Swingers Who Cheat

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

Found out recently that one of our favorite couples is splitting up. Turns out he cheated on her. I don't know the details or whether it happened in conjunction with swinging (cheating via broken rules) or was just standard cheating. But, it got me thinking....

 

Is it harder for swingers to forgive cheating? or Easier? Does it whether or not it was in conjunction with swinging play a role in how easy it is to forgive?

 

I've long believed that if someone cheats it's not about sex but a sign of a bigger issue, some need that isn't being fulfilled elsewhere. To me the idea of a swinger cheating just reinforces that idea. If you've already got permission for extra sex (even under set circumstances) there's no reason to go find it "on the side", so there's got to be some other reason for cheating. However, if the issue is one of going beyond the rules (say you are soft swing and one of you ends up going full), then I think that could still fall under "just sex". Regardless of the differences, somehow I'm fairly sure the emotional side of ourselves sees them as one in the same.

 

So, what do you think? Would you be more likely to forgive cheating as a swinger? Would it depend on which "type" of cheating it was?

[sweet_tna 680]

Ooh, that's a good question. On one hand, it seems we'd "take it" a bit easier, as we don't view sex the same as vanillas. But as we all know, cheating is the result of a deeper issue--ESPECIALLY in a swinging relationship. For me, it would depend on the degree of the infraction, so to speak. If, say, Mr. Sweet, hooked up with someone on travel and didn't tell me about it right away, I'd be unhappy, but I could live with it. Now if he got emotionally attached to someone and was habitually hooking up with someone . .. THAT would be a major issue for me. Obviously, it would mean he did more than just forget to tell me about a one-time hookup (and yes, my honey could totally--and unintentionally do that), and that there was a serious issue that wasn't getting dealt with.

 

Thankfully, I've not had to deal with this, nor has he. Perhaps some of the others on this board who've been the victims of infidelity could shed a bit more light on this one. . .

[mauijanedoe 1,414]

A number of years ago I was traumatized when I found out a couple I'd been dating semi-seriously had contracted (and spread) herpes from one or the other's secret (non-swinger) side bet. Yes, both had been having unprotected, unauthorized sex even though they were experienced swingers with few rules hampering their activities.

 

I totally agree that cheating is rarely about sex and it certainly wasn't in their case. They quickly divorced after 15 years of marriage, leaving quite a lot of damage in their wake.

 

I wouldn't mind if M. had sex and told me about it later, even though that's not within our explicit boundaries. Stuff happens. I would take actual cheating in a surreptitious way very seriously, though, and would find it very hard to forgive, not because it was unforgiveable but because it was indicative of issues he hadn't been willing to talk about. If we lose the ability to be a unit, sharing our feelings and thoughts as well as our lives, what's the point of being in a relationship?

[Fundamental Law 2,885]

This is one of the more insightful discussions about cheating that we have seen precisely because it separates sex from the emotional side of the relationship and physical acts from power statements. When cheating occurs, it's almost always because of an unmet emotional need that gets channeled into an act of distorted self-affirmation--"My spouse is not meeting a particular need, and I need to reassure myself that I deserve to have that need met and I am good enough to have that need met."

 

In vanilla situations, sex becomes a surrogate for what is missing precisely because physical intimacy is the setting for most couples' emotional intimacy. What is oft-labelled as a medical problem ("loss of libido", "ED",...) might be a medical problem but in so many cases is a manifestation of deeper issues in a relationship. It might be that so many couples--young, old and in between--have trouble identifying and articulating their emotional needs.

 

Why it is perceived as less risky to cheat with an outsider than it is to talk about and solve those needs within an existing relationship seems to be paradoxical and very important.

[DaggersNRoses 271]

To me cheating is about unhappiness in your present relationship and life. The cheater is getting something he or she feels they are missing and want. Its not always sex; that could be love, intimacy, acceptance, companion ship or just some kind of ego boost. I think that makes cheating mental and emotional.

 

That would hurt me.

 

 

The Rose

[sunbuckus 3,567]

I had to think about this and I'm still thinking! One, everywhere online we read about how sex equals intimacy for men but women need intimacy in order to have sex. In the swinging community, is this true or not? We talk about how we can separate love from sex but how much different is intimacy from love? Intimacy can lead to love and love can lead back to more intimacy. Is that why some couples keep it to one-and-done when swapping? Is the love and intimacy what makes the sex with our significant others pale in comparison to every swing partner we've had? Sex, love, intimacy are intertwined and yes, we can separate them but it seems that it can be only be done successfully with rules, boundaries, and the level of closeness we allow others to become.

 

Second, it depends on what the couple is expecting in their relationship. Do they expect their partner to fulfill all of their sexual and/or emotional needs? Obviously, swingers engage in sexual non-monogamy. And I would see poly couples to be emotionally non-monogamous. Vanilla couples who cheat focus on the sexual and/or emotional infidelity. Swinger couples who cheat seem to focus on the emotional infidelity.

 

Is it harder for swingers to forgive cheating? or Easier?

 

Obviously, it depends on the couple and their definition of cheating. I think it all boils down to the cheating partner's lying and hiding the truth. Plain and simple, cheating is the lack of trust one partner has in the other and further breaks it down. The cheating partner didn't trust their significant other to understand how they felt so they had to sneak around and not talk about it. And we don't even have to relate this to sex and emotional needs. What if a cheating partner was laundering money or engaging in tax evasion without telling the spouse? Would it depend on how well they got away with it or is it that fact that they even engaged in it a factor? Perhaps the spouse would have been okay with the money laundering/tax evasion but would have wanted to be involved in it. Perhaps not...is this not the same as couples who prefer to swing together or couples who have a mis-matched view on (non)-monogamy and marriage?

 

So, what do you think? Would you be more likely to forgive cheating as a swinger? Would it depend on which "type" of cheating it was?

 

To be honest, I can't say how I'll react. Swinging, this forum, and the expansion of my views have helped me greatly in this area concerning cheating. As I've eluded in other threads, both Mr. Sun and I did cheat on each other years ago. I had viewed marriage to be synonymous with monogamy...so I did focus on how it was about sex. And Mr. Sun said it was about sex. However, with what I wrote above, men can equate sex with intimacy. At the time he began cheating (and continued), we had just had our first born, I was still recovering from delivering (it was a bad one), I was working...all of this lead to almost no sex for awhile and no couple time since he was also going to work and school. Of course, I didn't learn about his cheating until a few years later. But this was the situation that bred the cheating for Mr. Sun. So was it just the sex? Was it just the intimacy? Was it both? However, once we had more couple time, more sex, and eventually became pregnant again, would you qualify it as just the sex, the intimacy, or both? When I finally learned that he had been cheating on me, I was on my 4th pregnancy (resulting in our 2nd child). Had the cheating just become a habit that he couldn't break?

 

When I had my affair, it began a few months after having our first miscarriage. So, yes, I would qualify my infidelity as an emotional need that was not met. However, even Mr. Sun has stipulated that he is unable to understand how it is to feel after a miscarriage and could never really fulfill this emotional need. This is why I speak of emotional non-monogamy and why I don't think couples can fulfill each of their needs completely. The conversations (feeling of intimacy) lead to sex and I was cheating, even though I struggled hard against it. Then it moved onto being obsessed with the sex--I couldn't get enough of it. And this may sound like a soap opera but Mr. Sun found out about my cheating way before I found out about his. (I guess I wore my heart on my sleeve.) He continued with his infidelities before, during, and after my indiscretion.

 

Obviously, we have worked through these issues. And I'm sure this post will obliterate any chance we have from playing with any of our esteemed forum posters. But I wanted to put this out there because I don't think sex is just sex (if it were, why would we put up seen and unseen boundaries in regards to what we're comfortable with?). Cheating can be about many things. Now that we're swingers, it's hard to see cheating as being about sex because we believe in non-monogamy in marriage now. Mr. Sun and I differ in regards to poly so he may be uncomfortable going into that realm and won't like it at all if I had an emotional attachment to someone other than him. I am more comfortable with the idea of love and emotional needs being met by more than one so I can't really say that cheating is fulfilling an emotional need that is unmet because even if it is, I'm okay with that. But I can say that cheating would be the lying, dishonesty, sneaking, and break of trust between us. Seeing where we've been, what we've endured, where we are now...I can't see a reason why he would behave in that manner so if he did, it would completely be the end because there really is no need for him to hide anything from me. He can tell me if he wants/has played with someone else. And he can tell me if some else has greater understanding about his feelings/thoughts about something that I particularly don't.

 

Lastly, others may point out that cheating can produce an adrenaline rush that makes them want to cheat again and again. For me, I didn't like the stress, nervousness, and agony it gave me. But then again, I'm not a dare-devil type person and you can achieve that adrenaline rush in other ways. Would this fall in the emotional need that isn't met? Or just a world-class selfish jerk?

[lotsoffun201 175]

Having been on the receiving end of a spouse that cheated (while we were actively swinging), I have to say (male half here) that IMHO it is absolutely unforgivable. Perhaps I am "jaded" but if you give your spouse the latitude and freedom to be with others, why cheat? There are two kinds of cheating as well. Emotional and physical. I believe BOTH to be equally as bad, but then again, perhaps I am jaded.

 

I am sure some are in disagreement, but again, perhaps it has not happened to them.

[cplnuswing 4,713]

On one hand, it seems we'd "take it" a bit easier, as we don't view sex the same as vanillas......For me, it would depend on the degree of the infraction, so to speak. If, say, Mr. Sweet, hooked up with someone on travel and didn't tell me about it right away, I'd be unhappy, but I could live with it. Now if he got emotionally attached to someone and was habitually hooking up with someone . .. THAT would be a major issue for me.

 

Pretty close to my thoughts on the subject. There is the "sex only" cheating, and I think as swingers maybe we would deal with that better. We both theoretically hold hall passes, but since neither of us has ever been interested in using them, we have never really ironed out what the exact guidelines are. So, in a case like that, what would be cheating for a vanilla couple might be just breaking rules for a swinging couple. Still not something to be taken lightly, but probably something less than how a nonswinger would view it.

 

Then, there is "sex with emotion" cheating and that of course is viewed the same by one and all I think. To me personally, the deepest cut would be the violation of trust. Some people I have known that have been through it seem to attach a whole lot of significance to the fact that someone else had sex with their wife, and seemed to have a whole lot harder time getting over that fact than getting past the violation of trust part. But for me, as Sunbuckus referred to, it's all about the trust. That trust could be betrayed through sex or through all sorts of other things. Just because it is sex wouldn't automatically make it worse for me.

[km34 672]

For me, cheating is unforgivable. The only way that someone can cheat (in my relationships) is to lie to me about it (and omission is a lie in my book so doing something and not telling me is lying). It doesn't matter if I'm told before it happens, right after, or a day later, as long as I am in the loop I am happy. Well, maybe not happy, but satisfied. The time frame in which I expect to be told about things depends on the seriousness of the relationship. With my husband, we tell each other when there's a possibility of something happening (both emotional and physical) then discuss within 24 hours or so about whether or not anything manifested. Details aren't always shared, since we do think about the other person/people involved and their right to privacy, but a general idea is shared quickly. With someone I am casually dating, I don't really expect to know much detail at all about other activities until we're sexual together. In that case, I expect to be told any new activity before the next times we are going to be together so that I can assess any added risk.

 

As just a swinger, I would have found it just as difficult to forgive cheating as I do now because, as someone else said, why lie when you have permission? It didn't take us long to dismantle almost every rule we had regarding limits so there hasn't been what I would consider a valid excuse in years. If there is something missing, then we talk about it and figure it out. Finding swinging and non-monogamy in general at such a young age has definitely helped us realize the importance of communication and making sure we take steps to improve things when one of us is feeling unfulfilled.

[Fundamental Law 2,885]

It's interesting to see how the thread has evolved into a conversation about the importance of trust and the challenges around forgiveness for breaking that trust. While some outside the LS will assert that the people in the LS are somehow immoral or at least amoral, we have often found quite the opposite: values and behaviors around those values matter greatly to those in the LS. Hypocrisy is repudiated and lies are exposed. Transparency within a relationship is foundational. "No means no" across relationships is honored without question or explanation. Trust appears to be a core value here.

[tribbles 490]

The cheating I've seen break up swingers is not just sex. It's emotional and one partner finds someone to be close to in some way they are not with their swinging partner and to develop that, they must lie and sneak and go behind their partners back- cheat.

 

If it's just a case sex, all the swinging couples I know get pissed about rule breaking but then can talk it out and even change rules as needed for each others happiness.

[Desdemona1980 297]

Lots of good thoughts in this thread. I'm a single female, so take this for what you will.

 

To me the betrayal isn't in the physical/emotional, it's the deceit. The purposeful and willful lying to a spouse, either with words or by omission. I would be more hurt by an emotional connection, but if it was physical and the person decided "I'm going to fuck Susie Swinger three times a week and never tell Des", that would be a huge breech of trust and a lie by omission, unless our relationship was open and we didn't even have to talk about it.

 

It's different if it's boundaries crossed and admitted to and talked about. Blowing past boundaries and never looking back, admitting to it or talking about it with the deceived party is where the cheating comes into play.

 

Cheating is about deception and hiding. It is disrespectful and unloving at its very core.

[pna42 67]

Do you really want to place your heart, love, faith and trust in the hands of someone who went behind your back for a few moments of physical pleasure?

[sunbuckus 3,567]

Perhaps it is because of my unique experience of being cheated on as well as doing the cheating but there was a vibe that I was picking up throughout this thread and it has been making me feel uneasy. I know cheating is terrible. But to vilify every cheating person rubs me the wrong way. Sure, there are people out there that cheat without any thought of the consequences or the people involved in their lives. But believe it or not, they are still human beings. I honestly believe that the majority of cheating people don't go out and say, "You know, I think I'm going to go out and cheat." Life hands people situations that might be manageable for you but it could be devastating to someone else and can result in differing outcomes. On the forum, we've become accustomed to holding open communication between a couple to be the norm but it isn't for the entire world. Personally, I hate talking emotionally to someone face to face. If I'm angry or sad, my throat constricts, my chest tightens...I choke up. It is a lot easier for me to organize my thoughts through writing (which I probably why I write long rambling posts on the forum.) There are specific topics that individuals have a hard time talking about, even to their significant others--maybe even more so because you open up this hidden section of yourself and you fear that possibility that you might be rejected, misunderstood, or not understood at all. (And perhaps that's why the topic of swinging is hard for couples to breach.) For me, it was heartbreaking to know that the one person I thought would mourn and understand our loss through miscarriage didn't understand at all. It makes someone almost shut down a part of themselves to others because they feel like it is something that they have to do alone.

 

My point is that we don't know the situation that couples are in where there is an infidelity. It's easy to sit from afar and say, "Bad, bad, bad! I would never do that!" Believe me, I did that. And it's easy to judge a person's worth and and mettle based on how we would behave. People make mistakes. Perhaps they learn from it and perhaps they have to keep making that mistake until it really hits hard to learn from it. Working through an infidelity is painful and excruciating. Forgiveness doesn't come quickly. Learning to trust again can sometimes feel unfathomable. But maybe working through a situation that results in a complete shattering of trust, agonizing to live through, and seems unforgivable...perhaps that is the ultimate test of the strength of a relationship. If love can be turned off by the switch of infidelity, what does that say about the power of love or the relationship? When I found out that Mr. Sun had been cheating on me for 3 years without me having any idea, I hated him. I truly did. I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to see his belongings. I didn't want to be anywhere near him. But you know what? I also still loved him. It was the oddest feeling I had ever felt. Here was one person that I hated very much but I also loved him very much. The years after were not always fun. Trust was rebuilt extremely slowly. And even though I forgave him early on, it's not something I've forgotten.

 

And yes, cheating is a selfish act. But what person on earth isn't selfish in some way? Some are more selfish than others. Others barely have any at all but it's still there (like taking that very last morsel of chocolate truffle cake.) We all want to be desired, be attractive to others, understood, and loved. We need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. But we want a variety of other things in life to make us comfortable and happy. Some of us just go about getting them in the wrong way that can be hurtful to others without thinking.

[mauijanedoe 1,414]

And yes, cheating is a selfish act. But what person on earth isn't selfish in some way? Some are more selfish than others. Others barely have any at all but it's still there (like taking that very last morsel of chocolate truffle cake.) We all want to be desired, be attractive to others, understood, and loved. We need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. But we want a variety of other things in life to make us comfortable and happy. Some of us just go about getting them in the wrong way that can be hurtful to others without thinking.

 

I don't know that I'd even go so far as to characterize cheating as a selfish act, although it certainly can be. In addition to food, clothing and shelter, I think we need other, subtler and harder to characterize things in order to survive and the lack of our survival necessities can make us a desperate. However, Les Miserables notwithstanding, we can excuse someone who steals to feed his children, because the need is so clear and present, far more easily than someone who cheats to heal an emotional wound that is just as pressing inside but almost invisible to anyone else. Which is a very good reason not to judge, now that I think of it; the whole don't judge until you walk a mile in someone else's shoes thing.

 

My answer to the question wasn't based on a wide survey of my feelings about infidelity but rather a very narrow cast at what it would mean to me if Mr. Doe cheated, given the relationship we have and what its foundations are. I think most of the responses were similarly constructed, actually.

 

Cheating happens. Sometimes people come to swinging after they've healed some from infidelity, because they've parsed out part of why they cheated and decided they'd have more fun searching for variety together. I certainly wouldn't turn such a couple down. Instead, I'd probably want to get to know them better, because I like mental and emotional flexibility and find it pretty sexy.

[Lascivious L&L 866]

Seems to me cheating is about dishonesty. Sex may be the circumstance, but the actual offense is not being honest. I like Sunbuckus' comment about money laundering or committing a crime. Would that dishonesty be a whole lot different than dishonesty about sex or emotional connection? The point is that the person you thought your partner was has changed in a significant, dishonest way.

 

I love her comments from experience. Could any healing be stronger than from a relationship where both cheated? How can you be completely unforgiving if you've never experienced it, both being cheated on and cheating yourself? Such a powerful learning experience to go through both.

 

Sure we all know cheaters who have been egregious. But most cheating happens in a context. Without understanding the context you know virtually nothing about the cheating. Thank you Sunbuckus for offering your case in point to help us understand the context of cheating.

[Gordo 618]

Kudos to ms Sunbukus'... those were some pretty powerful posts.

 

To answer the original question cheating to me wouldn't necessarily involve the physical act we do have hall passes and circumstances aren't always so neat and easy that getting permission ahead of time is possible. If it was covered up that would bother me greatly. If there is an emotional component to it that would be devastating. I would have a hard time forgiving cheating that involved lying or emotional attachment.

[magiriano 84]

I've been on both ends of cheating and while I have no idea what prompted my college sweetheart to cheat on me, I know I cheated on my wife for validation.

We had to live apart due to circumstances beyond our control and while I couldn't be with her she could've been with me but chose not to. She did abandoned me and I felt hurt, lonely and had no sense of self worth, finding someone new gave me a new purpose and helped me made a fresh start.

Luckily it never got too serious so when my wife reached out and chose to be there for me and followed me after 4 years, it was an easy choice due to our children and I looked past the hurt and the resentment and chose to stay with her.

There's a ton of skeletons we had to clean out of our closet in order to move on, she was unaware how hurt I was when she abandoned me and wishes she'd knew, I came clean and told her how I thought our relationship was over when she broke the promise she made to me.

I am not proud of what I've done but not sorry about it either, at the time, it was what I needed, it was what I wanted, and it got me the validation and the self worth that I lost when I became abandoned.

I have no idea why others cheat but this is my story.