Hooking up with married women.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

2 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Sorry, but if you have sex with a woman who you know is married, you're a bad person. It doesn't matter what she tells you (or you know) is going on in the relationship, or how unhappy she (says she) is.

You do not romantically pursue or have sexual interactions with people whose partner believes they are exclusively dating. If you wouldn't do whatever you're thinking of doing while the other party was aware, then it's immoral. Full stop.

If they're truly unhappy or being mistreated, they need to exit that situation before they start dating/sleeping with others. If you participate in this willingly, you are doing a bad thing.

It's her responsibility to draw the boundaries, I'm sure @Richardhead is not a modern day Don Juan or Count Dracula or something.

If she easily decided to go against her marital vowels and sleep with him, then the marriage is already that far broken, and if not him, it would have been someone or something else. This isn't the rosy perspective, but it's often the reality.

[Hammerfestus | 3,889]

3 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Well that's a whole other thing itself, marriage has definitely been "cheapened" over the past few decades, in terms of taking vowels and trying to follow them. 

That’s not true.  My grandfather’s generation definitely thought it was ok to pop her in the mouth if she talked back

[The Count | 532]

I've been in your shoes before. I've always felt that if the women are ok with the situation then you should be as well. That said, if you are concerned about hostility from their husbands in the future, then you should explain that to them and they'll respect your position and hopefully remain friends going forward.

[srbossman79 | 26]

Cheating is bad mkay.  The fact you are asking here shows that you know this to be at best a little murky, and at worst flat out wrong.  Someone I am very close with just had their marriage destroyed over the last couple years due to cheating.  The relationship was falling apart (which happens), and instead of either trying to fix it, or just get divorced, they didn't do the work and let it fester.  Now there is a child outside of the marriage and both of their lives have completely gone to shite.  4 families have been impacted, (the cheater, the cheatee, the one the cheater cheated with, and the spouse of the one the cheater cheated with) not to mention the kids involved who are now growing up without their dad in the home.

No judgements, but there is no way any of this ends well.  Cut it off while you're still ahead.  There are other women out there.    Also, at your age, the divorce's will start to become plentiful.  You just have to find them.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

3 minutes ago, Khromak said:

There are levels of blame, in both the stealing and the cheating scenario. I don't think that people who are complicit are as responsible as the daughter/wife in these scenarios, but they're still doing a bad, morally wrong thing. Blame isn't binary

What if having the affair actually strengthened and ultimately improved the marriage? Looks like that some studies show having an affair actually can do these things!

[fcgamer | 4,754]

3 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

That’s not true.  My grandfather’s generation definitely thought it was ok to pop her in the mouth if she talked back

I wasn't talking about that, was more thinking about the folks who get married then throw in the towel six months later to get married to someone else, rinse wash repeat.

[Khromak | 770]

Sure, maybe being beaten can strengthen the relationship too! Who knows?!

[fcgamer | 4,754]

1 minute ago, Khromak said:

Sure, maybe being beaten can strengthen the relationship too! Who knows?!

I find divorce to be immoral, and posit that remaining married + having extramarital affairs is likely a healthier solution than getting divorced and getting remarried / falling into a different relationship.

[Khromak | 770]

If a friend is stealing milk from their employer and selling it to you on the cheap so you can use it in your cheese factory, they tell you that they're stealing, and you help them by picking it up in your truck, you're being a bad person. You don't have any obligation to their employer, you're not employed by them, but you still shouldn't engage in and encourage this behavior.

[Hammerfestus | 3,889]

Just now, fcgamer said:

I wasn't talking about that, was more thinking about the folks who get married then throw in the towel six months later to get married to someone else, rinse wash repeat.

Marriage has nothing to do with people’s commitment to one another.  I’ve been with my significant other for 15 years have 2 children and have never been married.  Marriage is a tax filing status and nothing more.  Always has been since the days of her dad will give me 15 goats if I take her off his hands.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

3 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Marriage has nothing to do with people’s commitment to one another.

Ding ding ding! 

[Khromak | 770]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

I find divorce to be immoral, and posit that remaining married + having extramarital affairs is likely a healthier solution than getting divorced and getting remarried / falling into a different relationship.

I'm going to try to be respectful of your beliefs but my responses will probably come across as sarcastic because text is simplistic.

What function is "remaining married" performing here? In both scenarios, you are no longer in a relationship with your spouse, you are in a new relationship with the outside person, and (in my opinion) you're equally likely to fail in your new relationship. The marriage is a total sham, and just makes things worse because it confuses all parties, and forces people into confusing, overly complicated situations for...nothing?

If your relationship is so bad that you want to have extramarital affairs, the marriage is over. Whether you get divorced or not is a formality, but it's an important one so that there is absolutely no misunderstanding between the ex-partners, kids, and any future partners; that relationship is over, there is no longer love and affection there, and we're moving on with our lives.

Pretending you're still in a relationship by staying married is a farce, and harmful, especially in situations involving kids and abuse.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

5 minutes ago, Khromak said:

If a friend is stealing milk from their employer and selling it to you on the cheap so you can use it in your cheese factory, they tell you that they're stealing, and you help them by picking it up in your truck, you're being a bad person. You don't have any obligation to their employer, you're not employed by them, but you still shouldn't engage in and encourage this behavior.

Gotta ruffle some feathers when going through life. 

The part you forgot to mention is that their employer didn't pay you overtime while you were working at that same milk shop. This lack of pay ultimately led to you having to buy milk through questionable means just to keep your cheese factory open.

[Khromak | 770]

10 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Gotta ruffle some feathers when going through life. 

The part you forgot to mention is that their employer didn't pay you overtime while you were working at that same milk shop. This lack of pay ultimately led to you having to buy milk through questionable means just to keep your cheese factory open.

Sure, but there's no justification for immoral behavior in my perspective. If they're forcing you to work overtime you don't resort to stealing, you find another job.

It reminds me of people who say they pirate games because they don't like companies' behavior/how they distribute their games/some other action they've taken. It's my opinion that there is no justification for stealing, cheating, or other immoral behavior. You could say that these are the reasons that someone did something, sure, but it's not a justification or an excuse and doesn't make it any better.

If someone cuts you off and you chase them down and smash their headlights, you could say you were justified, or they had it coming, but you're still an asshole and did a bad, wrong, morally reprehensible thing, which you shouldn't have done. Maybe someone slept with your wife and you go to their house and piledrive them into the cement, you'd say they had it coming for sleeping with a married woman, but you still shouldn't hurt other people...it's not an acceptable excuse.

[spacepup | 2,412]

44 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

It's not fair to say a random man sleeping with the wife of a random husband is a bad person either though, just because culture has made that the knee-jerk reaction for many  

 

I never said anyone was a "bad person."  

 

[Murray | 2,449]

@Richardhead’s new avatar.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

3 minutes ago, Khromak said:

I'm going to try to be respectful of your beliefs but my responses will probably come across as sarcastic because text is simplistic.

What function is "remaining married" performing here? In both scenarios, you are no longer in a relationship with your spouse, you are in a new relationship with the outside person, and (in my opinion) you're equally likely to fail in your new relationship. The marriage is a total sham, and just makes things worse because it confuses all parties, and forces people into confusing, overly complicated situations for...nothing?

If your relationship is so bad that you want to have extramarital affairs, the marriage is over. Whether you get divorced or not is a formality, but it's an important one so that there is absolutely no misunderstanding between the ex-partners, kids, and any future partners; that relationship is over, there is no longer love and affection there, and we're moving on with our lives.

Pretending you're still in a relationship by staying married is a farce, and harmful, especially in situations involving kids and abuse.

This is the Asian (Chinese) way, and it seems much less damaging than the western way.

When relationships or marriages get to a point that there's cheating involved, something is generally terribly wrong in the relationship. It could just be boredom or a drunken mistake, but the situation outlined in the original post doesn't really highlight craving a chicken fillet over a hamburger, once.

You mention divorce, usually when that gets tossed around, one party is wielding it like a weapon and the other party is totally blindsided by even the mere mention of the word. The couple hasn't been talking to each other honestly, it comes out of nowhere, things get dragged out and become extremely bitter with one or both parties ultimately feeling resentful. How about those kids? Then they're dragged into the mess, often used as ammunition as things go to shit.

Yeah, that sounds amazing and non-damaging for the kids, and such behavior turns your once-lover into a bitter, hated enemy til the end. Heck, one can even take the other to the cleaners financially, too. Whee!

But it doesn't stop there. Due to the resentment, often at least one of the parties then makes it their life mission to create trouble for the other party, even after the divorce. It's not easy moving on with your life when someone is constantly creating problems for you.

--

Now let's consider the other option. The relationship isn't working out, but both of you have been given an out - the extramarital affair. No need to worry about financial problems, no shouting in front of the kids. As the relationship turns towards more towards co-existing (but it likely was already going that way anyways as it had been on the rocks), you might even become platonic friends with one another. In the end, there's a very fine line between love and hate.

The kids grow up with both parents, they eventually come to understand what is going on, but at least everyone is amicable, and they get to be with their whole family. 

[Khromak | 770]

I understand where you're coming from, but this is assuming the worst scenario for the western way, and the best scenario for the eastern way, so I think it's incredibly biased.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

5 minutes ago, Khromak said:

It's my opinion that there is no justification for stealing, cheating, or other immoral behavior.

I used to feel this way but then I discovered two things, namely that (A) what is moral behavior once place is immoral somewhere else, and (B) often the rules are stacked to keep people from succeeding.

Regarding point B, I first noticed it after my friend and I started up a company. As we started it up, we opted not to register the business as we didn't know if it would succeed or not. Furthermore, we didn't have the funds needed to register, and while we could have obtained the funds by borrowing or asking for help from parents etc, we didn't want to go that route when registration would be just a formality after operations grew (if we did succeed), etc. etc. 

Well Facebook felt differently when it came time to set up FB ads, requiring verified proof via utility bill envelopes addressed to our company or some for bullshit like this. I'm sure you know where this is going, and we took measures to then get around it in the end; however, it was a bullshit requirement that set the bar of entry much higher than what an average desiring entrepreneur might be willing to risk, financially, especially if it were their first rodeo, and their bank accounts were meagre. So does that make us terrible, immoral people?

 

[fcgamer | 4,754]

11 minutes ago, Khromak said:

I understand where you're coming from, but this is assuming the worst scenario for the western way, and the best scenario for the eastern way, so I think it's incredibly biased.

There's a ton of loveless marriages over here, and affairs are quite common. If you want a western example, just think about royalty.

As people who have grown up being taught that affairs are bad, I can understand the knee-jerk reaction towards it all (I am not advocating cheating here by any means, and have never cheated on any of my partners (though had been cheated on before); however, from a logical standpoint and through research and self-reflection, I've come to realize it isn't necessarily the monster it's being made out to be here, either.

[Khromak | 770]

I think outwardly you present as someone who has changed a lot over the years and is routinely looking for ways to change his mind/see things from a new perspective, but at the same time you present your ideas from your perspective and resist others.

For my part, yeah I agree morality is a social construct and varies from place to place, and frankly from person to person. I've stated my morality, I don't think you should cheat, steal, lie (as little as possible anyway), rules and laws should be followed. If you don't agree with a rule, law, or policy you should work on changing that, but until it is changed, it should be followed.

Following that: I think that you and your friend are absolutely in the wrong in your business scenario. Rules are in place and are applied to all people equally. You chose not to follow those rules and to run an unauthorized business, and are suffering the (extremely mild) consequences of that.

You could argue that cars don't need to be registered because it's an arbitrary regulation and that your car is perfectly safe, but that doesn't mean (in the US) you can just drive anything you want on public roads. We have these regulations for a reason (public safety) and everyone is held to the same standard which they should follow.

Businesses have to be registered so that the government knows who is doing business, under what name, who are the owners, etc. in case of disputes amongst owners, complaints from the customers, etc.

At the end of the day, all this societal stuff is just rules we all agree to follow, so it's totally arbitrary, fluid, and changes based on culture. That said, I have my opinions about it and that's what I'm giving. If you have your own go ahead, but I will still disagree with them. I don't think your arguments are very convincing on either topic.

[Khromak | 770]

3 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

There's a ton of loveless marriages over here, and affairs are quite common. If you want a western example, just think about royalty.

As people who have grown up being taught that affairs are bad, I can understand the knee-jerk reaction towards it all (I am not advocating cheating here by any means, and have never cheated on any of my partners (though had been cheated on before); however, from a logical standpoint and through research and self-reflection, I've come to realize it isn't necessarily the monster it's being made out to be here, either.

I think this is easy to say up until the point where you walk in on your partner having sex with a stranger behind your back. Sure feels like a bad thing then, I'd bet.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

12 minutes ago, Khromak said:

Following that: I think that you and your friend are absolutely in the wrong in your business scenario. Rules are in place and are applied to all people equally. You chose not to follow those rules and to run an unauthorized business, and are suffering the (extremely mild) consequences of that.

It is not a necessity for small partnerships and sole proprietorships to register businesses here, and likely in other places as well. So it isn't a matter of being "authorized" or being "unauthorized". 

Furthermore, rules are not applied to all people equally. A $40 parking ticket is going to be seen as a swift punch to the balls for someone that is poor, whereas someone who is rich will just view it as an added fee for parking where they like, even if it is illegally. I think one of Scandinavian countries tries to address this inequality somewhat though by fining people based on income or something like that.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

15 minutes ago, Khromak said:

I think this is easy to say up until the point where you walk in on your partner having sex with a stranger behind your back. Sure feels like a bad thing then, I'd bet.

It's quite funny though, you don't chat with your partner, you don't court them, you don't compliment them or want to cuddle...you don't even care for them, but then suddenly this happens and you do care.   

[spacepup | 2,412]

At the end of the day, the situation here exactly as OP described it anyway, does not sound sustainable or good.  People can discuss the morality of cheating, but in this scenario here, he literally described this situation as maybe the worst thing he's ever dealt with and that he is afraid.  That doesn't sound good for anyone involved.

Richard - you can't change what you've done, but if you are truly scared and in a bad place, I hope you can work on making the changes necessary to avoid this situation getting worse.  I certainly don't know all the answers, but it sure seems like continuing this situation exactly as-is isn't going to end well for you, the women, or their husbands.  I don't know any of these people, but from what you've said, this situation doesn't sound sustainable.

As someone else said, I do think working on figuring out what you really want in terms of relationships and life, is probably going to help you figure out how to work toward that (I know, easier said than done).   I don't know the exact steps you'd need to take there (professional can maybe help there), but it does seem like really reflecting on that and thinking about a more... sustainable situation, is probably a good idea.