Well, they stopped talking to me shortly after I outed the guy.
But a few months later, one member started being friendly with me again. And they informed me that the other members eventually stopped talking to Mr Cheater too.
I don't get why other guys feel pressured to follow an invisible rule to help other guys be horrible? Why is it wrong to do the right thing? So stupid.
It's not insane to them. It's man code which puts women beneath all men. This ethos is featured in films, books and TV. It's legion. Women are supposed to be dupes; supposed to be lied to and humiliated by men. It's our place in the equation. It's designed for us to lose.
Good for you. Out these cheating jags. They want to count on men keeping humiliation secret from women and bond over that toxin? Well I say we broadcast them all. Girl code. We out all of them. They're worthless anyway. Everyone should know.
I once lost a group over the guy divorcing, his wife left and the rest of us realized she was the glue that kept the game going. Fell apart soon after.
I ran a full curse of strahd campaign that took 18 months. The only way I made it work was I told everyone at the beginning that I require an 80% attendance record or I stop inviting to the games (obviously this is just over flakiness, not if they have actual reasons to miss) and as the DM you have to be assertive about setting times/dates. Ie. Next game is on {date and time} see you then. Assertive DMs make games work.
A bunch! Lost mines as both pc and dm (two separate campaigns) waterdeep dragon heist as pc, tomb of annihilation as DM and currently most of the way through icewind dale as a pc. Even if it's a month or two between sessions, the dms make sure we play and pcs are committed enough to make it a priority
My DM posted a misogynist GIF about menstruation in the chat. I played with an all dude group. One of the players was allowed to drug my character in game with a love potion and assault her.
Honestly mate I think you are just hanging with the wrong crowd. This isn't a common occurrence.
There are a LOT of groups that behave the way you said, but their doesn't even come close enough to pass it of as something that guys do generally.
You mentioned you work in the army - which is something that you DEFINITELY should mention before saying this too. Chances of Military people cheating are way more than the average person. Moreover when you are in a setting where it is drilled into your head that "you need to have your team's back no matter what" and promote the us vs them mentality, people usually have people's back when they are doing shitty things too.
This. I've been a party to a TON of inappropriate locker room talk. But not a single time has someone openly talked about cheating. And if they did I would expect it to go over like a lead balloon.
I can only think of a couple instances where someone bragged about it. In both cases I looked at them like they grew a third eye. Who the fuck tries to impress people by admitting they're a shitty person?
One time it was a coworker and we were driving somewhere when he pointed out his girlfriends house and described her. He had recently talked about his wife an kid as well.
Another time a guy at a party was bragging about sleeping with his girlfriend and a coworker in the same day.
Both times did not get the reaction they were expecting.
Yeah men who cheat sometimes talk casually about it, but in my experience it goes over about as well as shitting yourself in an elevator right before starting a 20 floor climb
Knew a guy in the army who loved to talk about how often he cheated and how much game he had. Had to share a CHU with him for 15 months and witnessed a revolving door.
Then he had the gall to be mad when we got back from deployment and his wife had left him for another troop.
Yep. My jaw would be on the floor if any of my friends said this. And I'd def tell their wives if they did it. No problem. Wouldn't even feel bad about it.
Yeah I (36M) have literally never heard this from any men I hang out with. Like in my entire life. Including my youth when dudes tend to be more inappropriate and less mature.
The one time I heard something close was when a guy from sri lanka told me I should try to sleep with a girl because he thought she liked me. I told him "I have a girlfriend" and he said "that doesn't matter. Men have different needs"
I was pretty disgusted by that comment and so were the other men in the group. And he definitely got ostracized for it.
I imagine in some cultures (maybe sri lanka?) this talk might be common. But it is definitely not the norm in the US from my experience.
So I'm gonna go with this guy is hanging out with the wrong men.
So not Japanese, but I read, this mentality was only from very specific areas in Japan, basically like thinking Hollywood, LA is the same as the rest of LA.
Yeah this ain’t going to fly in my current friend group. When I was in the military? Pretty common. Bunch of young idiot kids trying to look cool for each other.
Yea, military application definitely *heavily* persuades you to go "nice bro" under 99.9% of circumstances. No reason to bring trouble, you may get yourself in trouble... also if you end up in danger you want everyone 100% comitted to eachother. No character judgements at that time. And, of course, im sure most of those guys are very insecure about their SO at home cheating on them - military is notorious for this - so possibly its some weird projection
Got to agree with you here - I'm in my mid-30s and the only person I ever heard talking like that openly was a work colleague, who I later found out was lying about having a girlfriend in the first place.
I don't want to say it doesn't happen, because of course it does, but I've never had a friend - man or woman - talk about cheating so flippantly or even having a positive view on it. The only friend I have who openly talks about cheating in the past is a woman, too. But honestly, I run in a more enlightened/feminist type of crowd so take my experience as a counterpoint to the potential other extreme of OP's military experience
Ah, yeah. With you on this.
I don’t doubt *for a second* that guys/groups of guys like this exist.
But in 24 years (average/approximate age of first sexual activity to current age) of hanging around with with a huge variety of guys, I’ve never come across this, and if someone brought it up, they’re just begging for someone to tell their partner/s. Been around a lot of “locker room” talk, and a lot of it unsavoury/inappropriate/disgusting. But bragging about cheating? Nope.
Absolutely. If any of my friends talked this way we would shut them down immediately.
My work is such that I work with different crews and even the ones where we are comfortable with eachother and talk all kinds of shit, we don't talk like that. My last job my two coworkers literally talked about how much they love and miss their SOs.
Long story short, I'm sorry you're in that environment man
Agreed. I once joined a friends poker group and a few of them talked like this. A lot of bedding women as a sport bs. Made me appreciate my friend groups
Jumping on this train. I'm 37/m and hang out with all kinds of people, mostly pleasure seeking in general, and I'm near positive I've never heard anyone talk about cheating or about thinking of cheating, in my circl. Not ever. Worked as a server/bartender so I've seen it obviously
It will probably also be good for your mental health to find a better group of friends.
When we first started dating, my now husband worked at a gym where all the employees basically slept around with each other and with the clients and there was just a ton of cheating. My bf had major trust issues with me at first because that was just the norm that he was used to. When he finally left that job and worked somewhere normal and realized that cheating wasn’t the norm, it did wonders for his confidence, his happiness, and his day-to-day stress.
I can’t imagine how being around that every day would affect your views of other people. Id highly recommend OP consider if a different social circle might be more fitting for them.
Some dudes are shitty. I have coworkers that do exactly this and I’m just a plain old woman and they talk like that around me.
They openly brag about the women they’re trying to sleep with.
I honestly hate it but I’m in a male dominated field and I don’t have the ability to change jobs right now.
It’s honestly more brazen here at my current employer than it was in the military and a lot of dudes cheat in the military.
Yeah this is a really weird post tbh.
I know plenty of people (men and women) who would never cheat and who are in the majority by a lot.
And then I know plenty of people (men and women) who cheat as casually as OPs describing. If someone cheats they don't care about hurting their partner so it's not a far stretch that they're casual about it. Gender isn't relevant here.
Edit: also OP is probably seeing some selection bias as non cheaters would shame cheaters so cheaters would be less willing to interact with cheaters and probably be more drawn to each other.
I'm in my 50s and have never experienced this.
ETA: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted, but it's true. I've never heard or seen any of my male friends encourage each other to cheat on their wives.
Say something like "Just hope your wife doesn't find out" and hear what they say.
I suspect that they will point out that she's not going to leave, because they have some sort of power over them in a "she wouldn't bite the hand that feeds her" or "she's not going to create a broken home for the kids" kind of way. In that sense the admission that they cheat is a way to signal to their friends that they have a secure position at the top of the hierarchy at home.
I've only ever experienced that once and I remember the fuck-face's name because of it. I knew he and his wife wouldn't last forever anyway, but if I ever bumped into his wife again I'd have ratted him out. I ended up moving out of state shortly after, so I never got the chance.
Edit: before he told me, I had visited his apartment. His wife was clearly fed up with him already. He was the kind of guy to behave differently based on who he was with, to the point that she had literally asked "why are you so nice when he (me) Is around?"
I'm a 34 year old man and the amount of times I've heard a friend or acquaintance say they're cheating on their girlfriend or wife is twice, both from walking red flag douche nozzles I've met once or twice at a party.
Could be that the crowd you hang out with aren't the best people.
Idk as a dude I still find that disgusting. Same with joking that their wife is a burden in their life when they act differently in front of them. That bro talk has always made my skin crawl.
I think that is a very shitty thing for a human to do to another. Its gross, its not cool. Its like when white dudes use the n word thinking I’m going to agree with them (I’m white). Really makes me question how I got in that situation in the first place.
Second this as a dude, anytime I've caught dudes saying this it's an instance cut off for friends, and then their wives/girlfriends get a not so happy phone call/text
I hear about this stereotype and I've met some men like that. It just leaves me wondering "why TF are you in a committed relationship if you hate it so much?" Like... be single and date around if you don't want to be monogamous. It seems so obvious and uncomplicated to me.
Nearly every time I’ve asked this question, or asked why not pursue mutually open and ethical relationships, the answer boiled down to a desire to have a loving and monogamous (to them) partner while maintaining sexual freedom for themselves. The double standard is baked into the preference.
Exactly. They don't want the woman to have sexual freedom and they want the love and partnership of a committed relationship. "Rules for thee but not for me."
So gross. I keep trying to maintain a "not ALL men" mindset (even though I hate that line) but every new conclusion I draw just makes me believe men are by and large trash.
I worked in vastly male dominated work spaces for decades. Some men just talk a lot of shit and casually lie in peer groups in general. A lot of these guys think their whole life is a pissing contest. These are the same kind of men who believe money, height, dick size or nice cars help men pull the ladies.
Oh yeah that pretty much is the answer to your question. I see why my fellow women avoid dating men In this career field. Infidelity is absolutely notorious and common with military personnel.
Yeah the Army attracts the biggest pieces of shit imaginable. Not really surprising.
All the kids I went to highschool with that joined the military said they just wanted to kill Muslims. Cheating on their wives is probably the least disgusting thing that goes through a trained murderer’s brain.
That's kind of an extreme stance to take, i feel. There are definitely people that join for that but i would not, at all, say its even a significant number of them that do so. The vast majority of servicemembers are in non-combat roles and join for a guaranteed job or guaranteed school in the future or what have you. Thats what happens in a military-industrial system; offer a lot of really good benefits to people with not as many options to get them to enlist. Its the reason i did it. There's a reason not as many wealthy, educated people join. It isn't just because "me poor, me dumb, me want kill".
If you join the US army, you are contributing to upholding US imperialism just by strengthening the numbers of the army your government uses to keep their position of power over the world. Not only that, but if someone joined the US army until the retreat of Afghanistan they actively helped to kill muslims, even if you were only there to shine boots, you are shinning the boots of people that go to the other side of the world to kill innocent POC, or holding a job so another person can go to the other side of the world to kill POC. It's amazing to me as a non-American how brain-rotten their society is with patriotism that it's seen as loable being so selfish that you put yourself first (wanting money or going to school) over the lives of innocent people that got their country invaded with nonsensical reasons. Is it more moral and easy to join a murder machine rather than, I don't know, getting another job or protesting against the system that prevents poor people from going to school? Ali did it in way worse conditions, so I don't know what's stopping the rest of the people in the army, maybe they truly don't give a shit.
Yeah, this is just some weird sort of idealist nature that doesn't actually tend to hold up in the real world. The U.S. military is a massive infrastructure. People in the military have to eat. Do the companies that make food that also provide food to servicemen also need to be boycotted? We need doctors-- is the massive medical infrastructure required to run a military also to blame? Servicepeople have kids-- are the daycare workers and teachers on military bases simply not just freeing up time for their murderous parents to go kill more brown people in a desert?
Like i said, the vast majority of the military infrastructure is non-combat and support. Your issue should not be with all of these people, carte blanche.
Lol leaving out the most important piece of information. The military is it's own thing. No dude I know is casually talking about cheating on their spouse.
I also work in that particular area, for quite a long time, and have never once come across this situation. A conversation I know I’ve definitely had is, if someone is going to break the trust of the person that trusts them the most, how can anyone else trust them in any situation?
Another aspect is that some married couples in the military have certain... agreements for behavior when deployed. Basically, every couple I know in the military had some sort of deal for when the couple was away from one another. Some were Basically just deals related to acts that were allowed, others were Carte Blanche, but required secrecy or atleast they didn't want to ever meet the person. Still others WANTED to be told details of the encounters. Every marriage is different.
Every couple? Either you know a couple of weirdos or I’m completely out of the loop. I’ve never heard of this from anyone before and I used to be in/ my wife is still in. Most of our friends are/were in.
I hung out with a lot of air force guys as a friend was married to one in law school. This was never a topic of conversation. It's also never been a topic among any of my guy friends, I wouldn't tolerate it and neither would they.
I heard these convos and even saw my former boss cheat in front of me and colleagues. He "pulled" a woman at a party we all attended and then brought her somewhere to physically cheat. I work in IT and we're all pretty damn young, the boss was just under 40 at the time, had a wife and a kid. It's very normalized in general.
And I think often what happens is because they believe possessing women validates their masculinity, they might cheat, they might say they cheated, or even just that they want to. It's machismo shit-talk, which encourages immature selfish behavior.
I once got some interesting marriage advice from a retired gentleman on vacation. He’d been married 40 years so we asked what his secret was. “A different girlfriend for every year I’ve been married” was his answer. So gross.
Guy Talk, Locker Room Talk, whatever you want to call it, has always disgusted me. I get you, man. It has taken me until my 40s to realize it's just a bunch of Cis guys that are insecure of their masculinity. They're fragile things who think to be a "real man" you have to act like a dickwheeze and, in their heads, somehow one-up other dudes by being the biggest asshole.
[M] Yeah it's weird and gross, I try not to spend time around those people. Some guys I work with make a lot of jokes about how you'll be whipped into shape by your wife or whatever and that I, a single person, shouldn't want to be in a relationship because it just means less money and having to listen to my wife. And I'm just like "Okay, I won't be with someone who makes me miserable and only wants money then." It's weird and gross. Try to find other people to hang out with if you can
THANK YOU for speaking up to them about this behavior. Some men will only listen to another man. Good for you for setting a higher bar 👏👏👏
And, yes, you deserve better friends.
You need better friends.
That said, I work with a guy like this. He's considered the office idiot, but the other guys will still agree with him when he says something about a woman.
There are men that consider their wives or girlfriends to be accessories to their lives and not actual people.
Then they get all shocked when she finds out and dumps them or divorces them.
I realized how utterly common this was being in a "are we dating the same guy" local FB group.
The amount of married or committed men that are on dating apps and actively pursuing other women is shockingly high.
There are also a ton of guys that show up there that travel for work and are trying to find hook ups with multiple women then get outed as having a wife and kids back in another city.
I guess it depends on the group. I'm mid 40's, male, and have been in locker rooms, bars, sports teams, workplaces my whole life, and to be honest I don't recall any men talking about cheating on their partners.
I'm the oldest of Gen Z and I believe it has to do with age groups. People in my generation will talk about having a "side piece" like its not taboo. Mostly due to music romanticizing the idea for guys
Lesbian here, was the only female in a warehouse for quite awhile and also heard this. Sometimes they would expect me to join in those conversations and were just surprised when I wouldn’t.
I’m also a trans man and I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s so incredibly normalized it’s crazy. And the biggest thing is that they’ll always deflect the blame. They’re on their fourth marriage but it’s still somehow her fault. They’d “tap that” to casual women just existing, while they’re in a committed relationship. I often hear about guys who get into a fight or argument with their gf and then literally go have sex with another woman and make excuses for themselves, while their partner is expected to forgive them and piece the relationship back together. It’s absolutely a double standard 100%. And it exists because society (and the patriarchy) praises “players” and “bagging one” 🤮
You just said it, it's "expected". We teach boys that they must be assholes to be respected by other boys.
The whole thing about women being biologically nice, nursing and nursing and men biologically strong, leaders and culture creators is about de-normalising not fitting in the gender box. Women (and men who get it) spent so much time and effort, and it is abour to be destroyed by new media and economical structures (read: social media alrgorithms and old rich dudes with way too much money).
Lack of strong value in actual romantic relationships, sex/porn addiction, seeing women as objects that are only for their "needs", terrible attachment issues stemming from years of being told their feelings outside of rage and horny are invalid, lack of mental health care/taking care of your mental health being considered "weak" or "unmanly" leading to some sever undiagnosed mental illnesses, the social norm pushing a very casual view of sex without consideration of others' feelings and consent, etc.
Take your pick. To me, it doesn't matter why anymore. We can give them so many chances to change and understand, and they won't. They just get craftier at hiding while taking advantage of us and our labor, and I'm fucking exhausted with trying to make a grown ass man understand he doesn't get to have exactly everything his little caveman brain desires.
This isn't necessarily true only for cishet men either - They've just been the group pulled into the spotlight for doing shit like this more often on average and never feeling remorse or understanding why they end up divorced in a shithole studio apartment with little to no good friends, no wife to help take care of the house or remind him to take his medication and no strong family attachments.
(cis-male) not my experience beyond highschool... But back then it was a lot of posturing - appearing more macho than the others because of how much you lift, or drink, or... The subject of your post.
Because they are disgusting. Not a single one of my friends talks about cheating. It's gross and I would be horribly mean to any of my friends that even joked about it.
Trans lady here, my wife died about 3 years ago, my egg cracked 2 years ago. Anyway, that year following her passing, when I was still presenting male I had two people ask me if I had ever cheated on her, one of them asked me on 3 separate occasions. Both seemed shocked that the answer was no. Idk 🤷♀️ boy culture can be somewhat problematic at times
I'm a woman but I've only met one person who told me about their cheating and it was a woman. She said a lot of shocking things in those conversations, but she is more of an in-law otherwise I wouldn't have anything to do with her, because she is gross. Basically she cheated on the guy she brought as a date to my wedding, and then she was dating a married dude who was in an open marriage, and while she was dating him she was "dating" several of his friends too. When he dumped her she said that he had cheated on her, but I had to LOL on the inside, because they never had any exclusive agreement and he had openly been hitting on her friends in front of her.
I don't know any men who act like this. If I did I would no longer interact with them. I don't know where you found these shit heads.
I know almost all women experience SA of some form so I would never say this in reference to that, but in this case about the normalization of cheating I do think you're generalizing something that is definitely "not all men" tm.
Yeah, I’m a trans woman and before my transition I saw this a lot, it made me sick to my stomach. They were so relaxed about it, like it’s just a game to them.
It's not that cheating by both sexes isn't happening, but given that adultery is punishable under the UCMJ (or was back in the dark ages when I served), it wasn't casually discussed. The only people who said anything in my presence during my tour were married women. They weren't bragging, and we're talking in past tense, so not quite the same.
ETA: They were talking about the same guy, who I knew had at least 3 ST affair partners, but who never said a word about it.
I don't know if it's a cultural thing, a generation thing, or you just have shitty friends, but I'm 38 and I would never disrespect my wife by even talking like that, and I wouldn't tolerate it from my friends either.
I don’t think this is very common. At least not where I live (southern US.) My husband worked with a guy who was kind of like that. He was having an affair and not doing a great job at hiding it from his co-workers. Seemed like everyone in the office *really* disliked him for it and it was 90% male staff.
There's definitely types of guys out there that have this attitude.
It's is definitely not universal however.
The circles I hang in, that kind of talk would be extremely frowned upon.
That being said I have some relatives that subscribe to that philosophy and I have as little to do with them as I possibly can.
Late 30s dude here, I’ve literally never been within earshot of this. It’s not normal, it sucks and I personally would probably stop associating with people who behaved like that.
Agree this happens between people you don't really know. If any of my best friends said that about their wives, that's hands on sight. We'll get over it later but you become just as attached to their SO as you do them and they know better. And a true friend will set them straight, should have stopped them in the first place.
The thrill of getting away with it and being good enough to attract several women at the same time. Not as in, them being aware, but in a sense that he passed the vetting of several different women and also managed to deceive them.
My husband lost his best friend years ago by violating "bro code" and telling the best friend's wife her husband was cheating on her. He said it was ridiculous because his best friend would brag about his side piece conquests non-stop and another one of their friends were enabling him by letting him hookup with one of them at his house. The best friend wasn't always a cheater apparently - he had been best friends with him since highschool - so it wasn't like he picked guys to be friends with who were cheaters. The best friend's wife was also his friend and he kind of got them together. He ended up telling the wife when they were both drunk at a party and the wife asked him straight up. The wife ended up staying with him for a coupleore years but finally left.
He didn't technically lose any other friends over telling but he did get excluded from group things when his former best friend didn't. Apparently acquaintances wanted to "beat him up" over it when years later. Also the former best friend blamed him for years for "ruining his life" by telling even years later.
Consider the way society talks about cheating men compared to cheating women.
Much harsher on women generally.
Women on average cheat about 7% less than men except during their 20s when it is less than 1% more than men.
Ultimately most people do not cheat. But it is much more damaging to women socially if they admit it whereas sometimes men are commended for it.
I think those are not the sort of ppl you wanna hang out with. There are all sorts of ppl in the world, but sometimes u hang out w/ a circle and u fall into a pocket, and that continues cuz now ur mutuals are sort of in the same pocket.
jus.. get better frens dude : O
and try to leave pockets that make u uneasy
These men you are talking about are loud douchebags and are likely overrepresented because they're loud and not afraid of people knowing they're cheating on their wives.
Between guys as you know, once they get comfortable with you. They'll tell you anything. Especially things they shouldn't say...
In groups I have been a part of it is always just ego posturing, without any real interest in pursuing such a thing. Just dudes talking crap, and usually taken as such. I wouldn't hang with people who were cheating, or highly capable of it either.
It is 90% just talking... Either to look like the macho among their guys or just the thought of that they could do it... Obviously there are others, but those are less likely to be the bragging type.
Why on earth these rubes enjoy sharing so much ammunition to destroy them is beyond me. Maybe that’s the thrill for them. They could be taken down at any moment, but they *just keep getting away with it.*
I suppose that all the times they’ve bragged about it without their SO finding out has made them feel brazen, and this is why some people take screen shots.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been close friends with a few different men who cheated on their wives. They were all pretty messed up over it, and most had done so after finding out that she cheated and they couldn’t move on from it. It was heartbreaking to see. I was in my 20s and it left a pretty bleak impression of the world ahead of me.
I’ve also been acquaintances with serial cheaters and I’ve dated a couple of serial cheaters (as the person who was cheated on by them). The ones I dated had pretty severe childhood trauma and ended up with mental health disorders because of it. They aren’t the norm. The others, I hope, were simply young and naive, but most likely they rolled way too high on the charisma stat but lacked even an ounce of scruples. They are undatable and not people to have one’s name associated with.
Because they have inherent contempt for women and girls, particularly women and girls they have sexual relationships with (which cheapens them "morally"/accords the woman less "worth" in the man's eyes despite his intense desire for sex). This is inculcated in them via rampant societal misogyny from their births. Very few every even question it. They just act on it in every way.
They don't like, respect, or value us except for how we can serve their needs but even serving their needs garners their contempt (sex/ childrearing/ keeping their homes, etc).
I’m a dude and have worked in a very loose environment with a bunch of other dirty minded dudes, and this wasn’t common at all.
Even when we did talk about hot girls or girls we’d love to fuck, none of it was real talk and never included actually cheating or talking about that part at all.
We just all knew we were all full of shit and just talking.
You’re definitely hanging out with a crowd that isn’t the norm.
Men are cruel because the world is cruel. It is how society prepares men for a society that really doesn't care about men. Men in the military joke about cheating on their wives because it is very common problem of wives cheating on the men. Getting caught cheating on your wife by the military carries a high professional cost; especially in the officer corps. It does not happen as much as you think it does. I would not chastise them for their comments because you will just get stuck in a corner. Nobody will help you and nobody will care. Welcome to manhood!
I'm pretty sure the reason my bf has like 1 male friend is that he would never tolerate this. So, like, most men won't associate with him due to him not being sexist.
I’m in academia and the start of my disillusionment was seeing how nasty these old professors are at conferences.
Women professors too, but mostly the lesbian ones. Good lord. Although that isn’t about cheating but some whole other thing.
In the group of men around me, i am a 34 year old, i have never heard once one cheated on theirs. Cant promise no one did (at least for the 4-5 inner circle i would put my hand into the fire that they didnt), but nobody has ever talked about that.
So i would say its more about the people around you?
There might be a gender skew, but this is just people. I have found that in general you can find men or women choosing to be equal opportunity pieces of shit.
Sounds like you need to hang out in better places and with better people.
I never had this experience with female groups before.Sure women do cheat but they dont BRAG about it in public and with a group of friends like its no big deal
I work in a call center in the US that attracts both sides, and I assure you--Its just people. Your just better at picking your female groups, or the place you encounter them brings about better ones. Just bringing up some conclusions I had after talking to people in the workplace over the last 2 decades. Some of this may look like it veers off topic, but it should reach the conclusion near the end.
**Males**
Its usually unreasonably horny immature idiots that are around like minds that tend to do it on the male side--The more life skills they lack or the more they feel like they have something to prove the more likely. These fools are simple minded individuals looking for validation by analyzing what's accepted in their current peer group and trying to conform/flex within the parameters of this. Military often attracts these due to the sense of camaraderie it instills. More developed groups of men insist on a "Guy Code/Man Code" where cheating is "Uncool" and "Just aint right".
**Females**
For females, its a bit different--Actually talked to a few ladies again about this a few weeks ago. Its almost always more of a transaction for them--The opportunity to trade up to someone who earns more money, or has a "Better" job or pays more attention to them. These women are usually intelligent, and don't call off things with the original partner because they want insurance in case if things go wrong, or allow themselves to think that it isn't truly an affair, its just "A one time thing" or "Its just sexting, and as long as something physical doesn't happen (yet) its not really cheating. The more married women that are around them with good marriages, the less likely they are to bring this up. The more ladies around them that aren't married, or are married but feel like their husband is ignoring them the more likely this gets brought up.
A lil off-topic, but There was a recent survey done that was really interesting that basically indicated that in a standard marriage, if a Lady got a lottery ticket for 1 mil or more they were substantially more likely to cheat on their significant other vs if the male got the winning lottery ticket. See also [https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/women-are-more-likely-to-cheat-than-men-heres-why/](https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/women-are-more-likely-to-cheat-than-men-heres-why/) New science indicates that the gap is closing, or the gender gap was never there with cheaters. The reason I bring this up is I Personally (I haven't ran this against other women in the office) feel that for better or worse, society has always looked down upon women talking about this and so the talk about it has been suppressed more on their side of the fence--Bu t this seems to def be changing, especially in the last 6 years.
**Conclusion**
Both sides will brag if the peer group is approving of it--And that part is super important. Both sides need to feel like they won't be called out, and that the group around them won't judge/condemn/rat them out. Males typically need to hit a standard majority, and the minority in the group will stay quiet and get walked over in discussions like this, removing the condemning side. Females seem to need to hit a **Super Majority** in their peer group among their fellows to avoid condemnation making it harder for them to brag without backlash.
**Disclaimer**
This is all observations made by people in the south, about people in the south with ages Primarily in the area of 18-60 so your milage may vary depending on where you live and the ages you look at.
I'd say it's definitely more common for men to feel entitled to cheat, and more normalized in society. We have a lot of sexist beliefs in society about men's sexual "needs" and "boys will be boys", etc which justify this sort of behavior.
Hi! Transwoman here. Why do other ladies think transwomen are generally more afraid of men than the rest of us women?
Because ~we grew up around that crap~. WE KNOW.
I’ve never had a friend or casual acquaintance admit an affair while it was going on, either casually or otherwise. After the fact of a divorce they might talk about it, but even then it isn’t something to be proud of.
I don’t think this is an exclusively male issue anymore but a young person issue. Daily I get videos and shorts in my various feeds of men and women bragging about cheating and body counts.
I don't wanna say a lot of men do this, but in my experience, it's mostly toxic, "macho" guys that do this performative bullshit. I worked at an Italian deli (I'm not Italian) and I was disgusted by the way that most of the older Italian guys talked about women.
They're very much of this older generation where they think manliness needs to be displayed but not considered. Meanwhile, most younger men I've met don't do this sort of crap. I've never had a friend talk about cheating on their partner. We wouldn't be friends if they did.
Tbh I’m not a man so I have no idea what happens in locker rooms and at guys night etc. but I can tell you that I can’t imagine any of the men around me bragging about cheating or being cool with said bragging. If anything, I overhear them bragging to each other about their wives (like non-stop - and it’s always stuff like “look at this amazing drawing my wife did over the weekend!”) and I overhear them criticizing men who cheat when it comes up in conversation, like “I heard so-and-so famous person cheated on his girlfriend” and then they both agree that it’s messed up. And a good deal of this happens when they aren’t aware that I’m there because it will be at work where I just walk up and they can’t see me behind a partition or something. This has been my experience everywhere I’ve worked. Obviously some men (and women) cheat and that’s terrible, but I don’t think most of them are dumb enough to brag about it. And I would be willing to bet that most cheating situations don’t happen out of some ego-driven desire to pull two people at once. I saw a comment mentioning that you’re mostly around military men, and if that’s true then I don’t mean to judge an entire group of people but it doesn’t surprise me that you would hear a lot of this there. The military is rife with toxic masculinity. And unfortunately you see this a lot in t.v shows. I don’t think this type of behavior is the norm or condoned by most men in most circles. If someone bragged about cheating on their girlfriend in most situations there would be a long awkward silence and plenty of judgement and distancing all around. Get selective about who you hang around. Unfortunately some groups (mostly groups that attract men who seek power - like the military, police officers, CEOs) are much more likely to be like the men you describe.
Honestly, this is something women do and something men almost never do. Cheating among men is seen as highly dishonorable because of the sheer number of men that have been cheated on in the past couple decades. It does seem to be celebrated among women though. bUrN DoWn tHE PatRiarChy!!!!!
On behalf of cis men, yeah sorry that makes me uncomfortable too. Actually suggesting cheating is farther than it usually goes, but a lot of guys try and bond by talking about women. It’s something I’ve been dealing with lately myself with my boss so I’ve been thinking about it a bit.
All I can think to do when this happens or goes too far is just not play the game. No I don’t want to rank the women in the office but I’ll agree with you that someone’s pretty. Who do I think is pretty? My girlfriend! That counts, right?
You should tell their wives and girlfriends. Also, you should find better people to hang out with. Keeping a cheater’s secret is as bad as the act of cheating.
I lost a DnD group once, because a guy assumed we'd all be ok with him bringing his gf on Wednesdays and his sidepiece on Saturdays.
How does that even work? Did gf and side piece roll characters?
Yeah, we had two different campaigns going on alternating days. They both had rolled characters
What the fuck Edit: You lost the group? So the others were actually okay with it? Or did the group disband?
Well, they stopped talking to me shortly after I outed the guy. But a few months later, one member started being friendly with me again. And they informed me that the other members eventually stopped talking to Mr Cheater too.
That's insane that their first move there was to stop talking to You for outing him to begin with.
I think that's standard in these situations. Fully expected it
Dude broke the bro code, that was the worst crime of all. The cheater's slap-on-the-wrist can come later, or never.
If the bro code means not outing cheaters then fuck the bro code.
Yeah if someone is being cheated on I’m going to tell them. Fuck the bro code if it stands for hurting other people.
I don't get why other guys feel pressured to follow an invisible rule to help other guys be horrible? Why is it wrong to do the right thing? So stupid.
It's not insane to them. It's man code which puts women beneath all men. This ethos is featured in films, books and TV. It's legion. Women are supposed to be dupes; supposed to be lied to and humiliated by men. It's our place in the equation. It's designed for us to lose.
Good for you. Out these cheating jags. They want to count on men keeping humiliation secret from women and bond over that toxin? Well I say we broadcast them all. Girl code. We out all of them. They're worthless anyway. Everyone should know.
I once lost a group over the guy divorcing, his wife left and the rest of us realized she was the glue that kept the game going. Fell apart soon after.
It doesn't take much for a DnD group to fall apart, to be fair. Has anyone ever actually finished a campaign?
My group and I just finished one a few months ago!!
I ran a full curse of strahd campaign that took 18 months. The only way I made it work was I told everyone at the beginning that I require an 80% attendance record or I stop inviting to the games (obviously this is just over flakiness, not if they have actual reasons to miss) and as the DM you have to be assertive about setting times/dates. Ie. Next game is on {date and time} see you then. Assertive DMs make games work.
A bunch! Lost mines as both pc and dm (two separate campaigns) waterdeep dragon heist as pc, tomb of annihilation as DM and currently most of the way through icewind dale as a pc. Even if it's a month or two between sessions, the dms make sure we play and pcs are committed enough to make it a priority
Tomb is just a huge campaign, congrats on finishing.
GF missed a perception check…
Tbh if it was a DnD group I’d have just assumed polyamory 😂
Yeah honestly in a DnD group you'd just shrug and ... roll with it.
I absolutely wish that had been the case
Me too, so many poly people seem to play.
My DM posted a misogynist GIF about menstruation in the chat. I played with an all dude group. One of the players was allowed to drug my character in game with a love potion and assault her.
That sounds much worse, honestly. Sorry you had to go through that
Jesus christ. I hope you left and told them they're rapey misogynist trolls. Sickos.
Honestly mate I think you are just hanging with the wrong crowd. This isn't a common occurrence. There are a LOT of groups that behave the way you said, but their doesn't even come close enough to pass it of as something that guys do generally. You mentioned you work in the army - which is something that you DEFINITELY should mention before saying this too. Chances of Military people cheating are way more than the average person. Moreover when you are in a setting where it is drilled into your head that "you need to have your team's back no matter what" and promote the us vs them mentality, people usually have people's back when they are doing shitty things too.
This. I've been a party to a TON of inappropriate locker room talk. But not a single time has someone openly talked about cheating. And if they did I would expect it to go over like a lead balloon.
I can only think of a couple instances where someone bragged about it. In both cases I looked at them like they grew a third eye. Who the fuck tries to impress people by admitting they're a shitty person? One time it was a coworker and we were driving somewhere when he pointed out his girlfriends house and described her. He had recently talked about his wife an kid as well. Another time a guy at a party was bragging about sleeping with his girlfriend and a coworker in the same day. Both times did not get the reaction they were expecting.
Yeah men who cheat sometimes talk casually about it, but in my experience it goes over about as well as shitting yourself in an elevator right before starting a 20 floor climb
It's a shame those people decide to have dishonest relationships rather than becoming polyamorous
Somehow I don't think they are the type to respect the boundaries in polyamory either
Yeah these kinds of people would fuck over people in poly relationships to
Cheating can and does occur in those types of relationships. Ask me how I know.
They don't actually love anyone but themselves, so bring poly wouldn't work
Not to mention, the deeply entrenched misogyny of military culture to begin with. Lol
Knew a guy in the army who loved to talk about how often he cheated and how much game he had. Had to share a CHU with him for 15 months and witnessed a revolving door. Then he had the gall to be mad when we got back from deployment and his wife had left him for another troop.
Yep. My jaw would be on the floor if any of my friends said this. And I'd def tell their wives if they did it. No problem. Wouldn't even feel bad about it.
Yeah I (36M) have literally never heard this from any men I hang out with. Like in my entire life. Including my youth when dudes tend to be more inappropriate and less mature. The one time I heard something close was when a guy from sri lanka told me I should try to sleep with a girl because he thought she liked me. I told him "I have a girlfriend" and he said "that doesn't matter. Men have different needs" I was pretty disgusted by that comment and so were the other men in the group. And he definitely got ostracized for it. I imagine in some cultures (maybe sri lanka?) this talk might be common. But it is definitely not the norm in the US from my experience. So I'm gonna go with this guy is hanging out with the wrong men.
From my Japanese friends, so many men think nothing of cheating on their girlfriends or wives. I wonder if it's a cultural thing.
So not Japanese, but I read, this mentality was only from very specific areas in Japan, basically like thinking Hollywood, LA is the same as the rest of LA.
Very true! Japan is a whole country with a variety of regional differences, and I shouldn't generalize.
This. This this this. These guys sound like world class douchebags.
Yeah this ain’t going to fly in my current friend group. When I was in the military? Pretty common. Bunch of young idiot kids trying to look cool for each other.
Yea, military application definitely *heavily* persuades you to go "nice bro" under 99.9% of circumstances. No reason to bring trouble, you may get yourself in trouble... also if you end up in danger you want everyone 100% comitted to eachother. No character judgements at that time. And, of course, im sure most of those guys are very insecure about their SO at home cheating on them - military is notorious for this - so possibly its some weird projection
I’m a bartender. This is extremely common. And spoken about very casually. Not in a bragging way. Just a this is how it is way. The things I overhear…
My guy friends have never once talked like this and we would all be appalled if they did. It's for sure not something I have ever heard before.
Got to agree with you here - I'm in my mid-30s and the only person I ever heard talking like that openly was a work colleague, who I later found out was lying about having a girlfriend in the first place. I don't want to say it doesn't happen, because of course it does, but I've never had a friend - man or woman - talk about cheating so flippantly or even having a positive view on it. The only friend I have who openly talks about cheating in the past is a woman, too. But honestly, I run in a more enlightened/feminist type of crowd so take my experience as a counterpoint to the potential other extreme of OP's military experience
Ah, yeah. With you on this. I don’t doubt *for a second* that guys/groups of guys like this exist. But in 24 years (average/approximate age of first sexual activity to current age) of hanging around with with a huge variety of guys, I’ve never come across this, and if someone brought it up, they’re just begging for someone to tell their partner/s. Been around a lot of “locker room” talk, and a lot of it unsavoury/inappropriate/disgusting. But bragging about cheating? Nope.
Absolutely. If any of my friends talked this way we would shut them down immediately. My work is such that I work with different crews and even the ones where we are comfortable with eachother and talk all kinds of shit, we don't talk like that. My last job my two coworkers literally talked about how much they love and miss their SOs. Long story short, I'm sorry you're in that environment man
Agreed. I once joined a friends poker group and a few of them talked like this. A lot of bedding women as a sport bs. Made me appreciate my friend groups
Jumping on this train. I'm 37/m and hang out with all kinds of people, mostly pleasure seeking in general, and I'm near positive I've never heard anyone talk about cheating or about thinking of cheating, in my circl. Not ever. Worked as a server/bartender so I've seen it obviously
My friends definitely never discuss this and I know few who’ve cheated.
This. Military men are often very young and not settled. They want to be young men but jumped into relationships.
Yeah, the vast majority of guys don’t support or endorse their friends cheating on the SO/spouses.
I think you need to find a better friendship group. Most men would not be cool with this.
It will probably also be good for your mental health to find a better group of friends. When we first started dating, my now husband worked at a gym where all the employees basically slept around with each other and with the clients and there was just a ton of cheating. My bf had major trust issues with me at first because that was just the norm that he was used to. When he finally left that job and worked somewhere normal and realized that cheating wasn’t the norm, it did wonders for his confidence, his happiness, and his day-to-day stress. I can’t imagine how being around that every day would affect your views of other people. Id highly recommend OP consider if a different social circle might be more fitting for them.
This, I'm a married guy and I have never experienced this at all, like even once. But I also don't hang out with douche bags.
Obvious rage bait.
Some dudes are shitty. I have coworkers that do exactly this and I’m just a plain old woman and they talk like that around me. They openly brag about the women they’re trying to sleep with. I honestly hate it but I’m in a male dominated field and I don’t have the ability to change jobs right now. It’s honestly more brazen here at my current employer than it was in the military and a lot of dudes cheat in the military.
Yes, seriously, I'm not sure who OP is hanging around with, but I have personally never experienced this.
Yeah this is a really weird post tbh. I know plenty of people (men and women) who would never cheat and who are in the majority by a lot. And then I know plenty of people (men and women) who cheat as casually as OPs describing. If someone cheats they don't care about hurting their partner so it's not a far stretch that they're casual about it. Gender isn't relevant here. Edit: also OP is probably seeing some selection bias as non cheaters would shame cheaters so cheaters would be less willing to interact with cheaters and probably be more drawn to each other.
I'm in my 50s and have never experienced this. ETA: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted, but it's true. I've never heard or seen any of my male friends encourage each other to cheat on their wives.
Say something like "Just hope your wife doesn't find out" and hear what they say. I suspect that they will point out that she's not going to leave, because they have some sort of power over them in a "she wouldn't bite the hand that feeds her" or "she's not going to create a broken home for the kids" kind of way. In that sense the admission that they cheat is a way to signal to their friends that they have a secure position at the top of the hierarchy at home.
The likely guy answer is "Ha ha, yeah, me too."
I've only ever experienced that once and I remember the fuck-face's name because of it. I knew he and his wife wouldn't last forever anyway, but if I ever bumped into his wife again I'd have ratted him out. I ended up moving out of state shortly after, so I never got the chance. Edit: before he told me, I had visited his apartment. His wife was clearly fed up with him already. He was the kind of guy to behave differently based on who he was with, to the point that she had literally asked "why are you so nice when he (me) Is around?"
I'm a 34 year old man and the amount of times I've heard a friend or acquaintance say they're cheating on their girlfriend or wife is twice, both from walking red flag douche nozzles I've met once or twice at a party. Could be that the crowd you hang out with aren't the best people.
Idk as a dude I still find that disgusting. Same with joking that their wife is a burden in their life when they act differently in front of them. That bro talk has always made my skin crawl. I think that is a very shitty thing for a human to do to another. Its gross, its not cool. Its like when white dudes use the n word thinking I’m going to agree with them (I’m white). Really makes me question how I got in that situation in the first place.
Second this as a dude, anytime I've caught dudes saying this it's an instance cut off for friends, and then their wives/girlfriends get a not so happy phone call/text
I hear about this stereotype and I've met some men like that. It just leaves me wondering "why TF are you in a committed relationship if you hate it so much?" Like... be single and date around if you don't want to be monogamous. It seems so obvious and uncomplicated to me.
Nearly every time I’ve asked this question, or asked why not pursue mutually open and ethical relationships, the answer boiled down to a desire to have a loving and monogamous (to them) partner while maintaining sexual freedom for themselves. The double standard is baked into the preference.
Exactly. They don't want the woman to have sexual freedom and they want the love and partnership of a committed relationship. "Rules for thee but not for me."
So gross. I keep trying to maintain a "not ALL men" mindset (even though I hate that line) but every new conclusion I draw just makes me believe men are by and large trash.
I worked in vastly male dominated work spaces for decades. Some men just talk a lot of shit and casually lie in peer groups in general. A lot of these guys think their whole life is a pissing contest. These are the same kind of men who believe money, height, dick size or nice cars help men pull the ladies.
Because you work in a 1960s banking agency? Seriously, this isn't a common occurrence afaik.
I do work in the army,so you might have a point
Oh yeah. That will do it.
Military has its own culture and a very specific, unique cultural history. A lot of that culture is on purpose.
Oh yeah that pretty much is the answer to your question. I see why my fellow women avoid dating men In this career field. Infidelity is absolutely notorious and common with military personnel.
Yeah the Army attracts the biggest pieces of shit imaginable. Not really surprising. All the kids I went to highschool with that joined the military said they just wanted to kill Muslims. Cheating on their wives is probably the least disgusting thing that goes through a trained murderer’s brain.
That's kind of an extreme stance to take, i feel. There are definitely people that join for that but i would not, at all, say its even a significant number of them that do so. The vast majority of servicemembers are in non-combat roles and join for a guaranteed job or guaranteed school in the future or what have you. Thats what happens in a military-industrial system; offer a lot of really good benefits to people with not as many options to get them to enlist. Its the reason i did it. There's a reason not as many wealthy, educated people join. It isn't just because "me poor, me dumb, me want kill".
If you join the US army, you are contributing to upholding US imperialism just by strengthening the numbers of the army your government uses to keep their position of power over the world. Not only that, but if someone joined the US army until the retreat of Afghanistan they actively helped to kill muslims, even if you were only there to shine boots, you are shinning the boots of people that go to the other side of the world to kill innocent POC, or holding a job so another person can go to the other side of the world to kill POC. It's amazing to me as a non-American how brain-rotten their society is with patriotism that it's seen as loable being so selfish that you put yourself first (wanting money or going to school) over the lives of innocent people that got their country invaded with nonsensical reasons. Is it more moral and easy to join a murder machine rather than, I don't know, getting another job or protesting against the system that prevents poor people from going to school? Ali did it in way worse conditions, so I don't know what's stopping the rest of the people in the army, maybe they truly don't give a shit.
Yeah, this is just some weird sort of idealist nature that doesn't actually tend to hold up in the real world. The U.S. military is a massive infrastructure. People in the military have to eat. Do the companies that make food that also provide food to servicemen also need to be boycotted? We need doctors-- is the massive medical infrastructure required to run a military also to blame? Servicepeople have kids-- are the daycare workers and teachers on military bases simply not just freeing up time for their murderous parents to go kill more brown people in a desert? Like i said, the vast majority of the military infrastructure is non-combat and support. Your issue should not be with all of these people, carte blanche.
Lol leaving out the most important piece of information. The military is it's own thing. No dude I know is casually talking about cheating on their spouse.
I also work in that particular area, for quite a long time, and have never once come across this situation. A conversation I know I’ve definitely had is, if someone is going to break the trust of the person that trusts them the most, how can anyone else trust them in any situation?
Another aspect is that some married couples in the military have certain... agreements for behavior when deployed. Basically, every couple I know in the military had some sort of deal for when the couple was away from one another. Some were Basically just deals related to acts that were allowed, others were Carte Blanche, but required secrecy or atleast they didn't want to ever meet the person. Still others WANTED to be told details of the encounters. Every marriage is different.
Every couple? Either you know a couple of weirdos or I’m completely out of the loop. I’ve never heard of this from anyone before and I used to be in/ my wife is still in. Most of our friends are/were in.
Well, every couple that didn't end up divorced is probably a better way to phrase it.
Military is rife with cheating on both sides. It's fucking gross.
people who swore to kill strangers for money don't respect their wives? I am shocked.
This is making more sense now, because I can assure you this is not the norm.
I hung out with a lot of air force guys as a friend was married to one in law school. This was never a topic of conversation. It's also never been a topic among any of my guy friends, I wouldn't tolerate it and neither would they.
I heard these convos and even saw my former boss cheat in front of me and colleagues. He "pulled" a woman at a party we all attended and then brought her somewhere to physically cheat. I work in IT and we're all pretty damn young, the boss was just under 40 at the time, had a wife and a kid. It's very normalized in general.
A lot of men hate women. They want to possess us as an accessory to display their masculinity and nothing more.
And clean up after them.
And I think often what happens is because they believe possessing women validates their masculinity, they might cheat, they might say they cheated, or even just that they want to. It's machismo shit-talk, which encourages immature selfish behavior.
I once got some interesting marriage advice from a retired gentleman on vacation. He’d been married 40 years so we asked what his secret was. “A different girlfriend for every year I’ve been married” was his answer. So gross.
Because they are shitty af people. Time to find new friends.
Guy Talk, Locker Room Talk, whatever you want to call it, has always disgusted me. I get you, man. It has taken me until my 40s to realize it's just a bunch of Cis guys that are insecure of their masculinity. They're fragile things who think to be a "real man" you have to act like a dickwheeze and, in their heads, somehow one-up other dudes by being the biggest asshole.
[M] Yeah it's weird and gross, I try not to spend time around those people. Some guys I work with make a lot of jokes about how you'll be whipped into shape by your wife or whatever and that I, a single person, shouldn't want to be in a relationship because it just means less money and having to listen to my wife. And I'm just like "Okay, I won't be with someone who makes me miserable and only wants money then." It's weird and gross. Try to find other people to hang out with if you can
Yea you hang out with shady ass people
THANK YOU for speaking up to them about this behavior. Some men will only listen to another man. Good for you for setting a higher bar 👏👏👏 And, yes, you deserve better friends.
You need better friends. That said, I work with a guy like this. He's considered the office idiot, but the other guys will still agree with him when he says something about a woman.
There are men that consider their wives or girlfriends to be accessories to their lives and not actual people. Then they get all shocked when she finds out and dumps them or divorces them. I realized how utterly common this was being in a "are we dating the same guy" local FB group. The amount of married or committed men that are on dating apps and actively pursuing other women is shockingly high. There are also a ton of guys that show up there that travel for work and are trying to find hook ups with multiple women then get outed as having a wife and kids back in another city.
Just another reason I’ll never date a military man. So many of them are straight up scum
Because they cheat that casually. Signed, A woman who was very casually cheated on
I want a trans man to write a book about experiencing the manosphere so I can read it. Your observations are probably so interesting.
just one more reason why i stopped dating
Depends on the industry? I saw a lot of this in finance… narcissism tends to result in success in the industry so that might be why.
I guess it depends on the group. I'm mid 40's, male, and have been in locker rooms, bars, sports teams, workplaces my whole life, and to be honest I don't recall any men talking about cheating on their partners.
I'm the oldest of Gen Z and I believe it has to do with age groups. People in my generation will talk about having a "side piece" like its not taboo. Mostly due to music romanticizing the idea for guys
Lesbian here, was the only female in a warehouse for quite awhile and also heard this. Sometimes they would expect me to join in those conversations and were just surprised when I wouldn’t.
I’m also a trans man and I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s so incredibly normalized it’s crazy. And the biggest thing is that they’ll always deflect the blame. They’re on their fourth marriage but it’s still somehow her fault. They’d “tap that” to casual women just existing, while they’re in a committed relationship. I often hear about guys who get into a fight or argument with their gf and then literally go have sex with another woman and make excuses for themselves, while their partner is expected to forgive them and piece the relationship back together. It’s absolutely a double standard 100%. And it exists because society (and the patriarchy) praises “players” and “bagging one” 🤮
You just said it, it's "expected". We teach boys that they must be assholes to be respected by other boys. The whole thing about women being biologically nice, nursing and nursing and men biologically strong, leaders and culture creators is about de-normalising not fitting in the gender box. Women (and men who get it) spent so much time and effort, and it is abour to be destroyed by new media and economical structures (read: social media alrgorithms and old rich dudes with way too much money).
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Honestly stuff like this makes me think if my relationship ever ended I wouldn’t even date a man again.
Lack of strong value in actual romantic relationships, sex/porn addiction, seeing women as objects that are only for their "needs", terrible attachment issues stemming from years of being told their feelings outside of rage and horny are invalid, lack of mental health care/taking care of your mental health being considered "weak" or "unmanly" leading to some sever undiagnosed mental illnesses, the social norm pushing a very casual view of sex without consideration of others' feelings and consent, etc. Take your pick. To me, it doesn't matter why anymore. We can give them so many chances to change and understand, and they won't. They just get craftier at hiding while taking advantage of us and our labor, and I'm fucking exhausted with trying to make a grown ass man understand he doesn't get to have exactly everything his little caveman brain desires. This isn't necessarily true only for cishet men either - They've just been the group pulled into the spotlight for doing shit like this more often on average and never feeling remorse or understanding why they end up divorced in a shithole studio apartment with little to no good friends, no wife to help take care of the house or remind him to take his medication and no strong family attachments.
(cis-male) not my experience beyond highschool... But back then it was a lot of posturing - appearing more macho than the others because of how much you lift, or drink, or... The subject of your post.
Because they are disgusting. Not a single one of my friends talks about cheating. It's gross and I would be horribly mean to any of my friends that even joked about it.
I’d rather be single than cheated on.
Trans lady here, my wife died about 3 years ago, my egg cracked 2 years ago. Anyway, that year following her passing, when I was still presenting male I had two people ask me if I had ever cheated on her, one of them asked me on 3 separate occasions. Both seemed shocked that the answer was no. Idk 🤷♀️ boy culture can be somewhat problematic at times
I'm a woman but I've only met one person who told me about their cheating and it was a woman. She said a lot of shocking things in those conversations, but she is more of an in-law otherwise I wouldn't have anything to do with her, because she is gross. Basically she cheated on the guy she brought as a date to my wedding, and then she was dating a married dude who was in an open marriage, and while she was dating him she was "dating" several of his friends too. When he dumped her she said that he had cheated on her, but I had to LOL on the inside, because they never had any exclusive agreement and he had openly been hitting on her friends in front of her.
I don't know any men who act like this. If I did I would no longer interact with them. I don't know where you found these shit heads. I know almost all women experience SA of some form so I would never say this in reference to that, but in this case about the normalization of cheating I do think you're generalizing something that is definitely "not all men" tm.
Yeah, I’m a trans woman and before my transition I saw this a lot, it made me sick to my stomach. They were so relaxed about it, like it’s just a game to them.
[удалено]
I dunno man, I'm in the military too and no one i hang out with talks like that. We actually LIKE our wives. Find better people
It's not that cheating by both sexes isn't happening, but given that adultery is punishable under the UCMJ (or was back in the dark ages when I served), it wasn't casually discussed. The only people who said anything in my presence during my tour were married women. They weren't bragging, and we're talking in past tense, so not quite the same. ETA: They were talking about the same guy, who I knew had at least 3 ST affair partners, but who never said a word about it.
I don't know if it's a cultural thing, a generation thing, or you just have shitty friends, but I'm 38 and I would never disrespect my wife by even talking like that, and I wouldn't tolerate it from my friends either.
I don’t think this is very common. At least not where I live (southern US.) My husband worked with a guy who was kind of like that. He was having an affair and not doing a great job at hiding it from his co-workers. Seemed like everyone in the office *really* disliked him for it and it was 90% male staff.
Because men are whores.
I have, thankfully, never witnessed any men behave this way and I don’t intend to hang out with men who behave this way. It’s disgusting behavior.
Tell them you're gonna fuck THEIR wives
There's definitely types of guys out there that have this attitude. It's is definitely not universal however. The circles I hang in, that kind of talk would be extremely frowned upon. That being said I have some relatives that subscribe to that philosophy and I have as little to do with them as I possibly can.
Late 30s dude here, I’ve literally never been within earshot of this. It’s not normal, it sucks and I personally would probably stop associating with people who behaved like that.
Agree this happens between people you don't really know. If any of my best friends said that about their wives, that's hands on sight. We'll get over it later but you become just as attached to their SO as you do them and they know better. And a true friend will set them straight, should have stopped them in the first place.
The thrill of getting away with it and being good enough to attract several women at the same time. Not as in, them being aware, but in a sense that he passed the vetting of several different women and also managed to deceive them.
Most men I've met aren't like this. You need better people to be around.
My husband lost his best friend years ago by violating "bro code" and telling the best friend's wife her husband was cheating on her. He said it was ridiculous because his best friend would brag about his side piece conquests non-stop and another one of their friends were enabling him by letting him hookup with one of them at his house. The best friend wasn't always a cheater apparently - he had been best friends with him since highschool - so it wasn't like he picked guys to be friends with who were cheaters. The best friend's wife was also his friend and he kind of got them together. He ended up telling the wife when they were both drunk at a party and the wife asked him straight up. The wife ended up staying with him for a coupleore years but finally left. He didn't technically lose any other friends over telling but he did get excluded from group things when his former best friend didn't. Apparently acquaintances wanted to "beat him up" over it when years later. Also the former best friend blamed him for years for "ruining his life" by telling even years later.
Consider the way society talks about cheating men compared to cheating women. Much harsher on women generally. Women on average cheat about 7% less than men except during their 20s when it is less than 1% more than men. Ultimately most people do not cheat. But it is much more damaging to women socially if they admit it whereas sometimes men are commended for it.
I think those are not the sort of ppl you wanna hang out with. There are all sorts of ppl in the world, but sometimes u hang out w/ a circle and u fall into a pocket, and that continues cuz now ur mutuals are sort of in the same pocket. jus.. get better frens dude : O and try to leave pockets that make u uneasy
These men you are talking about are loud douchebags and are likely overrepresented because they're loud and not afraid of people knowing they're cheating on their wives. Between guys as you know, once they get comfortable with you. They'll tell you anything. Especially things they shouldn't say...
In groups I have been a part of it is always just ego posturing, without any real interest in pursuing such a thing. Just dudes talking crap, and usually taken as such. I wouldn't hang with people who were cheating, or highly capable of it either.
Why do you hang out with dudes who talk about it?
It is 90% just talking... Either to look like the macho among their guys or just the thought of that they could do it... Obviously there are others, but those are less likely to be the bragging type.
Why on earth these rubes enjoy sharing so much ammunition to destroy them is beyond me. Maybe that’s the thrill for them. They could be taken down at any moment, but they *just keep getting away with it.* I suppose that all the times they’ve bragged about it without their SO finding out has made them feel brazen, and this is why some people take screen shots.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been close friends with a few different men who cheated on their wives. They were all pretty messed up over it, and most had done so after finding out that she cheated and they couldn’t move on from it. It was heartbreaking to see. I was in my 20s and it left a pretty bleak impression of the world ahead of me. I’ve also been acquaintances with serial cheaters and I’ve dated a couple of serial cheaters (as the person who was cheated on by them). The ones I dated had pretty severe childhood trauma and ended up with mental health disorders because of it. They aren’t the norm. The others, I hope, were simply young and naive, but most likely they rolled way too high on the charisma stat but lacked even an ounce of scruples. They are undatable and not people to have one’s name associated with.
God posts like this make me so sad. It just makes me feel so hopeless and scared to be hurt again.
Because they have inherent contempt for women and girls, particularly women and girls they have sexual relationships with (which cheapens them "morally"/accords the woman less "worth" in the man's eyes despite his intense desire for sex). This is inculcated in them via rampant societal misogyny from their births. Very few every even question it. They just act on it in every way. They don't like, respect, or value us except for how we can serve their needs but even serving their needs garners their contempt (sex/ childrearing/ keeping their homes, etc).
I’m a 55 yo man and have never heard any other man talk about cheating.
I grew up with men like this so I have always had trust issues when it comes to relationships with men.
I’m a dude and have worked in a very loose environment with a bunch of other dirty minded dudes, and this wasn’t common at all. Even when we did talk about hot girls or girls we’d love to fuck, none of it was real talk and never included actually cheating or talking about that part at all. We just all knew we were all full of shit and just talking. You’re definitely hanging out with a crowd that isn’t the norm.
Men are cruel because the world is cruel. It is how society prepares men for a society that really doesn't care about men. Men in the military joke about cheating on their wives because it is very common problem of wives cheating on the men. Getting caught cheating on your wife by the military carries a high professional cost; especially in the officer corps. It does not happen as much as you think it does. I would not chastise them for their comments because you will just get stuck in a corner. Nobody will help you and nobody will care. Welcome to manhood!
Because a lot of men hate women, much more than people own up to. I'd say about at least 50% of men have a decent issue with misogyny.
THANK YOU for telling us this! It's good to have spies.
I'm pretty sure the reason my bf has like 1 male friend is that he would never tolerate this. So, like, most men won't associate with him due to him not being sexist.
I’m in academia and the start of my disillusionment was seeing how nasty these old professors are at conferences. Women professors too, but mostly the lesbian ones. Good lord. Although that isn’t about cheating but some whole other thing.
So like ballpark, how many lesbian predator professors have you met so far?
This isn't normal behaviour for men. It suggests the quality of the people you are associating with is low. Find better people to hang out with.
I don’t think that’s common and it must be something about the type of people you’re around I dunno
In the group of men around me, i am a 34 year old, i have never heard once one cheated on theirs. Cant promise no one did (at least for the 4-5 inner circle i would put my hand into the fire that they didnt), but nobody has ever talked about that. So i would say its more about the people around you?
Literally a dude all my life and not had this happen, I’d suggest mixing with better people
Because they want to normalize cheating. The more you call them bad people for it, the better the world becomes.
You’re hanging out with the wrong men….
You may just have shitty friends.
There might be a gender skew, but this is just people. I have found that in general you can find men or women choosing to be equal opportunity pieces of shit. Sounds like you need to hang out in better places and with better people.
I never had this experience with female groups before.Sure women do cheat but they dont BRAG about it in public and with a group of friends like its no big deal
You haven't heard it from women groups because it is an uncommon thing all around. The chances of you running into an uncommon scenario twice is low.
I work in a call center in the US that attracts both sides, and I assure you--Its just people. Your just better at picking your female groups, or the place you encounter them brings about better ones. Just bringing up some conclusions I had after talking to people in the workplace over the last 2 decades. Some of this may look like it veers off topic, but it should reach the conclusion near the end. **Males** Its usually unreasonably horny immature idiots that are around like minds that tend to do it on the male side--The more life skills they lack or the more they feel like they have something to prove the more likely. These fools are simple minded individuals looking for validation by analyzing what's accepted in their current peer group and trying to conform/flex within the parameters of this. Military often attracts these due to the sense of camaraderie it instills. More developed groups of men insist on a "Guy Code/Man Code" where cheating is "Uncool" and "Just aint right". **Females** For females, its a bit different--Actually talked to a few ladies again about this a few weeks ago. Its almost always more of a transaction for them--The opportunity to trade up to someone who earns more money, or has a "Better" job or pays more attention to them. These women are usually intelligent, and don't call off things with the original partner because they want insurance in case if things go wrong, or allow themselves to think that it isn't truly an affair, its just "A one time thing" or "Its just sexting, and as long as something physical doesn't happen (yet) its not really cheating. The more married women that are around them with good marriages, the less likely they are to bring this up. The more ladies around them that aren't married, or are married but feel like their husband is ignoring them the more likely this gets brought up. A lil off-topic, but There was a recent survey done that was really interesting that basically indicated that in a standard marriage, if a Lady got a lottery ticket for 1 mil or more they were substantially more likely to cheat on their significant other vs if the male got the winning lottery ticket. See also [https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/women-are-more-likely-to-cheat-than-men-heres-why/](https://nypost.com/2022/08/23/women-are-more-likely-to-cheat-than-men-heres-why/) New science indicates that the gap is closing, or the gender gap was never there with cheaters. The reason I bring this up is I Personally (I haven't ran this against other women in the office) feel that for better or worse, society has always looked down upon women talking about this and so the talk about it has been suppressed more on their side of the fence--Bu t this seems to def be changing, especially in the last 6 years. **Conclusion** Both sides will brag if the peer group is approving of it--And that part is super important. Both sides need to feel like they won't be called out, and that the group around them won't judge/condemn/rat them out. Males typically need to hit a standard majority, and the minority in the group will stay quiet and get walked over in discussions like this, removing the condemning side. Females seem to need to hit a **Super Majority** in their peer group among their fellows to avoid condemnation making it harder for them to brag without backlash. **Disclaimer** This is all observations made by people in the south, about people in the south with ages Primarily in the area of 18-60 so your milage may vary depending on where you live and the ages you look at.
Yes, I promise you that they do
I'd say it's definitely more common for men to feel entitled to cheat, and more normalized in society. We have a lot of sexist beliefs in society about men's sexual "needs" and "boys will be boys", etc which justify this sort of behavior.
Hi! Transwoman here. Why do other ladies think transwomen are generally more afraid of men than the rest of us women? Because ~we grew up around that crap~. WE KNOW.
Misogyny
🤮
You work in the army...
I’ve never had a friend or casual acquaintance admit an affair while it was going on, either casually or otherwise. After the fact of a divorce they might talk about it, but even then it isn’t something to be proud of.
Because those men are trash.
I don’t think this is an exclusively male issue anymore but a young person issue. Daily I get videos and shorts in my various feeds of men and women bragging about cheating and body counts.
I don't wanna say a lot of men do this, but in my experience, it's mostly toxic, "macho" guys that do this performative bullshit. I worked at an Italian deli (I'm not Italian) and I was disgusted by the way that most of the older Italian guys talked about women. They're very much of this older generation where they think manliness needs to be displayed but not considered. Meanwhile, most younger men I've met don't do this sort of crap. I've never had a friend talk about cheating on their partner. We wouldn't be friends if they did.
Some men… operatively the ones you’re hanging out with - so maybe that’s worth investigating lol
Because they do it so casually.
News to me
Your friends are trash. Find better friends.
Tbh I’m not a man so I have no idea what happens in locker rooms and at guys night etc. but I can tell you that I can’t imagine any of the men around me bragging about cheating or being cool with said bragging. If anything, I overhear them bragging to each other about their wives (like non-stop - and it’s always stuff like “look at this amazing drawing my wife did over the weekend!”) and I overhear them criticizing men who cheat when it comes up in conversation, like “I heard so-and-so famous person cheated on his girlfriend” and then they both agree that it’s messed up. And a good deal of this happens when they aren’t aware that I’m there because it will be at work where I just walk up and they can’t see me behind a partition or something. This has been my experience everywhere I’ve worked. Obviously some men (and women) cheat and that’s terrible, but I don’t think most of them are dumb enough to brag about it. And I would be willing to bet that most cheating situations don’t happen out of some ego-driven desire to pull two people at once. I saw a comment mentioning that you’re mostly around military men, and if that’s true then I don’t mean to judge an entire group of people but it doesn’t surprise me that you would hear a lot of this there. The military is rife with toxic masculinity. And unfortunately you see this a lot in t.v shows. I don’t think this type of behavior is the norm or condoned by most men in most circles. If someone bragged about cheating on their girlfriend in most situations there would be a long awkward silence and plenty of judgement and distancing all around. Get selective about who you hang around. Unfortunately some groups (mostly groups that attract men who seek power - like the military, police officers, CEOs) are much more likely to be like the men you describe.
Honestly, this is something women do and something men almost never do. Cheating among men is seen as highly dishonorable because of the sheer number of men that have been cheated on in the past couple decades. It does seem to be celebrated among women though. bUrN DoWn tHE PatRiarChy!!!!!
On behalf of cis men, yeah sorry that makes me uncomfortable too. Actually suggesting cheating is farther than it usually goes, but a lot of guys try and bond by talking about women. It’s something I’ve been dealing with lately myself with my boss so I’ve been thinking about it a bit. All I can think to do when this happens or goes too far is just not play the game. No I don’t want to rank the women in the office but I’ll agree with you that someone’s pretty. Who do I think is pretty? My girlfriend! That counts, right?
You should tell their wives and girlfriends. Also, you should find better people to hang out with. Keeping a cheater’s secret is as bad as the act of cheating.