After He Cheats

[Danugh]

Well Carie talks about what to do before he cheats, but after the anger wears off, can you ever trust him again?

Is it really once a cheater always a cheater, or is there room for forgiveness and a little couples counseling?

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?

Thoughts on cheating and after?

 

[Something Else]

well i'd have to say that from my experience...

if you're not in love with them RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if you're in love with them it's a painful personal decision.

It could be a momentary weakness where there's a lot of confusion in and out of their life

OR

the tip of the iceberg--think Titanic!


Forgiveness IS very important in having a strong relationship.

That said, forgiveness should be used wisely.

Sorry couldn't think of a better reply

 

[G-Lexington]

Does he want to be trusted again?

Lex

 

[bluedragon4]

Depends on the age. I would give more forgiveness to someone younger than older.Some times people get scared or don't understand when that we are a couple moment is. There are so many factors. I have been with my bf for 4 years and he is 8 years younger. If he slipped up I would forgive him but I am really secure and I wouldn't make drama out of it.(as long as it was a one time slip and he doesn't have another relationship going on) Now I would never ever give him the go a head nor would he me and I would never tell him I would be okay if he slipped up cause than i am giving permission. But I am the 1st guy he has lived with and I am a little older and have done this long term thing several times before. the older I get the more at ease i am. If I were his age I would cry for months and get even and freak out if he cheated.It would be a huge drama fest! But I'm older and much wiser and have been there. But like I said I would never ever open it up or tell him go a head.but i trust him completely.

 

[pinolian79]

[[/B]Once the person you love and trust cheats on you it is very hard to ever trust them again. When it happend to me I was so unable to ever trust him, every time he went out somewhere I always was wondering if he wasnt cheating on me, And come to find out he was. So that was the end of our relationship. He had always told me that it would never happen again................

 

[LotusOnBuddha]

I believe cheating is an indicator of a larger problem. People cheat for a reason, they want to feel something their not currently feeling. Maybe the thrill of the chase, or they want to be desired.
I think the forgiveablity factor depends on the root cause of the cheating. Is it something deep seeded and malicous or was he drunk and it was a mistake? Was it repeated with 1 person or just once with no one important?

 

[Chalchalero]

Well Carie talks about what to do before he cheats, but after the anger wears off, can you ever trust him again?

Is it really once a cheater always a cheater, or is there room for forgiveness and a little couples counseling?

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?

Thoughts on cheating and after?

My policy has always been (and I'll admit I'm a bit more cynical than most...) that men are going to cheat anyway. It's what happens when you are young and full of hormones, and every guy who accidentally bumps into your front parts at the bar seems to be coming on to you. So I have never obsessed about it.

I have always believed that if I truly love someone, then I don't give a damn who he is screwing around with behind my back as long as a) I don't know about it, b) it NEVER happens on any bed we share together (that INCLUDES the St. Mark's Hotel, dammit!), and c) none of my friends know about it. I really don't need the drama that would come out of that one!

Too many gay people aspire to the straight view of realtionships - monogamy, faithfulness and all of that. Frankly I believe it is all a bit bourgeois.

It is the love which matters, not the sex in a relationship. If my partner of five years were to cheat on me tomorrow, I would not care to know about it and continue to love him as I always have, and as he has always loved me.

 

[countrylovinguy]

I thought I could forgive my boyfriend for cheating on me but the relationship was never the same after that....maybe if he'd actually admitted it and said he was sorry but he denied that it was true. A mutual acquaintance took me aside and reluctantly told me about seeing him with another guy. After 6 months I realized I'd never feel the same way about him again so I called it quits

 

[sebastian-k]

I thought I could forgive my boyfriend for cheating on me but the relationship was never the same after that....maybe if he'd actually admitted it and said he was sorry but he denied that it was true. A mutual acquaintance took me aside and reluctantly told me about seeing him with another guy. After 6 months I realized I'd never feel the same way about him again so I called it quits

The same to me, i may forgive him, but my trust in him will never be the same.

Trust in a relationship is like glass, if broken can be glued together, but ripples will remain visible.

 

[seijnsational]

My policy has always been (and I'll admit I'm a bit more cynical than most...) that men are going to cheat anyway. It's what happens when you are young and full of hormones, and every guy who accidentally bumps into your front parts at the bar seems to be coming on to you. So I have never obsessed about it.

I have always believed that if I truly love someone, then I don't give a damn who he is screwing around with behind my back as long as a) I don't know about it, b) it NEVER happens on any bed we share together (that INCLUDES the St. Mark's Hotel, dammit!), and c) none of my friends know about it. I really don't need the drama that would come out of that one!

Too many gay people aspire to the straight view of realtionships - monogamy, faithfulness and all of that. Frankly I believe it is all a bit bourgeois.

It is the love which matters, not the sex in a relationship. If my partner of five years were to cheat on me tomorrow, I would not care to know about it and continue to love him as I always have, and as he has always loved me.

I think that's the most profound statement I've read in a while and I have to say I honestly feel the same after almost 7 years.

 

[Just_Believe18]

*sigh* I used to be so sure about this.

 

[M4P]

After ten years with the same man, in what I believe is a monogamous relationship, I have to agree. When we first got together I said "if it happens - I don't want to know about it". For all I know it may have but I don't know and I'm okay with that. Its me he comes home to each night and makes future plans with

My policy has always been (and I'll admit I'm a bit more cynical than most...) that men are going to cheat anyway. It's what happens when you are young and full of hormones, and every guy who accidentally bumps into your front parts at the bar seems to be coming on to you. So I have never obsessed about it.

I have always believed that if I truly love someone, then I don't give a damn who he is screwing around with behind my back as long as a) I don't know about it, b) it NEVER happens on any bed we share together (that INCLUDES the St. Mark's Hotel, dammit!), and c) none of my friends know about it. I really don't need the drama that would come out of that one!

Too many gay people aspire to the straight view of realtionships - monogamy, faithfulness and all of that. Frankly I believe it is all a bit bourgeois.

It is the love which matters, not the sex in a relationship. If my partner of five years were to cheat on me tomorrow, I would not care to know about it and continue to love him as I always have, and as he has always loved me.

 

[Aussieguy01]

Depends on the meaning of cheat . If he only kissed someone then that i could forgive , if they had a sexual relationshionship then i would chase them both down with a shovel! Because a kiss can easily happen , it could be the other guy locking lips and it happens and in some circumstanses it might not be your mans fault , but when they have sex its something they allow, a kiss can last a few seconds , sex canb last hours.

 

[arteguy]

I would hope in a next relationship that if one of us needed more variety we could discuss it and work something out. Sex and love can be different. That would also mean a lot of trust and communication. Once a bf cheated and apologized and I forgave thinking he's just being a horny guy. A week later I caught them again and I didn't talk to him again, because it felt like I did not know him anymore. The next relationship was great because I knew what I would put up with. I don't judge others decisions, but once the lying and secrecy start, it is hard to get the trust back.

 

[albar05]

Gee this seems like mixed bag of comments...

For me , cheating is cheating!! i know that if i EVER caught my b/f doing anything close to cheating, he can " hit the road " , i will not now or ever, be able to trust him , knowing that he did not respect me enough , that our relationship did not mean anthing to him and he could just dishonour our love in a flash.

I know that alot of guys like flirting and getting attention from other guys /girls, and some think that is just harmless fun, but this is where is can all start..
Respect the views of your other half if you truly value your relationship and if they do not like you doing it , STOP!!!! if you really love them , you would not want to hurt them , and if flirting etc is harmful to your relationship in any way and is making the person you supposedly love, hurt , you have to stop and think , " Is it REALLY worth it?

Cheating is cheating, be it flirting to get something ( which you should be getting from the person your with ) , or fucking .. END OF !!!

If i caught my b/f flirting with someone in a sexual way, well lets just say , " Even God wouldn;t be able to help him! " .........

 

[Daddybearsdoit]

I used to believe that forgiveness was a good thing and that I should work hard to repair the trust that my boyfriend broke the first time I caught him.

It's actually a strange story. I had friend at school who is gay and is always using those online hookup sites. He is also very fond of telling stories about who he has met and who he has fucked. He started telling me about this guy he met online who had a boyfriend and wanted to do a 3-way. I guess he didn't feel comfortable doing a 3-way with two strangers off the internet so my friend told him that he would consider it, but would like to get together 1-on-1 first to get to know one of them.

Well my friend was telling me all about this and happened to drop the guy's screen name. I knew immediately who it was because my bf was using the same screen name he had been using when we met. I told my friend all of this and he showed me all of the emails and internet chat that they had been having. I looked up my bf's account and found out that he had even posted naked pictures of me on the internet to entice people to write. I confronted him about it on Jan 13th of this year and he came up with all kinds of crazy stories about how he was playing my friend and tricking him into thinking that it would be 1-on-1 but would really be a surprise 3way. I couldn't really prove anything, so I decided to believe him even though the idea of him tricking someone into a 3way against their will made me sick.

Now, I come to find out that one month to the day after all of that happened he got together with some guy he met on yahoo messenger to be a sub in an S/M relationship. I could never prove that they actually did anything at all, because they had agreed to set up all the details of their meetings by phone.

But I did find a log of the text of a number of conversations they had on yahoo messenger. I remember the most disturbing thing that was said. The guy my bf had been arranging this all with apparently knew that my bf had a partner because a discussion of chastity devices came up. The guy told my bf that he wanted to make my bf wear chastity devices for long periods of time, like a week or something, but that "it would have to be cleared with your partner first though."

To my shock and horror his reply was "my partner wouldn't know about our times together."

needless to say, at that point any and all trust I had left in him vanished. The worst part was how long I let myself stay in that relationship after I knew.

Now, I'm not saying that all men will keep cheating. I know that some probably just have moments of weakness, and can learn and grow from them, but I think it all depends on the personality of the man. There are some, like my bastard bf, who will do what they want, when they want, to satisfy their cravings with no thought what so ever to the people they should care about most.

 

[SilverRRCloud]

The matter at hand has been with us since the times immemorial. And sadly, no satisfactory solution to human infidelity has ever been found.

This is simply a historically proven fact of life.

I would never say that ALL people or that even ALL men cheat. But very many certainly do. They have been doing it since the dawn of times and I cannot think of any good reason as to why should they suddenly stop now. Can you?

I also strongly believe that most men (not ALL) have been hard-wired to spread their seed as far and as often as possible. By raising the issue of cheating you are actually raising the issue of nature vs. nurture.

---
You want to spend as much time and as much energy as you can, in learning both about yourself and about your partner. If you genuinely hold monogamy and marital fidelity as absolutely indispensable, you ought to make sure that your partner feels absolutely the same way about those issues. This is why making LTRs work takes a very long time and serious energy, too.

You may also have a different view of the things here, as I do. I do recognize that both my BF and I are highly sexual. Sex isn't everything in our lives but everything without sex amounts to nothing, too. We happily live in an open relationship, which is based upon the idea that having sex with another male is something that comes naturally to both of us and that we do not need any serious emotional involvement with anyone at hand to help us bust our nut.

---
Thus, I really have no issue with cheating in this traditional sense of the word. I would have a very HUGE issue though, with lying. If we choose to be in a very committed monogamous relationship and my BF were to be cheating around, my trust in him would be completely shattered and this would automatically spell the end of my relationship with him. I hold our reciprocal and unconditional trust in each other as the most sacred thing there is. Any violation of such a trust would simply be unacceptable.

SC