Cheating

[Speedlad]

I have never posted in these forums before, but i hope you can spare some time and read my post...

I am a christian man in my mid-twenties and I, 4-5 months ago, cheated on my fiancee, who is also christian and I love dearly. Many people wouldn't call it outright "cheating", but to me hoping for something to happen is the same as it happening. And it also went far enough as to be considered very wrong... Not gonna go into graphic details but it involved alcohol, flirtatious behavior and a massage (not a sexual one)...
It was during some sort of falling away period in my life where i was feeling doubt about my christian values and, i guess, feeling rebellious towards them.

I decided that i didn't have the guts to tell her, whereas the guilt was overwhelming. I was also extremly afraid that she would leave me if I told her, so selfishly enough i decided not to.
The situation, of course, came back very often (almost day-to-day basis) to haunt me, and when it did i would be overwhelmed with guilt and would pray to God for forgiveness. I would try to figure out why I would do such a thing, but always came out clueless...

I managed to keep it pushed down for 4-5 months until I finally couldnt take it anymore. I felt that I was being selfish not wanting to tell her (due to my fright her leaving me), and that it should be her decision, not mine... I also didn't want our relationship to be filled with lies... So i finally came clean and told her what had happened yesterday.

I tried to give her an explanation as to why it had happened but i simply don't know why. All I know is that it had absolutely nothing to do with my fiancee, and that I have absolutely no feelings for the other woman whatsoever (i have not had contact with her since).
My fiancee became very sad, left our apartment to take a walk, to clean her head she said, and came back maybe 1 hour later... After discussing it for quite some time she decided to give me another chance, as long as I do what i feel is necissary to make sure nothing like it happens again.

Today i feel (although still a bit "shaky") as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and that we can start building our relationship on the right ground... During my period of silence I had also find it difficult to have a personal relationship with God, something which i finally feel I can resume building today.

What I need help with, though, is how I should act towards my fiancee. I can imagine a lot of thoughts going through her head, and I just want to be be a big of a support towards her as possible... How do I help her deal with this?

Im also, still, almost clueless as to why I let it happen in the first place. I have thought about it a lot and tried to figure it out, but i simply cannot... I almost feel like it was another version of me doing it... Does anyone have experience with these sort of things and why they happen?

 

[The Nihilist]

Grow up. You didn't cheat on your fiance. Drinking and flirting and massaging isn't cheating. It can lead to cheating and is suspicious, but it's not cheating. No one is going to divorce you over that.
Wanting something to happen is not the same as doing something. There were times when I wanted to punch my exgirlfriend in the face. But I didn't, and that's what makes me a decent human being.
How should you treat her? You should should keep your (gosh darned) pie hole shut. You told her something that she didn't need to know, and it made you feel better and her feel worse. That's selfish.

You're going to get a lot of touchy feely forum members who are going to tell you that you did the right thing. They're going to tell you that a relationship shouldn't have lies in it, and that everything should be perfect. But you didn't do the right thing, you did the stupid thing. You gave your fiancee a reason not to trust you. Whatever misguided feelings of guilt you had are much easier to deal with than that.
How should you treat her? Treat her like everything is fine. Then next Saturday, take her to the zoo or take her canoeing, something outside and during the day, and then come home and make a pound of queso with her, eat most of it, and fall asleep on the couch at 5pm while watching tv. I have a recipe if you need one.

 

[cutekid 4 Jesus]

Okaaay, guess I'm one of those touchy feely members cos I think you're fab and your fiance is lucky to have such an honest and decent guy who can recognise and admit when he is wrong. You risked rejection from the woman that you love in order to give her the right to make the decision which is quite rare. I don't believe it was a simple case of you offloading guilt, I think you were genuinely convicted by the Holy Spirit, and wanted to confess your sins properly to receive forgiveness by all affected and move on. Move on-now that is key don't try spend the rest of your engagement trying to "make up" for what you have done, yeh maybe go the extra mile to make her feel special but there's nothing worse than men doing nice things for you out of guilt!

I'm not your fiance and each person is different but if it were me I would be feeling not so much distrustful of you but a little insecure about me and my relationships, and I would want to know why it happened and what steps you, or we, can take to reduce the chances of it happening again. I would want reassurance that this made you realise even more that it was foolish to risk spending the rest of our lives together for a silly superficial "fling".

She may take 1 month, 1 year or whatever to move past it, but you must be patient although it should never be used against you in arguments or for manipulation etc that goes without saying though.

Do you have any ideas as to why it happened?Were you looking for more attention? Were you slightly panicked at the thought of committing to one woman?Was it just that temptation presented itself and in your weakened spiritual state you found it harder than usual to resist?

 

[The Nihilist]

It's not your fault, cutiekid. Women give the absolute worst advice about relationships.

 

[Windmill]

OK well, OK, Mr. Nihilist, you're pretty blunt, aren't you?

Regardless of what Mr. Nihilist said, the logistics of the situation were this: you felt guilty and it was essentially destroying your relationship with her. As that wasn't going to change, your only choice was to really tell her, because unless you did, the relationship was doomed to fail anyway.

However in some ways I agree with the Nihilist. I have no idea what you actually did. I don't consider flirting cheating, nor is a massage cheating. However, depending on the intentions, it could still be hurtful though to her.

Its about where your relationship boundries lie. Coming from Mr. Nihilist perspective, many secular relationships have much broader boundries. Its certainly not an open relationship, but, like, take porn, in many secular relationships this is accepted, and it many secular relationships sexual thoughts about another is accepted too (as long as you don't act on the fantasies) and so the general idea is its allowed but no one talks about it.

But you are in a Christian relationship and these generally have completely different standards, and flirtatous massages usually are off the agenda. So don't do it again. But it would seem the almost everyone has sexual desires towards others while still in a relationship, and every time you do you don't need to tell your fiance/wife/gf as long as you maintain the boundries you have in your relationship- i.e. most boundries are that if you get them, you don't continue to entertain them if at all possible.

What you did was normal and it is good that you told her, but you need to be careful in the future

And from her perspective, she will be shaky, because the boundries were breeched, and she has probably grown up with the idea that these as the standards so she wasn't expecting less, so try and help her feel reassurred as much as possible

 

[Bootstrap]

If you feel guilty about it, and your girlfriend is badly hurt, that's a pretty good sign that you are outside the bounds of what the two of you believe is right.

If something you are doing is not wrong, there is no reason to hide it. If something you are doing is wrong, it is dangerous to hide it. In either case, you need to be able to be out in the open with each other. If you keep secrets from someone, you grow estranged, if you share everything with someone, you grow closer.

From what you describe, I think you are on the right track. Healing does take time, and you may not be the person who is in the best position to help your girlfriend heal, it may be just as important to make sure she has people to talk to and pray with.

But showing her sincere love, showing her that she is the only person that matters to you, these things can help a lot.

It might also be helpful to find someone you can talk to and pray with from your side. God forgives and heals, don't let Satan tell you otherwise. Keep coming to God, confident in his forgiveness.

How do you keep this from happening in the future? I think you crossed two boundaries. One is the nudity/touch boundary - in some settings that might not be a problem. I have some professional training in massage, and back in the day, I could massage a woman without getting particularly turned on. But that's no longer true for me, and I doubt it's true for most men without some serious massage training.

But to me, the flirting boundary is just as important. If you are flirting with temptation, I think you are on dangerous ground.

All of us are good at denial, the only real protection I know is for you to be really open with your girlfriend, and preferably with at least one mentor or friend. If you know you're gonna have to tell someone, it's going to make you be more honest with yourself.

 

[Luther073082]

I'm going to say that if you felt guilty about it and she was mad about it, then it was cheating. What defines cheating is different between each couple.

My advise is to not spend too much time alone with any other woman and also lets not forget the alcohol. Limit yourself. I only have one drink of anything in any 24 hour period. I limit myself to that because I don't want to be drunk and make bad decisions.

 

[latteda]

Give her time and don't push her or try to force her into trusting you. I'm not sure I would say that you "cheated," but if my boyfriend did that I would be very hurt. I am sure he would be hurt if he found that I did that to another guy, too. Chances are your girlfriend is hurt not only because of what you did but because you took so long to tell her. It's great that you did tell her eventually...that took a lot of courage. I'm sure she appreciates that and wants to be understanding, but it may take her a little while to move past it and for complete trust to be restored.

 

[Speedlad]

Thank you for the replies everyone...
Maybe your right, nihilist, but i still feel that if you feel a "need" or urge to cheat than you might aswell have done it... Also i didn't give to much detail regarding what happened but, like i said, it was well out of bounds...

As for the rest of the replies, thanks for the insight and your thoughts, they have been helpful in trying to understand and dealing with it.

After doing a bit of searching i managed to find some quite "deep-down-buried" thoughts that i have been having. I come from a family where my parents divorced when i was 13-14, and i have been having issues with my father (we don't talk much, and when we do it's not very personal), and have long felt that my relationship to my brother was extremely shallow. I also had a long falling away period where i drank a lot, totally disregarded my beliefs and standards, and slept around. (There some other stuff too but not gonna go on forever)
This led to me feeling very inadequate towards my fiancee, whereas she is just simply the nicest person alive, comes from a healthy family and has always managed to maintain a connection with God.
I felt that i wasn't worth having someone as good as her, which led to me (before this event) falling back into my old ways - there had been occasions during our relationship where i would be out drinking again with friends from that era of my life (which i told my fiancée about, also). I guess you could say that i subconsciously kinda thought "Im not worthy of her, so i might aswell". I think this event was some sort of culmination of this feeling where i somewhere inside thought that i would show her that I'm not good enough for her...

Sorry for the wall of text, but thought i would share whats been going on.

 

[DIVA_for_Christ]

Thank you for the replies everyone...
Maybe your right, nihilist, but i still feel that if you feel a "need" or urge to cheat than you might aswell have done it... Also i didn't give to much detail regarding what happened but, like i said, it was well out of bounds...

As for the rest of the replies, thanks for the insight and your thoughts, they have been helpful in trying to understand and dealing with it.

After doing a bit of searching i managed to find some quite "deep-down-buried" thoughts that i have been having. I come from a family where my parents divorced when i was 13-14, and i have been having issues with my father (we don't talk much, and when we do it's not very personal), and have long felt that my relationship to my brother was extremely shallow. I also had a long falling away period where i drank a lot, totally disregarded my beliefs and standards, and slept around. (There some other stuff too but not gonna go on forever)
This led to me feeling very inadequate towards my fiancee, whereas she is just simply the nicest person alive, comes from a healthy family and has always managed to maintain a connection with God.
I felt that i wasn't worth having someone as good as her, which led to me (before this event) falling back into my old ways - there had been occasions during our relationship where i would be out drinking again with friends from that era of my life (which i told my fiancée about, also). I guess you could say that i subconsciously kinda thought "Im not worthy of her, so i might aswell". I think this event was some sort of culmination of this feeling where i somewhere inside thought that i would show her that I'm not good enough for her...

Sorry for the wall of text, but thought i would share whats been going on.

I understand where you are and it's called self-sabotage. It's good that you have recogized it now. Let the Holy Spirit guide and instruct you through this healing process. Let Him show you just how much your childhood shaped your mindsets that do not line up with His word or His plans and purposes for you.

Please know that you are really in a good place now that you realized this. Once our eyes are opened deception from the enemy can be destroyed and we grow into being able to see who we are in Christ even the more!

God Bless and press through this - He will not fail you!

 

[Windmill]

Thank you for the replies everyone...
Maybe your right, nihilist, but i still feel that if you feel a "need" or urge to cheat than you might aswell have done it... Also i didn't give to much detail regarding what happened but, like i said, it was well out of bounds...

As for the rest of the replies, thanks for the insight and your thoughts, they have been helpful in trying to understand and dealing with it.

After doing a bit of searching i managed to find some quite "deep-down-buried" thoughts that i have been having. I come from a family where my parents divorced when i was 13-14, and i have been having issues with my father (we don't talk much, and when we do it's not very personal), and have long felt that my relationship to my brother was extremely shallow. I also had a long falling away period where i drank a lot, totally disregarded my beliefs and standards, and slept around. (There some other stuff too but not gonna go on forever)
This led to me feeling very inadequate towards my fiancee, whereas she is just simply the nicest person alive, comes from a healthy family and has always managed to maintain a connection with God.
I felt that i wasn't worth having someone as good as her, which led to me (before this event) falling back into my old ways - there had been occasions during our relationship where i would be out drinking again with friends from that era of my life (which i told my fiancée about, also). I guess you could say that i subconsciously kinda thought "Im not worthy of her, so i might aswell". I think this event was some sort of culmination of this feeling where i somewhere inside thought that i would show her that I'm not good enough for her...

Sorry for the wall of text, but thought i would share whats been going on.

Are you really sure that was it?

 

[Speedlad]

Im pretty sure of it, yeah. The answer became very clear to me when i started looking a bit deeper into myself.
I had been having these thoughts for a long time, but I managed to just oppress them when they came up...
I discussed it with my fiancee and she said that she had been having hunches that I was having these kind of thoughts aswell, but didn't want to bring it up if it wasn't correct.
There was probably other factors involved that evening, but the more i think about it, the more right it feels.

 

[latteda]

That makes sense to me. Not that I'm saying you should feel that way. There's obviously no reason to. But I can understand how you might feel that way.

 

[miss_klara]

Grow up. You didn't cheat on your fiance. Drinking and flirting and massaging isn't cheating. It can lead to cheating and is suspicious, but it's not cheating. No one is going to divorce you over that.
Wanting something to happen is not the same as doing something. There were times when I wanted to punch my exgirlfriend in the face. But I didn't, and that's what makes me a decent human being.
How should you treat her? You should should keep your (gosh darned) pie hole shut. You told her something that she didn't need to know, and it made you feel better and her feel worse. That's selfish.

You're going to get a lot of touchy feely forum members who are going to tell you that you did the right thing. They're going to tell you that a relationship shouldn't have lies in it, and that everything should be perfect. But you didn't do the right thing, you did the stupid thing. You gave your fiancee a reason not to trust you. Whatever misguided feelings of guilt you had are much easier to deal with than that.
How should you treat her? Treat her like everything is fine. Then next Saturday, take her to the zoo or take her canoeing, something outside and during the day, and then come home and make a pound of queso with her, eat most of it, and fall asleep on the couch at 5pm while watching tv. I have a recipe if you need one.

I'm sorry, but pffffffft to that answer.
You want to know why I, as a woman, would want to know if my man had those thoughts, and executed those actions, harmless as they were?
I'd want to know so that, as much as it would gut me to know that his eyes had been on someone else, I could support him. Know his struggles and weaknesses. So that something like this can potentially be avoided in the future. Because to me as a wife, or even just a woman, this is NOT OK. I don't want my man's hands on anyone else, or vice versa. And I don't want to find out by accident through someone else.

So to the OP, you definitely did the right thing. Right now you need to love your fiancee and show her that she's the only woman who has your attention and desires. Down the track, when she's been able to process it properly, you need to ask her to hold you accountable.

The OP might not ever have any issues like this again - but it's best out in the open as something that he may need to be held accountable to.

 

[DanC922]

I have never posted in these forums before, but i hope you can spare some time and read my post...

I am a christian man in my mid-twenties and I, 4-5 months ago, cheated on my fiancee, who is also christian and I love dearly. Many people wouldn't call it outright "cheating", but to me hoping for something to happen is the same as it happening. And it also went far enough as to be considered very wrong... Not gonna go into graphic details but it involved alcohol, flirtatious behavior and a massage (not a sexual one)...
It was during some sort of falling away period in my life where i was feeling doubt about my christian values and, i guess, feeling rebellious towards them.

I decided that i didn't have the guts to tell her, whereas the guilt was overwhelming. I was also extremly afraid that she would leave me if I told her, so selfishly enough i decided not to.
The situation, of course, came back very often (almost day-to-day basis) to haunt me, and when it did i would be overwhelmed with guilt and would pray to God for forgiveness. I would try to figure out why I would do such a thing, but always came out clueless...

I managed to keep it pushed down for 4-5 months until I finally couldnt take it anymore. I felt that I was being selfish not wanting to tell her (due to my fright her leaving me), and that it should be her decision, not mine... I also didn't want our relationship to be filled with lies... So i finally came clean and told her what had happened yesterday.

I tried to give her an explanation as to why it had happened but i simply don't know why. All I know is that it had absolutely nothing to do with my fiancee, and that I have absolutely no feelings for the other woman whatsoever (i have not had contact with her since).
My fiancee became very sad, left our apartment to take a walk, to clean her head she said, and came back maybe 1 hour later... After discussing it for quite some time she decided to give me another chance, as long as I do what i feel is necissary to make sure nothing like it happens again.

Today i feel (although still a bit "shaky") as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and that we can start building our relationship on the right ground... During my period of silence I had also find it difficult to have a personal relationship with God, something which i finally feel I can resume building today.

What I need help with, though, is how I should act towards my fiancee. I can imagine a lot of thoughts going through her head, and I just want to be be a big of a support towards her as possible... How do I help her deal with this?

Im also, still, almost clueless as to why I let it happen in the first place. I have thought about it a lot and tried to figure it out, but i simply cannot... I almost feel like it was another version of me doing it... Does anyone have experience with these sort of things and why they happen?

Why are you living with your fiancee?

 

[akeng]

I would say even if you went all the way with this other woman its still not cheating because you are not married to your fiance and probably have not even slept with her in which case that is pretty much equivalent to a good friend. It is not natural to be with a woman and not be sleeping with her for prolonged periods of time.

I fear that this "incident" will cause issues in the bed room for you if you marry your fiance. People who create melo dramatic scences over nothing (going for an hour walk etc) should be a red flag. Women need to understand that men are sexual beings and for us to abstain is unnatural, if she does not have this understanding she will refuse you for anything and everything because she is not "feeling it" and expect you to be "understanding" then you will join the ranks of thoes posting in the miserable marriage section and have a kid or 2 running around with a wife who wont put out and even if you get a divorce it will cost you alot of money in child support for not recognizing these red flags.

Relationships with women are one of the few areas of life where you can not afford to make to many mistakes. Back in the day you could because the woman would be held responsible by the society if she was neglectfull (ie if she neglected her husband she would be left to support the kids on her own with out help because her situation was created out of her own sin, also in duet 24 I would guess that if the man was the offender then he would be left with the kids so that the woman could remarry), but now days the feminist movement has played on the pity party of a minority of women who were abused by crappy guys and have spun it to apply to what ever they want it to. Now days if you are male (unless your ex smokes crack and lives in the ghetto) you will be paying period.

 

[DanC922]

I would say even if you went all the way with this other woman its still not cheating because you are not married to your fiance and probably have not even slept with her in which case that is pretty much equivalent to a good friend. It is not natural to be with a woman and not be sleeping with her for prolonged periods of time.

I fear that this "incident" will cause issues in the bed room for you if you marry your fiance. People who create melo dramatic scences over nothing (going for an hour walk etc) should be a red flag. Women need to understand that men are sexual beings and for us to abstain is unnatural, if she does not have this understanding she will refuse you for anything and everything because she is not "feeling it" and expect you to be "understanding" then you will join the ranks of thoes posting in the miserable marriage section and have a kid or 2 running around with a wife who wont put out and even if you get a divorce it will cost you alot of money in child support for not recognizing these red flags.

Relationships with women are one of the few areas of life where you can not afford to make to many mistakes. Back in the day you could because the woman would be held responsible by the society if she was neglectfull (ie if she neglected her husband she would be left to support the kids on her own with out help because her situation was created out of her own sin, also in duet 24 I would guess that if the man was the offender then he would be left with the kids so that the woman could remarry), but now days the feminist movement has played on the pity party of a minority of women who were abused by crappy guys and have spun it to apply to what ever they want it to. Now days if you are male (unless your ex smokes crack and lives in the ghetto) you will be paying period.

Men being 'sexual beings' is no excuse for sexual activity outside of marriage. Sin is sin, regardless of how anyone wants to justify it, and you won't fool God. Your view of women, relationships, and marriage is very twisted, chauvinistic, and selfish. Men are supposed to love their wives as Christ loves the church, not use them to fulfill their desires and dump them if they don't do it well enough.

 

[JdwB10]

Men being 'sexual beings' is no excuse for sexual activity outside of marriage. Sin is sin, regardless of how anyone wants to justify it, and you won't fool God. Your view of women, relationships, and marriage is very twisted, chauvinistic, and selfish. Men are supposed to love their wives as Christ loves the church, not use them to fulfill their desires and dump them if they don't do it well enough.

THANK YOU! Loved this post.

 

[JdwB10]

I would say even if you went all the way with this other woman its still not cheating because you are not married to your fiance and probably have not even slept with her in which case that is pretty much equivalent to a good friend. It is not natural to be with a woman and not be sleeping with her for prolonged periods of time.

I fear that this "incident" will cause issues in the bed room for you if you marry your fiance. People who create melo dramatic scences over nothing (going for an hour walk etc) should be a red flag. Women need to understand that men are sexual beings and for us to abstain is unnatural, if she does not have this understanding she will refuse you for anything and everything because she is not "feeling it" and expect you to be "understanding" then you will join the ranks of thoes posting in the miserable marriage section and have a kid or 2 running around with a wife who wont put out and even if you get a divorce it will cost you alot of money in child support for not recognizing these red flags.

ROTFLMFHO!

You obviously don't know REAL women. A real woman doesn't pretend to be a victim of anything, even if she HAS been a victim of something in the past. A real woman recognizes a real man and treats him accordingly. A real woman can see when a guy is using what he considers "natural" as an excuse to mess around with other girls, even though he's dating/engaged to her, but he doesn't consider it cheating since they're not married or having sex.(A woman should NOT have to have sex with her man, just to make sure he doesn't have sex with another woman. Any guy who says otherwise is a coward.) And a real woman avoids those types of guys because they're the reason women are looked at as insecure, selfish, self-centered, grabby, needy weaklings who just take and don't give.

Relationships with women are one of the few areas of life where you can not afford to make to many mistakes. Back in the day you could because the woman would be held responsible by the society if she was neglectfull (ie if she neglected her husband she would be left to support the kids on her own with out help because her situation was created out of her own sin, also in duet 24 I would guess that if the man was the offender then he would be left with the kids so that the woman could remarry), but now days the feminist movement has played on the pity party of a minority of women who were abused by crappy guys and have spun it to apply to what ever they want it to. Now days if you are male (unless your ex smokes crack and lives in the ghetto) you will be paying period.

 

[JdwB10]

I'm sorry, but pffffffft to that answer.
You want to know why I, as a woman, would want to know if my man had those thoughts, and executed those actions, harmless as they were?
I'd want to know so that, as much as it would gut me to know that his eyes had been on someone else, I could support him. Know his struggles and weaknesses. So that something like this can potentially be avoided in the future. Because to me as a wife, or even just a woman, this is NOT OK. I don't want my man's hands on anyone else, or vice versa. And I don't want to find out by accident through someone else.

So to the OP, you definitely did the right thing. Right now you need to love your fiancee and show her that she's the only woman who has your attention and desires. Down the track, when she's been able to process it properly, you need to ask her to hold you accountable.

The OP might not ever have any issues like this again - but it's best out in the open as something that he may need to be held accountable to.

Awesome point.