So I've been reading the Steve McNair thread. Interesting discussion, and some of the comments were very thought-provoking. I've never been married or even in a really long relationship, so I'm curious about other people's positions. I have a good friend that is in a miserable marriage. His wife moved into a separate bedroom and hasn't given him any loving in years. They stay together because they have a kid, they are downside on their mortgage, etc. He is the one who has insisted on going to marriage counseling and trying to make things work. I couldn't really fault him if he did hook up with somebody. I guess I'm in the camp of feeling like it's not my business to judge when I don't know what goes on between two people. Of course I also know people who have gorgeous, loving partners and still cheat because their ego needs fulfillment. Really, I feel more pity than contempt. It seems like a sad way to go through life.
I'm going to say 'no.' If you're in a relationship where it's been agreed that you don't screw around with other people, then how could you justify breaking that commitment.
If you're in a relationship where you've agreed to stay together for the sake of, whatever, well then you've agreed to stay in that relationship and all the shackles that come with it.
The only way it could be justified would be if their agreement included the ability to sleep with others, but then it wouldn't really be infidelity then.
In the end it's going to be an individual choice, others may feel that they can justify it and i wish them luck in finding someone who agrees.
oh, i get it. you have to be intimately involved with the family before you can have an opinion on an issue receiving national media coverage. got it.
and that tripe about condoning child abuse and condemning this man's actions is a bunch of horse hockey. you folks sure do like to mince words.
mev is being pretty militant about this, and as the child of a cheating father i can understand why. did you even read any of jo's posts? it's awful for everyone and i don't care how pathetic you are - oh, poor me, i don't like my spouse any more - give me an f'ing break. man up and get the hell out. don't subject the person you made a commitment to and your offspring to your selfishness.
if you don't put yourself in stupid situations, stupid things won't happen to you.
no, it is not ok to cheat. if you want to screw around, don't get married. it's pretty simple. and calling these arguments 'weak' leaves weak in the dust and becomes comical...sadly, pathetically comical.
I can understand too. Like I said in the McNair thread, some people on this board have serious transference problems.
I mean this as un-crassly as possible, but seek help. It is not healthy to relive past traumas through some quarterback you think you may have heard of once. If you are, you probably have some unresolved issues you should address.
Dismissing an argument, by attaching to it a simpleton, psychobabble term (that's being misused, BTW) is weak at best. Transference requires unconscious application and that's definitely NOT what's going on with anyone here, who's made arguments against infidelity.
There's no transference going on here. There's just past experience, which is perfectly relevant to bring into the argument.
My main point is, it's absurd to dictate to others who they should or should not have sympathy for. You should probably just worry about your own emotions, and not other people's. That's one thing you definately can't control.
Yea, I'm such a dictator aren't I? What a joke; as is your whole implication that anyone here shouldn't pass judgment. It's as if you're new to this place.
The only thing you can't control is your endless supply if bitch.
What about if a dude's cheating on his wife?
THEN cheats on the mistress with ANOTHER mistress. Should the 1st mistress be pissed he's cheating on her?
Yea, Ginny, like you don't continually, indirectly insult people all the time. Like Telling Smirk he's slow, because he's trying to get you to see the other side of the prop 8 argument. Or lecturing Marney about sensitivity, because he has a different take on David's experience at a party. Or how about telling half the board that they need mental services, because they have strong, negative opinions on infidelity.
Yea sure, I'm out of my mind and you're not being a bitch at all.
And true to form as the worst self styled debator on the board, you throw out irrelevant red herrings to deflect the issue from your absurd argument you insist upon, then get irate when people disagree with you. From one bitch another - bitch, please.
Pearlgurl, your friend's wife has already been unfaithful to her marriage. The infidelity, although not sexual is already there. She promised to love him. She does not.
There's a growing number of people who consider sexual monogomy to be an archaic and unnatural custom. I'm not one. If my girlfriend cheated, I'd be sick to my stomach with pain. I don't cheat because, frankly, bitches be crazy. Ask Steve McNair.
I'm not sure where I was going with this.
I guess my point is, your friend wouldn't be cheating on his marriage. His marriage is already over.
Hold up, there, Caps. You don't know why they are in separate bedrooms. We don't have both sides of the story.
When my husband was going through his fucking idiot asshole drunk stage, I kicked him out of the bedroom into the guest room. Honestly, I don't remember if it was before or after his affair.
You can't control your emotions in the sense of being in love or not. You can control your behavior. I just don't believe you can decide to feel one way or another.
Cause a "physical need" can be taken care of with a magazine and some hand lotion?
What if she's not giving loving cause of some other physical issues that she is having? Does that mean that he should be allowed to have his physical needs met by someone else?
Yea, OK, it's an absurd argument. Is that why half the board agrees with me, that infidelity is wrong and McNair fucked over his family, by ignoring them in favor of a mistress.
And please don't drag out the tired nonsense that I don't know what happened, when it's been well reported that the man spent so much time with Kazemi, that her neighbors assumed it was his full time address.
I say absolutely one hundred percent that sexual infidelity is justified in some cases. If I drive my SO to someone else by ignoring her needs, she is well within her rights as a human to seek another.
And if we have children, well guess what kids, that's life.
Okay, Caps, hre another RL example. My awesome favorite best in the world neighbors sleep in separate bedrooms. Why separate, I don't know. I do know that the woman has absolutely zero interest in sex anymore. The husband is diabetic, I understand that can decrease your libido.
They ADORE each other.
My grandparents slept in separate rooms because they BOTH snored so horribly the other couldn't sleep. They were married until Gramps died at a ripe old age. Actually, once Grandma started going deaf, they did start sharing a bed again.
Dan and I slept in separate beds for a while. Carson was 2 and sleeping through the night, but Lauren was a newborn, and I was nursing. There was absolutely no reason for Dan to be woken up at least once or twice a night so I could go get her and feed her, and then have to get up at 6 AM to get ready for work. (him) We had a guest room, so I slept in there with Lauren in the bassinet next to the bed. Once she got a little older, we moved her into the crib and went back to sleeping in the same room. I never thought it was weird or strange or anything else.
I have no idea what you just said. But plenty of people have agreed with me a lot of stuff. So you're just continuing to spew your normal, dismissive, out of your ass bullshit.
Your take on pretty much everything is that if it doesn't pass your arbitrary PC test, or falls out of line with canned conventional wisdom, then it's put into the category of outrageous. Therefore whoever you're arguing with either doesn't have the right to form an opinion, or just doesn't get it and needs to be surreptitiously insulted.
This message has been edited by mevin on Jul 8, 2009 6:45 PM
-what if a dude's cheating on his wife with a mistress and then he cheats on the mistrss with another. Does the first one get pissed at the second one?-
yes, in my ex's case. Yes she does. And gets pissed at the cheater too.
Oh I could write a book people I could.
-synopsis- short as I can-- promise
ex cheats for 2 years with one woman. Then cheats on her. Wife (waves!) finds out through pc about everything. Prints everything. Hides evidence. Wife confronts ex. Ex knows he's caught. Ex gets frisbeed frypan to groin 3 days later. Ex leaves. Wife can, but does not confront mistress 1 or 2. Wife's rage is done and done verbally and via airborne Teflon. Ex returns 5 days later- smug and cocky. Wife pissed. Wife calls mistress 1. Lovely chat really . Informs mistress 1 about mistress 2 and having proof and even pictures. Mistress 2 very annoyed. Wife gobsmacked at Mistress' sheer utter stupidity and ignorance. Mistress 1 confronts cheater cheater. Ex knows he's caught -- again. Mistress 1 kicks out cheater cheater after 5 days. Ex has no one.
Wife finds out through mutual friend that Mistress 1 made it 'very clear' to ex that he should 'never cheat on her or it was over'. Mistress 1 is clearly effing stupid.
it is pretty dismissive to call an opinion that doesn't agree with yours "absurd." just sayin'.
i'm going to take a huge leap (not) and say that those here saying it's ok to cheat in some circumstances are not married? yeah, i thought so. when you stand before me, god and/or the legal authorities of your choice and make a solemn vow to be faithful to me, then i expect you to uphold those vows. and if you can't do it, at LEAST have the decency to come and tell me to my face and then go relive your childhood. please. is this so hard to understand?
Many of the views expressed here are so amazingly abstract as to make me wonder if they could ever hold in any world.
Check out this poll:
What strikes me is that the above table from Gallup vaguely suggests (though it's not statistically significant) that more Americans would rather see a man marry his mistress and live in polygamy that have him just plain cheat on her.
It firmly states that almost no one thinks infidelity is "OK" - so many things that people are passionate about rank as more acceptable on a moral scale to people. Of course, that one is so culturally ingrained that there is additional bias in a poll, blah blah blah...
But that's not the question here really, right? The question is under what circumstances could we say, "That person is forgivable for having cheated."
Some here have said, "None," "If the wife is frigid," "If the marriage is a sham," "If their needs aren't met," and so on. Others add in a layer of "If there are kids, never."
For the first list, I won't talk about my first marriage out of respect for my ex-wife. All I can say that just as water finds its level, people find their happy, and not always in the right order. I pity those that don't find it - such is the stuff of an infinite number of accounts of human sadness.
For the second - all I can say is I'm pretty sure my parents may have cheated right before their divorce, and thank God those two people didn't stay together on my account. They were not meant for each other, and my childhood was happier for them being apart. Whether they did or didn't cheat, their marriage ended for other reasons. I call some serious bullshit on the concept that one must spike their lives on the altar of their kids. I think I've demonstrated how important being a good parent is to me, but if the Mermaid and I became anything like my former situation, Addy would be better off with us apart, no question in my mind. I have seen many, many examples of both parents that divorced and parents that stayed together when they shouldn't have and I'm utterly convinced. My childhood, despite the divorce, was wonderful, and their job of parenting remains unassailable.
This is almost like a religion conversation isn't it? So much other moral and experiential stuff is wrapped up in it, that Ginny's right the only thing is to set your own rules and follow them. If you had a bad chilhood because of one of these, I completely understand that you'd think the way you do. If you hold great stock in the idea that God will punish you if you break his commandments - makes sense.
I just think that those things should be directed inwardly, because definition we don't know what happens in other people's houses, so here is a solid case where "Judge not, lest ye be judged" holds. I have relented that there is a place for judgement in prior conversations here, as 8 bucks was right when he said it's a necessary component of determining right and wrong at every level. However, when it comes to relationships about which you are not part, I think it's ugly. I have a right to judge the Mermaid, and she me, but that is about it.
I agree with Kathleen. I don't think justifiable and forgivable are the same thing. Justified implies that there is a certain element of rightness in it, whereas forgivable , while possibly tied in with whether it's justifiable for some, doesn't necessarily have to be.
If someone steals money from me just for fun, it's not at all justified, but I may be able to forgive the person.
Also, was that poll a national survey? I find it hard to believe that 40% of the population still believes that sex before marriage is immoral.
i'm not sure at whom that was directed, or to all the contributors here, but i'll take it upon myself to respond. so glad caps agrees with something, what a relief. it's not personal issues or about judging what goes in other peoples' homes. it's about respect and courtesy and being a decent human being. i don't care where it falls on a morality scale on some gallup poll. any 5 year old can follow the golden rule, religious connotations notwithstanding. in short - don't be a douchebag and you probably won't be treated like one. medical issues? menopause? abuse? kids don't work in your marriage? no sex drive? hate the way your spouse chews their food? marriages fail for a myriad of reasons. i'm not judging anyone whose marriage fails. i don't see how saying any of this is abstract or not applicable to the real world. treating your spouse and/or kids as if they are disposable is not justifiable. and those that are able to forgive are bigger people than i, but good for them for having the strength to do it.
And Squid, I was with 100% you right up until the judging part. Relationships are no different from any other facet of life, and bystanders can choose to not judge if they are that noble (or whatever), but yeah, they can judge too--if you violate your partner's trust in that way, expect to be judged, and be thankful for those who don't.
Well, I guess I'm saying that my standard for myself is that I have no business judging you, and that I wish everyone agreed with me because I think it sucks. Both adulterers and judgemental people have something that needs forgiving in my mind.
Heh. Seriously though - I think the nuance is that if you and I hung out in real life and you were constantly saying judgemental stuff about people's relationships, I'd probably say, "Please quit that around me or it's going to be hard to have beers with you any more." It's more about choice of what I expose myself to than judgement of you in my mind.
The thing is, I'm not judging someone's relationship. We are talking about the hypothetical of cheating. In its base form, I don't think the action is justifiable. Once you throw in the actual people, it gets messy. For an outrageous metaphor (is that the right word?)... Most people disagree with torture, yet there are people who may waver when torturing a terrorist will save lives.
I don't know if this makes much sense, I didn't sleep last night.
Also... how can we not judge people? We do it every day. That's how we decide who we want to have as our friends, lovers, enemies.
Squid, most of your diatribe goes to defending separation, not cheating. On that I have no objection. But what you fail to address is the commitment that people make when they get married. They make a commitment to stay together and at the very least stay faithful. If they cannot, then there is a mechanism called divorce. The anon above you said it best, " and if you can't do it, at LEAST have the decency to come and tell me to my face ..."
But aside from the moral implications of infidelity, what about good old fashioned biology? What about pregnancy and STD's? Would you be so forgiving if your wife cheated on you and gave you HIV?
I also agree with Aurora in that the words forgive and justify are two entirely separate things. There are lots of things that are simply wrong, that cannot be justified, yet they are forgivable. Families can move on from cheating, as they can a great many transgressions... doesn't make those things justifiable, or correct.
Also this whole notion that we can never know what goes on behind the closed doors of other people's lives is just politically correct hooey. We have shared experiences and common reactions to situations. If that fact weren't true, our legal and educational systems simply wouldn't work, because there would be no concept of peer. One does not have to know the minutia of other people's relationships to develop an understanding and condemn a universal offense.
Dude, you aren't reading what I'm writing, and I'm starting to think it's willful so you can just say what you want. That's fine, but don't point it at me as if you were actually responding to what I said. You're also unnecessarily insulting to more than just me in what is a conversation, not a fight - so that's not very cool either.
* Nothing I have said on this topic qualifies as diatribe. It is opinion, and as such you are within your right to disagree.
* I never said I would be forgiving. Not once. As to what I'd do in my own relationship, none of your fucking business. See the idea?
* Actually, it was ME that made the point in my post with the poll that there was a difference between justification and forgiveness. I made that point, you don't need to repeat it to me to refute the point I already made. Others made the distinction before me as well.
* Your claim that what I consider appropriate is 'politically correct hooey' is nonsense - it is my value system and I was clear to say it extends no further than that. I have never even heard anything like this referenced with the 'politically correct movement' - and that was merely an attempt to somehow be further insulting by linking my opinion to an unpopular effort to sanitize our language that has nothing to do with the topic. You may as well have said, "That's creationist clap-trap" and you would have been equally off-target.
I have no interest in insulting you - but I find nothing you say lately the least bit convincing - merely angry, closed-minded, and strangely hateful. If your goal is to pursuade with your arguments, you're failing. If your goal is to just shout them at the room and have us all nod and say, "OK, Mev, we get what you think," then you can be assured of success.
I hoped with mine to have a conversation with people, and I don't think I failed at that.
can i get a witness? shoot this thread too, please. watching these 2 go at it has made me totally lose interest. i fell asleep before i got halfway through the bullet points, and the other one got spit all over me. i can't even remember what i was talking about. bleh.
Squid, whatever... I read everything you wrote and responded to it. Sorry, but your implication that my interpretation means I didn't read what you wrote, is pretty fucking insulting.
If my use of the word "diatribe" offends you, then I'm sorry, but I've never thought of that word as being something necessarily negative.
I fail to see how the use of the poll equates to you saying what Aurora said about forgiveness and justification. If it was to be interpreted that way, why did she say it? You said one thing about justification and then talked about how separation can be beneficial, then you went on to repeat yourself about the how we shouldn't judge.
The idea that moral relativism isn't part of the leftist PC movement is laughable. You just don't hear much "don't judge me" coming out of conservatives, because their whole shtick is judging and holding people accountable. Of course whether they walk the talk is debatable, but their rhetoric is clear. But you do here that language coming out of the left all the time. "don't judge me" IS most definitely a PC concept.
And again, this nonsense that I'm always angry, simply because I hold an opposite option is equally insulting. Why is it every time I have a strong opinion about something, someone accuses me of being angry? That's so fucking belittling. Do you know how you sound sometimes?
Ran across this quote this morning and it brought this soon-to-be-dead thread to mind. From the movie Network (I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!), the scene where the news exective informs his wife he's having an affair:
"After 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, Im damned if Im going to stand here and have you tell me youre in love with somebody else. Because this isnt a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isnt it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that whats left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? Im your wife, damn it. And if you cant work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Dont you understand that? I hurt badly."
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. Informs mistress 1 about mistress 2 and having proof and even pictures. Mistress 2 very annoyed. Wife gobsmacked at Mistress' sheer utter stupidity and ignorance. Mistress 1 confronts cheater cheater. Ex knows he's caught -- again. Mistress 1 kicks out cheater cheater after 5 days. Ex has no one.
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