{"id":1108,"date":"2014-07-24T10:04:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T10:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2019-07-15T15:57:30","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T15:57:30","slug":"participating-in-cheating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/24\/participating-in-cheating\/","title":{"rendered":"Participating in Cheating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am a woman who is a solo polyamorist.  I experienced a painful break-up with a FWB over a year ago, and I took it very hard (I have never taken this long to get over a break-up before), so I’ve been a poly without any relationships for a long time.  Over the past six months or so, I’ve become tired of my loneliness and feeling ready to get back in the love game – but I am not interested in a “primary type” of relationship.  I like being solo and having slightly more casual parameters to my relationships, though that doesn’t mean I don’t want them to be loving and caring.  I just value my alone time, too<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, now that I have been putting the “available” vibe on, it seems I keep attracting married men who would be cheating on their spouses. I don’t know what to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I used to date married men years ago, when I was much younger.  I know what it’s like, and I used to justify what I was doing in many ways.  But now that I practice poly – you know, everything is supposed to be above board and totally honest.  However, I can’t help but wonder if it really is so bad to be someone’s mistress, in certain circumstances.  I am lonely and an introvert.  I don’t meet available guys very often, and have never been attracted to anyone at my local poly group’s gatherings.  I want a lover\/casual relationship, not a boyfriend to be closely intertwined in my life, so dating someone that I can only see once every week or two works fine for me.  If I have a couple of casual partners like that, it would be my version of poly heaven.  If I’m also a relationship anarchist, is my partner’s choice to cheat really my responsibility?  Aren’t relationships supposed to be on our own terms?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If staying in an unhappy marriage would hurt him, and coming clean about affairs or wanting to open the marriage would hurt her, what is to be done?  There are two guys I cannot stop thinking about.  I know they both want to have affairs with me.  Doing so fits into my life, and I can’t be sure that their wives would be hurt by their cheating, can I?  I kissed one of them, and got naked and fooled around with the other (no intercourse).  I know that there are many married, monogamous wives who assume their husbands will eventually cheat and would rather not know for sure.  It seems a relationship is starting with the one I got naked with, but we’re still getting to know each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I would like to get some logical perspectives from other poly peeps on being involved with a cheater, on both sides – meaning other than the usual poly view that all cheaters are as evil as Hitler.  I am in a quandary because of both societal expectations surrounding marriage, and the influence of poly dogma over the last four years since I embraced polyamory.  I feel that it is important to make my choices based on reason and my own ethics, rather than what others tell me I should do.  I just would like some insights from others that perhaps I haven’t yet seen.  Thanks, in advance, for any words of wisdom you can offer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re asking for compassion, yeah, that\u2019s\nall yours. I can summon that.            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approval? Logical permission to participate in\ncheating?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. I\u2019m sure that a reader or two of mine would\nbe able to do so, but I\u2019m going to tell you now, that we\u2019d be coming from very\ndifferent ethical systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t about open=good and cheating=Hitler, honest no\nkidding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is about ethics and who and what you are as a human\nbeing, and who you want to be. Where are your principles based? Really, what\u2019s\nethically important to you? What are the principles on which base your actions?\nThis is less about polyamory and what sort of human being you are going to\nconsciously choose to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No-one can do this for you, and there are going to be people\nwho will choose to judge you harshly no matter what choice you make. There\nreally are people in this world who, because I do not believe in monogamy,\nconsider me so morally bankrupt that I\u2019m worthy of nothing more than a death by\ntorture. That\u2019s not hyperbole, but is a real thing you can find in news stories\nless than six months old.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what are you doing? \nWhat do you want to be about and why? Think hard about it, because this\nis a big question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You asked if your partner\u2019s choice to cheat is your responsibility. Of course, it isn\u2019t. But I don\u2019t give a damn how introverted you are (and I\u2019m pretty far out there on the introvert scale, myself) you don\u2019t live in a vacuum. The behavior I am most ashamed of in my life, the worst choices I have ever made, were when I allowed myself to be intimately involved with people whose ethical standards were not in harmony with the person I wanted to be. No, it\u2019s not anyone else\u2019s fault I chose to behave the way I did. That\u2019s on me, forever and always. But I can tell you that it is astronomically<\/strong> easier to live up to your own standards when you surround yourself with people who also share those values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019ve gone all into values and stuff, and that\u2019s really\nimportant. But here\u2019s my reason for not participating in cheating. I\u2019ve done it\nin the past and I\u2019ve decided I don\u2019t want to. Sure, sure, lofty principles and\nall, but there\u2019s another, utterly base and selfish reason I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you get involved with a cheater, you already have proof<\/em> this person is utterly comfortable\nlying to get what he wants, and that his desires in the moment are more\nimportant than any long-term commitment. \nHe\u2019s also proven he will not negotiate openly and honestly in a\ndifficult or emotionally risky situation, or he would have tried to have a\ndiscussion with his wife about open relationships. If he wants something from\nyou, he will<\/em> lie to you to get it. If\nthere\u2019s information you think you should have that would be painful or risky to\ngive you, you won\u2019t get it<\/em>.  He doesn\u2019t think you\u2019re special enough to\ntreat you differently in the long run. He\u2019s already proven that. I\u2019m chicken.\nThat sort of thinking scares the bajeebers out of me, so I don\u2019t go there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a woman who is a solo polyamorist.  I experienced a painful break-up with a FWB over a year ago, and I took it very hard (I have never taken this long to get over a break-up before), so I’ve been a poly without any relationships for a long time.  Over the past six…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-misanthrope","category-boundaries","category-rant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}