Cheating: Whose Fault is It?

[Vrex360]

When a man cheats, it seems that people are more likely to invoke him and the other woman as being at fault. The other woman is (obviously) a skank for sleeping with a taken man. The man is a bastard for cheating. The cheated on woman is a blameless victim.

If a woman cheats, it seems that we're more likely to give her a pass on it. She must have been "driven" into the arms of another man. Her boyfriend must have been a terrible boyfriend. Interestingly, there are mixed results about the other man. Some see him as being a noble person, comforting a woman whose boyfriend sucks, others see him as a bastard.

Yeah, this is a trend I have noticed for a while now actually, this is particularly apparent in movies, the woman always has something to rationalise her affair but the man in this situation is almost always just doing it out of sheer dickishness.
As a male, I have to say I find it a little disheartening.

OT:
I reckon it can be all three, for instance if (hypothetically) a woman is unhappy or perhaps is just having a difficult time in her marriage she may slip up and sleep with someone on the side. However the difficulty in the marriage may not entirely be the spouses fault, indeed I find such a sentiment laughable, if a marriage really is on the rocks odds are both spouses had an equal hand in it and no one has the right to cry foul.
So the spouse is not directly at fault, but is a major factor nonetheless. Remember boys and girls, you do still have to show love and affection to your significant others.

Second is the cheater herself/himself. Now this is someone who CAN be given the blame squarely, if you married for love and then betrayed the trust of your spouse that is something YOU did on YOUR OWN TERMS, I hate it when people try and claim that they were 'pushed' into these situations, because no one was tied to a bed and no one was forced. They could have at least admitted that they were compelled to do it and made a concious decision to do it because that's at least honest and can potentially be considered understandable.
However if you ask me, still the most easy to blame.

Finally the cheatee (see what I did there, play on the word 'cheater') is also fairly unsympathetic. On one hand they are going after someone who is clearly unavailable and in essence having no problem with the thought of stealing away the affections of a person knowing that somewhere out there someone loves them and trusts them.
Worse still are the casual affairs because then it's almost toying with the emotions of someone for cheap thrills and fun which I find quite distasteful.
Having emotions for said person is one thing and I can sympathise with the people unaware that their partners were married but the ones who clearly were aware and still had no problem with it, I have no sympathy.

So overall the presence of an extramarital affair doesn't neccesarily mean the end of a relationship, plenty of marriages have recovered from things like this, after all one can still argue that true love conquers all. But I can guarentee you that it still causes pain and hardships and indeed the feeling that your life is falling apart, and for all this to come at the cost of someone merely wanting to 'play around' I find loathsome. So while I am aware that adultery doesn't always mean the end of a relationship it always means pain and hardship and indeed everyone is to blame in some respects.

Can I just add for the record, I hate it when people consider sleeping with 'horny housewives' as a 'turn on'... I just have too much of a concious when it comes to things like this.

 

[Azuria]

People enter relationships for the wrong reasons. More often than less, there is no love whatsoever. These things are based on attraction only, which from arises the possibility of cheating. If you are with someone because you find them "attractive," there's nothing saying that you won't find someone else "more attractive," and there will always be that temptation.

As for the blame, the "other woman" is to be hated, but not blamed. If the man truly loved his partner, there would first be no temptation, and in the event that there were, respect his partner enough to firmly say no. To let another woman insinuate that he could desire her is an insult towards the man and his loved one.

 

[Regiment]

It is the fault of the person cheating, doubtlessly. I must put all the blame on the person committing the act. To use one of my famous analogies, if you buy a knife and stab someone, it's your fault, even if the knife salesman was really pushy and the guy you stabbed made disparaging remarks about your mother.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

Personally, I'd say it's the fault of the person cheating... and if the person with whom the person is cheating knows about their relationship? Yeah, fault there too.

 

[Lullabye]

Wouldn't have this problem with polygamy.*hint hint*
But seriously, I can't talk about this with a straight face after watching that southpark episode. good thing you can't see me grinning.
Basically I don't give a rats ass about who's to blame, but if someone is going to take responsibility then everyone should at least own up to what they feel they did wrong, neh? No? Then don't get married. It's saves you a lot(at least half) of your stuff.

 

[Terry576]

A poem:


It hurts to see you here,
you have betrayed me dear,
I can't see you right now,
you lied, you stole, oh wow.
I don't want to see you anymore,
you stupid sellout, you whore,
and that's why you hurt me sweetie,
with your consoling, and your goddamned cheating.

:>

 

[miasma88]

It can go all three ways. Me and my ex were hooking up while she was still with another guy, the only reason i agreed to it was because he would beat the crap out of her and even broke her fingers, and the relationship was pretty much over by the time ours started. She wouldnt let me go kick his arse so that was my way of getting back at him and hers.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I cheated on someone once, her sex drive towards me had died and she refused to address the issue, no matter how much I begged her to talk about it and try to sort it out.

She was also angry at me the whole time over stupid shit and was a complete emotional brickwall. So I went out, went to a party, got disgustingly drunk and kissed some other girl.

In hindsight, due to the months of guilt and self hatred that followed, it was not the best way to end the relationship because even though I was having my heart broken every day for a year, I had made myself the bad guy on a technicality.

 

[Serioli]

It's the cheaters fault.

'But my partner was crap/abusive/distant/not into [insert sexual practice]'.

Leave them then.

Cheating is unnecessary, any excuse you claim for cheating is your reason for ending the relationship.

 

[Romblen]

It's the cheaters fault. If some one feels like they are in a bad relationship, then they should leave that relationship.

 

[presidentjlh]

The person cheating on their partner, and the person they are having the affair with, are responsible.

If there's abuse in the primary relationship, having an affair won't help things. Get out of the primary relationship first. I don't blame the cheater as much though when abuse is going on.

If there isn't abuse, then the cheater and the person they are cheating with are complete scum in my opinion.

 

[Bat Vader]

I thought this was about people cheating in video games.

I think everyone in part is somehow to blame of course there are exceptions.

Sometimes a person is drove to cheating but the person they are with treats them horribly.

Sometimes the person who is cheating is doing so just because they wanted to, which in my opinion is wrong.

Usually I think there is more than one factor in cases where cheating is involved. My opinion though is that if you feel desire for another person that is strong enough to make you cheat on your boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse that they should end the marriage/relationship.

 

[AmayaOnnaOtaku]

The cheater obviously. There are people who enjoy seducing those who are committed to others for the thrill but if you fall for the trap dude it's your fault

 

[carpathic]

The person who cheated.

Nobody else is at fault, unless the person who the cheater cheated with was aware of the relationship, but even then their not as much to blame as the cheater.

I think?

I mostly agree, cheating is pretty cowardly. Yet, there have to be some pretty significant underlying issues in the relationship for a person to cheat. Rarely are those issues only one person's fault.

Though, the person ought to work within the confines of the relationship to fix what ails it rather than going after someone else as an easy escape.

 

[BonsaiK]

As happens on occasion, I've been sucked into a discussion about whose responsibility cheating is. It seems like there are three main answers (with combinations of each, leading to seven total responses), and that the level of support for each depends on which gender is cheating.

Some people I've spoken to have said that it's the cheating partner's fault, and no one else's. The person with whom the cheater slept isn't culpable or responsible for being the other man/woman, it wasn't his/her job to keep someone else faithful.

Others have claimed it's the person who slept with the cheater's fault. If they knew he/she was in a relationship, and pursued it (or gave into it) anyway, they're a scumbag.

Still others have claimed that it's the cheated-on partner's fault, he/she must have been emotionally unavailable, not satisfying in bed, or abusive, to "deserve" being cheated on.

There's the combinations, of course:

- Cheater/other woman are responsible
- Cheater/Cheated on
- Cheated on/other woman (though this hasn't come up)
- Everyone in part.

When a man cheats, it seems that people are more likely to invoke him and the other woman as being at fault. The other woman is (obviously) a skank for sleeping with a taken man. The man is a bastard for cheating. The cheated on woman is a blameless victim.

If a woman cheats, it seems that we're more likely to give her a pass on it. She must have been "driven" into the arms of another man. Her boyfriend must have been a terrible boyfriend. Interestingly, there are mixed results about the other man. Some see him as being a noble person, comforting a woman whose boyfriend sucks, others see him as a bastard.

How do you folks feel about it?

It takes two people to have a relationship. It takes three people to cheat. Everyone is usually culpable in some way.

Men tend to do more "frivolous" cheating. If a guy cheats, that doesn't mean something is necessarily wrong with the relationship per se (although there might be), sometimes he might just be someone who isn't a very responsible person and who just got horny.

Women tend to cheat more when there is something seriously wrong with the relationship they are currently in, and they've essentially given up hope of fixing the problem. When a woman cheats usually the relationship was just about to end anyway for unrelated reasons.

Of course, these are just tendencies, not hard and fast rules. Plenty of exceptions to both cases do exist. However, this explains why cheating is treated differently by the courtroom by gender. Statistically, men tend to cheat more for more frivolous reasons, therefore men tend to get the rawer deal in the courts. In cases where the guy cheated for a more sensible reason... well, he's got to convince the court of that, and if the court has seen lots of "I was just horny and she looked good" cases, they might be a bit cynical. Unfair, but hey, don't ever cheat and you won't ever have to be in this position.

 

[Kortney]

Cheating is no one's fault except the cheater. If you aren't happy in a relationship, let the other person know and talk about it - if need be, break up. Don't go behind their back and cheat.

That's my views on it.

 

[SnipErlite]

The person who cheated.

Nobody else is at fault, unless the person who the cheater cheated with was aware of the relationship, but even then their not as much to blame as the cheater.

I think?

I mostly agree, cheating is pretty cowardly. Yet, there have to be some pretty significant underlying issues in the relationship for a person to cheat. Rarely are those issues only one person's fault.

Though, the person ought to work within the confines of the relationship to fix what ails it rather than going after someone else as an easy escape.

Precisely, there are far better ways to deal with relationship problems (ie. TALKING TO THE PERSON, it seems hardly anyone does that anymore) than going off with some randomer.