Is infidelity wrong?

[TheFifthElement]

In the same vein, no one is going to say that cheating is ethical, not me nor anyone else, which is why I am as much annoyed with myself for getting upset with this discussion as I am annoyed with the discussion itself, because the question isn't even worth asking.

But I am willing to recognize human frailty and not necessarily condemn those who fail. Now there are sociopathic behaviors that need control over and above sympathy, serial liars and serial cheaters who will never change and prey on others. I've come up against those and try not to think about them so as to not take up target practice-- but not everyone who breaks has that kind of pathology.

Well said Jozanny. There are so many reasons why a person might get involved with someone other than their spouse which have nothing to do with a sociopathic desire to deceive. If the human animal were so two dimensional, there'd be no reason to discuss this subject at all.

I totally agree that most people are capable of loving and being attracted to more than one person. I myself am perfectly capable of being attracted to several people at a time. But there is a difference between feeling attracted to someone and to actually, physically being unfaithful. Who says you have to sleep with each and every person you feel attracted to???

Interesting Sleepy. Throughout the discussion the focus has been on sex as though sex is the most important thing - the barrier you don't cross. If I put that into the context of my relationship with my husband, I'd be far more devastated to find he was in love with someone else albeit that he never touched them or that he was no longer in love with me, than if he had a casual sexual fling. I guess after 13 years of marriage I've come to see sex as something of small significance in the context of the wider relationship. If something happened, say for example my husband or I became paralysed and thus unable to perform sexually, I would still love him. It's lovely, but not critical. Taking that context forward, if my husband had no sexual desire, but I still did might I have casual sex in order to satisfy that desire? I might, and my husband might even tell me that it's okay to do that, I don't know - I think if the situation were reversed that's what I would do, because I love him and just because I can't experience something or don't have the desire to experience something doesn't mean that he shouldn't or should feel guilty about wanting to. Taking it the next step, if I did, and even if I had his blessing, might I hide it from him so he didn't feel as though he had let me down? Possibly. There are so many scenarios like that that I can think of where the morality or otherwise of a particular action falls into shades of grey. On that basis I think that it's impossible to play judge and jury on the subject.

[Haunted]

" Conscience is never subject to outside influence."

Of course it is. Much of what we consider to be wrong is determined by culture and environment. Drinking urine most likely disgusts you, it's normal in many cultures where people believe it has therepeutic properties. You are probably saddened or angered by female genital mutiliation but that's also normal in many cultures, future generations might come to view male genital mutilation as equally wrong but most North Americans currently see nothing wrong with it.

You're responding to conscience with acts that are "disgusting" (drinking urine) or considered "normal". Disgust and normalcy are not concepts of conscience.

Gentlemen: will you care to verify what African_Love claims to be true — that North Americans currently is OK with male genital mutilation?

"For instance, if you kill someone, it's wrong. Whether or not anyone knows about it or if you hurt anyone in the process."

It's wrong because it deprives an individual of pleasure/happiness. Cheating (if one is never caught) does not deprive an individual of happiness or cause them distress.

How can you possibly know the true feeling of someone else? Your subjective evaluation and your presumptions have no objective reality. It's all in your own mind, trying to justify something you guessed you shouldn't be doing.

Imo, all moral rules that extend beyond harm/benefit are meaningless, even disadvantageous (the need to moralize can cause us great distress). Instead of asking 'is this immoral or ethical' we should ask 'will this benefit so and so, will it deprive them of benefit or cause them distress'. If you love someone you will respect them so cheating doesn't have to be 'immoral' to avoid it or disapprove of it. If your partner doesn't respect you, that in itself is the problem rather than their expression of their disrespect. You can't fault them for not respecting you, just find someone who does.

"all moral rules that extend beyond harm/benefit are meaningless"?

Yes. From the mind of a sociopath.

[African_Love]

haven't read the whole thread, so this might have been said before:
I totally agree that most people are capable of loving and being attracted to more than one person. I myself am perfectly capable of being attracted to several people at a time. But there is a difference between feeling attracted to someone and to actually, physically being unfaithful. Who says you have to sleep with each and every person you feel attracted to??? I think this is a question of restraint and self-discipline. But of course these are based on morality and it only works if you agree that infidelity is unacceptable for one reason or another.

I agree that it isn't always appropriate to act on our attraction towards someone, I just think it's arbitrary and meaningless to ask that your partner not act on sexual or romantic feelings (s)he might have for other people when you wouldn't ask them not to have those feelings to begin with. Shouldn't it be the feelings that make you jealous rather than the actions? This is a side issue because I cannot bring myself to respect someone who does not behave monogamously if they've agreed to behave monogamously. This may sound odd since I've been the one arguing that infidelity should not be considered morally wrong but most people have ignored my saying that cheating is indicative of poor character. I'm just not convinced by the arguments that justify cheating from a character standpoint, they are beyond weak to me. I can't help but to feel the deepest contempt for cheaters, it doesn't 'just happen', it necessarily has to be planned out in order to go through the motions of actually having sex with someone.

You're responding to conscience with acts that are "disgusting" (drinking urine) or considered "normal". Disgust and normalcy are not concepts of conscience.

What you find disgusting is strongly correlated with the culture you were raised in. Likewise, what you consider to be immoral also strongly correlates with the culture you were raised in.

How can you possibly know the true feeling of someone else? Your subjective evaluation and your presumptions have no objective reality. It's all in your own mind, trying to justify something you guessed you shouldn't be doing.

I don't know what your argument is here. If finding out that your partner was cheating on you wouldn't cause you distress, why would you ask that they be monogamous rather than having an open relationship?

[SleepyWitch]

Well said Jozanny. There are so many reasons why a person might get involved with someone other than their spouse which have nothing to do with a sociopathic desire to deceive. If the human animal were so two dimensional, there'd be no reason to discuss this subject at all.



Interesting Sleepy. Throughout the discussion the focus has been on sex as though sex is the most important thing - the barrier you don't cross. If I put that into the context of my relationship with my husband, I'd be far more devastated to find he was in love with someone else albeit that he never touched them or that he was no longer in love with me, than if he had a casual sexual fling. I guess after 13 years of marriage I've come to see sex as something of small significance in the context of the wider relationship. If something happened, say for example my husband or I became paralysed and thus unable to perform sexually, I would still love him. It's lovely, but not critical. Taking that context forward, if my husband had no sexual desire, but I still did might I have casual sex in order to satisfy that desire? I might, and my husband might even tell me that it's okay to do that, I don't know - I think if the situation were reversed that's what I would do, because I love him and just because I can't experience something or don't have the desire to experience something doesn't mean that he shouldn't or should feel guilty about wanting to. Taking it the next step, if I did, and even if I had his blessing, might I hide it from him so he didn't feel as though he had let me down? Possibly. There are so many scenarios like that that I can think of where the morality or otherwise of a particular action falls into shades of grey. On that basis I think that it's impossible to play judge and jury on the subject.

if I got paralyzed or wasn't interested in sex anymore, I probably wouldn't mind if my husband found someone else to have sex with. Well, at least that's what I'd like to think. But it might be different if it really came to that.

About romantic feelings etc.. I guess when we feel attracted to someone other than our partner, we often get carried away and overestimate those feelings. I think this a direct outcome of our obsession with "true love" and our believe in "the one". We are so fixated on finding these that the whole idea backfires. I.e. when we have weird feelings for another person, we assume that we must have been mistaken about our partner. Because we believe in "the one", we panic whenever we have undefinable feelings for a third party and assume that this third party must be "the one" and things will get better if we dump our partner and start a new relationship.
I think it's a matter of being honest with yourself and acknowledging that you can feel attracted to lots of people. But what you have to do is differentiate and ask yourself: "If I had a chance to go in the cupboard with X, would I REALLY do it?" and "If I had a chance to have a long term relationship with X, would I want that and would it work." I feel attracted to two guys right now (and my husband calls them my little boyfriends and teases me about them), but I know that if I had a chance to go in a dark corner with them I wouldn't do it and if I could have a relationship with them, it wouldn't work and I couldn't be bothered to commit to them anyway.
Plus, I think there is a difference between sensuality and sex. I think you can experience sensuality with someone without ever touching them, in in many ways this is more interesting than hiding in a dark corner for a quicky
As for the emotional component... I don't think anyone should deny their feelings, whether they are sexual, emotional, or both, because that will only escalate the situation. The more you try to deny your feelings to yourself, the more they'll escalate, because you're fighting with yourself and making a mountain out of a molehill. In my experience, if you acknowledge your feelings to yourself, you get used to them over time and it all becomes less dramatic as the novelty wears off. Plus, what sometimes happens is that you start to hate the "third party" out of frustration or because you blame them for the way you feel. This is really unnecessary because it's not their fault and you could be friends with them rather than hating them for allegedly "causing" you to have feelings for them. (* I don't mean "you" as in "you personally", but as in people)

[African_Love]

About romantic feelings etc.. I guess when we feel attracted to someone other than our partner, we often get carried away and overestimate those feelings. I think this a direct outcome of our obsession with "true love" and our believe in "the one". We are so fixated on finding these that the whole idea backfires. I.e. when we have weird feelings for another person, we assume that we must have been mistaken about our partner. Because we believe in "the one", we panic whenever we have undefinable feelings for a third party and assume that this third party must be "the one" and things will get better if we dump our partner and start a new relationship.

This is one of the most intelligent and honest things I've ever read. I don't know how people can seriously deny that you can have feelings for more than one person or why the assumption is always that someone is necessarily dissatisfied with their relationship if they cheat.

As for the emotional component... I don't think anyone should deny their feelings, whether they are sexual, emotional, or both, because that will only escalate the situation. The more you try to deny your feelings to yourself, the more they'll escalate, because you're fighting with yourself and making a mountain out of a molehill.

This is also true.

The only thing I don't really understand about your post is how open you and your partner are with either of you having feelings for other people but presumably, you are not open to the idea of an open relationship. Like I said before (and this is only my view), I think it's arbitrary to accept your partner having feelings for other people but being bothered by their acting on those feelings.

[Poppy]

I guess I was thinking of someone in a committed relationship. My husband and I ARE completely different people after 36 years together but we respect each other and are committed to our marriage and our family. I am lucky that we do love each other and married because we both wanted to grow and change with each other. Our basic selves are the same, we just continue to learn, grow, and change in our outlook on life and social beliefs. But if there was a change in either of us that caused our commitment to weaken or became unbearable to the other, we could/would end our marriage legally. But we both believe that when we took our vows, we were making a lifetime commitment that included respect and faithfulness.

If two people are so committed and full of their love for each other, how could anyone else ever fill that void. Trying to love someone else would not be fair to that person. There never could be the same fulfillment. As my wife and I have discussed before we don't think that marriage ends in the death of one spouse. I think "death do us part" is not the same as death of you or me. Just a humble opinion from a geezer who hasn't been here in awhile and who has not touched his pen for a long time.

[Virgil]

If two people are so committed and full of their love for each other, how could anyone else ever fill that void. Trying to love someone else would not be fair to that person. There never could be the same fulfillment. As my wife and I have discussed before we don't think that marriage ends in the death of one spouse. I think "death do us part" is not the same as death of you or me. Just a humble opinion from a geezer who hasn't been here in awhile and who has not touched his pen for a long time.

Hehehe, well said, and nice to see you back Poppy.

[soundofmusic]

If two people are so committed and full of their love for each other, how could anyone else ever fill that void. Trying to love someone else would not be fair to that person. There never could be the same fulfillment. As my wife and I have discussed before we don't think that marriage ends in the death of one spouse. I think "death do us part" is not the same as death of you or me. Just a humble opinion from a geezer who hasn't been here in awhile and who has not touched his pen for a long time.

A very lovely sentiment Poppy; and no one ever fills the void the death of a spouse creates. I know that from experience. While I have chosen not to take what one might classify as a "second choice" there are those who are left so lost without their partner they choose to marry for companionship. As a matter of fact; I often find that those who had the best marriages are the ones who remarry.

[Jozanny]

Since Tiger Woods is now among the tainted, I rest my case-- which is that no one seems to remember that all human beings are fragile. If a billionaire sports figure can sin, and why would he give that trophy wife of his the ammunition to take a good chunk of his fortune?-- then anyone can fall prey to motives and drives which don't always seem to make sense. And Tiger is a squeaky clean young man.

[Virgil]

Yeah, but Tiger is now tarnished, which proves the point that infidelity is immoral. He went from a squeeky clean hero of a young man to a goat. I don't even see any compassion for him out there, and I loved Tiger Woods.

Just to make my point, Tiger Woods jokes are already across the internet. i ran into a few today. Here:

Apparently the police asked Tiger's wife how many times she hit him. She
said "I don't know exactly... but put me down for a 5."

What were Tiger Woods and his wife doing out at 2.30 in the morning?
They went clubbing

Phil Mickelson contacted Tiger's wife to pick up some tips on how to
beat Tiger!

What did Tiger Woods' wife do with the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving
dinner? She made him a club sandwich.

Barack Obama is reportedly going to send an additional fighting force of
35,000 to Afghanistan. But one source says Obama could change his mind
and send 20,000 troops plus Tiger Woods' wife.

After the crash, he ended up with facial cuts. I guess that makes Tiger
a scratch-ed golfer.

Now that he's being followed by the media, Tiger will have to improve
his lie.

Apparently, the only person who can beat Tiger Woods with a golf club is his wife.

After scoring a couple of beautiful birdies earlier on, Tiger finds himself in some serious trouble at the last hole, coming home.

[Jozanny]

Yeah, but Tiger is now tarnished, which proves the point that infidelity is immoral. He went from a squeeky clean hero of a young man to a goat. I don't even see any compassion for him out there, and I loved Tiger Woods.

And that is more reactive than an attempt to put your head inside of something, and I always choose to read into something as opposed to making snap judgements. Take Edwards. If I was an obscure Southern Senator whose eldest child had been killed, who was thrust into national prominence and then soundly rejected by my electorate after years of investment in that electorate, and then discovered my spouse was terminal, yes, Virgil, I could seek consolation in another's arms, as I have as a disabled woman, with no apologies as a disabled woman.

I admire Elizabeth, but I also understand how John's emotions could drive him to what he did, his political death knell aside.

Some situations are beyond my ability to grasp, like your former governor, who probably needed psychiatric help, given what I understand about his case, and Tiger, for the moment, is beyond me--but if humans are ultimately machines, we are one hell of a machine, and do not have it as easily as the ants, who make very simple choices with chemical signal guide posts. My debate here is done for those who don't wish to understand the point I am trying to make.

I also think your *immoral* tag is too strong. It may not be right to violate one's marriage obligations, but I do not think Woods is immoral. I don't think Edwards is immoral, and I certainly don't stitch scarlet letters to my breast. The Victorian era ended sometime during Edward's reign, and this early 21st century has ushered in a whole new set of parameters, including, my friend, don't faint, the fading importance of marriage as an economic nucleus. Once same sex couples nationalize their marriage rights completely in the west, then marriage will have increasingly sub-optimal legal importance, and those who feel it is their religious right to commit bigamy will jump on this bandwagon anew. Adultery won't look like much then, and it really doesn't amount to much now, unless it is linked to domestic violence, and domestic violence will probably always be with us.

[Granny5]

If two people are so committed and full of their love for each other, how could anyone else ever fill that void. Trying to love someone else would not be fair to that person. There never could be the same fulfillment. As my wife and I have discussed before we don't think that marriage ends in the death of one spouse. I think "death do us part" is not the same as death of you or me. Just a humble opinion from a geezer who hasn't been here in awhile and who has not touched his pen for a long time.

Some have special relationships, Poppy. If everyone had our marriage and a relationship like our, this question would have never been asked. Thanks for being my geezer.

[wessexgirl]

I also think your *immoral* tag is too strong. It may not be right to violate one's marriage obligations, but I do not think Woods is immoral. I don't think Edwards is immoral, and I certainly don't stitch scarlet letters to my breast. The Victorian era ended sometime during Edward's reign, and this early 21st century has ushered in a whole new set of parameters, including, my friend, don't faint, the fading importance of marriage as an economic nucleus. Once same sex couples nationalize their marriage rights completely in the west, then marriage will have increasingly sub-optimal legal importance, and those who feel it is their religious right to commit bigamy will jump on this bandwagon anew. Adultery won't look like much then, and it really doesn't amount to much now, unless it is linked to domestic violence, and domestic violence will probably always be with us.

I do not know who the politician is that you're talking about, but I do know of Tiger Woods. Why is cheating on your wife not immoral? The Victorian era ended with Victoria, Edward's reign ushered in the Edwardian era, but either way, whatever era we're in, if you choose to marry and make vows, then breaking those vows is immoral. If you want other people, don't marry. Personally I applaud Tiger's wife. Her anger and hurt at being betrayed, as it is a betrayal, must feel all-consuming. I didn't physically attack my ex, but I would so love to have. But revenge is a dish best served cold. He has lost his home and family. I hope Tigers wife takes him for every cent he has. Your assertion that "adultery won't look like much then, and it really doesn't amount to much now" comes from someone who obviously has not experienced the devastation of betrayal, hurt and all its consequent fallout, when someone you ought to be able to trust with your life, throws that relationship into jeopardy by their selfish actions. I have no sympathy with Woods, it's the same old story, and has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than someone behaving badly and thinking they can get away with it. No amount of trying to justify those actions will work. I'm the world's top golfer, I'm a billionaire, I have a great life, it's all got too much for me, woe is me, I must find women to cheat with....it's the pressure you see.....I don't know if he's said this sort of thing so far, but give him time. I'm tired of hearing a%$*("*!s giving their "woe is me" stories. Draw the line, it's bad behaviour, it's wrong. End of. No-one expects you to stitch scarlet letters to your breast Joz, but please don't try to tell people who have suffered the consequences of adultery, that it doesn't amount to much. Did you tell yourself that at the time, and consider the families of those men who were cheating with you?

[TheFifthElement]

if you choose to marry and make vows, then breaking those vows is immoral.

How far do you take it though? When you marry you vow to love that person. If you stop loving them, is it immoral?

[wessexgirl]

How far do you take it though? When you marry you vow to love that person. If you stop loving them, is it immoral?

Then you do the decent thing and break-up, before you start messing around with other people.