Morally dubious suggestions regarding cheating

[exhaustDAD]

I have been thinking a lot about a thread and all the comments in it from the last few days - been deleted since. A woman shared her story of having an affair, long story short, she gave herself the excuse that it was just to break the boredom in her life, the dull routine of raising kids and a long-standing relationship. She concluded it all by saying that she would not tell her husband about her long affair. The comments shocked me. While the vast majority was on the same page I find myself on in a situation like this, there were some that absolutely shocked me to my core. I believe when you cheat, the damage is done, it cannot be reversed, but the grownup thing - the right thing - to do is to at least own up to what you've done, and tell your partner. That way, even though it is painful, the partner doesn't have to live a lie, and they can decide what they would want going forward, giving them some agency in the relationship they signed up for. That's what I believe in. I think it is despicable to just cosy back into your old life, you internally forgive yourself, how convenient, and make your partner live a lie, thinking they have a faithful partner. The thought of potentially living an entire life like this is such a disrespectful thing. I care very little for excuses like "it was a mistake" - cheating is ALWAYS a choice. Nobody is forcing anyone to cheat. Especially long-lasting affairs, please, that's as far from a mistake as it can be.

Anyway.. There were comments that urged the woman not to tell her husband, because it would just invite drama, and distrust going forward. And why would anyone want to to do that? First of all - excuse me?! Going forward? Second - How could anyone look in the mirror and sleep well doing something like this? Just be so self-absorbed that you think it's ok to lie for ever about something like this, disrespecting the partner they supposedly love? Like petty children trying to get away with a stain on the carpet. We are adults, civilised, grownups... Or at least, we should be. The argument of "oh they will be devastated" will never stand for me. It might be painful, but at least it is the truth. And don't know about you, I'd rather live in the truth than a lie that I have no say in. (Those who said they would rather not know if their partner cheated are also beyond my comprehension.. wow)

What really got me was this - I have seen a username or two, who were very fact of the matter, casually supported not telling the husband, because that would make the woman look bad - while I have seen them in other threads calling men selfish disgusting pigs who even glanced at other women. What is this? Mind-blowing. I would suggest the very same to both men and women, and it boggles my mind how people would form such double-standards...crazy.

I feel very strongly about the topic because I have seen many good friends and family members be destroyed by such actions.

What do we think? Does it make sense for you not to tell a partner? Do you think it is ok to tell a female cheater that it's ok, while telling a male one that he's an irredeemable piece of trash?

Its the good old MN double standards.

“My husband cheated on me….. Cut his bollocks of OP, LTB and take all the money”.

”I’m cheating on my husband….. We all make mistakes OP, he probably deserves it, say nothing, no good will come from that”.

No, cheating is not OK regardless of the sex. It is abuse on every level.

My impression is that the vast majority of MNers excoriate or at least strongly disapprove of cheating women. The ones who don't are likely cheaters themselves.

I've been cheated on (I'm male) and it was horrendous. Proper mental-health head fuck. However....

.... here we are on MN. It's just a forum, some words on a screen so, if you can't cope with it, no need to stay. So, when people have radically different views to me, I try to understand them, and understand what's behind them. I still might vehemently disagree but, if I don't engage, what's the point of being here?

And there are valid arguments for not confessing an affair, in certain circumstances.

I think the majority of people find out about a partner's infidelity accidentally or by picking up on slight changes of behaviour. I think rarely will someone 'fess up' without being found out.

I think there are two camps on here though, the 'all men are bastards' camp and the 'if she's shagged about, its probably for good reason' camp. Doesn't reflect the nuances of real life.

When someone gives their story, there will usually be people that sympathise.

Which doesn't make it right. But does mean a lot of people look at it differently.

It's actually nothing to do with morality but sympathy, empathy and humanity.

They're not being hypocritical or inconsistent in their views, it's just that the human aspect makes it difficult to hold a singular view about a topic or incident in regards to every case.

So it also doesn't mean they can't hold an overriding view about cheaters or mistresses for e.g, just because there are the occasional outliers for whom it doesn't apply

I know the post.
I gave a comment from my own perspective of finding out about my wifes affair.
I thought knowing what could happen if he were to find out on his own like I did was a fairly useful thing to know to break the cheaters delusion of "it will be ok"
I had one user go in on it that it was dramatic (it absolutly was. Just as real life is in such situations) and also that I was projecting (on the nose again! I absolutly was projecting. Kind of the point of it)
The comments giving justifications and placing her into the victim role were just awful.

I swear this place is 50/50 helpful people and Internet trolls looking for a fix.

Personally, I've always been of the opinion that the act of cheating isn't the problem. Hurting your partner is the problem.

I don't cheat because if DP ever found out she'd be devastated, and I don't personally believe its possible to pull off the perfect crime and guarantee that I'd never be found out.

But if for whatever reason I took complete leave of my senses and had a drunken one night stand or something, then my next steps are going to be based on what hurts DP least. In the vast majority of cases thats going to be telling DP. She's going to be devastated either way, but slightly better to find out from me than someone else.

But in the highly unlikely event that I could guarantee hiding it? Lets say I was in a completely different country, so know that noone would have seen me, there's no financial trace of it, I can avoid sex with DP until I've had a clean STI check.

In that highly unlikely situation, I wouldn't tell her. I've already done a shitty thing by cheating. Telling her would only make it worse.

Would that make me a shitty person? Yes. But DP wouldn't be hurt, and thats the important part.

My advice on here will always be to that effect, whether the cheater is male or female. Most of the time it'll be to tell the partner, and accept that you've probably ruined both your lives. But on the rare occasion I think they could get away with it, then why put their partner through that pain.

Because otherwise they're living a lie? It's not your place to decide what's best for them, they're not your 5 year old child. They're an adult and they should be allowed to make their own decisions based on all the information.

Thinking you're doing her a favour and are some sort of hero protector of her is just cowardly, misogynistic bollocks.

OP cheating isn't ok whether you're male or female IMO and I tell both sexes that they should be coming clean. No one should be forced to live a lie, I had that for 25 years and it completely destroys you as a person.

I don't think it's misogyny, because its what I'd want for myself in the opposite situation.

If DP went out, got drunk, had a one night stand, and it wasn't going to have an effect on my life in anyway unless she told me, then I'd prefer not to know. I'd prefer to live the lie than have my entire life blown up by it.

I don't know if DP would feel the same way, I plan on it never ever becoming something I really have to think about, because I don't plan on cheating on her.

I don’t cheat on my partner because even if I could guarantee I would get away with it I would feel like a liar and a fraud every time I told him how much I loved and cared for him knowing if he knew the truth he would have a completely different view of me and the relationship. Hiding the information is just covering up the act of betrayal it’s not done to spare their feelings. If you’re are adamant that your partners pain should be the guiding principle then don’t do the thing that causes them pain in the first place. True remorse requires accountability however painful.

@exhaustDAD whilst I understand your outrage at those saying not to tell, that’s based on the assumption that the person who cheated is morally conflicted about it. They weren’t. They wanted to know how the situation could work out best for them. The advice not to tell is correct if you want the best outcome for the cheater who doesn’t feel bad about being a cheat in itself.

even if I could guarantee I would get away with it I would feel like a liar and a fraud every time I told him how much I loved and cared for him knowing if he knew the truth he would have a completely different view of me and the relationship.

That's where we differ. I don't see anything inherently wrong with having sex with someone outside my relationship. I don't see the act itself as inherently wrong. Its the act of hurting my partner that's wrong. Having sex with someone else doesn't mean I love my partner less, being capable of hurting her would.

To use an analogy. If I was walking behind Elon Musk and £50 fell out of his pocket, I'd feel absolutely no compunction about picking it up and pocketing it myself. I wouldn't consider it morally wrong. Legally wrong, yes, but not morally. The man is never going to notice £50 going missing, it is going to make not the slightest dent in his day. Pretty much anyone else drops £50, I'm going to give it back to them, because losing £50 is going to hurt almost everyone.

Same act, but in one case I'm going to feel it's morally wrong, and one I'm not. In one case I'd feel guilty, the other not.

I'm not going to cheat on DP, because I'm not willing to hurt her. But humans fuck up, and I'm human, so I can believe in a world where I have cheated. And in that world I'm still going to to take the path that hurts DP least. In most cases that's going to mean telling her, but it's possible it might not.

Different people have different views on things - surely that's the point of an internet forum like this, to gather a range of views on the topic.

My views on cheating are unusual for Mumsnet, in the sense that I do think there are circumstances in which it is understandable and forgiveable.

And no I have not cheated on anyone, and yes I have been married to a serial cheat.

I don't think it's the worst thing that ever happened to me; it didn't ruin my life; I'd prefer him not to have done or, and I did leave him, but I don't think it makes him a terrible or abusive partner.

And I can definitely imagine circumstances in which I would rather not know if my partner had cheated. If it was a drunken one night stand and meant nothing, I would much prefer not to know.

My views are different from hours, but that doesn't make me a morally bankrupt person, or an irrational one.

As someone who was cheated on and only found out several years later, I thinks it’s far far worse not to be told than to have someone look you in the face knowing what they’ve done.

I would want to know the truth a million times over than felt like a complete and utter mug whose whole relationship had been based on a lie

Paradoxically, is it right to say you only feel how you do because you did find out? How did you feel before you found out?

I've got the best of both worlds because I know my wife had one affair and suspect she had another previously, but have only circumstantial evidence of that.

It's impossible to know how complete ignorance would feel!

@VimesandhisCardboardBoots I find your viewpoint fascinating. I'm not saying you're Morally Wrong, it's more that it's such an alien point of view to mine that I can't quite get my head around it.

My overriding motivation to not cheat is nothing to do with how my partner would feel if she found out; it's all about how I would feel about myself. Even if I knew I could get away with it I still wouldn't do it because the guilt would eat away at me. Plus I'm not a very good liar so I really don't think I'd be able to keep up the pretence up for very long anyway.

I think basically it boils down to whether an act can be morally wrong if it has no negative consequences for anyone else.

So, for instance, depriving another human being of their life is pretty unequivocally wrong. Murder is one of the worst things you can do to a person. But does that mean killing another human being is always wrong? Obviously peoples opinions differ on this but euthanasia is legal in a number of countries. So a lot of people don't consider killing another human being wrong as long as it's what that person wants, and it can be done humanely.

So, the act of killing another human isn't wrong, the circumstances and the consequences of the act decide that.

The act of having sex with someone who isn't your partner isn't in itself wrong. Plenty of single people do that every day without any judgement whatsoever. Hell, plenty of people in open relationships do it too. What makes it wrong are the consequences of the action. It only becomes wrong if it will hurt your partner.

Don't get me wrong, I get your point of view. I couldn't kill someone, even if it was euthanasia, and they were begging me to do it. So I understand when you say you wouldn't cheat because you couldn't live with yourself if you did. That's not how it works for me. The fact that I had sex with someone else wouldn't make me feel bad, the fact that I'd hurt DP would.

Hopefully, that risk of hurting DP will always be enough to stop me. It certainly has been for the last 20 years. But in the event that it didn't, and I did cheat, then in my mind I still haven't done the bad bit until it actually hurts her. So my calculation on what to do next is going to be based on what will hurt her least.

Live your life. Forget random comments on the net. We all live by our
own boundaries. 🤷‍♀️

But most people who have been cheated on and find out much later are hurt more by the deception and concealmement than the initial act of infidelity.

I cheated on someone 20 years ago, a ONS, and I never told them. Had my partner at the time ever found out about my cheating at a later date, it would be the deception, not the infidelity, that would have caused the biggest harm. I'd say the morality of ongoing deception is more significant than the morality of infidelity. The harm I did to myself by being a liar was also considerable.

I’m waiting to get torn to pieces here….
I very much love my husband and my family. So much so that I would never leave him or intend to hurt him. But I am also seeing someone who is in the same position as me. We will never leave our partners, but that doesn’t stop us having very strong feelings for each other. My work situation means I don’t think we will ever get caught, and I don’t feel guilty as I’m sure deep down this is better for my family unit that tearing my family to shreds.

It's none of your business what other people do and you don't know what is going on in other people's relationships and lives. Marriage is complex. Stop being such a puritanical judge Miss Perfect. Do I condone it? No but it's none of my goddamn business either. I know people who have cheated and been cheated on and they are were all good people.

@Sunnydaysahead22 : "But I am also seeing someone who is in the same position as me."

Do you mind me asking what this means? I'm guessing you both love your partners but you're unfulfilled. No judgement.

One of my greatest fears is that my partner would cheat and I wouldn’t know. The cheating itself would be devastating, but the idea of not knowing (especially if others know) is really awful to me. So yes I definitely understand your point.

@Sunnydaysahead22

"I don’t feel guilty as I’m sure deep down this is better for my family unit"

Genuine question: What would your life be missing if you hadn't embarked on the affair, or chose to end the affair?

Exactly. That right there is the thing that stops me from cheating. The fact that once you do, there is no best option, only least worse, and you're playing the odds as to what the best outcome is. Personally, I think the chances of getting away with it are usually astronomically low, so the only way to win is to not play, to paraphrase "War Games".

I'd argue with your opinion that deception is always the worst option though. My original post in this thread was in reply to OP, where he asked why people on here often advise not coming clean to their partner. There are occasions where I'd advise a poster not to tell their partner, because cheating has different levels of severity.

To give a couple of hypotheticals of DP cheating on me, and how hurt I'd be.

She goes out with some friends, they get chatting to some guys, have a dance, she drunkenly snogs one of them before realising she's being an idiot - Frankly I don't need to know. If she tells me, I'm likely to be a bit hurt and I'll be worried when she's out with her friends from now on. If she doesn't tell me, then she'll probably get away with it, I doubt most of her friends would rat her out for a momentary mistake.

Same situation as the above, but she goes back to his and shags him. - This one, I'm going to be massively hurt either way, but less so if she tells me. I'm far more likely to be able to forgive her if she comes out and tells me about it straight away than if I find out from someone else six months down the line. And there's a decent chance I'd find out. One of her friends might tell me, she might have an STI, she may just be incapable of acting normal and I get suspicious.

2 year affair with a colleague. - At this point, I'm going to be devastated no matter what happens. If she tells me about it now, then I'm no better off than if she hides it and I found out another way. Her best option is to split, and cling on to the slight sliver of hope that I never ever find out.

And thats generally what I'd advise on here. A drunken kiss, try and forget it ever happened. A one off fuck up or very short affair, tell your partner. Anything longer than that, stop the affair, divorce and sort yourself out.

Why is her friend more likely to tell you about a shag than a snog?

Seems a bit like post hoc rationalisation to me.