How do you avoid cheaters

I think the simplest way to avoid getting/staying involved with a cheater is to reflect on the fact that they're lying to the person they're supposed to love most in the world, so of course they're going to lie to you too, sooner or later. What makes you so much more special than the person that they've committed their life to, that they'd lie to that person but never to you? Nothing, that's what.

Sure, they may seem honest and open in extreme. But you're dealing with someone who is extremely well versed in hiding things, as they do it every single day. Every single day they look their partner in the face and act like everything's fine. Can you trust a habitual liar to, say, ve honesty with you about their STI status? I wouldn't count on it. So why put yourself in harm's way?

Until such time as a cheater has come clean about that behavior to the person they were hurting, sworn it off, and lived a lie-free life for at least some amount of time, I wouldn't consider them a safe person to get involved with.
 
On one level, it is inexplicable to me that cheating is better tolerated than ethical non-monogamy. I don't understand that at a deep level
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Because I think people can empathise with the restrictions of a monogamous relationship. Especially if you aren't as compatible as you should be, particularly in the bedroom. They can understand why a young woman might have a Sugar Daddy type affair with a married man. Also, people understand you holding out to replace someone else in a monogamous relationship. They dont understand not wanting to replace or displace. They can't understand being openly okay with sharing though some might be okay with nobody officially knowing you share.
 
That's not quite what I mean...what I mean is how to you avoid the temptation to get involved if you like the person. And do have women on here had a lot of married guys come onto them via cupid or craiglist? How do you find potential dates that are single or poly? Also, can you ever be friends with someone you cheated with?

I'm never tempted. I don't care how much I like a person, I don't like drama and bullshit AND I HATE BEING LIED TO.

As someone who has cheated; when someone is willing to make an excuse for why it's ok to lie (which is what cheating is); they are willing to make excuseS for lying. So it's only a matter of time before they lie to me. I don't care if they are lying about what their favorite color is, who they are sleeping with or what their phone number is.
I don't do lying.
I would MUCH MUCH rather someone tell me things I won't like than lie to me. So when I know someone is lying, I am not interested. Not at all.
 
I think the simplest way to avoid getting/staying involved with a cheater is to reflect on the fact that they're lying to the person they're supposed to love most in the world, so of course they're going to lie to you too, sooner or later. What makes you so much more special than the person that they've committed their life to, that they'd lie to that person but never to you? Nothing, that's what.

Sure, they may seem honest and open in extreme. But you're dealing with someone who is extremely well versed in hiding things, as they do it every single day. Every single day they look their partner in the face and act like everything's fine. Can you trust a habitual liar to, say, ve honesty with you about their STI status? I wouldn't count on it. So why put yourself in harm's way?

Until such time as a cheater has come clean about that behavior to the person they were hurting, sworn it off, and lived a lie-free life for at least some amount of time, I wouldn't consider them a safe person to get involved with.

Exactly. I have 4 years and 3 months "clean" from that self-destructive (and other person destructive) behavior pattern. It was a lot of work.
I completely agree with PRECISELY what you said here!
 
Why did I fall for this person?

Empathy. We both needed someone at the moment. We had common problems. We were attracted to each other and not to our spouses. We shared the same interests and sense of humor. There was some sort of connection that felt real. The still feels very real. But, as I said, he was lying about lots of stuff, not particularly about his relationship with wife or other stuff, but the fact that he had looked for others when "with" me and had before and probably will again. When I tried to address this as just a friend, he shut me out.

I know he is deeply unhappy. I just hope one day, even if I never see him again, he becomes honest to all those around him. He doesn't even show his true self with his friends. I hope this for his sake, more even than his wife's or my own, because he IS unhappy.

How do we distinguish between truly falling in love with someone and having a connection versus trying to resolve issues from our childhood or acting on weaknesses or just getting certain needs met? Maybe these things are idestinguishable. I tend to stay in very long term friendships and relationships and it takes years to figure out my relationship with any one person.
 
@LR Did you used to lie to your boyfriend too?
 
On one level, it is inexplicable to me that cheating is better tolerated than ethical non-monogamy. I don't understand that at a deep level.

I read an article recently in which researcher Eric Anderson interviewed a number of college-aged men who were in ostensibly monogamous heterosexual relationships of at least 2 years' duration (past the NRE stage). Almost all of the interviewees expressed a desire to have sex with people other than their partners. Roughly half of the interviewees acted on that desire at some point during the study. (The stronger the expressed desire for sex outside the relationship, the likelier the interviewee was to act on it.)

Anderson asked a number of men, "Why don't you tell your girlfriend you'd like to have an open relationship in which you can both have sex with other people?"

The most common responses were: "She'd dump me" and "I'm not okay with my girlfriend sleeping with someone else." For them, ostensible monogamy plus cheating gave them the benefits of a (perceived) secure long-term relationship and sexual variety, without having to address either the sexual double standards they held or the doubt they had about how they'd compare to a metamour.

To me, the most interesting response was contained in the title of the article: " 'At least with cheating there is an attempt at monogamy': Cheating and monogamism among undergraduate heterosexual men."

I think that there are probably people who would rather see their partners try (but fail at) monogamy than try (and succeed at) non-monogamy.

My first reaction to the article, though, was to be grateful to Xicot for being honest with me about what he wants, because it's more important to me that he be able to speak honestly to me than that our relationship stay in the configuration we initially intended it to have.
 
my first reaction to the article, though, was to be grateful to xicot for being honest with me about what he wants, because it's more important to me that he be able to speak honestly to me than that our relationship stay in the configuration we initially intended it to have.

this. ;)
 
I think part of my issue is that I'm not really polyamorous in a sense. I am in a marriage with someone I love deeply and have a wonderful life with, but I'm not sexually attracted to him nor do I have romantic feelings for him. I laugh when I think of having more partners! I can't barely stand one!

What I am after is the French-ish notion of a lover. Someone who I feel passion sexuality, and yes, longing for. Since I want to avoid domesticity at all costs and longing is a huge key in "being in love" for me, I tend to fall for men who are somewhat unavailable - i.e. cheating, or young, or live across country. I have put a lot of thought into whether I could have all these feelings in one person , i.e. my husband or a different husband. I don't know. I don't have the answer.

However falling in love with someone cheating was pretty awful. Because of my disability, my therapist argued that being a secret was the worst thing humanly possible for me. I, myself, hated being lied to. My friend drove me to do a lot unwholesome behaviors - lie myself and so on. Mostly, it was just painful to love someone who was suffering so much. This was largely an emotional affair, not sexual.
 
I met someone this weekend who described himself as very happily married to a gorgeous woman. They have a one year old. He told me he would love to be poly, but his wife would never let him. He said he is determined to be faithful and never cheat, until he does. "Because, let's face it, I don't really want to be a cheater but it will happen when it is going to happen. I am faithful until the time arises when I am not."

I was like, okaaaay.
 
I met someone this weekend who described himself as very happily married to a gorgeous woman. They have a one year old. He told me he would love to be poly, but his wife would never let him. He said he is determined to be faithful and never cheat, until he does. "Because, let's face it, I don't really want to be a cheater but it will happen when it is going to happen. I am faithful until the time arises when I am not."

I was like, okaaaay.

*rolls eyes* And I'm a vegetarian between cheeseburgers.
 
Well, I'm not very experienced with poly, but my last three relationships were with gentlemen I met online, so I thought I might offer my own experience here:

I've been going through this thing where 60-70% of the men who contact me are married. This happened even when I expressly ask for no married men. I generally try dating on cupid or craigslist.

Does this happen to other women a lot?

The percentage of married men who contact me is quite a lot lower, but I think that is mostly because I am younger, so most men my age just aren't married. But yes, some guys who visit my profile do seem like they are there to cheat. I just do not respond to them.

How do you avoid these men?

I ask questions and try to understand a man or woman's situation before I get involved with them. I will not get involved with someone who is currently cheating or has cheated in the past, or someone who will not give me information about their circumstances. Of course, anyone could still be lying to me, but I want to at least make it harder for them. To my knowledge, I have not been with a cheater or been cheated on yet.

Are you ever tempted to get involved?

No. Just thinking about cheating is emotionally triggering for me. My mother cheated on my father when I was a child, and he pulled a knife on her when he found out. Then their relationship became even more abusive on both sides, and they got a divorce.

My mother proceeded to cheat on almost every man she dated for the rest of her life, and also physically abuse some of them. When I was 12, for example, she cheated on two men with each other, then had no idea who my half-sister's father was, and apparently decided not to abort based on an incorrect assumption. Once it had been confirmed her assumption was wrong, she asked the incorrect "father," who was cheating on his own wife, to sign the birth certificate anyway so that she could deny parental rights to the actual biological father. The biological father fought a legal battle to gain any rights over his child. Now my little sister gets a new father figure every time my mother cheats on a guy and I cannot help because she threatens me with violence if I try to interfere.

As for my father, he never dated or, to my knowledge, became physically or emotionally intimate again after being cheated on. He seemed to believe that most women cheat and often said misogynistic things. He disowned me at 14, after I told him I was sexually interested in women, then left the country and stopped paying child support. That was the last time I saw him.

Sorry if that was TMI. I just feel sick if I dwell on cheaters or cheating. Even typing this is making my heartbeat feel irregular.

Where do you meet folks?

If you mean where do I meet folks online, I generally join online forums or communities that relate to my interests or hobbies and end up getting to know people there. That also allows friendship to develop first, and ensures that I have something in common with people I meet. This is probably not the best choice for casual encounters, though.

Also, if you have dated a cheater, can you ever be friends?

I do not know, as I would not want to be friends with a cheater, since just the thought of cheating is upsetting to me, as explained above.

Also, I wanted to reply to this post:

I read an article recently in which researcher Eric Anderson interviewed a number of college-aged men who were in ostensibly monogamous heterosexual relationships of at least 2 years' duration (past the NRE stage). Almost all of the interviewees expressed a desire to have sex with people other than their partners. Roughly half of the interviewees acted on that desire at some point during the study. (The stronger the expressed desire for sex outside the relationship, the likelier the interviewee was to act on it.)

Thank you for posting about this article. I had never seen it before, but I looked up information about it after reading your post.

Here is a link that tells more about the study, if other readers are curious: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/why-men-need-to-cheat_b_1170015.html

While it is certainly interesting, my issue is that is Dr. Anderson still seems to be speaking from a monogamist perspective himself, at least according to the interview.

For example, he writes:
Rather than marrying 20 times or more in one's life via serial monogamy, we can keep one emotional lover and just have casual, meaningless -- and hot -- sex with strangers. This gives us the long-term emotional stability we desire psychologically, alongside the hot, carnal sex we desire somatically.

But what about people who want or have more than one "emotional" lover? From what I have seen, that is the situation that many people on the forum are in, including me. Isn't it basically monogamist to say that "we" desire "long-term emotional stability" with "one emotional lover"?

Also, here's another direct quote from the interview:

People in open relationships structure their engagements as to reduce emotional intimacy. But, yes, of course it can happen. What I find from those in open relationships, however, is that once they have had sex with that person they fancied, they tend to get over them.
If we really want to prevent our lovers from developing the lust of others, or worse, emotional intimacy with others...

Wow, that's quite a lot of generalizations. People in open relationships structure their engagements as to reduce emotional intimacy? There seem to be many exceptions to that on the forums here. People's fancy for others diminishes after sex? It is "worse" for a lover to have "emotional intimacy" with someone else than sex?

That certainly sounds like it comes from an emotionally and romantically monogamous perspective.

Anyway, I still really enjoyed reading the about the study; I just wanted to comment on the fact that apparently even people studying exceptions to monogamy seem to be doing so from an essentially monogamist standpoint.
 
Here is a link that tells more about the study, if other readers are curious: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/why-men-need-to-cheat_b_1170015.html

While it is certainly interesting, my issue is that is Dr. Anderson still seems to be speaking from a monogamist perspective himself, at least according to the interview...


But what about people who want or have more than one "emotional" lover? From what I have seen, that is the situation that many people on the forum are in, including me. Isn't it basically monogamist to say that "we" desire "long-term emotional stability" with "one emotional lover"?

Yes.


Wow, that's quite a lot of generalizations. People in open relationships structure their engagements as to reduce emotional intimacy? There seem to be many exceptions to that on the forums here. People's fancy for others diminishes after sex? It is "worse" for a lover to have "emotional intimacy" with someone else than sex?

That certainly sounds like it comes from an emotionally and romantically monogamous perspective.

...apparently even people studying exceptions to monogamy seem to be doing so from an essentially monogamist standpoint.

The conclusions he draws from his study are really stupid. What a waste of time.
 
I WANT emotional intimacy with my sexual partners. I desire my partners MORE after a sexual encounter. I don't think I am an aberration.
 
Yes.

The conclusions he draws from his study are really stupid. What a waste of time.

I think the study itself is much more interesting and nuanced than the Huffpo blog post describing it.

For instance, in the study itself, I didn't read Anderson as agreeing with the idea that emotional infidelity was more inherently destabilizing to a monogamous relationship than sexual infidelity. I read him as saying, "Some monogamous people feel more threatened if their partners have an intense emotional connection to a third party than if their partners have a sexual connection to a third party." Which is true: Some people feel that way. Generally, people on this forum do not.

Looking at the study itself, I noticed that a lot of what seemed to make it harder for the men interviewed to negotiate for a non-monogamous relationship (let alone a poly one) fell under the heading of unexamined assumptions on their own parts-- about what it means to be a man or woman in the U.S., about what it means to love someone, about where emotional security comes from.

It seems to me that actually addressing those assumptions would make the men interviewed better capable of navigating any relationship or set of relationships-- poly, non-monogamous, or mono.

But that's not going to be news to anyone who's already excavated their own assumptions about romantic and/or sexual relationships.
 
I think the study itself is much more interesting and nuanced than the Huffpo blog post describing it.

After reading this, I decided to look up a different study by Anderson myself, and you are certainly correct.

Considering his own nuanced views, I wonder why Anderson seemingly chose to give such relatively conventional interview answers.

It reminds me of what Noam Chomsky said regarding media sound bites:

Noam Chomsky said:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

But maybe I am reading too much into this.

Oh, and here is a link to the entire study I found, for those who are interested: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qqg2bteg4b48kdt/TxSIulQT9f/2010%20%27At%20Least%20with%20Cheating%20thre%20is%20an%20Attempt%20at%20Monogamy%2C%27%20Cheating%20and%20Monogamism%20among%20Undergraduate%20Men%20%5BJournal%20of%20Social%20and%20Personal%20Relationships%5D.pdf

For instance, in the study itself, I didn't read Anderson as agreeing with the idea that emotional infidelity was more inherently destabilizing to a monogamous relationship than sexual infidelity. I read him as saying, "Some monogamous people feel more threatened if their partners have an intense emotional connection to a third party than if their partners have a sexual connection to a third party." Which is true: Some people feel that way. Generally, people on this forum do not.

In the study I read, which Anderson titled "'At least with cheating there is an attempt at monogamy’': Cheating and monogamism among undergraduate heterosexual men"...well...Anderson decided to specifically exclude "emotional affairs" altogether.

His reasoning was as follows:

Emotional monogamy reflects that of dyadic romance only. Thus, having sex with a stranger would not violate this type of monogamy, but having an emotional affair would. This category is the most complex for discussing monogamy because it includes a variety of types of affairs (work, friendship, on-line, and so forth) and because it might also potentially include polyamory, as well as considering definitional problems associated with the difference between friendship and a sexual and/or romantic relationship...

Basically, it seems that Anderson considered the "emotional affair" too complicated to include in his research, which is certainly understandable. I do wish it had been included, most likely because the person I have been in a non-sexual but romantic "secondary relationship" with is an exact demographic match to Anderson's participants in this particular study :p But, I can certainly see how including "emotional infidelity" would have made the interviews quite a lot more complicated.

Looking at the study itself, I noticed that a lot of what seemed to make it harder for the men interviewed to negotiate for a non-monogamous relationship (let alone a poly one) fell under the heading of unexamined assumptions on their own parts-- about what it means to be a man or woman in the U.S., about what it means to love someone, about where emotional security comes from.

Well, we're discussing a different study, but yeah, there were still a lot of unexamined assumptions on the part of participants in the study I linked as well, perhaps most glaringly in the fact that even participants who cheated seemingly hated the thought of their partners having any type of extra-dyadic sexual interactions.

It seems to me that actually addressing those assumptions would make the men interviewed better capable of navigating any relationship or set of relationships-- poly, non-monogamous, or mono.

But that's not going to be news to anyone who's already excavated their own assumptions about romantic and/or sexual relationships.

True!

Also, I see that I accidentally quoted you as bofish earlier, since I started out by responding to her post. Sorry about that.
 
I really disliked the assumption that "of course, sex dies in a relationship after 2 years." I just find this such a silly statement! Lots and lots of partnered people still desire their partners after 2, 5, 10 or 20 years.

Yes, NRE dies. As it must and should. But sexual desire is not just based on newness. It could be based on love! Imagine that. Sexual desire can wax and wane in a LTR, of course, but that doesn't mean it's dead, never to be resurrected again. It's just sleeping!

And even if your sexual desire for your mate does die after 2 years, does that mean the next inevitable step is, "Well, Ima go get me some strange, behind my loved one's back"?

Maybe that works for undergraduate "men," ie, people with the emotional abilities of a gnat. For people with a skosh of maturity, I do not think cheating ever should be the socially accepted default after 2 years of a relationship.
 
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