BinDipper said:
The motivation behind the act doesn't directly matter, it is the act itself.
Why?
You can't have it both ways. It can't be all about betrayal and also purely the act itself, because betrayal isn't an act, it's the response to an act. Betrayal is the emotion you feel when someone else does something unexpected which personally hurts you, and a big part of that can be how you perceive the motivation. It's generally easier to forgive stupidity than malice.
BinDipper said:
What if your partner wasn't just sneaking off to bang someone? What if they were sneaking off to marry them without your knowledge? Or move out (if you live together) without your knowledge? What if you had made them aware there was one particular person they were not to bang but they were doing so and hiding it from you?
Okay, to break these questions down.
1) Obviously, how you feel about marriage is going to factor in here, but if you're in a non-monogamous relationship I think it's safe to assume that your understanding of marriage is probably different to that of most people. If we're talking literally here, I would be extremely confused. If what you're asking is how I would feel if my partner decided that another relationship was some kind of "primary" relationship. Well, I never understood myself as having a say in that, so while I might be disappointed on a personal level I don't see where the feeling of betrayal comes from.
2) Again, that's more a confusing scenario than a hurtful one. It raises a lot of questions, but I don't see why it would be particularly painful because I don't see why it would indicate any particular malice. Perhaps I have a unique perspective. My partner and I have both been renting in a major city since the start of our relationship, we've seldom lived in the same place for more than a year and quite a lot of the time we haven't lived together.
3) Okay. You're almost onto something. But at the end of the day, what would be painful is that my partner
knows she could just say "no seriously, I really want to do that" and I'd have no choice but to say say "well, okay, I don't like it but it's your life and I understand you have needs". The closest thing to betrayal would be the choice, because it is a choice, not to just make clear that it's something really important. At the same time, shit happens.. honestly, literal response to that situation - I'd probably just ask that they try and keep it out of my face and leave it at that. I don't see what it accomplishes to go any further.
I know it's pretty hard to accept, because I used to be quite skeptical myself, but I really don't feel jealousy, or rather I feel like I understand why I ever got jealous well enough that I don't actually need to do so. Jealousy, I think, is what happens when you
think you know someone, when you think you get someone completely and have some unique insight into them, and that turns out to be wrong - it turns out they have thoughts and desires which you didn't recognize or don't understand or which aren't about you. I don't see that as a problem though, I don't expect that I will ever truly understand my partner, but I understand enough that I can just leave the parts I don't understand be. They don't have to come back to me or hurt me because, at the end of the day, they were never about me to begin with.
That to me is an integral part of trust - accepting that you aren't always going to understand everything, you aren't always going to see where the "boundaries" are because the boundaries are negotiated between multiple people with different needs and priorities, but just being ready to accept it anyway.