Cheating is cheating but is it all the same?

[CommeUneVacheEspagnole]

Conversation with DH. Would love to hear your opinions.

Is it the same having an interaction with a virtual cam girl or someone in real life.

So... I'm saying if you have a sexual interaction with a cam girl or someone you know, the result is the same. I'm leaving.

He is saying there are different levels.

Me: yes they hit different but all interactions are worthy of leaving.
DH: The emotional impact will hit much harder with physical cheating. He would forgive a cam boy/girl as it is just physical and can be fixed. Real life cheating is unforgivable as the intentions are emotional.

For me this reeks of male bullshit.

For me sex is sex, an emotional connection would be a lot harder

I don’t think the question is really whether it’s the same or different, but rather where your limits are. I would leave over either, regardless of whether one hurt me more.

Agreed. They're both different scenarios, but I'd find both equally hard to forgive.

Sexual acts are bad, an emotional connection is worse.

I’m unsure I could forgive either, but I know I would take an emotional connection far harder than one off sexual contact.

Emotional connection takes time, requires deliberate choice to develop and sustain.

Thought provoking response, but maybe the emotional side of cheating would hurt more... but purely sexual surely means the mindset is more selfish. When emotionally invested in someone else judgement is more clouded... not to say its right. When the focus is sex? Maybe that's worse. I don't know.

Can't separate sexual and emotional as ive never understood meaningless sex as just something people do, like the FWB stuff too.

Cam girl stuff is basically just interactive porn, nothing more.

I think its the same from the perspective of the one cheating and the one being cheated on.

From the perspective of the cam girl (I know someone who did it for a while purely for the cash) they can't stand the men that do it. She thought they were vile and totally took the piss out of them. Got to the point where it made her skin crawl too much. So it's different in that way to a woman who is attracted to the spouse and willingly chooses the man to have an affair with.

It's all cheating in my book

It's all fking cheating id dump the dirty sleazy pig..

from reading different threads on here the majority think if its just physical then its not as bad compared with the full emotionally attached affairs

Id love to explore that idea as I just cant get my head round it. Is the act of penetrative sex to some people barely any different to people shaking hands!? "Its just sex" people say, as if the physical act means nothing.

In both cases, one partner is getting sexual gratification outside of the relationship, which is morally wrong. I could not forgive either.

i think for some people when its just physical, its basically passion in the moment, but if its more psychologyical with feelings etc people find that more omg

I’ve never personally had sex with anyone I didn’t feel emotionally connected to. But am aware that for many people, both men and women, sex is a purely physical act quite devoid of feeling. Almost like mutual masturbation, I suppose.

pretty much this, some people can switch off the emotions and just use others as tools so to speak

Same here and Id argue you do need some level of emotional connection, even only slight, in order to engage in sex, whether that be mutual or full. I always wonder how FWB transition in the moment from just friends one moment to getting it on the next.

So OP was this just a purely intellectual discussion or do you think your DH has been using cam girls?
For what it's worth I agree with pp who said seeking sexual gratification outside the relationship whether it's an affair, ons or cam girl is cheating.

All the same to me personally.
There's lots of cam girls etc who would say that a lot of men are very emotionally attached to them and often just want to chat etc and some men who say they fell in love with them.

No one but the person understands their feelings towards the other person...so they could say it was just sexual but really they could have felt other emotions about them and thought of them very fondly and been day dreaming about them etc

Purely a discussion. Not sure intellectual. I don't think there's any cam girls BUT if Mumsnet has taught me anything, it's that we never know.

Going to bed now. Thank you for responses so far. Really interesting to me.

It’s different for everyone, there’s no right or wrong which is worse. It is 💯 ALL cheating though!

I agree with him. Someone they know would be worse for me because there is some level of relationship there.

I wouldn’t leave over a cam girl thing (although I would be ashamed of DW for supporting such an awful industry), and I might not over a random drunk one night stand- It’s possible I might forgive that;

but a friend or colleague would be a whole different thing.

It is all cheating though obviously.

I've had a fair amount of 'social sex' in my time. Obviously you talk, maybe dance or something, maybe have a few drinks. You could call it impersonal by comparison with an ongoing relationship but (obviously!) there's plenty of personal interaction.

Thing is, there is with cam girls as well. The differences are that the participants aren't physically touching and there's a clear power imbalance. The power gap's the same as with an in-person prostitute.

A friendly shag can lead to a full-on relationship. Users of prostitutes regularly develop feelings for their favoured sex workers, whether their relationship's online or in person. For that matter, people of both sexes fall totally in love with people they have never met or spoken to, let alone had sex with.

Any activity that engages a partner's emotional or sexual involvement is cheating, imo. The test is whether it's taking something away from the home relationship.

So does your H have video sex with other women, OP?

I never understand the view that a drunken one night stands is forgiveable whereas an affair isn't. If your partner can't be trusted to be faithful when he is drunk how can he be trusted at all? If it's only being sober that makes him not indiscriminately have sex with some one it doesn't say much for his character or his regard for his partner.

A one night stand might not involve the extraordinary level of deceit an affair does but it still involves lying and disrespect for your partner. It's seedy and sordid.

You're discussing your personal boundaries so you're both right.

For you, it's the same. For him, it's different.

There's no objective correct answer.

I agree with your DH.