To ask why cheating is so wrong?

[Tandora]

Inspired by another thread, where people are emphatically insisting that no one should need an explanation for why cheating is so wrong.

AIBU to ask for one?

I mean I get that it’s horrible when someone does something behind your back; so the lying aspect of it- I see how that is wrong. But it’s more than that isn’t it? like it’s not just any old lie.. after all people tell lies all the time (including in relationships), yet it seems that cheating is considered almost the worst thing that you can do to someone. But why?

I get that if you’ve committed your life to someone , it’s a betrayal if they suddenly abandon ship for someone else, but why do people get so beyond upset about casual flings, where there’s no intention to leave? Or is it because they are afraid a fling might lead to abandonment?

It seems quite strange to me to be so wound up about what someone else does with their body, and to feel so entitled to control that…

Sooo… can someone explain it to me? I don’t really get the concept. Genuinely..

<Puts on hard hat and ducks for cover 😅>

For me, it would be coming home having had sex with someone or cheated in any way and lying to someones face/staying in bed with them. I see it on soaps all the time and I think thats what I couldnt do.

I looked at my exs phone, once , and had to tell him. the guilt killed me.

I think it would’ve been helpful for you to clarify in your OP that (it sounds like) you’re talking more of an open relationship type thing than cheating/deceit. deceit you can clearly see is hurtful, wrong; makes you question who youve wasted your life/monogamy/money on, chosen as a parent etc; wonder whether your whole life is a lie. Whereas I think attitudes towards monogamy are probably more tied to an individual’s level of indoctrination around the sanctity of sex and marriage (etc). It’s surely a societal construct, along with all the others, designed to stop us ultimately going feral and fucking in the streets and hurling our faeces at each other :D

there are far more questionable, more recent accepted social constructs imo, but then my level of indoctrination of religion and the sanctity of sex is very high! And, accordingly, I’d seriously consider cutting my husband’s goolies off and serving them to him for dinner if he ever cheated. :D

I said that if he slept with someone else, it wouldn’t make me feel like he didn’t love me. I said that our relationship is unique and special for so many other reasons than sex. I said that him having a casual fling wouldn’t rock the foundations of our relationship. So I’m the one who thinks sex = love?🙄. Makes literally no sense but ok.

So if he was doing those things that make your relationship special and unique with other women, how would you feel?

this is y 4 me any way

Because the person you love and are forsaking all others for has put another person above you and above the promises you made to each other. Because sex, in a monogamous relationship, is an exclusive act for the two of you and they've gone out and casually done that with someone else. In simpler terms, imagine if you'd booked a romantic dinner for both of you. You arrive at the restaurant but find your partner seated with another person and you found out they'd decided to have an earlier meal with their flirty work colleague instead, and were going to bring you the leftovers. You'd be hurt, bewildered, angry, crushed.....

If you were to go out tonight and things started heating up with another man, would you go home with him OP? Let’s say you do find him really attractive and your DP usually expects you stay at friends anyway so easy enough to do. Would you cheat?

And if not, what would stop you?

Are you Boris Johnson OP? If not, you have a lot in common.

Not to you, perhaps. But it is to her.

OP, you’ve provoked many outraged responses because you’ve questioned something so fundamental that some posters have decided that you must be mentally ill. They can’t get their head round it, so they think yours must be not right.

I think the question’s a good one though.

Me, I’m naturally monogamous. I don’t find fidelity difficult at all, really. My wife isn’t. She does find it difficult. But - as far as I know - for twenty years she’s been faithful.

If she slipped up, I don’t think it would be the end of the world. Twenty years vs one night? It’d be a disproportionate reaction to chuck it all in because of that.

On the other hand, if she goes out and leaves the back door wide open again….

MN is a very special place where cheating is considered the worst crime. Beyond violent crime (against a 3rd party), fraud, probably eating children. I agree with you OP. There are worse things people move on from successfully

It sends a message.
It negates trust.
It crosses boundaries.
It's the thin end of the wedge.
Women are essentially monogamous and men, polyamourous.
He has sex with someone else.. and you say "Oh..ok"
So guess what he's going to do next time it's offered?
He figures he can have sex with anyone else, anytime he likes, so why not actively seek it.
Next thing you will find it has now become a regular thing.. he goes out with his mates, has sex, spends money on her, comes home.

One day it won't be a different "her". It will be the same "her" and he is going to mentally check out of your relationship which will crumble.

..and you will be sitting at home alone wondering how he fell out of love with you.

In all honesty I'm not sure that people move on successfully. I think it's always there, even when a couple choose to stay together. There can be true regret and shame on the part of the cheater and true forgiveness but I think it leaves a scar.
I think what makes a really bad relationship 'crime' is emotional betrayal (because when you trust you make yourself vulnerable and are relying on your partner to care for you and protect you), and actions which threaten the bond and security. That might be gambling all the family money, for example, but this is outside of most peoples everyday experience, whereas cheating is something that many people have lived through. I guess it also comes back to the repeated barefaced lying which cheating requires - it's such a blatant lack of respect and care.

Because we are taught that couples should be exclusive to one another, which is largely based in the desire of men to have certainty around paternity.
Because exclusivity is highly functional, particularly to men, its becoming an embedded norm in relationships, reinforced in the marriage contract, and breaking it is taboo.
Add in the emotional aspects of jealousy, insecurity caused by the breech of trust, impact on self esteem that a partner looks elsewhere, and you can see why people have strong feelings on the subject.

That's subjective though isn't it. There may be worse things for you but for others there may not be.

Agree. But then what you are really suggesting here is that monogamy is an institution largely created to defend the interests of men? So why would so many women be so devastated by cheating ?

after all people tell lies all the time

No they really don't. Lots of people are fundamentally honest and don't lie.

When I discover someone has lied, (whether family, business, friends or even casual acquaintances), it really changes my opinion of them and I'll never look at them in the same light again, regardless of how trivial or serious the lie is. If they can lie about something trivial, they can lie about more serious things.

Hi OP, sorry I hadn't read the full thread when I commented which is why I thought your OP was so odd.

I thought you were talking about an exclusive monogamous relationship but you seem to be referring to open or polygamous relationship which is completely different. I guess cheating in that kind of relationship would be having an emotional affair with the affair partner or ending the initial relationship for them.

For me personally loyalty and trust is a huge part of my relationship but I understand that is not a priority for everyone so each to their own.

The only thing that would concern me is people being in an open relationship not through choice but as a compromise because they're afraid to lose their partner.

All makes sense. I think my original OP was about cheating in a monogamous relationship- asking why it was seen as the worst / ultimate sort of betrayal , beyond the many other ways that people sometimes let their partners down that are considered forgivable/ fixable.

The conversation then moved on a bit in a slightly different direction because people started asking whether I would care if my partner had sex with someone else and then suggested I didn’t really love him.

I honestly think I would be ok in theory with a poly relationship , I’m just not sure I have the time/ can be bothered . I’ve had friends who’ve tried this and it sounds like a lot of work 😅.

totally get your last point about poly relationships that sometimes people can feel pressured to accept terms that they aren’t actually comfortable with to please their partner. So I don’t think it’s a simple as ‘as long as there is honesty/ agreement anything goes’.

That’s fair enough, so what if your partner never lied? He goes out one night, gets drunk and sleeps with his colleague. Confesses all the next morning and says it was just a terrible mistake. Heinous crime or not?

I'm not sure that's the question really. Women are devastated because they have the expectation of faithfulness from men and because male monogimy is useful to them too.
I think the question is more why did monogamy in men ever become embedded as a norm. Its difficult to see the advantages for them, or why they signed up for it.
Perhaps it originated as a means for men to protect their women from other men; telling them they should be faithful to their own wives in order to keep them at bay. Or perhaps it evolved from default, as if all women are faithful there is less opportunity. Interesting though.

I think it probably evolved in men as part of a negotiation with women? I’ll be faithful to you if you are faithful to me? But infidelity amongst men has of course traditionally been much more tolerated by society as a whole, compared to infidelity in women. Maybe that’s why women today feel so strongly about enforcing it?

It would be nice to think it had happened due to negotiation with women, but given how long it dates back and how very powerless women were then, I'd be surprised tbh. I'd say more likely it was just seen as the most functional societal structure. Rather than ramaging around impregnating many women, threatening other men, it felt more orderly for men to be encouraged to stick to one woman and take responsibility for one family.
I think women are keen to enforce it because, emotions aside, they have a great deal to lose if a man refuses to remain in an exclusive relationship with them.

Touché on all points I think.
In that case would it be fair to say that monogamy is an institution created by men, for men, that benefits women because of their dependency on men?

Monogamy is the fundamental structure for order in relationships, this applies physically and mentally to our well-being.
It's as old as humankind, shared in the main across all timelines, explicitly and implicitly condemned both by the law and social constructs.

Biblically adultery is the only reason for divorce, it was also mentioned in the Ten commandments. And it's interesting to note coveting, adultery, murder, stealing, and honor are all interlinked.

I think that's a fair summary, yes.