Infidelity. Who do you blame? Why?

I quite agree, Montana. To lay the blame to the person outside the marriage is wishful thinking. Well, some people get attached to their delusions.

I can understand the hurt, rage and all the feelings that go along with being cheated on. Been there, happened to me, but I never thought to blame the person they cheated with.

Ah but if you were a bored middle-aged man, stuck in blasé, missionary-position-once-a-month 30 year marriage with a fat argumentative indifferent wife, and you had a sexy young hot co-worker why took great pains to seduce you just so, then the question become a little more open ended.

If loving you is wrong...
I don't want to be right
If being right means living without you
I'd rather live wrong than right

H. Banks / R. Jackson / C. Hampton


No this does not describe my scenario but I've seen it happen!

I can tell you honestly. If my bf cheated on me, I'd give him full credit for his actions.
My business would lie with him.

That wouldn't prevent me from thinking the other was in the wrong too. I'd steer clear of her so as not to cause more pain than would be good for anybody involved.
A stranger who can't even show a bare minimum of respect, not even a basic respect for something so precious to another's life - that isn't a person I'd want to be around ever. And that person would have a done a wrong to me - without even meeting me.
So they'd get credit for that lovely choice.

And if she thought it her business to take up with me, or show up in my life in any shape or form that didn't require me tracking her down,
she'd get a Chai-style no holds barred explanation about how I'd be feeling.

People deserve compassion, but it's not my responsibility to protect them from their own stupidity nor arrogance. How arrogant it is to be a knowing mistress! To show up or call the one cheated on after going into the situation knowing what you were getting into and that you were screwing with a stranger, that is just vile.

I think it's a double blow of sorts when the mistress knows the man isn't single and does it any ways.
It's is an anonymous act of disrespect and hurt.

Having been the person who was relying on someone to be honest and faithful with me, and finding out they hadn't been, I know how that feels. But even before I experienced that particular type of betrayal myself, I've always had enough empathy for other people- even strangers I've never met- to know that I didn't want to do anything to hurt them if I could avoid it.

When I was nineteen, a friend of mine who was going out with a girl I didn't know- approached me sexually. My immediate response was, "Why would I want to do anything to hurt that girl that I don't even know?"? It didn't matter to me that he was willing to do something to hurt her- I made my own decision that I didn't want to do something to hurt her. And having sex with him, would have been hurtful to her.

Besides the fact that if you know someone's married, and you know they're willing to betray someone they made a vow to and don't have the courage to be honest with- what kind of relationship will that provide for you? Can you really ever relax and enjoy your time together?

I think both people who are involved in a betrayal of someone else are being selfish- putting their feelings and needs before the feelings and needs of at least one other person, and sometime children as well.

Chumly wrote:

Yeah, that or you could just be honest. Get yourself unstuck- and maybe unstick the poor wife at the same time-why not do everyone a favor...

Re: Infidelity. Who do you blame? Why?


For the same reason the guy driving the get-away car at the bank robbery is held accountable as an associate of the person that actually robbed the bank.

Adultry isn't a crime in most places any more but most people still see it as morally wrong and it isn't something the spouse does on their own. They need a "partner-in-crime" so to speak.

Yes, the commitment (contract) was only "signed" by the spouse but the unwritten rule of society is that you don't mess with with someone who is "taken".

I'd agree with you that "as much or more" blame is over the top but if they "knowingly and willingly" conspire, then they should get some of the blame.

That's an interesting point, hadn't thought of it that way.

I think that often the "other" people get the lion's share of the blame simply because it's psychologically easier on the cheated-upon spouse. If the spouse was basically innocent but was evilly seduced, then the spouse is easier to forgive. And since the cheated-upon person obviously has more emotionally invested in the spouse than on the "other" person, that can be convenient.

I like fishin's "Two to Tango" reasoning.

I think the spouses of bed-hoppers tend to blame the Other Person in the same way that doting parents insist that Johnnie and Susie are Good Kids who just fell in with a Bad Crowd.

Research shows that Johnnie and Susie have usually sought out the Bad Crowd and participated whole-heartedly in anti-social activities, but parents have egos, too.

I don't think that the comparison is equal, although I can see your point. The married person has free will. Even if the non married person is a seductive Mata Hari or polished Lothario, the married person has the option to spurn his/her advances. It is the married person who has taken the pledge to be faithful.

If you were in a jewelry store, and the clerk inadvertently left a gorgeous diamond ring on the counter, would you take it just because you could?



soz- I think that you are right on target.

i think the problem is that they love the person who cheated on them, but not the person they cheated on them with. its easier to hate or blame someone you dont like.

I#m really surprised, because I've rarely heard that the others are blamed.

That' would make things much easier ... my first thought.

Thank you all for your resposes and I agree that I think it's easier to blame the spouses lover than it is to blame the spouse, which is why a lot of people do.

Personally, I've never tried to seduce a married man, but I've lost count on how many have tried to seduce me.

Imagine a very lonely woman who hasn't had any love in her life for a long time and along comes this handsome man who loads her up with everything she's been longing to hear from a man along with several lies about how his marriage has been over for years and they are only staying together for the kids, bla bla bla......
I've heard men use this excuse so many times, it makes me sick to my stomache every time I hear it said, but that's only because now I'm older, wiser and know much better than to fall for that crap.
Unfortunately, there was a time when I did fall for it and I regreted having let myself be so stupid as to believe the horse **** I was fed, but it didn't take me long before I stopped beating myself up because I am only human after all.

I never did make that mistake again, but at the same time, I don't blame myself at all. I was young, was at a weak point in my life, which was noticed on someones radar, so in turn I was baited and lured into a situation I ended up regretting.

We are all human after all.

Well, some feel they rather have 50 % in a good investment
than 100 % in a bade one.


(joke of course)