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

[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.

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.

TY for sharing. Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

At the time, were you even sure of exactly what it meant to you to be married at all, without regard to whom you wed? I know I hadn't figured that out by my early twenties, and truly only had it figured out after about two years of being married. It so happened that my wife and I concurrently evolved our fuller understanding of what marriage meant to each of us, and fortunately we arrived at the same conception of what it was "really all about."

I can't say what may have happened had we arrived at different conclusions. I can say that even though marriages are pair bonds, the parties to them are nonetheless individuals and as such may well develop differing opinions of what a/their marriage is, what they want from it, why they're married, etc. I can identify those things for myself. I require that a potential spouse share my views in that regard, but I can't and won't tell someone else what those things should be for them. I have no place to say where on the spectrum of marital behavior and satisfaction anyone else should find it fitting to enter, remain in, or exit a marriage.

You are not at all the only person to wed before you knew your partner well. Indeed, it's possible you didn't at the time know yourself well. Indeed, it's very challenging to get to know someone else well when one doesn't know oneself well. Either of those two states of being, IMO, can augur poorly for a marriage's prospects, and yet some folks for whom one or the other was their circumstance "get lucky" and the marriage works out. For others, it doesn't.

What is there to say? At that level of interaction (emotional, financial, life progression, etc.), one has to be true to oneself before one can be true to another. So long as you learned and grew from that experience, it was a useful experience, however painful it may have been and remains.

To wit, as goes the matter of your "messing up," perhaps you didn't "mess up" at all. You've got to ask yourself whether there was another way, a less fraught way, given who you were "back then" and the circumstances/stimuli that influenced you, for you to have learned the lessons you did from your experience of marrying "too soon" and later parting ways. If there really wasn't, which is fairly likely, then you didn't mess up so much as you merely had to "drive the bumpy road," as it were, to arrive the knowledge you gained from that experience. Everybody at various times take a bumpy road to somewhere; it's merely that your bumpy road happened to be the one that included a marriage that didn't last "'til death do you part."

You know, I came to those conclusions in my late 20's, after I'd gotten divorced and had to "grow up" a bit and actually get to know myself.

A friend of mine who helped me through the tough times once told me something that has stuck with me about relationships. He told me "Rob, true love isn't about FINDING the right person, true love is about BECOMING the right person. Become the kind of person you would like to attract and see what happens.

He was right. And yeah, I got married when I was around 20, and didn't really know squat about what it meant to be an adult (had been in for 2 years), and also had zero clue about what a long lasting meaningful relationship is.

But, since I "grew up" and learned who I really am, things got a whole lot better, and I started attracting quality women who were into me for me.

So, pretend to be someone that is not really you. Interesting. I had a friend who tried that, put on a farce and tried to hide her true self and be someone that she really wasn't and couldn't ever be. She is divorced now, of course.

 

[JoeMoma]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

 

[ABikerSailor]

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.

TY for sharing. Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

At the time, were you even sure of exactly what it meant to you to be married at all, without regard to whom you wed? I know I hadn't figured that out by my early twenties, and truly only had it figured out after about two years of being married. It so happened that my wife and I concurrently evolved our fuller understanding of what marriage meant to each of us, and fortunately we arrived at the same conception of what it was "really all about."

I can't say what may have happened had we arrived at different conclusions. I can say that even though marriages are pair bonds, the parties to them are nonetheless individuals and as such may well develop differing opinions of what a/their marriage is, what they want from it, why they're married, etc. I can identify those things for myself. I require that a potential spouse share my views in that regard, but I can't and won't tell someone else what those things should be for them. I have no place to say where on the spectrum of marital behavior and satisfaction anyone else should find it fitting to enter, remain in, or exit a marriage.

You are not at all the only person to wed before you knew your partner well. Indeed, it's possible you didn't at the time know yourself well. Indeed, it's very challenging to get to know someone else well when one doesn't know oneself well. Either of those two states of being, IMO, can augur poorly for a marriage's prospects, and yet some folks for whom one or the other was their circumstance "get lucky" and the marriage works out. For others, it doesn't.

What is there to say? At that level of interaction (emotional, financial, life progression, etc.), one has to be true to oneself before one can be true to another. So long as you learned and grew from that experience, it was a useful experience, however painful it may have been and remains.

To wit, as goes the matter of your "messing up," perhaps you didn't "mess up" at all. You've got to ask yourself whether there was another way, a less fraught way, given who you were "back then" and the circumstances/stimuli that influenced you, for you to have learned the lessons you did from your experience of marrying "too soon" and later parting ways. If there really wasn't, which is fairly likely, then you didn't mess up so much as you merely had to "drive the bumpy road," as it were, to arrive the knowledge you gained from that experience. Everybody at various times take a bumpy road to somewhere; it's merely that your bumpy road happened to be the one that included a marriage that didn't last "'til death do you part."

You know, I came to those conclusions in my late 20's, after I'd gotten divorced and had to "grow up" a bit and actually get to know myself.

A friend of mine who helped me through the tough times once told me something that has stuck with me about relationships. He told me "Rob, true love isn't about FINDING the right person, true love is about BECOMING the right person. Become the kind of person you would like to attract and see what happens.

He was right. And yeah, I got married when I was around 20, and didn't really know squat about what it meant to be an adult (had been in for 2 years), and also had zero clue about what a long lasting meaningful relationship is.

But, since I "grew up" and learned who I really am, things got a whole lot better, and I started attracting quality women who were into me for me.

So, pretend to be someone that is not really you. Interesting. I had a friend who tried that, put on a farce and tried to hide her true self and be someone that she really wasn't and couldn't ever be. She is divorced now, of course.

Nope, not pretending, just didn't know who I was or what I was about, and wasn't really in a hurry to find out. And, because I hadn't investigated what I was about, I was unable to make choices that worked for me. When I figured out what I wanted to be like, and started to do so, that is when life opened up for me.

 

[JoeMoma]

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.

TY for sharing. Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

At the time, were you even sure of exactly what it meant to you to be married at all, without regard to whom you wed? I know I hadn't figured that out by my early twenties, and truly only had it figured out after about two years of being married. It so happened that my wife and I concurrently evolved our fuller understanding of what marriage meant to each of us, and fortunately we arrived at the same conception of what it was "really all about."

I can't say what may have happened had we arrived at different conclusions. I can say that even though marriages are pair bonds, the parties to them are nonetheless individuals and as such may well develop differing opinions of what a/their marriage is, what they want from it, why they're married, etc. I can identify those things for myself. I require that a potential spouse share my views in that regard, but I can't and won't tell someone else what those things should be for them. I have no place to say where on the spectrum of marital behavior and satisfaction anyone else should find it fitting to enter, remain in, or exit a marriage.

You are not at all the only person to wed before you knew your partner well. Indeed, it's possible you didn't at the time know yourself well. Indeed, it's very challenging to get to know someone else well when one doesn't know oneself well. Either of those two states of being, IMO, can augur poorly for a marriage's prospects, and yet some folks for whom one or the other was their circumstance "get lucky" and the marriage works out. For others, it doesn't.

What is there to say? At that level of interaction (emotional, financial, life progression, etc.), one has to be true to oneself before one can be true to another. So long as you learned and grew from that experience, it was a useful experience, however painful it may have been and remains.

To wit, as goes the matter of your "messing up," perhaps you didn't "mess up" at all. You've got to ask yourself whether there was another way, a less fraught way, given who you were "back then" and the circumstances/stimuli that influenced you, for you to have learned the lessons you did from your experience of marrying "too soon" and later parting ways. If there really wasn't, which is fairly likely, then you didn't mess up so much as you merely had to "drive the bumpy road," as it were, to arrive the knowledge you gained from that experience. Everybody at various times take a bumpy road to somewhere; it's merely that your bumpy road happened to be the one that included a marriage that didn't last "'til death do you part."

You know, I came to those conclusions in my late 20's, after I'd gotten divorced and had to "grow up" a bit and actually get to know myself.

A friend of mine who helped me through the tough times once told me something that has stuck with me about relationships. He told me "Rob, true love isn't about FINDING the right person, true love is about BECOMING the right person. Become the kind of person you would like to attract and see what happens.

He was right. And yeah, I got married when I was around 20, and didn't really know squat about what it meant to be an adult (had been in for 2 years), and also had zero clue about what a long lasting meaningful relationship is.

But, since I "grew up" and learned who I really am, things got a whole lot better, and I started attracting quality women who were into me for me.

So, pretend to be someone that is not really you. Interesting. I had a friend who tried that, put on a farce and tried to hide her true self and be someone that she really wasn't and couldn't ever be. She is divorced now, of course.

Nope, not pretending, just didn't know who I was or what I was about, and wasn't really in a hurry to find out. And, because I hadn't investigated what I was about, I was unable to make choices that worked for me. When I figured out what I wanted to be like, and started to do so, that is when life opened up for me.

Obviously you made positive changes to yourself/life which is not the same as pretending to be someone you are not.

 

[usmbguest5318]

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.

TY for sharing. Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

At the time, were you even sure of exactly what it meant to you to be married at all, without regard to whom you wed? I know I hadn't figured that out by my early twenties, and truly only had it figured out after about two years of being married. It so happened that my wife and I concurrently evolved our fuller understanding of what marriage meant to each of us, and fortunately we arrived at the same conception of what it was "really all about."

I can't say what may have happened had we arrived at different conclusions. I can say that even though marriages are pair bonds, the parties to them are nonetheless individuals and as such may well develop differing opinions of what a/their marriage is, what they want from it, why they're married, etc. I can identify those things for myself. I require that a potential spouse share my views in that regard, but I can't and won't tell someone else what those things should be for them. I have no place to say where on the spectrum of marital behavior and satisfaction anyone else should find it fitting to enter, remain in, or exit a marriage.

You are not at all the only person to wed before you knew your partner well. Indeed, it's possible you didn't at the time know yourself well. Indeed, it's very challenging to get to know someone else well when one doesn't know oneself well. Either of those two states of being, IMO, can augur poorly for a marriage's prospects, and yet some folks for whom one or the other was their circumstance "get lucky" and the marriage works out. For others, it doesn't.

What is there to say? At that level of interaction (emotional, financial, life progression, etc.), one has to be true to oneself before one can be true to another. So long as you learned and grew from that experience, it was a useful experience, however painful it may have been and remains.

To wit, as goes the matter of your "messing up," perhaps you didn't "mess up" at all. You've got to ask yourself whether there was another way, a less fraught way, given who you were "back then" and the circumstances/stimuli that influenced you, for you to have learned the lessons you did from your experience of marrying "too soon" and later parting ways. If there really wasn't, which is fairly likely, then you didn't mess up so much as you merely had to "drive the bumpy road," as it were, to arrive the knowledge you gained from that experience. Everybody at various times take a bumpy road to somewhere; it's merely that your bumpy road happened to be the one that included a marriage that didn't last "'til death do you part."

You know, I came to those conclusions in my late 20's, after I'd gotten divorced and had to "grow up" a bit and actually get to know myself.

A friend of mine who helped me through the tough times once told me something that has stuck with me about relationships. He told me "Rob, true love isn't about FINDING the right person, true love is about BECOMING the right person. Become the kind of person you would like to attract and see what happens.

He was right. And yeah, I got married when I was around 20, and didn't really know squat about what it meant to be an adult (had been in for 2 years), and also had zero clue about what a long lasting meaningful relationship is.

But, since I "grew up" and learned who I really am, things got a whole lot better, and I started attracting quality women who were into me for me.

So, pretend to be someone that is not really you. Interesting. I had a friend who tried that, put on a farce and tried to hide her true self and be someone that she really wasn't and couldn't ever be. She is divorced now, of course.

Nope, not pretending, just didn't know who I was or what I was about, and wasn't really in a hurry to find out. And, because I hadn't investigated what I was about, I was unable to make choices that worked for me. When I figured out what I wanted to be like, and started to do so, that is when life opened up for me.

Prefacec:

This is gong waay off-topic for the thread; however, insofar as I suspect there're few new perspectives -- even given irosie91's novel and surprising take on the matter -- to offer on the actual thread topic, as the OP-er, I don't mind.​

When I figured out what I wanted to be like, and started to do so, that is when life opened up for me.

Undergoing the introspection needed to effect such discovery happens (for myriad reasons) at different points in individuals' lives. Thinking about how my parents and teachers/schools and how I, my wife and kids' teachers/schools delivered instruction to me, and later my kids, spurring the "learning about oneself" process was among the key objectives of the scholastic and non-scholastic guidance we received in our teenage years. Indeed, I dare say that regardless of our performance in class, on a sports field, around the house, etc., learning who we are and deciding who and what kinds of persons we want to be is likely the single most useful thing, among many useful things, to learn at that point in life.

Now, don't get me wrong. I can tell you for a fact that neither I nor my kids mastered that aspect of our learning until sometime after finishing high school. We merely ended our minority with a pretty good idea of who and what we were and wanted to be. That said, knowing that allows one to avoid a bunch of so-called mistakes. (Of course, we call those paths "mistakes," but what they really are, I think, are paths taken and/or considered at a life-stage when there weren't nearly as many and as many enduring consequences for having taken them.)

Be that as it may, the development you, I and almost all highly successful persons have made results in the materialization of several core elements of what in my "world" we call "fine character.

​

The type of introspection you've described develops pieces of ambition, patience, integrity, self-confidence, self-respect, self-help/-reliance, honor, virtue, and contentment.and princely manhood. I don't think one fully develops all those facets of "fine character" until sometime in one's 30s or 40s. I do think, as goes "fine character" development, the longer one waits to "git 'er done," the harder and more painful it is to do.

Of course, the thing about "fine character" development is that it's not until one has developed it (or nearly so) that one realizes what it takes to develop it, or even what process one used to do so. I can explain all sorts of things, but I cannot explain why that works they way it appears to. I can say only how it works that way and that it does work that way. If I ever figure out why, I'll damn sure publish a book sharing what I figured out. LOL

 

[ChrisL]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

 

[ChrisL]

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.

TY for sharing. Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

At the time, were you even sure of exactly what it meant to you to be married at all, without regard to whom you wed? I know I hadn't figured that out by my early twenties, and truly only had it figured out after about two years of being married. It so happened that my wife and I concurrently evolved our fuller understanding of what marriage meant to each of us, and fortunately we arrived at the same conception of what it was "really all about."

I can't say what may have happened had we arrived at different conclusions. I can say that even though marriages are pair bonds, the parties to them are nonetheless individuals and as such may well develop differing opinions of what a/their marriage is, what they want from it, why they're married, etc. I can identify those things for myself. I require that a potential spouse share my views in that regard, but I can't and won't tell someone else what those things should be for them. I have no place to say where on the spectrum of marital behavior and satisfaction anyone else should find it fitting to enter, remain in, or exit a marriage.

You are not at all the only person to wed before you knew your partner well. Indeed, it's possible you didn't at the time know yourself well. Indeed, it's very challenging to get to know someone else well when one doesn't know oneself well. Either of those two states of being, IMO, can augur poorly for a marriage's prospects, and yet some folks for whom one or the other was their circumstance "get lucky" and the marriage works out. For others, it doesn't.

What is there to say? At that level of interaction (emotional, financial, life progression, etc.), one has to be true to oneself before one can be true to another. So long as you learned and grew from that experience, it was a useful experience, however painful it may have been and remains.

To wit, as goes the matter of your "messing up," perhaps you didn't "mess up" at all. You've got to ask yourself whether there was another way, a less fraught way, given who you were "back then" and the circumstances/stimuli that influenced you, for you to have learned the lessons you did from your experience of marrying "too soon" and later parting ways. If there really wasn't, which is fairly likely, then you didn't mess up so much as you merely had to "drive the bumpy road," as it were, to arrive the knowledge you gained from that experience. Everybody at various times take a bumpy road to somewhere; it's merely that your bumpy road happened to be the one that included a marriage that didn't last "'til death do you part."

You know, I came to those conclusions in my late 20's, after I'd gotten divorced and had to "grow up" a bit and actually get to know myself.

A friend of mine who helped me through the tough times once told me something that has stuck with me about relationships. He told me "Rob, true love isn't about FINDING the right person, true love is about BECOMING the right person. Become the kind of person you would like to attract and see what happens.

He was right. And yeah, I got married when I was around 20, and didn't really know squat about what it meant to be an adult (had been in for 2 years), and also had zero clue about what a long lasting meaningful relationship is.

But, since I "grew up" and learned who I really am, things got a whole lot better, and I started attracting quality women who were into me for me.

So, pretend to be someone that is not really you. Interesting. I had a friend who tried that, put on a farce and tried to hide her true self and be someone that she really wasn't and couldn't ever be. She is divorced now, of course.

Nope, not pretending, just didn't know who I was or what I was about, and wasn't really in a hurry to find out. And, because I hadn't investigated what I was about, I was unable to make choices that worked for me. When I figured out what I wanted to be like, and started to do so, that is when life opened up for me.

Well discovering yourself, improving yourself, etc., is different than putting on airs.

 

[JoeMoma]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

So the way to not break the marriage vows by cheating is to break the marriage vows by getting a divorce.

 

[ChrisL]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

Divorce is a terrible way to save a marriage. Both divorce and cheating are breaking the vows of marriage. In fact, the need for the divorce is proof that the other partner shares the blame.

I don't care who is to blame. The point is, that you took a vow and you don't cheat on your spouse. If you want to cheat, then you should probably not be married at all, IMO.

 

[ChrisL]

You know? You don't make a vow and then when things get difficult, you go back on all of your vows. If you cannot stick by them, then you should probably not be together. You obviously don't belong together.

 

[JoeMoma]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

Divorce is a terrible way to save a marriage. Both divorce and cheating are breaking the vows of marriage. In fact, the need for the divorce is proof that the other partner shares the blame.

I don't care who is to blame. The point is, that you took a vow and you don't cheat on your spouse. If you want to cheat, then you should probably not be married at all, IMO.

This thread is asking who is to blame. Guess we are not answering the same question.

 

[ChrisL]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

Divorce is a terrible way to save a marriage. Both divorce and cheating are breaking the vows of marriage. In fact, the need for the divorce is proof that the other partner shares the blame.

I don't care who is to blame. The point is, that you took a vow and you don't cheat on your spouse. If you want to cheat, then you should probably not be married at all, IMO.

This thread is asking who is to blame.

Well, if you are cheating, then YOU are to blame! It is certainly not necessary to do it, so no excuses. If a person feels a need to cheat, then that person is not cut out for marriage, or at least not at this time in his/her life.

 

[ChrisL]

If the other spouse isn't into having sex anymore, then that is a whole other issue! It is either a personal problem or the other spouse is doing something wrong. I think a lot of partners probably lose interest in sex with their spouse when it becomes routine and boring, when it is no longer passionate and/or exciting. Those are things that couples are supposed to work on, to make their sex lives more exciting. Then, sometimes you are going to be not sexually compatible with some people too. Some people are going to be more risque sexually than other people and want to do some things that some people may not feel comfortable doing, so there is another whole SLEW of complications!

 

[JoeMoma]

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

Divorce is a terrible way to save a marriage. Both divorce and cheating are breaking the vows of marriage. In fact, the need for the divorce is proof that the other partner shares the blame.

I don't care who is to blame. The point is, that you took a vow and you don't cheat on your spouse. If you want to cheat, then you should probably not be married at all, IMO.

This thread is asking who is to blame.

Well, if you are cheating, then YOU are to blame! It is certainly not necessary to do it, so no excuses. If a person feels a need to cheat, then that person is not cut out for marriage, or at least not at this time in his/her life.

A husband regularly beats his wife. One day she gets fed up with it and shoots him. Is she to blame for killing her husband, you bet she is. She should have left his sorry ass instead of killing him, but she didn't. But since she did kill her husband, does the husband share some of the blame for getting shot because he beat his wife. I say yes.

Well, if one partner makes the marriage cold and unloving and drives the other to cheat, then both partners deserve blame after the fact if the other partner cheats.

That's all I have to say about that.

 

[ChrisL]

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

Divorce is a terrible way to save a marriage. Both divorce and cheating are breaking the vows of marriage. In fact, the need for the divorce is proof that the other partner shares the blame.

I don't care who is to blame. The point is, that you took a vow and you don't cheat on your spouse. If you want to cheat, then you should probably not be married at all, IMO.

This thread is asking who is to blame.

Well, if you are cheating, then YOU are to blame! It is certainly not necessary to do it, so no excuses. If a person feels a need to cheat, then that person is not cut out for marriage, or at least not at this time in his/her life.

A husband regularly beats his wife. One day she gets fed up with it and shoots him. Is she to blame for killing her husband, you bet she is. She should have left his sorry ass instead of killing him, but she didn't. But since she did kill her husband, does the husband share some of the blame for getting shot because he beat his wife. I say yes.

Well, if one partner makes the marriage cold and unloving and drives the other to cheat, then both partners deserve blame after the fact if the other partner cheats.

That's all I have to say about that.

They both deserve the blame for allowing their marriage to fall apart but not for the cheating if only one partner cheated.

 

[ChrisL]

I maybe misunderstood the question. I think both partners bear responsibility to remain faithful during the marriage, that is why I answered both partners. If only one partner is cheating though, then he can't go and blame that on the other partner. He or she is responsible for his or her own actions after all.

 

[ABikerSailor]

If the other spouse isn't into having sex anymore, then that is a whole other issue! It is either a personal problem or the other spouse is doing something wrong. I think a lot of partners probably lose interest in sex with their spouse when it becomes routine and boring, when it is no longer passionate and/or exciting. Those are things that couples are supposed to work on, to make their sex lives more exciting. Then, sometimes you are going to be not sexually compatible with some people too. Some people are going to be more risque sexually than other people and want to do some things that some people may not feel comfortable doing, so there is another whole SLEW of complications!

Would you consider it "cheating" if the two people had an "open marriage"?

What if one of the partners was unable to perform sexually, but the other person was still sexually active?

I actually knew a couple like that. The man had gotten injured in the military and was no longer able to have sex. But, he didn't want to stop his wife from doing so, so he and his wife had an arrangement where she could go and pick up guys, and she would have sex with them while he watched.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

So the way to not break the marriage vows by cheating is to break the marriage vows by getting a divorce.

A promise is breakable only so long as it is in-force. Divorce is a mutually agreed upon nullification and voiding of the binding force attendant to marriage vows, the marriage contract. Provided divorce preceded "cheating," there is no breach of the marriage contract.

After all, if one party to a marriage contract no longer cares to abide by the vows and informs the other party of such, what's the other party to do? The only rational option is to terminate the contract. Why would one insist on remaining bound to someone who has "had enough" of one?

 

[JoeMoma]

Can one partner in a marriage bear part of the onus of the other partner cheating? I say yes. If partner A becomes cold and detached to partner B, then partner B may fall to having an affair to someone else that satisfies the needs of partner B. A marriage takes 2 and both partners should be working in the relationship to service the needs of the other partner.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

So the way to not break the marriage vows by cheating is to break the marriage vows by getting a divorce.

A promise is breakable only so long as it is in-force. Divorce is a mutually agreed upon nullification and voiding of the binding force attendant to marriage vows, the marriage contract. Provided divorce preceded "cheating," there is no breach of the marriage contract.

After all, if one party to a marriage contract no longer cares to abide by the vows and informs the other party of such, what's the other party to do? The only rational option is to terminate the contract. Why would one insist on remaining bound to someone who has "had enough" of one?

Then the words of the traditional marriage vows should be changed to “until death do we part or decide to get a divorce.”

Also, many divorces are not by mutual agreement.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jillian. At that point, you don't cheat, you file for a divorce or, if your relationship is important to you at all, perhaps marriage counseling or something to get to the bottom of the issue. Cheating is rarely going to end up well. Even if you ended up with the person you cheated on, there will always be a level of distrust there because of the cheating. Kind of like, if you cheated on her, you will cheat on me too. A good relationship has to be based on trust and mutual respect at the very least.

You are right, cheating doesn't usually end up well. But the question is not what is the right thing to do. The question is who bears the onus (blame) for the marriage infidelity. If the wife cuts the husband off from sex in year 5 of the marriage, then don't be surprised if the husband does not eventually find sex elsewhere if they continue to be married long term.

Also, divorce is not really a solution to the problem of maintaining a healthy marriage. It's giving up and terminating the marriage. Yes, filing for divorce might wake up the other partner and help the two work out the issues. However, the other partner may simply agree that a divorce is in order.

Well, the point is, that if you are unhappy then you get a divorce/split up, but you don't cheat. That is just a crappy thing to do.

So the way to not break the marriage vows by cheating is to break the marriage vows by getting a divorce.

A promise is breakable only so long as it is in-force. Divorce is a mutually agreed upon nullification and voiding of the binding force attendant to marriage vows, the marriage contract. Provided divorce preceded "cheating," there is no breach of the marriage contract.

After all, if one party to a marriage contract no longer cares to abide by the vows and informs the other party of such, what's the other party to do? The only rational option is to terminate the contract. Why would one insist on remaining bound to someone who has "had enough" of one?

Then the words of the traditional marriage vows should be changed to “until death do we part or decide to get a divorce.”

Also, many divorces are not by mutual agreement.

Then the words of the traditional marriage vows should be changed to “until death do we part or decide to get a divorce.”

Well, okay. I've never been one for promising things I know I can't or may not be able to deliver. "Until death do us part" was not part of my and my wife's wedding vows. Heady as we were, we both knew that death or something else might part us. As it turned out her death did, but when we wed, we didn't know that would be the case.

many divorces are not by mutual agreement.

That's probably true as goes their commencement. Eventually, it becomes mutual, even if only by dint of acquiescence. I could be mistaken, but I think at some point, everyone who divorces realizes they are better off without their former partner than they would have been remaining in an unsatisfying marriage.