life OR both don’t hold the same ideas about monogamy vs open relationships. Either way, that’s a marriage with a problem. The cheating is a symptom, not the disease.
Yeah that’s pretty much my response. Why would you marry an immature brat and expect them to behave in a mature fashion? The marriage has problems. Cheating didn’t cause that person to become an “entitled brat”.
Woman here, and I’d say cheating is lying. By it’s very definition, cheating is doing something dishonest, ie. lying. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be cheating, it would be an open marriage. Not cheating is being honest.
And as far as cheating being a symptom, and not the disease… Well, again in my experience, if as much effort was expanded on the part of the cheater towards his marriage as he devoted to his cheating I’m pretty sure the marriage would have been much, much healthier. I suspect this would apply if the he was a she also.
I think the general lying comes first, and the affair comes later, once you already feel comfortable about lying to your spouse. First you start telling them you went to the gym when you didn’t. Or that you didn’t have a phone conversation with your ex last week. Or that you had one drink out with girlfriends when you actually had three drinks. Or that, no, you didn’t spend the whole day watching top Chef reruns after you brought your kid to school because you didn’t want to clean the house and run errands. And pretty soon, the lying becomes an easy solution any time you want to avoid telling them something that makes you feel unpleasant or guilty.
This could be because your spouse is a little controlling or opinionated about your life and you don’t like confrontation or defending yourself. Or because you’ve lapsed to handle stuff your spouse expects you to handle and you don’t want to own up. Or you’re insecure and afraid of disappointing them. Or you’re developing interests that you know your spouse doesn’t like/isn’t into/looks down on.
Now all of a sudden, you have some secret inner life you’re not sharing with your spouse. And you really don’t like it, but you have your reasons-- you’re just trying to avoid discomfort, keep everything going smoothly, keep doing what you like.
And then some nice guy comes along, out of nowhere, at work, or at a party that your husband didn’t go to b/c he’s watching the kids… and you wind up chit-chatting and, because you have a burning desire to divulge those hidden things, and this guy is totally safe and a total stranger, you feel OK admitting that you actually haven’t been to the gym in months or, haha, you’re addicted to Top Chef. Maybe you haven’t even told your girlfriends these things, because you don’t want them judging you for keeping things from your husband.
And now you’ve told some guy shit you haven’t told your husband, and now you feel FREE for having released those secrets. And the next time you see the guy, maybe you’ll get something else off your chest. And it’s a pretty intimate relationship when someone knows all your secrets AND LIKES YOU ANYWAY. Likes you for all the things you can’t share with your husband because your husband would disapprove. Now your relationship with your husband is stifling and your relationship with this new guy is so open and freeing and… :smack:
Right, but the cheater doesn’t do that because they don’t want to. That’s a problem in the marriage– I mean, I at least think if your spouse would rather put energy into cheating than working on your relationship, that’s a pretty major problem. Obviously, you guys don’t see eye to eye with regard to priorities.
Or the cheater is putting in effort, and is trying, and has tried and has worked away at making things better but to no avail. I’m sorry, but the other person, the spouse, can be the one not trying to make things better. It happens.
Oh, for sure. Whatever the reason or back story, I think the point is the same: the cheating is just a symptom of a bigger problem. Maybe you don’t see eye to eye on what it takes to build a steady relationship. Maybe one or both partners isn’t as dedicated as the other would like. Maybe one isn’t as mature. Maybe one is too mature and serious.
The sex isn’t the problem. . . I mean, it’s a problem, yes, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Yeah, this is the thing in this thread I’ve been focusing on, too. Granted, there have been very few details given, but it sounds like you’re saying, Zebra, that you consider your partner being sexually assaulted to be “infidelity”. If so, you’re 57 varieties of fucked up.
Somehow I think I’d rather be cheated on or something than have any marriage of mine end this way. I’d rather be screwed over than be considered boring.
Utter fucking rot. More people approve of “the US going communist” than adultery. I don’t know how a conservative could honestly advocate for breaching a contract in order to become dependent on another as a moral option.
The thing is, just “putting in effort” doesn’t fix a marriage. For those saying the “effort” could have been spent “fixing” the marriage, “no effort” is not what made the marriage go south.
HMS Irruncible and **slumtrimpet **expressed it better than I did.
We could go round and round, but if you want to say marrying a cheater is a marriage issue, or being a person who’s in a decent marriage but decides to cheat is a marriage issue, it sounds like just semantics to me.
Sometimes the symptom (cheating) is the same as the problem in the marriage.
While, in general, fault lies in between 2 people that is not always true.
Sometime, one person is just in the WRONG.
I know we live in a culture that tries to compromise and find ‘middle ground’ and this is usually a good thing. However, one must never forget that sometimes one person is essentially 100% in the wrong.
I see this mainly with women cheating (though I don’t see it very often with men cheating). If the woman cheats it must somehow be, at least partially, the husbands fault.
This is what I was getting at. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to be honest. You’re married to someone, probably have kids with them, have seen them naked, sick, at their worst, and have maybe done things with them that would shock your mother; but you can’t have an honest conversation with them? Give me a break.
You do have conversations with them. You do work on it. You do try, and try, and try. And after a while you realize you’re trying to have a rational conversation with an irrational person. But you have kids. And kids need parents, so you keep it together and you keep working, but sooner later you’re tired of working on it.
Shit happens. Relationships are complex. It’s not about Ricky getting mad because Lucy used too much soap in the washing machine and flooded the floor kind of shit. It’s BIG shit like running up credit card debts, or gambling, or drinking, or refusing treatment for mental illness shit. This is the kind of shit that drives people away and into the arms of someone else.
Anyone can sweat the small stuff and shrug it off. But life isn’t a sitcom. People don’t cheat because the roast was overdone or the garage didn’t get cleared out. (Usually.)