Is cheating ever forgivable and are women a lot less blamed for it ?

[Nothingisblackandwhite]

I’m going by what I see I’m both life and here in NM . It seems women are given a lot more leeway when it come ato cheating , their families will mostly forgive them , their exes and their families often are willing to forget too , they children tend to forgive their mums a lot more than dads too .
I deal with divorces you n a daily basis , so cheating is something I’m used to see , see the repercussions , deal with the outcomes , see the suffering it causes etc . I’m far from perfect but the one thing I never did was cheat if a partner , I would never support a family member doing it or a fiend and honestly I’ve told my friends countless times, if you bay if you cheat please do not tell me . It seems however that a wife or female partner cheating is often overseen a lot easier than a men cheating . Mostly their families will move on and just accept it while male cheating seems to carry a lot of angst for a longer time .

I wouldn't support a fiend either

Some things are black and white!
Cheating is wrong. End of story. There are no excuses. Regardless of sex.
I'm not sure what the point of your post is?

NM?

I agree, womem seem to get more of a pass than men do.
My mother was a serial cheater. Constant men coming and going whilst my father worked away. Everyone seemed to just forget about it after my father left.
I was cheated on and ended my marriage immediately. For me there's no forgetting it. Best thing I ever did was get a divorce.

My apologies , I had the keyboard on another language and didn’t realise the spelling mistakes .
The point of my post is to find if others feel the same way .
And yes I also believe cheating is cheating and yes 100% wrong .

No, I find the opposite. Society as a whole tends to hold women to far higher standards when it comes to morality, and particularly where that involves sex. Women known to have affairs are judged very harshly, particularly by other women, in a way that men are not by their peers.
MN posters are typically very derogatory about the 'other woman' and the responses to women having affairs are usually far more cenorous than supportive.
Whether women who cheat are forgiven more frequently by their partners, I don't know. I only know of one who was, and three men who were. But that may well be because I know of more men who've cheated than women.

I deal with divorces on an almost daily basis too (family lawyer).

I find the opposite to be true. From my experience, of almost 20 years in family law…Men are more likely to be forgiven. Men are more likely to cheat more than once. Women tend to cheat in order to leave a relationship they’re unhappy in, whereas men cheat for the sex, ego boost and thrill. Cheating is always wrong. Women tend to be held to higher standards in society and are usually publicly shunned when they’ve cheated, whereas men tend to be forgiven more easily.

This doesn’t apply to all…When a woman cheats it’s usually to leave a relationship. Usually leaving due to having needs unfulfilled. When men cheat, they can have the most perfect home life with their needs met and lots of sex and affection with their spouse, however, they still want more. As I previously said, there are exceptions to this. And all scenarios are wrong.

I have had men coming into my office to initiate divorce against their cheating wives (usually the wives have seemed legal advice about divorce from our office some years earlier). He’ll be irate because she’s been having an affair, yet he’s had several forgiven affairs. But obviously they condone their affairs because they have ‘sexual needs’ and biologically men are born to spread their seed. Being faithful for a man is going against nature. God, I’ve heard it all. And there have been women too who’ve been arseholes, just not as many.

I really don’t know how you came to the conclusion that women are most likely to be forgiven as my professional and personal experiences are the complete opposite.

Not in my experience. Fathers walk away from their dc far more often than mothers. The father is, usually, welcomed back into the family fold.

If a mother is estranged from her child she is seen as evil - even if it wasn’t her choice.

Some fathers won’t leave the family home simply because they don’t want to pay the mother child maintenance and are happy to cheat on their partner whilst expecting her to feed him and make sure his clothes are suitably laundered. They are not so concerned about their dc as they are about their pocket and lifestyle choice. Leaving the mother no option than to leave - especially if she is suffering domestic violence or has been ground down by her DC’s father.

Unfortunately the useless family courts find in favour of the father, no matter how unreasonable he is. Simply because he has care of the children, regardless of how that came to be. Very often he then prevents the mother from having contact with her children and the mother/child bond is irretrievably damaged or even severed forever.

No child should be kept away from its mother - unless there has been abuse from the mother toward the child.

Certainly not my experience. Women are judged much more harshly than men.

Is cheating ever forgivable

Of course. We're not talking murder here.

and are women a lot less blamed for it ?

Aaaaabsolutely not.

Cheating is cheating, as previously mentioned women tend to cheat to get out of their current relationship where as men just think with their dicks. Neither is acceptable!

I mean it’s been used as an (morally acceptable) excuse for men murdering women before, so no, I don’t think it is treated like it’s less of a big deal at all.

That’s not the perspective I was taking , It was more of outside the 2 involved , I think women receive more “ forgiveness “ if that makes sense from their families and even their exes families . Often men will have children that won’t speak with them as an example , that rarely happens with women . You actually do it in your own reply , you say women cheat due to unfulfilled needs , already excusing that behaviour like there was no choice but to cheat . While I don’t often find that is true as men use that same excuse constantly .

That does happen but it’s very rare , at least I do not see it often . Thankfully

Probably it's related to the fact that whilst you see this as a black and white issue, some other people don't, and you're not the overarching authority on the subject. It's good to get views other than your personal one, basically.

Unless you thought that yours was the only valid opinion?

On MN you’re absolutely right.

A man cheats and he’s to blame, should be taken to the cleaners, barely get to see the kids, he left all of them not just his wife.

A woman cheats and the man is to blame, he must have neglected her, is almost definitely abusive and “a narc” and he should remember she cheated on him and not the kids.

In wider society I think you’re wrong.

Understanding that men and women generally cheat for different reasons, is not making excuses. It’s interesting that you see it that way though.

Rubbish, women are ripped apart on here for admitting to cheating.

Erm, where exactly did I justify women cheating, when I stated several times that cheating is never right? I simply said in my
experience men cheat because they WANT more, women cheat because they want to leave a relationship.

Odd you came to that conclusion.

And no, you’re still wrong. When men cheat literally everyone excuses it as “he is needs” or “isn’t getting any at home”. When a woman does it, she’s despicable. Other women hate her. Her family usually reject her. She finds it difficult to establish a new relationship due to the stigma. Society does not love women having sexual desire, so when a woman has extramarital sex, there is just so much stigma. Men do not get that.

Wives are far more likely to forgive a cheating husband than a husband is to forgive a cheating wife.

Children not speaking with dads or mums who’ve cheated is rarely black and white and there’s so many other contributing factors that come into that. Usually when a child doesn’t want to speak to a parent, off their own back, it’s usually because that parent is pretty shit.

You have so many responses on here already disagreeing with your conclusion, but I reckon you’re the type of person who’ll think “oh mumsnet is a female (fuck you’ll probably say feminist!) website who are anti men, that’s why nobody agrees with me”.

Continuation of a relationship after cheating, (which is all we have to comment on, given whether a person truly 'forgives' is known only to them) is down to a complex set of feelings and circumstances. Including, how much the person percieves they have to lose by leaving; their level of dependency on the cheat; their perceptions of alternative options available to them; their thoughts on disruption to their children; their capacity to start over; their internalised views of what a 'good, loving partner' should do, how much they should understand, excuse and 'work on' their relationships; and their capacity to be persuaded that they share the blame for the cheaters behaviour.
All of which are strong indicators that women are more likely to stay in relationships where they've been cheated on than men.

No, the opposite. As @Aussiegirl123456 and @5128gap have said.

IRL I find that women are much more harshly judged than men when it comes to cheating.

@Nothingisblackandwhite one of the reasons you gave to support your theory is that children often seem to forgive their mum more than their dad when there's been cheating. This is much more to do with the fact that mum is much more likely to remain the main caregiver. It's less about forgiving and more about her being the more present parent.

Whereas a man who cheats is more likely to disappear and never or rarely see his children again - so he's less likely to appear to be 'forgiven' as he's estranged himself from his children.

Society is much less morally tolerant of women than men, in general.

@Aussiegirl123456 ABSOLUTELY!!!!!

IME and anecdotally, men are forgiven because the woman worries how she will cope practically and financially if they split esp where children are involved. They fear the loss of security.

Women are forgiven because they are seen as weak and having been pursued by a man who hoodwinked them.

When they are forgiven that is.

Disagree with you @Nothingisblackandwhite
Women are less likely to be forgiven in my opinion.

Women are more likely to lose their main relationship over a fling.

Makes sense, as men often use the defence ''it was just sex'' and are sometimes forgiven by wives to weak to start again but ''it was just sex'' from a woman leads her open to another accusation, sleeping around easily or something.

Anyway, different rules for men. ''Just sex'' might wash as an excuse for a man but it is a line of defence that leaves the woman looking worse in her partner's eyes I'd guess.