Cheating - what's a dealbreaker for you and what could you forgive?

[tallielikesthesky]

Friend has just told me that 6 months ago she discovered her 'd'h had had some sort of 'almost affair' and it's shocked me how different our opinions on it are.

Apparently she found messages on his phone - OW lived in city her DH was travelling to a lot for work at the time and there were weeks worth of daily texts messages, talk about sex (likes etc, not sexting) , references to them meeting up, to ow being a good kisser and something about them sharing a bed but not having sex (OW had apparently broken it off saying she couldn't go any further than they'd gone with a married man but apologised to the wanker that he hadn't got what he wanted but she'd hoped he'd enjoyed spending the night with her).

Friend said she was upset but because she could tell from messages that they hadn't had sex and it was over she didn't really consider it an affair and had forgiven him. Apparently him performing oral sex on someone else or having full sex are the only dealbreakers for her.

I know it's easy to say things hypothetically but to me that's a proper affair and I just don't think I could forgive him. All the secrecy, kissing and sleeping in the same bed would be too much for me and would ruin any trust I had in him. I reckon I could forgive a drunken kiss with a stranger but nothing more.

Now I'm wondering which is more common. At what point would you be unable to forgive? Sexting? Kissing someone else? Sleeping in same bed? Receiving/giving oral sex? Full sex?

At what point do you think an emotional affair become unforgivable?

You end up disliking yourself for compromising your integrity
Noddy, that's spot on!
I look back to what I put up with before and feel I was such a weak-willed, desperate, clingy loser. Never again.

I don't believe anyone can have a "one-off" shag or snog and still have the respect for their partner that they deserve. How can you be intimate with a stranger, then look your partner in the eye and tell them you love them?

My idea that I can tolerate the odd ONS comes from my experience of being perfectly able to be physically intimate without emotional engagement. It would be more accurate, in my case, to say I could bring the required emotions to a short-term shag, then 'take them back' the next morning without concern.

But ... I now see the 'old me' as seriously dysfunctional in many ways, and am not sure what I've described is healthy. I don't know if it'd still be true now, as I seem to have given up sex! I've got to say, as well, that most of the cheating I've suffered did impact emotionally on my relationships. Or, perhaps, there was more but I only noticed the cheats that caused damage?

Dysfunctional or not, I have always said that the real risk with one-night-stands is that you never know which ones will pull you in emotionally.

Well, that and STDs, of course, and curveballs like jealous partners or loony shagees. Whenever you push the boundaries of a relationship, you DO knowingly risk it. And that must be the biggest reason to say No.

Garlic, I've always been able to have sex without emotional attachment, which has served me well as I've been single for YEARS and if I couldn't I wouldn't have any sex at all - which to me isn't acceptable.

BUT. I think when people cheat, they become "unrespectable" in my eyes, because they're not giving you the courtesy of the full picture. If they want to go have a shag elsewhere fine, but let me know so I can make an informed decision to leave, and we'll end it there. That kind of thing.

Yes. I do agree with the need for openness, Stuff. While I'd respect anyone else's desire to be kept perfectly ignorant of any 'transgressions' - and do understand why they'd want that - I'm with the huge proportion who say the lies do more harm than the act.

I discovered dh's emotional affair a week ago (there is a thread on here all about it). We are trying to make things work but I'm really struggling with the whole thing. He seems to be carrying on as normal as if nothing has happened. I just don't think he realises what he has done to the extent I'm very tempted to show him the original thread. It's as if he thinks I'm just overreacting. I'm in pieces. I really never expected it to feel like this. Everytime I see him with his phone or laptop I panic. I only read less than a weeks worth of messages but I feel so hurt about the content. He has deleted his account but I'm not sure if I should read everything before it's finally deleted 1 week from now. At least I'd know everything but I'm also worried about what else it will reveal.

I'm still not sure whether or not dh's ea will be a dealbreaker for us. He's assured me it will never happen again but like a lot of posters have said I just don't know if I can live with the knowledge of what has happened.

One size doesn't fit all.

Two examples here of women I know personally:

One has a partner who had an affair 3 years into their relationship, he gave her the blame for it and she accepted it. She has amended her behaviour beyond recognition to stop him cheating again, but he changed nothing about himself and rumour is that he's at it again. Dead right she dislikes herself and compromised her integrity. She's at a loss to understand why he's cheating again when the reasons he gave for it last time don't apply anymore.

The other's husband had a 3-month affair about 7-8 years ago, after 25 years of marriage. She immediately said the marriage was over, but that man fought like tooth and nail for his marriage and for her. He took all the blame for it, went to see a shrink and became a reformed character. After a lot of work on his part, they got back together and are one of the happiest families I know, with her one of the happiest women I know. Her integrity is just fine and she's someone everyone respects. No way does she 'dislike' herself.

So from my admittedly small sample (although I know of others) the people who manage to hang on to their integrity are the ones who don't take the blame and who know by the behaviour of their significant other, when it's right to call it quits or whether to try again.

Those two women are like apples and pears; just like the men they are with.

How do you know she likes herself? And her integrity is intact. As you have said before most people don't admit the truth. I very much doubt what he did doesn't enter her mind at times and cause her distress. I have a close friend who is going through this atm and he is doing therapy etc as the alternative is huge disruption and family upset. She looks distraught he seems fine. I don't think it can ever be the same because you KNOW that one of your partners ways of dealing with certain things is to seek out someone else

Because she's been my very close relative for years and years and because she (and he) have talked to us a lot about this stuff. And FWIW, this troubled him more than her in the years after. I'm not sure he's forgiven himself yet, but she has. It's such a myth that after every affair, the only person to feel distress is the one who's been betrayed. She's got no reason to put on a front with us, or me personally especially. That's not to say she doesn't remember, or doesn't get a twinge every now and then, but that's no different to my own marriage for example, when H and I have hurt eachother in some way. It's rare to find a relationship of that length when there hasn't been some hurt along the way.

If your friend is distraught and he's not - or appears not to be - then maybe their situation is different.

One size and all that...

A drunken kiss bad enough but probably forgivable

A drunken shag - prob not forgivable

Lots of texts / meeting / phone calls / the odd kiss etc means there was intent so even if sex didn't happen - he wanted it to

So that would be it afaic

"You end up disliking yourself for compromising your integrity"

Comments like that are exactly why I name changed when this happened and I asked for help and advice. That and 'no self esteem', 'no self worth', 'weak' etc

As Leavenheath has so rationally pointed out in some cases the women or men who have been cheated on come out of it stronger, more self confident, and happier within themselves exactly because they have had to deal with what they originally thought of as a deal breaker.

Noddy I know that I like myself and my integrity is intact. How does that fit with your theory?

I also know it took a damn site more strength of character, higher self esteem, and greater self worth to put in the work to mend things, stand up to all those who were telling me to LTB, and generally face the female population, most of whom, like many on this thread, have a completely blinkered view.

For those of you thinking perhaps I was hanging on in desperation, I stood to walk away from my marriage with a serious amount of money, and a house, a rental flat, and a very nice life thank you very much. Leaving was a very easy option. Staying was a hard one, but given how happy and settled and close my DH and I have become it was the right one.

I'm glad I didn't throw that away just because of a set in stone notion of how one should react.

I am talking about my experience and my RL friends. It is not a theory it is an experience. I am sure it is very hard to make it work I know I couldn't/wouldn't which is why I posted here. I did stay with someone who cheated for quite a while and all my RL friends were dubious and were right. But I came to the realisation myself that it was a deal breaker for the person I had promised to be faithful to not to have done the same.Initially I just wanted nothing to change and so compromised myself in order to maintain the status quo. If you have come out stronger and closer I applaud you but I am still unable to see how that would work for me even though I can accept it works for you.

If you read my post you will see I do say it became all about me and what he had done was not even in my mind when I left. I just couldn't as laqueen says reconcile the person I was seeing in the mirror with who I knew I really was.

That was me too. It just niggled away at me that he had showed so little regard for my fidelity and respect and I know that my self esteem was eroded by that. I only realised when we had split that I had stopped loving him even though I never thought I would when I first found out but I thought that initial excruciating pain was a measure of my love for him when in reality it was just pain.

Note to self Punctuate!

I understand all that, because that's personal to you both as individuals. That's all anyone can say, though. It's valid for you because you feel that way.

But that wasn't true for my relative and others I know and it wasn't true for Worcester.

I've no real clue what it would be like for me because I haven't faced it- and like another poster said, I can still surprise myself with my reactions to things even at my grand old age!!

I think it's the blanket pronouncements on the site I have most difficulty with now. There doesn't seem to be as much understanding about shades of grey and nuance.

Not as much listening I suppose - and more grandstanding.

I think it's fine when posters say 'this is what it's like for me'.

What's not fine is when they say 'this is what it's like for everyone'

YY Leavenheath. Sometimes I wonder if some posters actually read what they post and think about the circumstances of the OP at all before they post. Some posts come across as insufferably smug to me, as if their views are the definitive 'litmus test' and any deviation from this means a lesser 'score' somehow. I'm not even going through this situation at the moment; must be 100 times worse if you are.

It's also really, really obvious.

It is not any more smug than the other view is foolhardy. They are opposing ways of dealing with a terrible situation. I have been in that position and this is what I did. I left after more than a year of talking ourselves around in circles.