Can You Forgive After A Partner Cheats On You?

Is it possible to forgive your significant other after they have knowingly cheated on you? This is one question that I think most people in relationships won't know the answer to until they have that experience. Many people can say "If he/she cheats on me I'm gone!" However, love is a powerful emotion, it'll make the most logical of people do some of the most uncharacteristic things in the world (trust me I've been there). In most cases there are precipitating factors that most significant others fail to see. If you and your significant other aren't talking or seeing each other as much, that can lead some some straying away from their loyalty. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but you have to take care of a relationship like you would a pet. You have to check on it constantly, feed it, keep it healthy, talk to it, and sometimes do things you don't want to do in order to keep it satisfied. if you don't take care of a pet, then what happens? It dies... same as a relationship. If you don't take care of your relationship, then you can't get mad when someone else picks up your slack.

I'm saying that to say this, most of the time adultery is not precipitated (I say most, because some people are just animals and will sleep with anything with 2 legs), it's when the current relationship is lacking something and neither party communicates this to the other.

So the question is asked again, can you forgive after a partner cheats on you? I think people should forgive, I'm not saying that you have to stay in a relationship with that person, but forgiveness is essential. It acknowledges that you have put the pain behind you and can move on as a person and won't hold that hurt inside.

Forgiveness is essential if you stay with the partner who had an affair because if you don't forgive them and you stay with them, then there will never be any trust in the relationship and anytime your suspicions peak, you will more than likely accuse that person of cheating again and start an argument. Also, some people are vindictive and they feel, if you cheated on me, then I can cheat on you and they will go have meaningless sex with someone they may not even care about just to dish out the pain that you gave to them.

Forgiveness is essential if you don't stay with that person because you may be the type of person who believes that if one partner cheats, then another partner will cheat and you may take your issues of mistrust from a previous relationship and project that onto a person who may have no intention of ever having an affair and you don't need those kind of issues in the beginning of a relationship.

So, again I ask, can YOU forgive a partner after they have an affair? Even though it may be beneficial to you to do so, the answer is still up to you.

Sex And The Double Standard

There's this double standard that exists, everyone knows what it is I'm referring to; the double standard that says men can sleep with whomever they please and it's just considered being a "man" while women get labeled because of their sexual freedom or lack there of. If a woman is comfortable with her sexuality and feel comfortable enough to express herself physically with someone, then she's labeled a "whore" or "easy", whereas if a woman isn't easy enough, then she's labeled "stuck up".

Where is the balance? It seems that there is no winning for women. Either you're going to give it up to the sexually hungry man and be called easy, or you're going to make him wait and be called a prude.

My opinion is that men don't control sexual relations, so it's our job to make women feel horrible about their sexuality. If you don't believe that women control sex, just watch how guys act when they're turned down for sex. Let's say a guy is at the bar with a young lady and they've been talking and the man asks the woman back to his apartment and the woman says no. The man immediately gets defensive, he may call her a name, and he walks away fuming. If we (men) could have sex whenever we wanted to have sex, then women would approach us for sex. If that were to happen, then I doubt there would be a double standard attached to women. One thing about guys is that we're very sly and very vengeful. We'll try every angle to get what we want even if it involves deceit.

I can just imagine the very first time the double standard was used to coerce a woman into having sex with a man.

Woman: "Honey I don't really want to have sex"

Man: "Cmon dear, (dramatic pause) don't be such a prude!"

Woman: "A what?"

Man: "(maniacal laughter in his head) A prude dear, someone who thinks that she is so much better than everyone else that she has to have her own way all the time."

Woman: "I'm no prude!"

Man: "(smiles) prove it..."

*Several minutes later*

Man: Well that was *easy*... (light bulb goes off)

That's my interpretation of how the double standard was invented... it was invented as a desperation act by men to have sex with a woman.

Anybody have any comments for that?