OT Poll: Cheating

Into+the+Kitty

Finish this sentence: In my marriage, cheating....

jcwinsto

I feel that I could never trust that person again and if I can't fully trust a person then I can't be in a true relationship with them.  I may still love them but I couldn't carry on a true marraige.

mrshudson618

Depends on the cheating when it comes to the divorce part. Any cheating warrants counseling, but I wouldn't even think about divorce unless it was either a long term thing, or habitual, serial cheating. A one time thing would be a huge issue, but not an immediate end to the marriage.

Into+the+Kitty

I would get a divorce regardless of circumstances. As a married individual, I think part of the responsibility to your vows is to never put yourself in a questionable position with someone, so even if my husband had an 'oh shit' moment, he'd be gone before the shoe hit the floor for not respecting our marriage enough to have avoided whatever situation led to the cheating.

BoyOhBoys

I don't know that I could ever trust him again but I also honestly don't know what I would do. 

I guess it would depend on how old my boys were when it happend? Still little? I may try harder to work it out. Boys grown? See ya!

I honestly just don't know and hope I don't ever have to know

Mandmeesh

Divorce. No question about it

nanabanana06

Cheating is an auto deal breaker. I've been cheated on far too many times. I just don't tolerate it any longer.

unaveragejane

I have always been very up front with DH that cheating is an automatic deal breaker for me. It would be harder now that we have a kid, but I'm of the opinion that staying together "for the kids" can be worse than splitting up.

TJ1979

Put me in the auto deal breaker camp! I'd like to say I love mh so much that I would be the bigger person and do counseling and work through it and forgive him. But I just don't think I could.

CLLDLL

Cheating IMO is one of those things that screws with the non-cheating spouses mind too much for it to be likely you'd be able to save the marriage. That being said I would be willing to consider counselling for the sake of my kids. Likely it'd end in divorce pretty quickly though.

Into+the+Kitty

trawas01 said:

Total lurker here but it made me think of this article on CNN two days. I read the whole damn thing shaking my head and saying "oh hell no."

Holy crap that gave me immediate indigestion.

Into+the+Kitty

LLOL, early FFFC: I asked this because I had a dream J cheated, and I was divorcing him while largely pregnant. I woke up angry and have stayed very annoyed with him all day for his nonexistent cheating on me.

TJ1979

I'm glad to hear it was dream cheating. I'm pretty busy right now to try and come up there to beat his ass. I've done that too, staying mad over a dream.

Mandmeesh

Into+the+Kitty said:

LLOL, early FFFC: I asked this because I had a dream J cheated, and I was divorcing him while largely pregnant. I woke up angry and have stayed very annoyed with him all day for his nonexistent cheating on me.

I've done this too. haha

unaveragejane

Into+the+Kitty said:

LLOL, early FFFC: I asked this because I had a dream J cheated, and I was divorcing him while largely pregnant. I woke up angry and have stayed very annoyed with him all day for his nonexistent cheating on me.

Oh, I hate it when I have those dreams! DH used to joke about having a thing on the side with a fake girl named Aesha, and I started having dreams about her showing up with their love child. I would be so upset, and then DH would be mad that I was dreaming about him doing bad things! I guess I've gotten past a little bit of that. A few months ago I had a dream that one of the Kardashian sisters tried to seduce DH by crawling into bed with him nude, and he just rolled over and went to sleep.

km_md

I said deal breaker. DH and I discussed this pretty early on in our relationship and we both felt the same way. I don't think I could ever trust again/ That said, it is hard to say for sure how you would react until you are in that situation.

daisyemerson

Wow! I'm so surprised that it isn't an automatic deal breaker for more people.
I think I told DH on one of our first dates that he has my permission to do whatever he wants with whoever he wants...but he might just find himself single afterward so he'd better check himself. I'm not in the business of babysitting his actions, but I have very firm standards of how I allow myself to be treated.

SuperTinkerham

SS: I think it's easy to draw a line in the sand when it's a hypothetical situation. I tend to think it would be a deal breaker bc I am an unforgiving person, but I've never been cheated on (to my knowledge).

littleredfish

I said counseling but divorce if there was no progress: but TBH given that my parents marriage ended after a long string of cheating on my fathers part and I saw what it did to my mother as well as mine and my sisters relationship with our father, I don't know that we could recover. DH knows exactly how strongly I feel about it. As a child, growing up as a teen, and all the way to now as an adult, I consider what my father did to be incredibly selfish in that he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend in a lie as opposed to with his wife and young children. I love him, but our relationship will never be what it could have been. The trust would just never be there again between DH and I.

Unknown

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beccaxrad

My DH ex wife cheated on him. I know his rule is deal breaker. He would never cheat on me, but if it happened I don't think I could just end it. I would have to evaluate why the cheating happened and try to make things work. We have been through too much together.

welly01

Before kids, I would have said immediate deal breaker (and I'm gonna take everything you have!).  But now that we have a kid, I feel like I owe it to DS to at least try.  But I also feel like trust would totally be broken and I just don't know how anyone recovers from that and ever truly trusts that person again.  I don't know, I hope I never have to go through something like this.  

Amores0121

I'm with @ovenrack. Now a days, there are so many different ways of cheating..online relationships, sexting, emotional, etc.  I guess it really depends on the situation. If it was an ongoing affair, I don't see any way I could work through that and would most likely divorce.

If if was an emotional thing, that is very hurtful, but it depends on the status of our relationship at the time--was is very strained, were we communicating, etc.

I know for DH he has made it very clear that if I ever cheated on him he would be done with me. No ifs ands or buts. DH's dad cheated on his mom when he was young and had a child with another woman. His mom forgave his dad, but DH said he promised himself he would never do that to someone, he would divorce first.  We are very open with communication regarding sex, etc. so I think that we discuss things that most people wouldn't discuss and I think that helps with the prevention of cheating.  

Angela814

I tend to think cheating is a symptom of a more serious issue in the marriage. So really, it's not that black and white. I would want to work to try to repair the marriage before I automatically divorced.

Mandmeesh

Am I the only one who sees cheating = sex?

Amores0121

@Mandmeesh  In my last relationship, the person I was with was not having sexual relations with anyone else. However, I found out that for the last year we had been together, every time he was going out of town for work (which was often), he was calling/texting his ex (who he had a child with) talking to her about us, our problems, and also asking her inappropriate questions like "what are you wearing", etc.  I considered this cheating.  While there were many other things that he had done in our relationship that were already making me want out, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I knew I could never trust him enough again to marry him (we were engaged), especially since she would never be out of his life completely.

Mandmeesh

Amores0121 said:

@Mandmeesh  In my last relationship, the person I was with was not having sexual relations with anyone else. However, I found out that for the last year we had been together, every time he was going out of town for work (which was often), he was calling/texting his ex (who he had a child with) talking to her about us, our problems, and also asking her inappropriate questions like "what are you wearing", etc.  I considered this cheating.  While there were many other things that he had done in our relationship that were already making me want out, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I knew I could never trust him enough again to marry him (we were engaged), especially since she would never be out of his life completely.

Okay that would be cheating in my book too.

Into+the+Kitty

Mandmeesh said:

Am I the only one who sees cheating = sex?

My definition of cheating is pretty broad, but at the same time is a clear boundary that J and I have discussed and each know. If you wouldn't do it with your spouse right there watching, it's cheating, and shouldn't be done behind your spouse's back.

I agree with some PPs that cheating may sometimes be a symptom of a larger problem, but if my husband didn't come to me first before cheating to either end our marriage or address the problem, I would take no responsibility in fixing his shitty choices. It's not something I would want my child to do to or accept from others, and it's not something I would do to or accept from my own spouse.