Do the "cheated" become the "cheaters"

[AreAllMenTheSame2]

Have you or your partner ever been cheated on? If so have either of you then gone on to be the cheaters? I have been cheated on my someone who has also been cheated on and I am wondering if there is a link?

Anyone? Any comments welcome!

Everyone has been cheated on at sometime or other! I say, treat others as you would like to be treated and good luck. Take care.

I'm presume you mean cheating as in infidelity within a relationship?

I've been cheated on, wouldnt do it myself.

I do know of women who have been cheated on and then have gone on to be the OW in another relationship...

I was cheated on by my first husband. Ironically today is their wedding day!
In the end it worked out great for me and I am now married to a wonderful man who I love very much.
I would never cheat. I hate cheaters and always said to my first husband that if he wanted to be with someone else never cheat on me but to end it with me first then he would be free to do what he liked. To at least give me that respect...well he obviously didn't do that but I felt like that about cheaters before it happened to me.
There are no excuses. Ever.

Do you know why this is fuzzywuzzy? Im struggling with the idea of why someone who knows how much it hurts to be cheated on would then go on to do the same thing? Is there a possibility its to "get in there first" in terms of a powerplay, as to not be vulnerable.

Possible but it isn't anymore justified.

Look, I think you might be analysing (spelling??) this too much. As my oul Nan' used to say,.. once a cheater always a cheater'... I am not being righteous here I know because I have experienced it first hand. Be happy and forget him!

Oh definitely that's me. Well, maybe not a cheater as such because I've no permanent partner or husband, but certainly have no qualms about running two boyfriends simultaneously occasionally. In my younger days I was a good girl, I was. A one man woman. Always turning down offers because I thought I had to be utterly faithful to the husband who ultimately dumped me from a great height to be with someone else. Since then I've not been quite so loyal to anyone in particular and yes, it's probably a power thing. 'Getting my own back' as it were. Never been caught out. However, if I did decide one was worth exclusivity I'm sure I'd be the epitome of faithfulness. Until then... all's fair in love and war.

My first boyfriend cheated on me after 4 years together. I was 20 (as was he) and I didn't break up with him as we lived together and had a big group of mutual friends of which we were an integral part (parties were always at ours etc) plus he denied most of it... and I still loved him.

So instead, we carried on for another 2 years during which time I cheated on him and always with his/our friends. I guess it was a revenge thing. He, as it turns out, carried on cheating on me with the same girl. I do not feel proud of myself at all, I should have just broken up with him when I found out. But at the same time, I learned a lot during that time. And fast forward to now, he is getting married to that girl this month and the last person I cheated on him with I married and we now have a DS. I would never ever cheat on my DH after what I learned. I believe 'once a cheater always a cheater' is true within that same relationship, but the slate can be wiped clean when with someone else.

What bumhead said.. ^^ i have also said that to all my exes and i would finish before starting any other relationship if i wasn't happy. No excuse for cheating..its greed, nothing more nothing less. Like a monkey swinging between branches because it doesn't want to let go of one until its sure of the other.

H had an affair

I would never cheat. I know how much it hurts, plus how would I ever look my kids in the eye and admit it?

PH .. same here i would never be able to tell my children that i allowed sex and what i wanted sexually or emotionally to break up their family ..

Greed. If you're not happy with what you've got, work on it, or leave and then start a new relationship. you may leave behind broken hearts but not completely shattered and worrying about whether you've given them the clap on top of what you've already done.

I believe 'once a cheater always a cheater' is true within that same relationship, but the slate can be wiped clean when with someone else.
I have seen that in a number of relationships. Know someone who cheated throughout 10+ year relationship, left their spouse for the other person and has never come close to even thinking about it in that relationship which has outlived the original one.

I was cheated on in a relationship nearly 20 years ago. Not traditional cheating really - they went to see a professional Dominatrix and then told me about it afterwards in a fit of great remorse. About 4 or 5 months after that, I cheated on them, I guess out of a stupid misplaced sense of revenge or entitlement (I was very young), and slept with an ex one weekend. The guilt I experienced after that single episode that long ago was a huge lesson, and I've never cheated again. So I don't think 'Once a cheater, always a cheater' and I didn't even get found out.

No personal experience of this, but I've come across a few people who've been cheated on who then go on to be the OW/OM; some on numerous occasions. I find it baffling why anyone would want to be party to the sort of hurt they've experienced themselves and in some cases, it's almost seemed as if they were waging a war on people whose partners had till then, remained faithful. Displaced and unresolved anger really - but extremely damaging to themselves and others.

Don't agree with the 'once a cheater' thing though. Just like there are people who would never inflict the pain they've felt on anyone else, I've personally met lots of people who were unfaithful once and would never do it again. Their self-respect means more to them than that.

What Charbon said.

I think it's astonishing and very sad that someone cheated on would inflict similar pain on others. Maybe that's the worst legacy of the original cheater - to warp the basic humanity of the cheated on. That's so sad - to twist like that.

If I'd stayed with cheating STBBXH, somewhere along the line, I would have cheated back for revenge. Pure and simple.

If I become involved in another exclusive relationship, I hope I would never cheat and put someone else through what I have been through. I would feel mortified and ashamed if I discovered I had unwittingly become an O.W.

I worked with a woman once who dealt with a lot of difficult correspondence from the public. She said when she retired she would send out a whole load of letters to similar organisations and be just as much of a pain in the butt as the people who were writing to her now. I said but the people handling the correspondence weren't the ones hassling her, why did she want to make their jobs more difficult? She said she'd had her turn to suffer and now it was someone else's turn.

I was cheated on. Whilst it was going on I really really wanted to be able to go out and have some fun myself, but I couldn't. I think people are either the type who can, or can't cheat. I have no respect for people who cheat on their partners, and as for OW/OM, they are beneath contempt.

Scratch my back I scratch yours. IYSWIM. Not healthy but there you go. Not sure that means I'm messed up......

This allows me to forgive him I find.....but thats just me.

For all you know that person may have cheated on the previous relationship and not been caught...

I found out a long time ago that i was a very unwitting OW and believe me when i say i did NOT know he was married.. nights out with me, stayed over most of the week and all weekend, days out, she must have been going through hell.. one day i had a knock at the door, it was his wife :( she said they had an open relationship but she could see it had turned serious with me (yes i truly loved him) .. that was all she would say and then she left, no tears, total dignity. I felt so badly for her..

Anyway i ended it immediately, it broke my heart but there was no way i was going to A: Accept being lied to and B: Being party to the huge amount of hurt my happiness was heaping on someone else.

I'm friends with him now, i tell him regularly that he was an arsehole and he has a new P and they're very happy. He says he has learnt his lesson. I hope so..

My ex cheated on me (and how!). I left him.

I would never cheat on anyone because I am so much better than that, and I wouldn't let him drag me down to his level.

The way I look at it; he has lost a faithful, loyal partner. I have lost a cheating weasel - which of us really lost more?

Dp's ex cheated on him and broke up their family, she left him with DSS and DSD2 so she could persue that relationship.

He cheated on me. While i was preg and following the birth of our DS

I asked him, how can you know how much pain it causes, and go and do it anyway?
Never did get my answer ..