Cheating
 

1. Have you ever cheated?
2. Has someone cheated on you?
3. Would you forgive someone who cheated on you?

1. In a legal standpoint, I suppose so? We've been seperated since '06. Divorce final this month!

2. Yes

3. Forgive, yes. But the relationship wouldn't continue. There'd be no trust anymore.

I thought this was about food cheating at first...

1. no
2. yes
3. it depends who the person is. Just the random boyfriend who cheated on me...not really, move on...my husband, eh, it would take a lot to break us up.

1. not on a husband
2. yes but not as a wife
3. not only did i forgive him, i married him.

FWIW my father cheated on my mom after 25 years of marriage.
she forgave him and they were together till she died in his arms and he cried like a baby.

I thought it was about food too!

1) No
2) No
3) It'd be hard to forgive someone unless counseling was involved and it would depend on our relationship (married vs dating). Now I say this and some may think I'm naive but I know my husband would never cheat on me. If we grew to the point where he felt he would go in that direction, I know we would have other issues to work out.

I'd also say that I would never cheat. Again, if my head was in such a state that I would cheat, my relationship has bigger issues that either need to be fixed or the relationship would need to end.

Yes
Yes
Yes

But that's very simplistic and I don't believe that anything as complex as human relationships can be boiled down to that black and white. Also I believe in poly relationships ... so that changes my perspective a bit.

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1. Yes, cheating now.
2. No, not to my knowledge.
3. Yes, and I hope I will be forgiven

oh and I assume we are talking about physical cheating.

because that's very black and white.....


addressing EMOTIONAL cheating is even more difficult.

1. No
2. Not that I am aware of (and most likely the answer is a solid no)
3. I would have to assess that situation if and when it came up

I would say if someone knows you are doing it and accepts it, then its not cheating, vice versa.

1. Have you ever cheated? yes, when I was young
2. Has someone cheated on you? yes
3. Would you forgive someone who cheated on you? no. In my experience, I've learned that if someone cheats on you once they'll do it again. I'd rather be single and happy then worrying about if my man is cheating on me. If I can say no to cheating, then the man can say no to cheating. Life's too short to have to keep tabs on someone. They're either faithful and really into you or not.

interesting.

WE (my husband our friends and I) define cheating as this:


ANYTHING you can't, won't or don't tell your spouse.

that means if DH goes out and gambles away his paycheck without telling me, he's cheating.

1. No - not even during the pre-divorce separation.

2. Yes - My X was a serial cheater.

3. Yes - I did forgive and tried to work thru it, but he wasn't interested in the relationship. He just wanted to maintain the marriage while still behaving anyway that felt good for him. In fact, I think being married was more convenient for getting rid of the women when he was done with them.

We have been talking recently about getting back together, but not so much as an intimate couple as much as parents living in the same house till the girls are old enough to "fly solo". Kind of a relationship of convenience so to say. So if we are having relations with others in that case, it wouldn't really be cheating, but an open relationship.

assuming my dumb little teenage romances do not count my answers are

no
no
no. it takes a lot for me to forgive and some things are just not forgivable.

Thank God someone else feels this way. :)

As Nessa described, there's physical cheating and emotional cheating ... and that all becomes more complex.

.

No
Maybe
Yes

I assume cheating is sexual and possibly emotional. (Close emotional relationship you have with someone that you are hiding is cheating).

Doing other stuff (gambling) is being dishonest but wouldn't call that cheating.

Have I ever cheated? No, but was majorly tempted by a man that I worked with during our engagement.
Someone cheated on me? Yes, 1st real boyfriend, my 1st love, that set me up for general distrust toward men. Also, current husband did as well.
Forgive? This cheat was only once as far as I know and as far as I choose to believe, This took our relationship down to the bottom of the barrel, it wasn't with anybody that either of us knows, earning trust was slooooow for him. I am still not 100% that this didn't happen before and it won't happen again but he knows how I feel and I do believe that he has spent the past 4 years everyday trying to make up for it.
We have watched several friends' and family members' marriages combust over these years-so I know he sees what could have been lost.
Forgiveness is different when you have children involved-and knowing how "I-wear-the-pants-in-the-family" kind of gal I am, I surprise myself with how forgiving I was-I still think about it EVERYDAY at some point-4 yrs later.

Cheating (sexually or in a relationship) is actually an informal use of the word.

Merriam Webster defines Cheating:


transitive verb
1: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud
2: to influence or lead by deceit, trick, or artifice
3: to elude or thwart by or as if by outwitting <cheat death>

intransitive verb
1 a: to practice fraud or trickery b: to violate rules dishonestly <cheat at cards> <cheating on a test>
2: to be sexually unfaithful —usually used with on<was cheating on his wife>
3: to position oneself defensively near a particular area in anticipation of a play in that area <the shortstop was cheating toward second base>

so based on transitive verb usage definition 1 by spending his paycheck gambling he deprives me of something valuable by the use of deceit (or dishonesty as it were) and therefore his dishonesty leads to his cheating.

Thought food on this one as well.

1. :no:
2. :no:
3. :no:

Well I go by #2, formal or informal. It would be the definition I use and the definition that I assume the person who started this thread was going by. If they were going by another meaning, then I'd answer based on that.

"Has someone ever cheated ON you?" Or "Have you cheated ON someone?" I would assume, they aren't talking about deceit related to other matters.

I think it's interesting. When I was younger I would have sworn on my life and everything I held dear that (a) I'd never ever cheat and (b) I'd never forgive a cheater.

But things change and circumstances change and sometimes you just don't know what you'll do until you get into a certain situation and have to actually make the decision for yourself instead of hypothetically.

I'm not saying that anyone here would or wouldn't. Everyone has different limits and so forth. I just know that up until about 2 years ago many things I thought were carved in stone ... turned out not to be.

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I would say when I was young, I would've thought I could never forgive someone who cheated on me but then again, I truly don't know. I wasn't married and wasn't even thinking about marriage when I was young. I may not be able to forgive , I may be able to, I don't know.

I can say clearly, set in stone, that I would never cheat on someone though. This is just based on how I think about multiple facets of relationships.

I don't believe in "it just happened" either. I take full responsibility for my choices - all of them.

No, it's not really as "simple as that". I would be willing to be that NOONE gets married planning to cheat. I know I didn't. But things change and situations become unbearable. I'm glad you've never experienced that. I hope you never do.

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I don't think anyone goes into a relationship thinking they'll cheat on someone or at least I'd hope not. I do think there are reasons it happens such as maybe you start growing distant from your partner, you feel you are lacking something in the relationship and maybe someone comes along who is willing to make up for what you are lacking.

My own feelings are:
1) A relationship is 2 people and those 2 people need to work on the relationship together. There is no need to be a 3rd person in a relationship or to bring another person into your life to complicate your current relationship. (This of course is for relationships where both parties believe the relationship to be exclusive, I can't speak for 'open' relationships or polyamorous)
2) If you are tempted to cheat then there is something wrong in your relationship that needs to either be fixed or if it can't be fixed, for the relationship to end. It doesn't mean you just start cheating.

Yes
Yes
No

We consider cheating anything that you wouldn't want your spouse to know about, and anything that you wouldn't do with them standing right next to you.

I would agree with all of this.

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Have I ever cheated? Yes, in the past. But I don't buy into the "once a cheater always a cheater" mantra, because I have not ever and will NEVER cheat on my husband. It has to do with love and respect for the person you are with, and a cheater never cheats without a reason. Maybe not a GOOD reason...but a reason all the same. I cheated on an ex-boyfriend, and the relationship was all emotional at first because the BF was absolutely NOT into the "feeling" part of the relationship. Then it escalated into physical, and the rest is history.

Yes, I've been cheated on before. They weren't solid relationships (therefore half my fault).

Would I forgive? Depends. I believe in second chances, but not third or fourth. And it also depends on how I found out, and how long it'd been going on. The ex who cheated...I found out from someone else, and it'd been going on a while. So it was over. If he'd told me straight out, it'd show he was sorry for what happened, and we could MAYBE work things out.

For the record, I trust that my husband would NEVER cheat on me. He'd divorce me first.

No, yes and probably yes, once. I would leave my husband first before I ever ventured into cheating. A serious, live in boyfriend cheated on me and it was devestating and destroyed the relationship. I would forgive once because I truly love my husband, but twice is looking like a habit. My Dad had that habit and the the worst part is the lying, deceit and BSing that goes on to hide the affair. From a child's eyes it is so demoralizing to have an adult like that in your life. I suppose that is one of the reasons why I value personal integrity so much.

Sheri

for me it's really more about dishonest and lies- that i will not tolerate in any form. period. and that includes cheating.

I am thinking about the emotional aspect of this and I think I have emotionally strayed from time to time - but it is a really gray area- you can't get ALL your needs met from one person. ever. but which needs are solely supposed to be fulfilled by a spouse and which ones can be fulfilled by a friend? that is a much harder thing to define then just having sex w/ someone who is not your partner.

not all the time but at various times in our relationship my husband has been all the things I need. just not all at once.


I think personally emotional cheating is much worse than physical cheating. I would leave over long-term emotional cheating.

I mean seriously right now my marriage bed is on hiatus due to circumstances beyond my control (my husband is injured) and it may be on hiatus for a long time. I've joked with my husband that I love having my best friend around but would he mind terribly if I got a HUSBAND now too... he knows i'm kidding.

There are nuances to every realationship that people who are NOT in the relationship don't get.

Amen to that. :)

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For both me and my husband, the physical is very tied to the emotional. I couldn't have the physical connection without first having the emotional connection. So really the physical aspects fulfill an emotional need for me and sometimes when the physical aspects can't be met, I'm perfectly happy with things that fulfill my emotional needs. If that makes sense.

No
Yes
Depends

Hmmm, yes, I cheated once after i found out my boyfriend has cheated on me. It doesn't make it right at ALL. I felt sick for 2 days afterwards because I was so disgusted with myself. I would not forgive a cheater unless it was under certian circumstances. For instance, they were vulnerable due to loss of a family member or something and I was away, I would, like other, forgive it ONCE. Maybe...

1. Not really... I was accused of it by a junior high boyfriend for sending another boy I liked souvenirs while I was on vacation. :P

2. Sort of... it wasn't a completely monogamous relationship, and we were too young and stupid to discuss our boundaries, so while I thought he overstepped them, he didn't know he was doing anything wrong.

3. I might forgive it, but at the same time, it's a sign of a deeper problem (or character flaw) that I don't need in a relationship!

I'm in a not-totally-monogamous relationship with my husband, and we have very clear "rules," mostly about communication: what we must tell the other person and when we must tell them. My rules for him and his rules for me are quite different. And after spending hours and hours defining them, it seems ridiculous to cheat, what a waste of time and effort. :D

1. No.

2. Not that I know of.

3. If my fiance/soon-to-be husband cheated on me, I don't think I would be able to forgive him for it. For me, cheating is totally unacceptable; a complete betrayal. But hopefully this is something I will never have to deal with...

1. Have you ever cheated?

Well. My husband thinks so. I was a commitment-phobe when we met and he knew it, so he would try to convince me we should date by saying "What relationship have you had that didn't end? What's to worry about?" when I kept telling him we only had a week left to see each other (I was moving to Washington from Texas when he got up the courage to suggest it). That only further cemented my idea that any semblance of a relationship would be *poof* within a few weeks after I moved. I figured we could hang out for what I had left and that'd be the end of it so I resisted dating him exclusively.

I had ended a 3 year relationship with a guy I'd met online 6 months before future husband and I met. I'd already paid for a plane ticket to visit the ex (To the UK so I'd been paying it out in increments over a year.) and I realized it just wasn't going to work long distance, but we were still best friends, so a month after moving to Washington, I got on the plane and went anyway. It was a big tear-jerking event to see my ex/best friend in person and we kissed goodbye as I left the UK for home. A peck, not a makeout, with no intention of getting back together. Of course when I returned, future husband asked if anything "happened" alluding to anything sexual, I quickly admitted to the kiss while denying anything sexual. Suddenly I was a Jezebel.

Our official declaration (and our anniversary we still celebrate & got married on) happened a month later.

Husband says I cheated, I say it was crappy timing. But we've agreed to disagree.


2. Has someone cheated on you?

Umm, not that I'm aware of. Current husband thought about it, probably to "get back at me" but I don't think he did, and we've been together for five years so I don't think he will start now. We're happier than we've ever been and all those late night fights about a peck in the UK are long over.


3. Would you forgive someone who cheated on you?

That's a tough one, one of the reasons I stayed with the guy I have. He forgave me and even though we don't see eye to eye about what happened, I know it was a big struggle for him to overcome. I think if you can overcome cheating, you can overcome anything, and it's definitely worth a shot if both parties are willing to put it behind them... especially the cheater...

Nope, I never have.
Nope, never has been done to me.. yet. lol. hopefully never
to forgive? depending on the reason, and if I can change it, if its worth it.
but my trust for them would definitely need work.