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njlauren -> RE: What do *YOU* think about cheaters? And why? (8/16/2013 10:02:43 PM)
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One of the problems with condemning cheating broad based is it doesn't take into account context, about what was going on and so forth. For the record, I totally agree that cheating on a spouse is not a desirable thing, and when it is something like a husband or wife who thrills in cheating itself, who gets on a high for cheating and getting away with it, who is out for the sheer lust of it, I find it pretty hard to swallow.
But there also are extenuating circumstances, where it is very easy to judge but you don't know all the details. My spouse was severely sexually abused as a child, and it had a big impact on our sex life, we have known each other since college (now 30 years or so), and we never had much of a sex life, and the abuse (which was unknown, she literally had buried it) got in the way....I didn't cheat, but in a sense I did, I lived in my head, fantasized, etc.......because it wasn't there. I loved my spouse then and still do, maybe even more so, but what about those cases? I didn't go all the way in large part because I knew it would come between us, that one of the things I know with cheating is the cheater puts up walls, out of guilt and also trying to keep from letting the cat out of the bag, and it makes it worse....but I also can understand that.
I have known women who loved their husbands, but because of stress or other things he was emotionally distant, and the affair was more about emotional interaction then sex.
Then, too, what about when you have something like a spouse becomes ill and is bedridden, or with a degenerative disease like MS? The pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim was married to the cellist Jacqueline Du Pre, who got MS in her late 20's, and went downhill rapidly (she died in her early 40's)...for the last years of her life she was basically a total invalid, and he had found another woman; he remained married to Jacqueline and took care of her, was with her, but he found what he obviously couldn't do at home, and he was faced with watching his wife die horribly...I know many would judge it, but I could not sit there and categorize him with the jerk off traders I know who have the wife and kids at home and are banging everything on the island of manhattan, not giving a crap (the really sad part is many of them are married to women whom I hate, they are beautiful and intelligent and really nice people,and did I say beautiful?)...I also have known people who struggled with their identity, who really loved their spouses but also found themselves wrestling with their sexuality or gender, and sex with others could be part of that, it is agonizing, and while it is very easy to say they should tell their spouse and break up, it may not be that easy.
It isn't so much that I condone cheating, it is that I understand the reasons are complex and that the 'simple' solution often isn't. That said, I am the first person when someone talks about possibly cheating, to point out to them the consequences, the kind of harm it will do, that if their relationship is rocky it will make it worse, and that if they are cheating to make up for something lacking, to work with their spouse to see what can be done to address it. People think they get away with it, but they don't, it ends up richocheting back and there is real harm.
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