Rss Blog List This is where you Submit your Rss Blog Feed here for more traffic

Earlier this week, I ran a poll based on a marital argument between a reader and her husband. She’d found sexually explicit emails sent back and forth between her husband and another woman. She’d defined this as cheating. He didn’t.

I asked you what you thought.

Nearly 160 of you took the time to cast a vote, and 23 of you commented. Your views were nearly unanimous: definitely cheating.

At the time, I withheld my personal views because I didn’t want to bias the poll results or comments. My thoughts on the matter are as follows. Arguing about whether or not this constitutes cheating is like President Clinton arguing about whether or not he had “sexual relations with that woman.” President Clinton defined “sexual relations” as penile penetration. The rest of us? Our definition included a lot more than that.

This is a similar semantic argument. The husband defines “cheating” by intercourse (I can only assume). The wife defines “cheating” much more broadly. We could take sides in this semantic argument. Or we could do something different.

We might suggest that the couple is arguing about the wrong topic.

Who cares whether or not it’s cheating? What matters is that the wife was hurt by what she discovered. Hurt is universal. Pain is universal. Disappointment is universal.  Lack of trust is universal. We all define these sensations the same way. When she tells her husband, “This hurts,” he can’t come back with a “no it doesn’t hurt, let me tell you about what hurts.” No, he can’t redefine what hurt means to her. This is not something he can argue about.

So rather than continually telling him that he “cheated” and him continually telling her that he did no such thing, I believe she might be better served by telling him:

• Thinking about what you did makes me sick to my stomach. It hurts that badly.
• I don’t trust you anymore.
• I don’t feel like I know who you are.
• I don’t feel loved by you.

He can’t argue with any of that. It just is.

I also think this couple—and the rest of us, too—would benefit greatly by talking about what makes them feel uncomfortable and threatened, because that’s what we’re really talking about when we’re talking about “cheating.” And we all need to have this discussion, because some people feel exceptionally uncomfortable and threatened by things that others think of as no big deal. Talk about:

• Masturbation
• Porn
• Strip clubs
• Hooters and other places like it
• Wet T-shirt contests and mud wrestling
• Flirting
• Platonic touching of the opposite sex (cheek kisses, hugs, handholding)
• Emotional attachment to members of the opposite sex

What threatens you? What doesn’t? You might find that something might threaten you that does not threaten your spouse. Discuss this. Civilly. Openly. Warmly. If you draw the line at porn and your spouse does not, this does not mean that you are a prude and he has a sexual addiction. It just means that you are different. It just means that your threshold of discomfort is lower than his.

And for whichever one of you has a higher threshold of discomfort, consider what is more important to you. Is it more important to you to hold onto this threatening object (whether it be porn or an emotional affair) and continually threaten and hurt your partner? Or is it more important to you to honor your partner and give up that thing that your partner finds so hurtful and threatening? It’s a choice. Which choice will you make?

It seems like an easy choice to me. What do you all think?

Tweet This Post Facebook Stumble This Post

Download your copy of Project Happily Ever After: Relationship Rules.

In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.