SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We live in an area that has a big group of multiple wife Mormon marriages. Living here, watching and knowing some of them (it's pretty hush hush but still obvious, each sister wife has her own house) has brought up some pretty strange thoughts in my mind.

These women have no problem "sharing" their man. It sounds ludicrous to the monogamous world but they don't just tolerate it, they WANT it. Why? That's how they grew up, that is what they expect. As children they never knew anything different.

I'm not making judgements, just observations. Now, to be clear, they aren't supposed to "cheat" by having sex with someone who they are not married to. No adultery is tolerated. If you want to have sex with another woman you have to marry her and be "in love" with her too.

I talk to these women and I'm just always dumbfounded. Their culture got them to a place where men having multiple women is OK.

Then I think about swingers. They are in supposedly "committed" relationships but having Emotionless sex with MANY other people is OK with them. But their mates may NOT "fall in love" with anyone else. Many are upset when their partners "cheat", which I suppose means that the partner starts having emotions for another person? This baffles me more than the Mormons, to tell you the truth...

I don't know any swingers IRL, just read a lot of posts on here, (maybe I do but I haven't noticed?) and I cannot wrap my head around sharing your SO with someone else and having that be OK. But I've watched documentaries on OLDER couples who do this and claim happiness and contentment in their primary relationships...

My fWH was a ONS guy. Try as I will, I cannot ever get to a place in my brain that says this was "just sex" so I shouldn't be so upset. Would I be more upset if it was a traditional A? I think I would. I might be in D court right now if he had "fallen in love" with someone else.

So maybe, ultimately, I AM accepting that it was "just sex" and that is somehow more OK?

And yet I in no way shape or form think that what he did was OK. Not at all. And yet I find myself more willing to forgive one type of infidelity over another? What???

Thank you for letting me ramble, I feel so bat poop crazy right now. I ran into a sister wife recently and it just got my mind turning...

I'm going to pass on the Mormon issue as it's pretty debatable and serves no interest.

However, as to the latter part of your post, I see no real substantive difference between a ONS and a longer betrayal. I mean, I get it, one was a wild lustful evening and the other more of an emotional commitment thing.

But both speak equally to things such as trust, faith, respect, love...

So a betrayal is a betrayal- be it a ONS or otherwise.

I have a close friend who is in poly relationships. It works for them, but there is a lot of drama involved and there are lots of feelings to care for with one's partners (jealousy, insecurity). Some people are wired better for that life than others. Neither I nor my WH are wired for being okay with one another having other sex partners, but I could have more easily dealt with trying that out than I am dealing with being cheated on. In an open relationship, all the lying and deception isn't present with the sex, so it's a different thing. Had he come to me and said "Hey, I haven't had that much experience with other people and I feel it's lacking in my life. Can we discuss opening it up?", I'd have taken that seriously and we may well have given that a shot. It may have broken us up or it may not have, but it wouldn't have been him lying and disrespecting me like he did.

He wouldn't have though, because he couldn't handle the idea of me being with someone else. Irony.

Watching Sister Wives is my guilty pleasure. None of them seem especially happy but they have been together for years and it apparently is working for them. I think that an LTA would be harder to forgive since it involved an emotional attachment. However, a ONS is still cheating. No excuse for it at all.

All kinds of people in the world. Between the end of my marriage and meeting my fiancee I dated and had a lot of sexual experiences. Some women were fine with swinging or threesomes, some weren't. I met a couple that live just up the road in San Juan Capistrano. They're both very attractive and seem to be totally in love but he has a cuckold fetish. They propositioned me years ago and I ended up having sex with his wife on quite a few occasions. Always at their house, no covers on the bed (so he could see everything), and he'd sit on a chair and masturbate while we did our thing. Never once did he want to join in the activities.

The world is a strange place and there are all kinds of sexual relationships out there.

[This message edited by CincyKid at 2:59 PM, August 24th (Thursday)]

My fWH was a ONS guy. Try as I will, I cannot ever get to a place in my brain that says this was "just sex" so I shouldn't be so upset. Would I be more upset if it was a traditional A? I think I would. I might be in D court right now if he had "fallen in love" with someone else.

So maybe, ultimately, I AM accepting that it was "just sex" and that is somehow more OK?

Betrayals are betrayals, but LTA's or "falling in love" can add other flavors to the trauma.

To me, it isn't "easier" to forgive a ONS over a LTA... but there is "more" to forgive and move past for a LTA. In a traditional affair, you get not only the sex, but many many decisions to lie, cheat, hide, deceive, or cause damage. There are more decisions, more premeditated thinking that makes you question whether the wayward actually does care or love you. More doubt, more self esteem issues that creep up based not only on attractiveness/quality of sex, but deeper things like "did she enjoy his company more than mine?" or "does he understand her on a deeper level than I do?"

There is, quite literally, a greater number of specific betrayals to deal with the longer an A goes on. That's my experience anyway. Wish I didn't know that personally.

I have been in an open relationship in the past (not swinging, that's a different thing). Not what I would want now, but there was never any hurt involved in it.... because there were never any lies.

nevermind.

[This message edited by k8la at 8:38 PM, August 24th (Thursday)]

And yet I in no way shape or form think that what he did was OK. Not at all. And yet I find myself more willing to forgive one type of infidelity over another? What???

I just think it is ridiculous to say all infidelity is equal. It all hurts but not necessarily the same. What's more, even after it happens, the demeanor, whether they are remorseful or not, and so many other factors make every case different, and yes some more forgivable than others. Take the "What???" off from that phrase. It is as if you are chastising yourself for feeling an ONS is different than a LTA. It is different. Very different. Some might not forgive either of them, and that is fine, and it is their right but nobody should try to make you feel that all cheating is the same. It is not the same to you, and it is not the same to me.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 2:34 AM, August 25th (Friday)]

Not what I would want now, but there was never any hurt involved in it.... because there were never any lies.

How do you know there were no lies? I guess these people were more moral than average folks so they would not lie?

How do you know there were no lies? I guess these people were more moral than average folks so they would not lie?

For clarification, my boyfriend never lied to me. I met the other women he was seeing. They came to our home. Likewise, he met any other men I was involved with. And neither of us ever lied about the situation to other people. We both had our share of ONS, but when we went to the club to pick people up, we went together. They dynamic was this- we had a deep connection, we were in love, but we were young and not ready to give up 'playing the field'. We were together for 3 years. Lived together for 2. The relationship ended when I said I was ready to settle down and wanted something more traditional and he said that's not what he wanted. I guess he could have lied to me, but he was honest about his desires. We went our separate ways and wished each other the best (he was actually the 'dude of honor' in my first wedding).

Now, if you want to ask if any of these other people were lying, I simply don't know. It never occurred to me that they would. We were in our early 20s and the world was full of single people hooking up.

Redfury, you say there was never any hurt involved,but it sounds like the majority of the people the two of you hooked up with were strangers. How do you know none of them were married?

[This message edited by HellFire at 9:54 AM, August 25th (Friday)]

@HellFire, that comes down to an issue that I've had to cope with a lot. Trust. I've always blindly trusted people. Assumed they were acting with the same moral compass I have. I've always desired sexual adventure (my current husband and I were not strictly monogamous), but I've never wanted to feel shameful or dirty about it. I mean, who would? It's been my experience that you can have whatever you want in a relationship as long as you find someone who's on the same page. And you can't find that person unless you are open and honest about what you want.

So some of them may have been liars. I have no way to know. Until this happened to me, it just wasn't on my radar. I think that's why I've never held any animosity towards my husband's other women. Many didn't know he was married and those that did had reason to believe that what he was doing was okay. We were active in the kink community and many people there have different rules. The few that I spoke to after D-Day seemed genuinely concerned for my feelings and upset that they have been involved in such a thing.