How do you avoid cheaters

bofish

New member
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? How do you avoid these men? Are you ever tempted to get involved? Where do you meet folks?

I know someone said married men come onto to women all the time, but honestly, for reasons in my blog, this is the first time i've dated and absolutely the first time I internet dated (I was married before my first computer!)

Also, if you have dated a cheater, can you ever be friends?
 
You seem to be using the words "married" and "cheater" interchangeably. Is the problem that they're married, or that they're married and their spouse thinks they're monogamous?

Two of my boyfriends are married (edit: not to each other). Neither of them are cheating.
 
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Lying

Sorry, I mean guys cheating (in monogamous relationships) not telling their wives or girlfriends. They are looking for a variety of stuff. Sometimes just a fuck. Sometimes an emotional affair. Sometimes just someone to be kinky with. All not disclosed to wife.
 
If they are really poly or in an open relationship, their spouse is usually willing to confirm this or even meet you. In online profiles, I even state this. Simply ask to speak to or meet their spouse or SO before getting involved. You can have an initial meet to see if you are actually interested in them, and if you are, ask them to provide confirmation before going forward.
 
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?
 
Very good question!

Here are some telltale signs of married men who are cheating and not being honest about it:

They throw around the words "discretion" and "discreet" a lot. (They usually misspell "discreet" as "discrete" for some reason.)

They make the assumption that you want the relationship to make up for something you are not getting at home (usually sex, or edgier sex), because that's why they are seeking the relationship themselves, and they assume that everyone has the same motivations.

They are reluctant to share a photo that shows their face clearly, or at all. It's one thing not to put a face photo up on OKC for professional reasons, but not being willing to share one privately even after some friendly dialogue is a likely sign of a cheater. If he is wearing sunglasses in ALL his photos, or his head is cut off or blacked out, be leery.

They don't want to meet you in person in a town they live in or work in.

They tell you their first name is John, and then two conversations later they admit it is really Steve. That one always makes me laugh.

Here are some things you can do to scare them off.

You can make it clear in your profile that you don't want to talk to such people.

Never meet anyone in person who won't share a cellphone number in advance of your first date. This will weed out at least some of them. (Plus you'll also be able to get in touch if you're going to be late or need to cancel.) And don't show up to the date unless you have called and actually talked to him first.

For your own safety, I wouldn't recommend sharing last names or any other personal info before you meet anyone in person, but once you have, then I think it is reasonable to request such things of each other. If the person won't tell you their last name AFTER you have met them, be leery. And once you have their last name, Google them. Find out their address and who else is living there if you can. And if you can't find a trace of them online even if they have given you a last name and a town, be leery.

If you are talking to someone you suspect is cheating but you aren't totally sure, make it clear to them that you won't hesitate to tell their wife if it comes to that.

And don't sleep with anyone quickly, certainly not on a first or second date. Take the time to get to know them. Don't pass out cybersex or sexy chat online to strangers, a lot of cheaters are ONLY looking for that, and will lead you on and waste your time just to get it.

For me personally, I will not get sexually involved with anyone who claims to be in a don't ask/don't tell situation, for the simple reason that there is no way to verify that they are being honest about that if the wife won't talk to me. I am sometimes open to being friends with such people if they are interesting and fun, since for a few, DADT is a step towards being in a truly open relationship.

And if you are still tempted to get involved with someone you know is cheating, just think about the fact that he is lying to the person he supposedly cares about most in the world and chose as a life partner, and is potentially exposing them to STDs without their knowledge or consent.

I hope this helps!
 
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? How do you avoid these men? Are you ever tempted to get involved? Where do you meet folks?

I know someone said married men come onto to women all the time, but honestly, for reasons in my blog, this is the first time i've dated and absolutely the first time I internet dated (I was married before my first computer!)

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

Yup, what you are experiencing is pretty normal for women doing online dating. It's hard to stop them reaching out to you entirely. Plastering your account with 'NO CHEATERS - YOUR SPOUSE MUST KNOW' will often just be ignored and they will contact you anyway.

So I do the ol' ignore and delete routine. I don't respond. If they get annoying, as in send multiple messages, I block them. If they get whiny or pissy, I block. I never respond or tell them why. It's not worth it. Some people find this rude but given the volume of these types of messages many women get, who has time for that?

There are threads here that talk about online dating. A tag search might be in order. You would probably find them helpful.

Most of the time I am not tempted. Occasionally I feel sympathy for people who may be in truly bad situations. But I have a rather rigid rule about this, even if I am sympathetic. It's not worth the potential issues for me. Generally, while there can be exceptions, I believe openness is the default better option. So if someone can't or won't go the open route - as in SO knows and approves - I won't join them in DADT, or cheating, or whatever flavor of non-ethical non-monogamy they want. (I group DADT as non-ethical non-monogamy because it is so hard to do ethically and sensitively. It tends towards the clusterfuck IMHO so I clump it with the outright cheaters. Others have very different views on DADT.) I can't stop them and I don't expect my refusal to have any impact on them at all. But my personal limit is non-ethical non-monogamy. I just won't go there. It makes my life so much simpler.

As to being friends, I suppose so? Anything is possible.
 
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Thank you guys so much.

I am glad to hear there are people out there who go through similiar things. I haven't actually met many guys (maybe one?) who are sneaking. They tend to be pretty upfront about their martial or relationship status and WHY they want to fool around. Some are deeply unhappy. Some just want non-vanilla sex. Others just want NRE.

I was involved with a cheater for a year. I feel for him because he was extremely consistent and attentive. In 100 guys, he was the only date I'd ever had who texted to see if I got home ok. We connected on many levels and I empathized with his marital issues (which mirrored my own). The sex part was short lived, However, we continued an intense friendship that was only marginally known by his wife. He was so open with me, at first, but then I realized he was telling lies about everything to his wife, to his friends, to me. Any communication was shut down, and I stopped speaking with him about 2 months ago. For whatever reason, I'm still grieving the friendship. I do want to be friends again and hope we can, but I just can't meet him at his level right now. He has shit to solve in his marriage and I'm tired of being the distraction.

Make sense?
 
Sometimes being a friend - a real friend - means not talking to that person. It seems that you are being a friend by removing yourself so he can make the choice to deal with his shit. Of course, he may not. But that is not your problem. You've done what you can do ethically for yourself and for him. Hopefully he gets himself together and resolves his marriage problems and at that point, talking to him may be possible again. I hope so. I've had to do this with friendships and it's always sad. I've grieved the loss of contact. But you are being his friend even if there is no contact.
 
I had a relationship with a cheater too, bofish, years ago when we first opened our marriage and I hadn't yet internalized the principles of polyamory even though I was identifying as poly. Mine wasn't as emotionally available as yours was, and that's why I ended the relationship, I met a poly guy who was emotionally available, and even thought the sex was light years better with the guy who was cheating, I opted for the guy who truly wanted to love and be loved. Not that I had to make a choice, but what the cheating guy was offering (great sex and not much else) didn't seem like enough of a reason to stick around after the novelty had worn off. In my experience most of the men who are cheating don't seem to be emotionally available, they just want sex and excitement.

We all live and learn, and hopefully learn to make better choices.
 
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Thank you so much for the empathy and advice.

This guy was my second in my poly adventures. My first was a 2 year brought relationship with a young guy who really want to be mono and therefore, had a lot of resentment toward me. I fell for my married guy because in the beginning he was SO emotionally available. He emailed constantly and communicated well. The "sex" was great, but short -lived.

I have met some of his friends. The truth is that he is hiding his real self and emotions from everyone. Obviously, he somehow wants to stop that behavior because he chose ME - someone very open and emotional, but when it go too intense he backed off (even as friends).

You are totally right through, if I talk to him, I am enabling him in a sense. I hope he figures it out. I sure love him, and I'm worth it!
 
I know you, bofish, enjoy casual hook ups like me. Quite spontaneous ones. It's very hard to have a spontaneous hook ups if you are going to insist on verifying with their partner whether they are allowed to bang you. You need to decide whether fucking a cheater is so horrific that you will sacrifice casual sex in case you stumble across one.

What I decided for myself was that if someone took my fancy and they didn't scream cheater at me, I would bang them/date them. When and if I discovered they are a cheater, I would abandon all relations. It's far too much hard work to verify everyone's story and I believe in trusting people until they prove otherwise. I don't feel stupid when I'm let down. It's usually them who did something wrong, not me.

Cheaters do approach me and are usually honest about their situation. Some people just make me feel queasy. They may present as poly, but maybe what puts me off is the fact that they are lying about that. I don't know. I don't confront them, I just don't reply or retaliate to their advances.
 
Sometimes being a friend - a real friend - means not talking to that person. It seems that you are being a friend by removing yourself so he can make the choice to deal with his shit. Of course, he may not. But that is not your problem. You've done what you can do ethically for yourself and for him. Hopefully he gets himself together and resolves his marriage problems and at that point, talking to him may be possible again. I hope so. I've had to do this with friendships and it's always sad. I've grieved the loss of contact. But you are being his friend even if there is no contact.


I had to do this once with a friendship...I found out that a friend that I was close to in high school was systematically lying to me about everything in her life while I was away at college. I cut all ties. A few years later she did try to contact me again - she apologized and, although I chose not to respond to her, I hope she is a happier and more honest person now.
 
Talk.to their partners first? I'm surprised how many people n has been with who have never talked.to me I'm.like.don't they worry you're a cheater. On the flip side n has questioned later if a couple of his lovers were cheating
 
I don't get tempted, and think it's interesting that people do (not judging, just forget sometimes people experience so many different experiences). My dad cheated on my mom constantly, and my ex husband cheated on me, I'd never wish that on anybody, and I dont think my nether regions could get wet for somebody who was so dysfunctional they were willing to hurt somebody for sex. That said, I'm tempted by, and turned on by, honesty. I let that be more important than anything else, and it always makes non ethical behavior a turn off for me.

I'll also add that my first husband was faithful for 12 years, then cheated on me after we decided to be nonmonogamous. There are lots of likeable people, but does anybody really reconcile the term "likeable cheater?" You can be friends with somebody you cheated with, but their partners probably wont welcome that friendship, and nobody really wins. I find dates among people who are openly poly, either on OKC or others in poly groups, or metamours.

I don't know, out of curiosity why would you really like somebody who is cheating on or hurting another partner enough to have to pose this question to yourself? Especially when there are so many attractive and interesting human beings out there in the world.
 
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I dated a couple guys who were cheaters or DADT guys, back when I was first single and figuring dating and poly out.

One sort of put off telling his wife, even though they were poly. One had a mentally ill and non sexual wife. One had a wife who was just nearly asexual but wouldnt agree to letting him get his needs met elsewhere.

I dont talk to the first guy anymore, because she put her foot down, all he could do was have casual sex with other men. She could have bfs and so could he, and that was that. Bleh.

2nd guy, he sure didnt just want sex. He really needed close and healing human contact, as well as sex. But he was always guilt ridden and I got tired of his situation. Good news is that, once we stopped seeing each other, he and his wife did open the relationship. He now has a gf and a bf. He's been sniffing around me too, but I am no longer interested.

3rd guy finally worked some things out with his wife. Somehow she ignited her libido to an extent, they are more intimate now, still not open. He seems fairly content.

So, since my earlier days in poly, I only date poly people, preferably experienced ones. Cheaters hold no attraction for me. I need people who have the jealousy thing worked out, if not perfectly, at least handled with a minimum of fuss. They also have a handle on NRE and time sharing and sexual/kink matters.

Lately, I am not really dating much. I have 2 partners who meet my criteria, just by being very choosy and not settling for less.
 
Talk.to their partners first? I'm surprised how many people n has been with who have never talked.to me I'm.like.don't they worry you're a cheater. On the flip side n has questioned later if a couple of his lovers were cheating
Maybe because N seems like a nice person and they know starting a relationship with someone where you check if they are lying sets a bad precedent.
 
Having been on the receiving end of said behavior serves as all the deterrent I need. I don't ever want to have a role in somebody else feeling that way. The bigger trouble for me is finding partners who feel similarly. Most people seem okay being with "cheaters" and I think that sort can be toxic to the entire system. I like knowing my partner's other partners and spending time with them. But, this is the exception.

Temptation still happens. I really have to have a head/heart conversation with myself when it does to keep from making a poor choice. It takes effort and vigilance. And practice.
 
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The bigger trouble for me is finding partners who feel similarly. Most people seem okay being with "cheaters" and I think that sort can be toxic to the entire system.

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.

Intellectually I get that cheating is part of the mainstream while poly, open, or swinging challenges the mainstream. Everyone (broadly speaking) understands cheating - they may not condone it but they understand. There isn't the painful wrapping one's mind around poly. And I feel it is easier than ethical non-monogamy, definitely in short term and maybe long term for some people who are good at keeping secrets. It's less work personally. You don't have to fundamentally change and grow to cheat.

I don't know. Cheating seems like so much work to me - easier for me to be open and honest.

----

I also enjoy more casual sex - although it's been a while. I pay attention to my instincts when assessing people. If something seems off, it probably is and I decide accordingly. But, really, most of the time cheaters are pretty up front about it. After all, you're not the person they need to lie to! I'm just not that worried about 'Oops! I slept with a cheater!' I would stop, and tell them why and move on with my life. With Oilman (an former FWB), I slept with someone who was fine sleeping with cheaters. But he wasn't cheating with me on someone else. So I suppose that's as close as I got. It bothered me he was ok with that. But he's an adult and made his own choices. If we had been more than FWBs, it would have been an issue. I don't want a partner who is ok with sleeping with people who are cheating. But a fuckbuddy? Well, it worked for a while.
 
I think if you want to avoid cheaters, you have to be ready to let them go when you find out they're cheating. My ethics matter to me, but I refuse to run a full background check on everyone I'm interested in. I refuse to do DADT, and if we're only meeting at night under a certain bridge wearing disguises, be prepared to be shown the door. Once might be kinky, but twice it's just weird. I know that some cheaters are brazen and lead double lives. I suspect they'd either feel kinship or jealously/possessiveness finding out I'm poly. If I'm not clever enough to recognize it when it starts, I hope I'm strong enough to end it when I need to.

Over the summer I started speaking to this guy who assured me he was poly. We talked on a daily basis. Initially he told me he had a girlfriend and that they'd recently broken up, and I told him I was casually seeing two people. Through a third party I learned that the breakup only lasted about two weeks [girlfriend of two years]. We started talking right around the breakup, and continued for 2+ months. I ended communication immediately. To me it sets a pattern that I really don't want to see continued.

I suspect that my favorite mister was cheating on his wife for the greater part of our relationship. He told me almost everything, and told her nothing. The idea was that she didn't want to know. We used to meet up in their house sometimes, but in time I learned that she never knew I was there. When I finally met her 3 years into our relationship things started to crumble a bit. We let some things slip out that she didn't know about, and she flipped. I honestly don't know if she was OK with it because I never saw them again. Months after that last meeting I ended the relationship because it was causing me too much grief. I don't know if he was cheating, and I'm in no mood find out. My only crime was being too naive back then.

Edit: I should add that it really isn't as black and white as my response implies with my favorite mister. He's still one of the best people I've known. If he cheated, I understand but I'm no means do I condone it.
 
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