# Does it only *seem* like it hurts a lot worse when a WIFE cheats?



## jidanon (Aug 27, 2010)

Basically, I have a friend who has cheated on his wife several times, but he says he loves his wife to death and has no feelings for the girl(s) he has cheated on her with, its just sex. His philosophy, and I'm not sure I disagree, is that "men cheat, women have affairs."

It seems like when a man cheats on his wife, a lot of times its spur of the moment, we're at a bar, she's hot, I'm ready, let's go. OTOH, it seems that women have a lot more "emotional" affairs - where a guy at work has started complimenting her, telling her how pretty she is, etc. That is one of my biggest concerns when I found that she had been secretly talking to a guy from school. I logged in to her Skype account and pretended to be her and made an "advance" at him and he said listen, I love my wife, we are just friends who happen to be going through the same thing. I do believe that this was a legit conversation because she told me she didn't know how to get ahold of him other than through Skype and I changed her Skype password immediately so she couldn't get ahold of him. I asked if he had a cell phone I could call and he said no, he only uses Skype because he can't afford a cell phone.

But if it was strictly friendship, I have 2 questions...
1) Why did she have to hide it? No, I wouldn't have liked it and I would have been very uncomfortable with it - especially after I found out that she told this guy things that she refuses to talk to any of her female friends about. She says it was strictly friendship, and so did he, and she has not been on Skype since. When I asked if she had attempted to be on it any more, she said no and that she would be stupid to do something like that. However, I can't get over the thought that maybe there was an emotional bond that my wife felt with this guy, and that bothers me really bad. It hurts that she came out and told me every detail, like she signed on when I left the house and that was her signal that hubby isn't home. Ouch.


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## TNgirl232 (Oct 5, 2008)

Ok - first - I think when anyone cheats it hurts the other person a great deal. To think that its "ok" for a husband to cheat because it won't hurt his wife that much but not ok for a wife to do it because its to painful is chauvinistic and antiquated. We know longer live in a society where people marry for monetary or social connections, so its ok for men to go find 'love' elsewhere. That ended about 75 years ago - sorry that you missed that boat. Ask any woman here that has a husband who's cheated how much it hurts. I think your dillusional in this idea.

Now for your wife. She may have been having an online emotional affair. The only way for sure you know she won't talk to him is to a) get a keylogger and b) make sure she deletes her skype account and also removes the program from the computer.


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## jidanon (Aug 27, 2010)

TNgirl232 said:


> Ok - first - I think when anyone cheats it hurts the other person a great deal. To think that its "ok" for a husband to cheat because it won't hurt his wife that much but not ok for a wife to do it because its to painful is chauvinistic and antiquated. We know longer live in a society where people marry for monetary or social connections, so its ok for men to go find 'love' elsewhere. That ended about 75 years ago - sorry that you missed that boat. Ask any woman here that has a husband who's cheated how much it hurts. I think your dillusional in this idea.


No need to get defensive because you seem to take my opinion that it seems that most mens affairs are strictly sexual while many women's start as emotional before they move to physical as a factual statement. I've been with my wife since I was 16 and I've never cheated on her. I'm most certainly not saying its okay for a man to cheat, because if that were the case, I would be out cheating on her, especially while I am staying at a friends house on the other side of the city. Instead I will probably spend this Friday night at his apartment with my 3 year old son, doing fatherly things  Then Saturday I will get up, and when she gets done working I would imagine we will meet up and be together all day. Cheating is wrong in any instance, it's just that it seems like an emotional affair that turned physical would probably sting a lot worse than a one night stand on a business trip or after clubbing, whether its a man or a woman.

I just know that the fact that she lied to me about these conversations and I've never even had his name mentioned to me really makes me wonder if there was an emotional attachment that has happened.


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## greeneyeddolphin (May 31, 2010)

No, I don't think it hurts more when a woman cheats, or hurts more when a man cheats. I think the individual being cheated on, male or female, feels an intense amount of pain. I think it's wrong for you to try to trivialize anyone's pain by thinking/assuming/theorizing that it hurts less when a man does it. I also think that while there is a very small amount of truth to your statement that men cheat and women have affairs, it's a very simplistic view of things. Men are just as capable of emotional involvement as women, and women can be just as capable of sleeping with another man because he's there and she's horny as a man would. 

Also...on a separate but somewhat related note, the whole skype thing you did. You do realize what you did to your wife, don't you? Her friend now thinks less of her because "she" hit on him. What if he mentions this to others at school? You could have just ruined your wife's reputation among her classmates and possibly even her instructors. I understand you were concerned something was going on, but the more appropriate way to deal with it would have been to ask her, talk to her, or even sign into the skype account, tell him who you were and ASK him what was going on.


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## lbell629 (May 10, 2010)

Not all men's affairs are purely physical. They can be just as emotional as a women's affair. As for trusting your wife, it may have been an emotional affair even though they never talked about taking things further. Things may have just built up in her head. The only think you can really do at this point is ask her not to talk to this guy again. Don't keylog her computer and track what she does, don't spy on her. You need to show trust in her or she'll just hide things even better next time.


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## jidanon (Aug 27, 2010)

atruckersgirl said:


> Also...on a separate but somewhat related note, the whole skype thing you did. You do realize what you did to your wife, don't you? Her friend now thinks less of her because "she" hit on him. What if he mentions this to others at school? You could have just ruined your wife's reputation among her classmates and possibly even her instructors. I understand you were concerned something was going on, but the more appropriate way to deal with it would have been to ask her, talk to her, or even sign into the skype account, tell him who you were and ASK him what was going on.


I did tell him, after the conversation, that it was her husband.


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## OhGeesh (Jan 5, 2010)

I don't know man. Sometimes I feel like we're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Remember years ago when parents "used" to spank their kids? Remember 50 years ago when paddling was common in schools? Now-a -days if you do the latter and sometimes the former someone will call child protection services and say you are abusing your child!!! Crazy stuff!

I feel like the same thing is happening with the labeling of affairs. It used to be a affair was physical. Then it was emotional affairs were real when the deepest secrets were revealed, but moreover when the relationship was emotionally stronger with the "other" person than the spouse.

Now that has been reduced to any contact with anyone else of the opposite sex that the spouse doesn't know about in full detail is cheating....I think that is ridiculous. 

Was you wife having a affair? IDK, what was she doing? I've talked to Exes before, many people have candid conversations with coworkers, are all of these affairs too? We hang out with one of my wife's Exes about once a month is she secretly in love with him, NO! Life is life we are but a conglomerate of our experiences and maybe she was just saying hey and being a friend.....? 

The question to ask is do you know for a fact that your wife really had some emotional tie to this person that was stronger than your bond with her? Skype is just Facebook on cocaine, but same goes for Facebook. If you have exes as friends are you cheating? Some people say yes 100% no doubt. My wife and I both have Exes and besides the "Hey what's up cool pics!" there is nothing more to be said.

Good luck! Hope for the best.


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## greeneyeddolphin (May 31, 2010)

OhGeesh said:


> I don't know man. Sometimes I feel like we're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Remember years ago when parents "used" to spank their kids? Remember 50 years ago when paddling was common in schools? Now-a -days if you do the latter and sometimes the former someone will call child protection services and say you are abusing your child!!! Crazy stuff!
> 
> I feel like the same thing is happening with the labeling of affairs. It used to be a affair was physical. Then it was emotional affairs were real when the deepest secrets were revealed, but moreover when the relationship was emotionally stronger with the "other" person than the spouse.
> 
> ...


I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself and our boyfriend, it's not contact with someone of the opposite sex that is cheating. Even if that contact isn't disclosed. Our rule is (and this applies to everything, not just cheating, but also financial matters, etc.) that if we wouldn't want our significant other to know about it, then it's wrong. So...even if I don't tell him I talked to my friend Steve today, if I would have no problem with him knowing, it's not a problem. Same with him...if he would have no problem with me knowing he saw his friend Danielle today, then it's fine. It's when what you're doing is something you feel the need to hide. 

I think some people take it too far. But I don't think they necessarily do it intentionally. I know my ex-husband used to cheat on me all the time, and it gave me massive trust issues. It took me a long time to realize that just because my boyfriend glances at an attractive woman as she walks by doesn't mean he wants to sleep with her, or that he would sleep with her if given the chance. I had to really struggle to get to where I could realize that just like I don't want to sleep with my male friends or every cute guy that walks by, neither does he want to sleep with his female friends or every cute girl that walks by. I think a lot of the people that get so upset over innocent contact (or seemingly innocent anyway - and I'm not trying to say what this guy's wife did was innocent or not innocent), have trust issues of some sort, even if they don't realize it. 

I also think cheating has become such a common thing these days that people just automatically assume that everyone does it or wants to do it. Kind of the same way we see so much about murders and kidnappings and wars that we just assume that everyone has those intentions.


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