Is adultery always wrong? Are there circumstances in which it can be justified, or at least excused?

[MrsPhilipGlenister]

Just wondered what people think, really. I suppose I've always been slightly surprised by the strength of feeling on mumsnet about it. It seems to me that - perhaps - there are circumstances in which it is at least understandable eg if someone's been in a very oppressive relationship for years, and they need a bit of a kickstart to get their mojo back and get out.

What do people think? Always to be stoned and condemned? Sometimes justifiable?

I think I could forgive DP a one night stand, and this is something I have said before.

It would kill me, really tear me in two, but I think I could work at getting over it, thing is he isn't the kind of guy that has ever slept around, so for him to have sex with someone it has always had to be Serious, so I'd find it hard to put out of my mind as a cheap little fling that meant nothing, which I have previously let an ex get away with.

What I could never forgive would be if I found out DP was in a relationship with someone else, telling them his intimate thoughts and dreams and desires, snatching secret phonecalls and meeting up gazing at each other, holding them close and basically the things we do that are special to us.

That is the deception angle from my POV.

Adultery is wrong. when you are married you have taken vows, promises to each other. But life happens and while we all do our best to do the things we are supposed to do relationships can be difficult.

I found out 6 months ago that my DH 'nearly' slept with my sister ! (got into bed but then got out again before the deadly deed). this happened 2 years ago when we were going through a relationship nightmare. We argued and fought all the time, and I withheld sex as a punishment, we were in councelling at the time and I remember the councellor warning me that he might do something like this. I found out about this because DH told me and this is the basis for me to stay with him.

Adultery is wrong but there are circumstances where it is understandable (if not acceptable) and as long as there is enough love and determination then relationships can be saved. I do agree though that when I posted about this here on MN months ago I did feel that most of the responces were along the lines of - FFS what are you still doing with the Bastard, kick him out! When what I was looking for was for someone to feel my pain but also understand that I had 10 years invested in the marriage, hours and hours of counselling and a DS. I needed constructive advice not peoples anger. I dont post about it anymore even though I think about it every day (I have lost the relationship with my sister and my mother over it) and dont have anyone to talk to about it.

but having a one-night stand, he's still shagging someone else.

still kissing her, foreplay with her, intimacy and potentially pregnancy and/or disease.

some diseases, such as herpes simplex II and certain strains of HPV, can be transmitted even whilst wearing a condom.

i don't see the difference between one-night stand and otherwise, myself.

it's not like someone trips, falls and lands on someone's willy.

and, having had numerous one-nighters myself, you do think even about those. it doesn't 'just happen'.

Of course not expat, I just think it would be easier to forgive a mistake in which he had been carried away with physical desire rather than the emotional intimacy iyswim.

TBH, though I say I would try to forgive, I doubt I actually would, I now what I'm like and I'd probably bring it up at every turn and hate him for it, especially as like I said, he isn't the type of guy to shag around, and either way there would be no way on this earth that he would be allowed to touch me for a very long time.

Okay, I see where you are coming from now.

Meant to add, I too have had numerous one ngiht stands, and although have sometimes done this without the most sensible thoughts at the forefront of my mind, I have not done it whilst in a relationship, no matter how many opportunities I had.

Even when with my ex, I knew he was shagging around (just couldnt prove it, and was apparently 'paranoid'), I convinced myself that staying with him was best for the children and I could live with his faults, but when a very close friend, who I probably would've had a relationship with had I been single, offered me it on a plate, I couldn't bring myself to do it, which is another reason I find it so impossible to understand when people say the ole 'my wife/husband/partner doesnt understand me' etc.

Surely if you make a choice to be with someone you make a decision not to have sex with anyone else?

Anyway I'm contradicting myself!

My point was meant to be that I could try harder to forgive one moment of madness than a calculated continuous affair.

x post.

I think that a lot of life is too complicated to issue blanket condemnations. I certainly am not going to condemn those people I know who are having/have had sex with people other than their partners. (I do have friends for whom non-monogamy works very well indeed, too.)

Non-monogamy is different from cheating on your spouse though.

I am usually very tolerant about other people's sex lives and would like to say something nice and understanding on this one too. The problem is that in every single case of adultery I have known, one person -the deceived partner- has ended up being terribly hurt. Trawling old Mumsnet threads bears this out. Adultery is something that hurts people. If you embark on an affair, you should be aware of that aspect. It is unlikely that your spouse will just shrug her shoulders and say 'oh well'. He or she will get hurt.

VS do you mean an "emotional" affair even without shagging would be harder to forgive? I agree with that. Not even a case of forgiveness in a way just even if you forgive them how could you possibly get back to where you were?

stuffitall, I think it is nieve to think you can get back to where you were before. There were obviously problems that lead to the affair in the first place so the relationship needs to change, and that is where commitment and dedication come in.

Yes, and I've read that sometimes if both partners decide to work it out they can actually end up resolving a lot of their problems ie their marriage is healthier than before. I'm sure that must be true in some cases where only the shock of an affair will force people to reassess things. But the pain you go through to get there seems to be a high price.

I do sort of agree with the "One-night-shag is more forgiveable than an emotional affair" argument. When ex-DH had the fling that eventually caused us to split, I could forgive the shagging (he was very contrite - 15 years later - we're friends now -still bitterly regrets it)but I couldn't forget the fact that he'd thought he was in love with the OW. That was what finally broke us, not the extra-marital sex.
But having said all that, we had a very bad marriage and the fling was a symptom, not a cause, IFSWIM. I do sometimes think that it could just have easily been me who strayed - the opportunity just happened to present itself to him not me. This is all with the benefit of a LOT of hindsight.

Could not sum up better than MB's:

"I made a vow that I would stay married to him, for better for worse in sickness and in health. If you don't intend to mean the words, why say them."

Also, have seen my 10yr old cousin being torn to pieces by my aunt having an affair, being caught out and the devastation that has followed. I look at my DD and think "do I want her to suffer through that" and my answer will be no.

Yes, you are right, the pain is hard

As others have said to your OP, MrsPG - yes, I feel it is wrong for me, and if I committed adultery I would be unable to justify it and excuse it to myself, never mind to dh, to others or before God.
I'm leery of judging others though, personally. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone etc

My aunts affair has really torn my close family to pieces.

The person she was having an affair with (who has a very young baby) sent abusive texts to my parents house (as they were trying to help Aunt and Uncle reconcile), including whilst they were on holiday things like "I hope you die in a plane crash" and "I know your daughter is home alone...",

He turned up outside my cousins school daily to see my Aunt whilst she was "trying to work though her problems" and basically divided the family. He texted my Uncle whilst he was still with my Aunt to threaten things like "you cant watch your daughter all the time". Police had to be involved.

He's a wanker. And my Aunt has left the man she has been with since she was 14 to be with him. Which she justifies by the fact that she saw a fortune teller who said that if she had an affair "the kids would be okay", which makes it all better, doesn't it.

I dont know, perhaps if she'd had an affair with a nice man, I'd feel differently?

Kind of stuffitall, I don't think I would seperate an emotional affair and a physical one as such, more a one night stand v's an affair of length, be it sexual or not.

If DP was to have an affair the sex wouldn't be the issue, whether they had sex or not, they would have been continuously deceiving me which is different to a one night fling that occured but never happened again iyswim.

It is hard to forgive an affair - but as those of you know who have had them it does not make you a bad person. If we can learn from such mistakes and as many of you have said you have learnt and would not do it now, surely that means there is hope.

Yes is is wrong - i believe it always leads to pain.

The pain of trying to get over it is huge whether the couple choose to stay together or not.

What is wrong is others judging the wife who chooses to stay as being weak. I think it often takes a lot of strengh to stay and sort out the reasons why it happened.

There is often a lot invested in relationships especially where children are involved and to walk away is not easy either.

If we accept that affairs do happen we should also accept what people want to do after with out judging.

I do believe that a marriage can improve on some levels after an affair but i also agree that something has gone forever (but it will be gone from other relationships too i think).

yes, when you both agree that it's ok and are open and honest about it.

i personally wouldn't do it - i made a vow to my dh.

I think it doesn't just happen. You have to be game for it. There are a lot of reasons that can lead you there. And if you find yourself in that why not flirtatious mode then you seriously need a reality check.

But there are a few circumstances which I can understand.
I can't say they are "justifiable" or "excusable".
Only that I can see it happening as an outsider.
Here I'm mainly thinking of those weird loving trusting long term sexless marriages where one partner is obviously unhappy and the other just pretends nothing is happening.
I find this really sad. and unhealthy.

It's really difficult isn't it? It seems so easy to say that of course adultery is wrong.. I have posted before about my marriage. I was with my exH for 18 years in total, married for 11 of them, and we split up when I was 39. We have 2 great kids. I married for love and we really had a great relationship, and I meant every word of my marriage vows. However, our sex life was not truly fulfilling, even then (lack of interest on his part not mine). I said to myself that sex is only a part of a loving relationship and we had such a great friendship in every other way that that was the most important thing.

Then, a year after we married he was unfaithful while on business abroad, and I got an STD. I was devastated. BUT we had only been married a year and I couldn't imagine not being with him. So we went to counselling, I forgave him, he was very contrite. Years passed, we had kids, he travelled more and more with work, I was like a single parent a lot of the time, plus we lived abroad which brought its own problems. He became less and less interested in me as a woman, never wanted sex, wouldn't participate in family life, and fundamental differences in our attitudes to life which hadn't been obvious when we were child-free became glaring.

I think he was actually depressed but was the sort of man who would never talk about it, every so often I would bring up the subject. I tried to tell him that I was worried about him and us. He wouldn't pay any attention to my worries, wouldn't go to counselling, wouldn't go to the doc to see why he had no sex drive. We stopped having sex completely.

I started to think about infidelity. I knew that I didn't want my kids to be casualties of a broken family, I firmly believed that marriage was the best context for bringing up children. But when I looked to the future all I could see was another 30? 40? years of being a housekeeper. I felt so resentful and taken for granted.

In the end, before I finally accepted that I had to end the marriage, I was unfaithful with 3 different men. 2 flings, one affair. They taught me that I couldn't keep the marriage together by pretending all was ok and having a bit on the side when it all got too much to bear..

We are now separated and amicably so. I never told him about my infidelities. The kids seem ok and I am much happier. But I still miss being married (not to him!) and hope that one day I will have a proper partnership.

Infidelity is not always just a case of the grass being greener. I felt guilty but I justified it to myself cos he had broken his marriage vows too, he didn't respect me or honour me - and I had tried so many times to get him to see that we were in trouble. Perhaps I should have left first and then had my flings.. but I didn't want to break up my children's home. It wasn't just about sex though the thought of never having a loving physical relationship again was devastating..

What would you have done?

43 today. I don't know. I hope never to be in that situation tbh!
I can totally understand how you felt. The feeling that you are talking to a wall.
Didn't you know from the first infidelity that there was no way out anyway? That it was going to end up in divorce?

Hi slim22 - no, I kidded myself that I could compartmentalise my life.. total crap of course, I am so not like that in general. But I really wanted to keep the 'family' going, I couldn't imagine being a single parent and my kids not living with their dad. The first two were flings and I wasn't emotionally involved, just getting some reassurance that I was actually an attractive woman and not some sort of dried-up old prune that no man would touch with a barge pole. They didn't make me happy - but they made me more self-confident in a superficial way.

Then I got involved with someone who I fell for like a ton of bricks - though I managed not to tell him. He was married too.. I knew nothing would come of it, and I realised that these feelings could happen again for someone else in the future. I ended it because I knew it would only bring more unhappiness.

That's when I decided that ex and I had to split. Ironically, he was totally gob-smacked. He had blocked out every thing I'd said to him over the previous 3 or 4 years. I couldn't believe that he hadn't taken anything I'd said seriously! At his behest we went to counselling (after I'd tried to persuade him for so long..) It helped us to split amicably.

I still regret the ending of my marriage even though I know that we were unsuited in many ways. Thank goodness we have both been mature and sensible with each other (him in particular - he's a far better ex than husband..) and the kids seem to have coped very well.

It's really true that communication is the glue of a relationship and when that goes it's very hard to keep going.

Oh yes, something else (god must stop writing these essays!)

My experience of marriage does make it very hard to understand those who are unfaithful for no particular reason.. when you have been unhappily married, a happy marriage seems like the Holy Grail and it's hard to understand how people can put it at risk for seemingly trivial reasons.

A friend of mine has been mucking about with infidelity, she didn't actually do the deed.. but she loves her husband, he loves her, got 2 lovely kids, maybe she's a bit bored, a bit 40-something ish.. she expected me to be all 'go for it girl!' but I told her I thought she was being a complete idiot to risk everything for some casual shag. Think she thought that since I was a scarlet woman I'd give her my blessing.. Perhaps I feel so strongly about it cos I still feel guilty about my marriage ending.