What's wrong with cheating?

[Azwrath]

If you can cheat on someone that means you were in an intimate relationship with them.


Because it is intimate then it implies a very high degree of trust between the 2 persons, since we do live in a monogamous society.

The reasons why we enter these monogamous relationships is because we feel the need to belong and be cared for. It is implied that you care for the other person while the other person cares for you. We show these feelings through physical and emotional intimacy. Again... trust and alot of it.

Cheating means the other person does not know about it. You knowingly break that trust proving that the only reason the other person was in a relationship with you does not exist, they do not belong and they are not cared for, even tho they thought otherwise. So their own feeling of caring towrds you turn in hate and self-loathing.

Why is cheating wrong? Because there is no scenario in which cheating can do anything good. It can only cause pain and suffering.

Why do affairs get such an overwhelming negative response? Because an affair implies long term cheating in a long term relationship. You knowingly hurt someone you are supposed to care for. What kind of responses should it get?

 

[Yopaz]

There's nothing wrong with cheating. Cheating has never hurt anyone.

Except for people getting STDs from their partner who got it from someone else of course.

 

[Angie7F]

I think it is jealousy.
This is shy I think if you are going to cheat, you have to be very good at it.
As long as you can go with out being discovered that its ok.
If you are not smart enough to keep it a secret. dont attempt it.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

There's nothing wrong with cheating. Cheating has never hurt anyone.

Except for people getting STDs from their partner who got it from someone else of course.

Say what now? I'm gonna need some clarification if you're serious or whether that was sarcasm which went straight over my head.

Whatever your views on the rights/wrongs of cheating saying that cheating never hurt anyone is . . . how to put this nicely? A complete load of bull.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I think it is jealousy.
This is shy I think if you are going to cheat, you have to be very good at it.
As long as you can go with out being discovered that its ok.
If you are not smart enough to keep it a secret. dont attempt it.

I do believe it is the betrayal, the deception even more so than the jealousy that is the issue. It is the lying that is the problem here, not " whether they are good at it or not." Regardless of " how sly they might be" they would not be able to conceal mononucleosis, gonorrhea, genital herpes, hepatitis c, or HIV and it would not only be unethical to conceal partners you have exposed to these things, it is also illegal in many areas to conceal partners you have exposed to these things, and they must be legally notified that they have been exposed so they can be tested and start treatment if necessary. Not only do you have to inform potential partners that you are infected, but past partners have to also be informed as well so they can be tested and receive treatment. Failing to notify them results in delay of treatment which can be life threatening, and the person responsible for delaying that treatment should be held legally accountable for those actions as well.

Although the dishonesty in the relationship is bad enough to receive condemnation, the health risks associated are also enough to warrant legal action as well.

I would also like to know what one plans on doing in the event that the people they are cheating on happen to meet by chance? The world is a very small place, and these things do tend to happen. People are branded as " untrustworthy" and " dishonorable" for good reason.

 

[Athefist]

If you've ever been cheated on by someone who is supposedly in a committed relationship with you, you'd know it's one of the most painful things imaginable. It's also completely unnecessary. Just break it off with your partner and go from there.

 

[Yopaz]

There's nothing wrong with cheating. Cheating has never hurt anyone.

Except for people getting STDs from their partner who got it from someone else of course.

Say what now? I'm gonna need some clarification if you're serious or whether that was sarcasm which went straight over my head.

Whatever your views on the rights/wrongs of cheating saying that cheating never hurt anyone is . . . how to put this nicely? A complete load of bull.

Don't worry, I am 100% sarcastic. I am completely against cheating for the emotional part as much for the chance of catching something.

 

[hooblabla6262]

Mostly because it is a violation of trust.

I've cheated many times, both physically and emotionally.

Because society didn't really align well with my polyfidelity ways, it felt justified.
Even though I never got caught and no one got hurt, it took a toll on me.
When you betray the trust of someone you genuinely love, it makes you realize just how fragile love and trust really are.
But when you've done it the once, it becomes hard not to fall in to that pattern.

Truth is if I hadn't had a major ego collapse on lsd, I probably never would have stopped cheating.

 

[Smeatza]

I personally despise it because it's selfish and disloyal.

Just break it off with your partner and go from there.

This.
In this day and age, with e-mail, texting, voicemail and the like. There is literally no excuse for cheating. If you can't take 10 seconds to type out a text to your significant other saying that it's over, then you are either a fundamentally bad person or a fundamentally weak person.

I suppose if one is polyamorous none of this is an issue.

 

[JemothSkarii]

It's an issue of trust and breaking the bond between you and your partner in a way that isn't really fair to them. I was cheated on....well, technically 5 times but I took her back every time because I thought 'she was the one'. She eventually threw a whole bunch of excuses at me: 'I'm pansexual' 'I can't help but love multiple people' 'You've changed too much'....all that fun jazz...It's been over a year now and it still ocassionally raises my anxiety and I have to hold back the urge to check up on her DeviantArt and see which 20th something partner she's been with...

Needless to say it was so bad it's made me wary of people calling themselves pansexuals and negative views towards polyamory but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Relationships are built on trust and fickle feelings, While under normal weight the bounds do not strained much but start cheating,lying,stealing it weakens those bonds creates more stress and just messes things up to a point one can not cope under the weight of it all..

Or in my case none can withstand my weight,size and over compensation issues. *giggles*

 

[elvor0]

WHAT? Why is this even a question? *head-desk*

 

[marcooos]

Everyone knows the rules: cheating is fine if you are a bloke, laudable in fact; but if you are female then it's wrong and you are a filthy slag.

Not really the general view is that your a massive **** regardless of gender when it comes to cheating. Sleeping around on the other hand yes that is the currently held view by a lot of people

 

[cerebus23]

Dishonesty is probably the worst part, at least from my perspective.

Instead of talking about problems in a relationship or being honest about what you want or expect from it, leading your partner on and pretending everything is fine while sleeping with someone else is a pretty shitty thing to do. It's incredibly cowardly to be too afraid to own up to your own actions or admit what you want and it's essentially abusing their trust.

Basically, if you're emotionally or sexually dissatisfied to the point where you'd rather be with someone else, or if you simply don't want to get into a monogamous relationship with that person, why lie about it? Why lead them on?

Cheating, in that sense, tends to be pretty conclusive evidence that you've abandoned that relationship, or otherwise that you're only continuing to be in that relationship for purely selfish reasons - because you want the parts of it that benefit you.

I like this it sums it up pretty well.

If you are so dissatisfied or unhappy that you have to go outside your relationship to get something, which is ignoring the core problem to begin with, then lie on top of it, how is cheating good at all?

Seems the best action is to talk about things, or break the relationship off if you want to mess around elsewhere.

Course this ignores casual flings cause sometime stuff happens, but even at that if you love the person you really should not be getting pulled into stuff at all. And if are a weak person that just cant help yourself then avoid the things where stuff can happen.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

There's nothing wrong with cheating. Cheating has never hurt anyone.

Except for people getting STDs from their partner who got it from someone else of course.

Say what now? I'm gonna need some clarification if you're serious or whether that was sarcasm which went straight over my head.

Whatever your views on the rights/wrongs of cheating saying that cheating never hurt anyone is . . . how to put this nicely? A complete load of bull.

Don't worry, I am 100% sarcastic. I am completely against cheating for the emotional part as much for the chance of catching something.

Ok then its just my sarcasm detector that's broken then

OT:

I personally associate cheating with people who are disloyal and weak willed. Disloyal because (duh) they're betraying the foundation on which most serious relationships are based. If it's just "a bit of fun" then you'd better make that damn clear ahead of time.

And weak willed because most people (and by most people I mean almost everyone) can see the natural consequences and that it might cause great - and long lasting - pain to someone that you're supposed to care about but you go ahead and do it anyway.

Of course there are a great many reasons why people cheat - but most people do it simply because they can and they don't think about or don't care about the consequences. I neither can nor will ever respect it as a choice.

If you want out get out - spare everyone the time, trouble and pain. If you don't want out don't cheat.

 

[Lightknight]

Aside from cheating being a moral and ethical evil as defined by society in most places, there is potentially a biological reason for it being so disliked.

For example, we can show even in single generations that indivuals with two active parents perform better than individuals with only one. Even adjusting for financial disparities maintains the benefits of two individuals even though two incomes do also lead to better performance than one income. As such, we are likely evolved to appreciate faithful relationships and to reject behavior consistent with abandonment. Note that this does not necessarily mean a monogamous relationship being imperative (much of human history favored polygamy). However, in a monogamous society this action would be deemed as inherently evil because of the additional expectation of faithfulness.

The implied trust in such relationships is a sort of social contract. To break it would be the same as breaking any other social construct. Like a person blatantly cutting in front of you in line (in the US, anyways), it immediately illicits extreme and even primal negative emotions. It is someone behaving anti-socially. In the same way, so does breaking a direct or implicit commitment.

That is the essence of cheating. You can ask the same question of any socially defined evil. Why is murder inherently wrong? The answer is a subjective or collective reasoning rather than some a-religious moral absolute.

 

[Yopaz]

There's nothing wrong with cheating. Cheating has never hurt anyone.

Except for people getting STDs from their partner who got it from someone else of course.

Say what now? I'm gonna need some clarification if you're serious or whether that was sarcasm which went straight over my head.

Whatever your views on the rights/wrongs of cheating saying that cheating never hurt anyone is . . . how to put this nicely? A complete load of bull.

Don't worry, I am 100% sarcastic. I am completely against cheating for the emotional part as much for the chance of catching something.

Ok then its just my sarcasm detector that's broken then

Nah, in retrospect I see that it wasn't really as obvious as I thought it was. It's hard to tell sarcasm in text and it's even harder when there are people on this site who would actually think like this. There's clearly need to make sarcastic remarks as the one I posted a little bit more obvious in order to separate me from the wannabe cynics here.

 

[Charli]

Shattering another human beings trust and expectations may be nothing to you but it can be crippling to them.
Simply put there is nothing 'wrong' with it other than what levels of human empathy we possess.

How much did/do you care about your fellow man, can you see the persons plight from their perspective.

Hell some people have serious trust issues BEFORE entering into a relationship, this could have been caused by family, or by school, etc and it might have taken them years to build up the trust once more.


And some people are so callous as to feel that is nothing to them. Instant gratification takes precedence over someone elses' feelings. Someone who they 'claimed' was dear to them. Okay.

To me. That seems scummy, no matter how you put it, but then I spend alot of time thinking about 'other peoples shoes'. To others, maybe it doesn't bother you. And alright then. Still makes me think less of you.

 

[Galletea]

If there was nothing wrong with it, then it wouldn't be called cheating.

Other than that, it's the emotional betrayal of knowing that your partner went elsewhere to get something they weren't getting from you. And ultimately that they felt they should do this behind your back, without discussing a problem in the relationship that you previously assumed to be working out fine. There are many layers of hurt when you have been cheated on, from the betrayal and rage to guilt, assuming that you have somehow forced your partner to clandestinely go and seek sex/affection/attention from somewhere else.

If there is an agreement where one partner goes to have sex with someone else for whatever reason, then it is an agreement and no longer cheating.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I don't think there's a moral absolute here, but regardless "adultery" is dishonest and hurtful to the person being adulterated against so it's a "bad thing" to do.