[DreamP346]

I have read that women tend to take emotional infilelity harder than sexual infidelity from their partners whereas it is vice versa for men. Personally, for me, I would be more forgiving of sexual cheating because I am a big believer in the laws of nature and the human biology is designed for cheating/multiple partners/temporary fidelity. Therefore, for me, sexual monogomy is going against our human nature. I think (I am speculating since I have never been in this situation) I could forgive emotional and sexual cheating as long as my children and I were not being deprived in the process.

Anybody like to chime in?

[Magnetism]

I would be more upset at sexual infidelity, because it would make me doubt if whether I was good enough in bed or what I did to cause the person to seek sex elsewhere.

At the same time, I don't know what emotional infidelity feels like. I know what it feels like to be cheated on, so I'm more familiar with that.

[Aprilily]

This is going to sound wishy-washy, but I think both would upset me equally--either way I would feel like I was not enough. So yeah, I would have a hard time regardless.

[Stillness]

I think gender differences make the physical more a violation for a cheating wife than a cheating husband. A woman doesn't run any risk of unintentionally raising another woman's children like a man does. And it's because of the risk of pregnancy that I think a woman is less likely to cheat unless there is an emotional component. Even for men it's hard to separate the physical and emotional. So I'd view the sexual affair as worse and more difficult to forgive because I don't see how it could easily be emotionless. Even if it was a prostitute or a stripper there's still some kind of connection. I guess if it was a chance drunken encounter on a trip or something, I could see that. In that case it's a toss-up. haha (probably no one gets this)

As a Christian, I'd actually prefer a sexual affair if I didn't want to forgive though. I don't view an emotional affair as something that would allow me to be completely free of marriage (weirdly my last post was about this).

[rcoreyus]

I am very unusual in that I wouldn't be particularly bothered by either, except for the way that they would indicate that there was something wrong with my relationship. To me, it is the situation that leads to the desire to cheat that is the real problem, the actual act (physical or emotional) is secondary. In some sense I would be more unhappy to find out that my wife wanted to cheat but had been resisting for my sake, than that she had actually cheated.