Is this an acceptable reason for cheating?

[Ilovefruitpastilles]

I know there’s no acceptable reason for cheating really but sometimes can circumstances make someone vulnerable when in different circumstances they wouldn’t have dreamt of doing it?

My DH has cheated and it seems to have been down to a few things but he says the main reason was sexual rejection. Our sex life has got progressively worse over the past year and it had got to the point where I never wanted it and certainly never initiated anything. We were going through a very difficult period in our marriage and our relationship had deteriorated so much that I didn’t feel loving towards him at all and if he initiated it and we did sleep together it was pretty obvious that it was just a chore to me and I wasn’t really enjoying it.

He said enduring this for a year (and we did have differences before this as his sex drive is higher) had made him feel really depressed and he thought I didn’t fancy him or love him and was rejecting him. It made him feel absolutely terrible about himself so that when he then met someone who paid him a lot of attention (plus other stressful things in his life were going on to do with family) he started a friendship which then led to an affair.

I believed prior to this that if someone cheated you should leave as the trust that your relationship was built on was gone but now I’m in this situation I don’t know what to do.

There are several threads on here about relationships with no sex and everyone says how awful it makes them feel about themselves and how rejected and unfanciable they feel, and I believe he did feel that way. Obviously we both should have talked to each other about the way we were feeling as I felt that he wasn’t treating me well at the time which is why I was finding it difficult to be loving towards him, but we didn’t talk and now we are in this situation.

We’ve talked a lot now and do still love each other and want the marriage to work but I’m finding it difficult to get over the betrayal even though I sort of understand what led him down that path.

Sorry for the essay but it would be good to hear what others think.

So let me get this straight.

Your relationship was in a distressed state and you felt disconnected from your husband and reluctant to have sex with him.

Despite this, you did still sometimes have sex with him as it was clear he desired it, despite it feeling like a chore to you.

Rather than being concerned that you were subjecting yourself to sex that she clearly didn't feel like having (because you were prioritising his feelings), and trying to solve the problems that led to this situation, your husband went off and shagged someone else.

If you still love each other and want to fix your marriage, I imagine it's possible, but the first point would be your husband accepting complete responsibility for his affair and not trying to palm some of the blame off on you.

"For better or worse"

Never acceptable.

There are always ‘reasons’ to cheat but the real reason is that he was weak, and he needs to admit that.

Yes Shamelessly, exactly that. If you're having relationship problems and your wife doesn't want sex because of it you try to fix the problems if you value the relationship. You don't decide to shag someone else. Shows how much respect he has for your marriage and how selfish he is. That would be game over for me.

No excuse - you work on your relationship or leave and find someone else, cheating is cheating. He’s done it once, and if you welcome him back with open arms, what’s to stop him doing it again?

Is there any chance you could move to be closer to a support network? Could help with the stress of child rearing & date nights ?

I'm not saying it's an acceptable reason, but I understand the circumstances that led to it.

^I agree. Rejection can be soul destroying

I see my problem has now made it onto The Sun’s website; lazy journalism at its best!

Thisimmortslcurl your comment made me laugh out loud!

I completely agree that it should have been my husband thinking about all the things listed by Random Dad, not me. If I’m forced into a situation where I no longer love and respect my husband due to his behaviour and cannot stay married to him, that is HIS fault. I don’t think I can be expected to stay in a marriage for the next 15 years if I’m really unhappy, just so my children have a Mum and Dad who live together. Unfortunately, it seems he gave very little thought to the potential consequences of his actions.

We are trying to save our marriage and I’ll admit having kids is part of the reason I’m willing to give it a chance but I wouldn’t stay if we couldn’t be happy again.

Costa it is a big risk in taking back someone who has cheated and I can’t be certain he won’t do it again, but part of the reason he is going to counselling is to understand why he did it and how he needs to change. He will have to work hard to be less selfish and put his family first. He knows there would never be another chance if he does it again and if I found out he had so much as had flirty texts with another woman it would be over.

Taken I think having a support network would really help as we don’t spend any quality time together and that has affected our relationship but our family are so spread out through the country I’m not sure where we’d go. There isn’t one place we would have a lot of support. It definitely makes life more difficult that we never really get a break but now the kids are getting older we could think about arranging for them to stay with grandparents for the weekend although it would involve a lot of travelling.

The opening question was 'is this an acceptable reason for cheating', not 'shall I let him off for the sake of the kids'.

Going to the 'acceptable reason for cheating', it seems pretty unanimous that no, it's not. There is none. Real adults talk about problems and move on if they can't be solved.

Talking about teenage pregnancy and family unity is merely a way to distract from the key issue.

He cheated. He broke his marriage vows (and, presumably, other promises, you don't need to be married to promise monogamy). There is no excuse.

Why was cheating an acceptable option over talking? Easy, cheating guaranteed him a shag and having a shag was his priority. I totally see why he has made the distinction he has, it’s called not taking responsibility and blaming you absolves him of responsibility - result!

You can not go back to the time where he hasn’t cheated and accepting the blame for his behaviour (which essentially he’s asking you to do), you set a precedent for him not taking responsibility for his behaviour in the future and that dynamic will poison anything remaining of your relationship.

Stay or go but this should be a catalyst for more openness and honesty in your marriage, don’t compound your obvious relationship problems by repeating the same mistake by finger pointing.

It's not an acceptable reason to cheat, no. But if your sex life with your partner is abysmal and nothing changes after much discussion, you can't be surprised if they do have an affair.

Obviously the best option here is to just leave rather than cheat though.

ODFOD

Smeaton

Boy?, trust me I am a old man.

Hint, my wife turns 46 this year, so take a wild guess my age? .. So not some kid that has no idea on how the world works. Try looking at how life works in Africa, 1 man, a dozen wives, its how nature works, as they say you only need 1 bull in the field to make all the cows pregnant.

But hey do not let your feminist views of the world blind you from the truth!

I don't see how he can kiss someone else, touch her the way he touches you, and enter her (sorry, I don't know how else to say it) if he truly loves you. Sorry.

^^ PMSL!!!! I think you may have just been owned, Aussie

AussieSamurai I've just read a bit of your blog. It's very poorly written and full of ridiculous generalisations. You are a very whiny individual.

Well whatever anyone posts above I’m still very much a believer that you can meet someone who can make you happy enough not to go shagging anyone else.
I’m not complacent within my relationship and at 18 years in we are very happy.
Rewind to having a small house and 3 kids things were much harder however if you love and a huge one respect the person you are with you don’t plant your pot in anyone else’s greenery .
Old fashioned? Deluded ? I don’t think so, I think it’s what most people aspire to rather than the acceptance that you should turn a blind eye that either sex can have it off with someone else and you should accept it as normal behaviour.