Maybe it wasn't cheating. Maybe the relationship didn't seem serious.

TheGloriousEv0lution · 2025-09-02T21:12:00+00:00

With women, I think this is the reason for the singleness discrepancy in the Pew research

Pew research also concluded that less young women want serious relationships than young men so I’m not sure if this is the correct conclusion

I agree you should confirm your relationship status and not assume anything.

OtPayOkerSmay · 2025-09-02T22:31:31+00:00

Doesn’t matter you’re having sex and have great dates, talk and establish you’re in a committed relationship

Except the primary thing about a relationship is that it's a mutually agreed upon thing.

I can be friendly towards you, but that doesn't mean we're friends.

AlmostKindaGreat · 2025-09-02T21:10:15+00:00

Ok, so...

If a woman is in a non-exclusive relationship but decides it's serious, but only in her own mind, then the man would not be cheating. ✅ So far so good.
If a man and woman are in a serious relationship but the woman decides it "doesnt have emotional depth, he doesn’t make time for her, he ignores her repeated complaints" then she's justified in cheating ❌ WTF?

You kind of suggest it's exclusive in the second case but aren't clear about this. So maybe it is just the guy deciding it was serious in his own mind and just the gender flip of the first situation? No idea.

How about this...

Let's just keep the standard "If you explicitly agreed to exclusivity then it's cheating. If you didn't then it's not." Making it any more complicated just sounds like you're trying to selectively justify cheating because a particular motive for cheating is more relatable for you.

Main-Tiger8537 · 2025-09-02T20:59:09+00:00

i guess thats one reason why surveys could be misleading but i would go further and claim it is similiar with parenthood...

notsoST · 2025-09-02T22:40:15+00:00

People are terrible at actually defining what they're in, and then act shocked when the other person didn't follow [the unspoken] rules. Calling it "cheating" after the fact sounds way better than admitting you never had the "what ARE we" conversation.

Agile_Put8601 · 2025-09-02T20:48:15+00:00

So in other words when a woman cheats she’s justified?

EducationPatient4622 · 2025-09-02T21:02:01+00:00

The only way i see this possible, is people not EXPLICITLY saying what they are, and what theyre looking for.

Grow_peace_in_Bedlam · 2025-09-02T21:22:18+00:00

During my last year of college, I had a long-distance girlfriend who I had met when traveling before the school year. We had agreed to exclusivity. She still cheated, and she didn't even have the decency to tell me she had been cheating before I bought my plane ticket to see her.

eternal_cuckold · 2025-09-02T22:06:23+00:00

Crazy the lengths people will go to justify cheating. Just break up?

Demasii · 2025-09-02T21:27:02+00:00

With women, I think this is the reason for the singleness discrepancy in the Pew research: They decided the relationship is serious on their own without discussing things. Doesn’t matter you’re having sex and have great dates, talk and establish you’re in a committed relationship.

I witnessed the opposite in PPD and AiTA that follow the general storyline below.

A guy and gal have the exclusivity talk and become a couple. Later the guy finds out that the gal was sleeping with other men while they were in the talking phase. Guy claims she cheated and breaks up with her.

John_Oakman · 2025-09-02T20:50:34+00:00

Having mismatched implicit expectations on a large scale (after all, if it's not that big of a problem then certainly you wouldn't be bringing it up) will over time lead to a low trust society, and that's not a desirable thing.

Also why is there such a significant mismatch of implicit expectations in the first place?

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Title	Maybe it wasn't cheating. Maybe the relationship didn't seem serious.
Author	LillthOfBabylon
Upvotes	0
Comments	28
Date	September 2, 2025 8:37 PM UTC (11 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1n6uvly/maybe_it_wasnt_cheating_maybe_the_relationship/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/maybe-it-wasnt-cheating-maybe-the-relationship.1561123 https://theredarchive.com/post/1561123

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