why do people so often blame the other woman/man

Drifterwood

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Actually the divorce rate is just a little bit lower than 50% in the U.S.

FASTSTATS - Marriage and Divorce

The 2009 data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that about 46% of all marriages end in divorce.


In the UK, the stats are now that more than 50% of marriages end within five years, and more interestingly perhaps, that more than 50% of couples aren't actually married anyway. The economy always has a part to play, so I am not sure what will have been happening through this recession.


Drifter, just because it's culturally tolerated doesn't mean we have to like it.

Cultures aren't tolerated, Helga, they are the culture. If the majority don't like aspects of their inherited culture, then it changes. Our Western culture has clearly changed considerably with regard to long term relationships.

I would say that their culture tolerates human nature and works with it, whilst our/your culture has attempted to control it, but is failing increasingly. I don't side with the lynch mob mentality that wishes to enforce and damn those who do not adhere to your cultural expectations, because I do not think that it can work if we are to allow people freedom to be who and what they are. Some people are clearly happy with the enforced monogamy, they have my very best wishes, but they are not the majority.

Some anthropologists would argue that women use pragmatic monogamy and men genetic monogamy. When these purposes have been served (and btw they do not guarantee any level of physical sexual fulfillment), relationships will change. I am of course only talking about relationships that may have the desire for reproduction. When people are cheating and why, depends very much IMO on which part of the relationship cycle they are in, before formal commitment, before children, during children and after children. The European attitude that you described and the other culture that I described relate to non sexual monogamy after children. This is very different to cheating and accepting it or not during the other phases IMO.

There are of course also people whose sex drives can not be controlled with moral and cultural monogamy at any stage of a relationship.
 
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I'm not rightly sure. I was pissed at my partner when he cheated on me, not the other individual. When I found out a fuck buddy of mine had a girlfriend, I told her as soon as I was able to, as well as emphasizing that I was so sorry I'd inadvertently helped her boyfriend cheat on her. I also said that things were done between he and I as soon as I'd heard. She still told everyone in the local gamer community that I was a man stealing whore. Stupid bint. I have no respect for people who cheat. Either get the OK from your partner, or if things are that shit, then break up. Lying and exposing a partner to risks is not ok. My ex DID NOT USE A CONDOM when he cheated on me. Which was lovely, since he and I were fluid bonded and I didn't use condoms with him whenever we had sex. :mad:
 

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Drifter, just because it's culturally tolerated doesn't mean we have to like it.
I agree.
Just because many people do it, doesn't mean that everyone should agree and follow such mentality and action. I don't mind being in the supposed minority then...
I do agree that fidelity isn't the only thing that holds relationships together, but messing with it most definitely tests the strength of a relationship like no other.

I'm not rightly sure. I was pissed at my partner when he cheated on me, not the other individual. When I found out a fuck buddy of mine had a girlfriend, I told her as soon as I was able to, as well as emphasizing that I was so sorry I'd inadvertently helped her boyfriend cheat on her. I also said that things were done between he and I as soon as I'd heard. She still told everyone in the local gamer community that I was a man stealing whore. Stupid bint. I have no respect for people who cheat. Either get the OK from your partner, or if things are that shit, then break up. Lying and exposing a partner to risks is not ok. My ex DID NOT USE A CONDOM when he cheated on me. Which was lovely, since he and I were fluid bonded and I didn't use condoms with him whenever we had sex. :mad:
That's the other aspect as well. How responsibly are they cheating?
Not only are they betraying your trust, and belittling your relationship and feelings, they doing it in such a manner so as to affect your health and longevity too.

The cheated on song: for those who have been cheated on, or those who (statistically) will be cheated on.

Side note: I'm enjoying the dialogue on this topic, and the vehement disgust related to cheating from Unnamed as well as the need to downplay it from Drifter.
 
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helgaleena

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In the UK, the stats are now that more than 50% of marriages end within five years, and more interestingly perhaps, that more than 50% of couples aren't actually married anyway. The economy always has a part to play, so I am not sure what will have been happening through this recession.




Cultures aren't tolerated, Helga, they are the culture. If the majority don't like aspects of their inherited culture, then it changes. Our Western culture has clearly changed considerably with regard to long term relationships.
I didn't say cultures tolerated, I said culturally tolerated as in tolerated by the culture. And I am not the culture, I am an individual with individual preferences.

So the preceding Drifter lecture was off target and unnecessary, but tells quite a bit about YOU.

You are going off on, and judging, mere mental categories based upon your own perceptions, ie, your own stereotypes. Just accept yourself and others, and let them be unhappy if they insist upon doing so. I am friends with you, and you are friends with me, even if we value different standards regarding partnerships.
 

Drifterwood

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Helga, I do appreciate the pain and suffering that this aspect of human nature causes, and those who have been hurt have every right to rail against the seeming injustice of it all especially when our culture says that the other party is wholly in the wrong.

It seems so unjust. But then it isn't fair when a fluffy bunny gets eaten by a fox.

My point is simply that the facts, that some don't like, make it clear that the majority of relationships are not monogamous, and they are not monogamous at different phases for different reasons. No one (in the sexology and anthropology community) appears to be questioning whether the majority of men do not conform to relationship fidelity, whilst there is debate about where the % of women sit between 40 and 60% also being unfaithful.

It would be nice if you could take a test at 25 to see if you and/or your prospective partner was going to be faithful fo the next 55 years, but it doesn't appear that you can. So in the meantime you have to deal with the reality of human behaviour as we have loosed the bonds of cultural control on how people are made to behave.

I think that it is an unflattering double standard to pour public censure on those who are unfaithful whilst the majorityish of people and relationships are not monogamous. I also believe that there is a time lag with our relationship institutions dealing with the reality that is happening.
 

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I wasn't aware that using the word "mistake" would cause others to infer that I thought that his behavior was accidental, or petty, or that he wasn't at fault. That wasn't what I intended to convey. I Googled the phrase "worst mistake of my life" and other people use the word to describe the worst decisions that they have ever made without any hint of non-culpability or blame avoidance (such as an abortion, losing a scholarship money, making the wrong career choice, committing crimes, etc), so I don't believe that I used the word incorrectly. It appears that many people use it the way that I did, to describe a very bad and life altering decision that one regrets.

Regardless, I wanted to clarify that, since it seemed to be a source of a lot of mis-communication here.

A lot of the responses here are so full of pain that I don't feel that I should even respond to them.

dolfette, the thing about making choices in a relationship about whether to stay or to go is that no one can possibly know if they're making the best decision. I took my first love back and that turned out to be a good decision because my memories are happy and fulfilling to me. I cherish them. It could have just as easily turned out differently. I might have been wrong about how remorseful he felt and been miserable afterwards, because when I was standing at the crossroads and choosing which path to take, there was no way for me to know what he would do, or what I would do. I was faced with the same decision four years later and I believe I chose wrong when I broke up with him. After I was miserable for a long time and our relationship was for all intents and purposes, ruined. Despite both our attempts to repair it, it never became fixed. I regret that choice, but again, how was I to know? I didn't know at the time how special he was, how rare it is to find someone that simpatico with me, that compatible, that loving, someone who would make so many good memories with me. I was so young and he was my first love, how could I know that it is so hard to find?

My next long term relationship began to turn sour after six months, but because of my regret with my first, I stuck it out. I wasted years of my life with him. We went to therapy, he insisted he would try. He didn't. Again, how could I have known? I couldn't tell what the future held when I made that choice. He could have just as easily had an epiphany and changed the way he behaved, the way my first did, the way TheBoyfriend did.

There was even a time with TheBoyfriend when I considered leaving him. He was making me unhappy and I cried every day, unable to decide what to do. I chose to stay and things between us changed again, this time for the better. Not just better, the best. I'm glad I chose to stay with him because of my life with him now, but at that moment when I was most unhappy, I could not know for sure that we would end up here now.

I suppose what I'm saying is that my experience tells me that these kinds of choices are always a leap of faith of one kind or another, always with the hope that this decision is the one that will make me happier than the other options.
 
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helgaleena

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Hooray for the leaping Petite! And I am so glad you and TB and your little one are having it all.

Yes Drifter, our culture is changing. Would that other cultures around the world would follow suit and value a woman's happiness in a relationship more than they do! Arranged marriages are the norm worldwide still, and all too many cultures 'tolerate spousal abuse, child marriage, and double standards regarding adultery and/or homosexuality depending upon one's age and gender.

It may be that my personal ideals regarding love and romance are unrealistic, but every now and then happy endings are not just in my stories at work, they actually happen in real life too. The stories of happily ever after certainly sell. Hail the great Dame Barbara Cartland-- hope is healthy.

Shoot, dolfette, people are not logical and want to live in a dream world where a partner stepping away is not the partner's doing, they just tripped and fell into somebody's naked lap. *snerk* Ain't we silly.
 
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Drifterwood

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Do Disney do weddings, Helga? :wink:

Obviously I am the Grich of happily ever after.

I have some women friends who would be very offended if you didn't recognise them as feminists who feel that arranged marriages are no worse than our system. When I was a kid, I used to rail against them, but I get what they are saying now.
 

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What I don't understand is when a married man cheats with another man on his wife and she finds out and she's mad at the guy her husband cheated on her with. This happened to me once. I was having a fling with a man who I thought was single, he did not tell me he was married. Well after a few months he must have gotten sloppy with covering his tracks and I got a phone call from the wife cussing me out and calling me every name in the book and saying I turned her husband gay. I tried to level with her and I told her I did not know he was married and she continued to harass me and eventually found out where I worked and came to my job and caused a big scene. I had to file a restraining order on her to get her to leave me alone. I feel i was truely innocent in the situation cause I did not know he was married and she wouldn't believe me. They are still married today. Why didn't she go all crazy on him and divorce him???
 

petite

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it is easier to blame you for him seeking you out than to accept blame herself

Don't you mean "him"? it is easier to blame you for him seeking you out than to blame him

That's what I've always thought. He was the one who made the commitment and he's the one who broke it.
 

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Why is it that people are saying that the partner who gets cheated on is to blame. Like in the example that tcxtguy is giving above. Did the guy he was messing with really have a substandard vagina? Was there something wrong with her?

I think that is VERY disrespectful to the person whose spouse cheats? "Oh yeah, he had to cheat on you, 'cause you got a dirty cooch and you don't know how to satisfy him."

Relationships are two way streets, a "game of give and take" so to speak. Just because your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend cheats on you, oftentimes has nothing to do with YOU. Yes, many times infidelity is a sign that there is something wrong in the relationship. However, unless you've tried to work on it, or know that there is an issue, you can be blindsided.

What, because her husband has latent, or not so latent Gay/Bi tendencies, then it's her fault because he was going somewhere to get that itch scratched, and was being dishonest about it?

No. It's the man that tctxguy was sleeping with. Not tctxguy's fault. Not his wife's fault. He's the one in the wrong in that situation.

Granted, there are statistics that state that multiple partners, even when one is in a long term, commited relationship are fairly common, part of humanity's gentetic and biopsychosocial makeup.

Still, some people, for a variety of reasons, still take a lot of stock in the concept of monagamy. Does it always work that way. Of course not. However, I don't think it's fair or proper to say that people who feel that way are just "Clinging to outdated, unnecessary cultural ideals."

Also, many people feel that when you make a commitment to someone, either living together, marrying, having a civil union, moving in together, etc; that that is an important, large step. They want to make things work, and that if there are extramarital activities, then that alone is not a reason to just 86 the relationship/marriage.

That's why I think it IS good that some of our cultural values about marriage and relationships are evolving. I think people should marry for love, not for convenience, sex, having a trophy wife/husband, etc. I also think that if there are issues like chronic infidelity, domestic violence, substance abuse, one partner being miserable and trapped for whatever reasons, that they can look at that, and if the relationship needs to end, it can end, without one partner being destroyed.

Don't take the easy way out, and just blame someone. The reasons for cheating, and taking someone back, are just as varied as the people who do cheat.
 

Drifterwood

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Still, some people, for a variety of reasons, still take a lot of stock in the concept of monagamy. Does it always work that way. Of course not. However, I don't think it's fair or proper to say that people who feel that way are just "Clinging to outdated, unnecessary cultural ideals."

Ninny, you shouldn't put things in quotation marks that people haven't said.

Historically, marriage was a private matter between people and their families (mostly). The Church only became more closely linked to marriage after the protestant reformation, with the State and Church being required to recognise a marriage as late as the mid C18th and then the Church not being required within a few generations of that. As far as I can remember, monogamy was not a prerequisite, and any kids born outside a marriage were stigmatised as bastards etc etc.

Personally, I don't think that you should wrap the monogamy issue up with marriage anyway. Monogamy is a choice that many people try to make and some succeed. The question for me, is should a culture stigmatise those who fail. It would appear that yours does, and therefore the cultural pressure is to break relationships when this happens. This is my position on Dolfie's OP. Some people accept the non monogamy of their partners. Some people accept the bi-sexuality of partners. I can understand these far more than those who accept physical, financial and mental abuse.

When you look at all the crap people give each other, it is hardly surprising, to me, that most relationships do not last.
 
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august86

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... Yes, many times infidelity is a sign that there is something wrong in the relationship. However, unless you've tried to work on it, or know that there is an issue, you can be blindsided.
Still, some people, for a variety of reasons, still take a lot of stock in the concept of monagamy. Does it always work that way. Of course not. However, I don't think it's fair or proper to (say) imply that people who feel that way are just clinging to outdated, unnecessary cultural ideals.

Also, many people feel that when you make a commitment to someone, either living together, marrying, having a civil union, moving in together, etc; that that is an important, large step. They want to make things work, and that if there are extramarital activities, then that alone is not a reason to just 86 the relationship/marriage.

I also think that if there are issues like chronic infidelity, domestic violence, substance abuse, one partner being miserable and trapped for whatever reasons, that they can look at that, and if the relationship needs to end, it can end, without one partner being destroyed.

Don't take the easy way out, and just blame someone. The reasons for cheating, and taking someone back, are just as varied...
There are so many variables in a union/partnership, that breaking up isn't the only choice, but not breaking up doesn't indicate the cheated-on spouse's approval or condoning of the action.

Ninny, you shouldn't put things in quotation marks that people haven't said. <<fixed that

Personally, I don't think that you should wrap the monogamy issue up with marriage anyway. Monogamy is a choice that many people try to make and some succeed. The question for me, is should a culture stigmatise those who fail. It would appear that yours does, and therefore the cultural pressure is to break relationships when this happens. This is my position on Dolfie's OP. Some people accept the non monogamy of their partners. Some people accept the bi-sexuality of partners. I can understand these far more than those who accept physical, financial and mental abuse.

When you look at all the crap people give each other, it is hardly surprising, to me, that most relationships do not last.

Monogamy is not confined to marriage, as many posters have implied by the fact that they weren't married when cheated upon. However, marriage in it's very definition is between two individuals (let's not debate the genders of these, as many countries are still fighting their people to keep it hetero). So at it's very core, marriage is meant to monogamous.
Very few countries recognise polygamous marriages as it is seen to be against public policy, and even in my own country, only customary law allows for polygamy so that children and spouses from such marriages are able to benefit ito succession and be legitimised, etc.

Back to the point, cheating is not necessarily the manifestation of someone's desire to be polygamous. Also, it's not your duty to be the drinking fountain of their extra-marital desires.
 

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I actually agree with you, completely. Sometimes it's not blame though. The idea of that other person 'being' with your significant other could be just too much, thus that's where the hatred comes from. But you're right, it's the cheater who has responsibility to another person, not the "other" woman/man.
 

helgaleena

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What I don't understand is when a married man cheats with another man on his wife and she finds out and she's mad at the guy her husband cheated on her with. This happened to me once. I was having a fling with a man who I thought was single, he did not tell me he was married. Well after a few months he must have gotten sloppy with covering his tracks and I got a phone call from the wife cussing me out and calling me every name in the book and saying I turned her husband gay. I tried to level with her and I told her I did not know he was married and she continued to harass me and eventually found out where I worked and came to my job and caused a big scene. I had to file a restraining order on her to get her to leave me alone. I feel i was truely innocent in the situation cause I did not know he was married and she wouldn't believe me. They are still married today. Why didn't she go all crazy on him and divorce him???


Everybody's got different ways of thinking about infidelity and what constitutes it. Some women are not jealous if their hubby only sleeps around with males. Some don't want their man even looking at other people passing by. All these categories have to be agreed on by both the parties. Your married man partner was a sleaze for not telling you he was married and I bet he got lots of jollies about winding his wife up, too. Sorry it happened to you.
 

helgaleena

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Yes Drifter, our culture is changing. Would that other cultures around the world would follow suit and value a woman's happiness in a relationship more than they do! Arranged marriages are the norm worldwide still, and all too many cultures 'tolerate spousal abuse, child marriage, and double standards regarding adultery and/or homosexuality depending upon one's age and gender.

Not to get too far off topic, but this is more common worldwide than it ought to be. Child bride abuse.

Afghan Child Bride Tortured For Refusing Prostitution | Care2 Causes

It may be that my personal ideals regarding love and romance are unrealistic, but every now and then happy endings are not just in my stories at work, they actually happen in real life too. The stories of happily ever after certainly sell. Hail the great Dame Barbara Cartland-- hope is healthy.

Shoot, dolfette, people are not logical and want to live in a dream world where a partner stepping away is not the partner's doing, they just tripped and fell into somebody's naked lap. *snerk* Ain't we silly? At least we are FREE to be silly, not beaten into imbecility with the neighbors helping.
 

Drifterwood

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Monogamy is not confined to marriage, as many posters have implied by the fact that they weren't married when cheated upon."

That's what I just said in my post that you quoted :confused:.

However, marriage in it's very definition is between two individuals. So at it's very core, marriage is meant to monogamous.

This is a non sequitur. I think the logical conclusion is that if marriage is between two individuals, it is what those two individuals decide it to be; unless of course there are set or presumed cultural expectations and demands laid down within the contract, religious or otherwise.

All that I have been saying is that your religious and cultural expectations are that it will be monogamous, in every sense of that word, yet clearly the reality of people's behaviour is at odds with this.