ST #439 - On Cheating

[mpp]

Originally posted by sawdust restaurants


If breaking that isn't immoral for you, by all means, fuck whoever you want, but when you can't keep a girl by your side for more than a couple of months and none of her friends want to date you, you'll know why.

i don't get it

if she doesn't find out then why would she leave me?

[Never Nohen]

Heh. Figured as long as I'm here, I oughta at least show my face in this one. Haw.

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by mpp


i don't get it

if she doesn't find out then why would she leave me?

I hate to break it to ya, but they always find out. It's like a natural law of the universe or something.

If you're planning to be together for any signficant amount of time, it's so bound to happen that it's not even worth asking "What happens if she finds out?" because the only realistic way to phrase it is "What happens When she finds out?"

[dusty]

you know, you are all really freakishly passionate about this subject.
if anyone ever does anything to me that i would consider cheating- i won't punch them or cut their brakes. i will just simply walk out of the room and walk out of their lives, forever.
they would never hear from me or see me ever again.
it's that simple.

[Never Nohen]

Alright. I'm bored, avoiding studying, and we all know this is my favorite topic...so I guess I'll bite.

so how does netphoria feel about cheating on boyfriends and girlfriends?

People will give you a million different reasons, excuses and extenuating circumstances to justify their cheating...But for pretty much 99.9% of cases, I have to say that cheating is one of the most fucked up things one person can do to another.

If you're in a serious, committed relationship with someone, and you don't care enough about that person to be totally open and honest with them, and to keep your commitments to them and be the kind of person they can trust, then you don't deserve to be in a relationship with them...And it's cruel of you to lead them on under the false assumption that you do.

what does one consider cheating? kissing? holding hands? sexual thoughts about other guys/girls? fucking?

Heh. Okay, this one is a whole lot easier than people make it out to be. CHEATING IS NOT ABOUT SEX. Cheating is about breaking commitments you've made to your partner (or partners). It's about doing things that you promised to someone they could trust you not to do.

So if you've promised a partner not to have sex with anybody else and you do, it's cheating. For you. If you've made an commitment not to have sex with men, but agreed it's okay for you to have sex with women, then having sex with men is cheating and having sex with women isn't. For you. My partner and I have an agreement that having sex with other people is fine, as long as the other person knows about it. So when he had hot, sticky, sweaty, steamy, rolling-around-in-the-backyard-under-the-stars luvvin' with our awesome friend Katie last weekend, he wasn't cheating. If he hadn't told me about it, he would've been. (But then, why the hell wouldn't he tell me? )

Because monogamy is the standard paradigm for relationships, people tend to assume that if you're in a monogamous relationship, it comes prepackaged with a set of relationship commitments. But the funny thing is, nobody seems to really know what these commitments are. I mean, pretty much everybody assumes "Don't have sex with other people" is in there...but people always seem to be kind of unclear on whether "Don't kiss other people" or "Don't cuddle with your opposite-sex friends" or "Don't jerk off while talking to 45 year old transvestites on AOL" is in there or not. So apparently, the definition of "cheating" is not as cut and dried as some people would like to believe.

Fact is, the definition of "cheating" is entirely relative to the relationship, or relationships, you're in. The only person who knows what "cheating" means, when it comes to you and your partners, isn't your Saturday Evening Girly Chat Session, or your lockerroom buddies, or the Bible, or even (*gasp*) Netphoria. The only people who can define it are you and your partners. And if you're in a standard monogamous relationship, you can probably both take a wild guess, and chances are you'll be on the same page. But IMHO, it's likely a much better bet to actually talk to them about it...Because it's probably nicer to find out like that that you two define it differently - in which case you can then work out a definition you agree on - than by getting cheated on by someone who didn't mean to, or by - as Brad so elegantly put it - getting kicked to the curb.

And that's my rant. < /soapbox >

[sawdust restaurants]

Originally posted by mpp
oh and sawdust, maybe you're just an ugly ass motherfucker or some shit

No; I've just seen one too many relationships end that way, and it's not cool. I got pissed off when I found out six months after we broke up that an ex cheated on me--breaking somebody's trust in the way you define it, like Becca said, is one of the lamest things you can do.

And yeah, they always find out. It's not that hard to tell.

[Never Nohen]

This one's just personal information to satisfy mpp's voyeuristic streak.

have you ever cheated? been cheated on?

Yes. Both. When I was a kid and didn't really understand how relationships worked or why cheating was bad - and just knew it was something that doing or having done to me both made me feel like shit. It was never anything serious in either direction. Never went beyond kissing or writing a few love notes or the kind of things 14 year old kids do in the back of movie-theaters. But it still felt awful.

I have to admit though, I'm kind of glad I went through it - because it helped give me a much stronger and deeper understanding of *why* cheating is fucked up...which helped me develop the informed value system I have today that has allowed me to resist some hardcore sexual and emotional temptations that I probably wouldn't have had the mettle to resist otherwise. So, yay for learning responsibility from the dumbass mistakes you make as a kid!

if you have been cheated on, does it make it easier to cheat on others or harder? does it make you want to cheat more or less?

I think I pretty much answered it above. Having cheated and having been cheated on doesn't make it harder for me to cheat on others, it makes it easier for me not to.

'Course, the worst mistakes I made weren't ones that had to do with my partner and I, but the times when I let someone else cheat on their partner with me. The couple of times that happened were a lot more serious than the times it happened between me and August - and those are the ones I still seriously regret. In fact, since it'd be pretty damn difficult for Aug and I to cheat on each other now - considering the agreements mentioned above - whether or not to let other people cheat with me is the only thing I realistically have to be concerned with anymore.

I actually went through the worst and most painful temptation I'd ever had with that, over a couple of people last summer...and in both situations, I made the right choice. Honestly, in one of them, I'm still a little surprised I did. But I figure, every time I do it, it just gets easier, right. So hopefully, it'll be easier from here on out.

ever gotten caught in the act? what happened?

Heh. Um, well, in both cases - both when he did it and when I did it - we'd happened to be in one of the "Ill-Fated Bouts of Monogamy" that we experimented with a few times when we were younger.

I think the result was generally that we - after being really upset and hurt and crying OR after feeling really horrible and apologizing profusely, respectively - sat down, talked about it, figured out what had happened, and then were basically like, "Um. Okay. Well...maybe this is a sign that this whole monogamy thing was a bad idea. Uh, why were we doing that again?"

Fortunately, we finally came to a pretty definitive decision on the monogamy thing about two years ago (that decision being, "Not.") and we haven't had that particular problem since.

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by sawdust restaurants
Why on earth would you be in a committed relationship if you didn't intend on being monogamous? That's the entire point, really...

*chuckles* Um. *raises hand* Been in a committed relationship for five years now, and looking forward to many decades more. Monogamy wasn't the point last time I checked.

Not trying to start any flame-wars, just hoping to open up some boxes. (The kind that people tend to spend too much time thinking inside of.)

[dusty]

Originally posted by Never_Nohen


*chuckles* Um. *raises hand* Been in a committed relationship for five years now, and looking forward to many decades more. Monogamy wasn't the point last time I checked.

Not trying to start any flame-wars, just hoping to open up some boxes. (The kind that people tend to spend too much time thinking inside of.)

so it sounds to me like you've just had a dedicated fuck buddy for five years now?
i am also not trying to start any flamewars- but that's how i would define your relationship soley based on what i have just read.

[Never Nohen]

Didn't we both decide this

Originally posted by Human Replica Droid
Does being with someone you know is in another relationship count as cheating? I mean, for this thread purposes? Because I've never cheated on anyone... but I've cheated with someone.

Didn't we both decide this place was evil? *waves hello anyway*

Re: Getting involved with someone who you know is in a monogamous relationship - I don't think you can technically call it "cheating", but I think it's equally bad.

I mean, you're still facilitating the violation of relationship commitments, and you're still engaging in sexual activity that not everyone involved has consented to (because as far as I'm concerned, if someone is in a serious, committed relationship period - monogamous or not - then the decisions they make about sex and relationships involve their significant other.)

Plus, why would you want to be involved with someone who demonstrated a tendency to be dishonest and disrespectful to their partners? I mean, yuck. It just seems like a bad idea for everybody involved.

Also... does the INTENTION to cheat count as cheating (like, something stopped it from happening, or they just haven't gotten around to it)? What about stuff like phonesex or cybersex or... such?

Again, depends on the relationship. Have you and your partner talked about it? Have you made a commitment not to do it? Then yes. Have you agreed that it's okay? Then no. If you don't have a commitment either way because you haven't talked about it, but you're in any way unsure - then it's probably a good rule of thumb to assume Yes until you've talked to your partner about it. And then talk to them about it.

And if it's something you don't want to talk to them about because you're pretty sure they'll respond negatively and be hurt or pissed off that you'd even consider it...Well then, that's probably your answer right there.

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by dusty
so it sounds to me like you've just had a dedicated fuck buddy for five years now?
i am also not trying to start any flamewars- but that's how i would define your relationship soley based on what i have just read.

Well, how would you define fuckbuddy?

I mean...We live together. We spend holidays with each others' families. When making important lifechanging decisions - such as career choices or geographical location of schools we might want to go to in the future - we talk to each other and consider each others' preferences. We've paid close to $1000 each this year so that I could see him at Christmas and he could fly out here to spend our anniversary together. We talk three or four times a week on the phone and every day online. We're accepted by each others' parents and siblings as essentially part of the family, invited to each others' family reunions, etc.

We've basically stopped differentiating things like who owns what books or DVDs or whatever, they're just "ours". We're there for each other in difficult times, and excited for each other about good developments in each others' lives - whether that they be that I got a promotion at work, or that he's met some wonderful new girl he's falling head over heels for. We do all the romantic shmoopy type stuff that couples do. We go on dates, buy each other gifts, surprise each other at work with flowers and the like. We wear the same ring and intend to have a commitment ceremony at some point in the not-too-distant future. We share every aspect of our lives with each other.

We're each others best friends, we're deeply in love, and we've made a decision to spend the rest of our lives together.

So I don't consider him my "Fuckbuddy", I consider him my "Partner". But your terminology may differ.

[dusty]

but you guys do it with other people, right?
also, i would just like to say that i am not bashing your relationship.
i think it's pretty fucking cool- and who knows- i may end up looking for one of those myself.

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by dusty
but you guys do it with other people, right?
also, i would just like to say that i am not bashing your relationship.
i think it's pretty fucking cool- and who knows- i may end up looking for one of those myself.

We do what with other people?

We have sex with people, yes. We date other people, some of whom are also dating - or in committed relationships with - other people, some who aren't. We have relationships with other people. Both together and separately. (More often separately than together, just because he doesn't like guys and we've got pretty different taste in girls.) The longest relationship either of us has had with someone else so far was a little over a year.

We haven't done the above, the committed life-partner thing, with anybody else. But it's theoretically possible that some day, one or both of us will meet someone else we want to spend the rest of our lives with too. And I think that'd be wonderful. But as it is, seeing as we're barely more than 20, I think we're pretty fuckin' lucky just to have found each other so far.

Sorry, I hope I didn't come off sounding defensive above. I didn't mean to be. (Although I'm sure you can imagine that I'm kind of in the habit of having to defend myself. Especially, historically, on this board. *cough* )

[dusty]

do you guys consider yourselves swingers?
also, are you open and honest about everything that happens with everyone involved?
and yes, i think that you are both just dedicated fuck buddies (but with a really awesome, caring relatinship).
amen sister!
i want to join your party.

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by dusty
do you guys consider yourselves swingers?

"Swingers" usually refers to people who have open relationships sexually and are willing to play with other people, but who aren't open to the idea of getting involved in romantic or emotionally intimate relationships with other people. So, in a word, no. (Not that there's anything wrong with people who choose that lifestyle, it's just not for us.)

I consider us to be "polyamorous". August doesn't consider us to fall under any label, because he thinks the "'monogamous' vs 'non-monogamous' thing is a false dichotomy" (plus, I think calling himself "poly" just makes him feel like too much of a hippie. ) But "polyamorous" is the term that most people who have relationships similar to ours tend to use.

also, are you open and honest about everything that happens with everyone involved?

Yep. Well, I mean, y'know...if he's been dating a girl for six months, he's not going to tell me every graphic detail of every time they have sex. But just in the same way, he also isn't going to tell me about every single client he talks to at work and what they ordered. But we always know who each other is dating/sleeping with/involved with and what the level of involvement is, and we always make an effort to at least meet and be acquaintances, if not friends, with each others partners and their partners. (Which isn't as hard as you'd think, since - for example - most of his girlfriends have been friends of mine who he's met through me.)

Or, wait, did you mean are we open about it with the other people? Yeah! Of course. That's one of Aug and my agreements. We never get involved with anybody, unless everybody is totally on the level about what's going on, and is okay with it. That inc.ludes me and Aug, the person we're potentially getting involved with, and any other partners that person might have. (Which is part of the reason I'd feel so guilty letting someone else cheat with me. Because not only would I be helping them violate their relationship agreements, but I'd technically be violating one of Aug's and mine, as well.)

and yes, i think that you are both just dedicated fuck buddies (but with a really awesome, caring relatinship).

Heh. That's okay, it's just terminology. It doesn't change anything about the way our relationship is.

Although, just for curiousity's sake...if our relationship were to remain exactly the way it is, only we were married and considered each other Husband and Wife, would you still consider us just Fuckbuddies?

amen sister!
i want to join your party.

*laughs* Come on down! Everyone's invited. And hey, "We Recruit".

[Ugh. Apparently I've totally lost my ability to not suck at UBB formatting.]

[dusty]

Originally posted by Never_Nohen
Although, just for curiousity's sake...if our relationship were to remain exactly the way it is, only we were married and considered each other Husband and Wife, would you still consider us just Fuckbuddies?

um... maybe then i would insist on calling you swingers, even though i understand why you say that you are not.
but now i have another question- you guys sleep with eachother while you are sleeping with other people too, right? like when he has a person that he has been having sex with for like 6 months, you still have sex with him, right?
also- do you sleep in the same bed?
and one more thing- what would you do if you met someone you totally wanted to have sex with and date for a while, but he wasn't comfortable with you sleeping with august.

and also i would like to thank you for answering all of my questions- that's really, really kick ass of you to be so open and chill

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by dusty
um... maybe then i would insist on calling you swingers, even though i understand why you say that you are not.

Heh. Okay, I can deal with that. Hm, although here's another question. What about if three people - say a girl and two bisexual guys, or three lesbians maybe - were in a long-term committed relationship where they were all in love with and slept with each other, but none of them dated or slept with anyone else. What would you call it?

but now i have another question- you guys sleep with eachother while you are sleeping with other people too, right? like when he has a person that he has been having sex with for like 6 months, you still have sex with him, right?

Yep. Well, not lately, since there's been an ocean between us for the past 10 months. But then, I haven't been sleeping with anybody this year - mostly 'cause I just haven't really met anyone I've been interested in, but partly also 'cause I think I'd just feel a little weird getting together with someone while I was so far from Aug and they wouldn't be able to meet or anything. But when I'm home, yes.

also- do you sleep in the same bed?

Also when I'm home, yes. We got to live together and share a room and a bed for the first time this summer, and when I come back we're going to be living together again. For real this time. Like, moving in at the same time and everything. I'm really excited.

and one more thing- what would you do if you met someone you totally wanted to have sex with and date for a while, but he wasn't comfortable with you sleeping with august.

Um, well I'd probably talk to him about it for a good long while. Try to understand where he was coming from, and what made him uncomfortable about it. I'd try to assuage any of the fears, concerns and insecurities he might be having that would make him feel that way. And if I couldn't do that, and I really wanted to be with him, I'd probably ask him to just give it a chance for a little while...a few days, weeks, whatever, just to see if it was really as bad as he feared. (Turns out it's usually not. )

And if he wasn't comfortable with that, or if he tried it and still wasn't okay with my relationship with August...Then I'd have to tell whoever he was that I was sorry, I thought he was a really great guy and I liked him a lot, but that August is my Primary Partner and our relationship is the most important thing in my life, and so if this guy isn't able to handle that, then unfortunately he's not someone I can be involved with.

However, it's never really come up in quite such dire terms - because pretty much anybody who gets involved with me already knows me, and I'm pretty up front about the fact that if it ever comes down to choosing between August and somebody else, I'm always going to choose August. Despite that, I have had a few people who've paid lip service to respecting my relationship with Aug, but really been dating me under kind of a fantasy assumption that they might be able to convince me otherwise. (And Aug has had girls who've done the same.) But once they actually get to know us they realize it's not going to happen...The ones who still like me enough as a person to want to make it work anyway are keepers. The ones who don't, well, they probably aren't the kind of people I'd want to try building a solid relationship with anyway.

and also i would like to thank you for answering all of my questions- that's really, really kick ass of you to be so open and chill

*smiles* No worries. Like I said, it's one of my favorite subjects, so I've no objection to talking about it. I'm sorry for writing such rambly and longwinded responses to your concise questions.

[dusty]

Originally posted by Never_Nohen
Heh. Okay, I can deal with that. Hm, although here's another question. What about if three people - say a girl and two bisexual guys, or three lesbians maybe - were in a long-term committed relationship where they were all in love with and slept with each other, but none of them dated or slept with anyone else. What would you call it?

i don't know. maybe... swingers?
haha. but i say that because i really don't know. but truthfully it doens't really matter what you call it anyway, as long as you are happy.
names only make it easier to explain things, that's all

[TheJoker]

Originally posted by FearFactory
Oh, and if I found out someone I was committed to was cheating on me, I'd probably do the following:

If I was told within a few hours of it happening, I would be pissed, kick the bitch to the curb and go beat the shit out of the other guy.

If I was told about it a few days later, I'd slap the woman and send her packing. Then I'd kick the other guy's ass.

If I found out about it on my own, I'd kill both of them.

[meow]

mi too horny to read this

fuck that

mmmm yeah fuck

[Silverstream]

can i ask a question never_nohen?
i think your relationship is really interesting. i just dont get a few things about it.
like, what defines yours and augusts relationship from any of the other people you both have relationships with? i mean in terms of how do you define him as being your "partner" when you have relationships with other people as well?

and dont you ever get jealous? stupid question i guess, i suppose i just cant imagine seeing someone who i loved having sex with someone else and not having any negative emotion about it.

[strange_one]

I always think that I'd slit my own throat before I'd hurt my girl by cheating on her, but in reality you can never really be certain. If I was in a comprimising situation I'd like to think I could easily walk away, but you never can quite really know yourself

[El Savior]

cheating = bad medecine

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by Silverstream
can i ask a question never_nohen?
i think your relationship is really interesting. i just dont get a few things about it.
like, what defines yours and augusts relationship from any of the other people you both have relationships with? i mean in terms of how do you define him as being your "partner" when you have relationships with other people as well?

Sure. Um, I don't really understand what you mean, though. Like, I call him my Partner, because that's just the word I use for our relationship. It's like calling him my Boyfriend, only meant to imply that it's a little more serious than that. When I'm in relationships with other people, I might refer to them as my Boyfriends or Girlfriends...or if it's a more casual friends-with-benefits type thing, my Playmates. Um, if I ever end up in another relationship that's as serious and committed as my relationship with Aug, I'd probably refer to that person as my Partner too. But...I mean, they're just labels you give relationships to make them easier to talk about and explain to people? Does that help? Tell me if that didn't answer your question...

and dont you ever get jealous? stupid question i guess, i suppose i just cant imagine seeing someone who i loved having sex with someone else and not having any negative emotion about it.

Well, yeah. I mean, jealousy's a pretty normal human emotion. Everybody feels it from time to time. I'm not 'naturally' a very jealous person...so in the past, he's typically had to deal with feeling jealous more often than I have.

But part of having a functional polyamorous relationship is learning how to deal with your jealousy constructively - recognizing when it's just an irrational gut response, and understanding why you're feeling it (usually because you're feeling insecure about something), learning how to communicate with your partners about those insecurities and figuring out things you can all do to help each other feel more secure and comfortable - so that you don't feel any need to get jealous. Of course, it still hits the best of us from time to time - but we've both got a lot of practice working through it now, and we're both a lot more secure about ourselves and our relationship, so we get jealous a lot less often than we did as kids. Heh.

Um, the flipside to that is an emotion that's meant to be the opposite of jealousy, called "compersion". It's that happy, excited feeling you get for someone else, when something good happens to them. Like, feeling really happy for your friend when they have a great day, or get together with the girl they've had a crush on forever. The only difference is, in this case, the friend happens to also be your partner. Once you learn to work through and dissipate your jealousy, it's much easier to feel compersive toward someone.

So basically, when I see someone I love having sex with someone else who they love or who makes them really happy, it's hard for me to have any negative emotion about it, because I'm too overwhelmed by being happy for them. And that goes for everybody I care about - whether they're a platonic friend or someone I'm in love with.

[mpp]

Originally posted by dusty
you know, you are all really freakishly passionate about this subject.
if anyone ever does anything to me that i would consider cheating- i won't punch them or cut their brakes. i will just simply walk out of the room and walk out of their lives, forever.
they would never hear from me or see me ever again.
it's that simple.

hardball.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally posted by Never_Nohen

Whole bunch of nonsense

Wow. Maybe it's because you're young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but there is no way this relationship can possibly last very long.

[sickbadthing]

Originally posted by El Savior
cheating = bad medecine

dictionary = help 4 U

[Never Nohen]

Originally posted by Nimrod's Son

Wow. Maybe it's because you're young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but there is no way this relationship can possibly last very long.

*laughs* Well, we've got more experience with relationships than most people our age, and we've been together longer than any of the monogamous couples we know, save maybe one. And I know people who have been in happy, committed polyamorous relationships for thirty years or more. But you just keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel more secure about the way you do things being The One and Only True Way.

[skippy]

Originally posted by FearFactory

If I found out about it on my own, I'd kill both of them.

No woman is worth going to jail for.

[Nimrod's Son]

As for cheating, I am ok with it if my gf cheats with another chick. She just has to keep me informed, and really should let me be there.