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Look at all the cheating scandals with politicans. Look at how many stay married. Maybe they only stay together for financial reasons. Maybe they are otherwise a good team and don't want to ruin that over sex. Perhaps they come to an understanding to keep things discreet. There is no one reason why people cheat, and no one reason why some spouses forgive and others don't. So much in life isn't black and white.
But, you don't know that waiting until marriage is going to be a buffer to any kind of relationship issues. You don't know that you and your boyfriend are sexually compatible. You don't know that you'll be able to communicate openly about your needs. No one starts out in a relationship intending to cheat, but people drift away from each other in a variety of ways. You might need couples therapy as well. You just never know.
I suppose there is always a risk in a relationship but my communication with my fiance is effective and we're happy. Hopefully my marriage (taking place on March 20th) is a success. I hope for the best.
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Originally Posted by Bootsamillion
They are rare cases, but with the right therapy, trust can be rebuilt. Of course, you have to live an "open book" for each other (which is the hardest to deal with), but if the couple is determined to get past it they will find a way. So yes, I think there is a good chance your parents will find trust and peace in each other again, or any other couple that is dedicated to each other.
This is exactly what happened. After reading a large portion of the aftermath mom's cheating caused, the long process during R and all the neverending drama, only the last 5 pages of his journal had a happier, optimistic tone. The last thing he wrote was about trust having been already rebuilt, the birth of my twin sisters, their love for one another and mom was referred in his own phrases ''my now strongest ally''. Yes they're definitely rare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
You seem very righteous about your own choices. you seem really invested in the idea that it makes you BETTER than other people and that if everyone did what you believe to be right(eous) then they'd never have problems.
I think that you are struggling with perhaps a deeper feeling that they don't DESERVE happiness, after what they did. That only those who keep themselves pure and good, deserve a good life.
I think that's what is behind the undertones of bitterness I'm detecting beneath the general surprise.
It wasn't your business, and it is NOT your place to stand in judgment of them. They have redeemed themselves in one another's eyes.
It's OK to be human. It was OK for your parents to be human, too.
I'll be honest when I read about the part where he still proposed in 1996 (4 years after her cheating) and him explaining about her working hard on being a better person, being forever grateful for getting a second chance and believing she still had the potential to be a good wife, I actually thought my mom got rewarded; similar to a child that threw a horrible tantrum and broke everything in the store, gets grounded first but then suddenly isn't and still gets taken to Disney World. If you cheated with your partner's best friend, had to get caught to end the affair but not just got forgiven but they still married you (rarely anyone marries someone that cheated before), then you would probably feel so lucky. I felt bad for my dad until he cheated back years later. I had mixed feelings for his cheating. I was thinking ''now you're no better than her'' and ''well at least you had the guts to end it and confess instead of getting caught''.
That was my intitial reaction in the beginning but now I'm ok with it. If their love grew stronger, ok. I'm going to keep their past a secret and won't tell anyone about it. Maybe my righteous attitude comes from the fact that I've never cheated on my fiance and never been cheated on, not that I know of.
Yes I'm not going to tell anyone about it. I'll let them keep their secret. His journal actually had a happy ending of trust being rebuilt, their love got stronger and how they were at a better place now.
I don't have anything to complain about my upbringing. They did a good job at raising us and that must have been hard, with all that hardship. I still regret reading his journal though. Oh well.
But, you don't know that waiting until marriage is going to be a buffer to any kind of relationship issues. You don't know that you and your boyfriend are sexually compatible. You don't know that you'll be able to communicate openly about your needs. No one starts out in a relationship intending to cheat, but people drift away from each other in a variety of ways. You might need couples therapy as well. You just never know.
I gotta think people in a committed relationship can grow and learn together and become compatible over time. Let your sexuality evolve as a couple. I'm not advocating for or against waiting until marriage here. I think it's a nice notion but not realistic in our culture. I do not see sexual compatibility as the reason it can't work though. Even if you're not having actual sex with someone there's bound to be some forms of intimacy going on and you'll be able to learn a lot about a person just from those interactions.
I suppose there is always a risk in a relationship but my communication with my fiance is effective and we're happy. Hopefully my marriage (taking place on March 20th) is a success. I hope for the best.
This is exactly what happened. After reading a large portion of the aftermath mom's cheating caused, the long process during R and all the neverending drama, only the last 5 pages of his journal had a happier, optimistic tone. The last thing he wrote was about trust having been already rebuilt, the birth of my twin sisters, their love for one another and mom was referred in his own phrases ''my now strongest ally''. Yes they're definitely rare.
I'll be honest when I read about the part where he still proposed in 1996 (4 years after her cheating) and him explaining about her working hard on being a better person, being forever grateful for getting a second chance and believing she still had the potential to be a good wife, I actually thought my mom got rewarded; similar to a child that threw a horrible tantrum and broke everything in the store, gets grounded first but then suddenly isn't and still gets taken to Disney World. If you cheated with your partner's best friend, had to get caught to end the affair but not just got forgiven but they still married you (rarely anyone marries someone that cheated before), then you would probably feel so lucky. I felt bad for my dad until he cheated back years later. I had mixed feelings for his cheating. I was thinking ''now you're no better than her'' and ''well at least you had the guts to end it and confess instead of getting caught''.
That was my intitial reaction in the beginning but now I'm ok with it. If their love grew stronger, ok. I'm going to keep their past a secret and won't tell anyone about it. Maybe my righteous attitude comes from the fact that I've never cheated on my fiance and never been cheated on, not that I know of.
OK so here's what's GOOD about this, and as much as I gave you my honest opinion in other aspects, I want to honestly recognize something positive.
It is a very good trait to have in life, to be able to pause without speaking/acting, and think about what you are thinking/feeling. A ton of people are really impulsive and just say whatever is on their minds, especially if they feel strongly about it. The fact that you are able to reflect about how you felt, recognize and process where that came from, let it simmer and evolve some, and decide not to rock the happy boat of your parents' lives by confronting them with this knowledge, is a very good thing.
And I also just kinda want you to understand that the world and the humans in it...it's pretty chaotic out there. Things don't always follow a predictable path in ways that one might expect. But we have control over ourselves and a responsibility to exercise it and to own our choices and what comes of them, always...yet not necessarily in a reward/punishment way, just in an honest-with-ourselves way.
For you, abstinence from sex until marriage was the path that felt honorable. It really does not guarantee anything for your future, but so long as you remain true to your own values and integrity, you will be able to stay on the path that you have chosen. Someone else who does something that you recoil from, well, they are on a different path than you and maybe they had to learn something a different way. But their consequences don't always have to look exactly the way that you might think. Like, your parent surely had a time of turmoil and had to do a lot of work to mend the wounds in trust that they inflicted on each other...I'm sure it still would have been so much better for each of them if no infidelity had ever occurred. And yet they DID that work, and made it work, and good for them!
It could be argued that if your Dad had chosen to punish your Mom by breaking up with her, rather than "rewarding" her by marrying her anyways, he would have possibly cheated himself out of an eventual happy future. There is no telling what his future would have been like, he could have been eaten up by bitterness and mistrust for the rest of his days. He could have become one of these crazy dudes who hates women....but he did not. A choice to marry someone is about so much more than rewarding or punishing them or any kind of cosmic, "those who follow the rules get good things" situation. He also made a choice for himself, he saw something worth trying for. And in the end...he was right, wasn't he?
A friend of mine has a saying about life and decisions, "What is the NEXT right thing?" Rather than focusing on what mistake you may have made, beyond a need to learn from it...go forward to the next right thing. For your parents, that was choosing a future together.
Another thing... I believe that forgiveness is a GIFT. No one is obligated to forgive another person who harmed them. If forgiveness is granted, they have to stand behind it and give the other person the grace to learn, grow and do better. Any time that I apologize for anything I do wrong and am forgiven, I hold gratitude for that grace front and center in my mind, and I strive to be worthy of it. I believe that if you are forgiven and instead you hold shame front and center in your mind, then you're more likely to do wrong again, because tied to shame is a belief that you are not good. How are you going to expect good behavior from yourself if you don't believe that you're a good person deep down, right? But we're all human and we mess up sometimes, one way or another. Like I'm 43 years old and while I have not cheated on a spouse, I've sure done my share of wrong things either knowing at the time or just making mistakes. That is LIFE. We all have to ask forgiveness at times, unless we are utter liars and hypocrites, because no one is perfect. In choosing to forgive, and to go forward all these years, each of your parents gave one another a bright and shining gift, one that is not easy to give, nor always easy to receive. If I were a religious person, I would have some parallels to draw on the subject of forgiveness, you know?
Cheating is a 100% deal breaker for me. It is the worst form of emotional abuse; it the emotional equivalent of burning someone's face with a propane torch, horrifically painful and leaves permanent scars. Anyone capable of it is a sick person and unworthy of a relationship with any quality partner.
Any relationship that you salvage with reconciliation will be an inferior shadow of what it was before. Once there has been a betrayal like that, I'd trust a stranger on the street more than my former SO. The stranger is starting at 0 the ExSO is starting from -10,000. Taking back a cheater is like trying to force a turd back into your anus. The recidivism rate for cheating is extremely high.
The same goes for any mention of polyamory/'Ethical' nonmonogamy/Open relationships. That is just two people parading around a farce where everyone is cheating and they put a nice euphemism on it to make it sound like they are cool hippies. 92% of open relationships fail which includes those that started out that way. The ones where one partner is browbeat into it (usually by the woman) you can round up to 100%. It is relationship rabies, the minute it manifests you are dead. I tell any person I'm dating I won't discuss it and even modestly suggesting it is enough for me to immediately terminate the relationship. That is how I inoculate myself.
Last edited by CyclingChemist; 12-13-2022 at 10:22 AM..
Cheating is a 100% deal breaker for me. It is the worst form of emotional abuse; it the emotional equivalent of burning someone's face with a propane torch, horrifically painful and leaves permanent scars. Anyone capable of it is a sick person and unworthy of a relationship with any quality partner.
Any relationship that you salvage with reconciliation will be an inferior shadow of what it was before. Once there has been a betrayal like that, I'd trust a stranger on the street more than my former SO. The stranger is starting at 0 the ExSO is starting from -10,000. Taking back a cheater is like trying to force a turd back into your anus. The recidivism rate for cheating is extremely high.
The same goes for any mention of polyamory/'Ethical' nonmonogamy/Open relationships. That is just two people parading around a farce where everyone is cheating and they put a nice euphemism on it to make it sound like they are cool hippies. 92% of open relationships fail which includes those that started out that way. The ones where one partner is browbeat into it (usually by the woman) you can round up to 100%. It is relationship rabies, the minute it manifests you are dead. I tell any person I'm dating I won't discuss it and even modestly suggesting it is enough for me to immediately terminate the relationship. That is how I inoculate myself.
Don't cite stats without sources.
I know a ton of poly people. My closest, dearest friends are an open couple who have just celebrated their 20th anniversary and they have one of the happiest marriages I've ever seen.
No one is asking you to accept any of this yourself. But you don't get to say what does or does not work for other people. Or well, say whatever you wish actually, but no one is obligated to take you seriously.
Why people can't just live and let live, I swear...
I know a ton of poly people. My closest, dearest friends are an open couple who have just celebrated their 20th anniversary and they have one of the happiest marriages I've ever seen.
No one is asking you to accept any of this yourself. But you don't get to say what does or does not work for other people. Or well, say whatever you wish actually, but no one is obligated to take you seriously.
Why people can't just live and let live, I swear...
Normally I have no problem with people doing whatever they want with their relations but ENM/Poly has become a license for every cheating spouse to try legitimize their poor character. That is why I tell every person I date early on that even mentioning it is an immediate breakup or divorce. No discussion, no compromise, no second chances. They can ask about the most extreme and disgusting sex acts imaginable, probably something involving toileting, and I'd be perfectly fine discussing it and saying no I don't think I'd be into that and not think any less of them. Not poly. That crap needs to stay way at the back of the closet of alternative lifestyles with the very very few people for whom it successfully works for.
A relationship should be a good partnership in the practical worldly, the emotional, and the intimate. Noone should be outsourcing either of the last 2. I myself am not going to be made into a sad pathetic doormat like Will Smith.
Last edited by CyclingChemist; 12-13-2022 at 12:51 PM..
Normally I have no problem with people doing whatever they want with their relations but ENM/Poly has become a license for every cheating spouse to try legitimize their poor character. That is why I tell every person I date early on that even mentioning it is an immediate breakup or divorce. No discussion, no compromise, no second chances. They can ask about the most extreme and disgusting sex acts imaginable, probably something involving toileting, and I'd be perfectly fine discussing it and saying no I don't think I'd be into that and not think any less of them. Not poly. That crap needs to stay way at the back of the closet of alternative lifestyles with the very very few people for whom it successfully works for.
I myself am not going to be made into a sad pathetic doormat like Will Smith.
Again, you don't know a damn thing about how many or few it works or doesn't work for. It's quite popular in Colorado and I know a lot of people for whom it works JUST FINE. It was one of the most popular discussion groups at the club I used to volunteer for. Like, groups for other subjects would draw maybe 10 people on a good night, but the monthly poly meetup and talk, that one got 60-80 attendees!
It's perfectly good for you to walk away from any mention of it, no one is asking you to do it, least of all those who do.
And that's the part that I don't think you get, and also the part that cheating people don't seem to get, it's not license for a damn thing and cheating isn't ENM. The 'E' stands for "ethical" which at a MINIMUM means honest and with freely given consent of all involved. So you wouldn't consent to it, therefore there is no ethical way in which anyone could conceivably foist it upon you.
Therefore what said individuals are doing ain't none of your business. Just swipe left and move on.
And while the bold is something I argue with because I've known people who do ENM/poly the way it's supposed to be done (according to all consensus on the subject, as well as the full meaning of consent)... I DID indeed encounter a few dudes on dating apps who claimed to be "poly" but who, it turns out, were just cheaters. But they were super easy to spot when I was open to that sort of thing and dating, I just asked when I could speak to their wives. Then they were all like, "uh...uh...well...she doesn't actually know..." Nope, boom, you're busted dude. Not poly, just cheater. Blocked.
Cheating is about more than who you sleep with. It is at its core a violation of consent, that's where the whole betrayal of trust comes in, if someone is lying or withholding critical information to your decision making, you can't possibly give informed consent. To say nothing of possible sexual health risks that one didn't consent to! That's like, the opposite of ethical.
But this attitude you have, it seems to be the presumption that unless society roundly condemns something, then first it's outliers, then it's common, and before you know it "they" are forcing EVERYONE to do it whether they like it or not... And that's just not how any of this works. I mean, just because we now do not force gay people to live in secrecy, doesn't mean that they are bound and determined to make you gay. I see it as projection. Shamers and pearl clutchers wish everyone were forced to be "normal" and conform, so you can't imagine that those who are different really don't give a hot damn what you are doing with your life. The weirdos aren't shaming traditional types or pushing you to join their club. So you can calm down about it already.
Again, you don't know a damn thing about how many or few it works or doesn't work for. It's quite popular in Colorado and I know a lot of people for whom it works JUST FINE.
It aint going to work for me and I make that painfully clear. I strongly recommend anyone that feels the same as I do that poly is more disgusting than toilet sex make that very clear early on to avoid the possibility of getting so called polybombed later.
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