Where do the vows begin/End?

[njlauren]

interesting questions, lauren.

to me, an oath--like a contract, actually--sets the threshold for minimum expected behaviors in a relationship. we take it for granted that a marriage is going to be entered into in good faith and that the participants are going to act in the best interests of both. so to me these are the guiding principles that wedding vows are attempting to support.

sexuality is for the vast majority of people a fairly significant component in a romantic relationship. therefore, i think that it's important that the couple address factors interfering with the amount and character of intimacy in their marriage.

when personality or medical factors do interfere and the two cannot, in good faith, reach some kind of accord re: frequency/type of sex, the dissatisfied party has some soul searching to do. how important is this?

if it's sufficiently important and the couple is at an impasse, the dissatisfied party will very likely seek what is missing outside of the marriage. i'm a big believer in transparency so actually stating that this will occur is to me a pretty important step.

i don't as a rule dig on cheating. i think a lot of people don't want to do the hard work of trying to find a way to make things work. but i also don't (generally) believe in absolutes.

ed

Silverwhisper-

Nicely put, and I think what I was driving at was the idea that an oath or contract like that is absolute is part of the problem, it is the ambiguity that you bring up. Part of the problem is the marriage contract/vows themselves are old, from another time, based in religious ideas and theology that don't necessarily apply as well today. First of all, because people live so much longer then they did when those were written, people rarely were married 20,30 or more years, simple fact of existence, so if a marriage was bad, it wouldn't last long....

I think the other half is something you touched on, when people enter a marriage they are saying the vows, but this isn't like a legal contract where people have poured over the details, have really thought this through, most couples don't go through the kind of thing where they think of scenarios, like sexual incompatiblity, that might come up, they fall in love and want to get married and so forth, but a lot of the time it is without that kind of thought, they are in effect saying vows they really haven't pondered. They know when married their are rights with it they know if they get divorced there are legal consequences, but have they really done that kind of work? I doubt it.

It is funny, in the BD/SM world contracts are often used to express the nature of the relationship, there are spelled out rules that both parties must agree to, and it often covers the kind of things that married couples for the most part don't do. You sit there in the vows, and say you swear to cherish the other person, forsaking all others, through sickness and in health, etc, but you are also doing that without understanding what that means. When you are young and in love, as many people marrying generally are, you just don't think you wife could get MS or get raped or your husband lose his libido and sexual desire, and while that has waned little else has, you still love the other person, cherish them in so many ways, yet are faced with a struggle about sexual intimacy..

I am not asking this as a disinterested person, I faced this in my own story, and I know how hard it is, the dilemma's ....I ended up not cheating (did it mostly up in fantasy, in my head) during the rough times, and it is funny,...as our sex life finally started returning,t he hard part was shifting from the fantasy world I had created to the real one, so even that was a compromise that 'hurt' our relationship.....My point is while I think cheating has real consequences and is not an ideal or great way to get needs met, there is enough ambiguity in some situations where I cannot judge the people involved, I might have chosen a more 'honorable' path, but I also know what that hell is like. It is very easy when not facing to say "if he/she wasn't geting the sex they need, they should leave" it is another to be in love with someone who is literally in pain or suffering, whether emotionally or physically, who cannot give you what you want, and then face either throwing everything else away as in getting divorced to be with someone else, or de facto cheating to try and keep it together that is otherwise an incredible love story, and I cannot find a 'right' answer that works in all cases, and if I can't, I can't judge in those cases, either. This isn't someone not happy because their spouse has put on weight, or gotten bald, or works too hard, this isn't the spouse who married a better off husband and cheats because he otherwise is unappealing, or for the 'thrill' of it, I am talking serious issues.

 

[njlauren]

In the cases you cite about rape victims and anyone who cannot have sex regularly if that is a pre existing condition the person marrying that person knows it going in.

So by knowing it and still saying their vows and marrying that person, then you are a cheating dog if you step out on them. You have chosen to deal with it so deal with it.

It will be even more devastating to that person when they find out the issue that already effects them have led to this.

So in those cases I have no respect for someone needing to get their rocks off so bad they will betray that trust.

Otherwise if both parties are open to sex outside the marriage then fine all is well. If your someone who does not think they can stay with one sex partner, then don;t get married.

But if you are not open to "swinging" and you do say "I do" to that one person then there is no justification to break your vow.

If you reach a point in marriage that you want someone else its time for divorce

and to all those "well I still love them and we're friends and great together and..."

Know what that is? Trying to have your cake and eat it to. If one spouse cheating will hurt the other spouse then it is inexcusable and you do not truly love that person.

Whenever I see a post like this I know exactly what it is.

someone who has cheated, been cheated on or wants to cheat, looking to be encouraged.

just know the only encouragement you'll get will come from lying cheats who have done it themselves so as they say look at the source.

Your post smacks of the black and white attitudes I was specifically talking about, that everything is black and white, that somehow there are no shades of gray in any of this and it also shows a severe lack of understanding of human behavior, not surprising from someone with such a black and white viewpoint (to make the same kind of wild assed assumptions you make, you either grew up Catholic or fire and brimstone Protestant).

First of all, you ignored some of my original points, about what happens if it is a disease like ALS or MS? Someone doesn't go into it knowing they will get this, and those are long term, horrible diseases that can linger for a long long time. So what you are saying is if your wife or husband cannot give you sex, won't agree to allow you to see others, that the only thing you have is either to not have sex or dump them and go out trolling? Among other things, it puts complex human emotions and situations into a narrow little book of rules that cannot cover all the variances. This isn't about having your cake and eating it too, this is about a real world situation that can happen.

As far as rape goes, I guess you are like that GOP special running for senate who said that rape isn't rape if it results in pregnancy, that there is such a thing as 'non-real' rape *shaking head*. It is possible for one thing for a woman or man to have been molested or raped and not remember it, blacked it out, and have it come back to haunt them as adults (RA Dickey , a pitcher with the NY Mets who deserves a lot better team then those losers, wrote about this in his memoir). My spouse was raped by the father as child, repeatedly, for almost 7 years while the mother looked on and did nothing, blanked it out, and it cost us a number of years of a health sex life and it wasn't present from when we met, the toll hit us after we were married. A woman can think she got over it, told her husband about it (or vice-versa since men can be raped), and then later on have a break and have sex go into the toilet, it happens. You nice little clean scenario assumes that the raped person went into the relationship knowing she/he was screwed up, when many people think they are over it, it was no big deal, and then something snaps...but I guess that is a bunch of psychobabbly horsecrap that 'real' people know isn't true *sigh*.

What in your narrow little reading missed was that these are not the kind of stories you read on literortica, this isn't the hubby screwing the pretty coworker or secretary, the wife getting screwed by the young hunk with the 10" cock, this isn't the dissatisfied wife who instead of trying to work with the husband, goes outside or the husband who wants to feel young again or a wife wanting a thrill, in those cases they should be working in the marriage or if it doesn't work, get out of it, it is not the same situation, those are relatively black and white.

It isn't about having your cake and eating it to, it is more like having something to eat when you are starving. Cheating with the 20 year old bimbo is seeing her as caviar and your wife as bologna, having a spouse who cannot have sex, denying you totally any kind of sexual intimacy, is finding some way to eat at all, where you would be with your spouse if at all possible but are compromising to be able to eat at all.

As far as my situation goes, your last words are both wrong and hateful, and quite frankly, are also one of the oldest tricks in the book, cannot make an argument so you attack those who have different POV. Arguing that anyone who could argue that in some cases they won't judge people going outside their marriage for sex are people who have cheated or want to cheat is quite frankly as low as anyone can go, and all it does is point out what kind of person you are.

For the record, the reason I cannot judge is because I have been there in that hell, unlike you I am not talking out of the other side of my ass, I have lived with it and as I have posted several times, i did not cheat, I may have been tempted, but I didn't and I also have known people who have gone through this and didn't as well...but want to know something? Because we all went through it, know what the hell is like, I am pretty certain the dozen or so people I know who went through this (belonged to a support group for spouses suffering from effects of abuse or rape) and I think all of them to a person, male or female, would share my view.

I sincerely hope to hell you never have to face something like this, more for whoever you are with then yourself, because I suspect in a case like this you would be the person who gets up and walks out and files for divorce, to hell with the consequences. When faced with real world consequences in situations like this, someone who sees the shades of gray at least recognizes the ills of any solution and tries to pick one that causes what they see as the least harm. These are special cases, not the reason for 99.99% of affairs, and there are no simple or painless answers, something if you had been there would know.

I apologize to others on this thread, I wanted to keep this civil, but I couldn't with someone like this. I respect all the other posters on this thread, at the very least, if they agreed cheating is always cheating, they did it civilly and realized where others were coming from, they for the most part showed thoughts about this and recognized it may not be easy.....I agree that going outside should be a last resort and only if other options don't work, it should be rare , my hope is always people find ways to make it work within the marriage, whether it be with the consent of the other partner or through means not involving going outside.....but if it does in these extreme cases, I cannot judge because I know what it is like, the hell it can be, the hobson's choice of really loving someone and them not being able to meet a very basic need...

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

What's the actual problem...

I'm at a bit of a loss to comprehend what the problem with so-called 'cheating' is. Okay your ego might be dented if someone you are intimately involved with also can get aroused by someone else... Is that it? Is that the thing that sticks in the throat of Puritans?

I hope adult people are not claiming that in 2012 they are all frightened by human-transfered disease.

Or is it 'honesty' - which I might point out to NightL in passing probably ought to include 'self-honesty' which I think begs the question of those who 'trust in their own judgment' whether they intend to ask the other person whether THEY will accept that their partner's judgment is always spot on?

Or is it a 'fear of god' for those who are going by a Christian religious yardstick? This would have to be the same god who turned up and decided to give people 'a new covenant' out of the blue.

To me there's this unpretty possessiveness that tends to go along with nutty Right Wing people and ego-centric and conceited people, where they think they are entitled to 'have and own EVERYTHING that belongs to everyone else all the time' - including the privacies and secrets of other people.

Multiple sex partners and breaking of these kinds of 'vows' is explicilty condoned in the Christian New Testament in the words 'and neither do I condemn you.' The one thing that never is considered by almost anyone these days is the definition of sin that Jesus Christ put forward, namely, that it was the one-sided hard-hearted demands that lawyers and Pharisees and persons of authority put onto everyone else and never lived by themselves, together with an absence of genuine feeling for their fellow human being.

Moreover, in spite of Christ's own direct teaching NOT to go around making oaths declaring what you would or wouldn't do - people including churches continually rush headlong into making and demanding oaths and vows and all kinds of high-jump bars to life and living.

I can completely understand that it is very unfair to one side if they are honestly and sincerely ploughing along in a relationship without any cause to re-consider their position, and behave themselves according to whatever word they had given, whilst the other partner did as they pleased without any consideration at all.

I'd really like to know what, is the explicit issue, that those who are morally outraged or affronted with clandestine sexual behaviour, are really being concerned about? It all just endlessly sounds like sanctimonious pontificating by self-appointed busy-bodies who - whenever I observe them on platforms like Dr. Phil, never actually look physically as if they can get laid anyway except by the extremely mislead... I mean does anyone who posts here actually KNOW a serious professional porn worker at all, for instance? The ones I have ever had anything to do with, I must just say this, when you see them in real life, are built as if there could be but only one form of occupation for them. And it would not be Vice Presidential candidate for the Reps, even with whatever it is he is sticking down his pants to make him look like he has great big balls and has to walk with bow-legs.

And now we know where I stand, let's let them slings and arrows fly, shall we. I'm bored.

This business of 'stoning the adulterer' - I'd go one step further than Jesus Christ and ask not only 'throw if you are without sin' but hey, are you sure there isn't just a touch of jealousy over the adulterer's looks and ability with sexual partners going on here??

I mean what the hell are 'we' talking about and who are 'we' trying to apply sexual and/or moral rules on here! I'd like to hear from some sex god or goddess about this matter, rather than some unsexual, unfit, or otherwise unappealing wannabe about what the rules on sex and partnership relations ought to be.

And let's not bring the ancient Greeks into it, who wrote that 'even the gods do not treat seriously vows made by those at war or in love...'

DMMWk. And Desire, let me tell you, makes me very VERY weak.

 

[JamieJ424]

It's quite easy to armchair-quarterback someone else's life without having lived it or anything remotely similar. IME, people who have made mistakes and/or hard choices tend to be more forgiving and open minded. It's part of the wisdom-comes-with-experience process, I imagine.

J

<snip>

But if you are not open to "swinging" and you do say "I do" to that one person then there is no justification to break your vow.

If you reach a point in marriage that you want someone else its time for divorce

<snip>

Whenever I see a post like this I know exactly what it is.

someone who has cheated, been cheated on or wants to cheat, looking to be encouraged.

just know the only encouragement you'll get will come from lying cheats who have done it themselves so as they say look at the source.

 

[Somehowyou]

I'm at a bit of a loss to comprehend what the problem with so-called 'cheating' is. Okay your ego might be dented if someone you are intimately involved with also can get aroused by someone else... Is that it? Is that the thing that sticks in the throat of Puritans?

This business of 'stoning the adulterer' - I'd go one step further than Jesus Christ and ask not only 'throw if you are without sin' but hey, are you sure there isn't just a touch of jealousy over the adulterer's looks and ability with sexual partners going on here??

.

I tried to Google some information on the rate of infidelity. The number bounced around but one study claimed that 80% of us have cheated.

Is there anything worse than being a cheating dog?

I would rather have my spouse cheat on me than do any of the following:
1. Hire someone to kill me.
2. In an act of rage maim me or do other bodily harm that is permanent
3. Gamble away our life savings at the casino or race track.
4. Gain 100 lbs
5. Decide to never work, cook, or clean the house again
6. Lose interest in the lives of our children and no longer care for them.

Some people get so upset about the possibility about their partner being a cheating dog. All I can think is that this must come from some very young and inexperienced posters with very strong hormonal urges. You come off as so sanctimonious. Are you sure you are not “projecting?”

On one hand, I would recommend some sort of open marriage where things like this can be discussed and considered but many of us have made our beds. It is too late for that. We are stuck. I could never bring these kinds of things up. There are way too many other reasons to stay married rather than coitus. There are mortgagees, retirements, pensions, other financial obligations, health issues, and other shared responsibilities. There are children who are nearly grown but not quite independent and now there are grandchildren etc. I could write for days on this.

I often go for a full body therapeutic massage. Last week my female masseuse brushed my testicles 3 times and I had such a thrill. I wish she would have stroked me to release. If the massage ends in a happy ending should I get divorced over this because of the guilt of the relief over the happy ending? I think this is a good case study

In closing I would like to ask the following question. If 80% of spouses cheat what of the other 20%? What do they do? They post in the “How Too” section of Lit.

 

[Eilan]

I tried to Google some information on the rate of infidelity. The number bounced around but one study claimed that 80% of us have cheated.

I'm interested in how "cheating" is defined.

 

[imemkay]

I'm interested in how "cheating" is defined.

Excellant point! I'd say each one of us has our definition.

 

[silverwhisper]

njlauren quoth:
...what i was driving at was the idea that an oath or contract like that is absolute is part of the problem, it is the ambiguity that you bring up.

i would frame the issue as being more about oaths introducing a troubling degree of legalism as the governing philosophy of how we treat spouses. once you start listing obligations/duties, you need to address new developments not explicitly or even implicitly addressed. oaths say nothing about camming or sexting, for example.

njlauren quoth:
first of all, because people live so much longer then they did when those were written, people rarely were married 20,30 or more years, simple fact of existence, so if a marriage was bad, it wouldn't last long...

except the surviving spouse doesn't have much left, so i don't think that actually counts for much here.

njlauren quoth:
...in the BD/SM world contracts are often used to express the nature of the relationship, there are spelled out rules that both parties must agree to, and it often covers the kind of things that married couples for the most part don't do. you sit there in the vows, and say you swear to cherish the other person, forsaking all others, through sickness and in health, etc, but you are also doing that without understanding what that means.

this part i have a problem with. this applies to any kind of vow or oath.

njlauren quoth:
...you just don't think you wife could get MS or get raped or your husband lose his libido and sexual desire, and while that has waned little else has, you still love the other person, cherish them in so many ways, yet are faced with a struggle about sexual intimacy.

nobody expects tragic developments--but then again, the sexual component of a relationship is usually a product of the rest of it, at least insofar as i can discern.

njlauren quoth:
...my point is while i think cheating has real consequences and is not an ideal or great way to get needs met, there is enough ambiguity in some situations where i cannot judge the people involved...this isn't someone not happy because their spouse has put on weight, or gotten bald, or works too hard, this isn't the spouse who married a better off husband and cheats because he otherwise is unappealing, or for the 'thrill' of it, i am talking serious issues.

i don't think that most of the respondents think this is a trivial or superficial discussion, FWIW.

ed