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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

What is infidelity?

168 replies

ItsGraceActually · 08/07/2010 01:33

You know, many some men can convince themselves it's only cheating if there was penetrative sex ... some women people feel betrayed if their DP so much as hugs another. Then there's the whole emotional affair.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 21:16

TD

don't answer if you can't give a gut reaction, or have to temper it because DW might read it

that isn't very honest, is it ?

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 21:46

AF- no I am not really afraid of her reading the thread. I really do think the answer depends on whether I was enjoying the marriage. If I was then I question whether I, rationally, need to know. But if I am not happy then perhaps I would want to know.

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 22:19

you haven't answered my query TD...are you normally so slippery ?

I didn't ask you about hypothetical relationships...I asked you a straightforward question

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 22:30

Okay; as it stands I would be marginally in favour of knowing but I think that I don't think that I would walk away. Our relationship would survive it I think. And she is a good person.

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 22:34

so, TD, you say you would want to know )it gives you choices, yes ?)

would you not afford a friend the same consideration if he was being made a mug of, then ?

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 22:39

No, it isn't black and white. Marginal decision depending on the sate of affairs at home.

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 22:44

but you can only make a personal decision on how your relationship stands

and the "state of affairs at home" may not be fully transparent to you if your partner is a lying, deceiving fuckwit who has cleverly managed to persuade you that you are "going mad" and "paranoid" and isolated you from sensible people in your life

sorry, don't mean to hound you

I agree it isn't black and white

but many of the "grey areas" are perpetuated by people who collude with deceit

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 22:48

If we are having a bad few months then I would want to know. If things are perfect then I wouldn't. If my relationship at home is thriving and nourished then don't need this info. Simple.

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 22:53

I don't get you, but you seem resolute so < shrugs >

Coolfonz · 15/07/2010 22:56

If Mrs Fonz was having a regular ding dong with another man (the beast!) then i would want to know.

If she was away on work and had a night of hot romping with a six foot five Scandinavian aid worker whose name she didn't know and never saw him again i would certainly never want to know. Never ever.

Coolfonz · 15/07/2010 22:58

Also aren't we all having a bit of an emotional affair, like maybe emotional holding hands, on MN relationships?

MN Relationships is like an emotional affair soap/orgy/thingy.

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 23:01

really, cf ?

I shall avert my eyes and let you and MrT get on with it then < koff >

Coolfonz · 15/07/2010 23:09

Why would I want to know? What would it do for me? If it was just fucking and that's it, well, that would be it.

If the Scandianvian then emailed her and they started talking, then that's a huge no no. But passings ships...I really would not want to find out...

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 23:13

This is interesting

I must ask DH what he thinks on this matter

fucking...ok, as long as you don't know about it

talking...a complete no-no

< ponders >

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 23:25

Coolfonz - I going up to bed now; will try not to have you in mind as I cuddle.

TDiddy · 15/07/2010 23:26

Good night Cool and AnyF

AnyFucker · 15/07/2010 23:29

night

ItsGraceActually · 16/07/2010 00:53

Phew - now you're all safely snuggled down ...

My first marriage was a farrago, I now realise. So the judgements I made were made on a backdrop of crap family relarionships & crap expectations. I didn't realise that at the time, and this is why I'm trying to review such questions now - much older, and a little bit wiser.

We were both v.successful and had exciting lives, together & separately. He was hopelessly unfaithful. Opportunities were rife. I want to talk about one, single class of opportunity: he was often entertained, by large corporations, in various different countries. The hospitality often included a naked girl in his room. When he got home, he would tell me this. I'd ask a few questions, basically of the "oh how interesting, do tell more" variety. I absolutely didn't want to know anything about the sex - and instructed him, very clearly, not to tell me even if I was having an insecure moment & asked! It bothered me, but not in a huge way - more like the way I'd be bothered if he'd been to dinner at a restaurant I wanted to visit, or to a gig I would have loved.

These trips were usually 3 or 4 days. Even if the girl was in his room every night (unlikely), he wasn't going to see her again or form a relationship with her. They were designer hookers.

In my job, I was offered enjoyable inducements but they never included pre-paid sex, so there's no direct comparison. I did cheat on him once, with a well-known (at the time) musician after a work do. Our row, the next morning, went something like this:
"Where the hell were you? I was trying to ring you!"
"Ummm, I got drunk and slept with the drummer."
"??!!&&%%!!"
"I know. I'm sorry. How can I make it up to you?"
And that was it.

Now. He was also unfaithful under other circumstances, and that is why I finally quit. His [not pre-paid] infidelities involved lying & fudging, and I hated it. It made me feel disempowered. Ours was a horribly unequal relationship - the sort that would have us all (myself included!) urging the OP to step back & see what was happening to her. So I can't adopt anything I did, then, as a model for my present life.

I can't say, either, that I'd be any less laid back about the designer hooker sex. It cost us nothing in terms of money or emotional connection. There was no danger of repercussions. There was no dishonesty.

As I say, I really don't know how I'd feel about it now or in the future. But I do feel there was sound logic in my attitude then. Unfortunately, I suspect my attitude led him to feel it was OK to cheat otherwise, as well!

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 16/07/2010 07:04

Blimey, Grace

That relationship would have killed me.

TDiddy · 16/07/2010 07:55

How about if we prepared a list of 10 things (incl. infidelity) i and asked DP to rank them in terms of importance.

EcoMouse · 16/07/2010 07:56

AF, the people I heard X was 'seen with', I thanked. There was no animosity on my part - they obviously thought there was good reason to speak of what they'd seen and I made a choice to disbelieve there was anything in it.

My closest friend saw him kissing OW, on a night out (bearing in mind, I was heavily pregnant, relatively housebound and he took full advantage of this). She and another very close friend decided not to tell me because it was so close to my due date and there were concerns about health of baby due to stress already, etc.

The guilt they felt over the events that followed was extreme . I do wish they'd told me but also understand that although they were desperate to do so, they had my best interests at heart and genuinely thought they were protecting me and more importantly my unborn baby.

I suppose I can say here what I'd never allow them to know which is that a small and maternal part of me will always feel quite furious that choice was removed from me. Of course, it isn't their fault that my baby was injured but I struggled very much (and more so when sitting in hospital with my baby) with my feelings towards those that colluded, even with good intention.

Grace, wow. So to some extent you were accepting of multiple sexual partners?

I don't know if I was more accepting of it when younger or completely dis-empowered

EcoMouse · 16/07/2010 07:57

TDiddy, interesting exercise!

TDiddy · 16/07/2010 08:01

ANy suggestions on the list?

EcoMouse · 16/07/2010 08:02

housework

fidelity

respect

trust...

You know, I think 'love' would come last in mine, if it were one of the ten. The term's too ambiguous to mean much at all to me, anymore!

EcoMouse · 16/07/2010 08:04

communication

passion

companionship

sex