When does a man STOP cheating?

[LadyJeanne]

Hey guys - I've been writing a Lit story where my leading couple unexpctedly gets back together after many years apart. The leading lady, because she's known him for many years and he's done this sort of thing before, is pretty certain he's 'blending girlfriends,' at best, and is essentially cheating on both ladies, at worst. I'm not sure where to take my next chapter, and had some questions I wanted to think about as my heroine decides what to do.

We've talked about why guys cheat on this board...is there anything that makes them stop cheating or stop being cheaters?

Discuss.

 

[Hisbabydoll26]

Hey guys - I've been writing a Lit story where my leading couple unexpctedly gets back together after many years apart. The leading lady, because she's known him for many years and he's done this sort of thing before, is pretty certain he's 'blending girlfriends,' at best, and is essentially cheating on both ladies, at worst. I'm not sure where to take my next chapter, and had some questions I wanted to think about as my heroine decides what to do.

We've talked about why guys cheat on this board...is there anything that makes them stop cheating or stop being cheaters?

Discuss.

Um near death experience at the hands of a jilted lover?????

 

[Louise Brown]

Um near death experience at the hands of a jilted lover?????

"Near death?" I was thinking of more straight-out death, itself.

 

[KarenDee]

From personal experience, I think it's an incurable disease.

 

[TBKahuna123]

I think it depends on why the guy cheats in the first place. If it's a slip (which does happen) then just losing your lvoer could stop the cheating. Perhaps guilt overcomes them. Or perhaps they get cheated on and feel what it's like and decide not to inflict that pain on anyone else.

Or if you want to go really extreme, maybe the guy has a lover her cheats on and when she finds out, she kills herself. The guilt is too much and he decides never to cheat again.

Just a series of thoughts.

 

[LadyJeanne]

"Near death?" I was thinking of more straight-out death, itself.

Yes, I could see how that might change his behavior...

 

[LadyJeanne]

I think it depends on why the guy cheats in the first place. If it's a slip (which does happen) then just losing your lvoer could stop the cheating. Perhaps guilt overcomes them. Or perhaps they get cheated on and feel what it's like and decide not to inflict that pain on anyone else.

Or if you want to go really extreme, maybe the guy has a lover her cheats on and when she finds out, she kills herself. The guilt is too much and he decides never to cheat again.

Just a series of thoughts.

So, in my story, he's seeing someone but not seriously when his ex comes back into the picture and he wants to see what might happen with the ex because they have strong feelings for each other.

Death and suicide may be a wee bit dramatic for my story (although I won't rule it out just yet ). I'm thinking he either 'comes to his senses' via some event (like one or both ladies leaving him), or he ends up falling love with one lady or the other.

Do guys stop cheating when they fall in love?

 

[Louise Brown]

So, in my story, he's seeing someone but not seriously when his ex comes back into the picture and he wants to see what might happen with the ex because they have strong feelings for each other.

Death and suicide may be a wee bit dramatic for my story (although I won't rule it out just yet ). I'm thinking he either 'comes to his senses' via some event (like one or both ladies leaving him), or he ends up falling love with one lady or the other.

Do guys stop cheating when they fall in love?

Do they allow suicide stories here?

 

[TBKahuna123]

Do guys stop cheating when they fall in love?

Again, I think it depends on what caused them to cheat int he first place. There are guys out there who are serial cheats. These guys cheat because they wnt to and no woman will ever stop them from cheating. I truly believe that it is pathological.

There are guys who cheat becasue they slip to temptation. It may be an offer they can't pass up, tension at home, problems causing lack of sex, things like that. If it's a case like this, then they can stop because it's not habitual. Does that make any sense?

I would think that a guy wouldn't cheat on someone that he was in love with, but there again, I don't think that's true. By the same token though, if you aren't in love is it still cheating? I mean would you be in an exclusive relationship if there wasn't love there?

 

[LadyJeanne]

Again, I think it depends on what caused them to cheat int he first place. There are guys out there who are serial cheats. These guys cheat because they wnt to and no woman will ever stop them from cheating. I truly believe that it is pathological.

There are guys who cheat becasue they slip to temptation. It may be an offer they can't pass up, tension at home, problems causing lack of sex, things like that. If it's a case like this, then they can stop because it's not habitual. Does that make any sense?

I would think that a guy wouldn't cheat on someone that he was in love with, but there again, I don't think that's true. By the same token though, if you aren't in love is it still cheating? I mean would you be in an exclusive relationship if there wasn't love there?

I think it's still cheating if you aren't in love. Especially if your girlfriend doesn't know you're fucking other people and would be upset if she did. A guy might be in an exclusive relationsip in her mind, but not his necessarily. It might be exclusive until he meets someone he's interested in pursuing.

 

[bobsgirl]

I would think a man stops cheating when what he stands to lose means more to him than the rush he gets from cheating. Or when it becomes imminent that he will be found out.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I would think a man stops cheating when what he stands to lose means more to him than the rush he gets from cheating. Or when it becomes imminent that he will be found out.

You think he'd stop before he was found out? He'd have to know it was coming, then. What would make him think he was about to be found out?

 

[TBKahuna123]

I think it's still cheating if you aren't in love. Especially if your girlfriend doesn't know you're fucking other people and would be upset if she did. A guy might be in an exclusive relationsip in her mind, but not his necessarily.

OK, but to me that's not cheating, if the guy doesn't know she thinks the relationship is exclusive. I believe that to have an exclusive relationship you have to have an understanding and a promise to be faithful. If there's no promise, how can it be broken?

It might be exclusive until he meets someone he's interested in pursuing.

Then that's not love and I can't understand why a guy would be in an exclusive relationship. That just doesn't make any sense to me.

BTW, I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely trying to help.

 

[midwestyankee]

Hey guys - I've been writing a Lit story where my leading couple unexpctedly gets back together after many years apart. The leading lady, because she's known him for many years and he's done this sort of thing before, is pretty certain he's 'blending girlfriends,' at best, and is essentially cheating on both ladies, at worst. I'm not sure where to take my next chapter, and had some questions I wanted to think about as my heroine decides what to do.

We've talked about why guys cheat on this board...is there anything that makes them stop cheating or stop being cheaters?

Discuss.

For me, what matters most in a story is whether or not the actions are realistic for the characters as they are drawn by the author. What drives your characters? What makes them laugh, sing, cry, dance, or want to howl at the moon in pain? As long as you know what makes them tick and have made your readers aware of this, then you can make almost any fitting action work in your story. That's when you can let the characters decide for you what they will do to create the conflict and/or tension that will push the story to the place that will entertain your readers.

From what little you've written here, your male character appears to be a serial lover and my have greater appetites than any of the women he has met so far can feed. Would your tension come from her desire to get him back into a mongamous relationship? If so, it seems doomed to failure (as you've hinted) and the reader would see this from the beginning. This would weaken the strength of the conflict and thus the story as a whole.

Just my couple of pence.

 

[silverwhisper]

jeanne: you do realize the question itself is sexist, yes?

[trout-smacks jeane]

:>

ed

 

[LadyJeanne]

jeanne: you do realize the question itself is sexist, yes?

[trout-smacks jeane]

:>

ed

Oops! I didn't mean to imply that all men cheat, or that only men cheat...

 

[LadyJeanne]

OK, but to me that's not cheating, if the guy doesn't know she thinks the relationship is exclusive. I believe that to have an exclusive relationship you have to have an understanding and a promise to be faithful. If there's no promise, how can it be broken?


Then that's not love and I can't understand why a guy would be in an exclusive relationship. That just doesn't make any sense to me.

BTW, I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely trying to help.

Oh no, he knows that she believes they're in an exclusive relationship. And he hasn't been seeing anyone else. Until the ex comes along...

People do this all the time. They date someone and they like the person, like the sex, but aren't in love, are maybe keeping their options open. The person they're dating doesn't necessarily know that's what's going on.

 

[LadyJeanne]

For me, what matters most in a story is whether or not the actions are realistic for the characters as they are drawn by the author. What drives your characters? What makes them laugh, sing, cry, dance, or want to howl at the moon in pain? As long as you know what makes them tick and have made your readers aware of this, then you can make almost any fitting action work in your story. That's when you can let the characters decide for you what they will do to create the conflict and/or tension that will push the story to the place that will entertain your readers.

From what little you've written here, your male character appears to be a serial lover and my have greater appetites than any of the women he has met so far can feed. Would your tension come from her desire to get him back into a mongamous relationship? If so, it seems doomed to failure (as you've hinted) and the reader would see this from the beginning. This would weaken the strength of the conflict and thus the story as a whole.

Just my couple of pence.

I think it could be believable if he effected the change within himself. I just haven't figured out what it might be that could cause him to do so. I need to give his character more thought, so he doesn't end up a caricature.

 

[Ezzy]

I think it could be believable if he effected the change within himself. I just haven't figured out what it might be that could cause him to do so. I need to give his character more thought, so he doesn't end up a caricature.

Except that cheaters don't appear to stop in the real world... Without the near death experience mentioned above... Even if a known cheater stops due to that near death experience, can you let them out of the house on their own without the suspicion they are going to cheat the first chance they get?

So which view is more realistic, that he is cheating on someone now but isn’t going to cheat on the next one who also used to be an old one? You had better make sure that they spilt up for some other reason than cheating the first time, a move to another country, going off to war etc.

I had an ongoing relationship with one of my Ex’s that lasted another year or so after we split up in a friendly manner, but this only occurred while we were both single, as soon as we found new lovers, the friendship drifted away.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Except that cheaters don't appear to stop in the real world... Without the near death experience mentioned above... Even if a known cheater stops due to that near death experience, can you let them out of the house on their own without the suspicion they are going to cheat the first chance they get?

So which view is more realistic, that he is cheating on someone now but isn’t going to cheat on the next one who also used to be an old one? You had better make sure that they spilt up for some other reason than cheating the first time, a move to another country, going off to war etc.

I had an ongoing relationship with one of my Ex’s that lasted another year or so after we split up in a friendly manner, but this only occurred while we were both single, as soon as we found new lovers, the friendship drifted away.

It's turning out to be a story about her conflict more than his issues. Is she falling in love with him, or with her idea of what their relationship could be? The cheating is the thing that brings this issue to the forefront. In their past, she's thought more about him than herself. What happens when she starts thinking more of herself? Does he start thinking more of her too? Is that enough to make him want to stop fucking around?

Oh, and there are blowjobs and car sex and camera sex, and stuff...

 

[midwestyankee]

I think it could be believable if he effected the change within himself. I just haven't figured out what it might be that could cause him to do so. I need to give his character more thought, so he doesn't end up a caricature.

One of the challenges in showing a change of internal compass is that you have to show what motivated the original behavior and then tie something in the present to that past motivation in a way that makes the change believable. Often, that takes up quite a bit of narrative that doesn't move your story forward unless you are very clever at weaving it in.

One possibility that comes to mind is that his early cheating was motivated by a sense of emptiness that he did not understand nor know how to fill. Perhaps in this reincarnation of the romance with your leading lady he can learn that what we often seek in others is available within ourselves if we only know how to look for it.

 

[revolution724]

Maybe an analogous question might be - why would a person give up using drugs? There are certainly people who abuse drugs until they die, people who use drugs recreationally and (relatively) openly without feeling any desire to stop, people who try to quit and can't, and people who successfully quit. Why do people successfully quit using drugs? Some, because they realize what it was costing them in terms of their relationships or career. Some, because they realize it is physically hazardous to them (as cheating might be in terms of STD risk) and wanted to preserve their health. Some have religious experiences that cause them to quit. Some get therapy because they abuse drugs to mask a history of trauma, and when they've dealt with the trauma, they don't need the drugs anymore.

Maybe this guy wakes up one day and realizes that he's never had a really fulfilling relationship because he's never quit spreading himself thin with other people, or because his behavior has hurt past partners. Maybe he's done some soul-searching and figured out that the cheating was, like drugs might be for another person, simply a way of self-medicating. Maybe he's had a religious experience and is now turning away from behavior he perceives as "sinful." Lots of potential reasons. What works for your character?

 

[Guest]

 

[HoldenMcCrank]

I don't know that I have an answer for you

just an observation. My wife had a Math proffessor that basically Stole her husband from another woman. I mentioned to her how lucky he must be. She was confused by my comment. I said, Well she know that he is a cheater so she must be willing to do anything that he want to keep him happy otherwise what is to keep him from being "taken" away by someone else.

Holden

 

[LadyJeanne]

One of the challenges in showing a change of internal compass is that you have to show what motivated the original behavior and then tie something in the present to that past motivation in a way that makes the change believable. Often, that takes up quite a bit of narrative that doesn't move your story forward unless you are very clever at weaving it in.

One possibility that comes to mind is that his early cheating was motivated by a sense of emptiness that he did not understand nor know how to fill. Perhaps in this reincarnation of the romance with your leading lady he can learn that what we often seek in others is available within ourselves if we only know how to look for it.

In the first chapter, I brought out that they had broken up the first time because of his ambivalence about love and in love. That plays right into what is happening now...his ambivalence about love is what makes it ok (in his mind) to see multiple people at the same time because he's still looking for that something he hasn't found yet.

I agree that what we're looking for in others is actually only found within ourselves, and I can see how that kind of growth can change a person's perspective and thus behavior...is that maturity???