this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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My understanding is that infidelity is very nearly binary in its commonality.
There are groups of people for whom infidelity is normal, it is the norm. They believe that everyone cheats, and in their experience everyone does, because they are cheaters and are friends with cheaters. They believe that fidelity is impossible, and claims to the contrary is just social posturing
Then you have groups of people for whom infidelity is basically unthinkable. That it is the greatest breach of trust possible. It is not just not normal, it is non-existent— you don’t cheat, your partner doesn’t cheat, your friends don’t cheat, no one you know cheats. If someone you know cheats, or someone known by someone you know cheats, it is legitimately horrifying: this is not merely social posturing, it is literally shocking to you, because in your world, cheating simply does not happen. It is horrible.
Cheaters think everyone cheats. Non-cheaters believe no one cheats, or only horrible people cheat. These two groups tend to self sort themselves into groups. Bad things happen when the two groups intermingle, in fact.
What’s also a tragedy is when someone who would naturally be in the non-cheating group ends up, mistakenly, in a cheating group. They will begin to feel like everyone ELSE in the world cheats, while they themselves never would. They keep getting hurt, they keep getting betrayed, and they don’t understand why. They need a better friend group… and let me be clear: non-cheating groups ABSOLUTELY EXIST. Those groups simply don’t interact with cheating groups— they basically don’t even know that the cheating groups exist, and would be horrified to find out. So if you’re caught up in a cheating social circle, getting out is really hard! You need to find people who have literally nothing in common with the people you already know!
It kinda sucks. I don’t know a solution.
I don't know anyone who cheats... Except my Uncle Chris, who has been unilaterally excommunicated from the whole family.
Yeah. IDK how people can fit cheating in to their life.
I just don't have that much time apart from my spouse I guess.
Also I'm not particularly attractive I guess so even before I was a balding 40 something I've never encountered someone who wanted a quick fuck in the broom closet or whatever.
I'd like to believe I'm a non-cheater, but what I'm saying is that's never really been tested.
Also having kids changed things. I wouldn't want to betray my partner, and that's very important to me, but it's a lot more important to me to not mess up our young family. My spouse and I are romantic partners, but we're also a parenting team.
Huh. I don't think I know anyone who cheats so I guess I got lucky. Your post is plausible
From time to time I get a ride from someone at work I have zero interest of becoming friends with. In those rides I get glimpses of a complete different reality where he and his friend group lives. It is horrifying and it completely matches the description of the parent comment.
Yup, this was me at a lunch table at work. Dudes were pulling the most repulsive stories about fucking another chick while their GF is doing XYZ or not washing between their side girl and main chick and i just couldn't sit there. Pretended I got a notification and was like "whelp I got work to do, later!"
I get being a slut when you're younger, I was, but why have a SO if you wanna fool around? Like why hurt someone?
Absolutely. I belong to a non cheating group. It's just seems completely unfathomable that it could happen. Most of us are in 15+ year relationships and are friends with everyone. It's not just a "the women are friends with the women, the men are friends with the men" situation. We got a blend of genders all participating in the same hobbies. There would be so much social cost to cheating it would be kind of insane.
Where I work though there's a decent amount of drama in that regard though and I have noticed that one common factor is that the relationships are atomized. They either keep their old friends going in and there's almost zero expectation of their partners integrating into each other's friendships or there's just this expectation that men and women are fundamentally different creatures. That whole men are from Mars women from Venus shtick. From the outside it seems like emotional distance where people look at each other like they aren't targets of empathy - more like they play by a book as if they can just put the right inputs in they will get the desired outputs.
I know this is entirely anedotal and that anybody could theoretically cheat for any number of reasons... It's just something that I noticed about the groups of cheats that I am aware of.