Trialbyfire Posted June 18, 2008 Posted June 18, 2008 While genetically, we might not be programmed for monogamy, are we genetically programmed to lie and deceive someone we purportedly love and care about? This, to me as an ex-BW, is the worst part of the affair.
Lookingforward Posted June 18, 2008 Posted June 18, 2008 Wow. Very mature. Are you just seeking to get at any BW because you were tossed under the bus, so to speak? as I said......... (typical response) I don't see why you and some others have the need to personalise
pelicanpreacher Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 The apprehended consequences determine the harm and relative degree of marital misconduct. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear the crash, is there a sound? If a spouse has safe sex once with a non-spouse, and the betrayed spouse never learns of the tryst, is there infidelity? In my pragmatic view, consequences make the "sin." As the character Jim Iganatowski responded when asked the same question on the TV show Taxi..."Yes! The bigger the tree the bigger the sound"!
amerikajin Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 While genetically, we might not be programmed for monogamy, are we genetically programmed to lie and deceive someone we purportedly love and care about? This, to me as an ex-BW, is the worst part of the affair. I don't know if it's genetics, per se, but I do think humans have naturally taken advantage of their innate ability to deceive over the years. There might be some natural inclination to do so. Whatever...like I said, we can sit here and say "Nature made me do it" all we want. But most people accept that we live in the modern age and that we're no longer running around chasing bison over the edge of a cliff anymore. It explains the act of cheating perhaps but doesn't justify it. At the same time, how people characterize the act of cheating and how we judge people doesn't necessarily follow a uniform universal code of ethic. It's an act that will, in most situations, offend someone who believes that they had an agreement with their partner to be monogamous. It's an agreement that's been violated. It's no different than backing out of any other agreement. We may find ways to rationalize it, but chances are, the other person's going to be pissed off, and they'll have to decide how to respond. If people can live with the consequences, so be it, I guess. If not, well, consider your actions carefully.
GreenEyedLady Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 I'm conflicted when I think about this subject sometimes. On the one hand, I believe that it's human nature to want to stray, not because we get some sick satisfaction out of wanting to inflict injury upon on our mate, but because we, for whatever reason, just aren't feeling the desire to stay involved with the same person sexually. Is it because we've lost our discipline as a society? Do we need to be brainwashed into accepting monogamy as the only choice? I don't know that I would say it's human nature to stray. When I was married I would never have strayed. It would have been against my nature to stray. It would be breaking an oath that I believed in. I think it's human nature to make a mistake though or to be selfish. I don't think it's because we lost our discipline either. I think it's because there's access to birth control, more women in the work force and more opportunity. And people aren't as afraid of societal backlash. It has changed from the biblical punishment of stoning people to death, to embarrassment at a public event. I don't think people are brainwashed into thinking monogamy is the only way. However, if you're in a committed R, and your partner expects you and you expect your partner to be monogamous, you've made your pact. Simply don't make the committment and then there are no worries.
Lovelybird Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 We're all animals. Humans are. Well, those that are not minerals or vegetables, at any rate... you remind me a joke. a little girl asked her mother, "where do we come from?" mother: God made us then this little girl run to her father, and asked him, "where do we come from?" Father: we evolved from group of monkeys ????? this child is very confused, and run to her mother again, "how can your answers are different?" Mother: that is simple, my ancestor is Adam and Eve, your father's ancestor is monkey I guess it is reality that part of us are like animals, but our spirit is what is important to us, is who we really are. I don't want my animal side take control over my spirit because that would make big mess. when Spirit takes control, every thing would fall into places including our animal side
GPFan Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 Some of us have outgrown our genes. The rest are unfortunately too weak-willed and morally vacuous to raise their genitals out of the gutter. Well, I shouldn't suppose unfortunately. I'm sure they're having a great time thinking only of themselves, and that's perhaps what makes their lives so juicy and succulent.I wonder if it all boils down to the fact that Humans, despite our ideals, are not created equally. Humans are not equally handsome, intelligent, athletic, artistic, etc. Nor are all Humans equally socially or emotionally mature. All Humans may well not be equally spiritually mature (i.e., evolved) either. Some religions recognise the existence of differing soul ages. According to their philosophy, young souls are the ones capable of murder, rape, infidelity (vs. serial monogamy), theft and so on. Old souls have been through those stages and matured spiritually into seeking satisfaction from a life lived with the inner knowing that We are All One. A concept young souls won't be equipped to understand until they have progressed or evolved.
luvmy2ns Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 as I said......... (typical response) I don't see why you and some others have the need to personalise Soooo terribly sorry to disappoint, but for the thousandth time, I am NOT a BS. I just calls 'em like I sees 'em.
luvmy2ns Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 I wonder if it all boils down to the fact that Humans, despite our ideals, are not created equally. Humans are not equally handsome, intelligent, athletic, artistic, etc. Nor are all Humans equally socially or emotionally mature. All Humans may well not be equally spiritually mature (i.e., evolved) either. Some religions recognise the existence of differing soul ages. According to their philosophy, young souls are the ones capable of murder, rape, infidelity (vs. serial monogamy), theft and so on. Old souls have been through those stages and matured spiritually into seeking satisfaction from a life lived with the inner knowing that We are All One. A concept young souls won't be equipped to understand until they have progressed or evolved. Now THIS is an interesting thought. Tell me if I got this right. What you appear to be saying is that perhaps people who have little to no control over their own genitals and where they wander are the UNDER evolved? A tad closer to primates than the rest of us?
OWoman Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 While genetically, we might not be programmed for monogamy, are we genetically programmed to lie and deceive someone we purportedly love and care about? The study findings would suggest so, yes. The female tricks the mate into believing the offspring are his, so that he raises them to maturity. In reality, she's out getting some genetic diversity. This is certainly consistent with the (albeit simplistic) paraphrasing that we're "genetically programmed to lie and deceive someone we purportedly love and care about".
OWoman Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 Soooo terribly sorry to disappoint, but for the thousandth time, I am NOT a BS. I don't see where LF said you were. She was objecting to the way certain POSTERS (I don't see the term BS in her post) felt the need to interpret her posts every time in terms of her own history. Not everything everybody ever posts is about themselves. Some people are able to see beyond their own reflection. Well, SOME of us, at any rate
GreenEyedLady Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 Well, BS doesn't always mean betrayed spouse...
LakesideDream Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 One of the major goals of creating a society (towns, guilds, councils, governments, barter/trade, food storage) is to reduce the need to go to war to steal females allowing a widening of the gene pool. Cities and groups need to grow to signifigant size to accomplish this. In small societies or social circles there is not enough diversity to avoid low birth survival rates, and the effects of inbreeding. For proof of this one only needs to examine the current situation concerning the Muslim community in certain area's of Great Britian. Birth defects and retardation are 15-17 times higher in those segments of society than in the population at large. That's in a modern "Western" country with advanced medicine. The major restaining factors in todays "Western" societies are peer/society pressure, civil contract, and pair bonding. With todays current trend toward minimizing the importance of marriage. It's no suprise to me that fewer people appear willing to suffer difficulty to maintain a marriage. When it stops "feeling good" even for a short period of time, many chose to stop doing "it" altogether. I've noticed that todays marriages are drifting more toward mutual comfort made possible by sharing two incomes rather than as a celebration of romantic love. A stable situation for raising children is also becoming less of a factor. Most of here live in "nanny States" where vast amounts of resources are available from the government to assist "single parents". Again it's no suprise that fewer people are bothering to marry at all, or if married are willing to make sacrifices in life style, and personal freedom to maintain a marriage. If the current trends continue, the romantic importance of marriage may become a secondary consideration. No big suprise. Only a century or two ago, arrainged marriages, and marriages of mutual convience were common. Could it be a continuing downward cycle? Love isn't what it was once cracked up to be.
grogster Posted June 19, 2008 Posted June 19, 2008 One of the major goals of creating a society (towns, guilds, councils, governments, barter/trade, food storage) is to reduce the need to go to war to steal females allowing a widening of the gene pool. Cities and groups need to grow to signifigant size to accomplish this. In small societies or social circles there is not enough diversity to avoid low birth survival rates, and the effects of inbreeding. For proof of this one only needs to examine the current situation concerning the Muslim community in certain area's of Great Britian. Birth defects and retardation are 15-17 times higher in those segments of society than in the population at large. That's in a modern "Western" country with advanced medicine. The major restaining factors in todays "Western" societies are peer/society pressure, civil contract, and pair bonding. With todays current trend toward minimizing the importance of marriage. It's no suprise to me that fewer people appear willing to suffer difficulty to maintain a marriage. When it stops "feeling good" even for a short period of time, many chose to stop doing "it" altogether. I've noticed that todays marriages are drifting more toward mutual comfort made possible by sharing two incomes rather than as a celebration of romantic love. A stable situation for raising children is also becoming less of a factor. Most of here live in "nanny States" where vast amounts of resources are available from the government to assist "single parents". Again it's no suprise that fewer people are bothering to marry at all, or if married are willing to make sacrifices in life style, and personal freedom to maintain a marriage. If the current trends continue, the romantic importance of marriage may become a secondary consideration. No big suprise. Only a century or two ago, arrainged marriages, and marriages of mutual convience were common. Could it be a continuing downward cycle? Love isn't what it was once cracked up to be. I disagree: "love" continues to do quite well as the infidelity threads attest. It's "marriage" that "isn't what it was once cracked up to be."
NoIDidn't Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 I think of morals not so much in terms of 'right' and 'wrong', but in terms of how people best make peace with each other. I don't agree completely, but I do agree. I don't think of right or wrong only, but keeping the peace and safety is an important part of society. Animal scientists have documented how some animal behaviors led to the deaths of entire groups of a species because of infectious diseases. Ever notice how dogs sniff each others' rear ends? Imagine if a new dog joined with a disease..... So, yeah I do think cheating is wrong on a moral level, but its moreso inconvenient. I don't think about the wrong of it as the drama it causes. I think this is what the rules of society are trying to accomplish - minimizing the drama that leads to conflict.
GPFan Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 Now THIS is an interesting thought. Tell me if I got this right. What you appear to be saying is that perhaps people who have little to no control over their own genitals and where they wander are the UNDER evolved? A tad closer to primates than the rest of us? Well, um no, not exactly. The conversation progressed to the point where analysis was being done as to why some people behave in a manner that others can't conceive of. Let's use murder as an example. I daresay, unless it were self-defense or accident, none of us posting here can conceive of a situation where we would be responsible for another losing their life. Yet news accounts inform us of killings over gang territory, designer clothes/shoes as well as crimes of passion. How can one person justify intentionally killing another when the next person over cannot if they are 'equal' in every way? Logically and sans judgment, I find this impossible. They are not equal. The theory of soul evolution suggests that as a soul acquires experience and knowledge, it's response to challenging circumstances change.
Lovelybird Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 God looks at marriage very seriously, marriage is honor in his eyes
luvmy2ns Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 I daresay, unless it were self-defense or accident, none of us posting here can conceive of a situation where we would be responsible for another losing their life. Yet news accounts inform us of killings over gang territory, designer clothes/shoes as well as crimes of passion. Well, first off, I doubt there are seriously any "ganstahs" in here posting. Any Ted Bundy types would be complete sociopaths so while they may tell all on LS they never would, in the deepest recesses of their mind they are already plotting their next thrill kill. Therefore, the odds that you would come across someone on LS being able to conceive of committing murder (or admitting it) would, of course, be lower than that of the entire population. Actually, I DO think those who have little to no control over their own genitals ARE a tad lower on the evolutionary scale. I mean, really, are we completely governed by our own physiological urges? Do we not have a brain and free will? I was invited to share some mutual enjoyment last Saturday with a guy 20 years my junior who I've known for some time. A real cutie. Did I go when I could have and my sweety would have been none the wiser and I'm sure it would have been crazy wild sex? Nope. Because I made a choice to give only my honey the love he deserves and keep myself only for him like I promised. It's really not that difficult. We just have to take the initiative to think outside the circumference of our own skulls. A touch of integrity helps, of course.
grogster Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 In a Darwinian sense, people who cheat are not less "evolved" than their faithful counterparts. Infidelity has persisted in human history for thousands of yours. The behavior has proven itself adaptive. No surprise, there, because it's tied to both survival and reproductive success. As for the "evolution" of the "soul", the less said the better.
OWoman Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 I daresay, unless it were self-defense or accident, none of us posting here can conceive of a situation where we would be responsible for another losing their life. Some of us have been in war situations, which others may consider murder. And some of us have had situations in our past where we've seriously considered murder as an option, but walked away from it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Owl Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 Desperate times call for desperate measures. Agreed. BUT...the choice to shoot while sitting in a war zone is a FAR more 'desperate time' than contemplating the choice to cheat on your spouse.
amerikajin Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 Yeah, I think that discussions about evolutionary behavior are interesting but they're not necessarily relevant to the current situation. By definition, evolution is a process through which creatures necessarily adapt and 'improve' if you will. It could be that deception and polygamy intersected quite conveniently at a stage in our development when such an intersection was necessary, but is that the case now? I think that's the question. What about the here and now. We live in houses, not caves; we perform surgery under the supervision of trained doctors with scalpels and anesthetic, not making a trip to the local 'medicine man' using a sharpened stone. At the same time, I don't entirely dismiss the discussion or relevance of evolution either. I think that even if one can conclude that cheating is 'wrong', per se, I think we have to acknowledge the fact that the urge is there and that it sometimes gets the better of us. I guess I don't have a problem with pointing out that cheating is wrong, but I do find that a lot of the condemnation goes way over the top, as if cheaters are ax murderers or corporate crooks - they're not. They're just human. In some cases a bit selfish, immature and lacking in relationship skills, but not evil. I certainly can understand why someone would be pissed if they found out they'd been cheated on, and they'd be well within their rights to send that person packing, but I don't think it's always worth getting bitter about. Obviously, it would depend on the circumstances. If kids and assets are involved and the history of the relationship is lengthy, obviously, that invites bitterness if that's been thrown away. But I don't know...I think people just get on their high horses too much sometimes. I can think of greater sins.
bish Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 I read this article on the Internet about the behavior of our closest animal relatives in the evolutionary chain and got to thinking. Maybe, in some very complex way, there is a reason for cheating that is actually built into our genes...into the way we are. Yes, of course we all have free will and can make our own decisions but there are many things about human behavior that just seem uncontrollable at times. The article ----> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25218592/ Don't know whether cheating is an evolutionary thing or not. What I do know is cheating is a trait of horrible character.
amerikajin Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 Don't know whether cheating is an evolutionary thing or not. What I do know is cheating is a trait of horrible character. I disagree. My dad was a 'cheater' and it caused our family (myself included) pain, but I wouldn't at all say he was a horrible person or had horrible character. Additionally, as I have said before, I think it is easy for people who are the victims of cheating to assume that they automatically have the moral high ground by default, and that they should bear no responsibility for the state of their relationship. Although there might be some situations in which someone is just plain conned into believing that they're with a knight in shining armor only to find out that he isn't what he's cracked up to be, I'd say in a lot of the cases I've seen, the warning signs of cheating were there all along -- which isn't to say that the 'betrayed' spouse deserved to be cheated on, but that the signs were there and apparently ignored. The egregiousness of the act, in my opinion, has to be judged on a case by case basis. I can think of cases where some cheaters were just complete a-holes and flaunted their sexual desires and mistreated people who really cared about them and trusted them; I can also think of other situations in which the cheating was inevitable, and it had as much to do with how the so-called 'betrayed' spouse treated his/her partner. People are people. If they're getting shafted or neglected, you may or may not have the right to expect fidelity - I don't know...that's not really my call to make. But over time, it's naive to expect that person to remain committed to someone when it should be obvious they're not getting the satisfaction they expect in a relationship.
amerikajin Posted June 20, 2008 Posted June 20, 2008 An additional thought... I think that one reason why people are so wounded by cheating is that they assume that the person in front of them could never do such a thing, and I think it's because we want to believe in this fairy tale of romance. There was a time when I believed in such a thing, but I've also matured a lot since the days when I would go to sleep at night wishing there was a 'soul mate' out there for me. The reality is, you need to go into a relationship with your eyes wide open. It doesn't mean you should distrust or be suspicious or paranoid, but it means being realistic. When I do finally get married, I know that as much as I would like to believe that 'it could never happen to me...no, not her', it very well could, no matter how long I date her, no matter how much I vet her character. The bottom line is that people are people. Human relationships are complex and they change over time. If two people don't adapt, the relationship is increasingly at risk. I actually have a good buddy of mine back in my old hometown who's absolutely faithful to his wife (as far as I know anyway), but he is miserable. She treats him like crap. She calls him a fat@ss to his face. She puts him down. And while I would agree that he is sometimes immature and perhaps brings some of the animosity on himself, I think she is a right c*nt of a woman for treating him the way she does sometimes. She's not evil but she just treats him like garbage at times, though in fairness to her I don't see what goes on within their walls. Whatever...he's married with three kids...it's not like he can just do the honorable thing and divorce without taking on a lot of consequences. If he cheated on her, I wouldn't find it dishonorable at all. I'd say she's probably getting what she deserves. Similarly, I knew this couple who were friends of my older brother. I mean, they used to put on a show every time they would have guests over, insulting each other and putting each other down. She was a bit more educated and, quite frankly, more intelligent than her now ex-husband. She would put him down and insult his intelligence or lack thereof, and he would of course respond by calling her a few four-lettered names. I don't see how they ever decided to get married, but they did (thank God they didn't have offspring). Anyway, he eventually ended sleeping with his now ex-wife's sister's friend, if I recall correctly. While I wouldn't defend what he did, it was entirely predictable. She's just as much to blame for their marriage woes as he was. There's no moral high ground, except that she can use the label 'cheater' to describe her ex. And she knows that the stigma attached to it is powerful. But as far as I'm concerned, it's more stigma than substance. If people want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about relationships, they have to look hard, and look in the mirror, even if they assume they might have the moral high ground. It's so easy to just say "I'm the betrayed spouse, you're the immoral cheater, so you should get on your knees and grovel - and then maybe we can talk only about what you did wrong in this relationship and how you owe me now and what you have to do to get back in my good graces. Though please know, I'll probably hold a grudge for years. If you can live with that, maybe I won't sue your ass in divorce court." I mean, come on...that's just lame.
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