Is infidelity the worst thing?

[TheGuard13]

I think many societies, because of their ideas about monogamy, possession, etc, and the way they maintain self esteem and self respect, have made it the worst thing that can happen.

 

Objectively, I don't think it should be.

 

But people can't help how they feel when they grow up thinking certain things are awful, insurmountable or incredibly painful things.

[BlueIris]

Personally, I’d consider abuse worse than infidelity for the reasons OP gave about recovery time. It’s hard for me to compare since I don’t think anyone cheated on me. I think I’d feel disdain or contempt for a partner who cheated and wouldn’t internalize it as much- but I haven’t been tested.

 

Abuse is both a betrayal of trust and a threat to your personal and psychological safety since it involves conditioning and gaslighting that can affect your sanity. It takes a long time to undo and I doubted myself for years after- even though I wasn’t even with him long. Also, there was very little social support after having been abused. I was lucky to have support, and even his friends and family backed me up and were protective. But lots of people write you off, don’t want to hear about it, or see abuse victims as inherently broken or faulty for life, no matter the circumstances. So that can compound the effects and make recovery more difficult as you deal with shame and more self-doubt, long after and far beyond the abuse itself.

 

So to me personally, I’d consider abuse worse, but both are terrible and share lots of characteristics.

[badkarma2013]

Death is a pretty horrific thing to happen in a M.

 

Betrayal of trust is right up there, to be sure. That can occur in many ways without penises and vaginas being in play, or even another person being involved.

 

Infidelity and any deceptions attendant to it are, for many, an experience more painful than death. For those people, I would opine infidelity is indeed the worst thing that could happen in their marriage. Their holocaust.

 

It depends on the people.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

“There is not a more powerful weapon upon this earth capable of inflicting more damage, pain and suffering than a betrayal of the heart.”

― Mark Boyer

 

 

This I believe...for I have lived it...

[preraph]

Disrespect is the worst thing in a marriage, and both abuse and infidelity are disrespect which will justifiably cause lack of trust, which usually cannot be regained.

[Ninjainpajamas]

I think the question isn't whether it's the worst thing that can happen but whether that person believes it's the worse that can happen to themselves in a relationship.

 

I've seen people far more comfortable with destructive, toxic and chaotic relationships but oh no when "infidelity" occurs it's all of a sudden this cataclysmic event that tears through the earth...as if things were going well, but for some reason people imagine there's some kind of line that's for some reason off-limits and crossing that line of fidelity is like a step too far...although everything else under the sun has occurred in that relationship. Who stated these rules? you?

 

I think people do blow out the act of "cheating" way out of proportion and personalize it way too deeply and internally...they make it about themselves, they arbor this pain and torment and translate it into all kinds of meanings that they conduct and orchestrate in their twisted and lost mines creating an symphony of self-pity and loathing...they make it about this "betrayal", this unspeakable act of treason and soul-ripping...when that person was more than likely not acting out to inflict some direct harm upon their SO as some sort of revenge or try to drive the knife through your heart, but to satisfy one of their needs within themselves or that was lacking from that relationship...or they were just suffering or dealing with something within themselves that they could never talk to you about. How does that directly correlate to you as the SO? how is that the most cataclysmic pain ever? why do you make it just about you?

 

We're all adults...have known, been or been with cheaters before...it's a very real part of the world, it's not some shady person standing in the shadows but your grandfather/mother, father/mother, brother/sister and whoever else...it's not some mythical person from the depths of hell who wishes to inflict the most pain upon it's "victims"..so why is this such a shocking revelation when it occurs? because it was kept in secrecy? people hide all sorts of things and bury secrets within themselves that they hold till their death and yet we are "surprised" somehow when it occurs?

 

It's like car-accidents...they happen all the time, we see it all the time but you still have this illusion that it could never happen to you...somehow your special, or your car is protected by a special spiritual bubble provided by your super unique aura being super awesome you or something...but when it happens to YOU, it's like *gasp*... omgod, how could this happen to me! why me and not that other random person over there who counts much less to me, why special me?

 

We know the consequences and reality of life and people...why do we pretend so many things cannot or will not happen to us? and why do you give so much power outside of yourself and your own choices, your own responsibility and the responsibility or desire or your SO to withhold theirs by their own choices.

 

Why do you believe that because the person you are with said their vows or gave their trust within that moment that it's as easy as saying it and that automatically makes it forever? is life that easy and simple to you?...when we all know that people are imperfect, and life is imperfect...people make mistakes, are tempted and do things for themselves that consequently hurt the people around them.

 

It doesn't make it right, or even justified..but that's people. Why do people continue to live in a Disney fantasy world when their relationships are falling apart? why do people tolerate abuse and ignore main issues and then are continuously surprised when it self-destructs? why do people continue to believe that the person they know on the outside is the same person as on the inside?

 

This is the real world people...ANYONE can betray, and even you can inflict pain on someone else and may betray at some point in your life (of course not you, never...I know I know) but I am quite absolutely certain that you already have hurt someone in your life deeply and will continue to do so.

 

Everything is different based on the perspective you are looking at things from. But what I don't understand is why people place so much faith, trust, and this mystical magic into this one thing that so could easily break everything else.

 

There is only one person you can trust in this world 100 percent....and that's yourself. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't take the chance of trusting someone with everything I possibly could, but I am not a child, I am conscience of the fact that they can hurt me. Putting that kind of trust in someone else is merely setting yourself up to be severely hurt and feeling "betrayed" and IMO way too much responsibility for one human being...when they can do something intentionally or unintentionally that ultimately breaks you into pieces and you take entirely person from your perspective.

 

The reason this is important to understand...is not just so that you can just forgive others, but so you can forgive yourself. I feel people go through this emotional rollercoaster for completely separate reasons than the actual infidelity, I think it comes from somewhere within yourself that you have placed too much on that has caused you to be so damaged, something within you that has created that kind of vulnerability to exude these types of dramatic and breaking yourself down behaviors...because if you were secure within yourself and it was just about their act of infidelity...it may hurt like a sonunvab#$@#$ and be extremely hard to ever forgive that person for it, but you're not going to throw yourself down the emotional black hole of death over it, you should be able to detach yourself from it at some point or there's something problematic within you that lets it be about much more than what it actually is.

[Mal78]

But infidelity IS a choice, you chose to do it. It doesn't just happen as an act of nature.

 

It's the Wayward's choice. Not the betrayed.

[newmoon]

i don't really get the OPs question. how you determine if infidelity trumps abuse, whether mental or physical? neither is better or worse than the other. both are equally bad.

[AlwaysGrowing]

My first marriage I was 18 years old. The marriage/relationship was slightly less dysfunctional than my FOO. I accepted the physical/emotional abuse as life...or more accurately turned a blind eye to what it all actually meant and my role in it. When I discovered the cheating I can honestly say it did not hurt that much. I cried less about that then the abuse.

 

I tried to leave and had a shotgun put to my head and was told that he would rather see me dead than with someone else. Funny how all through my childhood and dysfunctional marriage I never viewed the abuse as life threatening but I did the shotgun. Maybe, because I "survived" each abusive episode since childhood I never put the proper "weight" to physical abuse as I should have. I didn't know anything other than abuse-survivedthatepisode.

 

I also realized that I never loved my first husband, he was only a way out of my family home. I also realized his cheating never hurt me because I never loved him anyways.....heck I didn't even like him! The most important realization that I came to at the ripe old age of 20, was that I now had choice (unlike when I was a child)(thanks to Phil Donahue talk shows).

 

It was the most empowering realization I have had to date in my life....the concept of choice. I could choose to end being someone else's punching bag. I could leave! As a child I never could. So, yes I did not choose the abuse...however I did choose to stay. Staying was my role in why the abuse continued. Expecting him to stop was putting the responsibility for my safety in the very person who was threatening it. When I took responsibility for putting myself in fist reach of my abuser is when my life changed. That is when I did what a reasonable/healthy adult would do.......I left....and never looked back.

 

In my case the cheating wasn't the worst thing he did...it was one of many. I was already 95% down the "hurt pit" ....the last 5 meter plunge wasn't that far.

 

For others, they didn't have that level of dysfunction to begin with...so they fell the whole 100 meters at once in the "hurt pit". They hit bottom at a terminal velocity speed. So of course they would feel it differently than I did.

[salparadise]

It really depends on a person's perspective, which is often shaped by the larger societal norms. In Victorian England's aristocratic society, sex was often viewed as the man's need and the wife's duty. So after they were done having children a man might kindly take a mistress and alleviate his wife of this obligation without it being seen as a horrible transgression.

 

In modern cultures worldwide the perspective is variable. Here is an article by a British woman describing her amazement of French culture after she married a Frenchman.

 

As I was going through my divorce I had a female therapist who immigrated from Eastern Europe. We talked a lot about sex––can't believe she was getting paid the rate she was to drive me nuts with these titillating conversations (she was hot a really sexy accent). She told me that she was named for her father's mistress. She went on to say that it's almost unbelievable to her how puritanical Americans are about sex. I'm pretty sure that she knew that she turned me on, and that was almost inviting me to make the move. She hugged me after each session they became more than casual hugs. I never did; that's one woman I'll always wonder about.

Edited January 31, 2015 by salparadise

[No Limit]

She told me that she was named for her father's mistress.

 

Sorry but if that's true, her mother must have been one of the greatest pushovers I've ever heard of. More slave than partner.

[Woggle]

Outside of abuse it is pretty much the worst thing you can do to your partner. It completely destroys the trust in a relationship and once that is gone everything collapses.

[truncated]

I often wonder why there is this assumption that,in cultures where it's considered acceptable for men to have a mistress, that the wife is always fine with it.

 

I can't speak to every culture out there, but i have spoken with wives from cultures where this happens, and I can assure you they felt every bit hurt and betrayed as anyoe else, but had been conditioned by their society to not talk about it. They were taught that women should simply accept it and expect that this would happen so they should basically "shut up about it."

 

As for which feels worse infidelity or abuse, that is really subjective, and up to the individual experiencing it to decide.

[truncated]

It really depends on a person's perspective, which is often shaped by the larger societal norms. In Victorian England's aristocratic society, sex was often viewed as the man's need and the wife's duty. So after they were done having children a man might kindly take a mistress and alleviate his wife of this obligation without it being seen as a horrible transgression.

 

In modern cultures worldwide the perspective is variable. Here is an article by a British woman describing her amazement of French culture after she married a Frenchman.

 

As I was going through my divorce I had a female therapist who immigrated from Eastern Europe. We talked a lot about sex––can't believe she was getting paid the rate she was to drive me nuts with these titillating conversations (she was hot a really sexy accent). She told me that she was named for her father's mistress. She went on to say that it's almost unbelievable to her how puritanical Americans are about sex. I'm pretty sure that she knew that she turned me on, and that was almost inviting me to make the move. She hugged me after each session they became more than casual hugs. I never did; that's one woman I'll always wonder about.

 

Um, that's really unprofessional of her. Wonder if she was just stringing you along to keep a paying customer?

[salparadise]

Um, that's really unprofessional of her. Wonder if she was just stringing you along to keep a paying customer?

 

I realize it crosses the line of professionalism, but I don't think it was about money. I think her intent was to be empathetic, strengthen the alliance. I'm pretty sure she does it with all clients. On my first visit she gave me a friendly little arm around the shoulder kinda hug, which was surprising. After a few visits I just went with it and hugged back a little, which seem ok from my perspective (although still beyond professional).

 

But then after a some months as we dug deeper into my stuff the hugging intensified. After one particularly difficult session she gave me a much tighter, longer hug. Transference and counter-transference exists... I'm sure that's how it would be classified by another professional. But from my perspective... well, she was hot! And she loved to talk about sex with me in extremely detailed, personal way. The sustained eye-contact and body language was not imaginary. Neither was the nature of the hugging at that point.

 

I decided to quit seeing her because I realized that it would be bad for me to go any further down that road, and because I felt that I had received all the benefit I could from her. She was good, but not a therapeutic genius.

[Spectre]

I think many societies, because of their ideas about monogamy, possession, etc, and the way they maintain self esteem and self respect, have made it the worst thing that can happen.

 

Objectively, I don't think it should be.

 

But people can't help how they feel when they grow up thinking certain things are awful, insurmountable or incredibly painful things.

 

I'm confused why you don't think betraying your partner by showing you do not love or respect them should not be the worst thing you can do. I guess physically abusing them also counts as not loving or respecting, but it's pretty much got to be either cheating or abuse as the top 2.

 

People have said death, but here is why I disagree with that normally. Death causes a huge amount of pain, but it is of a different type. 99% of the time when a person dies they have no control over it unless it was suicide. So if they die of an accident or at the hand of someone else..it's like..that is truly horrible, but it was not THEIR choice. But cheating or abuse? They CHOOSE to do that to you. Most people do not choose to die. Don't get me wrong, I know sometimes when a spouse dies..a person feels anger towards them for leaving them, even if it wasn't their fault...but even then, that is more misplaced anger, etc. Since they know deep down the person did not choose to hurt them, but with cheating and stuff..it's a choice. You don't trip fall and cheat on someone, and you don't just trip and fall and accidentally spout mental abuse or start giving them black eyes "accidentally" either.

[carhill]

If I had to review my own actions in the cold light of day, being openly and defiantly unfaithful was probably the worst thing I could legally do to a spouse or partner. The ultimate 'fµck you'. Anything else, like killing or assault or battery, would be illegal, and I think that's an important distinction to make, since adultery, in my jurisdiction anyway, has been legal for some time.

 

That said, abandonment could be a close second (of 'legal' acts), and it was included in the past as grounds for divorce, sometimes alluded to as 'mental cruelty', in addition to more obvious physical abandonment, along with adultery and physical cruelty. I still think infidelity/adultery trumps abandonment or cruelty, if one can separate out the acts into discrete actions. As example, an adulterer who is cheating (deceiving) can still be engaged in the family and be perceived as a caring spouse, absent knowledge of their adultery. Serial adulterers who compartmentalize well can fall into this category. Others may combine aspects of perceived cruelty with adultery, both evidenced and deceptive.

 

In the final analysis, it comes down to the individuals and what they perceive and what their relationship dynamics are like. We're all different.

[RedRobin]

Depends on the individual and circumstances...

 

 

I didn't consider my ex-H's infidelity to be the worst thing ever. The worst thing ever for me was not supporting me emotionally for the PhD I told him I wanted before we married. This was more important to me than having a child even... His renigging of that promise hurt more than his confession of having sex with someone else not long after. Basically, he got however many years of my love and support for his goals... then turned his back on me when it was my turn. For that reason... the bait and switch (in whatever form it takes) will always be the biggest dealbreaker for me.

 

 

My dad's biggest dealbreaker is irresponsibility with money... not infidelity. My dad wouldn't care less if my mom screwed half the town (she wouldn't... but he wouldn't care if she did). If she blew their savings or charged up the credit card?? Yea, that's a divorceable offense and they almost did when she gave my sister a large amount of $$ without my dad's input.

 

 

He explains it as all the hours, days, and years of hard work he had to do to save that money... and her squandering it disrespected him in a way that hit him right where it hurt the most. It was as if all of his hard work was for nothing. They figured it out... and my mom is now the super-responsible, super accurate accountant for their teamwork... but they had a lot of work to do to overcome that indiscretion on her part.

 

 

So yea, there are lots of ways to betray someone that hurt just as bad or more than having sex with someone who isn't your spouse. Yep.

[MissBee]

From what I read on LS, it seems infidelity is the worst thing that can happen to a marriage. But is it?

 

A good friend of mine was physically abused by her now x-husband. The mental scars left are taking years to heal. One of the many hurdles she is dealing with is a major trust issue with men.

 

Another good friend was touched by infidelity when she was engaged. It took a long time but they reconciled and married. Now, 20 years later, they are divorced. Not because of the infidelity but because of other issues such as he was a control freak, had no respect for her and played mind games. In the end, she decided enough was enough.

 

I asked her which hurt more, the infidelity or the mental mind games. Her answer was very interesting. The infidelity hurt more because it happened when she was madly in love with him. The mental abuse was gradual, and it caused her to fall out of love with him.

 

 

So my question: Is infidelity really the worst thing that one partner can inflict on the other?

 

Or does it just hurt so much because it is sudden and unexpected?

 

There is no objective answer to this.

 

This will depend greatly on the individuals.

 

For some people it has been/could be and for others they may have experienced other things they felt were worse.

 

Pain is a vast and varied thing with all kinds of degrees and particularities and people experience and express it differently and your personal life experience is what will give you the comparisons...even then, sometimes things hurt us more or differently than we could have expected or guessed or perhaps at a time one pain feels like the worse until something else happens and usurps it.

[MissBee]

Outside of abuse it is pretty much the worst thing you can do to your partner. It completely destroys the trust in a relationship and once that is gone everything collapses.

 

Not to mention that while cheating some spouses become emotionally abusive. For example: gaslighting their BS, which is a form of abusive behavior if you're constantly lying to someone, telling them they are crazy or imagining things etc. when you know good and well that you're willfully manipulating them and the truth and making them doubt their own sanity.

 

So sometimes infidelity and emotional abuse go hand in hand. Further the effects after it can be similar to abuse: loss of self esteem, doubting yourself, being unable to trust, being on high alert. If you have kids it often doesn't just happen to the "marriage" as some random vacuum but the family unit, as many kids who grew up in a house with infidelity can attest to, not to mention if the infidelity had other consequences: pregnancies, your spouse found a crazy AP who now begins to torment you and/or your family, STDs, using joint finances for "affair purchases"...the list can go on of the ways in which infidelity isn't just "one thing" but a mixture of various other betrayals and consequences that one has to work through emotionally or that come to affect you concretely (in terms of your actual health, finances, safety etc).

Edited February 1, 2015 by MissBee

[wish-i-knew]

You'd be surprised how many people just go on despite infidelity (unless it's out in the open of course, then divorce is the preferred choice; dignity and all that). In both cases you mentioned though those cheaters turned out to be bad partners; I really hope this didn't surprise these women?

 

See, the point is that when infidelity happens, something is wrong. And if you just give in to crocodile tears and let the time go past, you'll have wasted a good portion of your lifetime. What more of a warning sign do people want, murder attempts?

 

 

I strongly disagree with your leap of logic.

 

Firstly, the friends ex-husband who physically abused her DID NOT cheat.

 

In the case where the partner did cheat, his subsequent behaviour had absolutely NOTHING to do with his cheating.

 

Yes, he made a monumental mistake in his life by cheating, but they, as a couple, were able to move past that. His cheating was not a warning sign of other issues. By your logic, anyone that cheats is a lost cause as a human for the rest of their lives. I however believe people have got the ability to change and learn and grow from their mistakes.

 

And saying that people that have been betrayed show 'crocodile tears' if they attempt reconciliation is a just an insult for anyone who has chosen that path.

[wish-i-knew]

To some, infidelity is the worst possible transgression.

 

For me, after a couple years, I saw it as a symptom of his gradual downward spiral. He cheated on me, in a huge, blow up and everyone sees kind of way. But once I tried to reconcile, he must have seen it as lack of respect for myself, because that's when ALL the physical abuse started. He hurt me over and over, threatened to kill me if I left.

 

He'd rattle car keys to remind me of when he promised to hit me with the car. He'd call his friends who could corroborate his "story" who would then come over and shake their head as he lay passed out on the floor from alcohol. Threatened any friend who would lend an ear as a cheater, for talking to a married woman. He eventually broke my bones in drunk rages.

 

Was infidelity the worst thing that could happen in a marriage, for us? No. The worst thing was trying to stay with him after.

 

 

Thank you for sharing your story. I am truly sorry to hear this happened to you.

 

 

(((((((Hugs))))))))

[wish-i-knew]

I agree with this, and I think it clearly sums up what I was originally trying to say...

 

 

 

But abuse is a romantic betrayal. It directly affects your marriage. Just like drifter added. It kills the romance. I think things that are done by the other spouse are things done to the marriage. Lying, abuse, cheating, growing distant and cold or cutting off sex are any other action that has a negative impact on the marriage. infidilty is often the sudden one and therefore has a sudden impact. And a devestating one. So it often gets labled the worst. But the others shouldn't be diminished (specially violence). And a lot of damage can be done to someone through other marriage betrayals too. Doesn't make infidelity better. Like I said I see infidelity as the worst thing I have done to my marriage. But there are other, devestating marriage betrayals.

[wish-i-knew]

My first marriage I was 18 years old. The marriage/relationship was slightly less dysfunctional than my FOO. I accepted the physical/emotional abuse as life...or more accurately turned a blind eye to what it all actually meant and my role in it. When I discovered the cheating I can honestly say it did not hurt that much. I cried less about that then the abuse.

 

I tried to leave and had a shotgun put to my head and was told that he would rather see me dead than with someone else. Funny how all through my childhood and dysfunctional marriage I never viewed the abuse as life threatening but I did the shotgun. Maybe, because I "survived" each abusive episode since childhood I never put the proper "weight" to physical abuse as I should have. I didn't know anything other than abuse-survivedthatepisode.

 

I also realized that I never loved my first husband, he was only a way out of my family home. I also realized his cheating never hurt me because I never loved him anyways.....heck I didn't even like him! The most important realization that I came to at the ripe old age of 20, was that I now had choice (unlike when I was a child)(thanks to Phil Donahue talk shows).

 

It was the most empowering realization I have had to date in my life....the concept of choice. I could choose to end being someone else's punching bag. I could leave! As a child I never could. So, yes I did not choose the abuse...however I did choose to stay. Staying was my role in why the abuse continued. Expecting him to stop was putting the responsibility for my safety in the very person who was threatening it. When I took responsibility for putting myself in fist reach of my abuser is when my life changed. That is when I did what a reasonable/healthy adult would do.......I left....and never looked back.

 

In my case the cheating wasn't the worst thing he did...it was one of many. I was already 95% down the "hurt pit" ....the last 5 meter plunge wasn't that far.

 

For others, they didn't have that level of dysfunction to begin with...so they fell the whole 100 meters at once in the "hurt pit". They hit bottom at a terminal velocity speed. So of course they would feel it differently than I did.

 

 

 

AlwaysGrowing, thank you for sharing, and (((((hugs))))) to you.

[Lion Heart]

It is the worst thing that has happened in my marriage. I do think we all handle situations and tragedies differently....we all process pain in our own way.

 

I have lived through sexual molestation as a child, I have endured the death of a grandchild, I have grieved the loss of my FIL and my MIL, I almost lost my daughter.

 

Each pain, hurt differently.....each left a vacant hole...a yearning that it had not happened....each lasts a lifetime.

 

But truly...the worst has been my infidelity.

 

I truly feel sorry for your many losses.

 

I feel the same about my WHs infidelity and I've worked out why it's like that for me. The deaths of my loved ones (even my 20mth old brother) were unpreventable. Death is final and we follow some type of cycle of grief. As generalized as this sounds (knowing its different for every person), when a family member dies, we all grieve together and that's a sad yet comforting truth.

 

Infidelity on the other hand is a purposeful action, carried out by a person we were committed to and hurts far more if there's lots of love there from us to them. It IS a death of sorts. Death of trust, promises and usually shared futures. Our whole world changes for the worst, certainly at first & can last for years.

It was entirely preventable.

I am sure a WS has no idea of the pain endured by the BS whether we stay married or leave. It just hurts like H*ll. And no one else shares this exact same grief with us. We are alone in our grief. My grief from WH infidelity has been total and complete and when I was alone on a beach at night, out of phone contact (so no Internet), less than 36hrs ago,I just wanted loveshack.org. This is the only place where I feel both understood and supported from a place of empathy.

 

Lion Heart.

[wish-i-knew]

There is no objective answer to this.

 

This will depend greatly on the individuals.

 

For some people it has been/could be and for others they may have experienced other things they felt were worse.

 

Pain is a vast and varied thing with all kinds of degrees and particularities and people experience and express it differently and your personal life experience is what will give you the comparisons...even then, sometimes things hurt us more or differently than we could have expected or guessed or perhaps at a time one pain feels like the worse until something else happens and usurps it.

 

 

You are quite right, it is an individual thing, based on one's own experiences.

 

The reason I raised the question was that I have read several times where people state that infidelity is THE worst thing that can happen in a marriage. I just wanted to understand why this is made as an absolute statement.

 

The claims are that infidelity kills your self-esteem, makes you doubt yourself, continues to hurt for years and years etc. But so do many other things, such as abuse, neglect, not being supportive etc etc.

 

 

I think if you are touched by infidelity, it can be the worst thing that has happened in your marriage. But in my opinion only, not THE absolute worst thing that can happen. Just one of.