I feel the same as geek.

My wife handed me a business card once; a guy who had a beautiful house on the coast at Malibu. He told her to call him if she was interested in coming down to the house for a friendly visit. My wife showed it to me because she knew what the card implied. He was a regular where she worked and she knew he had a fondness for her.

I told my wife she should take him up on it. A woman can move up faster if and when their conscience doesn't get in the way. Now, Ms G would never tell her husband that she visited a good old friend and his wife in California. She just tells him she's going on business. What he doesn't know.....

When she and I were at the beach alone one day (my wife has 100% trust in me) I gave Ms G a hug and told her how great it was that she came to visit.. When we were at a secluded beach Ms G commented that I could have anything I wished for. A difference between women-- one said it was okay if I was to hug an old friend; the other saw the hug as an open door. I know the difference between expressions of friendship and cheating. Good thing I talked over the differences with my wife before spending the day with Mr G. Cheating means different things to different people; it's best to discuss these aspects to a relationship BEFORE testing your limits independently and secretively. People develop bad habits from asking for validation from peers when they should be looking within for answers.

Life is very complex and a person has to make snap decisions-- decisions that can enhance or impair a person's conscience for the rest of their life.

I don't want to! I don't really like him. If what you say is true then it makes me feel sad about the world.

geek and gelf: noooooooooo definitely not I really won't, really really really, he is like my boy twin! but I am worried that's what he will think, I suspect I might feel the same in his position.

kesh is probably right. If he had done that I would have felt better, but then, I probably shouldn't be allowed to feel better, because I am a massive ***** who doesn't deserve someone as nice as him. I am feeling very penitent; I spent today ordering his birthday present for next month and doing designs for his card.

Thanks Black Mambo for your thoughtful post. You are a good agony aunt.

The world is a *****. You're better and smarter-- a person's happiness is the measure of one's overall intelligence. Cheating is a function of the values you live by, and the people you hang with. Geek is a recluse and a nun, so to her kissing is a carnal sin.

The problem Ms G has is the league she hangs with; they're used to screwing the working class, and feel it is their right of passage in a free world. Her Catholicism has created guilt but she is very clever never to admit to herself that she has actually lied by omission or half-truths, and this doesn't seem to have impaired her ability to feel entitled. She is not a 'massive ***** who does not deserve a nice man', she is simply an unaware product of her environment. I was saved from the delusions and denial of that league by sticking with the old delusions and denials that were passed to me over the ages by people who thought freedom meant self-responsibility and moral purpose. I'm society's *****.

i kind've feel like that's not cheating either?

i mean, if the person i was dating did it, yeah, it'd be cheating. but if i did, i don't think it'd be cheating?

because by those standards, i've cheated on every single relationship i've ever had.