Let me first describe a little about myself. Afterwards, I will ask my questions. I am not a religious person. Or I should say I am agnostic - I believe that there's a higher power beings out there, but I don't necessarily believe in one religion over another. Because of that, my view on the actual marriage ceremony is to celebrate the love two people have for each other and to declare to the world that love and bond they share with each other. In other words, I don't see marriage as a promise two people made with God.<P>I also believe that marriage should last a life time. However, the reason I think it should last a life time is not because of any covenant one may have with God which was declared at the time of the ceremony. Rather, I think if two people love each other enough to tell the world by getting married, they should work hard to make the marriage work and last their life times.<P>Given the above explanations, here are my questions:<P>Why is it that some people on this board strongly encourage married couples to work things out but don't give the same kind of advice to couples seriously dating but not yet married when it comes to the topic of infidelity or cheating? In fact, I notice often times the opposite advice is given: that the betrayed should leave the betrayer for good. Is God the sole reason for the difference? In other words, does the love two people share with each other mean nothing when it comes to a relationship and only their promise to God is important? How about marriages in other culture where God is not involved in the ceremony - are these marriages not as valuable as the ones declared in front of God (ie Christian marriages)?<P>I am sorry if I insulted anybody by my post. I am here to learn, so any insights will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

There is a huge difference between married and not married, and for me, since I am not religious, it has nothing to do with God. There is only one level of commitment greater than marriage - and that is having children together. <P>My H left our six children and me after 19 years of marriage and a relationship of 24 years. A few years ago my advice would have been different, but now, I would advise anyone who is not yet married to get out if they have any question whatsoever not only about their partner's fidelity (for I had no doubts whatsoever in that area), but also about anything else - but most especially not just honesty but also openness.

Demeter,<P>No one should be insulted by your questions - they are very good questions and deserve a straightforward, non-judgemental answer.<P>The opionions you state are right-on regarding the seriousness of the loving committed marriage relationship between two people. <BR> <BR>IMHO, the bottom line is this. Regardless of whether or not the marriage originates as a Christian or civil marriage (or both), marriage requires at the minimum two essential binding properties, the ingredients that "glues" the partners together. One is that it is a covenant, (legally, morally binding contractual agreement) to share ALL of life together; the other is a "pitbull-like" COMMITTMENT to ensure that everything is done as lovingly as possible to make the marriage last in a mutually agreeable give-and-take environment. Dating relationships do not have the benefit of a legally binding covenential agreement. The partners have an "out" before they commit themselves for the long haul. Of course, I believe any dating relationship should be conducted as seriously as if this person might be "the one" and that person should be respected as such.<BR>From a personal perspective, I have a Christian marriage, but it is so sad to have to admit that at times, my marriage has been most unholy at times (see my profile). The Christian marriage is sanctified (made holy) by God (as we know and understand Him) and gives us a great(er) incentive to keep our word to God as well as to man. Another benefit of the Christian marriage is the fact that as God freely forgives us for our trespasses, we are gently commanded to freely forgive the trespasses against us and know that the slate is wiped clean and that we can be made right with God as well as with our mate.<BR>I'm sure others can add meaningful comments to this interesting, many-faceted question.<BR>Blessings!<P>Pilgrim <P>[This message has been edited by pilgrim (edited April 23, 2000).]<p>[This message has been edited by pilgrim (edited April 23, 2000).]

Hi Demeter and Welcome!!!<P>Very good questions - Here're my thoughts on them - keep in mind they are only my opinion and why I would encourage or discourage...<P>I believe that every individual should do their darndest to be a good person...with all the fast paced living and technological advance, I believe that people are becoming too complacent and quick to quit when it comes to really having to think or work hard on things.<P>When a person marries, whether in front of God or not....they make a pledge to each other. Once that commitment is made - each person is obligated to do all in their power to keep it!!! <P>God is a good motivation and strength for those who are inclined to believe. If the reference helps with willpower - then great!!! <P>I was raised Catholic, somewhere along my maturing - I realized that no ONE religion is the ONLY way to "whatever is the next step" if you will!! I do believe that their is/are higher powers than us. I think rather in terms of good and bad!! I guess I live more by the golden rule than any "religious teachings".<P>When it comes to a couple (or relationship) that has not progressed to the "pledge or committment" stage and infidelity is/has occurred - it is a red flag that must be heeded. To do that the two people involved (betrayer and betrayed) have to take a REALLY close look..not only at their potential life partner, but at themselves. Assess whether they are the kind of person who can handle (emotionally) what has happened and recognize that whatever problems are present must be solved before declaring an "end" to the incident and moving on to make a more permanent committment.<P>It is the same thing that is needed to be done for each partner in a marriage, but the difference is (or at least should be) that the marrieds have the greater motivation of life commitment. Not only motivation, but it should be that there is no choice but to work out their problems!!<P>If people can't be compassionate, understanding and secure enough (betrayed) to help their troubled potential life partner (betrayer) at a time when ONLY contemplating making a life committment....how can they expect to live through LIFE with the PLEDGE made with that same person?<P>If people choose actions that go against a supposed desire for commitment (betrayer) and do not want to face and correct the WHY of it....then they are not really able to make a true pledge for life!! They need to find themselves first before they can pledge themselves to another.<P>If both betrayed and betrayer can acknowledge, assess and eliminate the problem which led to the infidelity...<BR>...then they are more than ready to truly make that LIFE pledge!! <P>For the marrieds, it's too late....their choices were made. There commitments broadcast and set in place. There is only the "working" to be done. They may end up with a permanently broken "pledge" resulting in displaced children, broken spirits, permanently damaged emotions and values, etc. A far worse effect on society in general as well as the reinforcement of "pledging oneself" doesn't really mean anything!!<BR>Like it is acceptable to break, so don't think too hard about working at it!! <P>I hope this sheds some light into the mix.....<P>Hugs,<P>Sheba

Here is my take from what many on this board would describe as someone very far off the beaten path.<P>I would give the same advice to committed unmarrieds and marrieds without children. That is, if there are things (physical, emotional, mental) that are being gotten outside of the committed relationship that should be gotten inside of it, there is good reason to question said relationship. That is not to say that you should not have friends. They are a healthy part of any relationship. But affairs of any variety should at least make you think about ending it.<P>The dividing line for me comes with children. When you have children, you are committed to something greater than yourself or the two of you together. It was put well in a previous post that you should have a "pit-bull" like committment to the relationship when children are involved. There are reasons to split when you have children, such as domestic violence and incest, but generally, I think you should do everything in your power to keep it together.<BR>

I believe that whether children are involved or not, a promise is a promise. I don't believe God has to be involved in order to keep a promise or to have perseverence in maintaining a life-time commitment. When children are involved, it simply means that more people will be affected than just the two in the relationship. Add to that, children are particularly vulnerable to long term emotional damage when losing a significant family member at a young age. <P>I'm afraid that part of the problem is that most in our generation, or over the past 30 yrs or so, have not experienced GENUINE hardship (i.e. war, hunger, etc). Therefore, if things aren't fun 24/7 with significant other, they trade them in for someone new. There was a time when people kept their cars for more than two years, and maybe even kept their houses long enough to pass onto their children. We now live in a throw-away society.<P>I've been married twice now, and both times divorced against my will. I married for life both times. Neither H was a saint, but I didn't give up. It is incredibly easy to take a walk down to the court house and file for divorce. I don't see much point in the legal framework or even a religious type ceremony anymore. Commitment is in someone's heart.

Hi, demeter. I think you've raised some good points. I believe marriage to be a lifelong commitment to one another, some do not take this seriously and will quit at the drop of the hat unfortunately. I see this differing from dating/relationship because to me before you make that lifetime commitment you are still getting to know one another and determining the compatibility. If the potential marriage partner starts displaying behaviors before marriage that you see as being unacceptable, then you have the choice/chance to try to work them out or decide that this person may not be the best person for you to be committed to for life. I think for those of us who have a deep belief in God that this just cements our feelings toward the importance of this union. But religion doesn't really have to come into play as far as I'm concerned, this is more about vowing (not religious vows necessarily) to your partner that you will spend the rest of your life with them. <P>When one marriage partner decides to continually disrespect their spouse by continued infidelity or emotional/physical abuse that the spouse has a valid reason for separation. They can try to help the spouse with these behaviors, but there does and should come a point where the spouse has had enough and no longer chooses to live in this type of environment. When the dating partners go through these problems even before marriage, I would say that's indicative of worse problems to come if they decide upon marriage. So I think that's why advice given to those who are not yet married who are already suffering from cheating partners, emotional trauma, etc. is to seriously consider a future with this person.

I think some of you may have missed my point of my original post. I was questioning why people tend to advice couples differently depending on whether they are married or not. I personally believe that the commitment in a dating relationship can be just as serious and strong as in a married relationship. In fact, that's the sentiment reflected in a few of the responses. If so, why do people tend to take the problems experienced by a dating couples less seriously than a married couples? If the commitment is just as strong, won't you want to encourage the couplesto work things out regardless of their marital status? But instead, most people would encourage the betrayed in a dating relationship to dump his or her partner because of infidelity or dishonesty. Also, I notice that people tend to be more forgiving towards a spouse that has strayed versus a boyfriend or girlfriend that has strayed. In that I mean people tend to coin and believe more strongly the "once a cheater, always a cheater" term to a boy/girlfriend than to a husband/wife. Why is that? Even relationship counselors exhibit this kind of behavior. It's ultimately very disturbing to me....<p>[This message has been edited by demeter (edited April 24, 2000).]

The "committment" in a dating or living together relationship is just a feeling. It may be a feeling within one or both of the couple, but it is not a marriage. <P>Our society has defined marriage. Marriage is a legally binding public contract between a man and a woman. Dating committments are private. It is possible for dating or living together couples to make domestic contracts that are legally binding. But it is very hard to prove and even harder to enforce them. Do you remember a lawsuit a few years ago between Lee Marvin and his girlfriend? Marvin v. Marvin established the legal precedence in California for non-marital domestic contracts being enforceable by courts of law. There are severe limitations on these actions however.<P>Marriage is a public contract. A dating committment is weak in comparison. The feelings may be more genuine and even stronger, but the contract is not there, it is not enforceable, there is little consequence to society if violated. <P>As long as children are the natural outcome of marriage there is too much to lose by degrading marriage by saying dating and shacking up are equally valid "committments" equivalent to marriage in every way.<P>------------------<BR>A true friend is one who not only is willing to love us the way we are, but is able to leave us better than he found us.

Forgive me for more questions. Most of the posts have been very enlightening to me thus far. Thanks to all who had posted non-judgemental replies.<P>Isn't commitment in every sense of the word a feeling more so than a contract? Let me explain what I mean: how many of us has made new years resolutions to improve ourselves and failed? How many of us have actually succeeded in achieving just one of our goals? As far as I can see, there's no contract, legal or otherwise, in achieving our new year resolutions. All it takes is the commitment in ourselves to make the changes in order to succeed. Perhaps there might be greater incentives to achieve our goals if we are under some sort of legal contract, but isn't commitment in and of itself enough to drive the desired changes? Similarly, if the commitment between a couple not yet married to work out their differences is a strong one, isn't it worth our encouragements to help them work things out rather than telling them to quit?<P>Like Pilgrim, I too believe that a dating relationship should be conducted as if it will lead to marriage. If that is the case, shouldn't it be treated as seriously as a marriage relationship?<P>What many of you posted made a lot of sense to me. While there's an "out" in a dating relationship, there is none in a marriage relationship. I just think people take that too far and often encourage the "out" over the "working things out" for a dating couple. I think it will be very nice if we can all take a step back and realize that some dating relationships are very serious. Because of that, we need to take their problems more seriously than to simply say, "Dump him/her. He/She is not worth your time."

Hi Demeter,<P>I have been reading threads on this forum for a while, and just registered today. As you can tell from my name, I am unmarried. But I am also a betrayed.<P>I was sent to this site by a dear friend when I found out about the.... um.... infidelity in my unmarried relationship. (What am I supposed to call it? Was it an affair if we weren't married? It sure felt like it. It started because the OW met B's needs for an attractive partner since she was thin and I had gained weight during our courtship. He became addicted to her and thought he was "in love" with her. He had to go through withdrawals when that relationship ended. When I found out about it, I was shocked, devastated, angry, hurt, sick, broken hearted, etc.) From what I've read in Harley's books, it sure sounded like an affair to me, minus the societal contract of a marriage.<P>I learned most of what I know about marital infidelity from this site & Harley's books. Though I've learned a great deal about how to affair proof a marriage, I don't have a marriage. Though I've learned what my partner was going through and the circumstances that led to his cheating while I remained faithful, he's not my spouse. Though we've since been learning about each others' most important emotional needs, we have no societal contract. We hope to, one day down the road, when we are ready for it and feel confident in our ability to uphold a life-long commitment to one another. Right now, the blow of the "affair" is too recent. We need time for new habits to take form and let them build our confidence in ourselves, each other, and our relationship as a whole.<P>I truly hear what you are saying about marrieds vs. unmarrieds. I actually feel reluctant to share my story with anyone, because of the perceived lack of information or support for committed yet unmarried couples who experience this kind of thing. I feel like there's a perception that this guy must be a rotten filthy cheat and I should just let him go. I'm not married to him, so why bother, right?<P>I guess if I'd found out about the cheating WHILE it was happening, then I would've left him. But I found out about it much later, AFTER he'd made the decisions and started doing the hard work necessary to change his life. He did that all on his own. He says he was inspired to do it because of me. That I'm the love of his life, that he nearly lost me as a result of his bad decisions, etc. He swears it will never happen again but I am not so sure. I believe we have to fully "affair proof" our relationship and maintain that protection before I can have confidence that he won't cheat again. I learned the hard way to listen to what he does, not what he says, because back when the cheating was going on, I listened to what he said against my better judgement about what he was doing.... So far, his recent actions are consistent with what he's now saying. Time will tell the whole story.<P>After I found out about his cheating and was ready to leave him, he kept asking me what was the same about the guy he was when it was going on and the guy he's become since then. His choices and changes were the only card he had to play to keep me after I found out. Now that I know about his "affair," and have decided to stay and work things out, we read about love busters and try to avoid them. We didn't ever do anything like that before. We have a better relationship now than we ever had together before his "affair".<P>Sometimes I wonder why I'm behaving as if I'm married to him when I'm not. Then I think that I'm behaving as I should, married or not, even though the prescriptions for how to behave that I've seen so far are only written for married couples. I sometimes wonder if that in and of itself doesn't contribute something to the high rate of infidelity? If we had more of this type of education targeted at committed but unmarried couples then perhaps we could be better equipped with the skills we need to "affair proof" our relationships before entering into a marriage at all. Yet maybe I'm an idealist. Maybe it is only the experience itself that makes one realize that it can happen in any relationship, to any person, given the right set of circumstances. I only went searching for this information AFTER I learned of the cheating that had happened and all the lies that were told to cover up the double life my B led.<P>I found my answers about whether or not to ditch this guy or hang on and work things out, but they weren't easy to find. (It kind of makes me want to write that book, but who in the heck would read it anyway? ME?) There are small sections of small chapters in a handful of books about infidelity that address cheating in unmarried relationships, and whether or not the betrayer is likely to repeat the cheating down the road. I don't believe that "once a cheater, always a cheater," but I do believe that fundamental changes in attitudes, behaviors, and relationships of the betrayer must occur in order for the same mistakes to not be repeated down the road. Are humans capable of that much change when we are adults with years of ingrained habits? I don't know. But I sure hope so, because I like what I see my B up to these days better than anything I saw from him before. And the aftermath of knowing about the "affair" has led me to a source of strength about my own health and life that I've never known before.<P>I've said too much, but I've been here a while and have wanted to tell my story. Your questions about "marrieds" versus "unmarrieds" gave me the welcome opportunity to do so, and I thank you. I hope I haven't gotten too far off track from your original questions, but they all seemed to speak to me even if I didn't answer them for you. My questions are the same as yours.<P>Regards,<BR>Still Courting<BR>

Hello and Welcome Demeter,<P>I am both betrayed and betrayer, and I am seperated from my H for the third time in eight months. I don't post much anymore, but I check in every so often, and this subject got my attention because of both the OM in my situation, and my H's most recent OW. Let me explain:<P>The OM and his sig. other have been living together for nearly 10 years. I justified my affair, as far as HIS situation was concerned, by saying to myself that he wasn't really married anyway. In truth, the lack of a legal piece of paper did not take away the pain we caused his W (and I now call her that to remind myself of the pain I caused). <P>My H's current OW is married and so is my H, but both were seperated at the time the affair began, and both are heading for divorce. I used the "you both are still married" argument to fight my 'side' of things while we were trying to work things out. In reality, both were seperated and both felt unmarried at the time. I'm not saying it was right, but rather that the legal piece of paper didn't carry the meaning it might have otherwise. Not to them, not to her H (who lives out of state) and after all was said and done, not even to me (although I was still very hurt).<P>Am I making sense yet? I hope so. <P>In my opinion, the marriage covenant is FIRST a promise to the partner to become one together, just as a promise to eachother WITHOUT the legal paper would be between some couples. So, I would treat any sig. other with the same respect and advice I would give to a married couple. Betrayal is betrayal, no matter what the situation. It would be like saying that it hurts worse to be betrayed after 10 years than after 3, or that because someone has 10 kids it hurts more to be betrayed than someone who has two kids. Let's face it: It hurts like hell no matter what!! I should know, and unfortunately, I DO!<p>[This message has been edited by new_beginning (edited April 26, 2000).]

I think part of the advice to leave a betraying SO versus staying to work things out with a betraying spouse comes from what the state of marriage entails. When two people decide to marry they agree to not only share an emotional bond, but they also wrap up every aspect of their lives together. They get joint checking accounts, they buy furniture together, they divide responsibilities for taking care of the house, they create children. In most cases of dating there is still a strong seperation of identities. Leaving is not easy, but certainly more so than after years of marriage where identities have become so intertwined. There is research out there (All I remember is the title "Breaking up is hard to do") that states that a split between two people is more likely to happen when the seperation between them increases. That's why working long distance relationships are rare. That's also why a large degree of infidelities happen to those who have jobs where they travel extensively.<P>The change in advice, I think comes from an intuitive sense of what is at stake. Not to blow a dating relationship off, but infidelity is painful and faced with the ability to walk away from someone who would make that kind of decision before your life becomes more intertwined, most of us percieve that the stakes for staying are too high. The stakes even out the more intertwined your lives become.<P>In the end though any decision that is made is made by the two involved. My opinion or anybody elses are words on a screen for you to take in or dismiss.

BTW-I like your name...<P>Big mythology fan.