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?

Apportioning blame may not necessarily increase the length of proceedings and may actually satisfy an injustice.

There you go: pure vengeance. No, that's not what family courts, or any courts, are for.

Won't there always be some acrimony in divorce or why else have the court proceedings

Why the hell do you want to increase it?

I've not read the full thread OP - but the thing is that you can't legislate for affairs of the heart. Break-ups are painful, unrequited live is painful, divorce is painful, and no one - no one - thinks that to love does not risk getting hurt.

When it comes to infidelity - of course there are so many different shades that it would still be impossible to legislate. Infidelity applies to open marriages for example -really it's the cheating that invariably causes the hurt? The deception. Say a husband has a one night stand, admits it to wife - who tries to get over it but a year later ends up having a drunken revenge liason, catches feelings, starts an affair which gets exposed and ends in divorce. Which infidelity are you going to punish?
And cheating can be online - and not involve actual infidelity- but can still destroy relationships. Things that are immoral and hurt people aren't always illegal (lying, bullying, lacking compassion) because we choose the relationships freely and whatever is given up is emotional and can't be refunded.

Where people mention 'fault' in divorce couldn't you argue that there can be fault in divorce. If a man sleeps with someone else to increase sexual variety I am going to stick my neck out and say there was indeed someone at fault in the divorce.

But how long would it take before the argument becomes "when my client entered marriage he was doing so under the impression that a healthy whatever that means sex life was part of the relationship. When his wife started denying him this perhaps after childbirth and generally being quite exhausted given that women are still as a class carrying the domestic load more than men he has no option but to have his needs taken care of elsewhere. You see your honour, had the wife been fulfilling her part of the deal, my client would never had needed to look elsewhere and thus is not to blame for the failure of the marriage."?

From my own experience, it felt quite important to me at the time that my reasons for divorcing my ex were on record, but unreasonable behaviour was the best way (which included note of his infidelity). Our divorce was quite amicable and we have been able to co-parent civilly. I think that's been best for us, everyone around us and definitely for our children. All this talk of courts - our divorce was just rubberstamped and passed through the system, and that's just a healthier way of managing it than some vicious Kramer vs Kramer-esque model.

Had we gone down a hugely confrontational path of adultery where I had to prove he'd fucked someone else and he was fighting it or counter-claiming because he'd be punished or lose out worse if I won, good lord, how messy that would have been?!

Yes, it's bloody horrible being cheated on and I know that intimately, but it certainly wouldn't have benefited me (or most importantly my kids) to have criminalised or otherwise punished my ex for it.

He was punished by losing me 😂I win.

If there are children involved in a divorce, how does it benefit them to have their parents arguing in court over whose fault it was, and the settlement decided to punish whichever parent is deemed to be the shittiest one?

@mids2019 you'll be dismayed to hear that where I come from (Netherlands) it is possible to have a fully amicable divorce sorted within 6 weeks to 3 months, to the point where both parties can use the same solicitor. And yes, that has happened in cases where one partner has cheated because some people are able to handle things like adults and not resort to acrimony.

My late husband was as I have said an alcoholic. He was abusive to my DC and to me, and the police were involved in having him removed from our home after he threatened to kill me. Nevertheless I felt no desire at all for vengeance and no need to apportion blame - he didn't need more punishment than continuing to live in addiction, losing his family (our DC refused contact with him) and eventually his home, his job and his life.

@ReneBumsWombats

I was using the example of golf clubs to maybe illustrate that destruction of property requires a punitive response from a court even though in reality there may be little psychological harm but in the case of infidelity where there can be real psychological harm there is little punishment. I wasn't implying people are property.

Is it a bad thing that an elongated court processing could result in a justice for a spouse who has underwent pyschilogical suffering? I agree that case maybe expensive and emotionally draining in itself but aren't criminal cases? We would never advocate that a victim of domestic violence shouldn't go to court because the legal process would be arduous and increase acrimony so can't a similar argument be extended to a clearly wronged spouse who has been emotionally scared by the behaviour of the other?

Is it a bad thing that an elongated court processing could result in a justice for a spouse who has underwent pyschilogical suffering?

Yes. It's appalling, a huge waste of money, will have a massive negative impact on any children in the marriage and serves no good purpose other than crude vengeance. Is that clear enough for you?

OP Get help!

A divorce is not a criminal case taken on the part of the state.

Divorce is not criminal but as a civil matter should it therefore be neutral? Should it therefore be the case that in no sense can there be victimhood in relationship break ups?

I must say I struggle to see where the line between domestic abuse and “just” having an affair is drawn. Surely destroying and ripping up all that was once sacred and secure in the innocent spouses’ lives is abuse. I know technically it’s not, but the lived experience must be.

I also struggle to understand how participants in affairs can justify the heartbreak and pain they cause the partners and often the children as the result of their wanton selfishness. It is very possible not to have an affair. You simply decide not to!

There is a fairly well known woman who has made a career writing and about being the victim of multiple instances of domestic violence.

I don’t doubt these were very toxic relationships, but she seems to always miss out the crucial facts.

• Both men were married
• Both of their wives were friends of the family
• She, her husband and children attended the wedding of the second man… while already ‘allegedly’ in the midst of an affair with him! I mean, seriously. Absolute moral bankruptcy
• She knew he had an alcohol problem. She had been ‘counselling’ his fiancé/wife about it
• She claims is written and spoken interview to “have hot yo know him when she was divorced and they were both freelancers living in Cambridge!
• To recap, she was still married to her husband who was unaware she was having affair 1, let alone 2!
• She and her husband socialised with him snd his fiancé/wife!
• Through the first known affair she had when still very publicly married to her husband and writing and broadcasting about how she juggled working and parenting 3 children
• No mention of juggling too the affair that lasted from when youngest 6 until 11
• All imploded when affair 1 found out about affair 2 and affair 1 told his wife and her husband
• Many living in Cambridge at the time will confirm there was a lot of very public brawling in cafes (often Nero) and bars (not her husband who has remained focused on raiding their 3 children throughout and must be the closest their is to a living saint.

It is like an ongoing episode of EastEnders!

• She and ‘Mike’ 13 years the younger, set up home. While chaos reigns, decide to have a baby!
• Whoops, forgot to tell the older kids!
• Her pregnancy and being a 20 year gap parent are very loosely featured in a national newspaper series. Yes. The actual facts inc. a trail of broken wives and families glossed over!
• Then decide to move to Venice with just 1 of her 4 children. The three other school age children of the ‘parenting’ expert were left behind!
• He then turns out to be an alcoholic- even though he was already and she knew this because she ‘counselled’ his fiancé then wife
• This move was an unmitigated disaster, the fallout of which is still very publicly being monetised in a book and on social, still minus the crucial facts and now seemingly very exaggerated in parts.

What really troubles me about this whole, very publicly broadcast series of affairs is the absolute lack of remorse or even acknowledgment of the lives she has destroyed. She is the only and very publicly declared, victim.

The deceit and lies she has peddled to make money out of these broken lives is at least fraudulent and beyond vile snd exploitative.

Does she not think about how the wives and now adult children must feel when they read her nonsense? There has been zero inking in anything she posts that she’s even given them a second thought.

A silver lining if there can be is that the wives of the two men have formed a supportive friendship. Their hashtags are telling. I think karma is also.

Karma seemingly kicks hard I think she’s found. The thirsty then desperate then back to thirsty selfies on her social suggest she might have been better off playing by the rules 15 odd years ago. “It is very possible not to have an affair. You simply decide not to!”

The past 10 at least seem to have been an absolute mess according to her social media. I just hope the little one who is 5 and now estranged from her father and pretty much isolated from her extended family on both sides, is able to thrive despite the pretty traumatic start in life she has had.

being in a couple (more cohabitation than marriage these days) doesn’t give you rights over the other person. They and only they have control over their body, their mind and their soul. There is no contract, marriage vow or any other pledge that gives you authority or control over another human. In progressive countries anyway.

There is plenty of historical precedent and current examples of a society that has tried to moralise, sermonise, punish and legislate its way marital fidelity. It never worked and it doesn’t work. At best you get hypocrisy and at worst a society so repressive no wants to live in it. And the ones who suffer are women and children.

Ok, so play along with your proposals OP.

What then counts as cheating for the purposes of arguing that court action should be able to be taken?

A full on relationship is obvious, and I'm guessing most would count sleeping with someone else not in the relationship. Would it be considered worse in law to have a one night stand with someone known to you, or a month long fling working away with a stranger you meet online? Would it count as psychologically harming to kiss someone else?

Consider where no physical contact is made. Is it cheating if it's a couple of text messages? Some flirting by the water cooler? A workplace friendship with shared jokes could be considered an emotional affair by some? A friendship that is more than a strictly platonic friendship but has started to blur emotional boundaries?

How does psychological harm work in situations where there's a platonic friendship, but due to one partner's historic issues and lack of trust they find the friendship upsetting?

How would you prevent an abusive partner claiming their victim's friendships were actually an emotionally and psychologically harmful emotional affair, this giving an abuser the tools to blame their victim in law as a way to continue the abuse and prevent the victim leaving?

You're too focused on blame and retribution that it seems you're missing the concerning consequences what you seem to be advocating for.

It is civil. I therefore don’t see why tax payers should have to fund divorces. Especially when eating coupled enter into years long disputes over finance and children arrangements.

I’m divorced. Families lawyers will take you on the longest route, opening up and rubbing salt into rounds that were just grazes if your let them. I preferred to keep my money for my kids snd my emotions intact for all of us. Mine was far from a harmonious divorce. About the only thing we did agree on was not financing the early retirements of our solicitors.

I was using the example of golf clubs to maybe illustrate that destruction of property requires a punitive response from a court even though in reality there may be little psychological harm but in the case of infidelity where there can be real psychological harm there is little punishment. I wasn't implying people are property.

You are, though. Because you can't understand why the state can intervene when you destroy property but not when a person has sex you don't allow.

You don't own a person. They aren't your property. That's why you don't get awarded damages when they exercise their bodily autonomy, no matter how much it distresses you. All you can do is dissolve your legal relationship with them.

As long as you think the golf clubs analogy works, you're implying people are property. Once you realise it doesn't, you'll understand why what you're saying is untenable.

You can think yourself a victim of your ex all you like. What's it got to do with a court? Why do you need a legal ruling that your ex is an arsehole?

Just how deeply does your need for victimhood, retribution and vengeance run? And what has to be sacrificed and wasted to satisfy it?

@LolaSmiles

The ownership point makes sense and I can understand that point of law. I take from your posts that it may be unrealistic legally for adultery to be a factor of blame at least in a court.

However if courts are neutral on this and you put up a very good argument I don't think we can imply that because something is not illegal or open to legal recourse it necessarily makes it moral

Taking a step back it does seem strange there are areas of life where suffering is caused but as it is a matter between individuals there is little society as a whole can do to influence the situation.

If legally adultery is not a consideration I don't think it should stifle debate in a more general (non legal sense)

I don't think anyone would argue that infidelity is anything but morally unsound. Again, you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

However if courts are neutral on this and you put up a very good argument I don't think we can imply that because something is not illegal or open to legal recourse it necessarily makes it moral

Nobody thinks this. Everyone is aware that some things are immoral but not illegal.

How would you prevent an abusive partner claiming their victim's friendships were actually an emotionally and psychologically harmful emotional affair, this giving an abuser the tools to blame their victim in law as a way to continue the abuse and prevent the victim leaving

Excellent point I would like an answer to this as well.

100% personal.

I think it's immoral to encourage situations where children have to endure their parents warring over who gets legally punished for being the worst person.

This is a good point.