Life Is Short; Have an Affair

[pocaracas]

As if on cue, facebook delivers this today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AUat93a8Q

and also:
https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_r...ever_loved

[thesummerqueen]

I've been the "other woman" - once knowingly, once inadvertently.

AMA.

[Catholic_Lady]

As an interesting sidebar, there's a sort of line that's been put out there with regards to cheating.  You love someone, you think the world of them, you might defend their actions or decisions that others who criticize - and then, whamo, they cheat.  No more love, no more understanding, no more defense or rationalization "everything we know is wrong forever".  How does that happen, or does it?  Any of you ever take a softer view of unfaithfulness as expressed in the person(s) you've entangled yourself with?  Has anyone ever found themselves leveraging that "friendlier" understanding to their former partners -after- they cheat?

Bare your souls folks...

I'd just like to make a distinction here real quick. 

While cheating on your spouse is wrong regardless of whether you do it with your secretary, or through someone you meet on a cheating website, I'd say there is something particularly nasty about actually seeking out an affair by paying money and joining a site for it. 

The guy at work can say "well I didn't intend on having an affair with my secretary, it just happened, I just fell in love." ...still a complete joke and totally inexcusable, mind you, but the guy who actively seeks out an affair, joins a site, and pays money for it, can't even say that much. It just adds another layer of nasty to the whole situation.

[The Grand Nudger]

But what about that is nastier, seeking as opposed to just finding? Presumably the difference makes little difference at point of entry, as it were, no?

On the note (not directly related to your post) my question from before asked. I had to pop up the lane and scoop my girls so I didn't have time to put my own bit out there, seems unfair to ask but not tell. I can't honestly say it would change all that much for me. I'd probably just shrug, I don't even think I'd head down to clinic to get screened. I don't know if that's distance or desensitizing. I'd probably be pissy for a day or two, but provided it was just cheating, not dreams of a new family or new relationship with another person, I don't think it would register as a blip on my radar. Provided the kids are still in their beds, that my name is still on my house, that we still sit down to dinner and watch tv together, that we're still friends. I'd be inclined to call it a non-event in the long run. That probably happens alot, or at least I have a sneaking suspicion that it does. Anybody else in that camp?

My wife, btw, total opposite. Murderous, downright murderous about that one non-negotiable item. It was an interesting early relationship conversation.....lol.

[rexbeccarox]

I probably wouldn't care at all either (except about the Josh Duggar part) if I hadn't been exposed first-hand to it, to be honest. My schadenfreude admittedly comes from my own experience.

I totally get that. I really do. On the other hand, I kinda get what Rhythm is talking about. I had an ex whose uncle, before marrying into the family, carried on an affair with someone as discreetly as possible while still married to a woman who was very ill both physically and mentally. He couldn't just divorce her and dump her, and she was clearly declining so "abandoning her before death" seemed shittier to him than having the affair for companionship and comfort. So he did. And was condemned for it. After his wife's death, he eventually remarried - into my ex's family, and his aunt was not the woman he was having an affair with. The other lady was just someone who was helping him get through things at the time, in the only way he knew how without going crazy.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Hate your ex all you want. Hate the people who talk out both sides of their mouths. If you individually confront someone and find they're cheating for extremely stupid reasons, then fine, condemn them as well. But sometimes, just sometimes, people are stuck between a rock and hard place, so they do some damage to the hard place, it being the easier of the obstructions. That's all.

I don't hate anyone; not even my ex. If anything, I'm glad AM was there for me to discover on my laptop because it sped along an inevitable process.  I'm just reveling in a little glee that most of the hacked are scumbags, because, sure there are sometimes justifiable reasons people cheat (or profit from cheating), but usually they're just scumbags.

[Catholic_Lady]

I would say it might not be fair to condemn the huge Duggar family as a whole for the actions of one person, though. The rest of them could very well be great people who actually do a good job of practicing what they preach.

Practicing what they preach is precisely what made Josh a molester.

They preach that molesting children is good?

[Pyrrho]

I'd just like to make a distinction here real quick. 

While cheating on your spouse is wrong regardless of whether you do it with your secretary, or through someone you meet on a cheating website, I'd say there is something particularly nasty about actually seeking out an affair by paying money and joining a site for it. 

The guy at work can say "well I didn't intend on having an affair with my secretary, it just happened, I just fell in love." ...still a complete joke and totally inexcusable, mind you, but the guy who actively seeks out an affair, joins a site, and pays money for it, can't even say that much. It just adds another layer of nasty to the whole situation.

But what about that is nastier, seeking as opposed to just finding?  ...

A distinction similar to Catholic_Lady's point is common in law.  Very often, premeditated murder is regarded as worse than spur of the moment, opportunistic murder.  (Often, the difference is between first and second degree murder, though these terms depend on the particular jurisdiction.)

So whether she is right or wrong, the distinction between planning something and not planning it in advance is one that many people find compelling.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, just wondering why, in this specific instance.  The difference between planning an affair and finding oneself in an affair...I don't think that many of us accept that -any- affair is totally automatic. Seems like some sort of planning/decision making might have gone down. 5 months or 5 seconds worth. I'm wondering if maybe it's the implication of long standing continuous deceit prior to, rather than the act itself.

[Longhorn]

Practicing what they preach is precisely what made Josh a molester.

They preach that molesting children is good?

No, they preach extreme sexual repression, and that takes its toll.

[Aroura]

Untrue.

The Duggars lost thousands of followers from the molestation scandal, and this will probably do them in as people to "look up to" for other religous people.  

So yeah....these things actually do have an impact!  
Being an honest being MATTERS!  I'm baffled that you would argue that is basically affects people not at all.

Lying on this level is terrible, and it ruins relationships (straight, gay, friends, families, all kind of relationships).  To defend it as just something everyone does is BS.  Though protestith too much, if you know what I mean.

Those people stopped believing what they did, or just transferred their beliefs to the next masthead?  Now, because I'm defending something else, and in the course of that accepting an uncomfortable -fact-.. I'm probably a cheater too huh?

Jesus christ.....

Let me put this very simply, for the simple amongst us.  

When, not if, you find yourself on the moral outs, regardless of whether or not there is any validity to that moral condemnation - don't be surprised, offended, or in any way feel that you have -any- purchase on the situation.  All comments now levied at these scumbags are -justly- levied at you, not because of the contents of the the specific moral condemnation, but because of your tongue in cheeck approval of -this one-.  Goose, meet gander.

I'm not condemning theses people for cheating, nor do I think it is OK for the hackers to do this.  I merely expressed a tiny bit of (I admitted) evil satisfaction that some of the Moral High horse people were getting caught in a lie.

At the same time, I know my tiny bit of satisfaction is wrong. But I'm willing to BE HONEST ABOUT IT.

Maybe you ought to get off YOUR moral high horse, as if you have never judged a person for what you percieved as an immoral behavior before.  Pffft.  It's human nature.  Or are you above that?