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Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to lose my integrity to get my revenge. I will get it in a settlement.

Is it losing your integrity to have great sex?

No, but if you promised to only have sex with your spouse, then having sex with someone else - regardless of the quality - is losing your integrity. Unless your word means nothing, of course.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

An affair is sexy tempting fun to the one having it. To the other partner it’s not a shocking betrayal if they themselves had an affair. It’s not a gross beytrayal because the other spouse already opened the door - that’s the whole argument.

An affair is "sexy tempting fun" to jerks and creeps and low-integrity people. You're either one of them, or you're not. Getting cheated on doesn't tend to make those of us who don't cheat feel horny; betrayal isn't an aphrodisiac for most people. So if you're not already a cheater, you're unlikely to become one if/when your spouse cheats.

Cheating is always a gross betrayal to people who value their integrity. That's why it hurts so badly to get cheated on: you realize what a low-down dirty person someone you trusted turned out to be.

If that’s your take then get divorced.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

An affair is sexy tempting fun to the one having it. To the other partner it’s not a shocking betrayal if they themselves had an affair. It’s not a gross beytrayal because the other spouse already opened the door - that’s the whole argument.

My opinion- and I’m not a psychologist so it might just be super worthless- is that the person who didn’t cheat has a higher standard of integrity, so cheating out of anger/revenge may initially FEEL fun but would just leave behind a bad taste. Which isn’t fair. But everything about this scenario is unfair.

If someone is going to forever feel that they have more integrity than their spouse and they are going to ride that hobby horse forevvvver, that sounds like a miserable marriage. May as well call it quits.

I don’t see how you could recover from an affair while forever seeing your spouse as morally inferior to you. I think that in one way or another, you have to come around to seeing the affair as a mistake based on the attraction of sex and romance. One way (not the only way) to do that would be to have a fling yourself. Then yeah - you move on with a better understanding of sex and marriage.

Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to lose my integrity to get my revenge. I will get it in a settlement.

Is it losing your integrity to have great sex?

Anonymous wrote:
OP here, my issue is the kids are a big part of my life. I want to spend time with them every single day until they are in college…I can get over the anger of the betrayal( temporarily at least) by engaging in a few long term flings myself. And maybe with time I can forgive.

I would rather not get divorced now and share custody. So my solution is to have my fun on the side( secretly) and hold things together. The revenge fling is giving me enough of a dopamine high that I can fake that everything is fine for now and it pacifies my anger.

I didn’t ask to be in this predicament. But it’s the best I can do to hold things together.

Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to lose my integrity to get my revenge. I will get it in a settlement.

NP here. I’m not going to get on an integrity high horse. However, I do believe in that saying that “revenge/anger/resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. If in the aftermath while you are deciding what you want to do, I see no problem with exploring to see if you want to stay married or want to have an open relationship. I also don’t see an issue with agreeing to stay for the kids but both able to be with other people. But I think if you have committed to working on the relationship with that person and forgiving the person having a revenge affair is counterproductive to that process. If the person that cheated isn’t committed to working on the relationship - I would assume they would stay in the affair/cheat again so I would make the decisions from there what I want to accept or do. In fact, part of the reason I wouldn’t want to stay just for the kids is I just don’t believe both people will be faithful for 5, 10, 15 more years if there isn’t that desire from both to get to the point you want to stay married for yourself and each other when the kids are gone.

No. I don't have that kind of energy and initiative, lol.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

An affair is sexy tempting fun to the one having it. To the other partner it’s not a shocking betrayal if they themselves had an affair. It’s not a gross beytrayal because the other spouse already opened the door - that’s the whole argument.

An affair is "sexy tempting fun" to jerks and creeps and low-integrity people. You're either one of them, or you're not. Getting cheated on doesn't tend to make those of us who don't cheat feel horny; betrayal isn't an aphrodisiac for most people. So if you're not already a cheater, you're unlikely to become one if/when your spouse cheats.

Cheating is always a gross betrayal to people who value their integrity. That's why it hurts so badly to get cheated on: you realize what a low-down dirty person someone you trusted turned out to be.

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

This. I'm not going to degrade myself because my spouse behaved badly. I'm not a cheater.

OP here, my issue is the kids are a big part of my life. I want to spend time with them every single day until they are in college…I can get over the anger of the betrayal( temporarily at least) by engaging in a few long term flings myself. And maybe with time I can forgive.

I would rather not get divorced now and share custody. So my solution is to have my fun on the side( secretly) and hold things together. The revenge fling is giving me enough of a dopamine high that I can fake that everything is fine for now and it pacifies my anger.

I didn’t ask to be in this predicament. But it’s the best I can do to hold things together.

Anonymous wrote:I’m not going to lose my integrity to get my revenge. I will get it in a settlement.

I’m not going to lose my integrity to get my revenge. I will get it in a settlement.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

An affair is sexy tempting fun to the one having it. To the other partner it’s not a shocking betrayal if they themselves had an affair. It’s not a gross beytrayal because the other spouse already opened the door - that’s the whole argument.

My opinion- and I’m not a psychologist so it might just be super worthless- is that the person who didn’t cheat has a higher standard of integrity, so cheating out of anger/revenge may initially FEEL fun but would just leave behind a bad taste. Which isn’t fair. But everything about this scenario is unfair.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

Yes exactly.

Adults use their words. They don't wonder or imagine that they have tacit approval to do something. Just say the thing out loud to your spouse, and go from there.

Everyone should have agency. That's why affairs are wrong . . . because they are foisted upon a third party who didn't choose them. Otherwise, it's consenting adults, and that's all good.

If you have to argue on the internet that you have tacit permission to do something, methinks the lady doth protest too much . . .

I actually truly believe that if your partner steps out there’s perfect justification for you to do the same, and never tell them. In fact my guess is that most long marriages in times past involved this kind of thing.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

OP called it revenge cheating.

You think it might be a healthier response. Perhaps it would be for you. Others are saying it would not be for them. Why is that a problem for you and why do you think people who disagree are too prim or don’t like sex? Why are you asking people’s opinions and then arguing when they provide it?

I’m fine with others having other views. It seems you aren’t fine with my view though! I do maintain that to the extent you care about morality or what others think, it is true that very very few people would blame OP for a well-timed fling. If she turned it into some kind of crazy psychodrama, obviously that’s not helpful. But what seems to be the case is you and other PPs reject the notion that a woman could benefit from a night or two of fun s*x.

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Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t want to be equal on that basis. I’d want to be better than that.

You don’t get it. It’s not about being “better than.” It’s getting to expand your horizons just like your spouse did. For that matter, a relationship premised forever on you being better than your spouse doesn’t sound that great.

You don’t get it.

You are just trying to justify revenge cheating. Why? Do whatever you want. You asked what others would do and they answered. They aren’t arguing with you over what you have done or want to do. Go ahead. Have at it.

It’s not “revenge” cheating in OP’s scenario. It’s just, having a (hopefully) very fun fling to clear the air and regain some agency. I realize that for most women the stars do not always align to find a ONS partner that will provide that, but if the opportunity presented itself? Nobody will fault you. And it seems potentially a more healthy response than spending the rest of your life primly insisting you would never ever stoop to such a level that your craven spouse did.

Regain some agency? In this scenario the way to regain agency is to leave the cheater.

I just find this a really curious attitude. I generally roll my eyes at “open marriage” people, but the one scenario I can personally imagine it making a ton of sense is in the wake of an affair (provided the opportunity). I’d much rather replace thoughts of betrayal with memories of a nice fling. Not sure why this is a worse outcome than tanking the marriage.

Does your view really make sense?

If having a revenge affair is a “nice fling,” then why would you be upset enough about your spouse having an affair that you would want “revenge?”

Either an affair is a gross betrayal of the person you love or it is sexy tempting fun. Acknowledging that perhaps it is both adds some nuance to the conversation that most people who are betrayed don’t seem to feel. If you think that it is a ton of fun, why do you blame your spouse for trying it? If you think that the experience of sleeping around outside the marriage has inherent value, does that mean you understand why your spouse gave in and did it? Let them know that it sounds fun and you’re going to try it out too. What is the point of sneaking around? That creates guilt. Just open the marriage in that case.

An affair is sexy tempting fun to the one having it. To the other partner it’s not a shocking betrayal if they themselves had an affair. It’s not a gross beytrayal because the other spouse already opened the door - that’s the whole argument.

Nope. That’s majorly messed up, OP.