Cheating vs abuse

[TwoGirlsAndOneDog]

Both are bad and each person has acted in a way that they shouldn’t. However, objectively, what’s worse:

A. Sleeping with someone else twice, after several years of emotional abuse and after you’ve told your partner several times that you want a divorce. Didn’t feel safe to pull the trigger on the divorce.

B. Emotionally abusing your partner for several years, which was made worse by having a life-changing operation which made you feel less in control of your world.

Does emotional abuse and feeling trapped justify or somehow explain the cheating? Is it cheating when you’ve already said you want a divorce? Does the operation justify or somehow explain the abuse? Therapists have described the abuse as quite extreme.

Lots of things explain cheating, make it understandable perhaps, but I'm not sure it's ever justified. Far more sensible to leave before it gets to that stage, although i know it's not easy to just go.

Emotional abuse is never ok.

Obviously the abuse is worse, but the cheating isn't "justified" either.

The cheater didn't have to cheat, they could have left the relationship instead.

Cheating is never okay. If the relatioship is that bad, end it. Cheating on someone is a moral decision that shows the cheater in a negative light with weak morals. It hurts the person cheated on and can cause significant harm.

However, abuse is more insidious, more harmful long term and can destroy how a person perceives themselves, behaves in the future etc. It also has huge impacts on the way a person acts, things, feels and can have direct physical and financial impacts too. Arguably, cheating can have all of that too but I don't think it's the same.

It’s not a competition as cheating is abuse imo. Both are LTB dealbreakers

IMO cheating is emotional abuse. Abuse is never acceptable regardless of the form it takes.

Both is shitty, unacceptable behaviour, it's totally irrelevant which one is "worser". I wouldn't tolerate or forgive either from a partner. And this particular coupling, if real, sounds completely toxic and irrecoverable. There's no point asking the MN collective which is worse, other than for fuel to have another blazing row with. Either partner thinking like that is being immature and just trying to deflect blame from their own bad behaviour.

Saying 'i want a divorce' and then carrying on with the relationship does not excuse cheating. Actions speak louder than words, so if you want a divorce get on and file the application rather than simply screaming it at your partner in the heat of a argument.

If you've said you want a divorce then surely you've spilt up? Whether the person 'agrees' to a divorce or not if one of you wants one then your relationship is over.

So once they've said that they shouldn't be a couple anymore. So it's not cheating.

But if someone gives mixed signals, wanting a divorce then staying together, then it makes the cheating a bit worse.

Either way you're not good for eachother so should seperate and not bother dragging over who was worse at what.