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.

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:

- Don’t rely on assumptions.

- Ask for what you want. Clearly. Directly. One of life’s most inevitable and inescapable rules is this: You can not reasonably expect to get what you want if you do not ask for what you want.

- Don’t hold implicit or unstated expectations, then expect your partner to meet them. If you have expectations, be forward about them. If your expectations involve sex, be forward about that, too.

- Take responsibility for your decisions. If you know that your partner will disagree with a choice you make, but you feel that it was the right choice anyway, say so.

- Own your own poo. If things aren’t working for you, be honest–both with yourself and with your partner. Recognize that if you have an expectation that you haven’t discussed explicitly, that’s on you, not on your partner.

- Don’t buy a pig in a poke. Saving yourself for marriage, then expecting your lover to magically be sexually compatible with you forever and ever, amen, is perhaps a little optimistic.

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.

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!

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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?

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…

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.