Friends condoning affair.

The information from the OP is second hand, neither us nor she or her friends know the facts and probably never will.

To re-visit this. I agree with Lathryus that lying about watching a bowls match is a Trust Destroyer. I can’t imagine ever having told Mr I he wasn’t allowed to do anything. We loved and respected each other, had interests we perused separately as well as together. If I discovered he hadn’t been researching something at the library, he’d been watching the cricket, I’d have felt discombobulated. I would have wondered why he lied and what else he’d lie about. Lies - red flag.
It would have changed our relationship\
An affair - would have ended it

twinnytwin

Until you're in a similar position, in the same circumstances, you've no idea how you'd behave. There are alot of perfect spouses with perfect marriages making perfect decisions on this thread.

You are so right.

You are not being at all unreasonable.
I cannot understand how a wife with a DH who is dying can start a relationship with another man. If the DH was in good health when she started this affair then that's a slightly different case in that IMO she should have split from her husband if she no longer wanted to be with him and likewise the man should have split from his wife. I can understand people falling in love with other than their spouse but it's the total deceit which I will never understand.

I couldn’t condone it. I worked with a girl who I thought was lovely but then she became the other woman. Changed my mind completely about her.

It can't be a good marriage if he feels he has to lie to do something as innocent as going bowling.

No , it obviously isn't a good marriage, and the wife is very fortunate that he is spending his own leisure time watching a bowls match rather than having a row with her about her unreasonable behaviour, or finding someone rather more kind. So many women do not appreciate the faithful, tolerant men they have married, and claim the success of their marriage is entirely down to them.

Lathyrus3

What I’m trying to get at Georgesgran is why people think there is no comparison because to me there is an almost total comparison.

Both involve a married couple where one is happy to lie in order to carry on doing something that he knows his spouse would not want him to do.

So it must be the thing that is being done makes people say this deception us ok but that deception is not.rather than actual deception.

So how do people decide which deceptions are the ok ones. What criteria do they use?

I’ve always been interested in what you might call flexible morality.

Where is the comparison between watching a game of bowls being played and being with another woman and having sex with her.

Would I consider divorcing my husband if he lied to me about watching a game of bowls being played, no of course I wouldn’t.

Would I consider divorcing my husband if he cheated on me with another woman, yes I certainly would.

DH has never had a client come to see him because she wanted to divorce her husband because he lied to her about watching a friend play a game of bowls. He had lots of clients come to see him because they found out that their DHs had being seeing someone else behind their backs. There is no comparison at all.

Lying about where he was with a friend is a breach of trust, it’s not the same as having an affair, which involves a sexual relationship with someone outside of the marriage. Lying is often a sign of deeper issues within the marriage.

The 'friends' in the OP are gossiping and spreading gossip about something that is none of their business whatever they feel about its morality.

When my sister in law was close to death,aged 32,they had a young lady from their church who looked after their three children while my brother visited her.My Sister in Law said to my brother “I would like you get married again to someone like J……
He did marry her and they had a son together.J was a wonderful stepmother and still is many years later.

His late wife had made him promise that he would never look at another woman and her parents knew that.

Making people make promises like that is totally unreasonable.

It's also ridiculous, unrealistic and, I think, unethical to hold someone to an extracted promise of that kind, some extracted at death's door when all the surviving partner wants to do is relieve some of the dying partner's suffering.

The living partner still has a life to lead and re-marrying is NOT wrong.

OhOhOh

Disingenuity doesn't become you theworriedwell

Well I think you and aren't likely to agree on much so I'll cope with your judgement.

It wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest if my husband had lied about going to watch a bowls match that I wasn’t happy about. But there’s no comparison with that and finding out that your husband is seeing another woman. Especially when they come home smelling of their perfume. You have no idea how soul destroying it is. She ended up, after they’d moved in together, then having an affair with her ex husband and wouldn’t leave until my ex paid her off with tens of thousands of pounds.

breach??

I don't believe any lies are acceptable. The man should have just told his wife what he was doing and stood up for himself.
It can't be a good marriage if he feels he has to lie to do something as innocent as going bowling.

MayBee70

Lathyrus3

But his actions and reasoning are exactly the same in both cases.

“This is something I want to do because it gives me pleasure. It is something she doesn’t want me to do so, in order to carry on with what I want I will lie and deceive.”

Why is that an ok morality for one circumstance but not for another? Which actions can he apply that morality to? If his deception is allowed or even applauded in one area of his marriage why is the same morality condemned in another area? The moral principle has not changed.

So how do people make the judgement of this is ok, this is not ok? What is the difference between lying about spending time with a friend at bowls and lying about spending time with lover?

Have you ever been the wife of someone having an affair. When you have to not tell a soul to protect your children?? Even over twenty years on my stomach is churning writing this with the memory of finding out about the affair.

No, no , you’ve got me wrong. I’m not justifying lying about an affair. I’m the person who was truly discomforted hearing a man lying about playing bowls!

What threw me was the that the vast majority f replies agreed that lying and deception in marriage was not just ok but a necessary and desirable.

What I’m trying to find out is how people make the judgement f which lies are good and which are bad because for me it would all be bad. A breech of trust.

It's not pearl clutching. I've seen families torn apart by an affair. Children can suffer very badly. To think it's acceptable if one partner is having an affair then the other one can is irresponsible and makes the situation worse.

A surprising amount of pearl clutching here.
We aren’t told that the man is planning to leave his wife or that the widow is encouraging him to do so. The wife might herself be having an affair. Some marriages work like that. And they aren’t a young couple with children at home.His marriage is his affair.
We aren’t told how well the widow knew the man in the past.
I don’t see it as funny - agree that the friends are behaving oddly - but I can feel non-judgemental about it on the basis of the OP.

BlueBelle

He’s a cheat whether he’s 20 or 70 and your friends a fool
My cousins wife met her new husband sitting in the hospital with their respective dying spouses Maybe they didn’t do anything till they died, maybe they did but they married very soon after, and I felt it was very disrespectful to my cousin and could never really feel any nice feelings towards her
It’s one thing if it’s an open marriage or both are cheating but for one to be left at home thinking they have a strong marriage is just nasty

I agree that adultery is wrong, although if I had been suffering from an illness that made marital sex impossible, I might have suggested to my husband that he find a mistress. I don't know, it never cropped up, and when he was dying I certainly would not for a second have considered betraying him so abominably.

However, could you not bear over with your cousin? She met her second husband apparently whilst they both were watching their spouses dying. They have been able to console each other, and have decided that being alone was not for them, or that they really do love each other.

They may have gone to bed with each other while their spouses were still alive, but going on my own experience I doubt that. IF they did, it must have helped them get through the horrible time when their loved ones were dying.

If you like your deceased cousin'¨s wife, try to be happy for her. Widowhood is no joke, and some women, and some widowers as well, just cannot face it.

I'm afraid that I have no time for anyone having an affair - I've witnessed first hand the trauma and devastation this can have.

I can recall a colleague telling me about her sister some years ago, she was involved with a married man and had been for 2/3 years. My colleague said to me "well she's not doing anything wrong is she, she's single!"

I'd rather honesty be involved and one relationship ended before beginning another, still painful but at least an element of respect.

🤣🤣 theworriedwell

Disingenuity doesn't become you theworriedwell

OhOhOh

You're so funny theworriedwell. So broad minded and avant-garde with your progressive views.

It might be because I e never watched a bowls match. Maybe I'm just not understanding the debauchery that goes on. I'll never look at my neighbours who play bowls together the same again! The racy pair and she looks so demure.

Lathyrus3

Well you could apply that reasoning to an affair too. In either case he would be lying in order to carry on with what he wanted without confrontation because that’s not what he wants.

Same moral reasoning.

No it isn't. An affair is breaking his marriage vows, can't remember anything about not watching a bowls match when I got married.

The one thing that is quite certain is that those two (intermediary) friends can't be trusted to keep a secret. It's not clear why they said what they said - but I'd say "Don't ever tell them anything you want kept quiet yourself - because they've already proven they won't do so".

I’d find infidelity a reason to divorce. Trust would be devastated.
I’d have been hurt and probably angry if I’d discovered my husband was lying to me about where he was going. Trust would have been really shaken. If he’d lie rather than discuss something, trust would be shaken. Things would need to change