SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I believe I’ve seen this question (or something similar here before) and I’m always intrigued by what people think.

My personal opinion — I don’t believe infidelities are equal. They all hurt and they all break trust, but the impact and the meaning behind them can be completely different depending on the situation.

Some A’s are short, impulsive lapses during a personal crisis. Others involve years of lying, emotional attachment, secrecy and severe gaslighting.

A few things that make a huge difference:

Duration — a one-night stand is not the same as a LTA or full blown double-life.

Depth of deception — hiding something is one thing; gaslighting, blame-shifting, or involving other people is another.

Emotional involvement — some A’s are purely physical; others involve deep attachment, maybe future-planning.

Risk-taking — unprotected sex, bringing the affair partner into shared spaces, financial spending, etc.

Their behavior during the A — some become cold, cruel, or distant, while others hide in shame.

Patterns — was this a one-time crisis, or have they cheated before.

I do think the biggest factor is who they become after discovery. That usually tells you more about the viability of reconciliation than the A itself. Are they taking responsibility and accountability, being transparent, doing the work, and showing empathy? Or are they defensive, minimizing, or hoping time alone will fix things?

Everyone’s threshold for pain, trauma, forgiveness, and rebuilding is different. Some people can work through even a LTA if the betrayer becomes accountable and truly changes. Others can’t move past even a "smaller" betrayal because it clashes with their values, boundaries and nervous system.

So no — infidelity isn’t equal. The betrayal might be universal, but how it affects you, what it reveals about the relationship, and what path you take afterward is deeply individual.

I think Ink Hulk has a valuable insight that people don’t come to an infidelity forum if we are "ok" with whatever our partner is doing.

That said

"But if that was the case I don’t know why an affair upset me as much as it did as my WH has always been a liar and he really was very low in emotional intelligence."

I am really sorry this poster went through this…

For me it was the fact that FWH was a serial liar and cheater who hit the jackpot of willing cheater partners on the internet. I should have ended things the first time I caught him in a lie. It told me all I needed to know about him.

So maybe it’s that all cheaters are not "equal" and that is the driver for their actions.

IIRC, the very first thread I started here was about whether or not I should feel lucky that my wife only had a ONS. I'd already read from other betrayed spouses about LTAs, multiple affairs, and other nightmares that were far worse than what I was dealing with. There is certainly some truth to this. However...

No matter what the circumstances, I can say with relative certainly that the betrayal of infidelity hits everyone harder than anything they've ever experienced before. It's all of the charts. In that respect, all infidelity equally sucks ass.

Duration — a one-night stand is not the same as a LTA or full blown double-life.

I will agree with this only with certain conditions. A ONS that happened after a night of drinking resulting in intoxication where the person was not in full control of their mind and/or decision making could be the one exception. It cannot be "I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing" type of excuse that happens more than once.

A ONS to me is as big a red flag as an "affair". The propensity to have it happen more than once is increased IMO because it is justified by the cheater as "it doesn’t mean anything". Because it doesn’t.

I get where you’re coming from for sure and I’ll try to elaborate a bit more of what I meant by that initial comment.

I think a lot of a ONS depends on context, self-reflection, and whether it was an actual one-off or part of a bigger pattern.

For me, a ONS doesn’t automatically get a free pass just because alcohol was involved. Being drunk can explain impaired judgment, but it doesn’t erase the choice that led them into that situation in the first place. And you’re right: the whole "I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing" line loses credibility if it’s something that happens repeatedly. Once is a mistake; more than once is a pattern.

I don’t think every *true* ONS is equal to an ongoing A, but I do think both are serious breaches. A ONS can still be a huge red flag, especially if it’s minimized as "it didn’t mean anything." That attitude is dangerous because it lowers the internal barrier to repeat behaviour.

I do believe if it’s a one-time, deeply remorseful ONS under intoxication that it *might* be the rare exception, although it still causes a significant breach of trust and damage to the foundation of the relationship.

It’s definitely not automatically less harmful or less concerning than an A. The potential for repeat behaviour depends entirely on how seriously the person takes the fallout, the accountability they show, and what they do afterward to understand why they made that choice.

Heartbrokenwife23, your posts exactly align with my thinking. If you read my post on page 1 it's kind of like a rough outline for what you detailed so well in your posts.

Painful events vary by the perception of the BS. What one person ruminates on for years or drives them to D, another BS gets over the same thing much easier. Take a ONS. I agree if it is drunken it somehow feels more manageable, more recoverable. But if someone says that means D, I get that too. One man here described his WW's ONS and was trying for R. But two details just stood out to me, his WW and her AP had been drinking that night but he spent the night in bed with her in the hotel and they had sex again in the morning. Maybe this is crazy but for me that changes it somehow and makes it hugely more painful. And harder to recover from and to R. The BS obviously was in pain but those details did not seem to stand out in his posts so, if I remember right, I kept quiet about them.

A few other variables to add to your thorough post:

talking badly about the BS to the AP, making comparisons that favor AP. A killer for me.

Denying the BS sex or sex acts when the AP gets the full diner menu. Often discussed at SI.

Deliberately putting the A ahead of an urgent or important event. One BS here was hospitalized and his WW stayed with her AP for the weekend instead of coming to see him in the hospital. He told her she could stay at her 'conference' but she was actually with her AP. She also replaced him at entertainment events they both enjoyed to go with the AP.

Pregnancy in the A. Either an A baby or just having an A while pregnant.

Double betrayals. My experience was "easy" regarding most of these variables but it was a double betrayal and that still hurts decades later.

The list is endless.

I posted a similar concept a while back, but the response was... sensitive. The core idea was simple: If your partner's specific infidelity was not your ultimate deal breaker, what details or circumstances would have been?

The premise is that, implicitly, we accept that not all affairs are equal. Certain details—the duration, the person involved, the financial risk, the location—create a personal scale of betrayal that is worse, or simply different, for each individual. We all have a personal "hierarchy of harm."

The awkward reaction to my previous post led me to a potentially uncomfortable conclusion, which is what I really want to explore:

Some of those commenters, particularly those who chose to reconcile, seemed resistant to the question. My opinion on why this was the case is that they themselves recognize they may not have true, absolute deal breakers. They might say they do, but the very fact they pursued reconciliation often stands as living proof that the act of infidelity itself, no matter how detailed, did not meet that threshold for ending the relationship.

This is not a criticism, but an observation of the Reconciliation Paradox.

For what it's worth, whilst I think the vast majority of cases of infidelity would lead me to want to divorce, I clearly accept there are levels to hell. I think Trdd nailed the most of them.

I think the only level of infidelity I personally believe I could move past would be sexting with an online stranger they never met. The reasons for this is that an argument could be made that it's merely a form of porn, which although I would disagree with and would ask that it ended immediately, seems a valid distinction from a physical betrayal.

I think there are likely levels and how tolerable one bs is to that level can vary as well.

My personal feeling for me is this: I am glad we reconciled but will not go through it again. So serial cheating would be where I will draw the line. I know people say it but I have had two back to back reconciliations that intensely impacted my life for 6-7 years. Nothing is worth it to me to spend more time doing more of it. If it is my husband, I do not think I could trust the changes we made or the depth I believe our marriage has come to ever again. If it’s not my husband then there isn’t the history or the family to preserve.

I am simply at an age and a state of mind that I don’t need a relationship to be happy. The one I am in I cherish, and where we are is hard earned, but another infidelity would be proof to me that what we built individually and together was nothing but delusion and I don’t believe I could ever be convinced otherwise.

Luckily, I also believe we will not have to face that set of challenges again and I don’t worry about it.

So my answer is serial cheating would be the line.

Trdd

I agree with you — "the list is endless." Truly!

DRSOOLERS

I just wanted to take a moment to reply to your comment specifically.

For a lot of people who reconcile, the idea of a "deal breaker" stops being theoretical once infidelity actually happens. Before dday, most of us would have sworn up and down that any A would be the line. Then the bomb drops, the reality is messier, and it’s not about hypotheticals — it’s about kids, finances, trauma, history, sunk costs, hope, fear, and/or survival.

So when you ask people to outline "what level of betrayal would’ve ended it," you’re asking them to confront something many still feel conflicted or ashamed about — that their actual deal breaker turned out to be different from their imagined one. Not because the A wasn’t horrific, but because human beings make decisions through emotion and circumstance, not just ideology.

I don’t think it necessarily means they don’t have deal breakers. It might mean that infidelity itself wasn’t the only factor. For some, the details are less important than what came after — remorse, accountability, safety, or lack thereof. Some people would leave over a ONS, but stay for a LTA if the repair work is profound; others are the complete opposite. Everyone’s hierarchy of harm is shaped by different wounds, boundaries and values.

I agree that there are levels to betrayal. Most of us have a spectrum, even if we don’t say it out loud. What you described — sexting with a stranger, could be the category some people feel they could recover from because it stays in the realm of fantasy. For someone else, that would be the ultimate deal breaker.

In essence, the paradox isn’t that reconcilers don’t have deal breakers. The paradox is that no one actually knows their real deal breaker until the moment it hits and sometimes the answer surprises even them — it did for me.

At the risk of repeating myself to DRSOOLERS....

I can tell you what I *think* would have been beyond reconciliation, but I can't be sure because if you asked be before, I would have said the A she did have would have been beyond reconciliation.

We don't know our real pain tolerance until we are in pain.

I can tell you 100 ways she could have made it worse, but I can't know with certainty how much it would have taken to make me not consider R.

Ultimate dealbreaker?

If my H ever betrays me again. And it does not have to be an affair.

Heartbrokenwife23

Thank you for your response, I found it very insightful and I largely agree with what you've said. It certainly clarifies the reaction my post got.

My only slight caveat would be:

because human beings make decisions through emotion and circumstance, not just ideology

Many people do make decisions from principled stances and principled stances alone. So many examples could be outlined here but for simplicity just look at certain religious sects that don't accept abortion even under the circumstances of incestuous sexual assault. I certainly don't agree with that stance but it's an example of people standing true to their ideology irrespective of emotions or context.

Similarly, I would suppose their is a percent of BS who irrespective of context would end their relationships due to infidelity from principles alone. We of course can not know the percentage but we've all come across that stance now and again in JFO.

This0is0Fine

I understand precisely what you are saying. I personally would feel uncomfortable with that level of internal uncertainty. Rather than waiting for an event to punch me in the face, I would deeply consider a scenario, perhaps meditate on it and decide how it is I would wish to act should it arise.

Many people have called out the idea of hypothetical but I suppose this is why I personally (and hopefully others do to) find them so useful. I would rather build my stance in accordance with my beliefs or principles, so if the worst was to happen I'd feel better equipped to deal with it.

Though I am aware of the old Tyson quote: Everyone has a plan till they are punched in the face.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 7:11 AM, Thursday, November 20th]

I wonder if those BS whose WS betrayed only emotionally (and the BS is certain of that) have the mind movies, or the sexual insecurities, to deal with.

When considering deal breakers, I think we need to consider forgiveness and love. Virtue balances vice in the world (I hope, at least). I deeply admire those that can offer grace to their WS after terrible betrayals. Some can access this virtue in amazing ways. The ideology of a red line deal breaker maybe loses or is postponed by the principle of forgiveness. I don't think it makes the struggle easy but it is a signpost for some that orients them toward R and allows them to consider D less actively, despite some factors that would have absolutely killed me. Amazing, really.

And yes, all the practical matters are very real in the equation, kids, age, length of relationship etc. The equation, for some, is complex like some crazy math theorem on the huge chalkboard. I like the idea of someone overcoming dealbreakers on principle more than practical but both are real and valid to me.

One other thought about asking someone what would their dealbreaker have been is that it may be useful for them to realize that it could have been even worse and that there is a limit to what they would accept. That may be a helpful exercise even if it is hypothetical. It may help to deal with any internal issues with "how can I live with myself if I stay?". There have been cases where a BS has defined some of this only to then be hit with trickle truth and realize the betrayal goes far deeper. Then there redline either moves again or they file. I think we've seen both here.

[This message edited by Trdd at 3:11 PM, Thursday, November 20th]

Formerpeopleperson, I am not absolutely certain that my ww was not physical with her AP, but I would I bet a lot of money that that is true. So, I may not exactly fit your criteria. With that caveat, I can tell you that I do have mind movies but they are rated R and have scenes where they are on one of their lunch dates and she is flirting with him. I don’t have the sexual insecurities, at least I think I don’t. But as Unhinged posted about DNA in another thread, mine took a hit when I saw her words, "I always thought that I had avoided a great mistake but now I see that I made one."

I have read hundreds of posts on this site and know that a person never knows what their red line will be until they experience their own betrayal. With that said, on Dday I knew that if she had sex with him that I would never recover and would have to divorce her. The way I saw it, if I could not enjoy sex with her then why be married? If she gave herself to him, that would have tainted our intimacy beyond repair. Or so I think.

I think there are definitely degrees of betrayal but it really doesn’t matter as far as the pain is concerned. I have served in war zones and lost comrades. I was in a burn ICU for 15 days and told that if I lived that I’d be blind (fooled the docs, thanks to fabulous nurses I came out with good vision). I have investigated suicides and fatal airplane crashes. None of these traumas came close to what I felt post Dday. Her EA devastated me. Devastated is devastated, crushed is crushed, destroyed is destroyed. But if you add in sexual acts, double betrayals, children fathered by APs, multiple affairs, disparaging talk about BS to AP, etc, each addition is another mind f..k to get over, making R that much less likely to achieve or even attempt.

Some can access this virtue in amazing ways. The ideology of a red line deal breaker maybe loses or is postponed by the principle of forgiveness.

I couldn't agree more. This is entirely the foundation of my ethics. This is probably why I have a failure to understand certain positions. I see so little value in forgiveness, and I reject the premise that it is inherently a 'high virtue.'

I grant that forgiveness has societal utility when applied to accidents; it greases the wheels of daily interaction. However, there is a massive distinction between negligence and malice. I can forgive an error, but I will never understand the 'virtue' of forgiving a betrayal. When you forgive betrayal, you prioritize harmony over justice.

Perhaps my skepticism stems from a secular worldview, but I find the concept of 'turning the other cheek' ethically unsound. It removes the deterrent for bad behavior. Refusing to forgive is not about holding a grudge; it is about enforcing a standard of conduct. So yes, others may pursue forgiveness based on their principles, but my principles prioritize accountability and the preservation of self-respect

Notsogreat (and all),

My post was clumsy. I did not mean to imply that one is "better" or "worse", just different (so, perhaps, not "equal").

My WW’s cheating was pre-internet. I know they were having sex. I have no idea what they may have said to each other. Did they exchange "I love you"s? Did she denigrate me? Did they discuss a future?

I don’t know and I don’t want to know.

Dealbreakers? My pride wants to say "yes", but, probably not.

Sorry if I gave offense.

[This message edited by Formerpeopleperson at 4:32 PM, Thursday, November 20th]

DRSOOLERS

I hear what you’re saying — absolutely, there are people who operate from strict principle, no matter the circumstance. And yes, some BS fall into that category too.

But I think that’s the exception, not the norm.
For many, the situation shifts once infidelity stops being hypothetical and becomes their lived reality. Suddenly the decision is influenced not just by values, but by fear, trauma, practical concerns, obligations, and emotional history, etc. That complexity can make people hesitant to define absolute lines after the fact.

While I agree the principled "no matter what" group exists, however, many reconcilers aren’t resisting the question because they lack principles. They’re trying to come to terms with how different the real experience felt compared to the ideals they held before it happened.

I debated answering, but here goes anyway. It goes back a long way.

In 1976, husband and I were at a couple’s house with whom we had partied many times. I look over, and he’s kissing the wife. The husband then starts trying to kiss me. At the time, I freaked out, cried, and my husband took me home. (I figured he had planned this along with the couple, but that turned out not to be true.). I was 18 years old at the time, and made a horrible choice a few days after this. I decided in my mind that if my husband wanted me to sleep with someone else, I would, but it would be MY choice of who. And I had a ONS, immediately confessed.

About a week later, my husband had a ONS himself.

So affair #1 was revenge. It was definitely different from what followed. Since 1976, I have been 100% faithful. My husband, not at all.

Affair #2: We were moving states in 1977, and he went ahead to find a place to live. He slept with a woman, twice. He lied about it until 2024, on the last "DDay". I always "knew", but he would never admit it. I had swept it away, because he said nothing happened with her. I had no evidence except a gut feeling. It had bothered me, but they had no subsequent interactions, and it faded. When he finally confessed in 2024 I was angry about the lies, hurt by the deception, and by the decades of gaslighting. Still am angry about that, TBH.

--We separated for a few months in 1978, because he "didn’t love me".—

Affair #3: He had just returned home after the separation, but had dated this woman briefly right before coming home. He had two more encounters with her, I busted him. I was angry - so angry I stormed off in my van, and still so angry when I got home that I accidentally hit our mailbox with the van. I confronted her later. I can say it was mostly anger, not pain, with this one. And he hid number 4, which happened in the same timeframe.

Affair #4: I had no idea. ONS, but he was interested in another go, because he wrote a letter to her sister to try to get a message to her. This sister becomes affair partner 7, FTR. He confessed this on a DDAY in 2023, only because I found that letter.

—Fast forward to 2005.—

Affair #5: He had a months-long sexual affair with a friend/coworker. I accidentally discovered it. I was devastated, blamed myself, and suffered in pain for two years from it. About a month after that DDay, he was diagnosed with cancer, our lives were upside down, and I rugswept. But I was so much in grief that it affected my job, and my health. I had a terrible recovery time, because he had cancer, and the big thing at the time was "I didn’t meet his needs". So this entire thing was internalized as my own failing, I was unworthy, and basically sucked as a wife. I didn’t see the irony in the fact that I was taking care of him even after what he did. Ultimately time put it behind me.

And meanwhile he was hiding AFFAIR #6.

Affair #6: my friend of many years. They had sex in my bed. And they both never admitted it. He finally confessed in 2024 to having two sexual encounters with her. I am angry and hurt and in pain. And the lies.

And the last one, from 2019-2023:

Affair #7: This hurt more than any of the others. It was an emotional affair that lasted almost 4 years, long distance. This was with the sister of AP#4. My WH had always considered this woman the sexiest person on earth, and they had this emotional connection with music and a past. He told her he loved her, said negative things about me, and they were planning a physical get-together to consummate their love. But the emotional stuff exchanged BROKE ME.

This was a man I loved, who I thought loved me, and it was a lie. He loved someone else, and spoke it aloud to her.

The first 4 were sex, period. Number 5 was his being angry at me, and that hurt because he never said a word to me about anything, and now I know he fell out of love with me then. Number 6 was sex, that’s it. But number 7 killed me.

Yes, they were "different" from each other, in terms of his motivations and what passed for "rationale".

And different in how my soul was impacted.

[This message edited by 5Decades at 5:11 PM, Thursday, November 20th]

** Member to Member **

People choose their principles. It is usually a good practice to question why one chooses specific principles. Often, the 'why' is 'to protect myself,' and that should lead to further questions about whether that's really the best choice. Often the why is 'someone told me so, and I've never had to deal this question in real life.' That, too, is a principle to examine, if one is faced with putting that or a competing principle into practice.

*****

I've studied history for as long as I can remember. One thing I learned early on is that people betray each other, and their lives usually, but not always, went on. Betrayals occurred in the most surprising contexts, and some betrayals are celebrated or condemned almost universally by people who know about them - think Benedict Arnold or Nathan Hale or Mata Hari. Perhaps that knowledge caused me to adopt the principle, 'I'm not going to let betrayal ruin my life.'

That's pretty self-protective, of course, but it also fits in nicely with the stoics, The Ethics of our Fathers (Pirkei Avot), Fritz Perls, etc.

*****

Personally, I think we owe it to ourselves to maximize joy and minimize pain - another principle. I thought R was the choice that gave me the best possible probability of finding joy after d-day, and I certainly didn't see how my attempt at R could hurt the Universe or any individual in the Universe. I have no idea what another path would have provided. I know my plan in case R failed was not very satisfying for the long term, but then yet another principle of mine is that my pnly choice is to make the best decision I can, given the state of my knowledge and personality, and hope for the best.

My adult life has unfolded in ways that no one could have predicted when I entered college. Many of my experiences made me question the principles I grew up with, and I'm grateful for that. Perhaps I would have changed those principles without the experiences, but perhaps not. There's a lot of inertia in a principle.

*****

BTW, IMO joy does not necessarily come from hedonistic living. For example, IMO, staying with my W and infant son and accepting the burden of being a father gave me much more pleasure than leaving and looking for other sexual partners would have been. Another example: I expected to marry at 30; instead, I committed to my W at 21. And despite the massive improvements in biking technology, I'm happy to be riding my 1973 English bike. All are emotional, not logical decisions, except by emotional logic. That brings me to discover yet another of my principles: logic almost always supports the solution the person using the logic wants the solution to be.

Logic can tell us what has happened in a closed environment. Logic can even tell us what will happen if one applies a certain stimulus in a partially closed environment. Even then, we're talking about probabilities. Statistics seem to show that not punting on 4th down, especially with short yardage needed for a 1st down or touchdown, is a more successful strategy than kicking - but there's always a possibility of going 0-5, as a team did last Sunday.

All logic can do is tell us the likelihood of a set of outcomes - if we have access to the requisite data about those outcomes.

But I believe the requisite knowledge doesn't and won't provide certainty. Probabilities deal with large numbers. But each example is 100% one way and 0% in all the others. Logic tells us that we simply can't predict the outcome of a specific event. Sometimes David beats Goliath. Sometimes underdogs win. logic can not tell us which option is the best choice for one's specific situation.

And we definitely lack knowledge about infidelity and its outcomes, which means we don't know much about the real probabilities.

IOW, it's beyond arrogant to think we know what is likely to be best for anyone other than oneself - and most of us need time to get a decent fix on that.

*****

DRS, You've claimed you have no doubt that you'd cut off a betraying partner. My memory of your story is that your GF left (even though you were the one who brought up splitting); she did not give you an opportunity to R.

Given the large number of BSes who have posted here that they never thought they'd consider R if they were betrayed, I just don't understand your certainty.

*****

I hope I've described my principles and the facts on the ground led me to choose R. With different facts, the same principles might have led to a different decision, but I can't say for sure, because I know only the facts as they were.

There are no what-ifs in life. If one wants to heal from being betrayed, one needs to deal with the facts that are specific to them.