Ok, you buggers (affectionately said). Are some affairs more acceptable than others?

[Koala72]

Right. So, after an unpleasant brush with a psychopathic sociopathic female who attempted to break up our family, I have studied the whole business of affairs for a while now.

And this is the question to you lot:

A lot of men - pretty much most men - seem to have sex or an EA out of their main partnership at one time or another. I did a survey of all the men I know, and only found a couple who hadn't (and I mean family, extended family, all friends, colleagues, neighbours - all of them).

Let us just swallow the bitter pill and say ok, this is likely to happen.
(for argument's sake)

Now - whereas an affair with a woman who intends to stay with the guy, and therefore this will involve him leaving his main partner and possibly kids, is clearly very destructive and life-changing, is it ok for him to have an affair, dalliance, EA, whatever, with a woman who doesn't want him to leave his family?

So, she wants to see him a couple of times a month, talk to him, have him as some kind of sex interest, but the last thing on earth she would want would be for him to leave his main family. Mutual discretion, controlled behaviour, both sides safeguarding any families involved so that they just have a private relationship which in some way helps them, and hurts nobody.

Isn't this OK? (given that if it's going to happen, it may as well happen in a way that doesn't hurt anybody??)

All hypothetical, of course.

People who think affairs don’t have consequences if people don’t find out are deluded IMO.

Also, it’s not the affair haver who gets to decide how the betrayed partner gets to feel about their infidelity therefore it is a moot point.

Some affair haters like to think of their affair as a great love story, some like to think of it as meaningless sex but these are just justifications for shitty behaviour and not something the affair should consider to be in any way relevant to the betrayed spouse.

Not only is the affair itself cruel but the excuses and justifications compound the misery.

No.

The only affair that is acceptable is one where both partners of the 'affairees' are aware. And then I guess it's not an affair. Lying is a problem. Lying by omission is still lying. We have got past DH's affair and things are good but what hurt me most was thinking of all the days when I was excluded from a significant part of H's life - a part which was sucking the life from our marriage.

The wilfulll blindness, despite all evidence to the contrary, of those who insist that monogamy is a natural state, let alone desirable, never ceases to amaze me.

Cheating has very little to do with monogamy or polygamy.

It’s not monogamy that is being discussed Ford, it is cheating.

Cheaters are even less suitable to manage relationships with multiple partners than with one partner IMO.

Multiple partners require multiple commitments to honesty and respect that take much more effort to maintain and negotiate. Someone who can’t manage honesty and respect with one partner is not going to manage honesty and respect with multiple partners.

(That is in fact a major reason why they cheat, despite the protestations of the OW and sex workers they use re how justified they are)

And it’s so much crap anyway... there have never been major social sanctions for non-monogamy for men. There has been an historical entitlement to non-monogamy in fact. The people who have had to struggle against imposed monogamy and oppressive marriage have been women, not men.

What men are objecting to when they cheat is equality. It is not activism against the constraints of monogamy or marriage. Marriage for men improves their emotional and financial well-being, it legitimises them and they seek it, just still in 2018 they feel the constraints of marriage and monogamy should not apply to them, that they are tools for controlling and restricting the freedom of women and they do not have to abide by the same rules because they are men.

It’s absolutely idiotic to smugly pronounce cheating is because monogamy is ‘unnatural’ and this is specifically an approach that is particularly used to justify men’s cheating (not women’s).

No, because the hurt is in the betrayal and lack of trust. You shouldn’t do anything to hurt another person (emotionally or physically) imo and so an affair is never OK because someone is always going to get hurt.

There's a hell of a lot of ground between Perfectly Alright , and Depart from Me, Ye Accursed. Arguably the only sort of affair that would be OK would be one where all parties knew what was going on and didn't mind, but arguably then it wouldn't be an affair, it'd be an open relationship.
But human beings screw up in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons. One philanderer might be a man-child with a sense of entitlement and a desire to wound: another might just be silly and irresponsible.

Ford

Not surprised you would say that. As a prostitute, you sleep with many cheating men.

"so an affair is never OK because someone is always going to get hurt."

I'm sure some cheaters would argue that if the person being cheated on doesn't find out, they don't get hurt.

Monogamy does occur in some cultures though. So you can't really say what is an isn't natural when our species are so socially diverse.

It’s specifically men though that monogamy is supposed to be unnatural for... evopsych crap...

It is yet another way that patriarchy seeks to control women by using marriage and monogamy to secure paternity and domestic services for men and to restrict women’s freedom and equality in society and in the privacy of their own intimate relationships.

This is not an inherent problem with marriage or monogamy necessarily. It is an inherent problem with patriarchy.

Marriage is a dying institution. People no longer have to get married at all. People don’t have to be monogamous either. Increasing numbers of people are getting divorced. Vestiges of oppression remain but these oppressions apply largely to women and not men and the ways they become manifest have shifted from the political sphere to the private.

There has never been a time in recorded history that has been as liberal re poly relationships as this current time...

The OP was making the point that it's going to happen anyway. Perhaps it's marriage that needs reviewing maybe as a society we have unrealistic expectations and we should realise that it's not possible to honestly know how you yourself will grow change and develop through a lifetime, never mind your partner. Maybe a different arrangement with regular reviews is more realistic. It is good to see a post like this up for discussion.

I get that but people get benefits from not being honest. Hence cheating. What suggests that cheaters want to be honest and negotiate a ‘different arrangement’? That would mean giving up the cake eating privilege.

There is literally no reason at all why people can’t negotiate a different arrangement re marriage now. They choose not to.

What seems to be being suggested is that people stop expecting partners to be loyal, respectful and honest and TBH that basically means it isn’t a relationship at all really.

Offred, if cheating men are objecting to equality, then what are cheating women objecting to?

I'm not being smug in the least. I hate seeing women and men feeling betrayed because their supposedly exclusive partner had sex with someone else. But the reality is that it's only a "betrayal" because the widely accepted narrative has told them that if someone loves you, they will never be attracted sexually by someone else, let alone fuck them. And that simply isn't true.

And I should state here that my views are a product of my experience of the world and existed prior to my entry to sex work 2~ years ago. Up til my 30s I struggled, and failed, to perform monogamy. For the last 15 odd years I've been honest with partners and potential partners that we are not ever going to be exclusive. But many people aren't capable of that level of honesty, because they know they'll be rejected in favour of some arsewipe who says "I'd never cheat on you baby" but will schtup his junior colleague the first time he goes on an overnight conference.

Well yes, BeHappyMummy, that was pretty much my point.

But the reality is that it's only a "betrayal" because the widely accepted narrative has told them that if someone loves you, they will never be attracted sexually by someone else, let alone fuck them. And that simply isn't true.

Nope, the betrayal is the dishonesty, that lack of trustworthiness, the sneaking around, the risk to sexual health, the siphoning off of family money and time etc and all the disrespect that goes along with that. The vast majority of people are way more hurt by all of that than the sex.

But many people aren't capable of that level of honesty, because they know they'll be rejected in favour of some arsewipe who says "I'd never cheat on you baby" but will schtup his junior colleague the first time he goes on an overnight conference.

Every person is ‘capable’ of that, many people choose not to take that path because the cheating path seems more attractive to them, does not require them to take responsibility and they often genuinely believe they will never be caught.

Offred, if cheating men are objecting to equality, then what are cheating women objecting to?

In the same circumstances, inequality.

People in poly relationships still feel betrayed by that kind of behaviour. It has very little to do with sex and a LOT to do with how the person actually behaves.

Do you see that this idea that you have to lie to a partner to trap them is also something drawn directly from misogyny?

So what if someone rejects you for being honest? Why would you want to be with someone who didn’t share your values?!

Well, for men, very often because securing a woman through marriage improves their status and wellbeing and they do not feel that they are required to consider the woman as an equal or her own choices as important.

Ford

What point are you referring to?