labayer Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 Hi, I'm just asking this out of interest. Does cheating have to do anything with love or not? What do you guys think? The reason I ask is because many people say 'if somebody cheats on you it means they don't love you'. I honestly don't know if that's true. I cheated only once in my life (many years ago) by kissing someone else (no sex) and I have to say that this thesis is a bit true. I felt really bad afterwards, but I also realized that I didn't really loved my ex (boyfriend at that time) anymore. In my current relationship I couldn't even imagine to kiss someone else or even be overly flirty with someone else, just because I love him so much that I wouldn't want to share this kind of things with another man than him. Others on the other hand say that cheating can also happen because of many other reasons. Being too young to be faithful, being bored in a relationship, not getting enough appreciation from the partner etc. Anyway, I'd love to hear your opinion- Does cheating have to do with love? If someone really loves you, do you believe he/she will never cheat on you? Is there any difference between men and women? Thanks!
Egone Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 No, I don't think that is always the reason. I think being unhappy in your own life or with your relationship in it's current state does. In long term relationships, it's almost inevitable to sometimes feel like a new flirt is exciting and your partner doesn't make you feel "that way" anymore. Some people act on it. It doesn't mean they don't deeply love their partner and won't again feel the spark. Cheating, and the new, brings excitement to an otherwise boring life. Love, or lust, is about the most exciting thing one can easily experience. Sometimes when we cheat, we need to ask ourselves what's wrong with our self-confidence? Or do we need to add spice in our life (other than cheating)? 2
Trotters Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 Id say it depends how many times someone cheats. For me if its more than once, can we really call thet true love for your spouse?. Especially if is being kept a secret & lying about it. That to me doesn't seem right.
Arieswoman Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 labayer, You asked;- The reason I ask is because many people say 'if somebody cheats on you it means they don't love you'. Others on the other hand say that cheating can also happen because of many other reasons. I suppose it depends on your definition of "love", which is all things to all people. IMO "love" encompasses other attitudes such as kindness, respect, forgiveness, patience, tolerance and loyalty. If you are in a mutually committed relationship with someone and they cheat on you then they are betraying your trust in them. They are lying to you, they are breaking the agreement you both made (without your knowledge or consent), if you are married they are breaking the vows they made to you before witnesses and to top it all possibly putting you at risk of an STD. The person cheating cheats in the full knowledge that it could irreversibly damage the primary relationship, yet they are still prepared to risk that for a temporary adrenaline rush. None of the above would suggest to me that the person cheating even liked the other partner, never mind loved them. There is never a good reason for cheating. Whatever problems there were in the primary relationship, it did not justify cheating. Cheats cheat because they are selfish, have poor boundaries, are unable to take responsibility for their actions and have weak coping skills. Unless they engage in therapy and do some serious work on themselves they are unlikely to change. 5
Trotters Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 labayer, You asked;- I suppose it depends on your definition of "love", which is all things to all people. IMO "love" encompasses other attitudes such as kindness, respect, forgiveness, patience, tolerance and loyalty. If you are in a mutually committed relationship with someone and they cheat on you then they are betraying your trust in them. They are lying to you, they are breaking the agreement you both made (without your knowledge or consent), if you are married they are breaking the vows they made to you before witnesses and to top it all possibly putting you at risk of an STD. The person cheating cheats in the full knowledge that it could irreversibly damage the primary relationship, yet they are still prepared to risk that for a temporary adrenaline rush. None of the above would suggest to me that the person cheating even liked the other partner, never mind loved them. There is never a good reason for cheating. Whatever problems there were in the primary relationship, it did not justify cheating. Cheats cheat because they are selfish, have poor boundaries, are unable to take responsibility for their actions and have weak coping skills. Unless they engage in therapy and do some serious work on themselves they are unlikely to change. Couldn't have put it better myself. 1
Hardgrind Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 I think the WS often delude themselves because they are trying to hold onto three contradictory concepts while pursuing their affair: a) that they are good people b) that they love their spouse c) that they are not hurting either the AP or the BS Which of course is total bull crap. My STBXW could be an Olympic gymnast with the hoops she has jumped through and the logic she has twisted to try to maintain these three concepts in her outlook. The reality: She is not the good person she thinks she is - she did a terrible thing to both me and to BS of her AP, but she refuses to take responsibility for her actions. It is just something that happened and caught her by surprise. If it had been a one night stand, sure, I could see how this could happen. But for a sustained one year affair, there is nothing accidental about it. She does not love me, in spite of her claims. She loves her AP in spite of her denials. She likes the security I provided her, but she wants to have her fun with the AP, she wants pleasure with the AP, she set up house with the AP, she cooked meals for the AP, she cleaned the AP's bathroom, her mood is keyed to the AP, she works near the AP, she moved into an apartment near the AP, she abandoned our marital home, she rejected all attempts to be intimate with me. She is involved in the AP's family issues but not in mine. Birthdays and holidays are spent with the AP. She would talk to me for 5 minutes a day, and be on phone with AP for hours every night. She was unwilling to work on our marriage. I think very few people would interpret these actions as love for me and not for the AP. She was a factor in both our pending divorce and the divorce of her AP and his BW. She justifies her affair with the AP during a time he was supposed to reconciling with his wife, by claiming she was helping him with his M. So I guess my bottom line is that if the affair is purely physical and is only about sex (basically a series of one night stands) then it may not have anything to do with love. But if there is an emotional connection and the WS starts shifting need fulfillment from the marriage to the affair, it is hard to claim there is not love involved between the WS and the AP. Just to be clear, I am not saying that a spouse is always a bad person if they find they do not love their marriage partner any longer. But if that is the case, they should a) communicate this to their spouse, b) attempt to fix the marriage and c) if this does not work do the honorable thing and divorce before pursuing new relationships. To continue taking the material and emotional support from a spouse while secretly shopping around for someone different is just plain wrong. To me the actions of a person trump the words of a person when they do not match up. Selfishness is usually not compatible with love, and I cannot think of anything more selfish than a LTA. 1
cocorico Posted November 8, 2014 Posted November 8, 2014 In my current relationship I couldn't even imagine to kiss someone else or even be overly flirty with someone else, just because I love him so much that I wouldn't want to share this kind of things with another man than him. I think it is possible to separate love and sex, but if you love someone and are in a R that you have boh agreed and affirmed to be monogamous, you'd have a pretty good idea that having sex with someone else without the consent of your partner is likely to hurt them. If you love someone, would you be willing to hurt them in that way? If you love someone, would you be able to push them to the back of your mind and not consider that your actions would be likely to hurt them? If you love someone, would you be willing to tangle yourself up in all manner of cognitive dissonance to convince yourself you weren't really hurting them...? Or might it be that you don't really love them as much as you thought? 1
velvette Posted November 9, 2014 Posted November 9, 2014 I think it is possible to separate love and sex, but if you love someone and are in a R that you have boh agreed and affirmed to be monogamous, you'd have a pretty good idea that having sex with someone else without the consent of your partner is likely to hurt them. If you love someone, would you be willing to hurt them in that way? If you love someone, would you be able to push them to the back of your mind and not consider that your actions would be likely to hurt them? If you love someone, would you be willing to tangle yourself up in all manner of cognitive dissonance to convince yourself you weren't really hurting them...? Or might it be that you don't really love them as much as you thought? Who knows, could just as easily be that you have a ton of personal issues that make you not very good at loving someone. What normally happens in almost all relationships is there comes some point where the partners are disappointed in each other because they feel some need is not being met. Failure/inability to negotiate that, communicate and resolve it leads to resentment. Resentment kills the feeling of love and leads to selfish behavior because most humans want what they want. Therefore, they begin to act in unloving ways whether its an A or any other kind of dysfunctional behavior. Work through all that and love both as feeling and action can return.
preraph Posted November 9, 2014 Posted November 9, 2014 I believe if you really love someone, the very last thing you want to do is hurt them by betraying them and cheating on them. So yes, I do think it's a good measure of love. We all have sexual impulses, but it's very selfish and narcissistic to choose a momentary sexual experience knowing it will devastate the person you claim you love. IMO, if you feel okay cheating, you aren't all that capable of deep love or you wouldn't do something so shallow that hurts a person who loves you. Love is about wanting to protect and make the other person feel safe. If you really love someone, when they hurt, you hurt. There are many people who have simply never felt that depth of love and don't have enough empathy to keep from cheating and hurting people. 4
Shepp Posted November 9, 2014 Posted November 9, 2014 You don't love someone if you don't feel a sense of loyalty to them. You don't love someone if your instinct isn't to protect them. You don't love someone if you can stab them in the back. You don't love someone if you knock them about to control them. You don't love someone if you cheat on them. If you think any of that's what you do when you love someone then you've got issues! I'd jump in a river to save my dog so you can't tell me you can betray your girl and call that love! 3
Trotters Posted November 9, 2014 Posted November 9, 2014 You don't love someone if you don't feel a sense of loyalty to them. You don't love someone if your instinct isn't to protect them. You don't love someone if you can stab them in the back. You don't love someone if you knock them about to control them. You don't love someone if you cheat on them. If you think any of that's what you do when you love someone then you've got issues! I'd jump in a river to save my dog so you can't tell me you can betray your girl and call that love!. Makes me laugh(well so to speak) when people cheat especially serial cheaters but still say they love their husband/wife. Yeah right, like that's true love
Tayken Posted November 9, 2014 Posted November 9, 2014 @OP.....Rhetorical question, what exactly is love?
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