Can Cheating Ever Be Good For A Relationship?
Nightline attempts to show the many faces of infidelity, but really only reveals two.
Pastor Ed Young belives that if you want to have an affair, you certainly should... with your own spouse.
"Primarily, [sex is] for pleasure. Secondarily, it's for procreation. And when you have a man and a woman making love, then you're going to hit on all cylinders. And when you don't, when you step out of that relationship, the result is going to be chaos." Spiritual Sex: 10 Erotic Commandments
Jenny Block, who's in an open relationship, has a completely different perspective on the whole matter. Read more from Jenny Block here.
"[My husband] wasn't so upset with my having sex with someone else, but was very upset with my lying about it. And so for me, I feel like relationships, marriage, the whole shebang is, number one, about honesty. Sex, yeah, it's a great part of a relationship. But I'm not convinced it's the cornerstone of a marriage or of any relationship." Portrait Of An Open Marriage
Debating the topic with each other on Nightline last week, Young and Block were joined by two other panelists who each brought their own unique experiences to the discussion.
Falling firmly on Block's side (that sex outside of marriage can be fine), was Noel Biderman, founder of the website AshleyMadison.com, who's motto is: "Life is short. Have an affair."
"What I hear all the time is, 'Why cheat if it's not working for you, just leave.' That's the selfish act, walking away from your family to pursue your own sexual needs, that's a sexual act. And so what I hear from my members all the time is they're in sexless relationships. They've tried talking about it. And so rather than leave, they would rather do this." What Kind Of Guys Look For Affairs Online?
The final panelist was Jonathan Dougherty, a former sex addict, who aligned himself with Pastor Ed Young.
"Before AshleyMadison.com was around, I was using the internet to try and find [and] set up anonymous sexual encounters. And that just started to crumble not only my own integrity, [but] it crumbled any sort of communication and trust that was in our marriage. Obviously, I'm going to come at it from the standpoint that God is the inventor of marriage. He's the inventor of sex, so he get's the prerogative to determine what the terms are. And his definition was one man and one woman for life." Does Sex Addiction Actually Exist?
In short: four perspectives on cheating were supposedly presented on the Nightline debate, but only two really materialized. The first: God doesn't like cheating. And the second: cheating is fine (maybe even good) for a marriage. How an Affair Saved My Marriage
Discussion
In response to the headline - can cheating ever be good for a relationship? I think the answer is basically, no. Many couples survive cheating, although the relationship is damaged. Some couples respond to the cheating by working on their relationship and end up stronger than ever, but the cheating wasn't what did it, their response is.
I don't think Block has the same perspective on affairs as Biderman. She has said on a number of occasions that she is against cheating. She and her husband have worked out an arrangement where she is allowed to have other sexual and love relationships.
Biderman's website actually advertises and tries to get people to cheat on their spouses. He is promoting lying and breaking promises. That is not the same thing.
Well,I am firm believer in what God says about cheating whether it's a popular opinion or not. Cheating is wrong and I don't believe it's good for any relationship. If you don't think you can be faithful,why even get involved with someone?
