Cheater!
So, this post is tied to the next/previous (depending on the order in which you are reading these). What constitutes cheating? (on a spouse, boy/girlfriend, SO, pet, etc)
I watched some Court TV in my day, so I know a little about divorce. There was often claims of cheating. But, what did they mean by that? It seemed that they always associate cheating with sex. "My husband slept with his secretary. And not only that, they had sex while in bed together!" "My wife was letting the copy boy in the office bang her in the copy room, while he was still making copies!" But, is that all there is to it? If you are with someone, and they had sex with someone else, would you consider yourself cheated on? But, what is sex? Well, as I stated in Technical Virgin, one might consider any act that one wears a condom during to NOT be cheating. But, would you really feel that way? "Dear, I was doing a few of the women in the office the other day, but no need to worry I was wearing a condom the whole time. Because, I would never want to cheat on you!", "I love you too, dear. Thanks for being so considerate." That conversation will probably never happen in anyone's life. But, maybe it should...
But, is sex all that is required for cheating to have occurred? What about kissing? If you found your SO kissing someone else, would you think you have been cheated on? Would that be grounds to end a relationship? Or does it really require sex (whatever that is)? How about hugging? What if they just got naked together? Slipped a finger in the ass? Went to a doctor?
What about just emotional bonding? This is a hot topic these days: Work Spouses. One has a person at work of the sex one is attracted to that they bond and share feelings with. If you share you feelings with someone, things you do not tell your SO, are you cheating on that person? Isn't cheating actually just depriving the person of some part of you, ie to cheat them out of you? So, "sex" with someone is not sharing that experience with your SO. Going to lunches every day with the same people and sharing your problems, isn't that also cheating your SO of that bond?
What am I saying? If you are close to someone you are just as guilty of cheating as if you had sex with that person (with or without a condom)? Yes, that is what I am saying. So, if you are close to someone, you might as well sleep with them as well, since it really is the same: cheating on your spouse, girl/boyfriend, SO, pet, etc.
The Edward
3 comments:
Okay, I must disagree with the Edward on the last paragraph part of cheating.
I think that spending platonic time with someone other than your SO is fine. People need a network of friends and your SO should not be your be-all end-all life support system. Come on, if I had to be with SO for 24/7, I'd be on Death Row already. An SO is someone who is more than a friend but less than a family member by right of blood. You love them, you bond with them, you eventually offspring with them (if so minded, I am NOT), and you share life together. That does not mean others in your lives go by the wayside. One person cannot provide everything you need, they can't be 100% of what you like. So you seek other people out to fill out your life.
That being said, that does not mean you or your SO can engage in fleshy activities with another person, that IS cheating, that is going against the committment you and SO made to be monogamous (sp?). I define cheating is you or the SO engaging in any physical fleshly activity with another person who is not the person in your pair bond. If you two set down rules and swinging is okay, then you have nothing to complain about, but if you two decide to be "true" unto each other, you've made a promise not to participate in anything of a sexual nature with another.
That being said, looking at pictures and lusting after another is beyond me and I have no idea how to define that!
---SAM
I had a very strict religious upbringing (though I have long since abandon it), and one of the ideas forced upon us then: Once one is married, one is to get rid of all friends of the opposite sex. Why? Because one is to bond only with one's spouse, so any close friends of the opposite sex would be interfering with that wedded bonding. It would have been considered cheating on ones spouse to have a close opposite sex friend. Which lead to "Well, if we are cheating by emotionally bonding, we might as well have sex, since that is only an emotionally bonding exercise anyway. And once a cheater, sex doesn't change the depth of cheating, so let's go for it!" kind of thinking I used to see in people. All sins are equal in god's eyes, so if one is going to blow it, blow a big one.
I agree, one can not get all of one needs fulfilled by one person. That is a lot of responsibility to place on someone else's shoulders, and it is not possible. I didn't believe that before, because of my upbringing, but recently found that to be true from talking with friends who are part of a couple (or more than a couple).
The question of what to consider cheating is the one that plagues me now. I know what I used to believe, and I now know that to be wrong, so maybe I am also wrong about fleshy activities being cheating. That was my question to myself and others, where does one draw the line. Even with fleshy stuff, which fleshy stuff? Nudity? Hugging? Kissing? How about non-touchy: phone sex? Email/webcam sex? Static pictures? Porn? At some level, they are all the same, so how can one distinguish?
It seems that it would be based on communication, what you and your partner(s) decide is okay, is okay. So, if there is an agreement that talking to someone is cheating, and you are doing it, you would be cheating. If you and your partner think of sex as equivalent to having dinner with someone, then screwing is okay.
These ideas of moral flexibility are things I am still trying to get my head around, since there are no standards then. It means we are free to be who we want to be. And when getting into a relationship, all people involved should be on the same page. (Even though that is impossible, since it would take forever to cover all things and situations, so there will always be some gaps in communication. With this gaps, how does one decide?...)
Cheating is a matter of agreement and the attempt to hide breaches of such agreements.
The difficulty in pinning down cheating is due to the various ways that people in relationships interpret their agreement.
Some of it is explicit (marriage vows), some of it is implicit (societal), and some of it is never really discussed or defined.
Men and women tend to interpret agreements differently, as do partners of differring cultural backgrounds - and simple ego-centrism can cause one's own flexibility of agreements to increase/decrease compared to that of their partner(s).
This is further complicated by a decoupling between what one might feel/believe/understand intellectually, and how one behaves emotionally, driven by hormones or other motivating factors.
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