What Constitutes Cheating?

[caro33]

It looks like the argument has dried up, so will leave the above. However I ask posters to treat each other - and everyone's posts - with respect. Debate is fine, but further attacks on people's opinions will not be tolerated.

[JadedStar]

It looks like the argument has dried up, so will leave the above. However I ask posters to treat each other - and everyone's posts - with respect. Debate is fine, but further attacks on people's opinions will not be tolerated.

 

I apologize for my heat. I just didn't like being attacked for an opinion.

 

I promise to behave.

[puppeteer]

this was most likely a misread on both our parts...

 

you think i'm attacking you, i think you are attacking me...etc..

 

i apologize and will also cool my jets.

[Cimmie]

HI Jaded Star

 

I appreciate your comments. I do, most of the time, manage to persuade myself that it wasn't my fault...I know that blaming their wives is what most cheaters do to justify their behaviour. Never, though, have I been so aware of the split between thinking with my heart and head.

Have had months of counselling, but it's hard getting to the core of the feelings, I find. I just want to run far, far away and try to erase it all. If there was a selective lobotomy I could have to remove him and all memories of him from my mind, I would have it.

Just can't believe that something I valued and invested so many years in could be trampled on and degraded like that. And yes, I agree with you about violating the student teacher 'contract'. It's part of the pain of the situation--just disgust at his violation of these standards. I honestly believed he was a better, nobler person than that.

You are right about emotional cheating though. It's just that with him, I allowed my standards to slip. There had been instances of that previously in our relationship, and I'd stayed with him. I guess I should have put my foot down earlier, or walked. I do fundamentally agree with you about emotional intimacy though. It's just that for me, the sexual act is the most intimate thing possible and the point of no return. It presupposes that there is emotional intimacy.

But I know that for a lot of men it's a thing of no consequence...just the unavoidable difference between the sexes I guess. A lot of them seem quite capable of having sex with someone else and then carrying on what seems like a normal emotional relationship with their SOs.

I know trust is going to be a HUGE HUGE problem for me in the future though. The thought of how huge scares me. I'd rather not infict that on another guy.

[Solarist]

Cimmie - I feel for you situation - it is horrible to go through but to deal with flaunting it afterwards has to be just earth shattering. But Jadedstar is right - regardless of whatever the situation, it is not your fault. You are only responsible for your actions and regardless of your actions (I don't know the full situation) he is purely responsible for his horrible act.

 

Jadedstar - I do agree that things like lying or omitting that one spent extra money really doesn't qualify as "cheating" in the sense that we are talking about (although by the literal definition of "Cheat", it would be). I am, however, somewhat struggling with the second situation you provided with the female friend. Your justification on lying (or just omitting information) is that if someone sets up unrealistic parameters they are justified on ignoring and hiding the action if they break them. My opinion is that this could end up pretty much negating anything - by that logic, if someone thinks it is perfectly fine to get a lap dance but their partner disagrees, they could declare it an unrealistic parameter and feel justified just doing it anyways. What if someone thinks casual sex isn't cheating? I think it is a very slippery slope. Now I can understand how people can be paranoid and set some insane parameters (myself being one whom has) and it being "easier" to just lie about it, but I think this lying will just fuel their paranoia all the more. I would think the proper way to handle this is just to state "I will be talking to this friend" and not hide the fact. It is then up to the other partner to either accept the change in parameters in their relationship or not. Not giving the partner the opportunity to reject this change in boundaries is cheating, IMHO, regardless of how unrealistic the initial boundary is.

 

I am still pondering the fine line between "Intimate Friendship" and "Emotional Affair" - does anyone have any thoughts on where that line gets crossed? In my situation, there are the definite things (strong declarations of love and not loving the partner, desire to run away with the friend, indication of wanting a sexual relationship, etc.) - however I am struggling to set up boundaries for the more subtitle things. Another hole in the premise of "what you would do in front of your partner" I am discovering is about sharing emotions. If one partner is willing/able to share their emotions with their partner, but instead chooses to share them with someone else instead, would this be cheating? What about raw time in a platonic manner? Say a partner spends 40 hours a week with some other person thus only has 14 left to provide to their spouse, would this be considered cheating?

[JadedStar]

I am, however, somewhat struggling with the second situation you provided with the female friend. Your justification on lying (or just omitting information) is that if someone sets up unrealistic parameters they are justified on ignoring and hiding the action if they break them. My

 

No Solarist, i did not JUSTIFY it. What I am saying is that a person who IS extreme and flips out over innocent stuff is probably going to deal with these kinds of lies no matter who they are with. If a person does not have a healthy self esteem and cries wolf over EVEryTHING they are going to in essense "create" a lying partner.

 

I am not letting the partner off the hook who lied to keep the peace, they STILL should be held accountable.

 

But the thing is you have to look at the "crimes" here on a case by case basis. This is the main reason I responded to PUppeteer in the first place...I was not condescending him I was challenging him on saying cheating is "black and white" because IN MY OPINION it is not. It is VERY gray.

 

You sometimes cannot make a blanekt statement about anything. Decisions must be made on a case by case basis and taking into consideration the dynamics of the relationship and the pre determined boundaries that couple already secured.

 

No, cheating is not black and white at all and Puppeteer that is my opinion. I am not condescending you but I AM disagreeing.

[Solarist]

Well, I would definitely agree things are not so black and white. Nothing in this world really is, and most "actions" have a schenario where they are a horrible crime in one situation while the same action could be a heroic gesture in another. The fact it is not black and white does cause some difficulties, however, pre-defining the situations to avoid conflicts of bounderies.

[Miss Firecracker]

I remember once when I had a breakdown over my husband's new job, when he started traveling with a very young woman. I was in such shape I should have been in a hospital at the time, having paranoia, adrenaline rushes at night, looking at his e-mail constantly, checking his cell phone for any indication of a problem.

 

I went through his deleted e-mail, then went further into Outlook to Recover Deleted feature. In there I found a note from the young lady he was going with on jobs. She had written him while he was traveling alone and asked him what he was doing up so late at night and ended with a When he sends e-mail there (in Europe), she sees it when it comes in and realized it was very late where he was. She was making a friendly comment. I thought it was a little too friendly, and he knew I would. So he had deleted it immediately without even replying. I took it that he was hiding a friendship and went completely ballistic on him.

 

This is one situation where I think my husband was between a rock and a hard place. He knew that if I had seen that, it would have been just as bad as if I found he had hidden it. So he "lied" in my opinion. He hid correspondence from a business partner. But I completely understand NOW why he felt he had to.

 

If that happened today, he wouldn't delete it because I am OK now.

 

I think this is an example of JadedStar's gray area.