Is infidelity immoral and if so should society be involved or is it a strictly personal matter?

[mids2019]

Infidelity seems to be one of the few areas in life where psychological harm can be brought to bear against another. In some societies infidelity is viewed as a criminal act or at least viewed negatively.

In liberal societies infidelity is a strictly personal matter and society does not act as a stakeholder in the relationship with no civil penalty for unfaithfulness.

Do you think this is the right balance or should infidelity be thought if as a moral wrong by others? We take a dim view of people parking badly but as a society do we hav we to he same default respinse to infideliity?

I think there is a huge difference between promoting commitment and fidelity as a positive on the one hand and simplistic black/white moral preaching on the other. The former is pretty much what we have now. I think you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist, OP. I certainly don't feel that I can't speak out and condemn infidelity.

However as you say most people think it's wrong so are we already I t he track of saying that in reality the moral judgment is already there?

Yes, of course it is. Our society is set up around monogamy, it's illegal to have more than one spouse and cheating is a perfectly acceptable reason to end a relationship and legal grounds for divorce. In fact, many people in unhappy marriages often say they wish their spouse would cheat so they'd have an acceptable reason to end it. If anything, merely being unhappy isn't considered an acceptable reason. The "exit affair" is a thing: when an unhappy spouse has an affair just to provide the justification of ending the marriage.

It hint he idea of contractual obligations in a relationship is an interesting debate but some do not get married but surely those involved in cohabitation including children deserve to have at least an expectation that fidelity is maintained?

That's between them. Not everyone chooses a monogamous life. If you want to enshrine it in law so that there are legal consequences to breaking the promise, you can as long as you both agree. You can end the relationship if they cheat or for any other reason.

if we do have HSE in schools and part of the curriculum is to define what is important and healthy in a commuter relationship should we just reiterate that infidelity is definitely a barrier to this?

I don't think it's the place of schools to tell people how to live. They should teach about safe and consensual sex and being prepared for the intensity of emotions that it brings. At some point, life is going to have to take over as teacher.

You seem to think that women don't feel justified in ending relationships due to cheating, which I find odd for all the reasons given in the first paragraph. Infidelity is a perfectly acceptable reason, socially and legally, to end a relationship. People often engineering it because they can't envisage ending it for any other reason.

In my experience, women who won't end relationships when they really should after cheating do it not because they don't feel entitled to, and not even because of the kids, but because they fear losing their lifestyle/poverty and all the upheaval and change. That's a very understandable reason, especially these days, and I am not judging. But it's not because of a society-led acceptance of cheating and additional opprobrium won't help.

More than a secret gambling problem? Than running up huge debts and lying about it? Than hitting your partner? Than verbally abusing them? Than alcoholism or drug addiction? Than abusing the kids?

@ReneBumsWombats quite. Speaking for myself I can honestly say that I would have preferred it if my late husband had cheated and had our marriage end that way to what actually happened, which was the devastating consequences of his alcohol addiction and everything that came with it.

@ReneBumsWombats I agree all are quite grim.

@pointy

Sorry to hear that

@mids2019 the thing is - if you're going to talk about morality and societal disapproval, that stuff is actually completely counterproductive when it comes to things like addiction in a relationship. People don't talk about addiction. Addiction services have been slashed. People think it's a choice and a moral weakness. All those things are perpetuating the problem. Moralising may be satisfying for some people, but ultimately it achieves nothing, improves nothing and repairs nothing.

Indonesia recently made infidelity a crime
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63869078

not sure that is what anyone wants here.

As a counter example, in 18th century France (think Dangerous Liaisons), divorce was impossible but infidelity after marriage was normal. Now that divorce is easily, the social penalties for infidelity are stronger.

If you want to make sure women can more easily leave relationships, the better solution is to work on removing the stigma of being single and making single living more affordable, including better housing options and better ways of ensuring child maintenance is paid. I expect that plenty of women in miserable relationships would leave if they won the lottery.

Heaping more opprobrium on cheaters isn't going to cut it and in fact will punish people who do choose to try to work through it.

I think you only have to look at this thread to see that infidelity is not judged that harshly at all in our culture, or seen as a moral wrong.

Many women are immediately being defensive, taking it to the extreme, not even getting into intelligent debate and instead saying ‘we will bring back stoning! We can’t imprison people!’. Or ‘it’s someone’s private business’. Or ‘well if you don’t have sex with someone for years what do you expect?’ (Er… divorce? Honest open communication?)

So I do think that the OP has a valid question worthy of debate. Proper real debate. Particularly as there are real harmful consequences on women and children, and yes often women and children.

There is, I feel, a lack of understanding at how devastating and harmful infidelity is. This is not ending a relationship with open, honest feelings. It is the opposite, it is keeping someone in a relationship with you but utterly betraying their trust in the most important relationship most of us will ever have in our lives.

Whilst addiction is also devastating, I don’t think you DO know how devastating infidelity can be, and that is a real lack of compassion for other people who may have suffered just as much as you, and would not be belittling your experience, so don’t belittle theirs. Yes sexually betraying someone is very serious, that is the whole point of this thread.

I spoke to a woman once who was sectioned with mental health problems after she discovered her partner had had a child with his affair partner for the last 5 years. She never really recovered. Family completely torn apart.

I have had a long relationship with an addict. It was awful. Truly awful. I left and he eventually died, which I knew would happen if I left him as he would have nothing left.

I have also been cheated on. Both were devastating but cheating was the worst for me as it completely undermined my belief and trust. With the addict at least I knew what I was dealing with, I could openly get help.

The psychological impact of two parents staying in a single dysfunctional home is more harmful than those parents splitting up into two homes where they continue to parent.

Harm arises when parents tear strips out of each, punish each other or ignore each other either whilst together or when they split.

Study after study demonstrates and proves this. Which is why we have moved towards no fault divorce. Like other progressive countries.

I don’t see how other people moralising or stigmatising their parents helps a child deal with divorce.

Marriage isn’t a contract. It is a set of legal entitlements which largely relate to money. You can have any vows you want.

Whilst addiction is also devastating, I don’t think you DO know how devastating infidelity can be, and that is a real lack of compassion for other people who may have suffered just as much as you, and would not be belittling your experience, so don’t belittle theirs.

I'm going to skip over your assumptions about my life and experiences because although they're ignorant and offensive, they're not relevant.

There are many devastating ways to destroy a relationship. The fact that you think acknowledging abuse, assault and addiction as being among them somehow belittles those who suffered infidelity suggests that you are the one lacking in compassion and belittling people. It is not a zero sum game or a competition. OP wanted to suggest that infidelity is somehow unmatchable in the crap relationship game and the fact is, it isn't. You can damage and crap on your partner in numerous ways. What a wonderful world.

You may have something to add to this discussion for someone, but not me.

I don’t see how other people moralising or stigmatising their parents helps a child deal with divorce.

It doesn't. While divorce will never be entirely without consequence, good parents who put the children first at all times will minimise it greatly and most likely end up with a net positive outcome.

When the priority is not safety and security for children, but instead calling for endless external acknowledgement of the parents' hurt, the children will suffer. And that's what all this ultimately comes down to. That's why posters are arguing against anyone who disagrees by telling them they don't understand infidelity and no other traumatic relationship experience counts and everything they call for is totally justified because they hurt so much and nobody else's pain can compare. The hurt justifies it all. The hurt is the priority. The children are not.

I personally think infidelity is most abhorrent because it removes informed consent.

The psychological damage done when a betrayed partner learns they've been consenting under a false pretext is not talked about often enough.

Coercive control is essentially a liberty crime. There had to be an element of entrapment. You can't legislate against hurting feelings.

@ReneBumsWombats

I really feel for children of such relationships and there are no easy answers.

However the parents hurt becomes the childrens hurt. It is very difficult for a child.to mentally align wanting to love a father for instance with knowledge of the effect on their mother of his infidelity. It is like a psychological snare.

The devastation to a whole range of parties of infidelity shouldn't be trivialized (accepting yes there are other problems that happen) and that lends weight to say, 'yes this is a moral issue with real life victims'.

@TenTenEleven

Maybe I made an error in bringing in legality into the argument. Obviously from a legal point of view consensual sex between adults is acceptable; however body feelings I certainly think is a massive understatement of the true effects of infidelity .

Sorry hurt feelings

It absolutely shouldn't be subject to any legal sanction. Would you honestly trust our legal system to judge this fairly? Or would, say, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson get away Scott free, where some vulnerable woman seeking to get support to leave an abusive relationship gets the book thrown at them.

I judge most, but not all people who have affairs. Sometimes people are unhappy in their primary relationship for very good reason. But some entitled tosser who has affairs because he can and rubs it in his wife's face, yeah, happy to judge the hell out of him. I don't subscribe to the 'none of my business' rule either.

Any parent who thinks their hurt should be a child’s hurt is seriously messed up. It’s their job to prevent that.

Won't not having affairs be batteries children all round?

I think society almost condones and entises it. We live in a highly sexualised era. Majority of magazines, clothes, adverts etc is someone in their underwear and posing or telling people how they should look, what they should wear (normally very little), on TV and films they add sex scenes that aren't relevant to the story line. It's a real shame we're in such a shallow society.
Cheating is awful and the affects it has on the person they are in a relationship with is unforgivable. Morally it's wrong and I like to believe karma is real.
But I don't think it being a criminal offence would be right, I do see your point in other forms of abuse being outlined and this isn't, almost like it makes it ok and non abusive. But there are so many grey areas it would be difficult to cover. I think anyone with a moral compass wouldn't cheat and would leave if they were unhappy or stay and work it through without needing to sleep with someone else before trying this.
If I saw or knew for 100% certainty that someone was cheating, I would likely tell the partner. I would hate to get involved but would also be extremely grateful if someone did me the same curtoisy if it ever happened.

This is spot on

To me it would come down to transparency about sexual partners, whether married or not. If you're sleeping with someone, and you lie about sleeping with someone else/other people, it isn't informed consent for a start and If you pass on an STI, why should that not be a prosecutable defence?