Cheating thread check it out, its good stuff. Personally, I would never cheat, my honor gets in the way (and good gay guys are hard to come by).
Cheating
- Thread starter TK*
- Start date
- Nov 12, 2008
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I have never cheated on anyone.
I would however, be lying if I did not say I wanted to. I can't justify "boredom" though with cheating, so I would never do it.
I would however, be lying if I did not say I wanted to. I can't justify "boredom" though with cheating, so I would never do it.
- Nov 12, 2008
- 14,153
- 1,334
- 0
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 1w2 sx/so/sp
I've never cheated, but have been "cheated" on twice by the same girl when I was in love a few years ago.
Any kind of deception evokes a multitude of emotions...cheating makes my anger-o-meter go from 1-100 in an instant.
- Dec 29, 2009
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- INFJ
Well this has happened to me, my ex was unfaithful, and I've never been unfaithful. I think it does depend on the circumstances somewhat. I don't think I'd ever do that, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't, but life can throw things at you. I certainly know I couldn't live like that though. I don't know how others do.
Personally I found it's the deceit, the emotional betrayal to be the worst part. The physical act was far less significant. To continue lying to someone under the "pretense" you're sparing their feelings, when the cheater is only prolonging the pain, and sparing their own. Realistically it's a very corrosive harmful behaviour for the cheater themselves.
Personally I found it's the deceit, the emotional betrayal to be the worst part. The physical act was far less significant. To continue lying to someone under the "pretense" you're sparing their feelings, when the cheater is only prolonging the pain, and sparing their own. Realistically it's a very corrosive harmful behaviour for the cheater themselves.
I just wanted to add my theoretical view to this for some thoughts and responses. I understand that in this context we are mainly speaking of cheating as sex, as it is usually defined.... sounds like most will admit the desire to have cheated yet act with control to maintain the honor they have. This is understandable and the mature thing to do I believe it is impossible to live ones whole life never drawn to another woman/man physically and emotionally...even for infjs...or rather esp with INFJs who are listed as having the Highest martial dissatisfaction of all types. But sounds like most to all they are in control.
BUT my take is that Cheating is any time one person puts ANYTHING before the SO.
EX: lets say a wife loves here mother and father clearly more than her husband...and it is reflected via her actions. She is
negligent toward her husband and places him 3rd or 4th in terms of priorities. How is this person NOT guilty of being unfaithful!? in my book she may as well have cheated. In this case I believe this man if he cheated out of not being valued is def dishonorable act.....however I understand it...and in someways I could even see it as a justice. Its is WRONG...yes... it is he should end the marriage and than go find happiness however this is a type of deep issue that I believe an INFJ could get stuck in. A marriage that is not IDEAL where the infj is hanging in there too long, and the SO is "basically" doing nothing really "wrong" yet they have in NO way fulfilled the marriage contract.
And we see this all the time the other way around where the Husband is too work driven and neglects his house totally, causing the wife to fall in love with another usually a co worker who is treating her with love and respect. same story just different situation.
So thoughts on this type of Cheating? I understand that I may be a little TOO idealistic and I understand that.
in all my thoughts are simple: If I am going to make someone MY WORLD than I need that back from them....no second place bs. Guess I need another INFJ for that...no one really loves like we do. they try but they just cant.
BUT my take is that Cheating is any time one person puts ANYTHING before the SO.
EX: lets say a wife loves here mother and father clearly more than her husband...and it is reflected via her actions. She is
negligent toward her husband and places him 3rd or 4th in terms of priorities. How is this person NOT guilty of being unfaithful!? in my book she may as well have cheated. In this case I believe this man if he cheated out of not being valued is def dishonorable act.....however I understand it...and in someways I could even see it as a justice. Its is WRONG...yes... it is he should end the marriage and than go find happiness however this is a type of deep issue that I believe an INFJ could get stuck in. A marriage that is not IDEAL where the infj is hanging in there too long, and the SO is "basically" doing nothing really "wrong" yet they have in NO way fulfilled the marriage contract.
And we see this all the time the other way around where the Husband is too work driven and neglects his house totally, causing the wife to fall in love with another usually a co worker who is treating her with love and respect. same story just different situation.
So thoughts on this type of Cheating? I understand that I may be a little TOO idealistic and I understand that.
in all my thoughts are simple: If I am going to make someone MY WORLD than I need that back from them....no second place bs. Guess I need another INFJ for that...no one really loves like we do. they try but they just cant.
Wow 2008!! An oldie but a goldie this thread is! There are worse things than cheating. I think abuse tops it. I've never cheated on anyone. I may have been cheated on. It was 1000 times easier to forgive my cheating ex than the abusive ex.
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I completely agree with this. Abuse is way worse than cheating! I've been in both types of scenarios and abuse is something that is extremely difficult to forgive. Of course, cheating can be a form of abuse. It depends on the circumstances and the individual.
Abuse tops cheating hands down though.
I don't know if I would have the energy for a second, secret relationship. Maybe I'm just too lazy....
First real relationship 22 years ago taught me what it feels like to be cheated on. Was not a fan of it so I doubt I'll pass that behavior on any time soon.
Still life can be strange and very very short, so I can understand why people cheat. Life is not always black and white, even when it comes to things like cheating no matter how much we might want it to be.
I do have a standing arrangement with my partner that I get a 10% kickback on all gifts and goodies received from any affairs. Seems like a fair deal...
.First real relationship 22 years ago taught me what it feels like to be cheated on. Was not a fan of it so I doubt I'll pass that behavior on any time soon.
Still life can be strange and very very short, so I can understand why people cheat. Life is not always black and white, even when it comes to things like cheating no matter how much we might want it to be.
I do have a standing arrangement with my partner that I get a 10% kickback on all gifts and goodies received from any affairs. Seems like a fair deal...
Let’s consider this from the perspective of human needs.
When people have an affair, they are trying to meet a need that is otherwise unmet in their current relationship.
Based on the answers given by both men and women:
That said, the most common reason is seeking to meet unmet needs.
---
The choice of infidelity, or not, is going to be informed by a number of things, perhaps too many to count.
The difference comes down to that person’s ability to meet their own needs given their strengths and resources, as limited by their situation.
I don’t want to judge people for that choice, even if I would make a value judgement about their behavior.
That said, believing someone did the best they could, and would have chosen otherwise if they could have is a challenge and no comfort when you are the one who was, for a time, deceived.
---
To be sure, all manner of human bondage and suffering with unmet need has occurred under the noble name of Duty.
Is it better to sacrifice the self in a fashion that demonstrates fidelity and marriage to be hollow and empty virtues, or is it better to demonstrate that life and the redemptive power of love are ever-present and available to us, even if choosing them would be willful trespass?
I’ve never cheated, and I don’t imagine I ever will. That said, I’ll make no promise to never do so. Not because I want an out, but because I am human, and I’m sure I could do all manner of things that I don’t imagine, and in certain situations, I might not act in accordance with my values. It’s happened before, and I’d be a fool to think it won’t happen again, or not in a certain way.
---
(I originally wrote the following about 8 months ago, and I can tell I was still in not such a good place in terms of my emotional and mental health).
I’ve been in love twice in my life. (Three times now.)
Both times, the relationships ended because of the shown disrespect and hurt I felt resulting from their infidelity and their lying about it.
FFS, just be honest and tell me it’s over. You don’t even have to give me a reason...just fully own your choices and be upfront about them. Please show me just a few minutes more respect in this regard in exchange for the years of fidelity I offered.
I can’t even really describe in full what the effects of those experiences are, but they are broad, deep, long-lasting, and beyond dark. In the days and months after those relationships ended, I experienced a kind of depression I had never known. Especially after the last one...there would be days where I would sink to a new low, and I learned I could go a lot lower than I ever believed I could. Low enough to scare myself but also feel ambivalent because part of me wanted the pain to stop, and if it did because I died from gross lack of self-care resulting from near-total apathy, so be it, what did it matter anyway?
Every time I thought I had hit rock bottom in terms of dysphoria and anhedonia, I would later discover that no, I was still in freefall. I thought I knew what depression was. I had no idea what it could be, its potential. I had no idea how low I could go. I have a lived experience of the word “hopeless.” It’s scary in the valley of shadow.
And in the after-effects of the last one, for the first time in my life a clinical level and type of anxiety presented itself. I had a panic attack for the first time.
And then the other times. And the times where it was just a garden-variety anxiety attack for no apparent or identifiable reason, where I felt like I was losing my mind, and that I might flee like an animal and inadvertently injure or kill myself. The kind of freak-out that would make a really bad acid trip seem like a cakewalk by comparison.
So yeah, I experienced a degree or level of mental illness that was...bad.
For me, there’s another angle. I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child. I’ll use a cliche and say I have “trust issues.”
From the same events, it would be fair to say my self-esteem is...fragmented, or somehow broken. As a thought, I know I am a person of value, I have self-worth. As the feeling, as the emotions that are part of that feeling, my sense of myself as a living creature, in the moment, I don’t know those things, not at all. Parts of me feel just the opposite, in fact.
So with that as a basis for day-to-day inner heartspace, of engaging with the world and with myself, I’ll just say that the experience of infidelity on the part of someone I loved, someone I dared to trust, someone that I did the hard and difficult (for me) work so as to be open, to be vulnerable...it stirs up all kinds of stuff from when I was small, and it is a confirmation of (my) primal fears that people cannot be trusted, people will take advantage of me, people will use me, people will wound me...
And that hurts so bad, so so bad, I can’t even describe it.
And the shame, oh the shame. I’m three years old again, defenseless and small. I return to that place inside myself.
My greatest need as the person I am is intimacy, to know and be known.
(haha! joke’s on me, withdrawn and slow to trust)
My greatest fear is that of abandonment.
(there’s a tragic story that informs why that is so, but I won’t get into that now)
And I have to process and work on all the above in the post-mortem with my god-forsaken ADHD brain?!
Given all that, infidelity for me is...a kind of suffering without peer or equal.
And the thing is, I will never stop loving those two women. Not in the same way that I did, but I hope they found what they were looking for, what they needed. I hope for their well-being even to the exclusion of my own. I would want to know they found happiness.
I haven’t, and I worry I never will. (Aha!, joke’s on me, because I have! End of worries!)
Namaste,
Ian
When people have an affair, they are trying to meet a need that is otherwise unmet in their current relationship.
Based on the answers given by both men and women:
- the need for emotional intimacy
- the need to be appreciated, valued
- the need for more frequent sex
- the need for satisfying sex
- the need to relieve boredom
That said, the most common reason is seeking to meet unmet needs.
---
The choice of infidelity, or not, is going to be informed by a number of things, perhaps too many to count.
The difference comes down to that person’s ability to meet their own needs given their strengths and resources, as limited by their situation.
I don’t want to judge people for that choice, even if I would make a value judgement about their behavior.
That said, believing someone did the best they could, and would have chosen otherwise if they could have is a challenge and no comfort when you are the one who was, for a time, deceived.
---
To be sure, all manner of human bondage and suffering with unmet need has occurred under the noble name of Duty.
Is it better to sacrifice the self in a fashion that demonstrates fidelity and marriage to be hollow and empty virtues, or is it better to demonstrate that life and the redemptive power of love are ever-present and available to us, even if choosing them would be willful trespass?
I’ve never cheated, and I don’t imagine I ever will. That said, I’ll make no promise to never do so. Not because I want an out, but because I am human, and I’m sure I could do all manner of things that I don’t imagine, and in certain situations, I might not act in accordance with my values. It’s happened before, and I’d be a fool to think it won’t happen again, or not in a certain way.
---
(I originally wrote the following about 8 months ago, and I can tell I was still in not such a good place in terms of my emotional and mental health).
I’ve been in love twice in my life. (Three times now.)
Both times, the relationships ended because of the shown disrespect and hurt I felt resulting from their infidelity and their lying about it.
FFS, just be honest and tell me it’s over. You don’t even have to give me a reason...just fully own your choices and be upfront about them. Please show me just a few minutes more respect in this regard in exchange for the years of fidelity I offered.
I can’t even really describe in full what the effects of those experiences are, but they are broad, deep, long-lasting, and beyond dark. In the days and months after those relationships ended, I experienced a kind of depression I had never known. Especially after the last one...there would be days where I would sink to a new low, and I learned I could go a lot lower than I ever believed I could. Low enough to scare myself but also feel ambivalent because part of me wanted the pain to stop, and if it did because I died from gross lack of self-care resulting from near-total apathy, so be it, what did it matter anyway?
Every time I thought I had hit rock bottom in terms of dysphoria and anhedonia, I would later discover that no, I was still in freefall. I thought I knew what depression was. I had no idea what it could be, its potential. I had no idea how low I could go. I have a lived experience of the word “hopeless.” It’s scary in the valley of shadow.
And in the after-effects of the last one, for the first time in my life a clinical level and type of anxiety presented itself. I had a panic attack for the first time.
So yeah, I experienced a degree or level of mental illness that was...bad.
For me, there’s another angle. I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child. I’ll use a cliche and say I have “trust issues.”
So with that as a basis for day-to-day inner heartspace, of engaging with the world and with myself, I’ll just say that the experience of infidelity on the part of someone I loved, someone I dared to trust, someone that I did the hard and difficult (for me) work so as to be open, to be vulnerable...it stirs up all kinds of stuff from when I was small, and it is a confirmation of (my) primal fears that people cannot be trusted, people will take advantage of me, people will use me, people will wound me...
And that hurts so bad, so so bad, I can’t even describe it.
And the shame, oh the shame. I’m three years old again, defenseless and small. I return to that place inside myself.
My greatest need as the person I am is intimacy, to know and be known.
(haha! joke’s on me, withdrawn and slow to trust)
My greatest fear is that of abandonment.
(there’s a tragic story that informs why that is so, but I won’t get into that now)
And I have to process and work on all the above in the post-mortem with my god-forsaken ADHD brain?!
Given all that, infidelity for me is...a kind of suffering without peer or equal.
And the thing is, I will never stop loving those two women. Not in the same way that I did, but I hope they found what they were looking for, what they needed. I hope for their well-being even to the exclusion of my own. I would want to know they found happiness.
I haven’t, and I worry I never will. (Aha!, joke’s on me, because I have! End of worries!)
Namaste,
Ian
People cheat because they aren't good enough to play fair.
- Have enough balls to express what you want.
- Have enough balls to break off a relationship.
- Don't get into a relationship to fill a void.
- Don't be any of the weak things that make you resort to holding onto everything, and desiring everything as if you were empty inside.
- etc.
I mean absolutely zero disrespect to aeon for mentioning this (honestly). If the "unmet needs" narrative works for people then that's great, but,
I really really object to the "unmet needs" narrative. I think it's a kind of narrative that presents itself as a sort of new-age, understanding psychologist type narrative. But it has much more in common with people who insist on needs-meeting sex from their partners regardless of how their partner feels about it, which in the longterm, the partner will almost certainly experience as non-consensual (ie. rape). This is how it used to be considered impossible for a husband to be charged with raping his wife, it was legally considered to be his right to have sex with his wife regardless of any objection she might have.
There's some sort of suggestion by using the word "needs" that the person who is doing the cheating can't survive without more sex, as though sex is oxygen or food or water. This is ludicrous! It's as though they are involuntarily gasping for oxygen, they can't restrain themselves from gasping for oxygen. That is not true, having sex is not a need in the same way as oxygen. People do it knowing what they are doing, they go through a decision-making process consisting of a multitude of actions that lead to sex.
It reminds me of children who can't discriminate between needs and wants. "Daddy, I need that toy!" They don't realise that they don't need the toy. "I have needs". No you don't, you spoiled brat! So childish!
The thing that really bothers me about this is because through this "needs" narrative, it becomes a shortcoming of the partner that they somehow failed to meet the needs of the cheater. The cheater cheated because their "needs" were not met. It makes the person who didn't cheat be responsible for the action of cheating. This is really bad! The cheater should be responsible for their own crappy behaviour, not blaming the person who behaved honestly in the relationship and to the best of their ability.
I really really object to the "unmet needs" narrative. I think it's a kind of narrative that presents itself as a sort of new-age, understanding psychologist type narrative. But it has much more in common with people who insist on needs-meeting sex from their partners regardless of how their partner feels about it, which in the longterm, the partner will almost certainly experience as non-consensual (ie. rape). This is how it used to be considered impossible for a husband to be charged with raping his wife, it was legally considered to be his right to have sex with his wife regardless of any objection she might have.
There's some sort of suggestion by using the word "needs" that the person who is doing the cheating can't survive without more sex, as though sex is oxygen or food or water. This is ludicrous! It's as though they are involuntarily gasping for oxygen, they can't restrain themselves from gasping for oxygen. That is not true, having sex is not a need in the same way as oxygen. People do it knowing what they are doing, they go through a decision-making process consisting of a multitude of actions that lead to sex.
It reminds me of children who can't discriminate between needs and wants. "Daddy, I need that toy!" They don't realise that they don't need the toy. "I have needs". No you don't, you spoiled brat! So childish!
The thing that really bothers me about this is because through this "needs" narrative, it becomes a shortcoming of the partner that they somehow failed to meet the needs of the cheater. The cheater cheated because their "needs" were not met. It makes the person who didn't cheat be responsible for the action of cheating. This is really bad! The cheater should be responsible for their own crappy behaviour, not blaming the person who behaved honestly in the relationship and to the best of their ability.
I think physical need for sex is warranted, however I don't think the narrative is this narrow. It expands to emotional needs as well. Sex isn't the primary thing people need in others. I think it is the validation, and a need to feel wanted. I think sex is an easy conduit of these things.
I think many people interpret "unmet needs" as purely sexual is because its meaning is reiterated by those who are triggered by the negative connotations of it. Perhaps you'll even see it on TV with a sexual tone to the phrase. And it's just to trigger you.
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And none taken. For sure, the meeting of human need explains things, but excuses none. And in any and all cases, each is responsible for their own needs, and no others’.
Also, I take other people’s statement of need at face value...who am I to know or judge someone other than myself?
What is a true need for me as a human being may be nothing such for another, and I try to keep that in mind when someone is speaking to their own truth.
And for sure, manipulators and narcissists and predators of all types have used and abused any an all constructs and ideas since the dawn of time. The constructs and ideas are no less for it.
But we would do well to be watchful and wary of this kind of use and abuse, for those who would seek to do so might also be the kind who would cheat in other ways.
Cheers,
Ian
There is no excuse for the behavior of the cheater. The point of the "needs" narrative is not to shift the blame or normalize the infidelity. It's more of a recognition that in a lot, not all of relationships where infidelity takes place, the infidelity is a symptom of an underlying problem in the relationship. Again, a lot of times, not all, an affair isn't even about sex.
The "needs" narrative is about recognizing that both men and women have emotional and psychological elements that must be tended to in order to feel secure in a relationship. I should mention that the recognition of unmet needs is only relevant if reconciliation is a possibility or as an attempt at infidelity prevention.
Obviously many people are unaware of their underlying motives that direct their behavior. Without being aware they can hardly begin to express themselves accurately. There may be relationships where a dude works all day comes home to is wife in an exhausted state and she starts in on wanting to cuddle and he opposes at the moment. That would trigger rejection in her which taps into the primal fear of abandonment. If that happens enough, she is likely to experience emotional stimulation from the new guy at work that compliments her new hair do. Because her husband has been inadvertently rejecting her she is vulnerable to an affair. She tried to feel the connection with her husband first. That's not to say he is to blame, but rather he was unaware of how his behavior was affecting his wife. She felt rejected, so she caved to the attention of another. She absolutely made the choice, not him. However, if he were more attentive she may not have.
Other relationships fall into a fucked up dynamic of pursue and withdraw. One person pursues the other in an attempt to have some desire met and the other withdraws from the attempts. The more one pursues, the more the other withdraws until one or both of them give up and are vulnerable to an affair.
What is important in relationships where the "needs" narrative is appropriate is that the offending partner usually does not seek out an affair. Rather, they are unhappy within the relationship and respond positively to people that do what they feel their partner does not. Unmet needs is not an excuse for infidelity, just as forgiveness is not a reason to reconcile.