cheating - forgive or not

mckayleesmom wrote: Would you forgive your husband if he cheated? I would beat my husband within an inch of his life. And there would be no foriving. I could be his friend for Mckaylees sake,,,but thats it.

coasterqueen replied: Nope, couldn't let it go. It would haunt me forever if I tried. This is the one thing DH and I agreed on that would literally end our marriage. Everything else is worth working out, in our opinions.

DansMom replied:
We're both too old, exhausted and busy to be looking around

Seriously, it would depend on why and to what degree.

Maddie&EthansMom replied: Oh that Oprah!!

I seriously don't know what I would do. I would be extremely hurt and I don't think I would ever get over it. I would feel betrayed and I would have to divorce him. As far as hurting him physically...I wouldn't do that. I am so in love with my DH that I think it would literally KILL me. And Maddie is so close to her daddy that it would kill her, too. I think that would be enough pain for him to live through. It would change everything. What a sad thing to think about.

mckayleesmom replied: Oprah is why I was where I got the question from...lol

~CrazieMama~ replied: I thought this was appropriate considering the topic...lol

DINNER CONVERSATION GONE WRONG...

WIFE: "What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?"
HUSBAND: "Definitely not!"
WIFE: "Why not - don't you like being married?"
HUSBAND: "Of course I do."
WIFE: "Then why wouldn't you remarry?"
HUSBAND: "Okay, I'd get married again."
WIFE: "You would? (with a hurtful look on her face)."
HUSBAND: (makes audible groan).
WIFE: "Would you sleep with her in our bed?"
HUSBAND: "Where else would we sleep?"
WIFE: "Would you replace my pictures with hers?"
HUSBAND: "That would seem like the proper thing to do."
WIFE: "Would you play golf with her?"
HUSBAND: "I guess so."
WIFE: "Would she use my golf clubs?"
HUSBAND: "No, she's left-handed."
WIFE: - - - silence - - -
HUSBAND: "Crap."

DansMom replied:
Thanks HappyMom! That cracks me up!!

Maddie&EthansMom replied:

That is funny. DH is always saying things like that to tease me. He is such the jokester.

mckayleesmom replied: That was too funny Michelle....lol

~CrazieMama~ replied: lol I thought so too.

Heather replied:
Ha =!!! That is too funny!! Well, this subject hits a little close to home for me. Last February, I thought my worst fear had come true. Jason was confiding in another woman, someone he grew up with and said was only a friend...but from I could see there was more to it. Though he never slept with her (so he says and for some reason I believe him), it still broke my heart and I cried for days. It has taken some time to trust him again. So anyway. If I ever find out he did cheat on me..he will be gone. I find infidelity very disrespectful. The cheater can pass on diseases to the "innocent person"...not to mention pregnancy, etc. I know of someone who had a heart attack and ended up dead after a lengthy hospital stay...he had a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. Can you imagine???

mckayleesmom replied: oh my,,,,can you imagine being the wife finding out?

Heather replied:
Oh yeh! I forgot to add that...his wife thought he was out Christmas shopping with the lady...who by the way was her best friend. I am not really sure if she knows what exactly happened..but she was by his side til he died.

dolfinrse replied: I would never be able to forgive. DH and I already discussed that if either one of us even thinks of cheating for whatever reason that we would tell each other how we feel.

A&A'smommy replied: I dont think this will happen to us because we have both been severly hurt by a cheating ex, although things happen and im not going to say he wouldnt. I would be very hurt and i would feel betrayed and would probably leave him for a little while but i would NEVER divorce my husband no matter what, we decided this before we got married and even before we got engaged. We dont believe divorce is the answer and i know we would definitly need God to get us through that. I love my dh so much I know it would probably almost kill me if he did cheat, and i dont know if i would be able to fully trust him again, but i also know that i love him enough that i would learn to forgive him!

paradisemommy replied: i would not forgive - though i would try my hardest to (depending on the situation). i just know myself and have not yet learned the ability to forgive.. pretty bad, huh?

MomToMany replied: Nope, no way! My X-H cheated on me with my (supposedly) best friend WHILE PG with #3. The jerk TOLD me about it; he thought I should know. Ethan was born about 22 hours after he told me.

I do not put up with that. I would never stay with someone who did that to me. That's just something you can't forgive OR forget. I could never trust that person again.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: This hits too close to home....

When DH and I first started dating, we went to bars fairly often. Well one night, this 30 year old (DH was 21 at the time) that we hung out with now and then through another of our friends, didn't stop flirting with him, and hanging on him. Oh well... she was a flake. That night, we all went out on the dance floor. And for some reason, my drunk DH (just boyfriend then) thought it would be really great and manly to dance with the both of us at the same time. Which it was....until he kissed her. Then he stuck his hand down the front of her pants. I grabbed his arm and dragged him outside. I was drunk as well...and we talked a bit about what just happened, and we were both confused, etc etc...so I pretty much let it go, and we went back to his place. While we were *getting it on*, he started saying things that he shouldn't have been thinking about... such as what he wanted to do to her. WHILE WE were making love!!! Total turn off, and I told him so. I think THAT hurt me more.

About a month later, I was chatting online, and she came online, and *thought I should know* the type of conversations she and my DH were having, so she forwarded to me a bunch of ICQ messages. Dirty things. Not Cyber-sex, but pretty much along the same lines of what DH'd been saying to me during that night.

We talked about it, and he really did feel remorseful. He didn't think that just talking to someone like *that* was considered cheating - I straightened that one out for him pretty quickly, and we never had problems like that again.

***

Later on, when I was about 5 months pregant, from one day to the next, he stopped wanting to make love. I always questionned it, but never forced him, and I wasn't going to start an argument about it.... but after 3 months of this, I accidently opened the wrong email in the sent items (I wanted to open the one under it, that I'd sent to my work, I neede to print out the document - I hadn't saved it) and I saw that a jpg file had been sent. It was called: picofmeforyou.jpg

Of course I HAD to open it...and it was a webcam pic of his self-excited self.

I called him on THAT, too....after about an hour of emotional talk...he finally admitted that it was because he wanted attention, and that he wasn't getting it from me.... so he figured that online stuff was WAYYYYYY less worse than real life stuff.

He got it pretty quick that it was completely unnacceptable....and that when he wants *attention* to come and see me.... I've never turned him down from sex, and if I could, I'd do that at least every 2nd day.... so it's not like I'm the type of woman who only wants it once a month. We went for counselling as well.... and he's never done anything like that since. He even leaves all his history on his computer just in case I doubted him or whatever...and he keeps all his message history, in case I doubt something.... but I don't.

I did tell him, however, that if it ever happens again, our relationship will be strictly friendship, and that I loved him to much not to forgive him, but that would be it for us. Strike 3, you're OUT. He understands how I feel... and still sometimes when we see a couple on tv who is cheating...he holds me that much tighter and always ALWAYS whispers "I'm sorry".

Now we have a much stronger relationship for it.... but at the same time, it will always be in the back of my mind that he did it once (well twice, technically, one was not physical, only one picture....you jsut have to wonder what led to that picture - he insists he only did it for shock value, and I do believe him - he always tries to shock people) and that he could do it again. But I don't think he will.

booey2 replied: Unfortunately DH and I disagree on this issue. My feeling is if you cheat on me don't bother coming home. That is grounds for divorce (coming from a home where this happened) in my opinion. DH thinks we should try and work it out if it ever were to happen.

mckayleesmom replied: Zachs mom,,,you are much more forgiving them me,,,,I would have left his suitcase at the door with the picture hanging on the door.....Im not a jelous person or a distrusting person until I have evidence, but I have left people in the past for evidence. When I was preggo I got really insecure, not too much,,but a little , I would check his email and his message archives. All the people on his list are women he use to know. Well so far I haven't gotten any dirt..he will usually just say hi,,yadda yadda to them,,,one chick did tell him that she wanted his **** and he just logged out. But he usually never goes under his name anymore, he usually goes under mine..OOOH,,,one time I was under his name invisible to scope things out and the stupid invisible thingy clicked off and his ex girlfriend started talking to me...lol..I just logged out,,,he keeps taking her off his friends list and she keeps making up new names and getting back in. I didn't know who it was until I saw her pic on the profile. She thinks that he is in Iraq right now, but little does she know that we live 20 minutes away,...

Hillbilly Housewife replied: It's not that I'm too forgiving.... we've done the counselling thing, and we've both agreed that there are lines that you do not cross. I've been more patient with him, because h'e snever had a serious relationship before. And I'm been so flubbed aorund on, that I'm tired of having to start again. Besides - I've loved this guy since I was 11...I can't just thrown 10 years away without giving it everything I've got... you know?

Right at the time when I found out about theses things, yes, I did want to throw him out. When I saw the picture I actually did shove all his clothes in garbage bags and leave them by the door and wrote him a lovely 3 page letter with every name imaginable in it...and then I took a nap because I was so tired... and when I woke up, I re-read the letter, thought more rationally, and figured that if he didn't want to go to counselling, or if he didn't want to work things out, the clothes would stay in the bag, and go outside.

I was still awake when he came home that night, and I told him I wrote him a long letter, after I told him what I'd found. I asked him to explain himself, we got really emotional, blah blah blah....and HE actually suggested counselling. Because it was HIS fault, and HE wanted to make it better. He even read up on relationships, bought all kinds of help books, even had a few counselling sessions on his OWN, without me, to try to deal with what he'd done, and how he can be sure to never do that kind of thing again. His counsellor told him about the fac ttha because my own parents had a very rocy raltionship, and because of my pattern of relationships, it woul dbe in his best interest to break that cycle, and why...

So it really has been absolutely smooth sailing since. Yes, we have our differences, and yes we argue, but we don't FIGHT. We ALWAYS talk things out, until we're satisfied that we've talked thoruhg everything....we often have a lack of communication, which causes our problems...and once we talk about it, it's one more thing that doesn't happen again.

We really do love each other... everyone we meet tells us that we still look at each other like we're on a honeymoon. And we do... lol

mckayleesmom replied: lol...I know I could leave cause I have before,,NOT WITH HIM, but in previous relationships, but then again I can say that now, cause Ive never delt with it with a child involved. KWIM?, but Im pretty sure he wouldnt. He says he has no respect for men or women that cheat. He said in the beggining of our relationship that if I wasn't happy to tell him and he would do the same. I hope that never happens. He walked home from a bar one time drunk as day because he thought his married friend was leaving with another women. He came home drunk and when on and on about how he didn't know why people get married to do stuff like that. Turned out to be a misunderstanding. Thats one thing I like about the rare accasions that hes drunk,,,he confesses everything and talks about how much hes in love with me. He has said before that when a man dies the best thing he takes with him is his integrity and he has no intention of ruining it.

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
I know exactly what you mean. I haven't left him, because we did try to work things out. If it were to happen NOW, I WOULD leave him. At lease, I'd separate. I'd stay friends and civil and all that, because I'm not the type of person to deny a man his child...but I've seen too many messy divorces - my parents' divorce being one of them. My mom is now a divorce lawyer...and I worked in her office for a while. I've seen stuff that I could not even live through.....

basically we, as a couple, will do everything to work things out. But no matter what, you'll always remember, and you'll always think about it... it's the communication that is the key. Which is why we agreed, when we got married, to sign a pre-nup.... and we agreed to always always always communicate our feelings and thoughts, no matter what, bcause as soon as we realize there is a problme, we work through it. If we can't, we get help. And then, if we really can't get past that, we're not a the *killing each other stage*, and we can separate *nicely*.

I don't want to be one of those divorcees who do anything to make theire ex-h's life miserable... i want to stay in touch, and have my kids know theire father WELL instead of the 3 weekends a year that *I* grew up with.

It's hard to get past... but I've done it. I love him too much to let it all go because I can't get over my jealousy.... I deal with it, he helps me deal with it, we deal with it together, and we are stronger for that.

Maddie&EthansMom replied:

Heather~ I went through something similar as well. When DH and I were married about a year his mom died of cancer. We were going through so much at the time. I don't think I was someone he could talk to about everything (especially about us) and he confided in another woman for emotional support. They went to lunch and the people he worked with at the time were calling me at work saying he was sleeping around. I knew it wasn't true in my heart, but it took me a long time to heal. These people were evil and hated DH. They really wanted to ruin our lives (and almost did). I'm glad we got through it. We are very best friends now and he says that he was so wrong to even go to lunch with her.

That was so hard for me to get over. That is why I say I would have to leave...I know it would kill me. I would be very insecure and think that I'm not good enough. I could never get past the fact that he didn't love me enough.