Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are always peaks and valleys. My grandmother told me that she feel in and out of love with my grandfather several times during the course of their marriage.
I too do not understand why people cheat. If you loved this person enough to marry them, I'd think you'd love them enough to weather life's storms with them. I don't see how cheating solves anything. In fact it makes it worse. I'd guess that most marriages don't survive infidelity. IMO, if your marriage is on the rocks, an affair is a great way to smash the boat to pieces on those rocks. It doesn't help. It does more damage and it makes little sense to do that.
I agree that cheating may be difficult for people to understand. I do think that the more you understand why people cheat, the better off you are in preventing you doing the same. In other words the more you learn about human nature and the variety in people, the better prepared to deal with temptation.
People do come in such variety. People do have their weakesses and strengths. Sex is a weakness in many people to the point that it may be difficult for them to resist it when it is not appropriate.
I do remember a female Soldier that I had as a classmate a long time ago. One day during lunch time her husband came up in the conversation. She said she loved him and that he was a good man. However, she felt he was overbearing because he wanted to be with her all the time. She did not say he was abusive or that he tried to dominate her. He just loved so much to be with her.
She, however, felt he did not give her her space. She said she did not mind if he had a girlfriend on the side as long as he was discreet and she had no need to know the details. She knew he loved her and that he was a good man so she was willing to allow him to find company somewhere else. That was a very weird for me to hear.
Also, one of my Soldiers came to me to simply have someone to talk about something that bother him. His wife was pregnant. She was at the point where they could not have sex anymore. He was telling me he had the surprise comment from her that she did not mind if he went somewhere else to have sex with until she was available with the condition he was disreet and he did not tell her. She just did not want to know any details and did not want him to tell her. It was up to him and his conscience what he did.
In some cultures it is 'secret' all know what is going on and even the spouse is aware but accepted as such. I have been in some countries that even though it is not accepted openly secretly, it is discreetly grudginly accepted.
I do remember a lady from Panama that made the comment most wives knew who were their husband lovers and she said in such a way as the norm. She said cheating was bad but at the same time saw as normal.
When I was in the Dominican Republic for 9 months one of my peers found himself a lover. He was married. Well, he and his lover did get pretty emotional about each other but he said he would not leave his wife. He told me he told his lover how could he trust her if he left his wife and later he had to be away on duty somewhere else. The answer? She told him she understood he had to take care of his needs but would ask he not leave her. How about that one!
This one was a surprise for me considering the source of the advice. When we were getting ready to deply back from Desert Storm one of our briefings was with the chaplain. He told us that if there was anything we did while deployed, specially having and affair, and we felt guilty, to go to him. He said "If you want to unload your guilt, come to me and talk to me about it. No need to go and do so with your wives. Spare them the pain". A chaplain!? Now, did some of us had our mouths wide open from the surprise. Go figure.
I had to deal with so many marriage problems as leader in the Army it is amazing the stories you get from Soldiers and their wives. Now, women tend to talk as if men are the problem. Let me tell you. Women are pretty much the same. The difference. Women are much better at being descreet and hidding it than men. Why? Because women seem condone that behavior more on men than on women. Often the women blame more the other woman for the affair. Why? Well, we can go on and on.
So the better you understand human nature the more wise you are in not getting in situations that may lead into cheating so avoid them, take care.
People cheat because they like instant gratification. If it feels good, at the time, they'll do it. This explains some of the drug, obesity and financial (credit card debit) the United States is plauged with.
"Always" and "never," polar opposite words, tend to characterize the vocabulary of black and white thinkers. Black and white thinking means seeing the world only in terms of extremes. If things aren't "perfect," then they must be "horrible."
...
In real-life, situations are almost always shades of gray, not black or white. Falling victim to black and white thinking tends to exacerbate depression, marital conflict, anxiety, and a host of other everyday problems.
---------
This attitude is non-productive. It sets impossible standards. And it is harmful to both the person holding the attitude and to those they judge so inflexibly and without compassion.
I see man as another animal. Some animals mate for life, but not all. I have not read how many, of those mating for life, will have occasional other relationships.
If sex outside of one's marriage were not a natural thing, fewer people would do it. Half of marriages end in divorce these days, and I'll bet most involve 'cheating'. Many of those who stay married have also cheated, some without the partner ever knowing.
I can understand our civilization wanting/needing stable family units for the rearing of children. I can understand two people deciding to be life partners, for whatever reasons, but unless there are deep and sound reasons for those unions, they will probably fail.
Is sex a good reason for staying together or for parting? Isn't it easier to 'get' sex outside of marriage than to get a person who shares your outlook on life and finances and child rearing and commitment and fun and responsibility?
I have all sorts of friends and relationships, on different levels with different people. Sex is only one aspect of this. Making a new friend does not ruin my old friendships.
Ideally we would marry someone who is capable of being all things to us and also changes as we change. That usually is not the case. Should we discard that person because like spoiled children we expect them to fulfill all our needs? I think not.
People become ill and cannot have sex. They have operations. Medication often changes the need for sex. People's need for sex often change with age and childbirth. People sometimes do not feel their sexuality liberated until later in life and find they are bisexual or enjoy S+M or cross dressing.
I think, for a solid partnership, sex is the icing on the cake, but the cake can exist and still be yummy without the icing.
This is probably not the best analogy but I used to get a new car every few years. At the dealership I fell in love with the new car, but sometimes, after owning it for a bit I realized that the old had some bells and whistles the the new did not. I guess you could say the same for sewing machines, too. Anyway, time sometimes gives us wisdom. Young people often go from one crush to the next, always thinking the current one is 'it'. Finally you hopefully mature and find out that there is no 'it'. The grass looks greener on the other side, but once you play in it a while you start noticing the bare spots again. The big problem with affairs, it seems to me, is that some people remain blind to the defects in the new partner and also to the goodness in the current one.
We might also consider the enticement of making sex outside of the marriage 'taboo' and 'naughty'.
Just expressing my own view, two people in a really close and committed relationship are not going to be much troubled over sexual infidelities. Only if the marriage is weak will these things will become horrors because there is little to glue it together in the first place.
Oh - yeah, we have social norms, but we marry as individuals. It is up to us to find out what we find as important and tolerable as individuals and not follow the 'norms'. None of us is totally 'normal'. Wouldn't it be a boring world if we were? We waste too much of our lives living up to standards imposed on us from outside and perhaps we should not marry until we have developed our own.
Last edited by goldengrain; 03-20-2011 at 09:27 AM..
I agree that cheating may be difficult for people to understand. I do think that the more you understand why people cheat, the better off you are in preventing you doing the same. In other words the more you learn about human nature and the variety in people, the better prepared to deal with temptation.
People do come in such variety. People do have their weakesses and strengths. Sex is a weakness in many people to the point that it may be difficult for them to resist it when it is not appropriate.
I do remember a female Soldier that I had as a classmate a long time ago. One day during lunch time her husband came up in the conversation. She said she loved him and that he was a good man. However, she felt he was overbearing because he wanted to be with her all the time. She did not say he was abusive or that he tried to dominate her. He just loved so much to be with her.
She, however, felt he did not give her her space. She said she did not mind if he had a girlfriend on the side as long as he was discreet and she had no need to know the details. She knew he loved her and that he was a good man so she was willing to allow him to find company somewhere else. That was a very weird for me to hear.
Also, one of my Soldiers came to me to simply have someone to talk about something that bother him. His wife was pregnant. She was at the point where they could not have sex anymore. He was telling me he had the surprise comment from her that she did not mind if he went somewhere else to have sex with until she was available with the condition he was disreet and he did not tell her. She just did not want to know any details and did not want him to tell her. It was up to him and his conscience what he did.
In some cultures it is 'secret' all know what is going on and even the spouse is aware but accepted as such. I have been in some countries that even though it is not accepted openly secretly, it is discreetly grudginly accepted.
I do remember a lady from Panama that made the comment most wives knew who were their husband lovers and she said in such a way as the norm. She said cheating was bad but at the same time saw as normal.
When I was in the Dominican Republic for 9 months one of my peers found himself a lover. He was married. Well, he and his lover did get pretty emotional about each other but he said he would not leave his wife. He told me he told his lover how could he trust her if he left his wife and later he had to be away on duty somewhere else. The answer? She told him she understood he had to take care of his needs but would ask he not leave her. How about that one!
This one was a surprise for me considering the source of the advice. When we were getting ready to deply back from Desert Storm one of our briefings was with the chaplain. He told us that if there was anything we did while deployed, specially having and affair, and we felt guilty, to go to him. He said "If you want to unload your guilt, come to me and talk to me about it. No need to go and do so with your wives. Spare them the pain". A chaplain!? Now, did some of us had our mouths wide open from the surprise. Go figure.
I had to deal with so many marriage problems as leader in the Army it is amazing the stories you get from Soldiers and their wives. Now, women tend to talk as if men are the problem. Let me tell you. Women are pretty much the same. The difference. Women are much better at being descreet and hidding it than men. Why? Because women seem condone that behavior more on men than on women. Often the women blame more the other woman for the affair. Why? Well, we can go on and on.
So the better you understand human nature the more wise you are in not getting in situations that may lead into cheating so avoid them, take care.
It's one thing if your spouse approves and quite another if they don't. I guess those who want to cheat need to find spouses who think being a cheater is a good quality I can't go there. I'm a child of divorce. I want to know my spouse will stand by me. I want to KNOW he will stand by me. While I think my husband would, there's always going to be that nagging doubt in the back of my mind now. There's always going to be a part of me I can't commit to this relationship because I can't let him hurt me again. Hurting me the first time was 100% his fault. If I LET him do it again, it's 100% my fault for being stupid enough to trust a cheater.
I've never understood blaming the OW for the affair. IMO, the OW is the one person in the picture who didn't take a vow she's breaking, unless she's married too but she's breaking her vows not my husband's. I've never been even remotely curious as to who she is. I figure if it weren't her, it would have been someone else. The problem isn't her. It's that my husband is not faithful. And THAT is a problem in my book. I'm sure it's because I'm a child of diovorce but trust is HUGE for me. If I can't trust him to keep his penis in his pants, when he swore before God he wouldn't, what can I trust him with? You have to wonder why he took the vow in the first place if it meant nothing. It would have been better for us to have gone our separate ways back then.
I'm aware that different cultures tolerate cheating more than others but it doesn't change how I feel about relationships. I'd rather find someone who wants to be in a, mutually, faithful relationship. I'm certain there are men out there who will be faithful and value having a wife who is faithful. It's not about a marriage being weak. It's about expectations surrouding the marriage. I meant it when I pledged fidelity. My problem is that my husband didn't when he pledged fidelity. THAT is a problem. If I'd married a man for whom fidelity was important and he had married a women for whom it isn't, we wouldn't be having this converation. It's not a weak marriage that cannot tolerate infidelity. It's a marriage built on trust that can't tolerate infidelity. I would shatter my husband's belief of who I am if I had an affair as he shattered mine of him.
I agree with staying out of situations you know you can't handle. It is up to each of us to know what we can and cannot handle and to make sound decisions based on that knowledge. I know that if I go into the bakery, I'm going to eat the chocolate cake so I don't go into the bakery. Food is my weekness. I eat when stressed. So I keep foods I can eat around the house (veggies and such) and stay away from the bakery, the italian restaurant, the donut shop, the ice cream parlor, etc, etc, etc... I also don't go around making vows about what I'll eat. I know I can't keep them. I gave up sugar for lent and it's a struggle. More than it should be but the exercise is good for me. It's good to pratice avoiding temptation but I have enough sense to do it in my own home with lots of things to distract me than in the local bakery.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-20-2011 at 10:25 AM..
I'll repeat it SLOWLY: you are hopeless and debating with you is hopeless. Everything I have just written to you in previous post went right over your head, just like I predicted.
It's my own fault for falling into this discussion and here for a second I thought that I can get through to you. Oh well.
You have yet to explain how cheating shows one is a good person . Cheating and being a good person don't go hand in hand. Obviously you think people who hurt others, lie, cheat and break vows are good people. I, totally, disagree with that. Those aren't things I'd expect of a good person.
I'm not the hopeless one here. You have blinders on. You look at a cow and call it a chicken even when it clucks. It's not good people who cheat. How we choose to honor/dishonor our promises and how we handle temptation tells a lot about us. I would never take a vow to never eat chocolate cake again because I know myself well enough to know I won't keep that vow. I expect as much from my spouse. If you don't plan on being faithful, don't take the vow. It just makes you a liar.
If you want people to trust you, you have to behave in trustworthy ways. When you have a history of not being trustworthy, people won't trust you no matter how loudly you proclaim you are trustworthy .
"Always" and "never," polar opposite words, tend to characterize the vocabulary of black and white thinkers. Black and white thinking means seeing the world only in terms of extremes. If things aren't "perfect," then they must be "horrible."
...
In real-life, situations are almost always shades of gray, not black or white. Falling victim to black and white thinking tends to exacerbate depression, marital conflict, anxiety, and a host of other everyday problems.
---------
This attitude is non-productive. It sets impossible standards. And it is harmful to both the person holding the attitude and to those they judge so inflexibly and without compassion.
This is a black and white issue. You're either a cheater or you're not. There is no shade of gray. Either you can be trusted when you pledge fidelity or you can't. Some issues just are at the extremes.
I suppose one could argue that there is a gray area with poeple who don't care who their spouse sleeps with but it's not a problem if your spouse expects and condones your affair. Personally, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth but to each his own here. The problem only exists when cheaters take vows with non cheaters. Then someone gets hurt. I really don't get why someone can mean enough to you to marry them but doesn't mean enough to you to not hurt them in this way. Or maybe that's what the cheater wants. To hurt them. Maybe that's part of the thrill. I don't know. I'm not a cheater and I'm not going to become one to find out.
You have yet to explain how cheating shows one is a good person . Cheating and being a good person don't go hand in hand.
They can if you realize that there is more to a person than just that one act. For instance, as someone pointed out, a man who stays for the sake of the kids is doing a good thing. You even said that's the most important thing in marriage, so a man who sticks it out is doing something good. Most people do good and bad things simultaneously, and it's up to his or her spouse to decide whether the good outweighs the bad.
It's not that I can't come up with an argument, you are just too blind and deaf to listen to anything else besides your own voices in your head. No thanks, I'm not getting sucked in to this argument again, it's like talking to a brick wall. I feel bad for you. Really.
Not at all. You're the one looking at a cow and calling it a chicken even when it clucks in your face. You are trying to turn some very bad behaviors into behaviors good people would do when good people would not. I'm not sure why you feel such a strong need to exonerate cheaters. It is, however, obvious this hits a nerve.
You can call it a cow all you want but it's a chicken when looks like a chicken, acts like a chicken, clucks like a chicken and lays eggs like a chicken. That chicken may want to be a cow. It may even believe it's a cow but it's a chicken.
Cheaters are who they are. I just wish they wouldn't pair up with non cheaters. It would save a lot of heartache. Unfortunately, it's always the non cheater who ends up hurt. That, unfortuantely, is what happens when you marry someone who doesn't care about you and only cares about themselves. If they cared about you, they wouldn't cheat in the first place.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. Cheating and being a good person don't go hand in hand. Obviously you think people who hurt others, lie, cheat and break vows are good people. I, totally, disagree with that. Those aren't things I'd expect of a good person. 
