After watching many Jerry Springer episodes and a few court TVs, ignoring the Divorce Court because of the insanity and deliberate majority of black couples, which is not good for their image at all, enjoying Judge Mathis and Judge Judy, then listening to acquaintances talk, I have to ask.
If you caught your SO sexually cheating, would you take him or her back? If yes, then how about if you caught him or her again?
My view? It happened to me. Caught her and dumped her and never went back, no matter what her excuse was. I don’t cheat, so I don’t expect my SO to do so either.
Disclaimer: I cannot seriously credit the idea of this happening in my relationship.
Response: I think it depends enormously on the status of your relationship. If I was just dating someone, I’d drop them like a rock. But, I am in a 10+ year relationship with 5+ years of marriage. At this level of commitment, I would not be able to so quickly end our relationship. I would likely try to work past the situation and rebuild our relationship. It wouldn’t be easy - in fact it would be damn hard - but I couldn’t give up on everything that is so wonderful in our relationship without trying to save it.
Some people would never take 'em back in a million years. Some people would work through it. Some people have been through it, some people haven’t, on both sides of the issue.
Believe me, never the twain shall meet.
The party line is “Dump them like a hot potato and never never never ever ever ever take them back because they are scum and vermin and don’t deserve to to be with normal people.”
That’s me right there. I can’t imagine betraying someone I love. I don’t think I could live with myself, knowing that I had hurt someone the way I was hurt when cheated on. I was devastated. I could not understand how someone could lie to my face, using the same mouth to tell me she loved me. Bullshit on that.
I don’t hold anyone else to a standard that I do not accept for myself.
Well, in my book, a cheater can go hang out with the other game-playing, lying, backstabbing, deceitful, untrustworthy people out there. Not in my relationship.
I’m taking about situations where there is a professed love and commitment. Not dating a few weeks and then moving on.
My lady and I were all set to get engaged and set the date, when I followed up a suspicion that had started to annoy me.
Quite a few take 'em back, and over half get cheated on again. I hate being cheated on. I can’t ever trust the girl again. Something just snaps inside.
Threesome? Uh – only if she cheated with another girl.
There is the thought that it is not as simple as one partner cheating on another.
Once a relationship has become sterile that might be the best option that one party has, is that cheating ?
Then there is the abusive relationship, getting out from under, is that cheating ?
Leaving the deadbeat good for nothing, is that cheating ?
No-one here is likely to admit that they drove their partner to the arms of another but is does happen.
It’s easy to convince oneself that the other party is at fault but is it always true ?
No way. People who cheat don’t get much respect in that matter. In my opinion, it shows that they are not ready for a mature relationship if they choose to cheat on their partner. Fidelity and honesty are big in my book in what I look for in a mate, since that’s what I give to them when I am in a relationship. If I find good a reason to break either of those ties, I drop them.
When my now ex-wife(we were legally seperated for 10 years) cheated on me many, many times during our marriage of 11 years, I would have had no problems forgiving her and taking her back. The problem that I would have had was trust. She would have had to prove to me that I could once again trust her. Apparently, she didn’t think that she could prove that so now she is my ex. Now I say, good ridance. She had her chance. I am a forgiving person, but even I can take just so much.
A friend of mine caught his wife, with my help, cheating on him with one of his friends. (I found where they were meeting.) He beat the crap out of the guy, slapped the girl and wound up in jail for the night. I bailed him out the next day. Later, he was convicted of battery, but sentenced to time served! Plus a fine of $500. The judge was very sympathetic.
He took her back!
A year later, she’s PG. Suspicious me told him to get a DNA test on the child. After birth, he had one done and, guess what? Not his child! He divorced her, then battled her feeble attempts to get child support out of him. She hates my guts, but once a cheater, in my book, always a cheater.
The party line in this case is true. If they cheat on you, pray for the next unfortunate they get involved with - it’s most likely they’ll do it again.
Case in point - dated this one woman who told me early on that she had cheated on her last boyfriend. Her honesty impressed me - hey, this is different, an honest gal! - so I didn’t hightail it immediately.
I could not ever trust a cheater again. I don’t know if it is a defect in my personality, or what. I try to live by this maxim given to me by a very old lady: Always love, always forgive, never judge.
And while I could probably forgive, that doesn’t mean that I would still want to be in a relationship with the person I forgave. It would hurt me terribly.
In YOUR case, maybe. In some others’ cases, maybe. In my case, no. I cheated on my husband. It made us really evaluate some of the things that were wrong with our relationship, and as a result they are now right; we’ve never been closer.
Last time this came up, I said the same thing, and I got a lot of crap. “Yeah, people SAY they’re closer, but ask the spouse what he REALLY thinks.” “How the hell could CHEATING make you CLOSER?” “Your husband must be a doormat or a loser to stay with someone as pathetic as you.”
Shuck-e-darn. I’m still on my first marriage, and it sure looks from this angle as though it’ll be my only marriage, and we’re happy as clams. Who’s the loser?
I’m glad things worked out for you, and it probably shows that both of you are more mature about things than I could be. I have two failed marriages (neither which dissolved because of infidelity by either party), so I guess I am not an expert.
I think it is ok to evaluate the situation and and come to a conclusion on a case by case basis. But if you did it again and he took you back, well, then he would most certainly be a doormat.
You think it’s ok? Phew, I was afraid I had offended the delicate sensibilities of someone I’ve never met and don’t care about.
I did do it more than once. He’s not a doormat. However, since you (and many, many others) are rock-solid convinced that cheating on one’s spouse is the worst possible sin ever ever ever in a marriage, I will not be able to explain why I did it.
My husband and I had a lot of issues to work out. Cheating is not the worst thing that can happen in a relationship. Believe me. And had I not cheated…yea, even more than once…we’d probably be near the end of a VERY messy divorce right now. If any of y’all feel the need to believe that anyone who cheats is scum, and anyone who accepts having been cheated on is a doormat, you’re welcome to believe that. My husband and I will just continue to defy the curve, and lead our happy, close-knit, emotionally secure lives.
“Yeah, sure, emotionally secure,” you snort. Shrug. I don’t have anything to prove to the people who would vilify me OR my husband. I know what I know, he knows what he knows, and we’re both damned thrilled to be with each other.
As a brief side note, Spider Woman: I don’t have anything against people with failed marriages…and since I’m only on my first you’re MORE of an expert. I love and respect the hell out of my mom but she is on her 4th husband…has NOT made the wisest relationship choices, is all.
I think you are a very honest person, and it showed me something by reading your posts. I like to think that even at my age, I am learning every day (and hope to learn until the day I die). Someone who is close to me cheated repeatedly on a spouse, and I would not be surprised if this happened again. It is because of unresolved issues, and I have never criticized this person for the decision to do this. They have been married over twenty years, and I believe they love each other very much. If the other issues (the sexual “cheater” feels emotionally cheated) ever are resolved, I believe the sexual cheating will stop.
I love and respect the hell out of my mom but she is on her 4th husband…has NOT made the wisest relationship choices, is all.