Quote:If, as NIMH did, steps forwards and says 'no,actually I don't consider the other spouse much at all' that's fine, it's an answer. Rest assured I'm not going to condemn that person.
The act itself is wrong, and the person who says 'I don't consider the other spouse' knows that is wrong, but is willing to do it to get what they want.
Actually - but I know I'm a bit of a world-strange dogmatic about this - I
dont think the third person is doing something wrong. And trust me, saying that doesnt come all that easily, because to complicate matters further I've also been cheated
on by a long-time girlfriend (six-year relationship, African dancer (or two), you dont wanna know).
I may be atypical in that I'm really a bit of a fundamentalist about this personal responsibility thing. Perhaps through the experience of being on both sides, or perhaps because I was raised by a strong-willed feminist (will come back to that in a minute). When I cheated on my girlfriend, it was entirely my own decision, and it's a conscious enough one. Anyone who will go on to you about "gripped by passion" and "I didnt know what I was doing" is obfuscating. There is always this one moment - it may come at different points for different people, for the one when (s)he asks someone out on a date, for another just before kissing, and for a third the moment before he enters her - that you realise that you are making a choice here: one clouded (or fuelled) by passion, perhaps, but still the moment when you know: my partner would not agree. Unless you're totally drunk out of your mind, I suppose (wouldnt know about that), you will at one point think: oh what the hell. I want this -
anyway.
My point here: when I did so, it was my responsibility entirely. Nobody else's. My lover didn't make me do it; I was no willess victim of her treacherous charms or my instincts (we are
not animals, even if we'd like the excuse sometimes). And I would not accept anyone trying to lay the responsibility for it at her doorstep, I'd have been furious if my gf had tried to approach her and go off at her. Its me you want: if I hadnt wanted it to happen, it wouldnt have happened, I'm a grown man.
By that standard I hold others too. When my girlfriend let that guy kiss her, again and again, it was because she wanted him to. She
could have said no at any point from there, she wasn't a child either. So what should I blame him for? If I'd been him I'd have done the same thing - hey, she was pretty damn cute. All he did was take an offer, however implicit. And the wrong that occurs in adultery, IMO, takes place in
that gesture, in that offer. The offer
she made. It was nobody else's responsibility to stop her for her own good. To tell her that what she thinks she wants is not really good for her, to protect her against herself.
This is where the upbringing thing comes in, I suppose. My mum was on the streets demanding to be "boss in own belly", as the abortion rights movement back then had it in Dutch. Nobody else but the woman has anything to say about what she does with her body - no man is to tell her she doesn't really want what she thinks she wants, she must just not have thought things through, He Knows Better. He'll take care of her, ensure she doesn't do anything wrong. I'm not going to tell a woman that I Know Better: if my girlfriend cheats on me, I'll be angry and tell her how I'm hurt - and I can draw my own consequences when she doesn't take that into account and does it again anyway (I left homegirl in the end). But I can't
tell her what to do and I wont expect or want any other man, least the man she sleeps with, to take on that responsibility for her. Boss in own belly, OK; then deal with the responsibility that comes with that. Vice versa though, that means that if someone decides to sleep with
me even though she is involved (like that married woman did, or that ex-lover of mine), I assume she knows what she's doing as well. That she does it for a reason that's good enough for her, whether it be lust, a bad relationship or perhaps even love. That's all that counts: if it's a good enough reason for her, then it's good enough for me. I don't feel the obligation to second-guess it.
Thats basically the rule I've gone by through an admittedly somewhat messy history. You could call it my rationalisation, I suppose - though the rationalisation was there
before the affairs. I didnt come up with it to excuse myself - I guess if anything, you could say the ensuing mess shows the conviction is wrong, LOL. I stand by it though <seriously>. I think woman (and man) deserves to be treated like an independent, conscious adult and I try to do so. That does mean
Course, I suppose it's different if someone actually falls into your arms in a drunken daze, or if someone is obviously tormented by whether to let go or not - nothing wrong with "are you sure you want to do this?". But if someone really does decide she wants you? Then, from a certain point onwards, that's something she decided is what she wants or needs to do - and it might turn out to be a bad thing or a good thing (as in affairs that people use to finally rip themselves out of bad relationships). Either way,
her call - whether it be my cheating girlfriend's or that of the woman I slept with who was already involved. I really
don't think the third party carries any responsibility for the couple's relationship, so I don't actually think (s)he does do wrong. But then I already said that I'm a bit of a world-strange dogmatic about this.
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