To ask your relationship boundaries with regard to cheating?

[CornishGem1975]

After reading the Only Fans thread I've been thinking about this.

What is a hard no for you? What would constitute cheating in your mind?Paying for Only Fans? Watching free porn? Going to a strip club? Having a lap dance or a private dance?

I used to be a bit more liberal a few years back and wouldn't have cared less had my other half gone to a strip club but the thought of my DP going on his stag and going to a strip club in a few weeks actually makes me feel a bit sick in my mouth. Not sure if I think it's cheating or it's just completely grim!

Genuinely curious as to where other people sit with this?

Emotional affairs or physical contact - definitely cheating unless we'd discussed opening the relationship.

Porn - not cheating to me. Nor is OnlyFans. Custom content wouldn't be cheating but I'd be uncomfortable with it.

To me, cheating is 'breaking the defined boundaries of our relationship'. Our boundaries are currently physical and emotional monogamy.

So, physically touching is out. Developing a sustained emotional connection is out. But do I think that nobody ever fancies someone else or develops a crush? No, hence why an emotional affair is cheating to me, but I wouldn't be bothered if DH revealed he had a bit of a crush on someone (and then made sure he didn't nurture that with contact). Do I think DH or I will only be sexually aroused by one another specifically forever? No, because that's not how (our) sex drives work. Hence why I don't consider porn or OF cheating. Custom content from a specific creator isn't physically cheating nor is it an emotional connection that's going anywhere so I don't consider it cheating, but I would consider that a digital proxy for either or both of those things because it's one person and sustained. So wouldn't like that.

But to pull the pin on our marriage over it? I don't know what to think anymore 😕

@L0stinCyberspace

Given that lots of couples don’t divorce when one person has an affair I find your uncertainty quite human. What people think they would do in a situation is often not what actually happens in reality.

I dont think i could tolerate an affair, emotional or sexual. I wouldnt tolerate visiting prostitutes or anything i considered personal
Most other stuff i could potentially tolerate even if it didnt delight me, as long as it didnt affect our relationship and i didnt feel short changed in his time or affection. I cant imagine how i wouldnt be short changed though.
Ive told him that if i ever discovered he 'cheated' then i would do it too and id probably find it easier than him. I think he would be more bothered by that than i would

I think Willie and Dylan are lovely names for girls especially Willie. Mind you my DD2 has a males name and always gets commented on.

@LadyLothbrook

I think Willie and Dylan are lovely names for girls especially Willie. Mind you my DD2 has a males name and always gets commented on.

Sorry wrong thread. Weird as I was actually on the right thread at time of posting?

Talking dirty to a RL person (emotional affair)
Watching only fans
Lap dance
Kissing
Sex

All of those are cheating in my eyes.

However my dh has admitted that he likes porn for the act of what they are doing rather than who they are.

Being intimate with someone else is a deal breaker for me, even if that is just intimate, flirty, secret chats.
Wanking isn't, porn isn't, lapdancing isn't.

A love affair, with all the lies and such like could probably make me commit murder.

A dildo isn't a coerced (or otherwise) human so not cheating.

But it could have been made by slave or child labour....

@Jennifer2r

MN has weird standards about this stuff.

Free porn is fine but God forbid a woman gets paid or directly profits from her work.

I guess where its being paid for in my mind that makes it a chosen connection where 1to1 contact can be obtained. Ok I'll strike free porn off my list, I'd never particularly approved of it so thank you for highlighting this. Always good to improve standards.

I was all "cool girl" easy breezy in my twenties with my previous partner and wouldn't have cared about porn/strip clubs etc. No problem at all didn't bat an eye. However it was very different with my husband. My boundaries were much more narrow from the start, Though I didn't realise it at the time I think I didn't really truly love my ex so that was why I didn't care too much? Now watching occasional porn would be my limit, I wouldn't tolerate anything beyond that. So no strip clubs, definitely no only fans- that's a complete betrayal to my mind as is a lap dance.

I'm not bothered about porn from the cheating perspective but I have issues with it ethically.

I'd be bothered by him visiting a strip club again, because of the related exploitation. I would be very pissed off if he had a private dance.

Only fans is a big no too. I'd be disgusted.

My hard no is DP putting his dick in another woman or touching her sexually.

I'm fine with the rest. I know he watches porn, once in a while I ask him to show me what so I know what's in his head at the moment. I wouldn't have a problem with him paying for porn or going to a strip club (as long as it doesn't cut into our couple time). Actually, I might even enjoy watching him enjoying a lap dance. I realise that I might be in the minority here.

But it doesn't really matter where my boundaries are, what matters is where yours are.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Had an interesting light bulb moment.

So we all know the studies that say men are more visually aroused than women...hence porn as most popular wanking material for men. Then women are more tactile, hence dildos and sex toys as most popular wanking material for women.

If porn to wank is cheating, then to be fair would not also having a sex toy/dildo to wank also be cheating?

So we all know the studies that say men are more visually aroused than women...

That has been debunked:
www.google.fi/amp/s/amp.mindbodygreen.com/articles/men-not-more-visual-or-easily-aroused-than-women-research-shows

Men are just allowed to be shallow and entitled.

I wouldn't count engagement with the sex industry as perhaps cheating (though obviously there's an element of that and I'd never accept a cheater). But morally someone supporting of the sex industry and related crimes against women and children there's no way I'd forgive that. My bar might seem low to some (I've heard comments at the school gate) but I'd definitely have a strong boundary zero tolerance to such misogyny.

And I don't believe for one naïve second that the women on only fans aren't under duress/ trafficked etc. It's all porn. It all pays for the worse abuses against women and children.

the dancer obviously took a fancy to him blush and offered (and by then sounds of it, instigated) some 'freebies' and asked him to go home with her

She didn't.
Funny how many men tell of similar experiences.

1

I wouldn't consider strip clubs or only fans cheating but I wouldn't like it if DH went to one because I don't like the concept of paying for women.

I would consider an emotional or physical affair cheating but, perhaps strangely, I think I would be more bothered by an emotional one.

He can do whatever he wants as long as he’s discreet and doesn’t spend our money. I’m not in love with him though, I just need him to stick around to pay the bills.

Absolutely no cheating in any form, strip clubs etc...I would never do it to him and I expect the same loyalist

Loyality*

I have always said DP is a free person and I cannot control him. I trust him not to cheat however I couldn’t be bothered to keep taps on him constantly. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with my DP going to a strip club nor do I have a problem with him watching porn.

For me, what would constitute as cheating would be:
Having sex with someone else
Sexual interaction with someone

I would now consider emotional connections as one of the top betrayals, above most else, with other women, where I am either

• talked about, esp if it’s to moan about our relationship
• considered not to really exist, or be very background
• compared, unconsciously, e.g. if DP was regularly having lunch with a very glamorous women who was younger than me, and obviously being very flattered.

I wouldn’t do this to a man, so I wouldn’t expect him to do it to me.

Porn I consider detrimental to our sex life, and a sign that he hasn’t thought about how people are degraded and mistreated and what a horrible industry it is. But it’s not cheating to me.

Sexting - yes cheating.

I'm not in a relationship but I'd see porn as okay as long as it wasn't a secretive thing and he would be open about what he was watching (some porn is absolutely horrible).

As for webcam,interacting with women online, casual dating sites, etc. I'd see that as cheating. My ex was involved with all of those things and I put up with way too much because he was also an abuser.

I'd see OnlyFans as cheating, there seems to be some weird relationship between the fan and the person on there that crosses a line.