Lust, Love & Loyalty
April 17, 2007 by gayla
Filed under Relationships
Over two weeks, 70,288 readers — 93 percent from MSNBC.com, the rest from iVillage — completed the survey. Three-quarters told us they were in a committed relationship and the majority of participants have been with their current partner for at least 12 years. Fifty-four percent were men, with an average age of 43; 46 percent were women, 38 was their average age.
Some of the questions that were asked and answered were:
- What do you consider cheating?
- When is cheating justifiable?
- Have you ever cheated?
- Do open relationships work?
- How far would you go to find out whether your partner was cheating?
- Who’s the lover?
- How long did the affair last?
- What about the kids?
- How long before you strayed?
- How did your partners stack up?
- Which celebrity would lure you to stray?
- How did cheating make you feel?
- Why did you seek sex outside your relationship?
- Did technology play a role in your affair?
- Did you get caught?
- Have you ever been cheated on?
I’ve always been a big believer that IF couples would just take a minute to stop and think — If their partner were in the exact same situation, how would they want THEM to respond/react and then act that same way — there would be far less cheating, divorces and breakups.
What are your thoughts on cheating? Would you? Have you? And when exactly is it cheating?
Tags: cheating, lust, loyalty, infidelity, love, sex, relationships
So if it were just “cyber sex” then they meet face to face for a breif hello. Set up a time to meet….. to be together, then his wife found out, no more contact between them, was it cheeting? or just stepping into new territory? Can you forgive him and take him back? Or kick him to the curb for her or the garbage men to pick back up?
I suppose I’m old fashioned enough and have much stronger moral and value then to stoop to such activity. However, I believe unless it’s mutually agreed upon by both partners to proceed in an open marriage, then one person stepping beyond those bounds is wrong.
I’ve always believed that intimacy is 90+ percent mental. So engaging in cyber sex with someone other than your partner is cheating.
Regardless of whether or not the ‘cheating’ partner felt it was, the person who is ultimately injured in the relationship determines the degree of infidelity associated with the act.
Is it forgivable?
I don’t think anyone should ever say never, but for me personally, it would take an enormous amount of positive predictability to prove that trust is paramount within the relationship.