Would you have an affair or cheat on a long term partner?
 

Just want people's thoughts. I specify long term as realise a lot of gD members are younger and I think under 2years isn't long term. (Just my viee),

So, would or have you cheated? Why? Were there ramifications, if so, what? If you have or had kids does it change things, why?

Thanks in advance.

Judging by results so far the people of gD wouldnt have an affair or cheat..

Are these truthful or people holding back?

Makes me feel worse!

I voted for wouldn't cheat because I wouldn't be in a relationship that wasn't an open one so it wouldn't be cheating if we both knew and were OK with it.

Never. Never Ever Ever. But there are assholes out there who act like little kids thinking their hot shit. But guys who act like little kids and the bad boy thug/cool popular guys are obviously going to do that occasionally. I've heard so many stories it's stupid.

What about women or men in abusive relationships but can't leave due to threats to themselves or family members but have a chance of an affair that is undetectable? Not everything is black & white.

*** This circumstance is not mine but I do know someone in that situation ***

I'll say that I would.

I was, at one point, in a long distance relationship with someone who I loved, but didn't love romantically anymore. I didn't break it off, because I was a wuss and because I at least helped her some by getting her counseling and moving out of her abusive family's house.

In the mean time, I gradually fell for someone else. We never did anything physical, and we didn't even date until a year and a half after my previous relationship ended. But I cannot in good conscience claim I would never cheat when I fell in love with someone else. Even if nothing physical happened, plenty did emotionally, and I would call it perfectly plausible that I would have. Hell, I consider it cheating, even if I didn't fuck her.

I think it's incredibly disingenuous to claim that we know exactly how we would act, and that we would never cheat. To be with the person I cheated on, I gave up my friends and family, gave up hundreds of thousands of dollar, probably compromised my ability to do well in college, and definitely compromised my own sanity. Yet I cheated on that person. Love is a strange thing. If it was easy to understand, we'd never get hurt by it.

Thank you for that heartfelt statement. That has helped me with my dilemma.

I think a lot is going to depend on personal circumstances.

If someone is in an abusive relationship and even if they feel they can not escape it because of threats to themselves or family members. Then they really have to do something about it.

Even if an affair was possible and undetectable the risk of dealing with the aftermath of its discovery would be devastating. You have to assume that nothing is undetectable and sooner or later something will get out. Even if the abusive partner only suspects an affair, it could be as bad as them actually discovering a real one.

Abusive partners general come in two types, Those that abuse because they have mental health problems, In which case help is going to have to be found for them, soon. As these things do not get better by themselves and you can not ignore them. After professional help the relationship may even be rescued and lead to a happy long lasting relationship. But help has to be sort.

The other type of abusive partners are just plain simply bully’s and these should not be tolerated in any way. Again there is help out there, you just need the courage to seek it out and make use of it. But the only real place for people like this is in prison.

Thats just my thoughts on it.

On a lighter note. I think the question of would you cheat depends on your attitude to love and sex.

If you have the capability to separate love and sex then an affair is more likely just going to be a pleasure seeking adventure. Nature never evolved man/woman to be a monogamist creature, that is the result of social conditioning. You are programmed by your genes to have sex as much as possible and have babies, this insures the survival of the gene pool. We are merely hosts to genes who solo point of existing is to keep existing.


Back in early days of mans evolution we would only live to breed. Once your ability to breed has been reached through age then you would die off. The reason we live beyond our mid thirties now days is due to the world we have created for ourselves, if nature had it's way we would be dead a long time before we get to what we call old age.

I know of a positive real life example about an affair.

A couple are married and the woman no longer due to medical problems desires sex. They both love each other very much. The man naturally craves sexual fulfilment, and I don't just mean masturbation.

He finds by pure chance a woman that is in a similar position to him and her partner will not have sex with her, she also has two kids and as a family they are happy but the woman is unhappy inside because she desires sexually fulfilment. Because of her inability to satisfy her natural sexual desires she became stressed and her feelings start to leak out into her everyday relationship, which then becomes strained.

The unsatisfied man and woman start to have a sexual relationship. They are friends but the relationship is mainly sexual, I think now days its called a fuck buddy. Because of their own satisfied sexual desires they feel happy and their relationships with their married partners and families stay intake because all are less stressed and every one is happy.

Even when it came to the point of the man's wife finding out about the affair the marriages did not fail. The wife, understood the ssituation and saw that this other woman was no threat to her relationship with her husband and things carried on as they were. The sexual relationship was not played out in front of the wife ( if you see what I mean) and over time the wife even formed a friendship with the woman.

The woman's (the one involved in the sexual relationship) husband died a few years later but not until after the kids had grown up in a happy familiy.

Four years ago the other man died and the two woman now live in the same shared house together.

But look at it like this. If the stress and troubles spilled into everyday life and sooner or later people start leaving each other then families at split up and everyone looses out.

Which is the less evil?

Oh course the people involved were of a point of veiw that had not been twisted by society and religon. They could think outside the box and accept other peoples needs and wants as well as their own.

Of course if you have an affair because your relationship is not working out in general and you are essentially seeking a replacement partner, sort of try before you buy. Then it is wrong and clean spilt should be made. Then everyone knows where they stand and can live accordingly.

To those that can not separate love and sex, then I think it best you stay away from affairs as your own guilt will destroy your relationship long before the discovery of an affair.

I'm kind of curious how you think people get into abusive relationships, Sweetsong. I mean, do you imagine that it's something that they agree on before hand? Because I sort of assume that it is something that gradually sneaks in, with your partner becoming more and more controlling, you becoming more and more isolated. To say "I would never be in an abusive relationship" strikes me as similar to saying "I would never be in a car accident." No one goes looking for either one, but sometimes they happen, even to the people who take all the proper precautions.

Same. I'd rather be abused than the punching bag of someone who claimed once to love me.

Well, here we differ. I have never had one of the people I knew who was in an abusive relationship say that they were worried about being alone. Nor did I feel that way myself when I was in one.

Every one of us could tell you how good an influence we were on that person. How the drinking/drugs/whatever the fuck that was screwing up their life was an anomaly and we were helping them get through it. We could tell you all about the good things this person did with there life, how they had so much potential and we were really helping them do good things.

One friend of mine, who dated a drug dealer for three years, didn't keep going back to him because she thought she'd end up alone. She stayed with him because he kept going through clean period, he would get off drugs when she really hounded him. She stayed with him while he gradually isolated her from her friends because he was brilliant a brilliant teacher of MR and autistic children. She stayed with him when he belittled her and forced drugs on her because in her mind, she was his one shot at a happy, drug free life.

When she left him, she didn't feel any sense of relief that her ordeal was over. She felt depressed that she was ruining the happiness of someone she thought could be a good man.

Sorry to rant, but it kind of offends me that people respond to the idea of this so flippantly, as if it is always a clear cut and easy thing. A lot of responses I encounter make it sound as if a person is weak for not getting out of an abusive relationship immediately. But how is wanting to help someone they care about weak?

irrespective of the timescale you should never cheat. There will be other alternatives to it like talking through any issues etc etc. it hurts to be done to and if you really want to you should break up with them. I had a girlfriend once, we lasted 14 months and anyways throughout the entire time she always said i was allowed to cheat if i wanted. My moral compass told me the obvious correct thing was to never cheat. Found out a month afterwards she had cheated on me at least twice. Quite possibly more.