I really am not interested in hearing anyone else's answers to these
questions, they are only to state my view that honesty has its limits.
When I talked to several bisexual men who were cheating on their spouses on
an email list, they often looked at their behavior in terms of two difficult
choices. A generalized paraphrase would be: "Which is worse--to cheat, but
still treat your wife and children with love and hold the family together,
or to tell your wife, thereby hurting her feelings deeply and causing a lot
of conflict, and possibly breaking up the family? Since cheating is the
lesser of two evils, it's the morally better choice. Cheating is a good
thing if it holds the family together."
When I challenged this view, I received some very harsh and negative
responses. Most accused me of seeing the world in black and white, of having
an over-simplified views of relationships, and of speaking in ignorance
since I didn't really understand their situations. Most sent one-time
messages to express their anger at me, then wanted nothing more to do with
me.
A few, however, engaged me in conversation. After talking awhile, many
admitted they felt cheating was wrong, but they didn't see this wrong as
meaning they were bad people. They stopped trying to justify cheating. They
instead said things like "Okay, cheating is wrong, but that's just one part
of my life. I work hard to support my family. I love my wife and children
and do my best to let them know how much I love them. I'm generally a good
guy who cares about people. I'm not going to beat myself up and walk around
with low self-esteem all the time just because I'm doing this one thing
that's wrong."
Of course, I didn't know them from the man on the moon. So I don't know how
they lived their lives. But I do know two people who cheat--one a man and
the other a woman. They aren't thieves and murderers. They aren't even
agrressive. They are both pretty laid back and fun-loving. They both have a
lot of friends. The man is little immature and unreliable, but that
describes a lot of men in our area. The woman is very mature and reliable.
Both want no-strings attached relationships when they cheat. Both claim to
cheat because their sex lives are not happening at home. They are taking big
risks with their marriages, and with the feelings of their spouses, and they
are escaping problems at home rather than working on them. At the same time,
they are far from the worse people I have met, and their cheating does not
seem to affect other aspects of their life.
I don't have mixed feelings about cheating. It's wrong, and people who are
willing to listen to their consciences are usually willing to admit it's
wrong. The mixed feelings I have is how to deal with cheating by people I
like.
Kelly
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