Capris Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Hello. Ive made this post months ago in the OW/M category. The title is on purpose, to attract your attention, although it still is my main concern. Why is cheating bad? Are we a monogamous lspecies, or did we just follow some sort of rules that led us here? Before i go deeper, i have to admit that i was "the other woman", a status that many of you hate, logically, yet do not know the pain that follows that "Status". edit: No, im not making this post to make me feel better, i feel awful.I know what i did was wrong even if i loved him to the deepest. Despite that, i understand that cheating is going on every where. Anyways. Why is cheating bad? Should we re-define human relationships? cause i only see cheating, wherever i go. Is it only me?Am i posting on the wrong category? Dunno. I think im not. Please do consider thinking about this harsh question. Imagine a world where cheating wasnt a deal breaker. As i read from another thread: Fire away!
Furious Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 I look at the broader term of cheating. Cheating on an exam. Cheating a customer. Cheating in a sport. Cheating a business partner. Cheating on your spouse. All of the above break a moral code, humanity and society as a whole depend on honesty and trust. It is obvious that there are solutions available other than easy and instant shortcuts that benefit a cheater. 8
Betrayed&Stayed Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Because when I married my wife she vowed in front of me, her pastor, her family, my family, our friends, and Almighty God that she would "foresake all others" until death do us part. 5
Steen719 Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Well, maybe if you lived our lives and had been betrayed, lied to, had marital resources used for an affair partner, be left to pick up pieces of children who feel they were left as well (and sometimes are), have extreme financial difficulties as a result of a messy, unfair divorce, you will understand why cheating is wrong. If you think it is ok to cheat, wonderful...find someone who agrees and cheat away. For the rest of us who are left picking up the pieces of our lives, your question is insulting. You can rationalize, justify and explain your point of view and it won't matter. I had an agreement not to cheat, as BH has said and most everyone else here did, too. An agreement is an agreement in my world, even if it it not in yours or other cheaters. I'm not mad, I am not firing away, and in fact, I feel sorry for you. You took crumbs and are justifying it. 6
BetrayedH Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 (edited) I agree with all of the previous posters. I can understand questioning the concept of monogamy (particularly in light of the amount of cheating I now know about) but my wife had an agreement with me. I had dedicated my LIFE to her (no small thing) and sacrificed a lot of myself for her and our family. Not only did she break that agreement but she went so far as to keep me keeping my end of the bargain while she did some of the most insulting, disrespectful, hurtful, and downright dangerous things to me possible. This is what she does to the one person in life that has dedicated to her the most? It's not ethical and it's immoral and it's painful. To answer your question, yes, it is bad. At 42 years old, I am starting life all over again and in my case, without even any of the physical possessions I had obtained over those years. And I'm doing it with two small children whom I had to lie to (saying that it was no one's fault, people grow apart, we tried, sometimes this is best - and other bull**** I don't believe and hate that I am now teaching to my children). It sure as hell is "bad" for them. My wife never should have made this agreement and if she found she was unhappy, she should have fixed the marriage or she should have had the respect to discuss with me in a respectful way that she couldn't stay. But instead she chose to cheat and dropped a nuke on her family which I am left to clean up. It absolutely, positively sucks. Period. I didn't deserve this. Edited June 7, 2012 by BetrayedH 7
Ann_Igma Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 I don't think that cheating and being polygamous are the same thing at all. If people want to be in a polygamous relationship and all are open and aware of the situation, I see no problem. Cheating, to me, involves lying and betrayal. In many cases, the lying and manipulation borders on (or even IS) emotional abuse and can be very psychologically damaging to the person who has been betrayed. If my husband had told me from the start that he was interested in someone else yet still loved me (this is what he told her, not an assumption of mine), we could have resolved the situation quite quickly. We could have split up fairly amicably (and easily! We had no children, and I told him repeatedly I would let him have the house, car, all the furniture..), or opened our relationship, or whatever other decision we may have reached. Instead he decided to hide things from me. He grew colder and more distant, even being uncharacteristically mean at times. I started worrying about what was wrong, constantly trying to figure out why the sudden change. Was it something I had done wrong? Was he sinking into depression? Was there some sort of medical problem that would explain a sudden change in personality? When I first discovered evidence of an affair, it wasn't smoking-gun type evidence, so it was explained away. I was told I was crazy. I was being overly jealous of something that was nothing more than a friendship. I started doubting myself, feeling bad about myself, trying to improve problems in myself that didn't even exist! My story actually got much worse from there up to the point when I finally gave up on the M, but I think that what I've included is a good start to explaining why cheating bad. The early days of my story is fairly typical of the stories I've read/heard from other betrayed spouses. The lies are hurtful, blame and negativity are often shifted onto the deceived partner, and the entire situation is unfair to at least one party. These days, divorce is acceptable in many parts of the world, living together without being committed by marriage is also accepted in many parts of the world, polygamy is at least tolerated in many of those same places. I see no reason why the lying and cheating needs to go on in those areas, when the alternatives exist. 7
Ms. Red Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Hello. Ive made this post months ago in the OW/M category. The title is on purpose, to attract your attention, although it still is my main concern. Why is cheating bad? Are we a monogamous lspecies, or did we just follow some sort of rules that led us here? Before i go deeper, i have to admit that i was "the other woman", a status that many of you hate, logically, yet do not know the pain that follows that "Status". edit: No, im not making this post to make me feel better, i feel awful.I know what i did was wrong even if i loved him to the deepest. Despite that, i understand that cheating is going on every where. Anyways. Why is cheating bad? Should we re-define human relationships? cause i only see cheating, wherever i go. Is it only me?Am i posting on the wrong category? Dunno. I think im not. Please do consider thinking about this harsh question. Imagine a world where cheating wasnt a deal breaker. As i read from another thread: Fire away! So you were the OW but have you ever been cheated on? Why is cheating bad? Because it's dishonest. As you can see from the above responses it hurts bad to be cheated on. Just because it's common and you see it everywhere doesn't make it right or not bad. 4
96nole Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Posts like these are either from someone who has never experienced the betrayed side, or just don't have any empathy or regard for others. I don't mean this as an insult to the original poster. Capris' comments remind me of when my XW said that when she and her dirtbag were making out at the beach, it wasn't "breaking the sanctity of marriage since it wasn't intercourse". At that point my ex was so disconnected with me that she no longer has any regard for me or my feelings. When I asked her how she would feel if I was making out with another woman, she really didn't have much to say. She was so disconnected that I probably could have been making out with someone else in front of her at that moment and she wouldn't have cared. At one point my wife loved me very much. But she not longer had/has and empathy or regard for me. I am confused though. You said you wonder why cheating is bad, but you also say you feel awful. What is making you feel awful? Like other have already said, don't confuse cheating with an open relationship. They are two very different things. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to live in a world where cheating wasn't considered bad or a deal breaker. Because "cheating" involves lies, betrayal, back-stabbing, disregard, dishonesty, and disrespect. I can't live with someone like that. That's why I divorced her sorry whoring ass.
Radagast Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Calling it "cheating" implies that it is dishonest and against the moral code considered to govern it. Like, cheating on an exam, where the rules state that one should behave in one way and someone chooses to flout those, gaining unfair advantage over those who behave according to the rules. Sure, you could change the rules to allow the new behaviour, which would then no longer be "cheating". I differentiate between infidelity and cheating. For it to be cheating, all parties must consider it to be against the rules and this must be the moral code that all agree govern it. I'm not talking about swinging or open relationships necessarily, where it's de rigeur or even obligatory to include other partners beyond just your spouse. I'm thinking more of people's personal moralities and views on relationships and institutions like marriage. Not everyone who gets married buys into all of that, and sometimes you know that you and your spouse both do not because you had that conversation when you decided to get married after living together for years, because of other reasons (like changes to tax law, or sometimes the birth of children, or issues around property, as examples). In that case although the relationship has never been declared an "open marriage" because both parties haven't felt the need to drag many third parties into the bedroom throughout the history of the relationship there is still an understanding that the "marriage" is not governed by the moral code which determines that monogamy is the only way or that the wife should be subservient to the husband or that spouses "own" each other or any of the other imperatives stated in traditional vows. Both partners simply regard the marriage as an administrative convenience and regard their relationship as the same as it was before, and their own morality and views on marriage as the same as they were before. If people like that had before the marriage regarded monogamy as unnatural or the institution of marriage as oppressive and had made it clear at the point of getting married that they were not changing their minds on those points of view then engaging in infidelity would not be cheating, in my view. It would be showing the same disregard for the institution of marriage that they had held consistently throughout their relationship both predating the marriage and since. Their spouse would know their views on the matter even if they did not know about the particular instance of unfaithfulness and may well be conducting themselves similarly if they shared the same views, which one would presume they did unless they had communicated that to the contrary that their views had somehow changed over time and they now felt differently, especially if they had changed their mind and now expected their spouse to behave in a different manner simply because their own views had changed.
2sure Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Cheating is always bad. Cheating at cards is bad. Cheating on an exam is bad. Cheating on your taxes...well, you get it. Cheating is breaking the rules secretly. The rules that others are following or the rules that you agreed to, the rules you want others to follow. Sex with others is not bad. Even when youre married. It only becomes cheating when you break the rules that you agreed to with your partner, secretly. 7
Radagast Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Sex with others is not bad. Even when youre married. It only becomes cheating when you break the rules that you agreed to with your partner, secretly. I think this is important. If one person unilaterally changes the rules whichever way they are in the wrong. If you have agreed to be monogamous and one person is unfaithful that is wrong. If you have agreed that monogamy is unnatural and marriage oppressive and then one person expects you to be monogamous with them simply because they changed their mind over the years without telling you and they then get upset when you tell them you haven't been monogamous with them then they are in the wrong, not you, since they were the one that broke the agreement, not you.
Radagast Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 while this makes sense, the issue becomes did the party in question who felt this way actually communicate this t their prospective spouse, or did they just keep this opinion to themselves? Were they upfront with their future spouse and share their views on marriage? Many people would choose not to get married if they knew that their spouse didn't consider monogamy in marriage to be important. Some would, but many wouldn't...but at least if their future spouse was upfront with them, they know where they stood. In the scenario I am describing (having lived it) both shared the same views and both did not consider monogamy important, and lived together as a couple without marrying for years and only married because of changes to tax law but understood that marrying would not change anything about their relationship beyond the savings on tax. It was quite a common scenario for couples of our kind of age at that time in this country so it is by no means an unusual case.
bentnotbroken Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 I see the playground mentality continues to thrive no matter how old people get. It is wrong because of the lying and secrecy. Let's keep one (BS) two (BS & AP) parties in the dark. To simple rationalize it as everyone else is doing it(which by the way isn't true) is to continue to act like a child wanting their way and everyone else be damned. 4
Mme. Chaucer Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Do you value honesty and being true to your word? Do you value that in other people? If you did, you'd have the answer to your own question. 1
Benedictatu Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 When you are young and you all believe that marriage is slavery then no it is not bad it is fighting the system and finding yourself and you can all laugh it off later but when you are older and about to retire and your husband leaves you for some piece of fluff and you are left with nothing then it is wrong wrong wrong and I hope they get theirs.
Owl Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 In the scenario I am describing (having lived it) both shared the same views and both did not consider monogamy important, and lived together as a couple without marrying for years and only married because of changes to tax law but understood that marrying would not change anything about their relationship beyond the savings on tax. It was quite a common scenario for couples of our kind of age at that time in this country so it is by no means an unusual case. So, your (then) wife wasn't emotionally devestated and traumatized to learn that you'd been involved with someone else and had fallen in love with her, and planned on leaving your wife to be with this other woman (your current wife)? The two of you were in agreemant on being non-monogamous, and falling in love with someone else wasn't a violation of that agreemant? I ask this...but I also do realize that you've posted quite a bit about how emotionally unstable your ex-wife is, so that could negate some of this. But the bottom line is that it's not cheating if both parties in the relationship have discussed and defined (not ASSUMED) what the boundaries are and are not in their interactions with others. And...if either party has changed their views over time (which obviously can happen), that relationship needs to be DISCUSSED AND RE-NEGOTIATED...BEFORE violations of the original agreemant are acceptable. In other words...if you do it without your partner's knowledge and consent...it's cheating. If you do it with your partner's knowledge and approval...any hurt feelings are on them, not you. 2
KathyM Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 If people want to have an open marriage, they should at least have the guts to inform their spouse. To lead your spouse to believe that you are upholding your vows of fidelity and you require them to uphold their vows while going behind their back with somebody else is very selfish and dishonest. It takes away the right of the BS to have an honest relationship, it breaks the most important vow in the marriage, it breaks the trust the BS has for her husband, and it takes away her right to choose whether or not to be in a marriage where infidelity is involved. The WS is deceivingly holding the BS to a standard that the WS will not uphold himself. That's very unfair and selfish. Do you really see nothing wrong with this scenario and how unfair and damaging it is to the spouse, and the family when the spouse discovers the affair? 3
irin Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 to me cheating is simply cowering if you want go be with someone else whether its sexually, emotionally whatever, just say and go. no need to betray the promise that you willingly made, to be committed to one person. ive never really met anyone in real life that has been involved in infidelity, but if it happen to me, i would forgive, but lose all respect for that person, and i cant be with someone i dont respect.
woinlove Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 I differentiate between infidelity and cheating. These two words mean the same thing, just the first is more formal and the latter is colloquial. Neither applies to romantic, emotional or physical attachments outside of marriage which are agreed to by the spouses. That it is not cheating, nor infidelity. In my opinion, it is the dishonesty, deception, disloyalty and lack of respect, that makes cheating/infidelity so wrong. I don't think it matters much whether the lies are direct or implied (e.g. lies of omission which lead the other spouse to believe they are in a monogamous marriage). 4
Radagast Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 So, your (then) wife wasn't emotionally devestated and traumatized to learn that you'd been involved with someone else and had fallen in love with her, and planned on leaving your wife to be with this other woman (your current wife)? The two of you were in agreemant on being non-monogamous, and falling in love with someone else wasn't a violation of that agreemant? I ask this...but I also do realize that you've posted quite a bit about how emotionally unstable your ex-wife is, so that could negate some of this. But the bottom line is that it's not cheating if both parties in the relationship have discussed and defined (not ASSUMED) what the boundaries are and are not in their interactions with others. And...if either party has changed their views over time (which obviously can happen), that relationship needs to be DISCUSSED AND RE-NEGOTIATED...BEFORE violations of the original agreemant are acceptable. In other words...if you do it without your partner's knowledge and consent...it's cheating. If you do it with your partner's knowledge and approval...any hurt feelings are on them, not you. We had certainly discussed and defined the boundaries because she was not keen on getting married as she saw marriage as oppressive and only agreed on the condition that our relationship would remain the same as it was before, with none of the "traditional" expectations of how one ought to feel or behave. And yes she did change her views over time as became evident later but at no point did she discuss them with me or renegotiate, she simply assumed that because her ideas had changed I should fit in with what she had come to expect me to think and feel and do. So she was very upset when I stood by our original agreement since my views had not changed and was outraged that I had not had some hotline into her head to know that hers had. In my view it was incumbent on her to say she wanted things differently, rather than just assuming my views should change with hers over time. She, of course, feels differently.
Radagast Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 These two words mean the same thing, just the first is more formal and the latter is colloquial. They may to you, they do not to the English language. in·fi·del·i·ty [in-fi-del-i-tee] noun, plural in·fi·del·i·ties. 1. marital disloyalty; adultery. 2. unfaithfulness; disloyalty. 3. lack of religious faith, especially Christian faith. 4. a breach of trust or a disloyal act; transgression. cheat [cheet] verb (used with object) 1. to defraud; swindle: He cheated her out of her inheritance. 2. to deceive; influence by fraud: He cheated us into believing him a hero. 3. to elude; deprive of something expected: He cheated the law by suicide. Infidelity is to do with loyalty, cheating is to do with honesty. Very different concepts, even if some choose to conflate them.
Owl Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Cheating...in the context of relationships...has to do with both loyalty AND honesty. No confusion between the two in that context.
Owl Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 We had certainly discussed and defined the boundaries because she was not keen on getting married as she saw marriage as oppressive and only agreed on the condition that our relationship would remain the same as it was before, with none of the "traditional" expectations of how one ought to feel or behave. This is something I don't get. If you feel that something is a negative...then why participate in it? If she felt that marriage was oppressive...she should have never married. That simple. In my view it was incumbent on her to say she wanted things differently, rather than just assuming my views should change with hers over time. She, of course, feels differently. I agree. If either party changes how they feel/view the relationship...for whatever reason...that needs to be COMMUNICATED and the relationship needs to be re-negotiated...or ended.
Woggle Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Because it is dishonest and a betrayal of a person's trust. I don't why people who don't want to be monogamous just don't have open relationships or sleep around honestly. There are plenty of people who want the same thing so why not do it with a clear conscience?
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