SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Why is cheating wrong?

Because the cheater sold the betrayed a bill of goods, misrepresented themselves as a loving reliable person when in fact they are just detritus that took up the space where a truly good person could have stood and sucked up the nutrients that could have been used to nurture a true and honest relationship.

More than that, the cheater destroys the innocence of trust in the betrayed, making future relationships less than what they could have been, because once destroyed, that innocence is never to be found again.

ETA:

The adulterer furthermore stole time from the betrayed, time the betrayed could have used to build a real life and relationship, not built on lies and deceit.

As far as lies and deceit, this makes for false memories on the part of the betrayed and makes them question their perception of reality, because what they remember fondly is now nothing but tainted garbage.

The adulterer is truly a destroyer of the betrayed's reality and thus a destroyer of worlds.

[This message edited by DictumVeritas at 3:13 AM, July 31st (Friday)]

{{This!!!!}}

The short answer is that it's wrong because you made a express, solemn promise, before God and family, in your wedding not to do that, and in exchange for that promise, your spouse made himself vulnerable to you.

If there’s an agreement, made in advance, that allows for it, I don’t think it’s wrong

If there isn’t, then it’s evil

You have to be heartless to destroy something beautiful in such a way

And why commit to something evil when there are good, decent, caring people out there who don’t cheat and lie?

[This message edited by 20yrsagoBS at 7:19 AM, July 31st (Friday)]

How about the biological angle?

We are all designed to produce offspring. A man sequesters a woman for the purpose of gaining his own offspring. A woman sequesters a man for the purpose of protection and providence for her offspring. A woman can get pregnant anywhere, any time she wants. A man can decide to protect and provide for someone any time he wants. A bargain is struck.

When a woman cheats, what is happening on a biological level is, she is threatening the man with "all your labor, your entire life, is going to go into providing resources for Bob's offspring. Loser!"

When a man cheats, what is happening is he is saying "I'm taking away my protection and resources and giving them to Jill over here. You and your offspring will die!"

That's why as a general rule, men can get past an emotional affair, but choke on a physical affair-- because a physical affair means the other guy might have planted cuckoo offspring. A woman always knows her child is hers, a guy has to trust. As long as a female cheater never got physical, the "primal deal" is still intact.

And women can get over a physical affair easier than emotional because who cares if he planted offspring-- his job, his duty, his trade, is to provide for the legitimate children. As long as it's "just sex", there's no risk of abandonment and the "primal deal" is still intact.

Some of the worst stories are when either side treats their spouse by their own gender's rules. Like a woman saying "it was just sex, no love, so it wasn't cheating" or a man says "we never had sex, I just share all my deepest thoughts with her, so it wasn't cheating!"

This is the core we wrap all our societal mores and honor around. It's the grain of sand within the pearl.

[This message edited by Sunspot at 7:46 AM, July 31st (Friday)]

36yearsgone

I know this may sound like a stupid question, but again, I am working on a book and I am trying to develop some concepts to add to my chapter list.

I am not looking for religious answers. Feelings about infidelity seem to be similar among religions, agnostics and atheists.

Why is infidelity wrong?

It is wrong because...

Please complete that sentence.

I would say it's wrong for a lot of reasons. The basic reason infidelity is wrong is because you are intentionally doing actions that you know will hurt another human being. To add on top of that you've gaslit that human being into thinking that you love them. That they should trust you. You might also have taken vows and could have a family, which means the betrayal extends even further - you are literally hurting your partner, your family, your friends, and your children all because you are being deceptive and ego centric.

Like many things that we consider "wrong" I think the fundamental thing, as another poster said, is the damage it does to others. So you get to have some extra orgasms, and for that benefit, you subject your partner to years of torture, maybe subject your kids to a broken family and all the other negative effects we know are a result of an A. The "benefit" gained for you is at a HUGE cost to other people.

I like to think of this in "happiness points" as a way to explain why we consider some things, including A's, so wrong. Let's say you and your spouse are both at a "5" on the happiness scale. You decide to go out and cheat on them, and, while we often dance around the issue, I'm pretty confident when I say, "Cheating is fun". You get to have sex with someone new, live in an imaginary world for a little while, maybe even think your "in love". But, whatever the motivation, let's concede, "cheating is fun" and that fun takes you from a 5 on the happiness scale to an 8. Your partner, who doesn't know, might stay at a 5, or, if your cheater is more like my W and starts to throttle back the sex/affection/attention at home, the cheated on partner might fall to a 3 or 4. But still, overall, it's a good trade, your partner (the WS) adds 3 points, you might lose 1 or 2.

The problem, of course, is discovery. Now the entire equation changes. Let's take my situation, say my wife was an 8 (happy) before d-day, and I was a 4 (she wasn't treating me very well during the A, so it brought me from my normal 5 down to a 4). Well, let's talk through d-day. My happiness upon discovery went from a 4 to a -100. When I confronted her, I'm not sure what happened in her mind, but let's say, I'm pretty sure she fell right off cloud 9, so let's say she fell to a 1 on the happiness scale. When the OM found out I knew, he swiftly moved to damage control, blamed everything on her, and ran immediately back to his wife. The realization that there wasn't "love" in the A, IMHO, really blew my wife's world apart, and she went from a 1 to a -50.

So, pre-A, I was a 5, she was a 5. Post A, I was a -100, she was a -50. And we stayed like that for a LONG time. In fact, I'm pretty sure as my happiness started to slowly creep up, hers fell further. And this went on for years, over an A that was a few months long and included about 10 sexual encounters. Years of time stuck "deep in the negative" for happiness for what??

It's just a terrible trade, and I think that's the fundamental reason it's wrong, the perpetrator gets a little bit happier (or maybe even significantly happier if they are seeking the things an A actually provides) but then, upon discovery, all of that evaporates, and the happy "bonus points" from the A are paid for DEARLY by the negative happy points after discovery.

Most crimes in our society follow this same model in determining the severity we associate with them (also, IMHO, as an aside, why I have real issue with victimless crime, there's no loss of "happy points", so.. What's the problem here?). Even if you have a really good reason to murder someone (like they slept with your W, for example), if you do it, you get a little happier, but the person you kill, his family, his friends, those who love him, they get profoundly less happy, likely for the rest of their lives. And that causes us to view murder as one of the most serious crimes, because it has such an unbalanced cost/benefit analysis when viewed through the "happiness lens".

Summing up, it's wrong because it makes the world a shittier place for everyone, it takes happiness out of the world and, in aggregate, makes all of our lives worse than if it never happened.

IMO, it's wrong because it violates tacit or explicit agreements, and living together as a society requires us to meet our commitments.

These are all very thought-provoking. I hope you will keep this thread going while I am out of town.

There are SO many reasons why it's wrong, but to me, it comes down to this.

NOBODY put a pistol to either individuals head forcing them to get married. Each person had FREE volition to enter into the marriage.

Life alone is tough enough.

Everywhere you turn people are trying to screw you over. There's enough back biters out there for crying out loud.

So it comes down to this, is your WORD worth anything?

Are you someone who values TRUST?

Are you someone who is loyal?

Most importantly does your soul have enough intestinal fortitude to have your partner's back?

"THROUGH GOOD TIMES AND BAD TIMES"?

Or does your WORD mean shit, and you're no different than a cockroach or a Rat?

If things aren't working out have enough conviction to END the relationship.

Instead of lying and cheating and stabbing your wife in the back for some woman who's willing to spread her legs for you and tell you how great a guy you are.

Or.

Instead of spreading your legs for some guy because your husband doesn't pay enough attention to you or some other LAME ASS EXCUSE (that both women and men tell themselves) to justify cheating on their spouse.

ESPECIALLY when there are kids involved!!!

To be SO DAMN SELFISH that you're willing to blow up (or risk) your kids world ....for what ...sex? Or attention? Or for ??????

Again instead of being a Rat just end the damn marriage instead of murdering your spouse and kids.

Infidelity is wrong because it's all a lie.

The WS has to lie to themselves to rationalize doing it in the first place, they have to lie to us to conceal it.

Monogamy isn't easy, I understand that -- but one has to make their 'intended' love invisible in order to carry it out, and that's the greatest pain of all.

Being 'nothing' to the person you love and trust most, that's serious trauma.

"As far as lies and deceit, this makes for false memories on the part of the betrayed and makes them question their perception of reality, because what they remember fondly is now nothing but tainted garbage.

The adulterer is truly a destroyer of the betrayed's reality and thus a destroyer of worlds."

This is the bottom line, and the worst hurt of all. I had to erase 20 years of memories which I now know was based on lies.

I have pretty much got my memories honed down to just the times with my son, where my ex was not a part of it. And of course 24 years of memories with my son's family with my now real husband. (I upgraded substantially)

"because who cares if he planted offspring-"

In this day and age folks should care, because a paternity test will assure the child gets its share of the assets that belong to the betrayed spouse. So yes creating a child outside of marriage, will affect the BS and any children of that marriage.

How infidelity is wrong?

Silly thoughts

How would a kid feel if Lois Lane cheats on Clark Kent with Lex Luther? Or Much worse with Bruce Wayne ?

Note:. I dont know what i am writing

My WH said because it hurts the one you love. I'll take that answer.

In this day and age folks should care, because a paternity test will assure the child gets its share of the assets that belong to the betrayed spouse. So yes creating a child outside of marriage, will affect the BS and any children of that marriage.

That's true, but it's also so new that our biology hasn't had the slightest chance to catch up. The same is true for cheated on men now, there's no risk of raising another man's child anymore for most of us, you can get a DNA test and know for sure pretty easily. But all of that is way too new for us to adapt to it, our "primal fears" are exactly that, primal, they are from our more primitive past. Which is why, I think the other poster hit it right on the head, the "core fear" for a lot of men is sex, leading to a child, and leading to a life spending resources on DNA that's not yours. Where the core fear for women is being left in the lurch after your H falls in love with another woman. Neither of them are really "valid" anymore, you can know, for sure, if I child is yours or not and a man is still on the hook for child support/alimony/etc even if he decides to love another woman and leave. But the primal fear still exists, same reason some people are terrified of heights, because until airplanes and parachutes, stepping off a cliff meant 'you die'. We actually do that kind of stuff for fun now, but much of the reason it's fun is because we're overcoming our "primal fear" and riding the heighten emotions that it brings (which, incidentally, is probably a large part of HB and also a large part of why some men find "hotwifing" attractive, using the fear to heighten experience).

I just got back from my solo vacation. Thank you all for participating in this thread.

36

Welcome back.

Hope the time away was peaceful.

This is a neat question!!!!!!

I cannot control what other people decide to do, but I do control what I decide to do. There was nothing I could have done to prevent my wife from cheating, she did that herself.

I am not religious or bound by any other moral code than my own. Infidelity would be a wrong choice for me. I was brought up to always do the right thing as I had the light to understand it. Not to judge and to be fair in all dealings. Never to intentionally hurt anything or anyone and to make amends when I do. When I promise to do something, I do it 100%. And when I love, I love. I believe in truth and in striving to be the best I can be. To cheat would violate everything I am or believe.

Infidelity is wrong for me, I would not live with an unfaithful person and I would not be one.

It corrupts.