Can Cheating Ever Be Justified?
As Kate Gosselin shows, sometimes cheating is just what the wife ordered.
Much has been written in the media this week about men cheating on their wives. We have the tale of two Jo(h)ns: John Edwards, whose scorned wife, Elizabeth Edwards, appeared on Oprah yesterday to promote her new book, Resilence, in which she addresses her husband's much publicized affair, and Jon Gosselin, costar of the hit TLC reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8, whose rumored affair has become tabloid fodder. The former is a tale as old as journalism itself: a man in power cheats on a wife who, from the outside, seemed a supporting and loving spouse undeserving of her husband's unfaithfulness. The latter is another familiar tale: a man under an enormous amount of pressure is regularly and publicly emasculated and treated like dirt by his wife and seemingly seeks solace with another woman. In both cases, the men are vilified—but is it possible that maybe, just maybe, at least one of the women had it coming? Read: Why Powerful Men Cheat
Over at Slate's lady blog, XX Factor, our own Susannah Breslin wrote a provocative piece about what she calls "bad wives," explaining that Jon Gosselin's wife Kate fits the bill to a T.
"Anyone who has spent any time watching [their] show knows its subplot is their marriage," she writes, "and the majority of that relationship seems to consist of Kate treating her husband like something that got stuck on the bottom of her shoe, the property of which she cannot quite identify, eliciting a nonstop look of thinly-veiled disgust and disappointment. In fact, it's hard to think of moments in which this housewife is not humiliating, degrading, and emasculating her husband. On camera, no less. In one episode, she actually chastised him for breathing too loudly. There she is in the supermarket ripping him a new one for being a lousy spouse. There she is at the pumpkin patch shouting at him for being a substandard father. There she is telling him to stop mumbling like a fool. There she is explaining to the camera that she doesn't care what anyone else thinks." Read: Why I Cheated
Finish reading this article at The Frisky.
More from The Frisky:
Should You Out A Cheater?
Once A Cheater, Always A Cheater?
Why Men Cheat
Discussion
I think we have to take the view of Kate Gosselin with a grain of salt. Reality TV shows edit things to make it look a certain way.
However, I also really hate people trying to blame the wife (or husband) when they get cheated on. We're all human and flawed and mess up in our marriages. We don't deserve to be cheated on for nagging anymore than we deserved to be punched for it. Cheating is sometimes understandable, but very rarely justified.
Cheating is ultimately the fault of the cheater. Their partner in cheating is also guilty of doing something wrong if they know the person is married.
I was sorry to read Edwards seeming to blame herself. There isn't space to say all I think of it here, but here's my opinion on blaming the wife. http://www.yourtango.com/200925478/kind-wife-who-gets-cheated
It must be so much easier to search for a reason justifying an action that will hurt someone you "love" than facing your real issuse and dealing with them like the rest of us have to. If things have gotten to the point where you're ready to go have sex with someone else, you owe it to the other person (who probably thinks you're monogamous) to end things and let them move on. Sure, breaking up hurts, but it's worse for your victim who gets cheated on and then still has to deal with a breakup. It's never possible to justify such shallow selfishness.
No, there is no reason to cheat! If you are in a relationship that is so bad that you feel the need to cheat then you need to get out of the relationship. Cheating is a horrible thing to do and there is no reason good enough to justify it.
