Boundaries

Too often I've been hearing stories of betrayal involving people with no respect for the institution of marriage and long term relationships. People who feed on the vulnerability of someone who is unhappy  and unable to successfully communicate with their partner, so they turn to someone else. I've discussed the topic of cheating before but the focus was on the cheater not the other "offender."

I wonder about the loose morals of these people. They seem to have their own set of rules. To me, they seem simply selfish. They disrespect the relationship that someone is already having. They think that they have some sort of magical ability to do it better. They don't realize that they if they really like someone who is already involved that they should back off, letting that person deal with what's wrong in the first relationship before moving on to another.

I can hear it now...... "If the relationship is so strong, why would someone stray?" "Take care of your partner and they won't look for someone else." These are comments made by the people who cheat, an attempt to justify what they know is wrong in order to make themselves feel better. There are a lot of wonderful terms for these people, none of which I will repeat here because I know that my audience has a very creative vocabulary.

It's not about "saving" someone who is unhappy, about being "who/what makes them happy," it is all about boundaries. It's about respecting that there are two people in a relationship and you are not one of them.