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 .

Maybe it should be more forgivable

and yes I do forgive women more (whys that ?)

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

From what I've seen, you get loads of people saying that the OW owes nothing by, and it's misogynistic to be angry at her (even in addition to the husband). About 30-40% defend her. Rarely do we hear about wives coming on MN to admit to cheating themselves, so hard to tell there.

As women ourselves, you either take the view of empathising with the OW, or being totally against and empathising with the cheated party

Which by your reckoning means that there are 60-70% of posters blaming another woman for the fact a man cheated on his wife. OW wouldn't need 'defending' if they weren't being attacked in an attempt to hold women responsible for male bad behaviour. Interestingly, in threads where a woman is having an affair, I don't think I've ever seen the other man get so much as a mention, much less be vilified as being equally to blame for her behaviour.

That so true . The other men never even gets mentioned while the OW does .
But I still believe woman who cheat are more forgiven than men and ho do by their own children and families

Yes they are seen as easy by other men who try it on with them . Other Women see them as a threat .

Which by your reckoning means that there are 60-70% of posters blaming another woman for the fact a man cheated on his wife. OW wouldn't need 'defending' if they weren't being attacked in an attempt to hold women responsible for male bad behaviour. Interestingly, in threads where a woman is having an affair, I don't think I've ever seen the other man get so much as a mention, much less be vilified as being equally to blame for her behaviour.

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Thoughts:

• it's not people defending the OW, it's exonerating her completely that is extreme. Most people agree that blame is equal at most (unless OW is particularly spiteful).

• I haven't really seen OW get attacked. If you do a bad thing and fess up, nobody can say much to that, really. It's only when people double down that it's not their problem as they 'didn't marry the wife' that people get irritated. Nobody likes people like that, or wants that kind of person in their life

• again as women, we all hate the cheating husband. I know I get wound up hearing about other people getting cheated on, because I know the feeling. Most people don't let the man off. Just look on here, people advise LTB over anything

• women are absolutely responsible for their own bad behaviour which includes having an affair or participating in one. Having said that, nobody can predict the future- I might have an affair one day. The difference is, I'd know it's wrong, not defend those actions

I may be mistaken, but I think I've read previously that you are someone who is more sympathetic to the OW @5128gap

What I would say OP from my experience is if a man cheated and the woman ended the relationship / kicked him out then it's fair enough and she deserves sympathy etc. Which of course is fair enough.

The other way round it's a case of well what did HE do and trying to understand why she did it. Lame excuses like 'exit affair '.

On these pages you get talk of red flags and a man shouldn't speak badly of his ex etc but then on the flip side women don't seem to have to conform to this. It's a big double standard. Also experienced it in real life.

I wouldn't say I was sympathetic to OW as a blanket rule. I'd have cheerfully throttled 'my' OW when I was cheated on many moons ago!
But nor do I subscribe to the witch hunting of OW which acts as sheild for the cheating man.
I have no particular affinity with women who have affairs, but I do think that some of the vitriol on MN at times is quite disproportionate, and the judgement over simplistic.
I have also posted supportively to women on here who were having affairs, as I would to anyone if I felt I might have something helpful to say.

i don’t know if I agree with your hypothesis that women are more easily forgiven BUT if that were the case then I’d put it out there that this might be because women are generally nicer / softer / kinder people. IM SAYING GENERALLY.

It is easier to forgive someone who has spent 90% of their lives being kind, raising kids, looking after elderly family members, being the emotional support to friends, family and colleagues. Which is what women - especially wives and mothers spend their time doing. Men not so much.

If someone has demonstrated that they are a good person it’s kind of easier to overlook when they make a bad choice.
Men as a whole aren’t as nurturing and caring as women and so when they have an affair it is much easier to cast them out or think poorly of them, there is much less “good” to counteract the bad.

It’s easier to see women cheaters as having “made a mistake” rather than purposely setting out to fulfil a sexual need (like a man).

not sure if this makes any sense! Just a general thought on
why it might be viewed differently

Thats a really interesting take on it @Grumpi and in the instances where this is the case, I think you're on to something.

Thanks for sharing, I found this really interesting.

Not nearly as much as they're coddled and have excuses made for them.

I'd agree with this. Although by definition on a relationships board aimed at women you're clearly going to read more about bad behaviour by men than by women, so it's kind of understandable. MN relationships board attitudes are in no way representative of the general population

I'm not sure if attitudes about adultery change from place to place or across different cultures but where I live, women are vilified for adultery much worse than men. For instance, if women here gossip about local people you can guarantee the conversation will sound like this:

Jan: Did you hear about Maureen? Well she was knocking off a fella from work. That poor husband, I can't even look at her now, and her having the little kiddies as well.

Barbara: Oh Martin has been caught again having affairs, his sister in law was telling me down the bingo but he's so good to his wife with holidays and they've got a lovely house.

Like wtf? Whether people feel they can forgive a spouse for cheating is entirely their decision, it isn't really a question that has a quantitative answer.

I am not an expert on this and the pp who is a divorce lawyer has probably seen it all...with men it seems to be a bit of a pattern of behaviour, the men I know who have had affairs seem to have more than one ...I don't know but I personally seem to have more sympathy for women.

If you had an inkling, that your partner was cheating would you pay someone to trap them by sending messages or even meeting them, I’m sure he is but is always one step Ahead, this women I found a legit honey trapper I send £50 to send my partner a message to see if he falls for it, and more if I want hi. To arrange a date etc has anyone used these types of services and how was your experience, I can’t follow him I’ve got young babies. I’m sure he has a secret phone at his work

If you are the person that cheated, I’m sure there are possibly a huge number of justifiable reasons you will give, however, if you are the one cheated on and having to deal with the emotional and psychological damage this often causes, you quite probably will think differently. The exception to this is, when the person cheated on had already cheated on their previous partner. A perfect example of poetic justice!