CDZ Whom do you think bears the onus for marital fidelity?

[usmbguest5318]

Although, this does bring up another question..................

What exactly do you consider "marital fidelity"?

I used to have a friend of mine and he and his wife were "swingers". They both loved each other very much and had been married for a long time, but, when he was in the military, he ended up getting hurt and became impotent and couldn't have sex anymore. She still had a pretty healthy sex drive, so when they went out, she would look around to see what guys she was interested in having a physical relation with. She would go and flirt with the guy, he would come by after they started talking and they would ask the guy if he would like to have sex with her while the husband watched. So, because it was agreed to by both people in the marriage, and she never picked up on married guys, they looked at it as an extension of their sex life and not being unfaithful.

I also know how I felt when I was married. I was in the Navy, and had to deploy on a regular basis. I told my wife that I would be more upset with her if I came home to find out she had been going out for coffee with a guy on a weekly basis and shared her hopes, dreams and fears with him and kept them from me, than if I came home and found out she'd gone and had a physical affair because she was horny.

So, I just gave 2 very different examples of what some would or wouldn't consider cheating.

Although, this does bring up another question..................

What exactly do you consider "marital fidelity"?

???? Seriously? Did you miss the very first sentence in the OP?

For this thread purpose, marital fidelity means "strict adherence to whatever it be that parties to a marriage vowed to do and no do."

For this thread's purpose "forsake all others" means exactly what it's meant for millennia. It means to refrain from engaging in sexual acts with anyone other than their spouse.

By all means, create your own thread to ask people that question. This thread has a working definition of "marital fidelity."

 

[usmbguest5318]

To members who have or will vote in the poll itself: Thank you.

I truly appreciate your doing so. It's nice to get the key information one seeks by looking in one place rather than in post, after post, after post.

 

[BuckToothMoron]

Preface:

For this thread purpose, marital fidelity means "strict adherence to whatever it be that parties to a marriage vowed to do and no do."

For this thread's purpose "forsake all others" means exactly what it's meant for millennia. It means to refrain from engaging in sexual acts with anyone other than their spouse.

​

Thread scope/topic:

• Not the thread topic --> The factors (literal, tacit, substantive and/or evanescent) pertaining to marriage itself's legal characteristics, antecedents, and/or consequences are outside the scope of this thread.
• Not the thread topic --> One's views on the morality of any given marriage vow or set thereof aren't the thread's topic.
• The thread topic --> The thread topic is whom you think bears the onus for not violating marital fidelity. Posters are welcome to share why thy think "this or that" party bears that onus, and those reasons may indeed come from the types of things that aren't the thread's focus; however, when doing so, one must present such things as reasons for one's answer to the thread question, reasons for one's holding the opinion one does, not as topics of discussion, remarks, etc. unto themselves.
• Not the thread topic --> Anything and everything else that may come into one's mind.

Thread Rubric:
The past pair of years have been rife will news about multiple public figures' (celebs and politicians) apparent marital infidelity..."apparent" because for most of those figures, most of us can only assume the married parties to those very public "scandals" vowed, among other things, to "forsake all others." [1]

Obviously a single person who's taken a shine to a married person cannot know the nature of the vows the wedded person made to their partner, though s/he can ask. I doubt many people do ask that, which, frankly and IMO, is a key question to ask upon learning the object of one's affection is married. After all, folks these days structure their marriages in all sorts of ways, so many, indeed, that about all one can tenebly assume about another's being "married is that s/he has a legally agreed upon and identified partner.

Be that as it may and to put the title/poll question in different words...in your mind and provided the married person in question has vowed to "forsake all others, as it were:

1. Upon learning the object of one's affection is wedded, is one obliged to withdraw one's aspirations toward that married person?
2. As a married person, is one obliged, upon learning another is by one besotted, to nip that sh*t in the bud?
3. Does existential marital fidelity have a mental dimension?

It’s always the woman’s fault. Men do what we are programmed to do, spread our seed.

 

[Lysistrata]

Of course, both bear the responsibility to remain faithful, particularly if they voluntarily took vows that included fidelity. Vows are voluntary and it is a matter of personal integrity to keep them, from marriage vows to protecting the Constitution.

It's too bad the above poll did not mention Satan, since just about everyone who breaks his or her vow of fidelity ends up blaming him. There is no such thing as integrity when Satan's got hold of your private parts, which is why we all have to sit through those awful speeches of repentance given by politicians who get caught.

However, if both members of the couple voluntarily agree to alter their arrangement, I guess they can since the promises are between them. I saw an interesting news piece a little while ago about a heterosexual couple who each keep a spare partner. The foursome claim to be the best of friends, cook and eat meals together, and heaven only knows what else. Each of the couple sleeps with the other spouse, the husband also sleeps with his spare, the wife also sleeps with her spare, and it is unclear whether the two spares ever sleep together. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but like everything else pertaining to consensual sex between adults, it's none of my business.

 

[ChrisL]

Both parties have to want to make it work and have respect and love and care for one another. People who don't get along well are probably more apt to cheat. That is sometimes not any one person's fault, it's just the way it is. Some people's personalities are going to clash.

 

[JoeMoma]

Case by case basis!

 

[JoeMoma]

Both parties have to want to make it work and have respect and love and care for one another. People who don't get along well are probably more apt to cheat. That is sometimes not any one person's fault, it's just the way it is. Some people's personalities are going to clash.

Some couples should have never married.

 

[Lysistrata]

This discussion just brought back memories of my father, who married my mother in a Catholic ceremony on a three-day pass from the Army in WWII. Yes, they fought. I remember an ugly car ride when I was little when divorce was mentioned. But B never forgot that he was Stephanie's husband, and she never forgot that she was his wife. They never took their wedding rings off except for surgery. There was no question of anyone trading in for a newer model.

One day at my house, my Dad started reading a copy of Washingtonian magazine. When he got to the personals section, he started asking what the abbreviations meant (MWM, "married white male;" SBF, "single black female," GWM, "gay white male," etc.), all advertising for sexual relationships. The look on that man's face! He was stunned.

When he died, my mother already being gone, the mortician asked me if I wanted his wedding ring. No. It was his, my mother gave it to him at the altar, and he had earned the right to wear it forever.

People should not get married unless and until they know that they can function as a team and that a mutual feeling of loyalty exists between them. If one feels superior to the other, or disengaged, or is obviously power-tripping, there should not be a marriage in the first place.

This is why, in agreement with some 90+ percent of Americans, I'm not with the "abstinence until marriage" bit. Better to "sow one's wild oats," get one's raging hormones under control, learn the difference between love and lust, and get all of that "see the world" stuff out of the way, because once you're in it, you're in it to win it.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

I was married for 30 years and was completely faithful that entire time. I was extremely tempted once, but did not follow through. I cannot say the same for my wife, as she developed an outside relationship.

I do have a relationship today that is absolutely loyal and true, however. It's with an absolutely gorgeous fellow with strawberry blond hair and huge brown eyes. We are together constantly, sleep together every night, and never argue. We are always happy to see each other, very devoted to one another, and I know in my heart that he will never stray.




.....well, unless he sees a cat, in which case he's off and running.

 

[boedicca]

How is this even a debate? Of course the two spouses are responsible for their own actions. Some third party tempting one of them is not a justification for infidelity, nor is the third party responsible for the decision of the philanderer to philander.

 

[Care4all]

If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then.
-- Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

We are such strange creatures, eh?

 

[ChrisL]

Both parties have to want to make it work and have respect and love and care for one another. People who don't get along well are probably more apt to cheat. That is sometimes not any one person's fault, it's just the way it is. Some people's personalities are going to clash.

Some couples should have never married.

Yeah, but unfortunately some people get married before they really get to know one another well. Imagine having to be married to someone that you can't stand? That's probably why some people cheat anyways, because they hate each other. Lol.

 

[ChrisL]

If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then.
-- Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

We are such strange creatures, eh?

Some people are anyways. Seriously, affairs are not all they are cracked up to be. A friend of mine had an affair on her husband and it was pure hell for her. She felt guilt and she didn't eat and lost a bunch of weight and ended up getting sick. She wasn't have too much fun sneaking around. I think the idea of an affair is probably a lot more exciting than the affair itself in a lot of cases too. Expectations and fantasizing always seem to be more than reality brings to the table. I have to think that if I disrespected my spouse enough to cheat on him and hurt him that way, then I would file for divorce first.

 

[ChrisL]

And if you are just so weak that you can't say no to the sex, then you are a just a loser. Sorry.

 

[BlackSand]

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Pineapple​

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[ABikerSailor]

Both parties have to want to make it work and have respect and love and care for one another. People who don't get along well are probably more apt to cheat. That is sometimes not any one person's fault, it's just the way it is. Some people's personalities are going to clash.

Some couples should have never married.

Yeah, but unfortunately some people get married before they really get to know one another well. Imagine having to be married to someone that you can't stand? That's probably why some people cheat anyways, because they hate each other. Lol.

I'm one of those people who got married before they knew their spouse, and did it for all the wrong reasons.

I had just made E4 in the Navy, and all my friends who had just made E4 were getting married. Well, I went on leave with a friend of mine and his girlfriend introduced me to a friend of hers. I then spent the next few days screwing my brains out. I went back to Norfolk, got drunk one night, called her up and proposed. She accepted, because she was desperate to get out of the small town she was in.

I only spent about a week of face to face time with her (the week I was having sex), and wrote a couple of letters and made a couple of phone calls. Time from meeting her to marriage was about a month.

Yeah, I know, kinda messed up, and that is the reason my marriage only lasted about 7 years.

 

[jillian]

Preface:

For this thread purpose, marital fidelity means "strict adherence to whatever it be that parties to a marriage vowed to do and no do."

For this thread's purpose "forsake all others" means exactly what it's meant for millennia. It means to refrain from engaging in sexual acts with anyone other than their spouse.

​

Thread scope/topic:

• Not the thread topic --> The factors (literal, tacit, substantive and/or evanescent) pertaining to marriage itself's legal characteristics, antecedents, and/or consequences are outside the scope of this thread.
• Not the thread topic --> One's views on the morality of any given marriage vow or set thereof aren't the thread's topic.
• The thread topic --> The thread topic is whom you think bears the onus for not violating marital fidelity. Posters are welcome to share why thy think "this or that" party bears that onus, and those reasons may indeed come from the types of things that aren't the thread's focus; however, when doing so, one must present such things as reasons for one's answer to the thread question, reasons for one's holding the opinion one does, not as topics of discussion, remarks, etc. unto themselves.
• Not the thread topic --> Anything and everything else that may come into one's mind.

Thread Rubric:
The past pair of years have been rife will news about multiple public figures' (celebs and politicians) apparent marital infidelity..."apparent" because for most of those figures, most of us can only assume the married parties to those very public "scandals" vowed, among other things, to "forsake all others." [1]

Obviously a single person who's taken a shine to a married person cannot know the nature of the vows the wedded person made to their partner, though s/he can ask. I doubt many people do ask that, which, frankly and IMO, is a key question to ask upon learning the object of one's affection is married. After all, folks these days structure their marriages in all sorts of ways, so many, indeed, that about all one can tenebly assume about another's being "married is that s/he has a legally agreed upon and identified partner.

Be that as it may and to put the title/poll question in different words...in your mind and provided the married person in question has vowed to "forsake all others, as it were:

1. Upon learning the object of one's affection is wedded, is one obliged to withdraw one's aspirations toward that married person?
2. As a married person, is one obliged, upon learning another is by one besotted, to nip that sh*t in the bud?
3. Does existential marital fidelity have a mental dimension?

what kind of question is that?

the person responsible for infidelity is the person who cheats

 

[jillian]

Both parties in the marriage.

how is the non-cheating party responsible for someone cheating?

that's absurd

if you're not happy, you can leave.

 

[Kat]

Both parties in the marriage.

how is the non-cheating party responsible for someone cheating?

that's absurd

if you're not happy, you can leave.

And so can you.
Let me explain. What was meant was this:
If the husband cheats..it's on him, not the wife or the one he cheats with.
If the wife cheats, it is on her, not the one she cheats with, or her husband.
Do you get it now?

 

[usmbguest5318]

Both parties in the marriage.

how is the non-cheating party responsible for someone cheating?

that's absurd

if you're not happy, you can leave.

By my standards of personal integrity in such situations:

• Cheating partner --> Obligation to reject offers from "outsiders"
• "Outsiders"
  • Obligation to find out if the person who attracts them is already "claimed."
  • Obligation, if one's "person of interest" is "claimed," to "back-off" in accordance with "do unto others as one'd have them do unto oneself."

You either don't concur with that standard or you weren't aware it might be a extant standard. Either way, now you do know and how you manage/apply that knowledge is up to you. I'm not going to presume to suggest how you should manage/apply the knowledge.