Jezebel: cheating hearts

Sacred Institution

Intern Katy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:40:00 EST

Caught cheating in New Hampshire? You could be facing a $1,200 fine. And some lawmakers would like to keep it that way, on the grounds that taking the 200-year-old law off the books would somehow "diminish" marriage. [AP]

The Cuckolds Of Lagoa Da Prata

Intern Katy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:40:00 EST

Brazilian police are investigating the identity of the blogger who posted a list of 300 "cheating victims" on a social networking site. The blogger seems to be targeting unfaithful wives, and has spawned several copycat lists. [UPI]

Vows: Woman Remarries Ex-Husband, Despite His Affair

Jessica — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:30:00 EST

In 1992, Gary Cosimini pulled the "the midlife crisis trifecta" and left his wife Jane Kallir for a "new girlfriend, two-seater convertible and 29-foot sailboat." And a few weeks ago, Jane remarried him.

Kallir and Cosimini had their second marriage profiled in the New York Times vows section on Sunday, and even though back then Cosimini had taken a job without consulting his wife, and "her complaints made him angry and uncommunicative," the couple managed to patch things up.

I bring this up specifically because the comments to a recent post about cheating that Sadie wrote were so unilaterally harsh. Almost all of the commenters thought cheating, even once, is an unforgivable, Bobbit-worthy offense. I've never dealt with this personally, but the reaction seemed to ignore the fact that in any longterm relationship, there are vast swaths of gray.

Kallir says that the relationship's initial demise wasn't entirely her husband's fault. She admits to being guilty of “poor communication and negligence,” and though she was "scared of getting back in a relationship with someone who had hurt me that deeply," eventually she could not deny that she still felt that he was her emotional spouse. Is she deluded? Or has their relationship evolved?

For what it's worth, Kallir says the second wedding was infinitely better than the first:

Maybe we didn’t altogether know why we were getting married. It just seemed like the thing to do. But this time it’s really a meaningful expression of something. It’s really a kind of triumphant celebration of all that we’ve been through and what we mean to one another.

Jane Kallir And Gary Cosimini [NY Times]

Earlier: Telling You He's Cheated: Reasons Pro And Con

If You Cheat, And Don't Feel Bad About It, Are You A Sociopath?

Tracie — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:00:00 EDT

Cheating on a husband or boyfriend may not exactly be exemplary conduct, but there are certainly worse things one can do, morally speaking. And while we're speaking of morals, what if you don't really have them? Or at least don't apply them to situations like these? Morality is subjective after all. There's an interesting question on the matter in Salon's advice column today. A married woman and a serial cheater writes in that not only does her husband not know about her infidelities, she has absolutely no guilt about it. This led advice columnist Cary Tennis to wonder whether she was a sociopath. (He eventually decided that she probably isn't.) According to a piece on Nerve today comparing how differently Americans and the French view infidelity, it makes sense that an American would think that there might be something fucked up with a person who could cheat and not feel bad about it. But apparently things are different in France:

People still wonder why Monica Lewinsky was a big deal — after all, the current president's wife, whom he met when he officiated at her first wedding, spent most of 2005 living in New York with her lover.

It sort of reminds us of a quote from our favorite cougar, Maude from Harold and Maude:

Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully.

Since no one truly knows what goes on in a relationship besides the two people in it, is it for anyone else to say whether the cheater is a horrible person?

I'm Cheating On My Husband And Loving It. Is That A Problem? [Salon]
History of Single Life: Infidelity [Nerve]

There's yet another social networking site...

Tracie — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:45:00 EDT

There's yet another social networking site that targets a specific demographic, and it's pissing off people in L.A. because of a billboard advertisement it put up in West Hollywood, encouraging adultery. The company, AshleyMadison.com is intended for married people looking to have discreet sexual encounters with other married people. Oddly, its website boasts its pro-woman stance by professing the company's "belief in individual rights, the human condition, the positive impact of women on modern day society in business, sex and family life, the evolution of female sexuality and the democratic principles upon which this country was founded." [ABC7.com]