Double standards for cheating?

I love futuristic movies! :wink:

 

how do you expect men to be faithful, when we have the religious promise of 72 virgins awaiting us in heaven..

and how do you expect men to be faithful, when some religions condone multiple wives?

we're destined by nature (and religion, depending on which one you practice and where you live) to be sexual beasts

 

In his recent book "Being In Love", Osho argues that women are as polygamous as men... only humankind has been conditioned for centuries (by men of course) to believe the opposite. He says that a woman can easily have sex with multiple partners one after another, while a man... well... can only do so much. I don't have the book anymore otherwise I would quote the exact passage.

 

oshu (a mere mortal) argues that in some book...

ok

but the promise of 72 virgins and polygamy has religious roots...

roots supposedly put forth by the creator, not some random guy who decides his day job wasn't working out well, so he needed to write a book...

at least that's what i hear anyway, from those suicide guys who promote a glorious self-sacrifice, with the promise of 72 virgins awaiting them in heaven

 

Right, a religion that treats women like subhumans? Instructs men to beat their wives? States that 9 is marriageable age for women? that if a woman doesn't sexually service her husband at his first demand, angels will curse her until morning? etc etc? You will use their teachings as a guiding light?

 

i personally don't follow any religion to the "T," simply because so many other religions have counters to each other's beliefs (gets hard to accept one religion, as your knowledge base of others grow...ignorance truly is bliss)...

In some areas of the world, based on religion, it's alright for a man to have multiple wives...

yet.. in the states, which flies the banner of christianity, a man is supposed to only have one wife; anything else constitutes adultery and a sin

as for mocking those religions that believe otherwise...

who are we to denounce what they believe?

what makes us right and them wrong?

 

Many people say that once someone is a cheater that they will always be a cheater.... What does everyone here think?

And can cheating ever truly be forgiven?

 

I forgave him. Didn't mean I had to stay in the relationship though.

 

People in a relationship have to work to define & understand what cheating is in their relationship - not simply adopt someone else's or society's idea of what cheating is. What works for one couple might not work for another. Anyway, after establishing an understanding of what cheating might entail and a person chooses to ignore the boundaries set up within their relationship and go ahead and cheat, I'd seriously question that person's integrity. Forgive them? Eventually. Trust them? Why.

 

Maybe one partner made a mistake and they are truly sorry. But of course it would take time to build back trust. I think it's all about communication and being honest. If you truly love each other you can get through anything -- if BOTH partners really want to. I know couples who have survived infidelity but it depends on their history I guess. And a person's ability to forgive.

Here is an interesting site for women on infidelity - www.womensinfidelity.com

 

I agree that it is all about communication and honesty. But the best time for that is before one cheats - do it later and it's a heck of a lot more work to stay in your relationship and live with the drama that's been created. So I do agree that a relationship can survive infidelity. It's just hard to justify why someone would knowingly choose (cheating is a choice - it doesn't just happen by accident) to put a relationship they cherish in that sort of peril.

I also agree with socalgirl1609. It is an option to forgive someone for cheating but also not be interested in remaining in the relationship.

 

Yeah, we never really defined it. But I pretty much figured that when he was engaged to another woman (a "friend" of mine) it pretty much constituted "cheating." :lol:

 

Since my divorce is finally final (see my other post about "This might seem kinda weird, but"), and in reference to a recent conversation about this topic, I've had a few thoughts.

Once a cheater, always a cheater? Maybe not. But if you're being cheated on, do you really want to put yourself in a position where the hurt could happen all over again? It's such a dangerous road, when they're telling you they'll never do it again, and my personal favorite, "you hurt me anyway, so I had a right to do it :roll: ", so on and so forth, and you're so confused that you can't see the forest through the trees. There are better people out there who wouldn't dream of hurting you, because they honestly think that people in a relationship should respect each other, and would jump at the chance to show you that life shouldn't be lived in fear of when you're going to discover the next affair or indiscretion.

Is it any different than being emotionally abused? Someone is completely taking advantage of the fact that they know you will take them back because you are a nice person, and because they know what an emotional hold they have over you. Maybe it's because they realized that the grass wasn't greener on the other side, but in my opinion, if they failed to realize the beauty of the grass on your side, then they don't deserve to come back. It's a pattern, like alcoholism or gambling, or any other addiction from what I've been exposed to, and I'd much rather wait for the person who isn't going to treat me like a paper plate to be thrown away than to be used by the person who only sees the beauty in me when they see ugliness in other people. I am a firm believer in forgiveness, I forgave my ex a long time ago, and I continue to forgive him daily. But the bigger part, now that I'm out of it? I thank him daily for giving me a reason to leave a situation that I had no idea how bad it really was until I was gone.

Leaving was the best thing I ever did, and even though I never pictured my life the way it turned out (as a single mom of two, without the guy that I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with), I honestly believe that it's where I'm supposed to be. There was more to it than the cheating...the affair was the straw that broke the camel's back, but considering just the cheating, if we had gotten back together, there would be no way I'd ever be able to hear "I'm going to go play poker with the guys tonight," and not think "So who are you fucking?"

So ask yourself, should you be in this unfortunate predicament, whether or not you can honestly say that your partner wouldn't cheat if they 100% thought that they would never get caught. That they wouldn't cheat because they loved you and respected you, or whether they wouldn't cheat because they thought they would get caught. Ask yourself what it would take for the lies to stop...what it would take to convince you that they aren't lying anymore...and how much more of the emotional badgering you're willing to take when they blame it on you. And you'll find out where your place is. I wouldn't wish getting cheated on to my worst enemy...except maybe to the biotch that cheated on her husband with mine.

It's cloudy, and confusing, I know because I used to be there. But if you allow yourself to get out of the storm, I can almost guarantee that you'll see more that you didn't really appreciate in the first place. Be with someone that worships you because you're you, and wouldn't even put themselves in a position for anything to happen with someone else because they respect you SO MUCH that they wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about anything. Don't be with someone who takes so much work to maintain that you have to walk on eggshells for the rest of your life just because you're afraid they'll do it again.

If you are reading this and you think it's directed to you, it is. And I'm really sorry my kids were rowdy earlier.

 

That sucks, socalgirl1609. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. I am glad, however, that out of all of that muck you seem to have evolved into a stronger person. Best wishes.

 

Woohoo!! :smt038

Well said! As I was moving out of my house with my daughter, I thought, I hope that I can teach her many, many things, but if the only thing that she remembers is that she's never "stuck" in a bad relationship and to never settle for less than what you want and deserve, then I've done a good thing.

I really liked what you wrote. It's very true. You sound like you've been through alot and have come out a stronger person, like Veema said.

 

I agree. And thank you. :wink:

 

Looked back at the original post and it reminded me of a conversation my boyfriend and I had the other day. He said that for a man, if a woman cheats, in his mind it is the ultimate blow to his manhood, as it says that he is not satisfying his partner, and men are suppose to be natural providers. With woman, I think that like the OP said, a lot of people have a boys will be boys attitude when it comes to male infidlelity.

I know that my boyfriend would be unforgiving if I were to cheat. I would be forgiving if the person were remorseful and wanted to change, as I have cheated in the past, it would be highly hypocritical of me to cheat.

 

Having gone through something like this myself (from a guy's perspective) my experience has been that first you go through a "CSI" phase where you may wonder if you did something to cause this -- especially if you're being blamed -- and you try to find out what happened and why. I think men have a tendency to try and reason things out and make sense out of nonsense. But it's pointless.

You come to realize that infidelity is never excusable, has nothing to do with you, and you develop almost a gut level dislike and loss of respect for the person who did this to you.

And finally, you realize that they never were "the one" and you move on.

Once time allows you to distance yourself emotionally you realize it's probable that the end result would have been a lifetime of lies, disappointment, and continued unfaithfulness from this person. They'd never respect you because they don't respect themselves.

 

FTR- Conselling with my now ex-husband failed a month after I fessed up on this board to my affair. However, it turns out that he had someone on the side for longer than I did. Neither one of us are with the people we cheated on each other with, and I would NEVER get into the kind of MESS agian. Lessons learned I guess