Ca you cheat on somebody and still love them?

[Latenightthoughts]

Following on from a dinner I've just had with a male friend(purely platonic our mums have been best friends since we were born he's like a gross older brother to me) and DP was with us, this isn't some segue into hidden feelings.

He thinks yes. I'm not sure. Especially if you're talking more than once. He thinks that's too black and white and it's perfectly possible to love one person whilst having sex with another.
I left my ex DH as he had an affair. At the time people said I was being too cut and dried but I stand by my decision. I do sometimes wonder if I was being too simplistic though.

I told myself yes, when I was being cheated on. Now I feel that it's a resounding no. Why would you want to hurt someone you love?

Disclaimer: personal opinion

Depends why they started the affair.

My dad always loved my mum he was just completely crap at feelings / emotions / relationships - culminated in a few badly judged affairs because he would never talk about his problems.

DH's dad started an affair which lasted 13 years. Clearly, that was a relationship.

Yes it's perfectly possible. It certainly seems more common for men to do this, but that may be a result of societal conditioning: men are expected to go forth and shag, women are expected to connect sex with love.

In most cases I think it's rationalised as "Yeah this would hurt if my partner found out, but s/he never will" and I reckon the majority of the time, they don't.

Magic Chicken

I think that is one of the most on point posts I have read on MN for a long time.

Totally agree with you

Having his meat parts where he pees from insert in your pee organs is so important to you that your willing to hurt another just shows that you are a selfish person living for what others think and your ego.

Just the facts.

I truly belive so. I have been married over 20 years and for the past 10 have been deeply in love with my best friend. We had shared the odd drunken kiss then more laterally a bit of a fumble but we are both married, and both love our DH's very very much. About 3 years ago we decided to embark on an affair, mainly because fighting how we felt was destroying ng our friendship, and it is too valuable to both of us. Sometimes I just NEED her. I have no idea why it turned to love, and most importantly the sex came much much later, but it did. I think it's very different to people who go out and start a sexual affair which turns to feelings and then love, we started with love and then got to sex.

Of course you can. Men do it all the time.

his meat parts where he pees from insert in your pee organs

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of female anatomy here.

Are you this guy?

meaganrain perhaps you should concentrate more in biology

Well of course you can cheat on someone you love. It's a bit like asking - can you behave badly toward someone you love? People are all too human. But it does say something about the nature of the person and the nature of the relationship. Some people set high standards for themselves and for their partners and choose someone with the strength of character to not act selfishly or spontaneously in damaging ways. Others end up with narcasistic shits.
But even those with high standards can be tempted when the relationship diminishes to the point that they are suffering, needing something that their relationship is lacking. The stinger the character the more it's got to be very lacking and very bad, the weaker the characters, the more likely it is to be more trivial.
But it's always wrong. And often unforgivable. And sometimes more forgivable and sometimes it depends on what you mean by 'cheating'.
So if there is nothing wrong in the relationship and nothing is lacking and someone is just out for fun, you've got one shallow selfish partner. And if it's after years of abuse or neglect in a moment of weakness - you've got something you had coming.
So maybe in summary - it's the quality of character and quality of relationship. But, sadly, love can exist in all these scenarios.

Wow. Dadaist, that was good. So right. Not just right, but also bringing out truths that aren't easily seen, but are absolutely real.

Thanks. Should say I like your frame of judgement because I come out as a very strong one, with very high standards. You've actually helped me, when I was beginning to think I was alone with it.

Not the only reason I like what you said, but it does give a sense of strength to one who, despite their own morally immaculate behaviour, may still have been hurt beyond words.

Your 'sadly' in the last line is probably my favourite word in the whole piece. Perfectly placed.

You're very welcome Jobanana! I'm so sorry to learn you've been hurt. It can be so devastating-because you think someone is committed to you -that they are on your side - and the betrayal is so often compounded by the deceit and the lies and the worst is when it's 'gaslighting' (e.g. when the lie is as far as - 'there is none else - you are controlling and delusional and you will ruin our relationship).
I've been unfaithful- but never in a fully committed relationship- and I've been badly cheated on - I ended it but was very forgiving about it - (party felt responsible as I introduced her to a dangerous friend!). But hey - that's life!

Having been on both sides of this situation really I obviously take full responsibility for my actions and I regret any hurt I may have caused.

However fir me there is also a a degree of the whole " you don't get crazy enough to do something like that, without first being crazy enough fir someone to notice"

Life happens and we aren't always as attentive as we should be to each other. I think the mistake is right there where we assume the other person will always be there when you remember they are there.

Also what some view as loving
and affectionate the person on the receiving end can feel more like you are Pissing up their leg. All these little clashes can sometimes just make you feel as if the person doesn't even know you anymore and that's incredibly lonely.

I guess that's where the whole communication thing comes in but that's easier said than done. I'm a "people pleaser" kinda person. I am just so used to ignoring what I want and going with what others want to keep them happy that I don't even know what I want anymore.

Cheating wasn't about getting back at someone or wanting something that I wasn't getting with the person I was seeing. I didn't even like the person I cheated with I got nothing from the situation at all.

It was just part of all my stupid hang ups /issues (probably as a result of being the idiot people seem to choose to cheat on their partners with. I had low self esteem before having others think so little of me im ony good for one thing then they can piss off again, just compounded this) .I still fight these hang ups to this day but I have learnt my lesson from the guilt and won't ever cheat again. It was a long time ago and I've changed alot since then.

Thanks, Dadaist - and you have got it right again - the deceit does compound the whole into something quite shockingly painful. Yes, it's not just the fact that the body that you thought was yours is discovered to be territory that has been pretty much explored and trampled over by someone else, but also that the person you had always hoped and trusted to be ultimately on your side had literally been in a corner with someone else, and not your corner.

I think that whatever the relationship is, and however strong, there is always that little bit of you somewhere that just trusts to luck that the other person really does completely want you, and therefore wouldn't do anything to lose you. There's that bit of yourself you can never quite see - your blind spot is truly to know the effect you have on another, how you're seen, how you're wanted. That's the bit that perhaps is our humility, our vulnerability, the bit of us that as teenagers made us sometimes just want to hide in a dark room at parties. The very centre of us, that we can only trust is seen, and wanted.

I guess that may be the bit that Gilesetc. was trying to sear into confidence with his fling, but, of course, it didn't work. After a betrayal, it's easy enough to find other people to validate your sexual appeal. If you put your mind to it, you can get validation from eyes in the street, glances in coffee shops, noticing the tone of voice and the slight tremor in the hand of the shop assistant. It isn't hard, if you tune in to it, to check your effect and appeal. But although that's reassuring, it's not really what you need. After something as devastating as betrayal by your bedfellow, lover, parent of your child, your physical home ... God, what do you need? I don't know yet. But it isn't someone else saying they want to fuck me. That's nice of them, but I need something else.

Actually, you need truthful emotion. You need someone who hasn't lied to you. You need someone new, and more decent. You need someone who can be entrusted with your heart.

Yeah, that must be it - that tiny bit that always feels it has to trust it's cherished - that's your heart.

Can you cheat and love? Yes, but you're not very good at loving if you do.

Oh Jobanana - you've got it bad - someone has really hurt you haven't they?
All I can say is - what a dick! And no, it doesn't touch your pearly diamond heart ♥. Because that's something precious and deep and beautiful and - he never deserved the glimpse that you gave him. It's undamaged and perfect! Of course your pride and confidence and sense of self worth take a hit from betrayal. But your heart is pure and unscathed and free to love again. So the sooner your heart empowers your mind and body again to feel happy and strong, the sooner you will be over it.
Something better awaits - and when your heart will sing - and these feelings will be as the dark before the dawn. Trust me, no one ever loved who never hurt, doubted, cried, despaired. These are the things that make our love and our lives authentic.
Just let your pure heart heal you and you will be stronger in your love and better in yourself x

I could never cheat on my Dh and if I ever did I would leave. I am pretty certain he feels the same, or at least I hope so. You never know.

We all have feelings and if you are out and about a lot, work closely with mainly men, go away a lot, opportunities arise, there are moments of weakness in a marriage or even in one's life, but it's always mind over matter for me.

When I am away for work I always avoid too much drink and opt for earlier nights. I have adopted lots of strategies to avoid difficult situations and that's all there is to it for me.

To say you can never develop a crush or feelings for someone else, well it's kind of irrelevant..

I was going to finish by saying it's what you choose to do about it.

I must say for me it's also about the children. I can’t detach the two really.

Thx Dadaist.

Problem is am still lying next to the person every night. Know I have to get myself out of that, but the attachment is deep. On both sides, it would appear. It is over two years since this all started. Recently I feel exhausted by it, though.

I'm not a masochist. I just feel like a blind mouse :(

I think most men cheat because they can and it's just sex, but the vast majority of women will cheat because something is lacking in the relationship.

Yeah but arsenal, ignoring the generalisation, that is essentially the same thing isn't it? What is missing in the relationship is honesty, commitment and loyalty when someone cheats. Plus cheaters of all genders usually blame things that they felt were missing in the relationship but in reality at the heart of cheating it is always the cheater's lack of honesty, commitment and loyalty really isn't it?

Jobanana, I have same situation, we had quite a codependent relationship I guess, we work together too. With me the betrayal happened 11 years ago but I only found out in November by coming across lyrics and recorded songs that he did for someone who worked with us who was only 21 at the time, she was travelling all over world too with him as our tour assistant, he says it was a fantasy, all in his head, I'm not so sure, the problem is I now can't get this stuff out my head, it feels like the last 11 years were a lie. I'm having ic but not sure if I can carry on knowing all this, marriage was a bit up and down anyway but I must admit he is the last person ever I would have thought would do this, never stopped telling me he loved me, says it was just a bad time and he became a bit fixated with someone who didn't have the crap going on in business etc. Problem is I can't look at him the same way, I feel permanently sick