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female
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anonymous
writes:Ive started dating this guy and he wants to make it an 'offical relationship'. But Im unsure if I should or not. The reason for this is because we were talking about past relationships and he said his last realtionship was with a married woman!! I was in shock when I heard this. I couldnt believe it. He said that her husband was cheating on her. Yet still I dont think that justifies her having an affair. Anyway, I dont really care what she does, but my problem is that he KNEW she was married the whole time, yet he still had a 'relationship' with her. To me that shows his lack of respect for marriages. yet he seems to justify it by the fact that her husband was cheating...so it made it ok for her to cheat on her husband with him? It makes me wonder that if I was to have a relationship with him, what would it be like? I now fear that he could easily cheat on me, based on his past actions. I am just so upset and disapointed in him that he could do such a thing. It really has me worried about his values and how he would treat our relationship and whether or not he would truly respect it. What are your thoughts? Is this a hugeee warning signing telling me not to go any further with this guy? Or am I wrong by judging for having an affair with a married woman? I am honestly just shaking right now. I feel scared. I really thought he was a good person...but now I just dont know. I am 20 years old and he is 25.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 June 2009): i think what concerns you is his "justification" and that doesn't sit well for you. you are entitled to feel worried. him just saying that this married womans hb was cheating therefore they were also cheating just doesn't cut it. i think the differecne bet you and your bf is a moral system and values. perhaps you have differen values than him and maybe this is a eye opener. does he feel guilty. NO. any remorse. No. then I will run away far far (away) from him. i think you know the answer regadring him. don't feel bad that you have a different value system from him. be glad you discovered his lack of fidelity and morality upfront. i think you have been spared years of heartache. yes, you will fell pain and wonder whether you let a good one go. but somehow i don't think so. this guy messed up big time in the past and he has no regrets, he has justified the affair and thats that. so in his eyes he did no wrong. some people are cu our for affairs, others not. nut it is what sits well with you. and obviously this doesn't. so yes, its ok to be different and have different values.
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 June 2009): Sometimes people make excuses for why they did something because they cannot admit they did something wrong. My wife was somewhat promiscuous after she left her first husband, sleeping with guys she had just met and getting drunk a couple of times and sleeping with someone who she would not have otherwise slept with. She had just ended a very bad marriage and was very hurt and confused. She would make excuses as to why she did things because she felt cheap about that time in her life and just couldn't admit that she had acted cheaply. We have been together for over 30 years and she has never given me any reason to think that she has any desire to do those things again. She is all I could ask for in a wife, friend and partner. It was a relatively brief time in her life when she acted in a manner that was not in her nature at all. Before that, her only sexual partner had been her first husband and I have been her only sexual partner since she started dating me.
What she did bothered me a lot for a couple of years after we started dating, but I have never once regretted staying with her and eventually marrying her. I dated another very nice woman early in the relationship with my wife and she started to tell me about some of the things she had done that were a bit promiscuous, like forgetting that a guy was coming from out of town and realizing while in bed with another guy. I could have left my previously promiscuous wife and continued with this woman, but I think that I would have found out that she had done similar things after her 2 failed marriages. There is always going to be something wrong with pretty much everyone who you date, as there is with any of us.
If you decide to stay with this guy then what he did will probably continue to bother you for a while, perhaps years. This is exactly the way guys feel about staying with a previously promiscuous woman. There are a lot of stories about this on this board. If you don't think that you can handle these thoughts then perhaps you should look for someone else to be with. I would worry for a while after my wife and I started dating when she would go out for drinks with friends. I worried because she used the excuse of being drunk for sleeping with a couple of guys in the past, so I was worried that she would do that and so something that she didn't want to do. Years later when she felt much better about herself (and rightfully so) she admitted that she really wanted to have a 1 night stand, but saying that it was being drunk that made her do it made her feel less cheap when she thought about it.
I used to unjustly criticize my first wife and tell myself that it was because she did things completely wrong and that it was justified. The way I did it was completely wrong, unjustified and demeaning and it took me years to admit to myself how wrong and mean I was. I also tried to blame our not to good sex life on her, when in reality it was at least half my fault for not being a good lover at all and just thinking of myself far too much. It took me years to admit my own failings because it is very hard to admit that we do things so wrong. The thing is that both my wife and I have completely changed the things that we did that were wrong and are very happy together, both sexually and otherwise. People change, even though it is very difficult to admit our mistakes. My wife and I couldn't admit what we had done as wrong until we were sure that we were no longer those persons.
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 June 2009): If it disturbing you this much, then perhaps you should move on. I doubt if you'll ever truly get past it.
Good luck finding someone who has never done anything wrong!
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 June 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionTo all of you who said basically dont judge someone by their past because it doesnt mean they will def repeat it:- well i understand that and agree you cant assume they will because people CAN learn from there pasts. but my point is that he was making excuses for what he did. he showed no sign of regret. he thought what he did was justfiable. so to me, that says he hasnt learnt from his past mistakes, as he doesnt even seen it as a mistake. so what would stop him from doing it again? nothing...
So i dont see how any of you can tell me to basically forget what he did because 'everyone makes mistakes'. Sure im not perfect, but having an affair with a married women is barely a mistake. Its not like they hooked up and then he found out she was married and was like oops that was bad idea! he knew from the beguining what he was getting himself into. and like i said, he doesnt regret it, so he doesnt consider it a mistake.
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 June 2009): Don't let his past ruin your future! Who hasn't made mistakes in life?
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 June 2009): Daniel is absolutely correct. If every person would leave someone who did something that we don't approve of then very few of us would ever be with someone. I would not have married my wife and she would not have married me. I was a poor husband to my first wife and she was promiscuous after she left her first husband. However, neither one of us has repeated our mistakes for the past 28 years together.
What your boyfriend did is not much different than what many men and women do sexually. Not all have an affair with a married person, but a lot of men and women end up getting drunk and sleeping with someone who they just met at a bar that night. If we rejected all of those people then there would be very few of us with partners.
What if you break up with him and you find out the next guy you date has slept with 10 women before you or had a 3some with 2 women or cheated on a previous partner or had a couple of one night stands a couple of years ago when he got drunk? Would you then break up with him? I'm asking this because that is what you are likely to discover. People who have acted improperly in the past don't necessarily do that in the future.
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reader, Danielepew  +, writes (6 June 2009):
 Sometimes past behavior is a good sign of what a person might do, but sometimes it is not. Specially if your learn from your mistakes.
To be honest, I don't think you will find many people who haven't done something they are not proud of. The old phrase "nobody's perfect" means exactly what it means.
I am not sure whether his sleeping with a married woman would indicate that he would cheat on you, just as, I am sure, many people who never did anything wrong in the past do eventually cheat. I remember that recently the Biography Channel aired the story of Farrah Fawcett. When she divorced Lee Majors, she found love in Ryan O'Neal. According to that biography, O'Neal had slept with virtually every woman in the industry. But he stayed faithful to her during 15 years, until they divorced. Maybe the man was smart enough to know who he was married to, and not do anything stupid?
Anyways, you choose. It's your life.
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