I'm wondering if experience shows that women are in general less forgiving than men either as betrayers or the betrayed?

Hi, there! I haven't had too much experience, but from the people that I have met, it seems to me that women are much more forgiving than men are. Although, maybe that is a poor choice of words. It just might be that women are willing to "accept" the hand they have been dealt, and learn to live with it. With time, I think it is not as difficult to forgive, but women tend never to forget too much, especially an affair.<P>Not long after I had confronted my H with what I considered to be "concrete" proof, short of having a photo of him with OW, (and he still denied it) I did this scenario with him. You know the drill. I threw out all the cliches to him. "What's good for the goose, etc." "Turnabour is fair play." "You showed her yours, so I'll show him mine." After about 20 minutes of this, my H finally caught on, and told me that he knew where this was leading. (Yeah, sometimes he is a bit slow!) He told me that if I ever thought about an affair, let alone having one, that would be it for me. Game over! He would leave, and never return. You know, that is exactly what would happen.<P>If you listen to men talk, they refer to every posession as "she." Their car.....Ah, SHE won't run today. Their boat....Ah, SHE needs a new engine. I'm sure I'm not the only who has noticed that. I really think that they group their wives in the list of their posessions. Maybe not consciously, but nonetheless, the thought is there.<P>So, that's my $ .02 worth. It will be interesting to see other perspectives on your post.<P>------------------<BR><BR>SUCCESS STORY<P>

I truly feel that if the tables were turned, I would not have been given a second chance. I wouldn't have been given a second glance. He would have been out the door and halfway to who knows where before the words were out of my mouth.<P>Maybe I need to truly analyze the whether I am having trouble forgiving or forgetting.<P>I have heard that the higher levels of estrogen in a womans system does improve their memory. We are physically equipped at being better at remembering than a man is.<P>He is asking me to do something he would probably be unable to do, yet getting angry at me when I seem to be "giving up". I consider it failing at the job of forgiving him and moving on.<P>It just seems that right now on this forum there are far more women refusing to reconcile with their h than the other way around. I am probably off on that, but that is my perception, after 4 beer and no real food since Tuesday that is.

Essyboo,<P>I don't think this forum or any other forum for that matter is a "good" representation of the general population...<P>I've seen both men and women as being both non-forgiving and even more so non-forgetting.<P>In my case (obviously because I am the betrayed) my W is very unrepentant... and unforgiving...<P>I always knew she was "un-forgetting"... she remembers in utter detail anything that was mildly irritating to her (over last 5-6 years) and expects me to remember how and why it hurt her... and to apologize over... and over... and over again...<P>Fixing the problem was not enough...<BR>yeh... I know.... Men are from Mars... Women are from Venus!<P>But now I see no "forgiving" from her... <BR>God... I forgive!!!<BR>Being a man (from Mars)... forgetting is so much easier.<P>Jim

<BR> I used to think men were more forgiving than women but I think now that it just depends on the person. When I first came here I thought forgiving was sort of wimpy.<BR> It wasnt my fault, I wasnt going to take the blame,blah blah blah. After reading here,<BR> I have come to believe it might be easier for men to forgive because ,well if you ask a woman why she had an affair, she will tell you, she will give you reasons, she will say he wasnt spending time with me ,or this or that or whatever it was. Ask a man and he says, dont know,I screwed up, I was stupid.<BR> After reading here, I told my husband why I thought he had an affair, hes like ,I guess your right. I guess if they could tell us a little better, we could forgive a little easier. <BR>

Well, I feel I must chime in here .... <P>I'm the betrayer and my H forgave me and wanted to "keep" me ... never yelled or hurled insults. Just forgot the whole thing and wanted to heal the marriage.<P>HOWEVER ...<P>If the situation were reversed I cannot say I would have been the same way. I STILL don't understand how he did it ... he says, pure and simple, that God did it.<P>But I would have had a harder time forgiving him ... and most likely would have kicked him out and filed for divorce.<P>Awful, isn't it? I've been shown so much forgivness from my H AND from God ... and yet my heart is still hard.

When my H and I were "having it out" over his fling with the STD Tramp, I told him that I hadn't been having my needs met for a long, long time in our marriage, but I didn't go out looking for somebody else to screw. I told him that if I had, he would have booted my @$$ right out the door. His response? "No, I wouldn't."<P>But, yeah, I really think he would have.

I asked my dear H about what he would have done, maybe a few months into our recovery.<P>He said I wouldn't have had an affair. I agreed, but told him to imagine I did. He said, the thought is so ridiculous, I can not even imagine it, so I don't know what I would do. I said I felt the same way, yet I had to confront it because he did have an affair. He agreed he couldn't even believe he had dated outside our marriage, yet it was a far bigger stretch to envision me being unfaithful. And he is right.<P>I think he would have had an easier time with it that I am having. I think he could neatly package up a bundle of confused and hurt feelings and stash it in a remote compartment in his brain, never to cloud his thoughts again.<P>He has always been so not jealous, it has been almost insulting. However, I see now it comes from absolute trust, not a lack of emotion. <P>Honestly I would like to think that it would rip him up, but that he would hold on and try to forgive, heal and make things better than ever, just like I am trying to do.<P>In truth, I think he would be mildly disappointed, not want to deal with yucky feelings and just bumble ahead.<P><P>------------------<BR>Faith, Hope, Love Remain,<BR>but the greatest of these is Love.<BR>1 Corinthians 13:13

My H sure thinks so. He has told me numerous times that he would have "been over it in a week".<P>Right. Like he'll ever know what it's like. He TRUSTS me, and can't know how much betrayal hurts. Lucky him.

My Wife did tell me (a few weeks after I found out about her) if I would have had an afair, she would have kicked my a$$ out the door.<P>Guess it surprised her that I didn't give her the boot.<P>------------------<BR>Prayers & God Bless!<BR>Chris<BR>For relationship info check out <A HREF="http://www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html" TARGET=_blank>www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html</A>

I was the betrayed, and my W had the affair. I have forgiven, without yelling, screaming, hitting, etc, just talking. I believe that my W would have done the same thing if the situation was reversed. I think it depends on the person more than the sex. Hope this helps.

<BR>John Gottman notes in his recent book, _The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work_ that affairs generally don't cause divorce. In fact, as causes they are ranked something like sixth or seventh. Another interesting tidbit is that women do most of the filing for divorce, on the order of 90%.<P>However, there is subset of the population for whom affairs are listed as *the* reason for divorce. And interestingly, in this subset the men are the majority of filers. So the data seem to suggest that men have a somewhat harder time forgiving than women. I've actually got a couple of ideas to explain this (but no data), if anyone is interested.<P>Bystander

Is it possible that more men file for divorce when an affair is involved because women tend to be more dependent.<P>Here is my opinion. I feel women are more likely to have an exit affair or no affair at all. Exit affairs are harder to heal from because the unfaithful spouse has already decided they want the marriage to end. The reason more women do this is they were designed by God to be dependent on a man. We can get into the women's liberation movement and that sort of thing, but I do feel that we have instinctive responses programmed into us.<P>A man is far more likely to have an affair for other reasons and never really want his marriage to end. The wife finds out, but that dependents kicks in again and she does not want to be forced to leave this man before she is ready, or without it being her idea, therefore she is less likely to file for divorce. If a man is having an exit affair, then he is still more likely to do the filing than the wife.<P>I may be way off on this and I am sure this doesn't apply to a lot of people. Just a thought.

<BR>Actually, my ideas don't center on a dependency issue.<P>I think that in the cases where affairs are cited as *the* reason for a divorce, men are the majority filers for two apparently unrelated, seemingly tangential reasons.<P>The first reason is that at least some of the time, divorce is used to soothe a bruised ego. The second reason is that, by and large, its women who make the final call in whether to have sex with a man.<P>These reasons have some profound implications for how people deal with the aftermath of an affair. Lets take the situation in which a man betrays his wife. She can tell herself, "Its only about sex," and the fact is, she's quite possibly right. The mere fact that her husband had sexual relations does not necessarily imply that he loved someone else. A lot of men will have sex without an emotional connection. So there's a way for the betrayed wife to salve her ego. She's been sexually rejected, but not emotionally rejected, too.<P>But in the case where a woman betrays her husband, its worse. Women, and I'm generalizing here, engage in sex as part of an "entire package" in a relationship. The implication is that the wife in a sexual affair really DID love someone else. Thus, a man is facing total rejection when he learns of a sexual affair by his wife. Alternatively, he could try to argue that her affair was "just about sex," but that suggests that his attractiveness is so low that she'd risk her marriage to bed someone else, or that he'd chosen to marry someone promiscuous, etc. There just isn't an AS easy way to soothe the ego. As a result, men are more likely to throw in the towel and file for divorce.<P>I like your ideas about women being more likely to be in exit affairs, though. I've never seen data suggesting that women are more likely to have exit affairs - is there any that you know of, Essyboo?<P>Bystander

Not anything reliable. I'm relying on experiences I have had and alot of what you said. I don't think women get so carried away that a woman just looses sexual control. There has to be a lot more going on.

I think the separation is more "passive-aggressive" people or people with "anger issues" have a harder time forgiving anything than other types of people. I don't believe that men and women innately have any differences based solely on gender.<P>Why me,<P>I heard a story once that the naming of vehicles by female names is an old sailing tradition, and the reason for it was that storms could be either male or female. The notion was that only a female could turn back the wrath of another female, so a male boat would be lost to the storm.<P>Of course it could be bunk, the Navy likes to name their boats after Admirals and Presidents and such.<P>I suppose if that legend is true it might argue something about the original question. Just mussing.<BR>

Oh ya, I thought of another useless old saying that probably doesn't help but I think it's funny in the context:<P>"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Maybe that has something to do with the "women file for 90% of the divorces" thing. Oh well, enough mussing for me today.<BR>

This a very interesting question with no real answer, but as long as we are speculating I'll jump in for some fun.<P>If you consider male and female mathematics scores some very interesting things come out of them. One there really is not much difference in the average scores between males and females (Don't worry I am not going to argue Math skills as anything to do with divorce ). However, when one considers the details, it is found that on the very high end of the scores male clearly dominate females and not by just a little bit. More male math genuises than female. When the bottom of the tests are considered it is found that there are more males at the bottom than females. Men have a broader distribution of skills in math than women. The distribution is wider.<P>Now look at males and females from a education/training/upbring point of view. There are definitions for "REAL MEN". One is that a REAL MAN will not tolerate disrespect in any form and the other that a REAL MAN can handle ANY pain whether emotional or physical. Now to my mind this mind set can put one on either end of the types of response. When confronted with adultery a REAL MAN might respond; this is disrepect I'm out of here no questions asked. Or a REAL MAN may respond; no she didn't really hurt me that bad I'll tough it out. These reponses in the purest REAL MAN image puts one on either end of the curve very much like mathematics.<P>You will find the most unforgiving to be mostly male and the ones that tolerate the most outrages affairs to be mostly men. Not that women cannot be found out here but not as many. Further, consider that most women a raised trained to keep a family together and to be mediators this would put them into the middle of great confusion about how to respond and what to do. Also more women are financially dependent on men, making it a harder decision and forgivness an attractive alternative. However, My experience is that women who had husband that cheated made live hell for the man (This pre-enlightened days when divorce was still considered a bad thing.) Men are there also but more are on the fringes.<P>Finally, consider that until lately men had very little knowledge about whether they are the father of the children, therefore infidelity strikes deep into the confidence level about the parentage of the child. Old roles and images still continue despite DNA testing. Women KNOW who the mother is, it is her. Adultery is viewed in a different light. <P>Have I argued both sides enought yet? The real problem is that one can talk about statistics all they want, but when you are in the situation it becomes very individual and one must deal the person at hand not some grand average.<P>Interesting question Essyboo.

Women are raised with the idea that "boys will be boys" and men are raised with the idea that their wives should be paragons of virtue. Women are raised to expect they will be responsible for life someday. Did you see the new series coming on ABC this Sunday? It is about "America's Boys".... 90% responsible for juvenile crime. What's up with that? Even if infidelity never occurred, men expect their wives to be much more virtuous than they are, in every way. So if , oh my god, their wife turned out to be a real human being, it might just be too much to handle. Problem is, there are more and more "real" women around these days. At some point, men will have to drop their "standards" to something a little more realistic or raise the standards of their own conduct if they don't want to spend their lives alone. <P>I think women are much more forgiving. The fact that there are more women than men on this site says one thing. These women are trying to save their marriages. The men just bailed. I think most men don't have a clue in the emotion department. Before I get bashed, I'll say again "most" not "all".<P>Whoever quoted the statistics on males and math....Since I'm a PhD student in engineering (and a female) I have a little bit of a bone to pick. Girls equal or exceed boys in math until high school. Why do they start slipping afterward? I'm guessing not too many girls feel "attractive" to that boy sitting next to them in class if they are doing better on their tests. NONE of my female engineering friends are married. 4 out of 5 of the guys I work with are. Girl geeks don't appeal to men, and girls figure this out at a real young age. <p>[This message has been edited by TheStudent (edited November 12, 1999).]

Actually when I told my H we could work through the issues of his affair, I did ask him what he would have done if it had been me who had had the affair and his immediate reply was that he would throw me out immediately. I asked him why, and he told me about all the issues involved in this that would make him "get rid of me" and yet he would not even allow me to realistically discuss anything with him about his affair in an attempt to reconcile. <P>As to why 90% of women divorce men, i asked my lawyer and she suggesated that it is probably due to the fact that financially, women are still usually more dependent on men and it is for support for themselves and the children that women iniate divorce proceedings. <BR>Women are also usually tidier emotionally and are maybe less able to compartmentalize the issues as some men are and it the need for closure as well.<BR>Just my musings.