Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with sex and cheating

Full disclosure?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:15:05 -0800

Asking for a friend… Should he tell his girlfriend about his cyber fling? I have a friend who has been dating this girl for a long time, several years. They seem pretty happy but my friend confided that they do not have sex often and he is frustrated. Apparently it happens about once every six months or something. He tries to initiate but gets shot down. (He said she doesn’t have body hangups or anything . It’s just a mental roadblock).

He met a girl online and started chatting. I guess things got sexual and he broke it off a few weeks later. They never met in person but did talk on the phone. He broke it off because he really does love his girlfriend and wants to improve their relationship. He wants to know if he should tell his girlfriend about this and if so, how? His main priority is the relationship so advice to dump her is not really helpful in this situation. Also except for this he is a decent guy and has never done anything like this before.

the accidental other woman?

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:42:16 -0800

I got drunk at a party last night, and I ended up putting myself to bed early on in the night. A few hours after I went to bed (alone, in the host's bedroom), a male friend of mine (who has been with his girlfriend for at least the past 3-4 years) came in and laid down. He was sort of spooning/pressing up against me, and in my drunken haze I responded and we ended up having sex. Partway through I told him I was tired and he stopped, then I got dressed and told him to sleep somewhere else. I never said no or anything, and I was an active participant while it was happening, but I also feel kind of taken advantage of.

I feel really awful about the whole situation, especially since his girlfriend is a friend of mine as well.

I remembered thinking that the host of the party walked in on us while we were having sex, and I asked him about it this morning. He just said that he wasn't gonna judge and that he "didn't know what he had seen" so I don't think he's going to tell the girlfriend, but I'm still afraid the the story will come out one way or another.

I really don't know what to do at this point. I just keep coming back to wondering why the guy even came into the room in the first place, and wishing that it had never happened. Any advice on how to proceed would be super.

Oh boy. What have I done now.

dentata — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:09:31 -0800

[Relationshipfilter] Has "cheating" ever been a crucible for your relationship? Background: I live with my girlfriend of a little over 3 years. We've been having the marriage talk for a long time, and I've been dragging my feet. Recently, though, the prospect of it hasn't seemed so bad, as it's been getting harder and harder for me to imagine my life without her. More and more I appreciate our relationship.

That said, the amplitude of marry/not marry has been increasing as time and pressure moves on, not smoothing out to a specific outcome. Our sex life hasn't been great, I'm not as attracted to her due to the significant weight she's gained since the start of our relationship, and we're both busy. I'm 29, she's nearly 30.

I'm away on business this week, performing in a different city. Being a fairly gregarious person, I usually meet people when I'm away, and, as has happened before, I've had opportunities to stray. Now, normally, these things are just drunken flirtations that result in a good "hmm, nice to know i've still got it" feeling the next day.

On this trip, however, networking turned to flirtation, and I met a girl who, for some reason, lit me up. While I passed on my opportunity to score (though later changed my mind, ended up in the hotel of the girl, but decided that the missed text messages for a liaison meant it wasn't meant to be), the next day I'm filled with real questions about my relationship. Guilt, frustration, etc. All the negatives of cheating without any carnal satisfaction.

So, now, understandably, I'm quite confused. What do you think? "Normal" male apprehension about commitment, or serious signs of relationship troubles?

Normal caveats: yes, I realize that none of you know much about me, and you're a bunch of internet strangers, but I'm trying to gain new insights into this situation, so I'd rather not get into a diatribe about the false accountability and privivacationality of the internets.

I'm happy to go into more detail about specifics about background if it helps you.

One unhealthy relationship after another.

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:22:47 -0800

I've become involved in another unhealthy relationship. What do I do, and how do I avoid it next time? I was undecided about about asking this question anonymously or not, but I decided to go anonymous after Googling my account name and was astonished.

I am the same person who posted this question.

and another regarding how to cut an ex who wouldnt stop contacting me from my life.

So after deciding to cut my ex out of my life, and the other person mentioned in the first question, I tried to depend on myself, carry on the single life and have fun.

I started what was supposed to be a casual no strings attached relationship with someone I'd known for about a year. She's almost ten years older than I am and MUCH more experienced than me. Has more than one child, and lives with their father. He obviously doesn't know about this.

At first things were great. However I realized that I just started to feel shitty once again. For one, I couldn't help get attached. Being intimate with someone and not developing feelings for them is something I realized I'm not capable of. We had both agreed that no feelings would be involved, but I've failed at that.

On her side, she has acknowledged that spending so much time together will make it hard not get attached. I've noticed that she goes out of her way a lot to talk to and see me - going online, calling during the day a lot etc. She's going away for a one week trip and we both acknowledged that we'll miss each other.

Now the bad things. She has carried on relationships with other people outside of her domestic one before (me), and Im pretty sure if the situation arises she's not against something like a one night stand. However, we established before that we don't have to account to each other for anything.

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that I've never cheated on a gf, and I've never facilitated cheating before, but now I am. And it's making me feel pretty bad, even though if it isn't me it'd be someone else. Additionally, she's not spending as much time with her kids as she should, and that makes me feel worse.

Also, she has told me that I'm physically not her type, she doesn't find me sexy. That one really stung. So then what is it exactly that has us in this situation? Is it just because I'm much younger, and I pay her so much attention? She's said she can't believe that someone so young is finding her attractive. The amount of time and effort I spend on her (and her on me too I guess) is practically as if she was my gf. So am I simply just someone who pushes the right buttons? (We have sex in case this wasn't made clear earlier.)

Nothing can come of this situation, yet I've found myself caught up in it. I think about her too much, look forward to her calls and spending time with her too much. She isn't someone I could trust, plus.... nothing can come of it plain and simple. She's pretty much enjoying it tremendously, and so have I, but I've realized that more and more I only have fun when I'm with her, and apart from that I'm just looking forward to the next time we see each other.

It's hard to just give up on this completely, when I have no one else, because I do enjoy the attention (and sex, even though that's not all I enjoy).

How do I get myself into these situations? And what can I do about the one I'm currently in? I know it's unhealthy. I also realize this relationship might be destroying my ability to trust women, after all that I am witnessing.

Help me figure out what to do about my relationship.

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:02:49 -0800

Help me sort out my feelings about the relationship I’m in because I just can’t seem to figure it out. (long and complicated - sorry!) (I apologize in advance for the length and thank anyone who can actually read the whole thing and offer some insight.)

My girlfriend and I have been together for three years. I’m 25 and she’s 28. We are the somewhat stereotypical lesbian relationship: we met while we were in (unsatisfying) relationships with other people, left our respective partners to be together, became attached at the hip early on (once we started officially seeing each other we did not spend one night apart…. hardly ever), moved across the country together after only dating for six months, and now we live in a big city in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with a dog. We don’t have a lot of friends outside the relationship (a problem we’ve always recognized but never truly tried to fix) and we’re both homebodies for the most part. We even have lunch together almost every day during the week since our offices are close by. Most of the time, this is all okay and even great. I love spending time with her and never get sick of just “hanging out” with her.

When we first met, the sparks and chemistry and intensity was incredible. I have never felt that before in my life. In my heart, I truly felt that this is the person I want to spend my life with; this is the person that I want to grow old with. We connect in ways that I never connected with anyone – intellectually and otherwise.

After about six months to a year (shortly after moving in together), our sex life started to fizzle (think lesbian bed death syndrome). Then she told me that she has memories of being abused as a child, both physically and sexually, mostly the former. Her father was the source of her physical abuse, possibly the sexual abuse as well. In addition, her mother is completely in denial about any of the abuse taking place and has been the cause of my girlfriend having multiple emotional breakdowns since she has started to come to grips with her past abuse. She is in therapy and taking steps to heal and move past the abuse, but I believe it will be a long arduous process. I have done some reading about surviving abuse and the effects on intimate relationships and I won’t lie – I’m scared sh*tless. I’m worried that I am in a relationship that will never ever have satisfying sex again, that my girlfriend will always be the victim when we have arguments and use her past abuse as an excuse for her behavior, and I’m worried that I’ve gotten myself into something I don’t know how to handle.

Our sexual pattern goes something like this: I will initiate sex, usually in a nonverbal way like kissing her, and she will make it apparent that she isn’t interested. I feel disappointed, back down, and then later (either 10 minutes later or two days later, it doesn’t matter), SHE will initiate sex, usually verbally by asking me if I am interested. I generally accept the invitation, we have sex, and then we don’t have sex again for a while (this varies, lately the time between sex has been about two to four weeks). Tonight I told her that this pattern wasn’t working for me anymore, that I don’t like always being rejected only to be invited to have sex later on. Of course this is a control issue. She told me that she needs me to verbally ask her permission before doing anything physical with her – that she doesn’t like it when I start to kiss her, take her belt off, whatever it might be. I obliged to this request, but I feel like it is insane. I don’t know if I can have a sexual relationship with someone who needs me to spell out exactly what I want to do before I do it… like I need to get her to sign an imaginary permission slip before I’m allowed to make love to her. Besides making me feel like a pawn, it completely takes the spontaneity out of sex and kind of makes me not want to do it in the end.

Sometimes I really don’t even want to have sex with her because it is so predictable, so vanilla… I want her to take charge once and a while and do something crazy or different. But she’s only interested in nice, calm, Sarah McLachlan-y sex. Anything else freaks her out (including toys, different positions, etc.). She’s always worried that things will “trigger” her, which I respect and understand… it’s just incredibly disappointing.

Here’s the part where I make my big confession… I have been a less than stellar girlfriend in the faithfulness department. In the past year and a half I have cheated on her with three different people… two of those three people were ongoing affairs that lasted several months. They didn’t mean anything to me past the sex they provided… I was just so incredibly frustrated by the lack of sex in my relationship and so eager to find out what I was missing. They were fun, but that was it – I wasn’t in love with any of them, nor was I interested in prolonging the affairs past their prime. I ended things with the two ongoing people early this year and don’t intend to have any repeat performances. Yes, I got tested and everything was negative re STDs. My guilt was enough to make me realize that it was a mistake. I don’t know why I did it, really… but I think maybe I was just sabotaging this relationship because I’m so worried about the issues she has and the issues we have together. And I thought “oh, I’m young, I shouldn’t be sexless,” etc. etc. Stupid, yes. But it’s over and done with. And she doesn’t know what happened – I decided it would be a horrible idea to tell her because she’s already dealing with enough.

One of the reasons I don’t have a lot of platonic friends outside my relationship with my girlfriend is that I think I tend to sexualize friendships. That’s a different issue for a different post, but I felt I needed to say it here. Maybe one of the reasons I do it is because I feel very sexually repressed and I am subconsciously looking for an outlet in everyone that I meet. Generally, if I’m not sexually attracted to someone I don’t make much effort to have a friendship with them and we lose touch. Weird, yes.

Sometimes, crazy as it may seem, we have this seemingly perfect life together… we’re thinking about the future together and where we might be living in the next year (we might be moving out of the area so she can pursue grad school), and I’m always imagining the house we’ll live in and the life we can build together. But are my hopes for our future overshadowing the problems in our relationship, and is going along with whatever she wants when she wants it just going to dig me in deeper to issues that I am not prepared to deal with?

We went to couples therapy once last year and it was absolutely not helpful for me. Partly because our therapist had this “I don’t keep secrets” policy, so I could never tell her about my infidelities if I wanted her to keep them confidential. But also because I have a hard time talking about serious stuff face to face with a total stranger. Hence the AskMe post.

I feel as though there is a lot more to mention here that I am neglecting to include… mostly I just worry about being the constantly supportive girl in the relationship while my needs are being pushed aside because hers are more important… something like that.

Help?

I'm involved in a long term relationship with a bad boy. Can I keep doing it?

Lorna — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:14:28 -0800

I'm involved in a long term reationship with a bad boy. Can I keep doing it? I've been sexually involved for many years with the same man.
The sex is passionate albeit fairly infrequent and we are definitely emotionally involved on some level but we are completely incompatible. I'm a happy loner and, well ... he's not. He also has mental health issues that are just too too much for me. We're both in our late 40's and frankly, I'm over the whole marriage (been there) or even living together thing. I'm telling you this part because it illustrates that I don't feel I'm wasting my time and energy on someone who's not Mr. Right. I don't feel I need a Mr. Right.

The only problem I have with this relationship is that he's cheating on some one. I feel terrible for the other woman but it's not like I want him to leave her for me. The only thing worse than not hearing from him in long periods of time would be hearing from him every day.

Oh, and I have to say I feel a little selfish and immature.

So, what do I do?

So a man meets this tall hot chick in a club...

Anonymous — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:18:44 -0800

I was out at a club, and a girl invited me to come to her place - tomorrow. She probably wants to have sex. My girlfriend is visiting the day after. That's the uncomplicated part. I've been with a girl for about one year. She cheated on me once, and though I am still with her and basically forgave her, I cannot forget, and I still get very suspicious whenever she seems a bit strange towards me. After she cheated on me, I told her I'd sleep with 10 girls before I would consider us quit. She agreed, and fast forward a few months later, and we do not speak about this topic anymore.

However, I have kept those 10 girls in mind, and I've already slept with 3 girls. She has no idea.

(By the way, she lives in another city, and we see each other about every two weeks.)

Now, my girl is coming to visit in a few days. Last weekend I was at a crazy club, and I met this girl who was very fascinating. Very tall and dominating girl, the type who looks you in the eye and grabs your balls. You know, not just an everyday girl, but someone who seems like she is very different. And this girl kissed me and invited me to her place.

Another complication - in a few months I'm travelling abroad, and me and my girlfriend agreed that we would split up as soon as I leave, and maybe meet each other in a couple of years and restart. And life being how it is, it is likely that we will not come together again. So I'll be leaving my girlfriend in a few months anyways. Why do I not leave now? I like her and enjoy spending time with her. When she is around, it's excellent fun. Neither her nor me wants to end this, and frankly, I never met anyone better for me than her.

So I'm thinking - this other girl is someone who is wild and crazy. She may just want sex, she may want sex and friendship, she may want sex and relationship. I think she is fascinating, and would want to remain in contact with her. So telling the truth, as in mentioning my girlfriend will probably just make her move on. She does not yet know me, and till I get relaxed, I am a bit standoffish. But once I'm comfortable, she'll want to hang out with me at the least.

You see my point? Do I go to this girls house, have sex with her, meet my girlfriend the next day and put my phone off to avoid embarrassing calls? Or do I not go and miss the opportunity to meet a fascinating new person with whom I may start a friendship, or a relationship when I separate from my girlfriend? And what about this thing with me not having slept with the 10 girls yet?

It's all a lot of things running through my mind.

How do I stop myself from cheating?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:27:23 -0800

I have a girlfriend I'm in love with. But I'm also in love another girl. She's leaving town, and I want to sleep with her. Why shouldn't I? So, I have been with my girlfriend for a long time. I miss her when I'm not around her, we talk constantly, and all that good stuff. We're far into the comfortable stage of our relationship, and that's just fine with me. I have zero doubt about my love for her. And wanting to keep her in my life. And she does not know about:

Enter girl #2. She briefly worked at the same place I do. When we met, it was an entirely professional thing. But over time, I got drawn to her. I kinda knew something was going to happen from the first time I saw her, even before I knew who she was. But I kept it to myself, and treated her as I would any other co-worker. I was friendly with her, but I wouldn't go out of my way to end up in her office, and would sometimes go a few weeks without seeing her. As her temporary stint here drew to a close, however, I ended up in her office to help her out with something, and it took a few hours. While we were working on the problem, naturally we struck up conversation. We got along very well, instantly. So after that, we would get lunch together. And email each other during the day. I ended up helping her out again, about a week later, and after we finished up our work... you can see where this is going. The electricity was there, and we were thisclose. But we both had to leave for the night, so we said goodbye. I went home that night and I was totally shaken up. I thought about it a lot, and decided that I had to have a talk with her the next day. I told her, "Hey, so I have a girlfriend. I really like you, and I don't want to stop talking to you, but it is the way it is right now." She was ok with this. At this point, I couldn't deny to myself that I had feelings for her, but I was doing the right thing and it felt right.

When I saw her the next week, we continued to spend occasional time together. And we kept getting closer. And we kissed. And we kissed again (all while NOT on work premises). We're so similar that we barely have to talk to understand each other. I'll agree that this is typical for most relationship beginnings, but it truly feels different in this instance. I've had a lot of girls as friends, but never have I connected with one like this.

So fast forward to the very recent past. I texted her, essentially so I could talk to her for a bit before she left town. I had limited my contact with her to work-only, but I felt like I needed to talk to her. An hour later, and she's at my place. We're both pretty drunk. And we're well on the way to doing something we clearly both want. But we stopped. Not a 'let's stop' type thing, but it just gradually slowed down. She spent the night sleeping next to me. But no clothes ever came off. I even managed to convince myself that by resisting it, I was being respectful and mature to all parties involved, including myself.

And now? I cannot stop thinking about her. She's in town for a few more days, and I'm having trouble finding a reason not to sleep with her, just once. I can guarantee I'd feel guilty about it, but the guilt wouldn't even be close to the desire I'm feeling right now. I've been trying to figure how I'm in love with two girls at the same time. But it's absolutely true.

Should i wait for a married guy?

rainbow_2006 — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 15:20:29 -0800

If you're in love with a married man, and he says he would leave his wife, would you stay? Whilst i love him very much, i am not sure if i should believe him as surely if he really was going to leave her he would have done this by now. Is it possible to love two people at the same time?

Am I naive to think I'm truly the "only one" for Demi Moore?

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:06:20 -0800

I recently ended an affair I was having with a beautiful, intelligent, charming, older, married woman (I'm Ashton's age, she's Demi's). After 3 weeks I just couldn't deal with the guilt anymore. I knew the affair was wrong, but I did it anyway. As a Catholic, I'm working on the whole reconciliation thing. Though I realize I'm the scum of the earth for the whole adultery thing, I'm also attractive, charming and intelligent. Aside from the physical stuff I'm about to describe, she and I had really great conversations and connections on all sorts of other levels.

She started by flirting with me. A couple of months later we had a brief kissing encounter, followed one week later by a very hot makeout session. She then told me (in very explicit terms) that she wanted to have sex with me, and that I could have her whenever I wanted.

She then said, "you know I'm married, right?"

I told her I couldn't do it, but a week later I changed my mind and chose to start the affair. The sex was absolutely amazing. Our first night, morning and early afternoon together we did it 6 or 7 times. Over the next few weeks we continued to have crazy, incredible, uninhibited, plentiful sex.

During that first makeout session she told me that she had never really enjoyed sex, but that I turned her on in a way she had never experienced. Later she would tell me that she and her (second, current) husband were more like roommates, and neither was interested in sex with the other. They were a good "team," but lived a monastic life. With her first husband, she said, she usually just played dead when he wanted to have sex. With me, she was more lively and uninhibited than I could imagine.

She also told me that she had never in her life had an orgasm (whether through sex, masturbation, or any other means). One night I spent 30 minutes performing cunnilingus and she seemed to be getting very close to orgasm but pulled away to make me stop, saying she was too embarrassed. She turned away and covered her face, so I comforted and reassured her. Two weeks later we tried cunnilingus again. When she came close to orgasm and tried to pull away I gently, but assertively continued, eventually bringing her to her first orgasm. She commented about how she was going to record the date and celebrate it every year.

When I ended things a few days ago, she said that was 'it' for her, that she would never have with anyone else anything like what we had. She'd return to her "monastic" life. Eventually she said she was in love with me, and I told her that I loved her, but couldn't continue because she was married. She wanted things to continue, even without sex, but after a few days I told her I had to cut off all communication. (Mostly because it was too hard for me to see her and not be with her, but also because I thought it best for her to figure things out with her marriage.)

I give all this detail because, now that I've ended it, a very close friend of mine and my priest are both telling me that, in all likelihood, this experience is part of a pattern of behavior on her part. My priest says that 43-year-old, married women don't just wake up one day and decide to go after 28 year old guys and offer them sex. And they certainly don't "fall in love" in 3 weeks. My (woman) friend thinks this woman is a psycho hosebeast who is probably going to go all Glenn Close/Fatal Attraction on me.

So am I being naive? Was I manipulated this whole time, even though every fiber of my being believes (wants to believe?) that everything was genuine, and that I really am the only one for her?

One last detail that tips the scales towards my being naive: She had Norplant birth control implanted in her arm, which A) lasts 5 years and 2) was due to be replaced in a few months. If she's had a "monastic" life for so long, why did she get 5 years worth of birth control implanted in her arm four-and-a-half years ago?

Please email followups to contritescumbag@gmail.com.

Why can't men keep their hands to themselves?

aquavit — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 19:10:24 -0800

My ex wants me to come over and find out where we're at in our relationship. We were in a long distance relationship that ended a few months ago when I was intimate with another man (no sex, just so you know, but enough to make it cheating). When I told him, we swore we still loved eachother, but decided break up so we could have a chance to grow, and start again when we lived in the same city (likely spring '06). Since then I've found clarity, come to terms with the nearly unbearable guilt and done my best to change the part of me that went wrong. Come to find out he's been busy....very busy...with many women where he lives. I made a mistake, I know that....so it confounds me that he says he loves me but turns around and does all that stuff with all those girls? I'm very in love with this man, and I want to believe in him so badly, but I can't understand how he can hold such a double standard. Is it just too much to ask of a 24 year old, to actually live the lifestyle he expects of his partner? Is it a Man thing, that you have to get action? And, in light of all this, can I believe that he loves me or am I playing the fool.

Betrayal and everything after

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 22:02:44 -0800

My girlfriend cheated on me this weekend. I am beside myself with grief. How do I cope, and where do I go from here? We've been dating about a year. It's been long-distance for four months. I've had half a dozen serious relationships, and am 24. This one, I thought, had the most potential. I loved her. I still love her. She says she still loves me. Because she told me, I still feel I can trust her word, if not her actions. This makes me want to give it a second shot. She says she is sorry, and now blames herself (which is fine with me.) I have never been cheated on before, so perhaps my response should be to tell her to get out of my life forever.

At times, we had a more open relationship where it was OK to date other people. I took this option. She did not. Two months ago, we became more "serious" again and agreed not to see other people. Now, four days before she's slated for a visit to see me, she drops the bomb.

I guess I'll be open to advice such as "you should get out of this" but what I'm really looking for is strategies for dealing with my grief. I've been hyperventalating most the day. I can barely breath. My eyes are dialated and I'm surprised (grateful?) no one else has noticed. I want to smash the world to pieces right now. Where do I go from here? [People can e-mail me with comments or questions at meficheated@gmail.com]