Would his honesty about cheating put you off a promising relationship?

[SmoothandFluffy]

I've recently met a guy online dating, and we really hit it off. First date was just drinks and a chat, and we got on really well. Loads in common, we both laughed loads. Second date we had a picnic at the beach and went swimming in the sea. Definite chemistry - I'm very attracted to him, and he seemed to like me too. Third date he cooked me a meal at his house. Things felt right and I kissed him. It was lovely.

We then spent ages talking about our lives, how we ended up single in our late 40s, and about what is important to us in a relationship. I told him that I'd had a bad experience of being cheated on, and that loyalty was important to me.

I'm not sure what came over me (I'm not usually like this!) but I really wanted to go further and started trying to undress myself and him. But he stopped me, and told me he had been unfaithful to his ex wife during their marriage, and that he couldn't go further without me knowing that, given how important I’d said loyalty was to me.

Obviously that killed the mood. I asked why he'd cheated and he said they'd had no sexual intimacy in years, and he eventually had a bit of a breakdown and slept with someone else. He stayed with her for another ten years after that until his kids had finished school.

I left his house then. And I'm really confused. He was genuinely lovely - funny, good looking, intelligent, kind. Not weird or pervy or anything like most of the guys I've met online. And he didn't have to tell me. But i don't know whether I should move on and wait for someone who has a better track record of being faithful.

" Some of the recent ones have even started suggesting his up front honesty and “niceness” is part of some kind of evil plan to manipulate me, which really stretches credulity."

That would be me :)

Unfortunately, when you're dating, you're going to come across a lot of chancers and players and lying users and you've got to be watchful. Which is what I've been telling you from the beginning. Go carefully, keep your eyes out.

I think you've made the right choice.

But maybe you should also think about whether cheating really is a hard boundary for you, and why you made it a hard boundary in the first place.

Glad you've reached a conclusion you're happy with and sorry that your promising first dates didn't work out.

I've found this a really interesting exchange of views and wondered if you'd be willing to share briefly how the circumstances differed re your ex husband cheating on you (I expect very different) and how you think (or know) he would explain it to a future partner?

Obviously goes without saying that you don't have to if you don't want to!

I would say the exact same thing if the sexes were reversed.

I agree with OP's appraisal of your replies here.

You sound very level-headed. I hope you find someone soon that you hit it off with so well but who comes with less baggage!

When I was cheated on, the other woman was his ex. He’d claimed he was over her, and totally into me, but it turns out he wasn’t. I was just the rebound.

I’ve no idea what he has told other people, if anything - I’m not in touch with him anymore. The last I’d heard he was still with her, so he’s not had to tell a new partner. Maybe I was such an awful partner that I made him long for what he used to have with her!

So, the cheating I’d been burned by was not quite the same thing as the guy this thread is about.

I can’t believe people are applauding his ‘honesty’!!! Cheating is never ever ever ever ok. Sexually sidelined- we all know what the scenario probably was and his option was end it or go without sex. They’re everyone’s options when you get married!!!

“Sexually sidelined - we all know what the scenario probably was”

Actually I’m not sure we all do. By your tone I assume you mean that he was a horrible person and deserved to have his wife go off sex with him? Or that he was greatly exaggerating and actually they did have regular sex, just not the 3 times daily he expected?!

I agree with you that cheating is never okay, and I don’t think anyone in this thread has said it is. What some people have (by my reading) felt is that it’s perhaps an understandable failure in someone in such a dire situation (which you seem to be trivialising as a routine thing in a marriage). And that being the case, if followed by guilt and honesty perhaps it can be forgiven.

I think that’s a valid position to take - as is yours.

SmoothandFluffy

In general a woman will be doing everything for the man, home and family and exhausted so falling into bed and he will be saying she wouldn’t have sex with me while she’s saying if I wasn’t so exhausted doing everything we might possibly be having more sex.

If that was always the reason for a lack of sex in a marriage, sex therapy would be the easiest job in the world!

That can be the sole reason, but I think it’s naive to think that’s always the reason - I suspect it’s not even the most common one.

Obviously the bloke could be lying and it might have been that, but I’ve no evidence which would lead me to think so - and nor do you.

In general, generalisations are wrong. When I find out why my wife had an affair, and why she's never really wanted sex with me, I'll let you know, though it sounds as if you've already made your mind up.

Ah of course I do know that, it’s just in the circles I move in a lot of us would talk about how sex is gone out the window as we’re all on the floor because of men not having a clue of all the sit that we do- eg dog out before work, wash on, wash out, dishwasher emptied, kids clothes out and ready for them- he gets up has shower, dashes out because he has to get to work. They all say the same and say ‘even though we all work too’. See it all over mn too, talked about on the radio. Seems to be the normal long term marriage shit but sorry for making assumptions. Best of luck with it all

I would have been impressed by his honesty before there was intimacy. Later in life we have all messed up our lives to some degree. Op how you feel is how you feel though.

Thanks, OP, yes I can see why your experience is so different that you wouldn't necessarily equate that and this (though arguably the dishonesty aspect is basically the same).

For conversation's sake (I've been ruminating on this thread repeatedly for some reason - I think because, like you, I didn't immediately have a completely ready answer and am puzzling out what my lines would be!) I expect that you'd also describe violence as a red line in your dating considerations and I wonder what would your reaction have been if he'd confessed to previously hitting his wife at one point in their relationship?

Would you have cut the relationship dead because of that, if he'd confessed it in the same way, and also said it was in dire circumstances when he felt pushed to the edge, before continuing the in marriage for another 10 years and then ultimately leaving when he felt himself becoming angry again?

Or would that also have been subject to the same softening and nuance lines PPs have taken here, with the focus being on his honesty, how people change, it was a long time ago, keep seeing him but just keep an eye out etc?

I know the difference between the two is physical risk (if you discount sexually transmitted diseases, which I suppose I'm not actually sure you should) but the same arguments about character, ability to change etc. would apply to both, I think.

I suppose you could widen it out to a question of what things would make you cut it dead even if they had only done it once, 10 years ago (according to them)?

It would be an interesing dinner party question were it not for the fact you would almost certainly mortally offend someone in person because you don't know their own history!

That’s an interesting thought exercise, but I don’t think the two are equivalent.

Violence against his ex would be a hard no for me unless she’d come at him with a knife or something - that is, if it were self-defence. Otherwise absolutely not acceptable no matter how she might have goaded him or whatever.

The cheating in this case is (allegedly) a logical consequence of an absolute lack of sex in the marriage. He had alternatives, as others have noted - leave or be celibate, but those could for some be really difficult (as he claimed). So cheating is not right, but it has a certain unfortunate logic to it.

Violence does not fit in with that. If he feels violent, for whatever reason, he can go and take up boxing. He’s not going to be considered cheating for hitting someone other than his wife!

Devil's advocate coming up (in order to work it through myself!) it's interesting that you say violence is, "absolutely not acceptable no matter how she might have goaded him or whatever" and, "If he feels violent, for whatever reason, he can go and take up boxing." But if we wouldn't say that cheating is absolutely not acceptable no matter how she might have goaded him (or whatever) and that if he feels sexually frustrated he can go and see to himself, why not? Why is it a different standard?

Is it because we actually think that men can help themselves when it comes to violence but actually can't help themselves when it comes to sex? Or because the consequences of violence are or might be worse than the consequences of cheating so people shouldn't be held to the same standards of self control? Or because men will actually suffer unacceptably through not having sex but won't suffer through not hitting people?

And you say that cheating can be a logical consequence of an absolute lack of sex in the marriage. By the same token, can't violence be a logical consequence of an absolutely infuriating partner in a marriage?

Finally, you note that he had alternatives - leave or be celibate - but that those could for some be really difficult (as he claimed). Violent men have alternatives too but ones that could be difficult for some people.

If someone is infuriating you (let's say deliberately) but it's really difficult to leave - for all the same reasons or would be difficult to leave if someone want interested in sex with you - then there's a certain logic to violence too (as Lundy Bancroft notes, it has the intended effect!)

It strikes me that there's something slightly subconscious or unsaid at play in our different visceral attitudes to the two - either we think one has less serious consequences than the other, or men need one more than the other is my working theory!

@MrRydersParlourGame : I'll speak about unwanted celibacy first, and I'm speaking from both experience and conclusions I've come to from considering the issue and reading various perspectives.

The first thing I'd say unequivocally is that enforced celibacy affects men and women equally. I don't necessarily mean in equal numbers - I don't have that data - but qualitatively. If you doubt that, head on over to https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/sex/5314079-sexless-marriages-support-thread and read some of the accounts: the terms women use (e.g. soul destroying) are the same as those used by men. Note that I'm talking about enforced celibacy.

Is it because we actually think that men can help themselves when it comes to violence but actually can't help themselves when it comes to sex? Or because the consequences of violence are or might be worse than the consequences of cheating so people shouldn't be held to the same standards of self control? Or because men will actually suffer unacceptably through not having sex but won't suffer through not hitting people?

I might be celibate for the rest of my life. I can live with being celibate but what I've established is that I can't, in my marriage, be celibate and happy. Single would be different, because I could live my life differently (even if celibate.) So, yes, I can help myself; in my marriage, I do think I suffer unacceptably, because I think a decade (let's call it that; it's actually more complicated) of enforced celibacy is unacceptable.

("So," you ask, "why did you remain married?" Because I didn't want to leave a person I adore at the first hurdle, and I didn't realise the devastating effect enforced celibacy would have on me.)

I'll speak only for myself: I have a sexuality, and that sexuality needs an outlet; you can probably guess what that outlet is.

If I had a propensity to violence, I would consider it my responsibility to manage that, and a decent man does so through exercise, sport, physical challenges, whatever - but the outlet for an urge to violence can be accommodated within a marriage.

OK - I'll leave it there. I've tried my best to address what you actually said, and I hope I've achieved that, at least to some extent.

his option was end it or go without sex. They’re everyone’s options when you get married!!!

Take a closer look at the marriage vows.

"End it" isn't actually an option.

Nobody has to give chances though. That’s the thing - he went into Ashley Madison and made an active choice to cheat. That is a massive turn off for me.

May I ask - are you religious? If not, are you just being pedantic? Anyone can end a marriage for any reason though, of course, it's not always easy to do so.

Gotta say, @SmoothandFluffy , I feel sorry for the guy: you seem quite a catch (intelligent!)

I am neither being sarcastic nor trying to chat you up. Just paying a compliment.

No, I'm not religious.

I'm just pointing out that the same marriage vows that say "forsaking all others" also say "till death do us part".

You yourself have taken both parts seriously. Many on here seem to think one is disposable.