To think cheaters usually just get on happily with their lives?

[Thisisthebeginning]

When I was younger I used to always think, 'karma will get them', 'they'll really regret it' 'they'll lose a lot of respect from people' and so on.

Now with age, it's pretty clear that people who cheat usually just get on happily with their lives, most people accept the new couple, don't fall out, the couple often stay happily together, and life goes on as normal for them.

I remember when my ex cheated a few years back. His 2 good mates were pissed off at him for a while and actually supported me over him. Eventually I didn't hear from them again and they ended up becoming close friends with his new girlfriend, the woman he'd cheated with. I expected it really and knew their loyalties had lied with him.

I still think it's disgusting to cheat.

I've moved on from my XH and don't give any headspace at all. However, for some time after he left for OW, I felt better considering that they both knew each other to be unscrupulous (him a cheater, her a pursuer of married men) in the back of their minds. Maybe it bothers them; probably it doesn't, but it let me be the (much) bigger person!

I think we grow up thinking that being good, kind means we will have a full and rewarding life when in fact this is not true.
Being a bit ruthless and selfish is probably a better idea....

People act as if cheating is one umbrella category of behaviour. There are threads on here where mothers of three who’ve been married for 30 years have been left financially destitute for a woman the same age as her daughter. That, I can completely understand you would never get over, that’s as painful as being widowed, maybe more in some ways. But then you have e.g. a poster up thread who wonders if a boyfriend from decades ago and his wife feel “grubby” about her role in their happy marriage of 25 years and I just think ffs.

Yes. In all honesty, if any of my friends cheated on their husbands I would stay friends with them (the women). I would probably think badly of their behaviour but I wouldn’t cut them off.

I have a good friend with 4 dc. Her dh cheated on her and also managed to get her to sign to remortgage the house and put the money in his business just before she found out he was a cheat.
He literally left her penniless after 20 years of marriage.
He is married to the ow and they have 3 dc and live in a leafy southern village and their dc go to private school.
It doesn’t seem to bother him that he rarely sees his older dc.
They’re all adults now and have made such a success of their lives and have an amazing dm.
The ex dh does look very tired, I can’t imagine what having 3 young dc does to you in your 60’s.
Amusingly ow has a pet name for him that would more suit a 20year old.
And ow doesn’t know that he was cheating with another woman too at the time he was having affair with ow.
He’s a knob but he gets away with it so far.

To me, the cheating is the least egregious bit of that story by a long way.

No. Ultimate end is absolutely NOT the same. Someone breaking up with you is not the same as being being cheated on. How on earth could you think it was? Many shades of grey? That doesn't mean anything goes? Are you 12 or something?

If your DH’s friend had cheated on his wife, and your DH wanted to stay friends with him and go out socialising with him and the OW would you be ok with that? Genuinely wondering. I have noticed on here an expectation that DHs drop their cheating friends.

I hate to say it, but I think you’re right

I think we grow up thinking that being good, kind means we will have a full and rewarding life when in fact this is not true.
Being a bit ruthless and selfish is probably a better idea..

This! Some people are selfish, they will do whatever they think is necessary to get what they want, including cheating.

I think they can end up happy because they are living a life that works for them and they don't suffer from remorse or guilt.

Ime people who cheat are usually afraid of being alone so can't make the break from a relationship without a person to go to.

This.

I totally get the pain and rage of having been cheated on. It can be all consuming and it’s natural, in the aftermath, to want “revenge”.

But it’s turned into this very unhealthy quasi religious belief in the idea that a cheater will always get “karma” or “retribution”.

You see this all the time on here with people trotting out this assertion that marriages founded on infidelity don’t last. It’s understandable that people tell themselves this but it just isn’t true. I am the product of a relationship based on infidelity. My parents met when my dad was married to and had two small children with another woman. After some years of back and forth he eventually left her for my mum. My sibling and I were born and they remained together happily for 50 years until my mother’s death. It was very ugly and a lot of damage was done to the children of that first marriage which survives to this day, nearly 60 years on. So I don’t want to minimise the destruction caused by infidelity. But we need to remember that there is no God (or Goddess) who exacts retribution on people who cheat. It’s unhelpful self delusion.

This matters because this whole “they shall reap what they sowed” narrative prolongs the pain for the cheatee. It keeps them locked in a cycle of bitterness which hurts them more than anyone else. Marriages borne out of cheating do frequently collapse but you can’t count on this and nor can you expect your entire network automatically to take your side of the story. People are human, there are many shades of grey and to be brutal if the relationship with the cheater is older than with the cheatee then of course that will endure.

Rarher than driving yourself crazy expecting your friendship circle to exact revenge on your behalf, it’s much better to focus on you and getting the best kind of revenge which is to move on and stop caring. No one can do this for you.

I think most marriages end by cheating.

That doesn't mean that the cheater is necessarily a habitual cheater or a bad person.

I always see on here the premise that if you are not happily married, you should nobly end your marriage and then wear a sackcloth and ashes for about a decade until you're ready to move on.

The reality is that people stay in unhappy/sexless/shit/abusive/boring marriages for well past their sell by date. They don't leave because of kids/finances/housing but also ending is a marriage means admitting you've failed. The fall out can be horrendous as we all know.

So they crack on with their lives and try to convince themselves that all is rosy.

Then they happen to meet someone who they fall in love with or makes them wake up and see that there is a different life out there. They start a relationship with that person which gives them the kick up the arse that is needed to end the failing marriage.

That person is dubbed as the OM or OW and blamed.

Yes I think so. One of his closest friends is going through a very messy breakup at the moment. We aren’t clear exactly what has happened (other than she has thrown him out) and he’s sad but also not wanting to share too much. Neither DH nor I know if anyone cheated and we kind of don’t care - DH’s “job” as a friend is to be there.

We don’t have any couple friends that aren’t a bit one sided (eg DH is better friends with the man and I get on fine with the woman… or I am good friends with the woman so DH has made an effort to get on with the man). I suppose if we had a couple friend that we were genuinely friends with both the man and the woman the same amount - unlikely - then it would be a lot more awkward. I’m guessing that most people don’t have many friendships like that really though; there’s always one side of the friendship that is strongest and that’s the side you tend to take.

I would definitely encourage my daughter to be “a bit ruthless and selfish”. By which I mean to value herself highly, more highly than she values any partner; to have high and uncompromising standards about what she wants in a relationship; to have high standards for her own values and behaviour; to expect to be prioritised and treated well; to always be financially independent and invest time and energy into having her own social circle that isn’t dependent on her partner, and to be healthily cautious about her partner’s social circle and family and how much time/energy she invests in it. You can’t guard against your partner cheating but you can guard against it ruining your life if they do.

I really dislike how a lot of people are being so nonchalant and dismissive of cheating on her. It's an absolute disgusting, vile thing to do that should never be minimised.
Yes you can just leave an unhappy marriage without having to cheat first, stop making fucking excuses.

On here*

I really can't understand why it's so hard to say, "Look, I'm in a relationship. I need to end it first before anything else starts as it'd be cheating on my partner."
How hard is it really? Not very.

It would be next to impossible for a man to leave an MN poster, and to then have a relationship with someone he’d had this interaction with, without his ex being encouraged to suspect him of cheating anyway, even if she didn’t already arrive at that conclusion herself.

I don't think people are being nonchalant and dismissive about cheating. Most people acknowledge that its a morally reprehensible thing to do which has significant fallout for the whole family.

But the OP and others seem to think that its the responsibility of everyone in the entire social network of a couple where cheating has occurred to ostracise the person who has cheated. In reality this is simply not possible for many people and extremely unworkable. If my sibling cheats on their partner or spouse, am I expected to cut them off for life?

If someone I know systematically cheated on their spouse I would be very disparaging but am I going to write them out of my life? No. I'm not God, I'm human and I have sinned. I'm not going to take it upon myself to say someone is beyond forgiveness for an unpleasant but entirely human failing.

There's two things that really annoy me - the first is the idea of karma, and the second is that cheaters are always found out. How can you possibly know that's true? If someone ISN'T found out, you never know they were cheating, so you never know they weren't found out. By definition, the only cheaters you know are the ones who got found out.

The karma thing is stupid. Okay, so a lot of people cheat and mess their relationships up. That's not 'karma', that's a direct consequence of their actions.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who meet someone new while in a relationship and stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Not everyone marries the right person and, although cheating is obviously wrong, sometimes the end result is for the best.

People who do that are still judged though.

If my husband told me that he was ending our marriage because he is no longer happy and he is interested in someone else, the pain would still be awful. I don't think it would be less painful because he ended our marriage before sleeping with her, or getting too emotionally involved.

I did exactly that myself. Met my current husband, and this gave me the push I needed to end my unhappy marriage. I left my ex within a week or so of meeting my now husband. I will still judged, even though technically I didn't cheat, as I left him before it went anywhere with my husband. I was still called a cheater 💁

It’s because the person who is left can’t bear to think that there might be anything wrong with them, or that they might bear any responsibility at all, for the relationship not working. I’ve a friend who tells everyone her ex left a happy marriage for his new wife. In reality, they argued all the time, they didn’t want to spend any time alone (always asking people over, on holiday with them etc) and they didn’t have sex. He’s been remarried for 15 years and she is still banging on about it.

Clearly this is not always the case, but it’s also not just that cHeAtErS aRe BaD

People who do that are still judged though.

I agree @U2HasTheEdge You're not looked on any more favourably because you STILL picked another person over your spouse, however you went about it.

It's always argued on here that people should just leave first but I can't see how it's any better really, because even if you haven't physically cheated, there still has to be a deception of some sort because you don't leave a marriage because you walked past a man in the street and thought he was attractive. There has to be something more there and that only develops over time.

I also think there is a difference between affairs and 'exit' affairs but I'm not saying either are right...

My brother was married for 10 years and to everyone on the outside they seemed like a golden couple. In reality she was incredibly controlling, enjoyed the lifestyle he provided as he earns decent money & was never home. Always out with her friends & treated him like a doormat. He met a lovely lady through a mutual hobby, feelings grew and he left his wife after 8 weeks of knowing her. Yes there was overlap & I don't condone his actions the last 2 months but I've never seen him happier & 4 years later they're stronger than ever.

His ex wife acts like some hard done victim despite the fact it became apparent she had cheated on him twice during their marriage 'just for fun', kept the marital home & he's still an incredible father to their shared DD (8). Yet she continues to try and make his life as hard as possible & slams him at every opportunity on social media...

People who do that are still judged though.

I agree. When someone finishes a relationship its often devastating to a person's sense of self and self-esteem.

When cheating is involved its deceitful and unpleasant and gives the person who is being left a focal point for the sense of anger.

It's definitely honourable to end a relationship before you begin a new one.

But the difficult emotions and sense of bereavement are often just as bad if cheating isn't involved. Sometimes it is almost worse as there's no obvious "reason" why the relationship has ended.

If someone you have been living with and have raised children with says "I don' t love you anymore" and actually means it.... and there genuinely is no one else you are still going to feel bereft and angry. And if they then go on to meet someone else a year later you will still feel cheated.

I don't condone cheating at all and I think its a shitty thing to do but I do think the idea of the cheat as the focal point for everything that was wrong with the relationship is often overplayed. There are usually deep-seated reasons why a relationship fails which go beyond this and focusing on infidelity as the sole reason for this isn't particularly constructive.