Sunday, 14 August 2011
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Technically, It's Not Cheating...
I hate the phrase, "Well, we never DID anything, so it's not cheating." I am a strong believer in the Golden Rule. In relationships, for some reason, I notice that most people seem to throw that by the wayside. I have a friend, (we will call her Bianca), who has serious trust issues. She broke into her boyfriend's Facebook and email account and found him talking to different women. And not like, "Hey, how you doin?" kind of talking. I mean like, "I miss you. Can we Skype later?" etc.She said he never slept with any of them because the emails don't mention anything like it, but he tells one girl that he loves her and that he wants her to have his baby. She SAID in that particular email it was just a joke, but the insinuation hurt her. She told me that in certain emails you can tell that the women like him or have feelings for him and know he is in a relationship but still flirt. (She is a little naive and doesn't understand that people don't care about that.) She also said that you can tell he is just sort of stringing them along.
She told me she doesn't want to confront him because he will get mad she was snooping. Now, I am not a supporter of snooping. I feel like if you have to snoop you do it for two reasons - either you already have your suspicions, or you have SERIOUS trust issues you need to resolve within yourself.
Anyway! She told me, "Well, he's never actually done anything with them, so I can't be THAT mad about it right?"... I didn't know what to say. I mean, the fact that he is investing all this time and energy and emotion into Skyping, emailing, texting and calling behind her back to SEVERAL women says enough to me. I remember one New Years Eve, a group of us (including Bianca and boyfriend) were out, and at 1 AM her phone went off - it was a friend wishing her Happy New Year. Her boyfriend flipped out asking who was texting her at such a crazy hour. Mind you, she doesn't get texts and calls like that on a regular basis. However, she says that his phone is always going off no matter what time it is.
In my opinion, in a relationship, if you don't want your significant other doing anything to you, don't do it. If you have to hide certain things or conveniently omit information from your significant other, you shouldn't be doing it. We are all grown. Let's be honest, if you are spending time and energy and emotion on someone other than your significant other, I consider it cheating.
All of that can be spent on your current relationship making it better. Instead of flirting with another woman (or women in Bianca's case), shouldn't you flirt with your significant other??? If you don't see the relationship working out and aren't willing to work to fix it, then why even stay in a relationship? And if you are not guilty of anything, why act like you are? People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing!
I had an ex use that excuse about not sleeping with someone once, and if he wasn't in another state, I would have slapped him. I told him, "How about I go meet a guy, tell him I love him and all the other things you were telling HER, and tell me how you feel about the situation!" He couldn't respond. I don't know what to tell my friend Bianca about her situation. I get that some people are natural flirts. I get it. I am one. However, there is a certain line you do not cross, ESPECIALLY in a relationship, when it comes to the way you speak to people. I distanced myself from a lot of my male friends (and certain female ones) that I knew had feelings for me when I started dating my current boyfriend just for that reason. I get that sometimes you just want that kind of attention from someone other than your spouse, but is the need for attention worth your relationship??
I am far from perfect. I have made my mistakes, and am far from the best girlfriend in the world. I don't know what to tell her because I don't know HIS side of the story or what is really going on. I just know what she has told me, and I believe every story has three sides. So I am sort of stuck. From what she told me, I would just leave, but I am not her. I have told her my opinion on certain things but it's hard to give unbiased advice for a biased situation.
What do you think?
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- From: ThaPlatinumOne@xanga
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Comments (18)
I think the Golden Rule pretty much sums it up.
I think people need to learn how to communicate with one another more. And take relationships more seriously.
You need to tell your friend to confront him! Let me tell you why...before my husband and I got married I caught him talking to chicks like that. And boy did I confront him. I am very upfront with things. And obviously I had reason to be suspicious. But I hate to be the one to break it down in this kind of way, but he's not going to stop until he actually does physically cheat on her. If he's not feeling guilty about the flirting eventually he'll think he won't feel guilty about other things. That's what happened with my relationship. Only problem was he did feel guilty afterward.We eventually worked things out, but it was hard. I'm still overly suspicious years later. Obviously he is a little more understanding now, and doesn't bitch if I start asking him lost of questions. But if she isn't up for all of that then she should get out now! People make mistakes, but that doesn't mean they don't have to accept the consequences for them.
Also in my case we had already had kids. I don't know if that made a difference, but if there is nothing holding her to him besides her feelings...tell her to get out now. There are plenty of guys out there who will be happy to just be with her.
Our attitude in a relationship should never be, how far can I go without technically cheating? It needs to be, how faithful can I be? How above reproach can I be?
I would have confronted left his ass if I was her. Doesn't matter if I was snooping or not. Also, I hate double standards that certain men play out.
-I can talk to girls but you can't
- I can go to clubs with my boys but you can't go with your girls
etc etc
Don't know why she's putting up with that BS. You gotta sink reality into her bt in the end it all comes down to her.
I honestly don't think people should snoop. If you're suspicious of your significant other, you need to question them. If you don't like their answer, then you have two options: live with it or leave them. Sure, she found out that her boyfriend is having emotional relationships with other women, but that doesn't make invasion of privacy right. Personally, I wouldn't care what his response would be if I questioned him, I would dump him and find someone better who wouldn't be a total douche bag when I wasn't looking. I don't think any story he could come up with would explain why he's flirting so heavily with other women. If it was one, maybe it'd be forgivable depending on how far it went, but this is multiple women.
She deserves a better man, but she also needs to respect people's privacy. I think there are lines you shouldn't cross and privacy is a big one for me. If you can't trust someone, whether it's because they give you reason or because you have trust issues, then you have to work on that with the person or with yourself. Neither of those excuse a person to go snooping through another person's private life.
That's just my opinion.
Confront him. Otherwise if she stays with him she will be worrying about what he's doing, and the trust thing will only get worse. Actually, if I were her I'd confront him and then leave. Because from his actions already, I doubt he respects or loves her enough to stop.
@vicdaily@xanga - Agreed.
I've come across some things I didn't want to see. Was it cheating? No. It was friendly and I had no reason to freak out. But I did. I felt really horrible about it for DAYS, but I didn't bring it up because I didn't want to admit that I read his messages.
Stupid situation all around.
I just try not to go to his social network profile as to not trigger my jealousy...like who are all these half naked women that he has added on his friend list?!
he doesn't really know over 100 half naked women in real life does he
and how many of them is he secretly flirting with in private messages
and who are some of these women leaving flirty public messages on his profile
he should flirt with his significant other but from my experiences, the flirting mainly happens in the beginning of the relationship and gradually fades after a while when one person or the other becomes complacent
I don't excuse their behavior because cheating is cheating, but the greedy people, who want their cake and eat it, too, seek that new feeling, sometimes with multiple other people. why not just be single and flirt all they want
because they want to sample all 31 flavors and aren't satisfied with the one they have. selfish scumbags shouldn't be in relationships but they do anyway
"In my opinion, in a relationship, if you don't want your significant
other doing anything to you, don't do it. If you have to hide certain
things or conveniently omit information from your significant other, you
shouldn't be doing it. We are all grown. Let's be honest, if you are
spending time and energy and emotion on someone other than your
significant other, I consider it cheating. "
Exactly. Look, it was maybe not in her right to go through his msgs, but she did have reasonable suspicion to. I think what she found him doing is a lot worse than the act of peering through his personal things. It's not like she had bad intentions. He on the other hand did. I agree with you in that, if I were her, I'd break up with him. Life is too short to spend with someone who doesn't think you're worth being faithful to.
In my opinion every relationship has it's own set of ground rules. Basically anything that you wouldn't do, say or write with your S.O.'s full knowledge is considered cheating to me.
Okay, well the fact of the matter is that she did snoop and she did find something. If she doesn't want him to know this then she should just break up with him..their relationship is SO insecure. She could also ask him if he is honestly ready for a serious relationship, one that doesn't involve secretly recieving attention from girls who know he is with somebody. Ew.
@drawmafreezone@xanga - I agree.
@OstentatiousEloquence@xanga - Totally agree.
Usually, I find that when a guy/girl gets pissy about their SO getting a text late a night (for example: NYE) and flip out, it's the pot calling the kettle black. It's because the texts that HE gets or sends are messages of sexual nature/fliratious with some intent, that he ASSUMES Bianca was receiving the same type of attention from other men.
But Bianca must have had doubts and suspicions to break into his FB. She should come clean and confront his flirtatious ass. It's NOT about being a natural flirt. Some ppl think I flirt when I'm just being me: funny, talkative and social, so I make sure to behave more "conservative" now that I'm engaged. But that being said, if my fiance was feeling suspicious about my "friends" to a point where he felt the need to check out who I've been chatting up with... clearly, he had some foundation to feel this way. That being said, Bianca should come clean that she broke the trust and broke into his FB account but clearly note that even though he hasn't physically slept with said women he's "in love with" and are "constantly skyping" them about this and that... then he needs to be SINGLE. He'd get pissed if she gets a late night text from a FRIEND, while he's saying all sorts of things to several women?
Tell Bianca, BREAK UP WITH THE ASSHOLE. He needs to be SINGLE to be wooing so many women, not with a SO. He won't leave Bianca because she's his safety net; ongoing sexual relation, except he can feel the thrill of a new chase with different women as he texts and skypes with them about another woman having his babies virtually. WTF.
She really needs to confront him about it. Since she already had her suspicions anyway, she might as well just get it over with and find out if he's serious about their relationship. I find it a little hard to believe that he WON'T eventually take the relationship he has with one of those girls to a physical level. But I could be wrong...it just seems really unlikely. But communication in a relationship is key. And she should talk to him. Because if he's putting all this time and energy into these conversations, then that's valuable time that he could be giving to her.
Whether anything happened or not, it's still incredibly disrespectful on the boyfriend's part, and not ok.
there's a difference between innocently being flirty and crossing-the-line flirting.
it basically comes down to self-control and respect for your partner.