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H&SBR: Cheating

  
  

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Spaniel
18:06 / 14.03.07
"If the wind changes you'll stay like that"

Idiomatically British phrase that refers to the consequences of face pulling antics.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
18:13 / 14.03.07
It's just about not letting myself be completely destructive simply because I can.

This is a lesson I've yet to learn.
 
 
Ticker
18:28 / 14.03.07
It's just about not letting myself be completely destructive simply because I can.

This is a lesson I've yet to learn.

Methinks it's a lot like a a hot stove and toddlers. Some kids have to get a fourth degree burn before they'll think twice. Other kids just can't be let alone in the kitchen ever.

Which is a long way of saying it's ok if you never learn it just so long as you can be honest about who you are.
 
 
Spaniel
18:32 / 14.03.07
With other people, I'm assuming.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
01:23 / 15.03.07
I'm wondering how I would deal with the shame of cheating on someone, should I ever cheat and indeed actually feel ashamed. For some reason, right now the idea of shame interests me. I'm trying to recall moments of extreme shame in my life and I'm kinda coming up short. Maybe I've erased all those memories, or denied them until they faded away into the backround. I wonder which is more unhealthy.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe because I was punished a lot as a kid (I was always getting in trouble when I was young. Nobody's fault in particular, really, I had ADD but nobody knew) I developed some sort of mechanism for avoiding shame. Frankly, the notion that I've never done anything to be really ashamed about strikes me as very, very unlikely. Even by the loosest standards.

Anyway. Dealing with the shame. Thoughts?
 
 
Slim
02:06 / 15.03.07
So how defensible is the "Hey, I'm not cheating on anyone" line when you're foolin' around with someone in a committed reltionship? I only ask because, um, a friend wants to know?

I've thought about this before and decided that there are three reasons for foolin' around with someone already in a relationship:

1) You seduced him/her because you felt like having some sex
2) She/He came on to you
3) You are interested in pursuing a relationship with him or her and engage in a form of pseudo-dating

To me, the first option is almost morally indefensible. You're engaging in an action that could have severe effects on at least 2 lives for a quick roll in the hay. Lame.

Option two is debatable. If he or she makes it clear that they are looking to hook up, who are you to say no? Clearly, the relationship is already screwed up. On the other hand, there's always something to be said for maintaing a moral high ground and not letting someone drag you into the dirt.

Option 3, in my mind, is acceptable. Why let someone else stand in the way of what could be true happiness? Acknowledge that it is an unfortunate situation and set things right as quickly as possible. If you have real feelings for a person, they should be pursued.
 
 
ibis the being
02:18 / 15.03.07
"If the wind changes you'll stay like that"

In the US, you'll stay like that if someone smacks you on the back while you're doing it.
 
 
Sole Eater
05:57 / 15.03.07
My first wife cheated on me. The marriage was a farce anyway. We had been in a relationship for a couple of years and fought too much. I broke it off but after a couple of weeks decided we should start to see each other "slowly at first". She said "I'm preggers". I said "holy shit, you gotta lose it". My parents went ape and counselled me not to marry her. After a conference at her parents and much pressure being applied I finally yelled "All right, I'll fuckin' marry her then."

Long silence!

Then Bob (father out-law) said in a small voice "I don't think that's the attitude we were looking for."

Long story short: We married and Cait was born 8 months later and is still the apple of, etc (18 now). Her scheming, conniving mother ran off a year later with a lowlife who commenced to beat her. My biggest worry was that he was beating Caity but I don't think in hindsight that he ever did. She ended up dumping him and marrying a fisherman (she always wanted me to become a deckhand in her family's fleet of lobster boats) who looked just like me.

When she left, I was devastated. Goddamn it, I was the one who hadn't wanted to get married and the stupid bitch turfed me out for an animal. I took off for the territories. Self pity was my constant companion for a good 12 months. I'd ring her and say things like: "Does he even know how to make you satisfied in bed? (a lot more graphically though). Suicide was even contemplated. It took me three years to get up enough self esteem to try another relationship. There were flings but as soon as any female got that proprietal look in her eyes I was gone like a rat up an aqueduct.

Luckily I then met Mrs Sole Eater II, whom I was married to for ten years before an amicable breakup. Funny thing was, she was married when I met her and we started cheating on her husband. She left him very shortly afterwards. After SHE left me (is there a pattern here?) I have decide to remain a crusty old batchelor.

Until next time, of course.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:27 / 15.03.07
Were you tempted to shoot the "stupid bitch", Sole Eater? I think if you had done so, you would have only been doing a warrior's work and putting an animal out of its misery!

Your Barbelith career is going to be long and exciting, isn't it?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:29 / 15.03.07
Get back to the tofu, Flygirl!
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:19 / 15.03.07
Option 3, in my mind, is acceptable. Why let someone else stand in the way of what could be true happiness? Acknowledge that it is an unfortunate situation and set things right as quickly as possible. If you have real feelings for a person, they should be pursued.

I see where you are going on this one, Slim, but it's a very teleological approach. It depends on discovering whether or not the adulterous relationship upon which you are embarking turns out to be one for which you and/or the other party leave their current partners in order to set up together, at which point you can determine retroactively whether you were right to start cheating in the first place. Functionally, how do you determine at the time whether your feelings are real-in-a-way-that-justifies-cheating, are a response to problems in your actual relationships, or are the result of a bottle of champagne at a sales conference?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:30 / 15.03.07
She said "I'm preggers". I said "holy shit, you gotta lose it".

That would make a great lyric.

My biggest worry was that he was beating Caity but I don't think in hindsight that he ever did.

Yeah, so long as she only grew up watching her own mother get six shades of shite knocked out of her, I'm sure she'll be fine. Esp. given the presence of such a super and not-at-all misogynistic dad in her life. The kind of dad who is sure that, in hindsight, she probably didn't get whaled on by her stepfather. Let's not lose sight of the important point here: the cheating, conniving bitch who trapped you into marriage got what was coming to her.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
09:41 / 15.03.07
Hey, be easy. I don't think he was actually expressing any joy at the fact that a woman he once cared for got beat. His language may leave a lot to be desired if he's ever going to fit in here, but let's not accuse him of saying things he's not actually said.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:50 / 15.03.07
It's true that he didn't express express pleasure in the ex's having hooked up with an abusive partner, but the phrase "My biggest worry was that he was beating Caity" conveys a very flippant attitude to the spousal abuse. I mean, there's an ex in my life--in most of our lives, I'm sure--who did me a lot of harm, but if I found out that he was being beaten or abused by a partner I'd be upset rather than indifferent.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
10:05 / 15.03.07
Mmm, I don't feel it conveys any such flippancy. If I learned a partner of mine was in an abusive home my first and most immediate concern would be for the wellfare of my child. Just because no mention was made of any concern for his former wife, doesn't necessarily mean that no concern existed.

I'm not saying I'd be shocked to discover that no such concern ever in fact existed. I mean, he does refer to her as a "stupid bitch", a term I find very distasteful, but it's also a term I hear a lot in reference to ex-wives who have shattered their former husband's probably fragile self-esteem. Simply using the term does not, in my mind, convey that he had no concern at all for her well being.

But I go out on limbs all the time, so I don't blame you for not joining me here.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:46 / 15.03.07
Oh sure. I could well be reading too much into it--sometimes, I think, the presence of a slur (along with certain other cues) can colour my interpretation a bit too strongly.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
12:20 / 15.03.07
This thread is begininng to stink. The phrase 'cheating' is already kind of moralistic, as if sex happens in this universe where everyone is in a monogamous relationship and anything outside that sphere has to be irrelevant. So of course it's attracting responses that come from that moral universe.

Then there's the lovely Sole Eater. No fucking wonder you're a bachelor.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:45 / 15.03.07
I disagree. Not about Sole Eater's bachelorhood not being surprising, obvs, but about the inherent presumption of monogamy. I think Slim's model _does_ kind of work on that basis, at least in case (3), because you are talking about a transition from one pair-relationship to another pair-relationship, where the possibility of a new pair--relationship provides the moral justification for breaking the rules of the previous one. In most cases, though, I think we can identify "cheating" as "breaking the pre-agreed rules of a relationship and not telling the other party/ies in that relationship. Often, these relationships are notionallly monogamous, and often as result of that what the rules are have not actually been thought about, instead going for a rather unwise assumption that both have the same idea about what is and is not acceptable. Thus leading to questions like "is it cheating if we had only been on a couple of dates/hadn't agreed to be exclusive/I didn't put anything in me/have anything put in me", and so on.

Monogamy's very dangerous, sometimes.
 
 
Spaniel
13:00 / 15.03.07
The phrase 'cheating' is already kind of moralistic, as if sex happens in this universe where everyone is in a monogamous relationship and anything outside that sphere has to be irrelevant

I'd hope that didn't come across from my initial post. My definition of "cheating" is pretty broad, and includes breaking the rules of polyamorous relationships: unsanctioned interpersonal emotional or sexual activity, basically. That isn't to say that such activity is necessarily without worth -I can imagine situations where it could be very valuable indeed - just that said worth (if it exists) doesn't transform the betrayal of trust involved into a good or even okay thing, imo.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
13:04 / 15.03.07
I promised laoi that my 301st post would be a follow-up to my contribution to this thread, so here goes.

Kudos to Disco for provoking me sufficiently and breaking my promise to myself to be a good wageslave and not wait until I got home.

Disco said: This thread is begininng to stink. The phrase 'cheating' is already kind of moralistic, as if sex happens in this universe where everyone is in a monogamous relationship and anything outside that sphere has to be irrelevant. So of course it's attracting responses that come from that moral universe.

The phrase "cheating" can certainly be moralistic - but it can also be perfectly valid, precisely in that mainstream universe where a lot of people are in a (nominally) monogamous relationship. Disclaimer: I am a heterosexual man, currently involved in a long-term relationship wherein we have pledged ourselves to sexual (and implicitly emotional) fidelity. In that context, which I think is the norm (like it or not, and for what it's worth) in my peer-group and larger social context, infidelity equals betrayal, dishonesty and being a lying bastard. So for me, my SO, (and I like to think most of my friends and loved ones), exclusive monogamy is the norm, and such I consider it a virtue for people to honor their relationship commitments. I have little desire to be (seen as) a traitorous, lying, cheating bastard - and so I don't want to engage in "extra-curricular" activities.

That said, to each their own. I've no problems with other people's open relationships, polyamory, bigamy and other similar, non-monogamous, non-exclusive sexual and social arrangements. I do care about people being honest. I do believe that there is value in being honest. Perhaps I'm an old git. When I was single, I fucked around a lot, with other single people. No guilt, only lots of insecurity as to whether I'd been intelligent and sober enough to use a condom. What I didn't do was being dishonest about my intentions - sex, and nothing but, or knowingly sleeping with girls that were committed.

So, Disco, I think you're being a tad moralistic yourself. You seem to want to chastise all these nasty heterosexual monogamists for being moralistic (boo!), and, I guess (but do correct me if I'm wrong) heteronormative. But, if you want to play the moral relativist card, well, how can you tell people off for making consensual decisions on how they conduct their lives in terms of sexuality, attraction, relationships and the rules thereof? Live and let live no?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
13:08 / 15.03.07
Well, yairs, although (3) could easily be thought of as serial monogamy, which has garnered itself an equally bad rep in some circles.

I do agree that it's very useful to tease out the strands of what monogamy means, and perhaps that can take place under the same roof as talking about cheating. I'm also intereted that Tuna Ghost talks so much about shame -- a lot of the cheating conversation above is cheaters admitting they either felt guilty or felt they were supposed to, and the cheated talking about how they felt betrayed and hurt. I was just suggesting, not very gently, that perhaps it might be better to crowbar the discussion out of that particular guilt/betrayal dynamic.

I think the whole question of infidelity turns on honesty and the meaning of intimacy, rather than the particular act, or whether it even involves mere desire for someone else or a sexual act. Monogamy doesn't just assume fidelity, it also assumes honesty as the condition of intimacy and partnership -- doesn't it? 'Cheating', I think, is just as much about the violation of that rule of honesty/intimacy with one person as the fact of fucking someone else.

But then we also run into brick walls. Ie, if one proceeds with infidelity but tells one's partner about it, with all the consequences that entails, does it still count as cheating? Or are you just 'trying to hurt someone' by rubbing their nose in it? Or is it the path to a new definition of monogamy, one which is honest about how people have this tendency to want to do sexy stuff with more than one person?
 
 
Disco is My Class War
13:14 / 15.03.07
That was in response to Haus, but it probably applies a bit to Boboss and Los Moltes as well. And Boboss, point taken about cheating applying equally to non-monogamous arrangements as monogamous ones.

So had anyone ever been in a relationship where the appearance. is of monogamy, but where it was accepted that both partners would stray occasionally, as long as it wasn't serious and didn't interrupt that appearance? Ie, a kind of sanctioned mutual ignorance of each others' sexual lives outside the relationship? That's one situation in which monogamy still functions, sort of, but where intimacy obviously does not equal honesty.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
13:14 / 15.03.07
Disco said - But then we also run into brick walls. Ie, if one proceeds with infidelity but tells one's partner about it, with all the consequences that entails, does it still count as cheating?

Do you mean sex first and then telling? If so, for me = cheating and/or noserubbing in hurt, given that one was in a monogamous relationship. Telling and then sexing it up? Hmmm.. that's a good question. More later. Gotta work, dammit!
 
 
Spaniel
13:18 / 15.03.07
< b > How to bold text for quoting < /b >

But without the spaces, obvs.
 
 
Triplets
13:18 / 15.03.07
if one proceeds with infidelity but tells one's partner about it, with all the consequences that entails, does it still count as cheating?

I would say yes, and admitting one's "guilt" does not retroactively erase it, which you just have suck up. Presuming you're coming clean to your partner (and they're not dumping you), then at that point you're under the obligation to knuckle down and be better or move on to-

Or is it the path to a new definition of monogamy, one which is honest about how people have this tendency to want to do sexy stuff with more than one person?

Quite possibly, but not that you necessarily should. However, isn't this kind of awareness built-in to relationships with partners who are open and honest with each other?

But, are you saying that the honesty/intimacy remains with one person but - if both partners agree - the sexy sex stuff can be done guilt-free with other people?
 
 
Ticker
13:19 / 15.03.07
Cheating happens in poly as well, Haus. Honesty and wanting to hold the advantage card of choice do not always seem to go hand in hand.

When I was a wee shiny eyed gel in college my high school schoole era swain and I were still together and living together. For many years iffin' one of us wanted to get frisky with someone else we discussed it ahead of time. Usually it resulted in a group tumble but on occassion I gave him a hunting permit for elsewhere. Mind you I was a late bloomer so my own sex drive hadn't yet hit the scene and I was more than happy for him to find amusement with other folks, if I was consulted beforehand.

Then one night he didn't come home. We'd been going through a rough patch because of a long term house guest in a very small city apartment and were not in the friendliest place but I freaked out worried that he was injured/dead/etc.
He showed up with a basketful of lies and it kept going. My elder sib did a tarot reading for me that put up in technocolor what was happening and I gentle nicely asked him, he denied it. This went on for a few months though he usually came home. Finally one day an old pal of mine came to visit and I took him in to the schmancy pet store with the giant reptile tanks. As we gazed into the central tank I glanced up and saw the back of my SO next to a petite blonde with his arm around her.

I managed to get out of the store with my friend rather than lose my temper and confronted my SO privately later. It wasn't pretty and though I tried over the course of another year to become friends with the other woman, to set up good lines of communication with both of them, they kept lying to me.

Was about two years of hell if I remember correctly. The punchline is during the later part of this epic drawn out farce I happened to get headlice while thrift store shopping. So of course my SO got them, and in turn gave them to his illicit sweetie.

YOU WANT TO SHARE MY STUFF?!?! HERE HAVE SOME MORE PARASITES!!!

It finally all ended when I met someone else (after the lice were killed off in an epic scorched earth event). I kicked my now ex SO the fuck out after pulling a few not come home at night events myself. It was a glorious early twenties drama fest.

My ex did not hook up long term with the OW but he has cheated on every long term partner he has been with. After his last one he's been in the penalty box of self reflection for the last three years.

The thing I never understood was why they elected to lie when I was willing to find some way to make it ok. In hindsight it was becuase the OW really was just a mono person trying to snag a new mate and because my SO enjoyed the thrill of cheating. Even when it could have just been honestly handled in the open.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:19 / 15.03.07
So for me, my SO, (and I like to think most of my friends and loved ones), exclusive monogamy is the norm

Utter nonsense. Exclusive monogamy is the claim. Quite different.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:24 / 15.03.07
Cheating happens in poly as well, Haus.

Yes, I know. What I was trying to say was that monogamy tends to be more likely to rely on a set of principles on what is and is not "cheating" which can be assumed to be mutual whereas in fact each person might have assembled those ideas quite differently from the grab bag of cultural asumptions they have been provided about how monogamous relationships function. Without the same mass of cultural accretion, polyamorous relations tend to need to define their terms rather than assuming their shared preexistence, although of course those terms are then perfectly susceptible to being violated by any of the participants.
 
 
Spaniel
13:24 / 15.03.07
I like to think most of my friends and loved ones

I'd like to know why you like to think that? I'm hoping (and suspecting) that's just unfortunate phraseology.
 
 
Ticker
13:26 / 15.03.07
Which is a long way of saying it's ok if you never learn it just so long as you can be honest about who you are.

With other people, I'm assuming.

Nope have to start with the self. If you can't be honest to yourself you are never going to pull it off with other people. If you know you are prone to a certain set of behaviors ( I enjoy fucking up my life / I sabotage things because I can/ I don't feel guilt about sex outside of the rules) you need to own that.

Pretending you are something you are not to yourself is far more devastating than pretending it for the benefit of other people.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
13:27 / 15.03.07
Excuse me, but what's the difference? I claim to have thoughts, beliefs and emotions in general, and others do too, so that's the norm, right? However, I'd have a hard time proving that. Utter nonsense? I think not.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
13:29 / 15.03.07
Boboss:

1. I like to think that because I do. I value monogamy, and, I know most my friends and loved ones do too, or claim to do so, if you must (HAUS!!!).

2. I know how to use < b >. I just didn't want to use it. But thanks anyway.
 
 
Ticker
13:31 / 15.03.07
Without the same mass of cultural accretion, polyamorous relations tend to need to define their terms rather than assuming their shared preexistence, although of course those terms are then perfectly susceptible to being violated by any of the participants.

Thanks for the lovely condensed version.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:32 / 15.03.07
You misunderstand me. If you mean that saying "we are exclusively monogamous" is the norm among your friends, then I agree entirely. If you mean that your friends have remained almost entirely faithful to their partners, that becomes a claim, and one which I think would require your friends to be unusually and statistically abnormally continent. There may be external factors - you and your friends may be Mennonites, for example, and I apologise for not thinking of that.
 
 
Ex
13:32 / 15.03.07
I'm going to disagree with Slim also, politely - I don't think the possibility of another relationship somehow makes dodgy sex less dodgy. I say that not from a 'monogamy yay' position, but from a 'relationship hmm' position - I think that the pursuit of 'a relationship' doesn't really make anything that is unethical become ethical. Relationships aren't good in themselves - they're good if they bring pleasure to the parties involved and ideally, give them some kind of moral support for interracting with people in ethical ways. Helping someone to sidle out of their relationship agreement because you think you may be able to get a relationship from that - I don't think it redeems unwise sex.

And conversely, I think sex is a good reason for sex. Good, pleasant, decent, enjoyable sex has a positive value. A nebulous, potential (and potentially terrible) relationship doesn't have much value at all for me.

I'm not saying that under circ. 1 it's fine and under circ. 3 it's bad; I just don't see that sliding scale you proposed.

Overall, I don't think relationships redeem sex - sex doesn't need to be redeemed, and if there's something dodgy going on then the idea of a relationship won't help much. I suppose it adds to the weight of reasons one act in one's own interests, but I don't think it changes the nature of that action (self-interested).
It's a bit like Haus' teleology argument, above, but with more 'yay sex'.
 
  

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