2010-07-07

Cheating and Honesty

A young woman and man embracing while outdoors.Image via Wikipedia
Read a bit about cheating over at Anonymous 8( The Many Voices of Infidelity, Cheating on a Cheater ), and then was just listening to the View ( July 2 ) on Hulu, but haven't bothered to finish watching the view yet.  Part of what I hear every time I listen to people talk about cheating on, is the total lack of honesty, and almost emphasis on not telling, do to children, money concerns etc, or perhaps that these people are just not monogamous inclined.

The thing I rarely hear anyone talk about, when they do talk about cheating is the why did they cheat? why wasn't it something they where open and honest with their partner before it came to cheating?

I am a strong believe that you need to try and be honest, I know its often times easier said then done, but ultimately if you don't come clean and tell the other person for fear of letting them down, hurting them, hurting your family, its just going to grow into a bigger problem and at the same time is going to be a weight that you are taking around with you cause your not talking about it.

Now I don't have a list of studies as to what reason people give for cheating, but lets just take some rough examples to look at.

Somebody cheated cause there isn't enough intimacy in there relationship.
Alright so rather then talk to your significant other about something that is obviously a problem for you openly.  Trying to work out why its not there, how can can you work on bring it out more, is it work, do you have three kids that constantly need attention, maybe your wife is going though menopause, etc.  Your finding yourself wanting to go outside the bounds of your relationship to get sex elsewhere?

What should happen here is talking to your significant other, and trying to find a way to get the spice back in your relationship.  Find out whats inhibiting your ability to be intimate and try to find ways around them or to work out what is causing a problem.  

If you don't talk to your partner its never going to fix, and only going to create a bigger problem by cheating and then either lying about it, or telling the truth that it happened only to late.  Not only that often are they only admitting to the cheating, not the why they did.
You liked things better when you where single, you had sex with more people and didn't feel guilty about wanting to go out to the local sex club to get laid.
There are people out there who just want a open relationship, they try to force themselves into monogamous relationships because thats the way things are "suppose" to be.  Your not suppose to want to live with one person but be able to go out there and fool around or live with more then one person.  While being monogamous works for some people, that doesn't necessarily means it has to work for you.  There are people out there that are more then willing to be a in a relationship where they are a couple but are willing to be with other people outside the immediate relationship.

but this something again that you have to know for yourself and be willing to tell someone you are getting involved with so that they are alright with it.
Your relationship is over, you've tried to fix things but they just aren't working..
If you've tried everything you can possibly think of to fix your relationship and have talked to the person your are involved with honestly about what isn't working for you and are unable to reconcile things, you may start looking for another person to be with.

If for whatever reason you have basically decided that you need to move on, and find someone else, there could be problems such as not payed expenses, our children and possibly others that you may not want to bring up, or been advised not to seek divorce until after you can find a way to support you and your children, or the bills are payed or whatever needed to be done.

And its important i think that I note while I'm writing these things, they are the way I think I would like to handle them ideally if I was the one thinking of being with someone else.  That I would like to be honest and upfront about everything.
Ideally should be able to say that while things aren't working out, lets least take care of these things before we go ahead and leave, though there may be more immediate reason to leave if the situation is abusive.

If you in a abusive relationship, get out, do whatever you have to get out.  I don't care if you have kids together, I don't care that you have expenses, get your ass out of the relationship now.

This may be all a bit idealistic, but I think its important that you should be comfortable enough to talk to your significant other about what is working in your relationship, what you think could be better, and understand that while you may wish for something to be different, you may have to come up with some creative compromises to make things the best they can be for you.