Advising men and women to stay with cheating spouses, why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being in a marriage with someone that you can not trust would mean having the potential for catastrophe looming over your head at any time...you've just turned a blind eye to it and chose to bury your head.

I agree that single cat lady sounds better than sitting on a time bomb waiting for it to explode.

I think not.

If anybody has personal experience with both and cares to chime in, I'm all ears.

I left my spouse in large part for this reason -- the stress of sitting on the ticking time bomb. Any day he could give me an STD I would have to live with for life. Any day he could blow another huge some of money on porn or prostitutes. Any day he could get involved with some crazy woman and drag that crazy into the lives of me and my kids. Every day I would question whether what was coming out of his mouth was the truth or a lie.

I am so glad I kicked him out. I am not crazy cat lady because I have full custody of our two kids, but our life is 1000% better without that instability even though we are poor and my career has been wrecked by the lack of a reliable parenting partner.

Had we been childless, I would have kicked him out and not looked back for a second. It's interesting how we use the pejorative "crazy cat lady" for a single woman, when the true crazy is the partnered male who tells the vast quantity of lies necessary to cheat in a relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I noticed some posters encouraging a wive or husband to stay in a marriage with a cheating spouse. I keep reading comments like " seek counseling" " work it though" and "don't get divorced"

Why would anyone advice a person to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on them regardless if they are children involved? Some people just donot understand what cheating is and its impact to any relationship? Are the people encouraging this miserable and just want company?
Is this a self-esteem problem? I have always believed you lower self-worth staying in a relationship with a cheater. It's accepting mediocrity into your life.It's settling for the lowest. A person who cheats is a coward. Why would you want be with a coward? It's welcoming misery into you life. We have too many single men and women on the planet to have settle for a cheater. Why lower your standards?

I'm the cheater, but I can tell you why my husband stays with me. He doesn't want the kids 50% of the time on his own; he wants 50% of our money; so long as I'm discreet, he's happy he doesn't have to be my 100% sexual outlet. He isn't up to it/interested enough, which resulted in me cheating. So long as his friends don't know, he can live with it. And I don't want a divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have ZERO desire to get out and date again. For what? Breakup my family to find another man than might end up doing the same thing? My husband is an excellent provider, father, and partner. I would never in a million years tell him this but I wouldn't divorce over cheating (and I've been cheated on by a long term ex bf but he was very shitty in other ways so it wasn't worth staying).

Quality men can chase pussy with no consequence.

So can quality women, chase men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I noticed some posters encouraging a wive or husband to stay in a marriage with a cheating spouse. I keep reading comments like " seek counseling" " work it though" and "don't get divorced"

Why would anyone advice a person to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on them regardless if they are children involved? Some people just donot understand what cheating is and its impact to any relationship? Are the people encouraging this miserable and just want company?
Is this a self-esteem problem? I have always believed you lower self-worth staying in a relationship with a cheater. It's accepting mediocrity into your life.It's settling for the lowest. A person who cheats is a coward. Why would you want be with a coward? It's welcoming misery into you life. We have too many single men and women on the planet to have settle for a cheater. Why lower your standards?

I'm the cheater, but I can tell you why my husband stays with me. He doesn't want the kids 50% of the time on his own; he wants 50% of our money; so long as I'm discreet, he's happy he doesn't have to be my 100% sexual outlet. He isn't up to it/interested enough, which resulted in me cheating. So long as his friends don't know, he can live with it. And I don't want a divorce.

Does he know you're cheating and has told you he's fine with it on the terms you mention? Or is this what you suppose he feels?

[Anonymous]

10:15, you have posted this before, right? Do you love your DH? Still have sex with him? Does he love you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I noticed some posters encouraging a wive or husband to stay in a marriage with a cheating spouse. I keep reading comments like " seek counseling" " work it though" and "don't get divorced"

Why would anyone advice a person to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on them regardless if they are children involved? Some people just donot understand what cheating is and its impact to any relationship? Are the people encouraging this miserable and just want company?
Is this a self-esteem problem? I have always believed you lower self-worth staying in a relationship with a cheater. It's accepting mediocrity into your life.It's settling for the lowest. A person who cheats is a coward. Why would you want be with a coward? It's welcoming misery into you life. We have too many single men and women on the planet to have settle for a cheater. Why lower your standards?

I'm the cheater, but I can tell you why my husband stays with me. He doesn't want the kids 50% of the time on his own; he wants 50% of our money; so long as I'm discreet, he's happy he doesn't have to be my 100% sexual outlet. He isn't up to it/interested enough, which resulted in me cheating. So long as his friends don't know, he can live with it. And I don't want a divorce.

Does he know you're cheating and has told you he's fine with it on the terms you mention? Or is this what you suppose he feels?

He knows. He has not told me expressly that he's fine with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:15, you have posted this before, right? Do you love your DH? Still have sex with him? Does he love you?

I don't love him romantically. He's a good guy though. I wouldn't say no if he wanted to have sex. We usually do once or twice a month. I think he does still love me, but it's complicated.

[Anonymous]

I don't know that the issue is always so black and white. If someone would have asked me 14 years ago when I got married what would I do if he ever cheated on me, I would have said unequivocally, "Divorce his ass." Now 14 years in, I have a different perspective. Context matters. Was it a one time thing on a business trip or was this an ongoing affair complete with sneaking around, lying to me, taking time away from the family to be with this person.

The first scenario is forgivable and one is probably able to work through if both parties want to. The second, to me, shows a deeper character flaw and the marriage might not be salvageable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I noticed some posters encouraging a wive or husband to stay in a marriage with a cheating spouse. I keep reading comments like " seek counseling" " work it though" and "don't get divorced"

Why would anyone advice a person to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on them regardless if they are children involved? Some people just donot understand what cheating is and its impact to any relationship? Are the people encouraging this miserable and just want company?
Is this a self-esteem problem? I have always believed you lower self-worth staying in a relationship with a cheater. It's accepting mediocrity into your life.It's settling for the lowest. A person who cheats is a coward. Why would you want be with a coward? It's welcoming misery into you life. We have too many single men and women on the planet to have settle for a cheater. Why lower your standards?

I'm the cheater, but I can tell you why my husband stays with me. He doesn't want the kids 50% of the time on his own; he wants 50% of our money; so long as I'm discreet, he's happy he doesn't have to be my 100% sexual outlet. He isn't up to it/interested enough, which resulted in me cheating. So long as his friends don't know, he can live with it. And I don't want a divorce.

Does he know you're cheating and has told you he's fine with it on the terms you mention? Or is this what you suppose he feels?

He knows. He has not told me expressly that he's fine with it.

Well I suppose that you can assume that he's fine with it then . Right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:15, you have posted this before, right? Do you love your DH? Still have sex with him? Does he love you?

I don't love him romantically. He's a good guy though. I wouldn't say no if he wanted to have sex. We usually do once or twice a month. I think he does still love me, but it's complicated.

Yes, it is complicated. Are you involved with only one other person? Are kids the only reason you stay or his DH a good person but insecure or gets off on humiliation? Sorry for all the questions but your situation is fascinating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know that the issue is always so black and white. If someone would have asked me 14 years ago when I got married what would I do if he ever cheated on me, I would have said unequivocally, "Divorce his ass." Now 14 years in, I have a different perspective. Context matters. Was it a one time thing on a business trip or was this an ongoing affair complete with sneaking around, lying to me, taking time away from the family to be with this person.

The first scenario is forgivable and one is probably able to work through if both parties want to. The second, to me, shows a deeper character flaw and the marriage might not be salvageable.

The second sounds like Mark Sanford.

[Anonymous]

I know of a few friends who have cheated on their husbands. In every case it was a blip on the radar screen, was not a sign of things to come, and didn't blow up the marriage.

In my youth, I might have thought this was very black-and-white bad. But in my mid-40's, I'm not particularly incensed. They had their reasons, they are none of my business, so I don't really care.

I do have a couple of friends who are chronic cheaters, and I find that more distasteful. I find myself wondering why those people got married in the first place, and why they bother to stay married. Those situations bother me a lot more - the pattern of dishonesty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know of a few friends who have cheated on their husbands. In every case it was a blip on the radar screen, was not a sign of things to come, and didn't blow up the marriage.

In my youth, I might have thought this was very black-and-white bad. But in my mid-40's, I'm not particularly incensed. They had their reasons, they are none of my business, so I don't really care.

I do have a couple of friends who are chronic cheaters, and I find that more distasteful. I find myself wondering why those people got married in the first place, and why they bother to stay married. Those situations bother me a lot more - the pattern of dishonesty.

Maybe their husbands also cheated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I noticed some posters encouraging a wive or husband to stay in a marriage with a cheating spouse. I keep reading comments like " seek counseling" " work it though" and "don't get divorced"

Why would anyone advice a person to stay in a marriage with someone who cheated on them regardless if they are children involved? Some people just donot understand what cheating is and its impact to any relationship? Are the people encouraging this miserable and just want company?
Is this a self-esteem problem? I have always believed you lower self-worth staying in a relationship with a cheater. It's accepting mediocrity into your life.It's settling for the lowest. A person who cheats is a coward. Why would you want be with a coward? It's welcoming misery into you life. We have too many single men and women on the planet to have settle for a cheater. Why lower your standards?

Why would anyone advise a person to stay in a marriage with a cheater? Because of the deep sexism in our society. Because that sexism in our culture has long made women responsible for both stirring up and restraining man's passion. And so, we still blame women for the sexual lives of their male partners. The unspoken stigma of cheating is that the man must have cheated because he was not satisfied in the marriage. Perhaps the wife didn't take care of him sexually. Perhaps there was some emotional need of his not being met. Perhaps she was too shrewish or bossy. The entire premise of marital counseling for infidelity is that there is something wrong in the marriage and that marriage failure is in equal part the failure of the victim partner.

And, I say "man" above, because the truth is that when a woman cheats, the man is encouraged to divorce. You don't see many cuckolded men being advised to "work it through".

You too are blaming the woman by asking if it is a "self-esteem" problem. Do you have any idea how hard it must be to leave a cheater when vast swathes of our culture are telling us women that it's our fault? How many years did it take the culture to come to the conclusion that "date rape" was rape by the perpetrator and not the fault of the victim? So, we haven't gotten anywhere close to there yet with infidelity, i.e. placing the blame on the perpetrator of the behavior (and the lies and the manipulation, etc.) and not the victim.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for someone who has been sexually victimized by the cheater to then take voluntary actions that are likely to have a further negative impact -- losing 50% custody of the children, losing economic benefits, etc. Yes, there is a huge gain in leaving a cheater; one doesn't have to live with that kind of emotional abuse any more. But, let's not kid ourselves. Sadly, when women are open about the sexual violence against them, they often suffer additional repercussions.

I can guarantee you, if the law said that cheaters lose custody of their children and the victim spouse receives the marital home and enough money to continue the lifestyle the victim spouse and kids had prior to the cheating, there isn't a woman alive who wouldn't DTMF.

Don't assume it's just men who cheat. Aside from that I think your proposal is great. My now exDW cheated and I'm sure she loves being divorced. Got a nice little nest egg and 50% time to screw around. Frankly I'm surprised the divorce isn't way higher.

[Anonymous]

Women cheat more than men because they can. No matter how fat, # of kids or marriages, there is always a horndog who will plow at a moments notice.