-- Modified on 11/1/2003 8:12:17 PM

is this a woman warning us, or a guy telling us to wake up?

Hay Guys lets start a hobby for cheating wives, am ready, willing and sort of able.

BadPuppy

Several stipulations:

 - I don't want to talk about how her husband doesn't understand her
 - I don't want to talk about how my wife doesn't understand me
 - I want to use appropriate protection


-- Modified on 11/2/2003 3:25:48 AM

I lived in France for years...can tell you that almost every woman I knew cheated on her husband, boyfriend, even girlfriend....as they say...."c'est normal"  (it's normal).

-- Modified on 11/2/2003 1:27:46 PM

That Hurts

...Guess I will have to learn to be more accomodating to ladies needs...Harry

...that the subject line includes two emotion-laden words often associated with sex: "cheating" and "guilt."  If only it didn't have to be that way.

One study (done in Germany? doesn't say...), on just 1400 people, in no specified demographic other than the roughly 20-35 age group, does not a trend make.

I have a hard time believing, even with the "modern" generation, that the difference of partners who cheat is only 59% to 50%.  Even if it is true, I bet the disparity grows as the age increases.  In addition, how many women cheated from "happy" relationships?  And how many cheated one or two times, and how does that compare to the volume of male infidelity?

Ah, news is where you make it.

Despite what is commonly accepted, evolutionary biologists and cultural anthropologists both will tell you that among humans, the genders are equally likely to cheat. This study bears that out.

Women tend to do it less often but more consistently, men the opposite. That is, almost all females will, at some point, cheat; but it will be one (maybe two) deep, intense, committed affairs of the heart. Men who DO cheat, cheat a great deal, with one-night-stands all over the place; but some men simply can't cheat because they can't get willing partners. (This is all gathered by me from a lifetime of reading in the subject. No statistics or studies or links available, sorry. We're just generalizing anyway ...)

By the numbers, therefore, a woman more likely is, has been, or will be a cheater; but a man is more likely to cheat more. Get it? This is contrary to the commonly accepted view, that it's the males you "need to worry about." It's also predictable, that males have become the bad guys and females the good guys, despite their similar behavior. Welcome to Western culture, fellahs ...

Lies and deception. The article as well as this thread makes me very sad.
Whether we are talking about the workplace, politics or relationships, both lies and deception will never be a good thing, and I think many even disregard that it’s a bad thing.

I’m not saying what I’m going to say as a judgment of others. If you know me well enough, you’ll know that doesn’t matter. I don’t walk in your shoes, nor do you walk in mine. I’m just sharing my own thoughts with you.

I think Mr. Self Destruct brings up a good point, most likely carried over from the previous thread about the ‘happily’ married men who still see other women. His point being that of the women mentioned in this article, how many of them were ‘happily’ married? For the most part, I think most women who cheat will do so out of unhappiness.
They don’t feel the guilt because they feel it’s justified and that they are deserving. So be it, for them.

I was with my ex-husband for 13 years and my pastor even pointed out to me, back when we were together, that I had probably been unhappy 12 of them.  It hit me right between the eyes when he said that because it wasn’t something I even admitted to myself how unhappy I was and for how long. I had every ‘right’ and every ‘reason’ to cheat, and certainly had the offers and the opportunity, but as long as I was married, living under the same roof, I would not. I was a mother of two young children then, and the needs of the family came first and I could just wait to deal with my needs and desires in the future. We continued to work on our problems, continued to seek counsel, and the years went by. You all know how it goes. And for those of you who know what it’s like to ‘go through the motions’ and pretend that everything’s normal when you are dead inside and feel like a zombie, know that’s one of the worst feelings in life. I realized I not only didn’t love him, I didn’t like him (because I could live with it if I at least liked him), but had actually gotten to where I had lost all respect for him as a person/man/father, and when it got to where I despised him, I had to make a very painful decision to end it. There are thousands of you out there that can relate. My story isn’t special.

Down the road, I could think about me, and I made up for the lost years, let me tell you! Talk about FMBO! LOL!
And for the last thirteen years of being single, I have the best of both worlds. I am open and honest in my personal life with the men that I have relationships with. They know exactly where I’m coming from and there are no misunderstandings about what we have and what it will ever be.

There was a cartoon in the New Yorker Magazine (I wish I had scanned it so I could post it) that had a woman in a car with a man poking his head into the window (it looked like the typical streetwalker scene, but with the genders reversed).  The man is saying "Of course I will listen to you all night"

My point...  Women and wives want men to just listen sometimes.

The terms "cheating" and "guilt" are relative to sex only because it is the device that those two terms are delivered through.  The terms actually refer to a relationship or marital vows.

If you want to have unlimited sex, don't get in a committed, closed relationship.  Simple as that.
Otherwise, hello, cheating and guilt (or, in the case of many, no guilt).

We're bound by unnatural social constricts, ingrained in generation after generation.

That they're regularly violated, despite the accompanying blame, shame and ostracism demonstrates the supremacy of human nature over social constraints and our idiocy.  The judgementalism, the "right" vs. "wrong" proseltyzing, and all the moralists in the world will never suppress it.  Yet we continue to deny our inability to control it and, instead, rely upon laying blame and affixing scarlet letters. We're pathetic.

if someone feels that way, they should live that way oply, declaring their bliefs, and doing everything to promote their way and show why it is right, and show good examples of such, so that we can "throw off the shackles" of civilization.

Unless someone does this, if he or she swears faithfulness, whether in marraige or not, that is the agreement that is made.  

Hey, I was raised a hippy child, so I am all for free love, but good luck on getting people to follow your beliefs on this one.  Too much power involved for society to let it change.

This is not a universal explanation and it doesn't explain all of our behaviors.

I think many of us are addicted to the risky aspect of it.  Sex with a SO has grown stale and we either don't know how to make it dangerous or exciting again or one of us WON'T let it get dangerous or exciting again.  We like the rush.  It gets us hot.  

This isn't unusual and it doesn't make any of us strange (men and ladies - we both often have this addiction).  The changes in our bodies and brains that arise from dealing with tension and risk are closely associated with reactions that arise from sexuality.

People that experience this are rarely sexually disfunctional.  Sexual disfunctionality  is closely tied with the inability to handle tension and risk.  

We also focus on how to manage risk to capture the energy and minimize the real  danger.  It explains our often expressed concerns about avoiding LE, detection, and problems with disease.  We have thought about these things quite carefully and generally have a pretty realistic idea of what we are getting into (although we may differ on the particulars).

Why are we turned on by the risk?  That is the really interesting question here.  I think it can arise in all sorts of ways -- some of which are dark and some of which aren't so dark.  Dark things may be things like childhood abuse (being turned on as a child with secrets and a secret life).  Lighter things may be finding out that sex is much hotter after some very exciting or dangerous activity or after a really big argument.

Whatdoya think?    Harry

-- Modified on 11/3/2003 5:54:16 AM