Its in the media all the time that some woman broke up a man's relationship. She is labeled a "Homewrecker" while he generally is let off the hook because he "is a man who couldn't help himself". I don't and will not understand why the woman is the only one that gets blamed.
Yes the woman is a little to blame because she did partake in the events that occurred, but does the Wife/Partner not see that the man made the choice to cheat. He was the married/committed and chose to step outside of that and be with someone else.
Women blaming women is not what we should be doing. I understand that hurt and anger come when you are cheated on, but we must remember that it is not our fault nor is it really the other persons fault. It is the man who chose to cheats fault. He should be the one who gets the label of homewrecker!
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I think that, if the person is aware that the other person they're sleeping with is in a relationship, they are equally to blame. They're both homewrecker, IMO.
Completely disagree.
First of all, I hate the term homewrecker. It somewhat implies that just because of this act a relationship was destroyed when more often than not cheating is a sign that the relationship wasn't doing so hot in the first place. Also, it's only associated with women, not men. No one calls men homewreckers, just women.
Second, the person not in the relationship is not the one that is supposed to be safeguarding said relationship. Why would they? They're the single one. The person in the relationship should take most of the blame for cheating. They are the one that made a committment, not the other person. I'm not saying the other person involved shouldn't take a bit of the blame. But it's ridiculous that they share the same amount as the person in the relationship.
And the OP is right. In the media, no what what, it's always presented as the other woman's fault. It's drives me insane.
I'm sorry, I just can't condone a person sleeping with a person that they know is in a relationship. That's just beyond low, and they should take a huge chunk of the blame.
There are the few occasions where the 3rd party doesnt know that they are sleeping with someone in a relationship.
I dont condone cheating at all, but its not fair for only the woman to be blamed. I totally agree that both are guilty, but place the blame equally.
Yeah, if they actually know the person is married, its super sketchy.
This. I can't count how many times I've seen accounts of women who date married guys who claimed they'll leave their wife for her (but seldom actually do). And since most of those were forensics shows, it seldom ended well.
Strangely, women fall for "I'll leave my wife for you" a lot more than the other way round, since I've only seen a couple accounts of that. Not really sure why...
While I have some really progressive minded friends, we use homewrecker as a term for anyone who interferes with a pre-existing relationship. There's no gender when we use it. Is that the universal? I have absolutely no idea, to be honest with you. I can't combat the full generalization, but I can say it's not a completely true statement as I know that, at the very least, they use the term for anyone who any of the friends they're with.
I still think both parties are to blame fairly equally. The one in the relationship because, if there's that much wrong, then there needs to be serious talks and possible splitting up. The one not in the relationship because it's majorly disrespectful to the other person in the monogamous relationship you're ruining even farther. The important part to note is that a homewrecker can only be a demolition squad when s/he knows that the one they're boinking is definitely with someone else - if there's deception or lack of knowledge involved, then it throws things off kilter; the blame rests on the one in the relationship.
I would use the word homewrecker for anyone (male or female) who goes out of their way to interfere in an established relationship, but not necessarily anyone who dates a married person. For example, if a married man pursued a woman outside of his marriage, I wouldn't call her a homewrecker. But if she went out of her way to pursue him, then she would qualify.
That said, I still think its the responsibility of the married person to stay faithful to whatever the terms are of the marriage. Its bad for a third party to interfere, but the most important part of the blame goes to the person who cheated. The only time I would say the betrayal is closer to equal would be when a married person cheats with their spouse's best friend, or something like that-- in that case both people are betraying the other spouse. But if we're talking about a married person having an affair with someone their spouse doesn't know, then the married person is the one who has a responsibility not to cheat.
"First of all, I hate the term homewrecker. It somewhat implies that just because of this act a relationship was destroyed when more often than not cheating is a sign that the relationship wasn't doing so hot in the first place. Also, it's only associated with women, not men. No one calls men homewreckers, just women"
I have to disagree on this point - people DO call men homewreckers too. Maybe not as much but they do.
That is not the commonly-used form of the word, try as some may to make it out to be. It'd be like claiming the words "gold-digger," "slut," and "whore" are applied to men, as well as women. Someone somewhere may do that, but it is not the commonly-understood or commonly-intended meaning of the word.
As for blame, I don't have much use for a woman who'll screw over another woman by fucking a man whom she knows to be married. Still, I do not consider the proverbial "other woman" to be the party who is 95% to blame. That "honor" belongs to the man who stood up and made a promise of fidelity to his spouse. He is the one who made the vow. He is the one who broke it. He is the one who shoulders almost all of the blame.
Were I to cheat I would be the only person responsible for making that decision. It would be no one's fault, but my own. It's not up to someone else to prevent someone from cheating, it's just not their responsibility. At worst the other person involved is varying degrees of inconsiderate, depending on circumstance.
I think the other person is far from innocent, but I wouldn't say equal. It's not your relationship to worry about and you're not actually betraying anyone.
On the other hand, it's certainly not a good thing to do, and I wouldn't ever let the other woman off the hook.
This is part of a larger issue of in any cheating situation, no matter what the gender, people have a tendency to hate the "other partner" but be less angry at their significant other.
I had no idea that "homewrecker" was only applied to women.
I think the larger issue is demonizing women whenever a relationship goes bad. If a woman cheats, she's a whore. If a man cheats, his woman obviously wasn't giving him what he needed, and the woman he cheated with is a homewrecker.
Are you kidding? Your telling me that if a relationship ends badely. Men arn't demonized? I'm pretty sure both are held accountable for what they did.
I've heard both men called assholes for cheating, and women excused from the act due to them not being satisfied. It's amazing how you victimize yourself.
I don't see how I'm victimizing myself, as a woman who's never been in a relationship and has no intentions of being in one.
It's one thing being called an asshole. An asshole is someone who cuts you off on the freeway. An asshole is someone who spills iced tea on your laptop and won't buy you a new one unless they're dragged into Judge Judy's courtroom. That's an asshole. A misogynistic system allows words like "homewrecker" and "frigid" to be used against women when relationships go bad. No matter what a woman does in a relationship, if it goes bad, our society is going to fault her. Please don't compare deep-seated oppression to being called an asshole. It's not the same at all, and it's belittling.
The general usage is that the homewrecker is the person outside the marriage. The married person is one of those whose home is being wrecked. Silly distinction, considering that both are participating in the destructive act, but there it is.
The second part of the stereotype is that it is always a man who sleeps around outside his marriage, thus he is the cheater and his mistress is the homewrecker. Obviously the genders can be reversed, and routinely are. It would be consistent, if less than fully logical, to call the male interloper the homewrecker in that case.
As far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't let EITHER of them off the hook, and I don't consider that "woman-blaming." If another man came in and tried to seduce my wife, you had better believe I would blame both of them -- i.e., including HIM, even though SHE was the one cheating on the relationship and he wasn't.
I agree with llevinso. Cheating in general is wrong, but when a husband cheats on his wife, he's the one who betrays his wife, not the other woman. The only situation where both the husband and the other woman are equally to blame is when the other woman is the wife's or husband's friend or the wife's relative.
And the same goes when the wife cheats on the husband. I just thought I'd throw that in there so nobody asks "What?!! You don't think women can cheat???"
...I was in a relationship with a guy who was married. I didn't know he had a wife! She was in another state (with their child) and he was with me at college. He never mentioned her, never had a picture up, never took a phone call from him in front of me. As bad as I felt - it's not MY fault, I'M not the married one HE is.
I totally blame the person in the relationship. If you want to go the marriage route, then you are basically swearing to NOT have a relationship with another person forever. Or until you divorce your spouse. If you go out to a bar and pick up some one else, it's not the 3rd party's fault YOU were out looking to get some...
Certainly, if you were deceived that he was single and available (and simply failing to mention something so important is lying), he shoulders all the blame.
In cases where the outsider knows about the marriage and continues the affair, they share the blame.
They both have responsibility. Simple as that. No, we shouldn't simply blame women, but I am personally sick of women who will do that to other women.
I haven't been cheated on, but several of my friends have been "the other woman" and I've lost a lot of respect for them. They seem to think that since they aren't the ones in relationships that they have no responsibility for the hurt caused. That isn't fair. That isn't fair, they participated knowingly.
I think everyone has to have a lot more respect for everyone else.
I definitely think that the person in the relationship is the one who should take most of the responsibility for the betrayal. But, I think the reason that people tend to blame the "other woman" isn't just about demonizing women. I think that it's just easier to be angry at a person you don't know than to accept the fact that someone you love and trust has betrayed that trust. That involves admitting that they might not really care about you and that's a lot harder to do than convincing yourself that some vicious stranger is to blame.
If my husband did this to me, he would be 100% responsible. The way I see it is, HE made the promise to be faithful. HE needs to walk away from temptation and be mature enough to resist. If he can't, I'd prefer he divorce me.
I don't care if he's in another state, in a lush hotel, and the most gorgeous woman is naked on his bed, legs spread, inviting him to make love to her. She can throw herself at him all she wants; the responsibility is his. It would be the same if it were me in his shoes. It would be so weak for me to blame the other guy for making himself available and paint myself as hapless victim to his whim. I mean, come on.
There are tons of little choices you make, willingly, before the act of cheating happens. You choose to talk to this attractive person, to spend time with them. You choose to indulge in flirting, touching, etc. You choose to make yourselves alone together. You choose to maybe drink too much...
You get the idea. There are a bunch of places he could've stopped and backed away. Cheating never "just happens".
Marriage lasts a long time, and realistically, there WILL be temptations. I can't blame every attractive guy who comes along for my own descisions. I'M the married one, not him.
Just a little media example to show that I think there is some truth in the 'demonizing women' argument...
David Beckham, a very famous British footballer, allegedly cheated on his wife Victoria Beckham with his personal assistant, Rebecca Loos. The British tabloids unanimously turned on Victoria, blaming the fact she did not move from Britain to Spain for her husband's career and therefore his 'loneliness' caused him to cheat. Rebecca Loos was portrayed as a loose floozy and inundated with offers to pose nude and give sleazy detailed interviews, which I'm sorry to say, she did. Judgement of David Beckham himself was conspicuously absent from the whole story - it focused entirely on the 'flaws' of the cheated-on wife, and the 'sexiness' of the 'other woman'. It was really depressing to see.
I'm not saying this is always the case, but the fact that in the 21st century, such a story can be spun out without the finger of blame ever pointing at the cheating male, does say a lot to me.
Also, the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie/Jennifer Aniston triangle. Aniston was accused of causing Pitt to stray by, allegedly, not being loving enough and being unwilling to give Pitt children when he obviously wanted them. Jolie was called an awful whore of a homewrecker who seduced Pitt away from his wife and so on (and on and on and on). If you read any gossip site where Jolie is featured, "homewrecker" STILL inevitably comes up in the reader comments. Interestingly enough, Pitt is never tarred with "cheating asshole!" every time he shows his face.
Everyone is assuming that all marriages are monogamous and that everyone holds the same traditional idea of monogamy. They are equally at fault ONLY IF they hold they same values/rules for relationships.
If a woman is in a committed monogamous relationship and cheats on her SO with someone who is polyamorous, the polyamorous other should not be held accountable. However, if a woman is in a monogamous relationship and cheats on her SO with one who also places the same value on monogamy, then they are equally at fault. (Just for fun... if a woman is in a polyamorous relationship and has sex with some one outside of their marriage, then that's not cheating... depending on the rules of their relationship).
A polyamorous person should understand that not everyone is polyamorous, and they should respect the rules of other peoples' relationships.
The person doing the cheating is certainly more to blame. I just don't think the poly person should get off scott free just because she herself isn't monogamous.
Sounds to me like you are reading that into the comments. If it's an agreed-upon open relationship, then neither person is cheating, are they? Hence, this discussion doesn't apply to them.
I don't get the argument about "the one outside the marriage never made the promise not to cheat." I never made a promise not to steal your car either, regardless of whether I have any sort of relationship to you, but I'm still a bad person if I steal it. Are there no objective standards of appropriate behavior?
Would these interlopers appreciate another person horning in on their marriages, should they eventually get married? Does the Golden Rule not apply here? (Brief digression: a better version of the Golden Rule is the Platinum Rule: "Treat others as they wish to be treated." Even if you yourself would not mind being treated the way you are treating others, that doesn't mean they won't mind your treatment of them.)
Of course they share the blame.
I believe it depends on the details of the situation. First of all, in many cases, the cheater (because it can be either gender) is dishonest about being in a relationship. Second, even if the cheater admits to having a relationship, they normally lie about the nature of the relationship - for instance "I'm in an open relationship" "We're swingers/polyamorous" "We broke up but we're still living together" "We're in the middle of a divorce."
Third, a lot of times it is the cheater who goes out and seduces the other person making them more of an active party.
Fourth, I do think that there is more blame to be placed on the person who is breaking their own word, than on the person who has not made any such vow (now it would be different if the other person said "I'd never hook up with someone in a relationship." Then they would be just as much of a liar and a cheater on their own moral code).
Now, it's much different when there are people out there who prey upon married people, seek to seduce them, while knowing the whole time that they are with someone. In this case I put them on an equal level with the cheater, if not a little worse depending on how manipulative their seduction was.
They'd only be worse if it seemed like the coupled person was trying to be faithful to their partner and trying to tell the initiator to stop making it so difficult for them, and the initiator kept pursuing them anyway.
But in terms of gender. I agree that it is usually the woman who society blames no matter what the circumstance. If the cheater is a man - it is the other woman who is blamed, but when the cheater is a woman, then she is judged more harshly than a male cheater.
The whole situation is just weird to me because I think the logical thing to do is if you are in a relationship and want to be with someone else, you break up with the first person and then start dating the second person. At least call them from wherever you're at to leave a message or something that you want to break up.
And if you are planning on not breaking up with the first person, then you should tell the first person that you want to be with someone else *before* anything happens. That way at least you can work on the issues in therapy (if your partner is monogamous and you don't want to end the relationship.)
However, this is the part I really don't understand. These days it is much more acceptable for people to find other people who are polyamorous. So why pretend to be monogamous and be a cheater and a liar? Why not just be honest about it, with someone who will not be hurt and devastated about you being with someone else. You can have your cake and eat it too, so why pretend you don't want to when you really do? Many people are truly monogamous. Other people are not wired that way and they should just accept it and not make false commitments (or if they want to change they can try to work it out in therapy if they choose that.) But the most important thing is being honest and up front in every sexual relationship.