Relationship Infidelity

I've been on all three sides of the equation. Being cheated on is one of the most painful experiences known to humankind, and I can't justify causing that kind of pain to another human being.

I have cheated on a lover exactly once, because I wanted to know what it felt like, why people did it, what enjoyment they derived out of it, and what their motivations were. It also occured quite soon after my father revealed his mistress to us, so there was a hint of "Oh, if it's OK for you, it's OK for me." It was not a pleasant experience, not even as a power trip. I felt like shit. I left the relationship with the cheatee due to guilt. The relationship with the person with whom I cheated on fell apart quite quickly, too. There was never any trust between us.

I also confess to having been the third party, more than once. This behaviour is deplorable and I have no excuse to offer other than sheer drunkenness. No, I didn't get any "Ooh, I'm so naughty, this is such a thrill" vicarious pleasure out of it at all. It was more a case of waking up the next morning feeling sick to my stomach with more than a hangover.

I really find no place for infidelity in my emotional life. It's a fairly black and white issue for me. Maybe other people can give examples (my friends parents, for example) where one partner has cheated and left an unhealthy relationship for a stable one, but I think it's rare to non-existent.

What if you're the third party and the pleasure is simply because you really like the person.

I don't think it matters if the cheating is about sex and not about love - unless it happens to me: the minute I found out they'd be dumped.

I've kiss-cheated and once my best friend's partner, who was my partner's best friend, and I tried to cheat together, just to get it out of the way and to reduce the sexual innuendo that had been occuring so we could get on with our real relationships - but our heart wasn't in it and we couldn't go through with it. Thankfully.

Saying that cheating is OK if it's only about sex ... ugh ... the word "cheapens" comes to mind, but I can't think of a way to work it into a sentance without sounding pedantic and No Fun At All.

I can almost understand destroying a relationship and wrecking lives if it really, truly is for the sake of Love. Cheating and saying "Oh, it didn't mean anything, it was just sex..." cheapens everything. Like ... this relationship means so little to you that you are prepared to throw it away for a fucking SCREW? What, you have ten fingers and you couldn't use your imagination enough to have a WANK?

But I am an intolerant person that has never HAD a successful relationship, so what do I know?

I'm a relationship someone who I love a lot and who I really like as a companion as well. I know someone else who I like and to whom I am quite sexually attracted but who I have no desire to be in a relationship with, or even to share tender intimacy. Without pre-meditation we end up having sex. It means nothing more than fun sex for either of us and it doesn't happen again.

OR

I'm a relationship someone who I love a lot and who I really like as a companion well. I have gone away interstate or overseas. Because I'm away I have that whole 'alternate universe' kind of feeling where what I'm living at that time has almost no relation to my everyday life. I meet someone with whom I share an intense but transitory attraction. We sleep together. We know that it is a 'here & now' think and enjoy it while it's happening without any fantasies about 'forever'.

I consider both these scenarios to be quite realistic and not totally morally wrong. On the other hand, trust (& control & obsession) are important parts of a relationship for me and so if someone else did them to me I would end it. Hence I also do not do it to others. I do, however, cousel friends to try to be tolerant of it because I believe they (and I, if I could) would be much happier if they were able to accept it.

I don't think giving in to animal passion type sex is cheap at all.

Like, there's a difference between having sex with people because you think it's the only way to get them to like you/having sex with people because you don't love yourself enough to be part of a loving relationship and so you use 'cheap' sex as a love substitute and having sex with lots of people because you enjoy it.

(NB I wuv Ally McBeal)

That's awfully judgmental. Loving relationships are hard to come by. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

No, I think that statement proves exactly what was said. The whole idea of "taking what you can get" is so ... it just shows a lack of respect for oneself, i.e. "I would rather be with someone who makes me feel cheap than be alone." which expresses a fundamental inability to be alone. The usual reason for inability to be alone, even faced without a suitable Other is because of desperate lack of self worth.

Some would say this is a chocolate/vanilla taste sort of thing, but my own personal experience ... I don't believe it.

I actually like sex far more than is good for me. And in the persuit of good or even GREAT sex, I have got myself into some incredibly painful and self destructive situations. I had to learn through hard and painful experience that NO sex in the fucking world is SO good that you should sacrifice your self or your self respect for.

Lots of people would like to go around purporting that sex is just a pleasurable recreational physical activity. Fact of human nature is that it is more than that, and if you pretend that it is not, either you or the person you are having sex with is going to get emotionally hurt.

You like to boast that you don't have a consciensce, or that you don't give a shit about other human beings. I simply cannot act like that.

No, my dear, I'm just woefully immature. But hey, pat yourself on the back with great aplomb -- I'm very proud of you for coming up with one of those rare insults that make the insultee look bad no matter how she chooses to respond. Now I love you almost as much as you seem to love yourself.

You like to boast that you don't have a consciensce, or that you don't give a shit about other human beings.

You like to misinterpret things I say.

I'm the one defending people who have sex with lots of other people becuase they enjoy it.

I'm dissing those who go for 'cheap' sex as a love substitute because they have no self respect. There is nothing to defend about their behaviour, it is pathetic. And yes, I do have the right to judge it as such, as I have the right to judge everything and everybody.

Sucks all around, I think.

i wouldnt want to be either of the first two, being cheated on would hurt, and i wouldnt want to do that to a partner (if i felt enough to be with them, i doubt i would want to do something destructive). it wouldnt worry me so much to be the 3rd party (as i wouldnt be in the relationship), but it wouldnt really be something i'd want to get involved with.

the above may well read fairly moralistically, and i suppose to an extent it is, but its more a personal and practical thing (its not like i have to wrestle with conscience or anything, it just has never occurred to me to get involved with it).

as to the other question about a relationship that started out as cheating, i don't know. i would think 90% of the time something would nag me about it, and unless i could overcome that, it could grow into worry eventually, and their might be a trust issue (but then it would depend on the context of how it happened and there might be some circumstances in which it didnt lead to worry)

I realize, however, that this is much harder IRL - especially if you are married and/or there are kids involved.

Erm... seriously considering? Yes and no. I think one of the wisest things that Tom has ever said around here was that when you have a wicked crush on someone outside your relationship, you need to look at the crush as being evidence that you wish you were more like the crushee in some way (feeling they have some quality that you yourself lack) - not necessarily any fundamental flaw with the relationship or your partner.

If you can look at things that way, and have it make sense, then you probably shouldn't leave the relationship. Or cheat.

but, is it you thats being suspicious/unsure, or her?

a) you will feel guilty
b) you will feel you have no rights with the other person involved
c) they will get away with things that you should not let them get away with but not do anything because you have no rights
d) you will feel even worse
e) even if they do break up to have something with you, how cd you trust them
f) if they break up to be with you you feel upset for the other person
g) you will be associated with "being a cheat" and the guilty feelings => this does not lead to much healthiness in mental state
h) from steps!
i) wouldn't see much good in starting a relationship that began with cheating.
j) zee!
k) but who knows.

Often cheating only happens for a bit of damn comfort. And if yr in that state anyway you can't see t'wood for t'trees. Misery!!

when I did it (a long time ago) it was genuinely out of a collosal and all consuming love (and lust), while the existing relationship was pretty flawed. But it was the crappest and least respectful way to end the existing one, and the whole thing of course exploded in my face - I ended up in therapy. there were moments of real joy but they were NOT worth the pain to me or others that ensued.

I'm now married, have kids, and am perfectly happy. But the difference between that kind of happiness and the giddying short term joy of a crush (they do still happen, and when the relationship timescale is decades it seems to me unavoidable that they should) is a uniquely weird thing to try and handle. I wonder if this is actually quite different from some of the scenarios raised above - not in its consequences, but in its causes.

(Archel, yeah I appreciate it)

Personally, I'd be sufficiently convinced that it'll never work to do anything, but not because of how it started, just because of me. So, on the one hand I get a sound night's sleep. On the other hand, I get a sound night's sleep.

Still, my girlfriend-minding service goes in leaps and bounds. Farrell Enterprises - "A safe pair of hands".

I have never been unfaithful but I have been the other man and unlike most things in my life, I don't regret it. He never knew, if that makes any difference.

one of my best friend's wives not only cheated on him, but managed to turn it around on him and say it was his fault and then divorced *him*

in fact, I know a lot of people who are outright brazen and open about it still, even in today's era when rumors can fly so much faster. my brother's best friend two years ago was once openly talking in front of a group of strangers about the girl he was going to sleep with that night, when he was with his girlfriend of five years. zero remorse or shame, even despite the looks some of us gave him.

he managed to get caught that night and she finally broke up with him (wisely) but it was like he had no shame in who heard him at that dinner table that night.

sometimes I read/see old media depictions of cheating spouses/couples and I kinda wonder if this thing was just more common in past generations or what

I live in the "slow neighborhood" in this small city and I hear a lot about all the bed-swapping that takes place in the "fast neighborhood" with slightly more expensive houses about a mile and a half from here.

Shakes do you live in SF or no, come on.

tell us more about slow and fast neighborhoods?

i've known several married and long-established couples to have come unglued due to cheating, and a few that have endured it. maybe it's more common (or just more open) in some cultures than others, but i can't imagine that philandering has been relegated to the dustbin of history.

I wasn't referring to garden variety cheating, but specifically to couples cheating amongst each other. There are tons of books/movies where this is central to the plot.

i know, but forgot to mention that some of the cheating i mentioned was of that sort. seems most common in large groups of friends with a fondness for drugs/alcohol.

ime, anecdotal

Seems like disappearing for hours with no excuse to be unreachable is harder than it used to be.

er, make that with an excuse

tbf i am unaware of any secret (or otherwise) couple-swapping

i suspect such a scenario was just as far-fetched back in the day as it is now (and god knows we don't need another 'your friends & neighbors'), and our emerging pervert geniuses no longer quite seize the culture like woody and roth did

tell us more about slow and fast neighborhoods?

The fast neighborhood has a lot of doctors. I hear they're very dirty people.

gbx is that tru

About 3 years back, I went through a period of cheating on my partner--it had very little to do with him or even with the relationship, and a whole lot to do with some transient intimacy issues I was having. I'd gotten together with my guy probably a bit too close on the heels of the demise of a very serious long-term relationship, and as those wounds hadn't yet healed, getting close to someone new was kind of a minefield. Cheating was a release-valve/safety net to deal (read: not deal) with any uncomfortable feelings that my new relationship brought up. He never found out, and eventually I manned up, quit the cheating, and started working out my shit.

I'm still with the guy, which is a good thing, but even years later my cheating haunts me--when things get rough I find myself (irrationally) fearing that HE'LL do the same thing to ME, and when things are good I have that nagging-secret-guilt feeling. I'm occasionally tempted to confess, but I know this would only cause him pain. I've been selfish enough already.

Incidentally, my previous long term relationship ended for many reasons, but primarily because I'd reached a point where I was like, "Fuck it, I don't want to be in love anymore, it's too hard." It's been my experience that when I'm with someone for long enough, eventually I come up against this well-nigh uncontrollable urge to run/hide/cheat/whatever...learning to do otherwise is like ouch, but worth it.

As for looking/crushing/flirting, I'm all for it, as long as you remain respectful towards your partner. There must always come the final accounting: "Baby, you know I'd rather be with you than anyone in the world." I sometimes LIKE to watch my man get his flirt on, and be like, "That's right, ladies, he's coming home with me at the end of the night." Likewise, some of my hottest sex ever has been had after a night of flirting with someone else. It can definitely be taken too far, though...

― blew lagoon, Wednesday, June 27, 2007 6:37 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

disappointed in lagoon

I grew up on Long Island in a v upper middle class town and my parents hung out with a lot of rich assholes. The same couples would all be at each others Christmas parties each year where the women would coo over each others new furs and the men would stand around in their sweater vests and drink scotch and talk about work. There were two couples in this circle who were particularly close. They did everything together and their kids were best friends. The big scandal of the town happened one year when it turned out that the lady from one couple had been sleeping with the man from the other couple for nearly 10 years. They got caught when the two couples went on a cruise and other woman saw her pinch her husband's ass. This led to an investigation and a confrontation and both couples split. On couple remained apart and divorced but the other (the one in which the wife had been the one sleeping with the other person) ended up reconciling and getting back together.

Another woman in the circle was notorious for going after the other (all married) men but only the ones who really had money. I know of at least three she slept with.

Anyway, this is all to say that this totally still happens at least in obnoxious Long Island towns among bored rich people.

I almost wonder if that's Woodys slightly warped perception of the world, fantasizing that people just don't notice the bad thing someone is doing.

This could be part of Allen's Bergman fixation.

I have at least three married couple friends who are in open marriages, I wonder if these have become more frequent over the years....

one of them is planning on getting a divorce but still living together in the house!

one of my best friend's wives not only cheated on him, but managed to turn it around on him and say it was his fault and then divorced *him*

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Friday, February 6, 2015 9:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is going on with some of my extended family right now. Sister-in-law felt her relationship with her husband was so broken that she had three affairs behind his back. Then after she confessed and announced that she wanted a divorce, if I'm understanding everything right, the husband slept with one of their mutual best friends. It's pretty hot actually. Can't wait to see how it all plays out.

I kind of wonder if declining marriage rates + cellphones have made this less of a thing

Also internet porn

i'd be so titillated hearing gossip about this but either a. it doesn't happen in my community of married couples or b. it would be so shameful that no one talks about it if it does happen

i'd be shocked to hear about the husband/wife dynamic discussed above but i'm a naif

Seems like disappearing for hours with no excuse to be unreachable is harder than it used to be.

― bit of a singles monster (Eazy), Friday, February 6, 2015 10:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was a scary thing to read. Not because I want to get away with cheating, but just that I think it can be psychologically helpful to get "distance" from things and cellphones have made it harder

Cheating amongst married couples always struck me as glamorous though. It'd harder now for families to have properly tragic demises that neighborhoods could talk about for years.

My smartphone has an app that my wife can track my exact location (we got it to track our kid as he roams about the neighborhood). I don't MIND particularly (no plans to be unfaithful) , but I had often fantasized about taking a day of ppl and just spend a day hiking at a park or something, I don't know. Get off the grid. But then like, even our older habit of texting each other all day would have eliminated that anyway.

One in seven divorces in the UK is granted as a result of adultery, and that's only the ones that are known and talked about, there's reason to believe that a lot of cheating is never mentioned or discovered, or is kept quiet for other reasons (ie feelings of humiliation). I doubt its on the decline in the slightest.

Facebook in particular has made it very easy to identify and contact and person's partner as well, if you're in a position of wanting to do so, the likelihood of getting caught is probably higher than ever. Having a premeditated and organised affair may be on the decline, I don't know, just because it's so much harder and a lot of people are pretty cowardly, but then again a lot of cheating happens when the wheels have otherwise come off a relationship, so maybe people in those situations just don't care as much about getting caught as they once may have. Then again I think a lot of cheating is basically opportunistic, people do it because they think they can get away with it, ie if they're temporarily in a city where they don't know anyone.

People getting married later in life might be having an effect though, if you're engaged in your late teens or early 20s, there's a lot of emotional immaturity there, and a lot of stuff that's not yet out of your system compared to early 30s or later.

My smartphone has an app that my wife can track my exact location (we got it to track our kid as he roams about the neighborhood). I don't MIND particularly (no plans to be unfaithful) , but I had often fantasized about taking a day of ppl and just spend a day hiking at a park or something, I don't know. Get off the grid. But then like, even our older habit of texting each other all day would have eliminated that anyway.

― how's life, Saturday, February 7, 2015 2:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I go 'off the grid' all the time as it's necessary for my personal mental health. Would never agree to be tracked like that by anyone, not even my wife.

You could play hilarious practical jokes / get revenge with something like that by going to some spectacularly "wrong" places. Kind of like FourSquaring from a fleabag motel in some crazy-ass bombed out neighborhood.

I've long suspected that many smartphone buyers with "family plans" order the "stay informed of your kids' location" feature to snoop on their spouses, not their kids. Of course the mobile carriers would never advertise that feature as such, since the spouse is often present when the phones or service plans are ordered. On my carrier, only one person, the designated account owner, is allowed to add or remove this feature, and the "kids" (spouse) is not informed that they are being tracked by the account owner. Alot of people I've talked to are completely unaware of how this feature works, and are frequently oblivious to the very existence of this capability. When I hear salespeople at mobile phone stores pitching their phones and service plans to a couple, I never hear the sales clerk talk about the significance of which of the two is the designated account owner, i.e., which one can utilize the carrier's optional tracking and reporting service which yields a detailed date/time/place record of other phones on the same "family plan" account.

lol that's a nightmare

How do you possibly keep this on all day without draining the battery anyway? Seems like a way of guaranteeing at least half a day off the grid.

Seems like a way of guaranteeing at least half a day off the grid absolute misery.

I guess there were a couple dudes who worked here who hung out, with their wives, outside of work all the time. Apparently one day both couples announced they were divorcing, and one of the guys suddenly had all kinds of pictures of the other guy's wife and kids on his desk! They're now married.

jeez

these are really boring, nice people who seem completely uncontroversial. the wife is actually the administrative assistant for my department!

fritz peterson style

one of my best friend's wives not only cheated on him, but managed to turn it around on him and say it was his fault and then divorced *him*

How did his other wives react?

thats fucked xps

lol DJP

i assume that cheating still goes on all the time and is no more or less prevalent than it once was. the ways that technology makes it more difficult to temporarily go off the grid are counterbalanced by the ways that technology makes it easier to make covert arrangements - certainly it's a lot easier to do today than in the 50s when you had to whisper in the kitchen at a friend's dinner party or whatever.

ashley madison is really popular too apparently

if craigslist is any indication (hahaha) a bunch of people want to watch your fuck their wives

fmw

haha

boom

fmw, please

the marriage of my maternal grandmother to my mom's stepfather was the result of some freaky 50s couple-swapping--my maternal grandfather married the stepfather's ex-wife. naturally i haven't plumbed the depths of this story too thoroughly. my mom mentioned it all casual a couple years ago and acted surprised when i was like what

Relationship Infidelity: freaky shit or nbd