To cheat is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. Cheating in a relationship, however, has posed to be a difficult term to define because it differs from one relationship to another plus it’s an emotional situation than a logical one.
While infidelity may mean being unfaithful or having an extra affair to one individual, it is the violation of expectations and betrayal of exclusive emotional and sexual contract to another person. To an entirely different person, cheating to them could even be the exchange of personal mails or texts between their partner and someone else.
People generally assume that when a partner cheats in a committed relationship, the relationship or the person who cheats has a problem! Now, a trending post on social media asserts that ‘Only married couples have the right to complain of cheating’ meaning that when a man or a woman is not yet married to their partner, an extra relationship or commitment cannot be termed ‘Cheating’! In other words, only married couples can cheat!
This postulation was the #HotTopic on #YourViewTVC and diverse opinions flew! One half of the table fully supported the assertion and the other half blatantly disgareed.
Tope Mark-Odigie began the conversation by disagreeing with the notion that only married couples can cheat. In her own view, relationships exist in different phases and the dating phase is like a ‘trial before the marriage’, hence there should be no cheating.
“Once there is a serious commitment to stay together and an affirmation to get married, there should be no other relationship until the wedding day and even after!”
“If a man can cheat when you are dating, he WILL cheat when you are married.”
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Nyma Akashat emphatically contradicted this stance. ‘Cheating’ to her, is when someone breaches their marital vows, the keyword being marriage. Veronica asked her: ‘What about a breach in agreement to marry?’
and Nyma responded: “That one is not cheating! If he has not married me, I’ll just move on to the next person that wants to marry me.”
Mariam Longe appeared to stand with Nyma on this one.
She stated: ‘you are either single or married. What’s more? It is good to date a few people when you are single in order to have an idea of relationships and gather experience.
AdvertisementUse it as an opportunity to get to know people and discover the person you want to end up with. Any other thing you now do while dating such as sexual activities, is on you.’
“Hence, I agree that only married people have the right to complain when cheating happens because you have made a vow to be faithful to them.”
Yeni Kuti wouldn’t have any of this so she posed a question to Nyma and Mariam.
‘If your husband cheated on you while you were still dating him, is it cheating and would you have gone ahead to marry him?’
Nyma maintained her stance: “It’s not cheating because he is not committed to me yet!’
Mariam returned the question: ‘what if I was the one that had other relationships that my husband knew about, would he have said he wouldn’t marry me?’ Well, Yeni quickly retorted: ‘Yes!”
Nyma’s point was that her husband owes her answers only when they have exchanged marital vows. All those other relationship commitments that are being talked about are such that can be broken or dissolved anytime because there is nothing binding the couple, it’s just still very sentimental.
She shared her experience on how her partner of 2 years was dating another lady and she didn’t bother herself with it.
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