Men/women being careful of situation that cause them to cheat

[Scorpio8]

I know Men/women cheat because their unhappy in their relationship/marriage.
LL
Do you think some men/women are happy and they just put themselves in situation with the opposite sex in periods that find them end up having an affair. Do you believe it's preventable?

Like say a man goes woman house to help her do her garden for week. He goes alone. The same with a woman if a man needed ironing doing each day weekly.

Do you believe certain situations could be prevented if they work with another person around the opposite sex long enough. Especially if they are married/partner.

Different if they are single.

I know I sound crazy just need to know opinions please.

This thread reminds me of When Harry Met Sally. (the ‘cannot just be friends’ part)

As @YouAreNotBatman says: “Cheaters cheat because they want to.”

For us, in our many years together, we’ve both had opportunities and offers, and not gone for it. As a PP said above “IME, the only thing that prevents cheating is making the decision to be faithful and sticking to it.” That was @Paslaptis.

Interestingly, we’ve discussed the ‘offers’, usually many years later, and been surprised by who it was and what happened. Both of us have agreed that it’s quite flattering when that’s happened, especially in later years! (still got it!)

With many different employers over the years, we’ve both been astonished at how many workplace affairs we’ve witnessed. (sometimes literally)

We think that the mobile phone and the OLD sites are to blame for a lot of these problems today. On First Dates recently there was a woman who said she was VERY surprised that so many married men (on OLD) were in ‘open’ relationships. Hard to tell if she was being sarcastic there…

It’s very easily seen on MN threads that there’s a hell of a lot to lose by cheating, emotionally AND financially. Where DC are involved it’s always heart breaking.

@Jellycatspyjamas

Hyaluronic was by Alanis Morissette I think.

she was VERY surprised that so many married men (on OLD) were in ‘open’ relationships. Hard to tell if she was being sarcastic there…

Yeah. The ones really in open relationships are usually very upfront about it, and sometimes link to their wife's profile, or have a joint profile. Most of them are not in an open relationship at all and just want a NSA fuck.

I suspect modern telecoms has made it all easier - if I were thinking about someone, I could message them right now, which I couldn't have done 20 years ago. But it's only made things easier. There's nothing new at all about affairs. Humans have always managed infidelity, right through history.

This sums it up! Perfect post, thank you.

Cheating is always a choice. I don't think your examples are necessarily a problem for people who wouldn't dream of having an affair. Obviously for those that would cheat it's a perfect environment.

This is a dangerous attitude. Anyone can cheat if the circumstances are right. There's no cheating gene that some have and others don't! I do think a lot of infidelity catches the participants by surprise.

@MrsTerryPratchett has wise words as always. Setting at least some personal boundaries to reduce risk is just common sense (eg not socialising alone with a man while drinking alcohol).

Quote function didn't work on my post above. The first paragraph was quoting a PP!

I have a friend who cheated on her husband. She would have had no intention of cheating until she was actually having sex. She got tipsy on a business trip and went up to a colleague’s hotel room to have a few drinks and the inevitable happened. To this day, she is completely bewildered and shocked and disgusted with herself. She genuinely cannot understand at all how it happened. She told her husband immediately and was so ashamed.

Every single one of her friends understands exactly how it happened. Her husband knows exactly how it happened.

She is a cool girl. She overshares with male colleagues all the time. She engages in sexually explicit banter with them. She “gets on better with men than women”. She thinks that women who are wary of their partners having deep friendships with the opposite sex are controlling. She thinks partnered men and women should be able to meet up in hotel rooms for chats and bantz and drinks on business trips.

She still has not made the connection between her lack of boundaries and her lack of respect for her relationship and her banging a colleague.

Sadly, she will do it again and her husband won’t forgive her a second time.

So yes, people cheat who have no intention of cheating.

@BenCooperSuperTrouper

Once she started knocking the drinks back and felt tipsy she could of just went to her room. For me no excuse this exactly a situation that's not justified.
Her poor husband hearing it too.
Having her time alone with several men she going to do that. No boundaries at all.
No love or respect for her partner.

Situations most definitely like this don't need to go that far even if you know yourself with alcohol too. Some people do know that line and some just think blindly it never happen and shock themselves when it does.

Yes but even if you didn't some people cannot help themselves.

People can help themselves they make a choice, end of. They don’t forget about their partner at home, they decide that self gratification is more important than anything or anyone else in that moment.

If you are in an unhappy or even boring relationship or even no relationship both sexes are tempted, it’s not just men, women are just as likely to initiate the over familiar behavior, that leads to casual sex. Workplace sex is very common, married men are probably most likely to have affairs but married women are nearly as bad

I don’t think you can “accidentally” cheat but I do think there are sensible things you can do to avoid any misunderstandings about intention. I travel a lot for work. Rule 1 - no one in my hotel room, ever, at all, for any reason. I also avoid drinking to excess so I don’t do anything stupid. I’ll eat with a colleague of either sex but I don’t start conversations with randoms in the hotel bar and when they try to start them with me I’m polite but dismissive. This has a 100% success rate of preventing any penises from accidentally ending up in my vagina… go me!!!

Affairs never ‘just happen’ they are always the result of a series of decisions where the cheater kid themselves that their intentions are pure. If you are attracted to someone then it’s simple, steer clear.

Spending time with someone you are emotionally and potentially physically invested in is dangerous. It ain’t rocket science.

Cheating is a choice, whatever excuses or lie the cheater makes doesn’t change the fact that it was a choice. If banning a partner from spending time in the company of females or situations I considered ‘dangerous’ was the only way I could feel at ease then that would say a lot about me and my relationship dynamic. Life is too short to be anxious over things I ultimately have no say over.

There's no such thing as 'cannot help themselves'. The cheater is always responsible, and it isn't up to their partner to stick to them like glue and control their every move.

The woman quoted a few posts up is fully responsible - at every stage, she made a bad choice.

I've been away several times overnight with a man/men in the context of the sport I used to do and never once felt tempted to cheat. My late husband went out socialising and the same thing applied. Personal responsibility, people.

I worked in hospitality for yrs. Girls-boy's nights out-holidays away are hotbeds for cheating. Exposure and opportunity. Work is another primer, chit-chats turn into ready-made opportunities once the work events are on.

Add alcohol and it's a mix made in heaven.
Awareness is the key some people don't have it, some people will never cheat. Personally, I'd never go out of my way to be ignorant of my surroundings, nor would leave myself open to idle chit-chat and gossip.

*She would have had no intention of cheating until she was actually having sex.
She got tipsy on a business trip and went up to a colleague’s hotel room to have a few drinks and the inevitable happened.

To this day, she is completely bewildered and shocked and disgusted with herself. She genuinely cannot understand at all how it happened.*

She's very good at self delusion.

And she appears to be as good at Jedi mind tricking you lot as well, to think she genuinely didn't have the slightest awareness or decision to make when the "inevitable" - which wasn't inevitable at all - happened. Drunk or not, I presume she didn't believe the man she was with had not magically morphed into her husband, she knew he wasn't her husband/life partner/sexual partner when she started having sexual contact. Even her drunk.mind knows she's not supposed to be having sex with this person who's not her partner, who looks different, smells different, feels different, possibly kisses eyc. differently etc etc. She was drunk, she wasn't unconscious.

She gave herself permission to do it. She still made a decision, even drunk. She could have stopped at any point in the sexual encounter.

She is a cool girl. She overshares with male colleagues all the time. She engages in sexually explicit banter with them. She “gets on better with men than women”. She thinks that women who are wary of their partners having deep friendships with the opposite sex are controlling. She thinks partnered men and women should be able to meet up in hotel rooms for chats and bantz and drinks on business trips..

She could actually do all this and not have sexual intercourse (or even sexual contact) with men who are not her husband.

The real boundary she didn't have was having sex with a man other than her partner/husband.

Tbh this woman doesn't have any boundaries.
😂

Weird know someone else8ke that. She encouraged her husband to go to the cinema with another woman.

Either she didn't care or was naive and trusting.

😂I'm glad someone pointed this out. I was scrolling through the replies, waiting for someone to mention this.

This is a complex topic with so many layers!

I think that it's healthy to set boundaries in a relationship, not for each other, but for yourself. Sure, you can tell yourself that you're not a cheater and will make a decision not to cheat regardless of the situation, but it doesn't always work like that.

For example: A lot of affairs are often with coworkers, and start off innocent. A friendly joke at work turns into texting after work, turns into meeting up for drinks, turns into kissing, turns into sex. And I do believe that a lot of these types of affairs involve a cheater who never went looking for an opportunity to cheat. But when you're spending so much time with someone each day, sharing your stresses, office banter etc, it's not hard to see how it can happen.

It's not about removing yourself from every situation where it involves the opposite sex, it's about putting your own relationship first and doing everything you can to protect it.