Anonymous wrote:When I was single, and when I was married, I knew the line of what was I appropriate. I would intentionally shut it down and usually redirect to a conversation about their wife or children.
That said there are some very manipulative snakes out there - I don’t think it is wrong to want a snake to apologize for every person s/he poisoned. I also don’t think it is something to truly expect from a snake.
And yes, women cheat as often as men, but that is so irrelevant I’m tired of people nitpicking over it. Cheating is an issue of morality; what that looks like and whether it is a forgivable sin varies person to person.
I’ve thought a lot about this. My ex husband cheated on me often. It didn’t really bother me. Another LTR I am 97% confident that he was faithful, because he was brutally honest, I knew him well, and I knew how to keep him satisfied. If that person would have cheated, I would have forgiven them. They were so clear about their sexual needs that it was like I was brainwashed to think desiring variety didn’t interfere with our love and friendship. The partner I have now, if he were cheating I would never, ever, ever forgive him. Ever. He and I have been through too much and deceiving me in any way would bring the most painful of all curses upon his life if he dogged me out, I wouldn’t even risk being near him for the universal wrath that would be trickled over his life.
I think my correlation around tolerance for disloyalty was closely associated with my level of insecurity. As I became more secure in myself as a person and grew from unhealthy mindsets, I raised expectations for those around me too. I attracted people that were on my level and they became attractive to me. While I am firmly against infidelity, I’ve seen a lot of sides of it so tend to be far less harsh and condemning in my judgment in circumstances where people are struggling (or exploiting it).
That's a whole lot of crazy, trauma and dysfunction packed in that paragraph.
I am glad to see you have grown to expect more for yourself and not tolerate people disrespecting you. A lot of us were lucky enough to grow up in a home that fostered that so NEVER had a time (even with boyfriends in teen years) where we tolerated lying and cheating from a guy.