In reading this I read how a human being went without human touch for "the kids" because they weren't "the cheater type"?

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2084527

I once had an interesting conversation with a man who claimed to be in a loveless and mostly sexless marriage. He is wealthy and doesn't want his businesses to suffer in a divorce.

He thinks he might be gay. When he needed money for those businesses the only person who would gamble on him (the banks wouldn't) was a gay man with an investment company he knew from his neighborhood. He was so impressed with this man that he joined the gay chamber of commerce.

Eventually, he has started exploring his gay side. Interestingly enough when we had this conversation his wife had turned up the sex to a degree he never experienced with her before. When I asked him if he could be satisfied with her new found libido he said that they have been married a long time and he wasn't going to go back to monogamy with her just because she decided to finally become more like he wanted for years and years.

I found that telling and indicative of nothing like a "cheater type" of person.

Leaving Mormonism I've also tried really hard to leave concepts like stereotyping people. In my opinion the poster of the above thread is no different than the people they consider "the cheater type." Just because you are living with someone doesn't mean anything to me other than that you are living with them. If you have emotional connections great. But keeping yourself from human touch is something I find sad and something Mormonism and the societies it flourishes in hails as a virtue in demonizing some kind of stereotyped "cheater."

"Just because you are living with someone doesn't mean anything to me other than that you are living with them."

Unless you've made promises to that person to not have sexual relations with anyone else. That would be cheating.

Are you trying to justify something?

quidprostatusquo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Unless you've made promises to that person to not
> have sexual relations with anyone else. That would
> be cheating.

Not answering the question? Or is this your definition? Sex.

> Are you trying to justify something?

No. Sound like what Joseph Smith did. Simplify to something like sex and call out others.

So you make a promise not to have sexual relations with anyone else, but then you end up with a partner that won't have sex at all??? That is another form of cheating in my opinion. Ethically it is up to each to decide, but I for one wouldn't blame a person in that situation for finding physical intimacy outside of that "marriage".

gettinreal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ethically
> it is up to each to decide, but I for one wouldn't
> blame a person in that situation for finding
> physical intimacy outside of that "marriage".

Even just depriving yourself of physical intimacy when you would rather have it with another human being. How is that a virtue?

I don't think it is.

Just saying that if you get trapped in a loveless marriage, don't want to divorce for whatever reason, I have sympathy for the person who finds physical intimacy outside said "marriage".

I think women can definitely tell if the guy they are with has a wandering eye and is the "cheater type." When I'm dating someone, I look for clues that would identify them as potentially being disloyal and steer clear.

Like a "womanizer" ala Britney? Sexually disloyal? What if they got a massage and it ended in a happy ending?

Yeah, that's just disgusting. If you have to ask if that's cheating, your morals are pretty shabby.

rubi123 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, that's just disgusting. If you have to ask
> if that's cheating, your morals are pretty shabby.

Thanks for your opinion. You obviously think your morals are better but I don't know. Other than supporting stereotyping in simplest terms, emotional cheating is rarely addressed, your morals are a mystery to me. But thanks for judging me so simply. I know what to expect from your morals.

I told my ex that he could go out and have all the sex he wanted, but to just not fall in love. He "did." ha ha ha ha He thought he was in love that time. He's had a lot of bad luck with "love."

I wouldn't allow a straight guy to go out and have all the sex he wanted just don't fall in love, but I don't want him to have an emotional affair either.

I really don't think there is a way to tell. People I never thought I'd see cheat have.

And Elder Berry, I think your morals are just fine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2018 12:42PM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And Elder Berry, I think your morals are just
> fine.

Thanks. I'm as fallible as the next person. I thought as I got older I would get wiser. Not really a given. I bought a ticket to see an old mission companion and enjoy some good adult beverages BEFORE I had official vacation approval. All I had was a verbal, "probably" and now I'm out a couple hundred bucks that we don't really have. It didn't get approved.

My wife knows about my bisexuality and how much I struggle with it. I might be gay and in denial, who knows? We've talked and I've told her all about my inclinations and yet she wants to stay together. I don't know if that is a tenable option.

What I do know, is that for me, I have to evaluate "The Human Experience" as my own experience. Stereotyping and moralizing are reductionist in my opinion. We are the most varied individually animal on the planet. To constrain that with black and white easy judgements is well easy.

Judge away I say. If I don't meet anyone's personal requirements for being a "good" person, I won't be too upset. I've disappointed everyone I've ever loved because I can't be reduced. What works for others need not be applied to me and "vice" versa.

Mormonism is a big box corporation. I'm into artisan tiny boxes. That is why I posted this post. Calling all cheaters a type is something corporate overloads love. Reduce complexity to produce believers and stuff their boxes with sweet spirits.

did you just say "stuff their boxes"???? 8o

"Cheating", involves deception. In my mind it is a physical act of having sex with someone other than your spouse without their knowledge (the spouses).

There are couples who have "open" marriages, which seems strange to me, but it works for them. Nothing wrong with that, the difference is both partners are aware and on board with that arrangement.

If your partner is under the impression that you are being faithful to them, regardless of the level of intimacy at home, and you aren't...that is cheating. It is lying to your partner and THAT is what makes it wrong.

Although, one must ask, what sort of marriage do I have if lying to my partner is the order of the day??

Well, let's just put it this way and I've seen it many times. Once the spouse finds out you are cheating, then the sex tends to heat up in the marriage. It happened to me and it has happened to others. All of a sudden, once the fact my husband was cheating on me, even he wanted more sex with me, even HE WANTED MORE SEX WITH ME. AND when he found out I had had sex with my boyfriend, he told his partner at that time that I was a better lover than he was. Okay, go figure.

All these dynamics are something you can't really pinpoint why they happen. It actually wasn't that my ex and I weren't having sex either, because we were. We used to laugh at people when they'd say things like "Well, at least he was able to have sex with you once." We'd smile and talk about it later.

BUT he and I (NOW I DO) know the difference. I can't put it into words, but ask gemini. Sex with a straight guy is A HELL OF A LOT DIFFERENT than it is with a gay guy. And I know my ex feels the same way about having sex with gay men.

But cheating creates it's own dynamic. I'm not a cheater. And both my ex and my boyfriend would tell you they know that. My ex was very, very, very surprised that I had sex with my boyfriend. He never thought I would. BUT he wasn't my "husband" any longer. That ship had sailed. BUT he and my boyfriend both tell me that they know I'll never cheat.

My boyfriend will talk about all his old conquests. I tell him that isn't attractive nor is it a turn on. In fact, just the opposite. AND then I'll say, "I guess we should break up and I'll go out and sow all my wild oats and then we can get back together and I can tell you about all the guys I had sex with." He laughs at me. He knows me better than that. I wouldn't cheat, I couldn't cheat if someone put a gun to my head.

Anyway, my boyfriend knows better than to talk about his past conquests anymore. I knew him back then. Me, the perfect little mormon girl. I might have thought twice about marrying him back when he asked me then IF I hadn't been aware. BUT he was honest with me back then and told me the truth about how he saw things. I'm sure he never cheated on his wife. Yep, sure. It would kill him if I cheated on him. He doesn't even like me paying attention to my brother or my son. Oh, but believe me, I do. He wants all my attention for him.

cl2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BUT he and I (NOW I DO) know the difference. I
> can't put it into words, but ask gemini. Sex with
> a straight guy is A HELL OF A LOT DIFFERENT than
> it is with a gay guy. And I know my ex feels the
> same way about having sex with gay men.

Thanks for the reply. This is interesting information but I don't think you can definitely say this generally. It involved three people with widely differing sexual inclinations, inhibitions, exhibitions, emotions, and experiences.

This is the problem with stereotyping "Cheaters" because it makes things black and white. Good people never have a sexual experience (including sensual massage) with anyone but the person they promised to be sexually faithful with.

But wait there is more. There is the emotional and intimacy side of this promise. Oh, well. Haters gonna hate. Cheaters gonna cheat.

but any time you take 2 different people, you are going to have all kinds of different outcomes. Doesn't matter.

We don't have control over who we are attracted to and why. There are so many dynamics that come into play.

Actually, I'll tell you a situation I found myself in. My boyfriend's mother (oh my). All I ever wanted to do is meet his family from when I was age 20. I finally did. He'd leave me to listen to his mother for hours on end. So after a few visits, she dropped the bomb on me that he and his ex were swingers. I was like, "WTF?" It really threw me. I didn't come out and ask my boyfriend about it. I was "certain" that he was never a swinger because I know him. BUT it kind of bothered me, but I didn't want to cause problems between he and his mom as he had just started having much to do with them because of past bad feelings. They even told me they felt like they had their son back because of me. So, a few years later, she told me that again. then she came up here to visit and she was RUDE. She is one rude old bitch. Anyway, I finally told him in an e-mail and he took me to dinner and took my hands and looked in my eyes and said, "I have NEVER BEEN A SWINGER." I think she wanted to break us up. He's her little boy. I knew he hadn't been a swinger, but I wanted him to know what she was doing.

I've never seen her since. He goes to visit her alone. But I knew without a doubt that he had never been a swinger without asking. But I wanted him to know what she was up to. She's done other things to me, too.

Would it matter if he had?

I wouldn't know until he had told me how I would react. IF he had been a swinger, it would have been better had he told me and not have the story come from his mother. There were a lot of issues that came up every time his mother was around and so it works better to not.

BUT he knew me well. He knew I needed to know the whole story. He told me when we first got back together that he was just getting divorced and he planned on going out and dating other women and not just me, and he did. BUT HE TOLD ME what the situation was. He was that way when I knew him before, too, by telling me he had slept around quite a bit and he wanted me to know before I got too attached to him. He felt it wise to be completely honest with me about his sexual history especially because of who I was back then. He could tell you that I was a walking mormon virgin. I'm chuckling. He knew it would impact me a lot. So--it was just not something I anticipated hearing and, I'm sorry, but how many swingers do you know who go out and tell their mom?

Having been a good little mormon girl makes an impact on a sexual relationship, too. So when I read the post about the guy who didn't have sex with his wife all those years, I wasn't surprised. MANY mormon girls feel that way. I'm still confused because of the ideas they put into my mind.

Now we've talked about the gay straight issues before and do I think it is possible for these relationships to stay together. It is what I wanted and I would have done it. I would have stayed with him no matter what and I would have been faithful. I knew he couldn't be. He couldn't stay. He wishes he had done it different, left me different. We had finished the downstairs for him to live in all those years ago. Put in a downstairs door so he could go in and out, and then we'd co-parent and both pay the bills. He up and left me. And guess where he is now? He has a very difficult time with the fact I have my boyfriend, VERY DIFFICULT. The kids can't believe it. I have this competition going on between my ex and my boyfriend in terms of just what? I don't know. It gets a bit ridiculous.

You have to do what is right for you. If you feel the need to find someone else, then just be open and honest with your wife and work it out the best you can. Can you live the rest of your life this way? Only you can answer that. My ex couldn't. It was killing him. This is such a COMPLEX ISSUE. Maybe you should write to Carol Lynn Pearson. Friend her on fb. Message her. She'll reply. She is much wiser than I am about all this.

The reality is is that I have my own mental/emotional, etc., baggage and so I don't know how something someone does will impact me. I have to work through it. So maybe I couldn't have been with him if he had been a swinger. I just don't know.

What I can say is this--IF I were to ever end up not with my boyfriend, I'd never date again. Just my perspective. I knew this when he came back into my life. I've never been that good at dating and if he had never come back, I probably would have never dated again. In fact, I got "hit on" by another guy who used to work by me a few weeks ago. Great to feel like someone noticed, but even if I were free. Nope. I watch my ex date and I watch my sister date. I'd rather be alone than do that again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2018 06:20PM by cl2.

Leaving someone I love will probably be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But like most things human it is the culture that makes being honest with yourself about the conclusions you make about yourself so very difficult.

We are beings with ideals that don't match our perceived realities in my opinion and this is why religion even exists in this world.

It is one of many delusions our species suffers under. My existence with bisexuality has been incredibly confusing. I've never really wanted to cheat on my wife with another woman.

I don't know. I was abused by a scout master while I was fooling around with male friends. Did that have anything to do with how my sexuality developed?

What I do know is human beings don't fit in Mormonism. They have to force themselves to fit into its straight and narrow minded ideals.

Also, I've read a lot about the myth of human monogamy. The evidence keeps coming in and getting mostly ignored. Primates who are monogamous don't have the non-monogamous traits humans tend to have. Monogamy in any species is not a human thing though individual humans can pull it off.

So I don't know if I need to contact Carol Lynn Pearson. I know a few things. I love my wife in an untenable situation which has lasted our whole marriage. She knows my tendencies and wishes they didn't exist. I feel the weight of all the dead prophets hanging over us with regards to sex. It is ridiculous and it took middle age to show me how much so.

Get 'em while their young and screw them up sexually for life is the Mormon way. The ideals and standards trump authenticity and true contentment in life all the while it is sold as a plan for happiness.

I don't know many happy people but the ones I do don't seem to be the Mormons. Theirs is a "shiny happy people" counterfeit happiness which appears to me like people on happy pills.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2018 06:33PM by Elder Berry.

You may have seen what I already posted, but I removed it because I'm confused, too.

I have very much evolved in my views of right and wrong. I do what is right for me and not for anyone else. I wanted to marry someone who had never had sex, my king, someone who had saved themselves for me. My therapist once asked me, "what makes a king?" Well, I found 2 great guys in my life to fall in love with. I would have stayed forever with my ex. I love him for who he is. Same with my boyfriend--no matter what.

Religion, mormonism, etc., sets us up to judge each other. In reality, we have to live according to who we are, being true to who we are. For me, I find more and more things out about myself the older I get.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2018 07:11PM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have very much evolved in my views of right and
> wrong. I do what is right for me and not for
> anyone else. I wanted to marry someone who had
> never had sex, my king, someone who had saved
> themselves for me. My therapist once asked me,
> "what makes a king?" Well, I found 2 great guys in
> my life to fall in love with. I would have stayed
> forever with my ex. I love him for who he is. Same
> with my boyfriend--no matter what.

I've always found your story fascinating. I fear my wife would stay with me forever and her sexuality would keep her satisfied in a situation I find very frustrating. I'm a toucher, hugger, talker, socializer etc. She is not.

I love her more than any other person in the world yet according to social standards I'm teetering on hurting the one person in the world I would least like to hurt. She knows my inclinations and yet doesn't want to confront their reality. Sometimes I scream at myself to accept what I have and be satisfied but the older I get the more I understand who I am and the more ridiculous it seems to me it being a charade for society for me personally. But I'm not jumping at leaving my loved one for a life alone. Your ex might have feelings of regret at leaving you.

> Religion, mormonism, etc., sets us up to judge
> each other. In reality, we have to live according
> to who we are, being true to who we are. For me, I
> find more and more things out about myself the
> older I get.

What are you finding out?

What kind of mother would try and sabotage her son's relationship with you by trying to plant seeds of doubt in your mind? Wow, what a bitch! I guess that you now know to steer clear of her!

I hate people who try to stir up trouble. In the end, these types just end up as lonely old people after everyone has figured out who they truly are.

I have nothing to do with her anymore. I just don't know why she did it. I assume she has always acted this way in life and that might be one of the reasons he distanced himself from his parents. His dad died 2 years ago and his mom is 86 or 87, and she'll probably be dying soon, too, and I'm glad he made peace with them before they died.

I had a low point in my life. I was struggling emotionally, financially, physically. I found someone who seemed to understand me and I cheated. I was caught, stopped seeing the other person, and worked on my emotional intelligence. My spouse gave me another chance. We’ve been married 30 years and it happened at the 20 year mark. I haven’t strayed again. I learned a lot about life during the 10 years after cheating. I won’t do it again, but I’m not sorry it happened.

If you're not sorry, why won't you do it again?

Respectively, I think you are missing the point. It's not about being sorry, it's about growing and learning as a person. Did you ever do something that you regretted but learned a valuable lesson?

I'm curious why would someone stop doing something that helps them grow as a person and learn valuable lessons?

I learned to not touch the hot stove top once. I don't need to repeat it to learn more.

I'm the "non-cheater type" that wrote the original post.

Interesting ideas and posts here.

To explain myself some more or just share some thoughts, I have to state that the morg puts you into a terrible position when you leave in a family situation with children. They are ready to jump all over any perceived moral failings. My children were TBM at the time and if I had cheated and been caught that would have fulfilled all the Mormon apostate stereotypes. Your integrity is called into question which is ironic since you are probably on a higher moral plane for dealing honestly with your doubts. Yep, I was still bowing to the morg on some level.

I was also still in my marriage. I totally agree that refusing to have sex and the associated emotional abandonment are also a form of breaking marital vows on my ex's part.

I also decided from then on to "fly solo" and look at porn as needed or wanted and not feel guilty about it or share that with TBM spouse. So I wasn't completely boxed in (although it's NEVER as good as the real thing).

I also did make a stand against the morg for probing youth about their sexual behavior. I refused to let them ask those questions to my children and got on the Stake President's bad side for that.

There's never a decision that you'll make that's 100% right or wrong. Did I make the right decision? Dunno, but I weighed my options carefully and made the best one I could. The positives are that it made for a more stable life for my children until they finished HS. The downside was that they could still read our emotional isolation and I missed out on a loving relationship with physical intimacy.

Both my children on their own, have left the morg. One is even a BYU grad. I mostly left them to their own devices to figure it out on their own. Ex is still hardcore TBM. She has an unpenetrable and proud outer shell and I don't think anything could bring her to catharsis. At this point she is alone on her Mormon journey. Kids will never go back.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

anon this time Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was also still in my marriage. I totally agree
> that refusing to have sex and the associated
> emotional abandonment are also a form of breaking
> marital vows on my ex's part.

Thanks for reading and replying.

What I think is there is no "cheater type" and you just weren't interested in risking the consequences of cheating. Like you said porn is no substitute. I know.

It isn't in many ways but the lacking of intimate sensual connecting with another human being is a huge draw back to porn let alone the unrealistic expectations you are feeding your eyes and ears. Reading porn is probably slightly better in that regard.

I think that reducing cheating to the sex act makes us what I've posted before - sexual slaves to a partner and not in a kinky way. We literally have tied ourselves sexually to another individual person when naturally we generally don't have much biological inclination towards that kind of pair bonding. Most pre-history humans had no modern monogamous concept of marriage. We are opportunist animals and sex is no different than omnivore variety in our habits and tastes.

We are inclined to pair bonds in my opinion. Traditional families are another modern construct. It is a hopeless ideal.

But thanks again for the clarifying information. If you do hold monogamy up as an ideal to live by I don't judge you. I would like people not to judge non-monogamists and cheaters with stereotypes. The idea that people who cheat do so because they are bad people is ridiculous to me. But it is what is implied with no mercy for people like you in your former marriage who act on their inclinations and me in mine.

If a person doesn't agree with another person's choices I respect that but if they take the added step and judge all people by stereotyping is just awful. Call me a bad person if you want but all people by a societal standard that is at odds with our natural inclinations? How is human life so reducible? How is religion so strong is making us aliens to ourselves? Why would you want to worship a god or a societal ideal which fights our natural tendencies to want to touch each other and have intimacy with more than one person at a time?

I believe there are many people who are fine with homosexuality and not bisexuality. They probably have problems with transgendered folk. For them it is a one to one sexual-emotional relationship for the duration of a person's life unless there is a justifiable reason for divorce and then one must jump right back into a one-on-one.

Thank God marriage is dying.

I'm not a one-size-fits-all type of person. Even though I lean towards monogamy I don't think it should be everyone's standard. We have a tendency to think of sexuality polemically when someone else's behavior is outside our idiosyncratic box.

One strong driver for is that loyalty (I'm talking generally here) is very important to me which is something I learned coincidentally from taking this survey http://www.moralfoundations.org/ So it may be that stronger than average underlying sense that is the driver for me.

That said, I was a virgin at 27 when I married my TBM wife. I was married 25 years and only had one partner until then. My current partner has been married three times and am guessing has had maybe 12 partners or so, had a lesbian relationship, and has had multiple abortions having grown up in a country where that was normal. She also made the bad assumption that I was naive about sex with my background, but my ex and I had a pretty good sex life the first 10-12 years and I was an attentive lover. I am fine with all this. Right now it's mind-blowingly good.

anon this time Wrote:
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> Right now it's
> mind-blowingly good.

Sounds great. I hope you don't think that your suffering justifies your present bliss.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> anon this time Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Right now it's
> > mind-blowingly good.
>
> Sounds great. I hope you don't think that your
> suffering justifies your present bliss.

I don't. That bliss could have come through other circumstances as well. But it here it is, and I'm riding the pony!

Anon this time Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't. That bliss could have come through other
> circumstances as well. But it here it is, and I'm
> riding the pony!

Ride Sally ride!

anon this time Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One strong driver for is that loyalty (I'm talking
> generally here) is very important to me which is
> something I learned coincidentally from taking
> this survey http://www.moralfoundations.org/ So it
> may be that stronger than average underlying sense
> that is the driver for me.

Often from my reading, human thinking in the abstract doesn't match human behavior.

This measuring, if not indirect getting at unconscious desires, is going to tell you what you already believe is true for yourself and may not quite be that true for you.

> This measuring, if not indirect getting at
> unconscious desires, is going to tell you what you
> already believe is true for yourself and may not
> quite be that true for you.

The analogy I like is the rider/elephant. The rider is the conscious mind and the elephant is the unconscious mind. The rider thinks he's in control but the elephant wants things and often does a lot of things the conscious mind doesn't buy into and the rider goes into damage-control mode to come up with rationalizations for what the elephant just did. Yep, we do some strange stuff. This explains a lot of behavior I've witnessed.

These measurement techniques are the worst there are except for the other ones we have at our disposal. It's all a work in progress to try and figure it out IMO. It's meta-thinking: using the mind to figure out the mind. That we can do it at all is kind of a miracle.

anon this time Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That we can do it at
> all is kind of a miracle.

It literally is. That the subject can judge themselves and others objectively is irrational.

Cheating hurts. I would never be dismissive of the pain that it causes. I would not say all cheaters are 'bad', but it certainly is not ideal.

'I would like people not to judge non-monogamists and cheaters with stereotypes...' Two different things.

People can be non-monogamists and still be honest with their partners.
A cheater is not being honest with their partner.

Calico Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A cheater is not being honest with their partner.

Many people aren't. From the perspective of the cheater being sexual constrained by a person not interested in sex and they've discussed it many times their partner is being selfish and should realize it comes with risks.

Not being explicitly honest is seen as worse for whatever reason.