Is cheating unforgivable?

Although every woman asked made it clear that she could never take a cheater back (they even give that whole “once a cheater…” spiel), it seems that actions speak much louder than words. Guys seem to get out of jail for free all too often in compare to women, more often than not, women tend to forgive cheating boyfriends and husbands in compare to the opposite sex.

The reasons why tend to vary, and even the degree of “forgiveness” tends to vary. But before we delve into what these reasons are, allow me to provide a loose definition of what cheating is for the sake of clarity.

what do I mean?

Although many people would quickly argue that cybersex and close friendships with the opposite sex constitute cheating, what I’m referring to in this article is sexual contact of any kind. From kissing and dry humping to oral sex and actual penetration, all things physically sexual count as acts of betrayal.

The exchange of bodily fluids from saliva to semen means that you’ve been getting down and dirty with another woman/man and none of this “I was in a different zip code so it doesn’t count” crud is going to fly. Cheating is cheating.

what kind of cheating?

There’s an ongoing debate as to which kind of cheating is worse, although I am of the opinion that all cheating is unforgivable. But both sex tend to separate cheating into degrees.

For instance, many women would be more willing to forgive a cheater who had a moment of weakness and engaged in a one-night stand than a significant other who had been pursuing another secret relationship on the side.

I guess the lack of emotional attachment of the former makes it somewhat easier to deal with than discovering that a man has been feeding us straight-out lies throughout the relationship.

Women used to forgive their husbands’ cheating

Historically speaking, women used to forgive their husbands’ cheating ways more frequently for reasons other than love – many would even turn the other cheek. To start, wives were highly respected and thus didn’t normally engage in lustful, raw, animalistic sex, at least that’s the way their husbands saw it — so that’s what mistresses were for.

Second, because they were basically having sex for procreation, wives weren’t big fans of the act of sex. As well, leaving their husbands “simply” for cheating would leave them disgraced (especially since it was quietly acceptable for men to cheat) and because they were “tainted” and had “baggage,” marrying for a second time would be difficult if not impossible.

And because men were usually the sole breadwinners of a household, divorcing their husbands was virtually unheard of. Nowadays things are different… but perhaps not that different in that women still take their men back.

It’s a numbers game

According to Dr. Bonnie Eaker, author of Adultery, The Forgivable Sin , eight out of ten marriages fall prey to some form of adultery (and it’s not just the guys who are cheating). And more than half of all marriages end in divorce.

Perhaps you’re a statistic and have fallen into the cheating game. But do you really think that your woman will turn the other cheek? Do you think that she’ll forgive you and let the issue go? Well, she might say that she forgives you, but her actions may lead you to believe otherwise.

Here are a few things a woman might do after she tells that she “forgives” her man:

She’ll throw it in your face

Every time you do something wrong — you’re late, or you say the wrong thing — out comes the weapon… the “you cheated on me” weapon. From this point forward, she is a virtual saint because it was you who betrayed her .