Why is cheating wrong but being a 'bad' partner in other ways is less of an issue?

[SomewhereNow]

Just musing on something I was discussing with a friend.

When you get married you exchange vows promising to be faithful but also to 'love, comfort, honour and protect' or similar.

Being unfaithful is seen as the ultimate betrayal and often (usually?) ends the relationship yet neglecting a partner emotionally doesn't seem anything like as big a deal. Why? To me both are wrong but why is one worse than the other?

Pudding - what you said reasonates with me. I was seriously unhappy in my relationship, I think he was EA to me too and I would wish he would just have an affair so I could end the relationship. Cowardly of me, I know, but it was like I couldn't make sense of what was going on or admit it to myself.

He possibly was having an affair, with a man, I think he struggles with his sexuality but I don't know for definite that anything physical happened.

I do know he broke all the other vows, but it took a long time for me to wake up to that.

This is a good question. I think it comes down to justification in other people's eyes. 'He had an affair' is concrete, the other stuff, less so and more open to interpretation.

If you're brought up in a dysfunctional home where you were emotionally abused then it's much more likely that your benchmark for acceptable behaviour is way out from where it should be leading to acceptance of dysfunctional behaviour in marriage.

It's the weight of history and may fade after a few generations.

Adultery is the only reason for divorce recognised in the Bible and I think it was the only reason you could apply for a divorce until the sixties/seventies. You used to have to prove adultery, which was hard without the errant spouse co-operating and there was a harrowing documentary done in the sixties where a bloke effectively broke down as he went over all the hoops he had to jump through to prove adultery. There was no other way to dissolve a marriage.

I think that makes it so ingrained.

IrianofW you put that so well, it made me gulp! In my case on my second marriage , why did someone else get the poems and the song lyrics when they were only 20 , with no real hassles in life, whilst i was running our business that had issues, tending to our child, running the house and looking after a grown up man child (still am for time being) - as the counsellor told me, its not what you (as in me) havent got, its what the other person hasnt gotand thats the knowledge that he is not the perfect bloke. Its effectively running away from their foibles/disatisfaction with life in general and any other upsets at the time to reinvent themselves in someones eyes as "Mr Amazing" it is usually either pure sex or pure "limerence" , in my case I believe it was limerence the thrill of "the new" . Its interesting what others said about something concrete. When I left my first husband in 1990 when I was 28 I remember vividly my grandmother at the time saying "I dont understand you , he doesnt hit you and he earns good money" That seems to have been their "criteria" !! You have to feel for how many women before even the 70's stayed in miserable marriages just because of stuff like that.

I think the other words are less tangible. We all show love, give comfort, protect and honour in different ways. They aren't quite so easy to define in terms of actual behaviour.

I couldn't leave my EA relationship saying he didn't love or honour me, because he always claimed he did, but that his way of showing it was different. He claimed his lies were his way of protecting me, that he couldn't bare to hurt me by telling me the truth. He was very good at comfort. Every time I cried he would hold my hand, dry my tears and make all kinds of promises to make me feel better. It wasn't until after we split up I even realised the relationship was EA.

At least with an affair it is very clear that someone has broken their vows.

I hope it does change for future generations. My mum was told by her grandmother that "you can't leave just because he has other women, that's just the way men are". Thankfully that attitude is not often around nowadays (not in my circles anyway) so there is hope the "so what he doesn't help out with housework, just do it yourself" attitude will one day disappear too.

My marriage is over, but we still live together. It's amicable. I'm seeing someone else, and h knows. Doesn't seem to bother him overly. That said, nothing seems to bother him overly.
I would love to know how many man-hours he's clocked up over the almost 20 years we have lived under the one roof playing his computer game. I feel if he had put even 20% of those hours into our marriage, maybe we wouldn't have ended up where we are. There's only so many nights years you can sit on the sofa at night alone, and wondering why.
hey ho.

Yep. When my ex husband was gambling all our money away and controlling me financially it wasn't a huge deal to others.

When I had an emotional affair the people who I was posting with online at the time were disgusted with me. Apparently I did the worst thing ever. I still disagree that my behaviour was worse than his financial abuse, addiction and getting me into debt.

He lied more than I did. Sneaked around, betrayed me, messed my head up etc.

BTW we split up and both forgave each other and ended up very close friends.

Because there is deliberate deceit involved in an extramarital affair - where is other types of bad behaviour are generally fairly upfront and obvious, although still may not be sticking with a promise.

dadaist, I disagree that other types of bad behaviour are upfront and obvious. In an EA relationship you often don't realise that it is EA at the time. (My lightbulb moment was realising that I hadn't cried even once in the two weeks after we split up, and then being shocked at myself for thinking two weeks without crying was a massive achievement.) The behaviour is often kept away from others, so to the outside world the abusive partner seems like a good guy.

The deliberate element is interesting though. I often wonder if my ex really believed he loved me, or whether he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

Point taken AmeliaLion - there are of course abusive behaviours that are subtle.
I think my essential point is that - while lots of abusive behaviours are fully bad - they are often not well understood even by the perpetrator. I think that is what you gesture towards in your experience E.g. people may be controlling or nasty or condescending without being fully aware of their behaviour or the reasons behind it.
I figure that In cases of affairs, (and perhaps also stealing or fraud?) the perpetrator knows full well what they are doing and why.
But any other deliberate abuse is as bad I guess.

I think it's a good point about the intention and awareness of the perpetrator. In some aspects ' for better or worse' cuts both ways.

Many people (myself included) tolerate behaviour they perhaps shouldn't because they are trying to keep their own marriage vows.