emotional vs physical cheating

soulsinging

decides2dream wrote:

funnt thing tho....for a man with 'all the answers' in regards to relationships/male-female dynamics...you never seem too happy in any of yours. so who's oh so smart now?

not in the current one, no. i was quite happy in the previous one and i recall people commenting on that whenever i spoke of it. it's likely been eclipsed by the venom i've spewed since that relationship ended. but many of my answers come from things i learned from that one and previous ones that i finally made sense of.

genie

soulsinging wrote:

that's not cheating. that's hot. he'd not be pissed to hear you did it, he'd be pissed he didn't get to see.

hehe, typical male answer

gue_barium

catefrances wrote:

if i ask a question and i suspect youre lying, then believe me there is gonna be a bigger fight than if you'd told me the truth. and i dont mean me being on a fishing expedition, i mean if i am asking a question so you can come clean. strangely for a law student, you seem to have no idea how much the truth is appreciated by some.

I think there's a few guys on this thread putting up a front concerning their heart on the matter.

gue_barium

genie wrote:

hehe, typical male answer

...and gals, too.

soulsinging

catefrances wrote:

if i ask a question and i suspect youre lying, then believe me there is gonna be a bigger fight than if you'd told me the truth. and i dont mean me being on a fishing expedition, i mean if i am asking a question so you can come clean. strangely for a law student, you seem to have no idea how much the truth is appreciated by some.

as a law student, i've learned that you want to be very careful about what truths you disclose to and which ones you keep to yourself.

i didn't say it was an intelligent choice, but guys aren't the best emotional manipulators nor the best fighters. women are. so a guy thinks he can defuse things with a lie. sometimes it works, sometimes not. when it doesn't he knows he's doubled his damage if he admits to lying, so he sticks to it. he can do this a remarkable amount. sometimes if he can outlast your rage, he can win. if not, he eventually cracks and the truth comes out. but in some of those cases the sense of vindication and righteousness from being proved right after such a battle leads the woman to think less of the actual act that caused it and in some sense he can win that way too. there are enough potential positive outcomes from lying to make it worthwhile. it beats the certainty of an explosion due to the truth, even if most of the time the lie only makes it worse.

meme

soulsinging wrote:

im one of those people. there was a great quote in the departed that about sums it up for so many people i know (me in particular). he says something about how she has to leave becos he's irish and he will live miserably with something wrong rather than fix it.

me too

writersu

yeah, once I was away from home and was visiting an old male friend and we hung out and had a lot of fun......none physical at all

and when I went home we still talked on the phone a lot and I thought that maybe it could be something better than I already was involved in but then I realized that probably any guy that I had a real relationship with would be a disappointment and I probably am better off with the type of relationships that are in your head........(and maybe in your bed----though that can't happen til the kids grow up and out) and not in my life. you know?

writersu

soulsinging wrote:

well what are wives if not hired long term prostitutes/housekeepers?

how can you be both???????

If I am the housekeeper I am WAY too tired to be the prostitute.

and if given a choice, I would rather have a cleaning woman come while I got a manicure/pedicure, massage, day away, etc. so I could come back home refreshed and be the prostitute that all women would be if we weren't screwed over by the prejudices we are told when we are young.

soulsinging

writersu wrote:

how can you be both???????

If I am the housekeeper I am WAY too tired to be the prostitute.

and if given a choice, I would rather have a cleaning woman come while I got a manicure/pedicure, massage, day away, etc. so I could come back home refreshed and be the prostitute that all women would be if we weren't screwed over by the prejudices we are told when we are young.

sounds like a hard day there. how about really getting over their prejudices and... i dont know... try working instead of spending his money?

decides2dream

soulsinging wrote:

not in the current one, no. i was quite happy in the previous one and i recall people commenting on that whenever i spoke of it. it's likely been eclipsed by the venom i've spewed since that relationship ended. but many of my answers come from things i learned from that one and previous ones that i finally made sense of.

point is, you DON'T 'have all the answers'...no one does. to think you do, is foolhardy at best. every person, every relationship is different. sure, you learn as you go...but you should NOT take 'baggage' from one person to the next...let each be him/herself....take it from there.


anyhoo...i was just calling you on your shite that i know you love to post. all those easy answers. i really am not interested in another back/forth about you, there seems to be plenty of others here who enjoy discussing you/your relationships with you...i was just taking on that ONE comment.


bottomline, i simply do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all approach to relationships, so certainly not on the specific topic of cheating.

failedpersephone

soulsinging wrote:

see, any woman who says this is ipso facto a liar. becos if a guy was truly honest with you, you'd either feel like shit or dump him within an hour. cos he'd sound an awful lot like me. sexist, piggish, crude, and indifferent. he'd tell you yes you look fat in those pants now stop fucking whining about it and let's get the fuck out of here. and so on and so forth.

Strange that you assume that all men think exactly like you. would you dump a woman or feel like shit if we were your style of honest with you?

sexist, piggish, crude and indifferent arent synonymous with honesty...I don't think you have to be "brutal" to be honest.

I think that most people prefer openness and honesty from their emotional/sexual partners...but the fact that they are emotionally important to you should indicate that you are emotionally important to them thus they should be able to be honest with you and also want to NOT hurt your feelings.

you can do both you know...I mean let's just say that I asked you if "I looked fat" in a pair of jeans you could be honest and tell me "yeah they do - but I would rather be ON time, than late with you wearing fat jeans." you don't have to say "OH hell yeah your ass is getting huge dimplebutt! now shut the fuck up and hurry" or something to that effect.

(*disclaimer - I would never ask this because I dont care...and I have a theory that if the jeans button they fit and if they fit they work for me *additional disclaimer - I realize that you would never be in the position of being my emotional/sexual partner...just go with it)

soulsinging

decides2dream wrote:

anyhoo...i was just calling you on your shite that i know you love to post. all those easy answers. i really am not interested in another back/forth about you, there seems to be plenty of others here who enjoy discussing you/your relationships with you...i was just taking on that ONE comment.

i dont know if you saw this thing next to that ONE comment:

";)"

but it means i was joking. it's that fun witty banter with another poster (who said it first) that you claim to miss from my drinking days. :rolleyes:

soulsinging

failedpersephone wrote:

Strange that you assume that all men think exactly like you. would you dump a woman or feel like shit if we were your style of honest with you?

sexist, piggish, crude and indifferent arent synonymous with honesty...I don't think you have to be "brutal" to be honest.

I think that most people prefer openness and honesty from their emotional/sexual partners...but the fact that they are emotionally important to you should indicate that you are emotionally important to them thus they should be able to be honest with you and also want to NOT hurt your feelings.

you can do both you know...I mean let's just say that I asked you if "I looked fat" in a pair of jeans you could be honest and tell me "yeah they do - but I would rather be ON time, than late with you wearing fat jeans." you don't have to say "OH hell yeah your ass is getting huge dimplebutt! now shut the fuck up and hurry" or something to that effect.

my style of honest? my point is people should never be 100% honest with anyone. you are lying right now if you say you would not be upset to hear "yeah they do - but I would rather be ON time, than late with you wearing fat jeans." there is no nice way to say something like that without hurting feelings. so you lie.

as to cheating, i see no reason to be honest. in a past relationship, i slipped up once. i never said a word about it to her and she never had any idea about it. i knew it was a mistake and i wasn't going to do it again (and i didnt). we carried on just fine. if i had told her it would have accomplished nothing aside from to make that mistake even worse. instead of correcting my behavior and putting it behind me, it would have hung between us, hurt her terribly, and destroyed the relationship.

now, if i had been a serial cheater or having an affair, then the hurt is the deception and toll it takes on the relationship, not the lying about it when confronted. if it's affecting your relationship then leave. if he's emotionally not there and it's unsatisfying, what diff does it make if it's becos he's cheating, distant, or just not right? in any case you ought to just get out.

failedpersephone

soulsinging wrote:

my style of honest? my point is people should never be 100% honest with anyone. you are lying right now if you say you would not be upset to hear "yeah they do - but I would rather be ON time, than late with you wearing fat jeans." there is no nice way to say something like that without hurting feelings. so you lie.

as to cheating, i see no reason to be honest. in a past relationship, i slipped up once. i never said a word about it to her and she never had any idea about it. i knew it was a mistake and i wasn't going to do it again (and i didnt). we carried on just fine. if i had told her it would have accomplished nothing aside from to make that mistake even worse. instead of correcting my behavior and putting it behind me, it would have hung between us, hurt her terribly, and destroyed the relationship.

now, if i had been a serial cheater or having an affair, then the hurt is the deception and toll it takes on the relationship, not the lying about it when confronted. if it's affecting your relationship then leave. if he's emotionally not there and it's unsatisfying, what diff does it make if it's becos he's cheating, distant, or just not right? in any case you ought to just get out.

actually i am not lying when i say that I would NOT BE UPSET by that type of comment...seriously, I think your experiences (current and past) have really placed you in this mindset of "I can be a dick because she is going to be overemotional anyway...all women are overemotional...since this presses me towards being passive aggressive about "truth" all men must feel this way" that ain't how it always plays out, dude. like I said before that hypothetical that you gave was ridiculous in my own experiences since i dont ask asinine "looking for a pout" style questions. I can and do "handle" truth and honesty from my boyfriend. and from past boyfriends as well. I have in my experience been lied to about drug use that was hurtful because as a person that has a hard time judging others it seemed like a bizarre pantomime to lie. I have been told many "harsh" truths by loved ones and did not get upset because it was from a loving person. so even the little "rather lie than deal with bullshit" style questions that i do ask (regarding my cooking, etc) has been met with such statements as "it tasted like the smell of ass and burned rubber" and "actually I didn't find that worked at all for me instead I thought you looked like my aunt poured into latex" (those have ACTUALLY BEEN SAID TO ME) and I didn't even tear up :rolleyes: (surprise surprise) ...here is another not-my-business-judgment call; your current girl (whom you seem to be using as a female standard bearer) is emotionally unbalanced, and immature...according to your postings regarding her...

Also - the past relationship where you "slipped" you are talking about having a fuck and then talking to her about it afterwards?? I was saying if there is a feeling of "I am attracted to someone and I might" then honesty would work. if after you fucked someone you told me that you had, I would be upset blah blah blah but I would also be pleased that you thought enough of me to JUST TELL ME rather than (regardless of if you ever urged to stray again) pretend it didn't happen because you didnt want the "upset blah blah blah" part.

that is rather cowardly. in my opinion, and THAT is what would have destroyed a relationship had i discovered or even felt that i needed to be suspicious. I don't like thinking that i need to watch my man...or having him think that he needs to watch me - emotionally that is exhausting and foolish. a mind fuck is a good thing but it's place has nothing to do with trust and honesty in my relationships.

*this is merely a discussion and i hope this does not read as an attack...nor did I read your statement as an attack.

decides2dream

soulsinging wrote:

i dont know if you saw this thing next to that ONE comment:

";)"

but it means i was joking. it's that fun witty banter with another poster (who said it first) that you claim to miss from my drinking days. :rolleyes:

i did. i *got* that it was humor... i added a at the end of my post to show that....but yea, you do often post things like you are an 'expert' on the subject...that's all. i also added a next to my 'easy answers' post....so why don't my comments get a pass too then eh? exactly. i felt like commenting on the statement, your intent is your own. i felt like simply addressing the actual words.

and i NEVER said i MISS em......just that i liked you better then, big difference. in reality, doesn't make a difference at ALL.




anyhoo, i think failedpersephone really covered the topic so well. and quite a fw posts back, justam really worded it all so succinctly. for me personally, emotional or physical....it ALL would depend on the state of my marriage how i would feel/react. if i felt all was well and we were totally happy, no issues, etc...i would be unbelievably hurt either way. however, if we were having problems, issues, whatever.....it would be at the very least a starting point to understanding, and making decisions on what's the best course of action from that point on.


quite honestly, anyone who is truly emotionally invested in someone a long time...i cannot imagine just walking away over infidelity just like that. it may ultimately end the relationship, but to say "he/she cheats, i'm gone"...is an easy thing to say/think, just like "i will/would never do___"....you just don't know what life will throw your way, and how you will react, until in the given situation. easy to form a hypothesis of an imagined situation, another thing entirely to live it....and to completely alter your life. as i said earlier, all depends on the couple, the relationship and what both truly WANT.

soulsinging

decides2dream wrote:

i did. i *got* that it was humor... i added a at the end of my post to show that....but yea, you do often post things like you are an 'expert' on the subject...that's all. i also added a next to my 'easy answers' post....so why don't my comments get a pass too then eh? exactly. i felt like commenting on the statement, your intent is your own. i felt like simply addressing the actual words.

and i NEVER said i MISS em......just that i liked you better then, big difference. in reality, doesn't make a difference at ALL.

yeah, i often post like an except, but im always just talking out my ass. it's like standup comedy is funny becos it's true. my posts piss people off becos when you strip away the layers of venom and loaded language, we all know there is truth to what i say.

soulsinging

failedpersephone wrote:

here is another not-my-business-judgment call; your current girl (whom you seem to be using as a female standard bearer) is emotionally unbalanced, and immature...according to your postings regarding her...

i've been referring to many different girls and my experiences throughout this thread. my current gf is only one of them. i get the impression everyone thinks every single thing i say about women is based on one girl. not the case.

failedpersephone wrote:

Also - the past relationship where you "slipped" you are talking about having a fuck and then talking to her about it afterwards?? I was saying if there is a feeling of "I am attracted to someone and I might" then honesty would work. if after you fucked someone you told me that you had, I would be upset blah blah blah but I would also be pleased that you thought enough of me to JUST TELL ME rather than (regardless of if you ever urged to stray again) pretend it didn't happen because you didnt want the "upset blah blah blah" part.

that is rather cowardly. in my opinion, and THAT is what would have destroyed a relationship had i discovered or even felt that i needed to be suspicious. I don't like thinking that i need to watch my man...or having him think that he needs to watch me - emotionally that is exhausting and foolish. a mind fuck is a good thing but it's place has nothing to do with trust and honesty in my relationships.

so if he slips up once and never does it again, what do you gain by knowing about it? assuming you never find out, nothing changes and he is a better bf than he was before. what you don't know cannot hurt you. if he tells you, you get upset and it strains your relationship, and you can no longer trust him and have to start watching him. especially becos it is fear of losing you that keeps him from telling you. if he tells you and ends up going "that wasnt so bad" he's that much more likely to do it again.

decides2dream

soulsinging wrote:

yeah, i often post like an except, but im always just talking out my ass. it's like standup comedy is funny becos it's true. my posts piss people off becos when you strip away the layers of venom and loaded language, we all know there is truth to what i say.

you don't piss me off. for someone to piss me off, i have to care about them in my actual life and/or it have some affect on my life or people i care about. while i do 'know' and care about you as a person, your actualy opinion has no bearing for me...so never pissed off. sometimes amazed that someone such as yourself can hold some of the opinions you do, or that you present that you hld such opinions, whatever.......but i disagree. there isn't always 'truth' to your comments. and we've gone over it again and again. as i said, i did not want to get into it with you, yet again, b/c it's simply a circular comment. we see the world differently. occasionally for shits and giggles i like to call you, or anyone, out on what i deem ridiculous and/or stereotypical bs comments....but otherwise it doesn't much matter. as ever, i will say SOMEtimes such things are funny b/c SOMEtimes they are true. however here is not a stand-up act, and thus why at times when someone posts as a 'comedy routine' in the middle of a serious thread....you just don't know which way to go with it. anyhoo....we are FAR afield of the thread topic now, should've been PMs at this point b/c this has zero to do with the thread topic at this point. so for that....mea culpa.


i think my opinion/thoughts about emotional/physical cheating are already stated, so unless i see thought-provoking posts on the topic, i'll be good and stop posting here!


bottomline...physical or emotional...both can do serious damage....and all truly depends on the couple and relationship.

Jeanie

soulsinging wrote:

only a woman would think this is strange behavior, becos only a woman would look back and revise history to say well, if he'd have just told me it would've been fine." fuck that. we know better. if we were honest with you about the shit we're thinking and doing, we'd be dealing pms x10. fuck that. we lie to you becos we know we have to. it's why bill clinton lied about lewinsky. and why every man in the history of cheating has lied when asked about it. that is a cardinal rule. there are 2 rules for me: you don't rat on friends, and you never admit to cheating. period. why the fuck would he admit to it? so you can flip out? so he has to deal with you crying? why?

It's strange behaviour because if you wanna keep fucking EVERYTHING with a pulse WHY do you still need me around????????????????

Oh and for the record I've had guys tell me they've screwed around and we've continued the relationship. The only person snivelling that I know was the guy that couldn't cope after screwing around and telling me so only to discover that I was perfectly happy to continue AFTER I'd had a nice little random fuck to even the score. But you're gonna tell me now how there's something wrong with me right because it couldn't possibly be you and your men's group. :rolleyes:

soulsinging

Jeanie wrote:

It's strange behaviour because if you wanna keep fucking EVERYTHING with a pulse WHY do you still need me around????????????????

Oh and for the record I've had guys tell me they've screwed around and we've continued the relationship. The only person snivelling that I know was the guy that couldn't cope after screwing around and telling me so only to discover that I was perfectly happy to continue AFTER I'd had a nice little random fuck to even the score. But you're gonna tell me now how there's something wrong with me right because it couldn't possibly be you and your men's group. :rolleyes:

becos you listen so nicely and cook so well

of course he was snivelling. you slept with another guy. that takes us back to the OP. guys take physical infidelity very hard. women take emotional infidelity very hard (lying about cheating worse than the cheating). that was my point.