[Greta Christina] Is Cheating Ever Okay? Part 2
Wow.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. My column from last week, Is Cheating Ever Okay? — the one suggesting that cheating in a sexless relationship might be morally defensible — generated more comments than any other column I’ve written for this blog. By a considerable margin.
And based on the content of the comments, it seems as if I need to do some clarifying, and go into this in a little more detail. This is a complicated question — that’s the main point I’m trying to make, actually — one that I’m still figuring out myself, and it’s going to take more than a couple of blog posts to resolve it, even in my own mind. But I want to take a little time to explain what the heck I’m talking about, and address some of the main themes that came up in the replies.
First of all: Lots of people said, “Why don’t you just talk about it with your partner? Don’t go cheating. If you’re not happy with your sex life, try to work it out.”
Yes. Of course. I totally agree. It is no fair reneging on monogamy in a sexless marriage if you haven’t told your partner there’s a problem.
I even said so in my original post (she said, trying to keep the peevish tone out of her voice). But apparently I didn’t say it clearly enough, or at great enough length, or close enough to the top of the page, and it somehow got overlooked. So I’ll say it again: If you’re in a relationship where your partner has unilaterally turned off the sex, and you’re considering cheating, you have some responsibilities. And one of those responsibilities is to make a scrupulous, good- faith effort to fix the sexual problems with your partner, and try to find a solution that works for both of you, before you go a-wandering.
What’s more, you have to try hard, and you have to try more than once. If you tell your partner, “What’s with the lack of sex?” and they say, “Yeah, well, I don’t think I want to have sex any more,” you can’t then shrug your shoulders and go running to the nearest singles bar or online hookup site. You have to make it very clear that this is a real problem for you, one that’s making you unhappy. I’m not sure you should necessarily give them an “If you won’t ever have sex with me again, I’ll find someone who will” ultimatum — in my experience, most people don’t respond well to ultimatums — but you have to make your feelings clear, and you have to keep trying. Cheating isn’t a go-to solution. It’s a last resort.
But what if you tell your partner there’s a problem, and they aren’t willing to talk about it? Or they don’t see it as a problem, and aren’t willing to do anything about it?
What would you do then?
Several other people pointed out that sometimes people’s libidos go through temporary dry patches, due to childbirth or depression or other stressful situations. They argued that part of a long- term monogamous commitment is being willing to accept that, and to accept celibacy until things get better. And again, I quite agree. I even said so in my original post. (She said, again trying to keep the petulant, “Could you please at least read what I write before chiding me about it?” tone out of her voice. And failing, probably. Sorry about that.)
I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about long but temporary dry spells. I’m talking about one partner unilaterally turning off the sex in a relationship — permanently. Or at least, with no willingness to discuss it or deal with it, and no end in sight.
What would you do then?
And lots of people said things like, “Why cheat? Isn’t open non-monogamy a better option?”
Yes. Of course it is.
But it’s not always an available option.
Not everyone is willing to be non-monogamous. Or even to consider it. Some people apparently do think that, because they’ve given up on sex, their partner should, too. In the letters to the sex advice columnists on this topic, one of the themes that comes up a lot is that the partner who’s turning off the tap thinks sex is something you do when you’re younger, early on in the relationship; that the drying up of sexual desire is normal; and that it’s unreasonable to expect or indeed want sex past a certain point.
What would you do then?
And other people have suggested that the only honorable options in this situation are (a) open non-monogamy, and (b) break-up/ divorce. A lot of people said things like, “If you’re not happy in your sex life, why would you even want to stay together?”
But that assessment is not always accurate, or fair, or reflective of reality. What if you have kids? What if you have a business together? What if you have some sort of artistic or intellectual endeavor together? Splits are almost always difficult and messy, but some are more difficult and messy than others. Some splits affect more people than the ones who are splitting.
And what if you really like each other, and love each other, and enjoy being together apart from the sex problems? What if, apart from the sex, this is a relationship that makes you both happy? Is ending a relationship whose end would cause upheaval and unhappiness to you and your partner and lots of other people really a better, more honorable choice than a discreet affair? Are the only moral choices either (a) divorce or (b) foregoing sex for the rest of your life?
What would you do?
I’m going to take the most extreme situation to illustrate my point. Admittedly it is an extreme situation; but it’s also not an unrealistic one. In fact, it’s one I’ve seen described more or less verbatim in the sex columns.
You’re in a long- term relationship. You have kids, or a business, or some other major entanglements together: entanglements that would make a split extremely difficult and painful, and that affect other people than just the two of you. And you do, in fact, both like being coupled with each other, and would much rather stay together than split up.
Your partner has stopped having sex with you. You’ve tried to discuss it with them, but they either refuse to even talk about it, or don’t see it as a problem. They are unwilling to change. They think sex is something you do when you’re younger, and that you should just accept the disappearance of sex as a normal part of life. And they are unwilling to consider non-monogamy.
What would you do?
You might decide that your best choice is either to accept permanent celibacy for the rest of your life, or to break up. And I wouldn’t argue with either of those choices, or judge you for making them. But I don’t think they’re great choices, either. They’re also choices that can hurt people, choices that can make people besides yourself unhappy.
And I’m arguing that, in this situation, cheating is in the same category. It’s not a great choice, it’s a choice that can hurt people . . . but in this situation, I’m not sure I’d argue with it, or judge you for making it.
Again, I know that I’m describing an extreme situation. But when trying to figure out complicated moral questions, it’s often useful to take an extreme example first, and then parse backwards from there, to see where you think the line should be drawn. And I do think this is a morally complicated situation. That’s the main point I’m trying to make. Cheating is not always a cut and dried moral issue, where we can comfortably scold and wag our fingers. It’s often a complicated one, with extenuating circumstances.
I don’t think that cheating is, to use the phrase Ingrid uses, morally excellent. I don’t think it’s a great choice. But I do think that, in certain situations, it may be the best bad choice available. There are some situations in life where there are no good choices, no morally impeccable choices, and all you can do is make the best imperfect choice you can.
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on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 5:18 am Ephemeriis wrote:
The problem with cheating is that it implies a lack of honesty. It implies that you’d be sneaking around behind your partner’s back, trying not to get caught, keeping it all in the dark. And a lack of honesty is one of the best ways to kill a relationship.
I’m not saying you have to tell your partner the complete truth about everything… Or that you have to tell them about every single thought that crosses your mind… But your partner needs to be able to trust you. Your partner needs to be able to believe that you would not intentionally deceive them.
And cheating ruins this trust.
Things may be fine while your partner is still in the dark. It may go great if you can keep up the lies and not get caught. But when your partner find out you’ve now got to deal not only with you had sex behind my back! but also you lied to me!
I think the proper response to your extreme scenario presented above would be to sit down with your partner and tell them in no uncertain terms: I need sex. You aren’t willing to participate. I am going to find someone who is. I’ll be careful, I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else in any way, but I’m going to find someone to have sex with.
Yes, there will be hurt feelings… There will be yelling… There will be all kinds of fallout… But there would be if you were caught cheating too. Except this way your partner can still trust you. And you can still discuss the ramifications of this choice honestly - instead of trying to assure them, after you’ve already betrayed their trust, that you are still trustworthy and they ought to stay in a relationship with you.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 7:52 am Evan wrote:
Thanks for following up. I was also rather surprised by the one-sided response to the last post…
I was in an all but sexless relationship for ~10 years; I never did cheat but in retrospect I’m amazed that I didn’t. I had discussed it, I had tried to change the things that I was told were the problem (it was all things I did wrong, of course) - all to no avail.
Had I cheated before I left I would feel no guilt about it…
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 12:03 pm Tom Allen wrote:
I posted a comment on the first part describing a situation that was not hypothetical, which is very like your own example above.
Now, part of the reason why they had an issue discussing it is age: they were both born way before the Sexual Revolution, and the idea of even discussing their sex life - even with each other - was just embarrassing and difficult for both of them. I’m not saying that this excuses my friend’s actions, but it does give some perspective - they came form a time in which some people really did believe that sex stopped at XX age. Most people barely can agree on how to handle the money if one person becomes incapacitated - talking about how to handle the sex is too weird for most people.
And again - he was happy with other aspects of the relationship. She never worked outside the house, so in leaving her in their mid 50s, she’d be financially much worse off - not to mention the family issues, and splitting up the property. He was discreet, and she either didn’t ask or didn’t care. Yes, he was cheating. But ultimately, was anyone hurt by this?
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 2:15 pm Abbie wrote:
This is the first time I’ve really disagreed with you. Richard Dawkins has said similar things, and that was the one time I’ve disagreed with him.
Cheating is dishonest. And it has a high probability of going wrong. And also it’s incredibly dishonest.
I guess you could just tell them “okay I’m going to cheat on you.”
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 5:57 pm Tess wrote:
I can speak as someone whose father had a “discreet” affair whilst my mother was suffering from depression.
And I can say that kids aren’t stupid. Splitting up with kids may seem terribly hard, but don’t expect them to not notice that anything is awry when you decide to stay together.
It was a situation that caused a lot of pain, because of the dishonesty involved. For one thing, I was burdened with a terrible secret. If I told my mother I would be implicitly siding with her, and I would have to take responsibility for breaking up the family. If I stayed silent I was implicitly siding with my father, exposing my mother to risk. I also felt terrible for withholding information that would have dramatically changed the way she lived.
It affected me too. This happened while I was going through puberty. I was so scared that I was never going to be able to give my (hypothetical) future husband as much sex as he would demand. I mentally prepared myself for all the blowjobs that I would endure. The media’s depiction of men as sex starved pigs was reinforced at home and it’s taken me a long time to get to the point with men that I am now.
Now, I don’t know if my father sat down with my mother and told her that he was unhappy. I don’t know if he fitted the standards that you’ve laid out for a situation where cheating is okay. I don’t know he was in a situation where it was the best of bad choices available to him.
Honestly though, he obviously thought he was justified. Our situation was complicated. We were residents in a foreign country where my mother would not have been able to support herself. My family wouldn’t have been split up into two houses in the same neighbourhood, we would have been split up across different continents.
Looking back though, I wish my father hadn’t done it. I wish he had worked on why my mother didn’t want to give him sex, because there were parts of the implicit contract that she felt that he had violated. I wish he’d seen it out and I wish that he’d been honest.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 6:19 pm Joreth wrote:
I stand by my position that an open relationship (even if it’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell - as long as it’s consensual DADT) or divorce are the only respectable choices. For the simple reason that this person that the cheater professes to “love” and wants to continue building a life together DID NOT CONSENT TO THIS RELATIONSHIP.
That’s no way to treat someone you claim to love. If you don’t love that person but it’s just too complicated to split, then you’re just lazy. That’s the coward’s way out. You’re deliberately hurting someone else to avoid the inconvenience that the ethical option would create.
Yeah, divorce sucks. It’s messy, it’s painful, it could take a long time, it could hurt people.
But it’s the path to greater courage, it’s the more ethical option, it does not force someone into a relationship they did not consent to.
If one spouse says “I will never have sex again and that’s not negotiable” and the other spouse says “I really need to have sex somehow, someway before I die” and the sexless spouse is willing to look the other way for the convenience of maintaining a companionate yet sexless marriage, that’s at least CONSENSUAL and, in my book, ethical. If the sexless one doesn’t want to know, and the jilted one is required to be “discreet”, that’s still fine - not a relationship I, personally, would touch with a 10-foot pole, but whatever floats your boat.
What makes it right or wrong is whether both partners have made the choice. And in a true cheating relationship (not an agreed-upon DADT), one person did not choose that relationship.
I’m not defending the sexless person’s position. I’m not saying what that person does is right either. But I am saying that one person being wrong does not give another person the right to be unethical in return.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 7:40 pm yoyo wrote:
I must disagree with many of your commentators, I have been in both positions. I am married but also having a long term relationship with another married man. My husband knows but my lovers wife doesnt. I dont believe we are property. If an affair is handled well and honerably I dont think it does diminish an already somewhat circumscribed relationship. My lovers wife lives in another country but visits frequently, for religious reasons celibacy and no divorce are her decision, my lover supports her financially and emotionally. If our relationship helps him continue to support her then why is it a bad thing?
The most important thing here is boundaries. I would never try and presume on the primacy of his relationship by seeking his divorce for example. Should the situation change and they become a fully functioning relationship, i would wish them both luck.
Of course these type of relationships can become messy, all human relationships can. i feel sorry for Tess, I have been in the position of keeping destructive secrets for my father. But generally i dont believe that “cheating” has to be a negative option.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 7:51 pm yogurtbacteria wrote:
I don’t think there’s any argument to be made for cheating being ethical. Among the choices of sexless relationship vs. divorce vs. cheating, there are no happy options. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are two moral options and one immoral option. Cheating is lying to get what you want. And the fact that what you want is something very important to most people does not change the fact that it is dishonest and incredibly destructive.
In extreme cases with moral questions like this one, there are points past which I think the immoral decisions people make are understandable, but when it comes down to it, they’re still wrong. I do think it’s easy, very easy in some cases, to understand why some people cheat, and I wouldn’t necessarily judge someone who had cheated to be an asshole purely on the grounds that they had cheated (though I probably would make that judgment under the vast majority of circumstances), but I would still judge the action itself as wrong. I think Joreth puts it very well when she says, “one person being wrong does not give another person the right to be unethical in return.”
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 7:55 pm yogurtbacteria wrote:
Also, kudos to you for being brave enough to argue for the unpopular side of this.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 8:00 pm Nancy wrote:
“Good faith efforts”. Does this qualify? 3 different counselors…….no improvement. Conversations: “This is only something I can get from you…what am I suppose to do?” He always said he’d try.
So, I cheated and I don’t regret it. The man I cheated with helped me build confidence. I WAS worthy of love and desire. When my husband caught me on the phone w/ my lover…..he chased me around the yard (with the kids watching out the windows) and pinned me to a chair and said “If you’re fucking around on me, I’ll fucking kill you.” That was it for me…marriage over. Thankfully, I had the strength to endure and a wonderful family who supported me (both emotionally and financially). That was 1995.
Fast forward…..it turns out he was sleeping with his secretary. That’s why he didn’t need anything from me. Of course, to this day I’m still the one who cheated and destroyed the marriage. Go figure.
So, maybe people will say cheating is wrong, and IN THEORY it is……but, sometimes, just sometimes, one is left with no choice.
I feel that I waited about 4 billion years for this measly 75 or so years on this planet. I’m going to do whatever it takes to be happy. “Get it right this time…..cause this time is all you get.”
Now, I gotta run……..cause my 2nd husband (10 years strong) is feeling “salty” and I’m lovin the fact that he wants me………….and LOVES me. I think I “got it right” this time.
on Friday, 11 July 2008 at 9:09 pm Seth Manapio wrote:
Except this way your partner can still trust you. And you can still discuss the ramifications of this choice honestly - instead of trying to assure them, after you’ve already betrayed their trust, that you are still trustworthy and they ought to stay in a relationship with you.
HAH! Spoken like someone who hasn’t gone through this. Or, hey, maybe you did, just with someone different than I did. Its entirely possible for someone to feel betrayed even after they give permission for an external relationship. And the partner who is witholding sex is probably not reasonable about sex. So you have no idea how they’ll react, regardless of what they said before hand.
And you know, you don’t need a justifiable reason, or a logical reason, or even a sane reason to feel betrayed. Its a feeling, and recovery from that feeling can be impossible. So our hypothetical cheater could have cheated, kept his own secrets, eaten his own guilt, and at least tried to keep three hearts from being broken… or he could rip two relationships apart and hurt his family, friends, wife, lover, and cats badly enough that years of recovery were needed.
Its easy to sit on a moral high horse and make pronouncements. But I believe that morality has a lot to do with costs. If you are shifting the costs of your decisions around on other people, odds are you are acting immorally. We all know that dishonesty is sometimes the moral choice, if we’re honest with ourselves. So the only question is whether a person is in one of those moments or not, and frankly, I don’t want to make that call on their behalf.
on Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 12:01 am Paul Crowley wrote:
I’m very wary of pronouncing on monogamous relationships because I’ve never been in one, but here goes. I think there is room for saying that someone isn’t a terrible person just because they have an affair. But I’m most likely to be forgiving of people born in an earlier era, to people who’ve never had occasion to give the matters of sex and sexuality serious thought, to people who don’t know about the options they have in how they might structure their relationship. In other words, IF YOU’RE READING THIS, NOT YOU.
on Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 5:10 am Eshu wrote:
We’re youngish and lucky enough to have a good marriage in all respects including sex. However, my wife has said things entirely in agreement with your post.
In her opinion the emotional support provided by a partner is a far more important thing to maintain than sexual fidelity.
With my tongue in my cheek I mischievously responded, “Whahaay!” ;-)
She then clarified the situation to add that it’s far from ideal and should probably only be considered in extreme situations, especially in cases where the partner is unable (perhaps physically unable) to provide it.
on Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 1:52 pm Nita wrote:
I would like to point out that there’s a spectrum of options between scolding and wagging fingers and recommending cheating. And here’s why I think you shouldn’t recommend it:
1) If youdo care about your partner, cheating on em has the potential to make you feel like shit. You would be getting laid, but at the same time hurting your relationship (the practical demands of secrecy, intensive rationalization and waves of guilt can be quite alienating and destructive, trust me).
2) If you don’t care about your partner, you’re no longer in an intimate relationship, and then the contractual analogies from your previous post apply. After all, legal contracts are designed to keep a working relationship between people who don’t care about each other at all, even between enemies. In intimate relationships, however, you are both entitled and obliged to go beyond tit-for-tat, and, for instance, try to find out why your partner feels in a particular way about sex.
3) It seems that, unlike in your hypothetical example, the relationships where some of the commenters didn’t regret cheating or wished they had cheated made them miserable in more than one way and were headed for an unhappy ending in any case. So, ahem, unrealistic hypotheticals?
If you just want to say “Hey people, enough with the knee-jerk reactions to cheating already! Life is a complicated thing, and we’re all only human”, you have my full support. But I don’t think you have a solid reason to advise “In situations ABC and XYZ, go ahead and cheat - it’s the most reasonable option”, especially if you’ve never pulled it off successfully yourself.
on Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 2:32 pm Ola wrote:
EXACTLY. This seems to be the heart of the disagreement between the two “clans” in this conversation: for one side of this argument the “moral validity” of a decision somehow does not directly depend on the pain and suffering it causes to all involved parties. You can “rip two relationships apart and hurt his family, friends, wife, lover, and cats badly enough that years of recovery were needed”, but hey — at least you’re being ethical!
I, as Seth, believe that whatever morality is (and I don’t even have a definition), it has quite a lot to do with costs — in terms of the well-being of the people involved. And, as Greta, I strongly believe in “the law of lesser evil”: the ethical choice is the “least bad” choice available.
People are mostly polarized in their opinions on honesty in relationships — there seem to be two opposing groups (which we can see in this conversation). The first group believes that honesty is such an important aspect of an intimate relationship, that all other aspects of the relationship should be sacrificed for its sake. The second group (which contains the overwhelming majority of people, from my experience, although it doesn’t show in this thread) believes that honesty is very important, but we shouldn’t go crazy about it. As Dan Savage puts it, “No marriage would survive long without lies, great and small”.
I belong to the first group (as most poly people). And what that means is that for me, having an intimate relationship with people from the second group is a sure path to disaster. The two groups’ definitions of morality and the whole purpose of relationships are so different, that these differences seem irreconcilable. Joreth brought a damn good argument for the first group’s position — a dishonest relationship is simply not consensual. Seth brought a damn good argument for the second group’s position — sometimes honesty is putting the costs of your decisions on other people. For me, the important observation is that we have to acknowledge this disagreement. It sounds trivial, but it’s not: from my experience, the majority of people in either group (especially in the second) are not aware that the other group even exists, and therefore make lots of unjustified implicit assumptions, with disastrous consequences.
I believe that a discussion “in which group are you on this issue and why” is absolutely must-have in the beginning of any relationship. If you’re in different groups, you’re in huge trouble — even before someone has cheated! Unfortunately, only people in the first group can identify with this statement, which complicates things even further…
on Saturday, 12 July 2008 at 5:51 pm Blowfishies wrote:
We’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who is participating in the discussion of this issue; it has certainly been the most-discussed pair of topics on the board. Please, we’d like everyone to:
1. Keep the conversation civil, and not veer off into who is accusing who of what.
2. Please do not allow this to start drifting into statements of poly or monogamy triumphantism.
Thanks!
on Sunday, 13 July 2008 at 7:58 am stephen wrote:
I was in a seven year marriage to a kind intelligent woman. We have one daughter together. Her father died and she very quickly found a father figure replacement in another man. He was old enough to be my father and I quickly tired of her spending all her waking hours either on the phone with, or with him. I told her so repeatedly over a four year period and she refused to change her habits. I started an affair, and after two weeks I went to my wife and told her that she must change. She refused and I told her I wanted a divorce. Myself and my mistress are still together, and quite happy.
I thought it better to show my daughter one healthy, happy loving man and woman relationship than to have her only see the kind where the lovers in a relationship are no longer trying to love. So in essence, I left my wife because I didn’t want her to see her mother cheating on her father, or her father cheating on her mother.
If the sex is missing in a relationship, the intimacy probably is too. human beings need both.
on Monday, 14 July 2008 at 12:21 pm Franklin Veaux wrote:
I can get behind the idea of pushing a hypothetical to an extreme as a way to see how well one’s assumptions hold up under duress, but having said that, I’m a pragmatist as well.
Seems to me that if Alice and Bob are married, and Alice has been withholding sex from Bob for five years, Bob has had at least four years and three hundred and sixty-four days’ worth of opportunity to talk with Alice about it, and try to express why this is a problem.
Now, it may be that Alice is intractable on the subject, and refuses o reason with Bob. But in real-life situations, if this is the case, I submit their relationship has very serious problems that go far beyond sex. I would tend to think that the parties involved in a healthy romantic relationship genuinely care about one anothers’ well-being and are willing to make sincere, good-faith efforts to resolve problems, but then again, I can be an idealist when it comes to these things.
The question of kids is a sticky widget. I do understand that some folks want to remain in dysfunctional relationships for the sake of teaching their children such important values as betrayal of trust, lies, and deceit, and wish to present their children with role models who break agreements, go behind one anothers’ backs, and generally treat one another in disagreeable ways. I’m not quite sure why that is, but hey, to each his own…
Sarcasm aside, though, I do believe that there are a number of unspoken assumptions at play in any question like this. One of those unspoken assumptions is that children are always inherently better off if their parents remain in dysfunctional relationships rather than split amicably. Another is that breaking up is an option that’s off the table when dealing with problems in a relationship; a third is that violating the rules of the agreement is an alternative less damaging than a breakup. I would tend to think that all those assumptions are poorly founded.
In any of the cases presented here–kids, joint ownership of business, whatever–my answer is the same. I would end the romantic relationship while seeking to preserve, as far as possible, an amicable friendship that still honors and cherishes the other partner. Indeed, I am still on excellent terms with most of my former partners. Again, I’m an idealist that way.
One thing I would not do is lie. In fact, that’s really the rub, seems to me. Here’s the thing: If you find yourself in a position where your relationship does not and can not meet your needs, and no compromise or resolution seems possible, and you sincerely believe that you are justified in seeking sex elsewhere: why would you like about it? If you truly, sincerely, honestly believe that what you are doing is morally and ethically right, why conceal it? Seems to me that attempting to lie about your activities constitutes a tacit admission that, at least on some level, you don’t really believe that what you’re doing is right.
Man is the animal that rationalizes more than the animal that reasons, seems to me.
It’s not that difficult to avoid ever being in this position to begin with. This stuff isn’t rocket science. A good start for a simple toolkit to build relationships that never reach this point might be:
I strongly believe, and it has been my experience that, people who do not value honesty in a relationship essentially believe in taking the path of least resistance, and often lack the courage of their own convictions. And, not surprisingly, it has also been my experience that folks who end up feeling trapped in a relationship, and who feel they have no choice but to cheat, are quite often those very folks for whom honesty is not a big priority. They’re not honest up front at the beginning of their relationships, they’re not honest with themselves about their own expectations, and so–surprise!–they end up in difficult situations with no easy way out.
And then they justify doing dishonest things by pointing to the difficulty of their situations, without apparent recognition that it’s their own lack of honesty that created that situation from the very beginning.
Folks for whom integrity and honesty are important values can often seem to come across as if they have no patience for these “what-if” scenarios, precisely because the values of honesty and integrity are the tools that prevent them from ending up in these situations to begin with.
Relationships look the way they do as a consequence of the decisions made by the people in them. That’s the part of this discussion that I feel has been missing so far.
on Monday, 14 July 2008 at 2:51 pm Amii wrote:
A great, lively discussion - thanks to all (my boss does not thank you). I couldn’t agree more with Franklin’s last paragraph and most of his points.
The inherent flaw in the prime scenario is the partner that says the sex is over. Remember, it was without fanfare or warning. Where was the discussion of the ethics of that? For that matter, where was the ultimatum (no more sex or this marriage is over)? Or the concern for trust? Clearly, that person has considered the situation enough to come to that decision, and even if he did consider her feelings in the matter, he certainly didn’t think her input was important.
To refuse to discuss something is just another form of lying. So while the would-be cheater concerns herself with the ethics of her predicament, she is already being lied to by her partner (and in Nancy’s case, quite blatantly), and seemingly with a lot less concern.
Several years ago, I had emergency surgery, and feraked out when my sex drive still hadn’t returned after two months. To my credit, one of my frets was what my lover and I could do to make sure his needs were satisfied without ending the partnership. Everything turned out fine, and I mention it only to point out that if you lose your sex drive and you are in a relationship, your partner’s happiness should be as important (or nearly) as your own.
on Wednesday, 23 July 2008 at 12:45 pm Maxymyllyn wrote:
I have to say, given your quantification, cheating, still, is not the best option. It might sound like it is. It might be easier. Hell, it might even be something I could delude myself into doing. But it isn’t righ or approriate. Why? Well, for starters, the concept of being in a monogomous relationship with someone who does not want to have sex with their chosen partner and refuses to persue non-monogomy has a distinct implication that sex is somehow a ‘right’ in the marriage.
It’s not. Even if you two agree that it is. Everybody has right to do with their body whatever they choose. And even if 10, 5, or 1 year ago a person felt comfortable with giving themselves sexually, there’s really nothing saying they have to continue this. Of course, there are some archaic laws on the books, (like in Florida) which state a married person cannot rape their spouse, but I digress…The point I’m making is that there is always the choice. If you cheat (wherein the definition of ‘cheat’ is having extra-marital sex with someone who is not your spouse and choose to not reveal it/lie about it/deceive about it) you made a choice - and for whatever justification, no matter how valid someone thinks it is, you’re choosing to do something you’ve promised not to do. Even if sex was just suddenly ‘over’ with no fanfare or warning. And even if someone pulls it off and nobody finds out, the onerous what they did is still upon the cheater. What about kids? I think the concept of ’staying together for the children’ was tossed out fairly soundly on it’s ear in the 70’s. If you can reconcile (in your example the person being cheated on refuses any attempts at reconciliation on the sexual subject) great, but if you cannot, then, well, do the right thing. If the right thing is divorce, so be it. If the right thing is stick it out and use masturbation as your primary source of sexual stimulation, so be it. But the right thing is never…ever…cheating.
on Friday, 2 January 2009 at 12:50 pm [Greta Christina] Is Cheating Ever Okay? | Blowfish Blog wrote:
[…] [Greta Christina] Is Cheating Ever Okay? You can find part 2 and part 3 of this article. […]