What Is Considered Cheating

I imagine after twenty five years of marriage he knows you pretty well.
Sounds like he didn't tell you because he knew how you would react, like a jealous teenager.

Maybe you still wouldn't know because he knew you would over react. Which it seems you are doing. Several exchanged calls suggests arranging the meeting. Were his brother and nephew there or not? My husband meets up with old friends, male and female, and comes home to me. This doesn't say "cheating" to me, as you've described it.

I agree with Marda. He must have known you'd overreact to his having dinner with an old friend and thought it would be best not to tell you. This seems reasonable. If I were him, I would not have told you either.

Going out to dinner with a friend (female or male) and communicating with them via the phone is not cheating.

ETA: Next time I'll read all of the answers first. I didn't say anything new in mine.

He didn't cheat on you.

Lied? Maybe.
Intentionally left out information that would upset you? Yes.

My guess is that he knew you would freak out if you knew that he had dinner with a female friend (not alone) and chose not to tell you about it. Obviously it wasn't a secret or he wouldn't have taken two other people with him and his sister wouldn't have known about it.

You're willing to divorce him over this? Yikes. I'm guessing that's why he didn't tell you... seems like you are overreacting. You weren't played for a fool, but he certainly has learned to keep things from you that might result in you acting the fool.

Man, you can hold a grudge. No wonder your husband did not tell you about it, sounds like he's learned a lesson or two from you in the past about not disclosing all.

I suggest he wouldn't have told you because he wanted to avoid the very reaction you're having now. It's been a year and he's not maintained contact with her and you've seen no more signs that he's keeping another woman apart from you. It's time for you to let this go.

I suggest that this incident is your problem that you've turned into a problem in your marriage. I urge you to go to counseling to find out why you're hanging on to your anger. It may be that this is just the thing that you're focused on when there are other reasons hiding beneath this one incident. If so, find out what you're really upset about. Then go to couple's counseling to work those issues out.

You can do much of this work without your husband being involved. You're focusing on this one incident. Work on finding out why you're still angry after a year.

Know that you are in control of how you feel. You've chosen to be angry. You can focus on getting rid of the anger and find ways to do so. I suggest that if you'd stop telling yourself over and over that your husband cheated on you you will find some relief. When those thoughts come up tell yourself that you felt hurt and it may not have been what you thought it meant. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Focus on finding ways to love him now. Stop yourself every time you bring up the past and tell yourself, today is today. Let the past go.

However, I strongly suspect there is more to why you feel so angry. Find out what is wrong with your relationship with your husband. If he won't go to counseling, you go and find out what you've buried and aren't addressing.

Is there anything else? I mean, they've had no contact for a year, and when they met up, it was in the company of family, right?

Doesn't sound to me like a guy on the prowl. Just my take on it. If you feel he's playing you for a fool, then find out why. Talk to a counselor yourself or go to couples counseling. That would be the sane thing to do before just walking out on a relationship.

Either you trust him or you don't.... or you are already wanting to leave and looking for an excuse so you don't have to be responsible for being the one who has fallen out of love. I don't know, I'm not you. I do know that I wouldn't stay with someone I didn't trust 100%, and I wouldn't leave unless I knew for sure I had done my 100% best to address my own issues I brought to the relationship.

Why are you upset about a dinner with an old friend, his brother and nephew? It was a group meal. If it was a few calls, they were probably to arrange things. A YEAR later?

Other than this, which seems like a non-issue from the details you have given, has he given you reasons to think he is cheating? If you have actual reasons to doubt his fidelity, that's one thing, but this event doesn't look like anything other than dinner out with a friend and family.

And if you are obsessing about this a year later, you may need to take a step back and figure out why you are doing this to yourself. Do you trust him? That is the key. If he is not giving you any reason to doubt him, other than this, you need to get to the root of why you go there in your head.

If my s/o assumed I was having an affair because I had dinner with a friend without notifying him, or talked to a friend without telling him about every call, I would be furious.
I have lots of male friends, my ex had lots of female friends. I didn't expect him to notify me and file a report every time he saw or spoke to one of them, nor was I expected to notify him every time I spent time with a male friend.

ETA: I would not recommend ANY book by Dr. Laura

He didn't cheat.
He saw an old friend and other family members were present.
In that sense he wasn't hiding anything.
But it would have been nice if he'd told you himself about it.
It was kind of a lie of omission thing.
It sounds like he'd have no problems with you going to dinner with an old friend with some family members - so go ahead!
You need to figure out why you're angry - especially a year after the fact.
If you're feeling insecure, then do what you need to do to feel more secure.
That might mean counseling or re-connecting with your husband so that you don't feel threatened by something like this.

Based only on what you've typed, I'm guessing that he is not cheating on you by any definition. I usually have a good radar for that kind of thing, and this isn't making a blip.

It is not abnormal to go out to dinner with a friend, and his brother and nephew being there highlights the innocent nature of it.

Either he didn't mention it because it is no big deal, or he knows you're prone to jealousy and overreacting and doesn't want to deal with your nonsense.

You've been slowly poisoning your marriage for a year by hanging on to this. You need a therapist, now, because your husband isn't the problem in the relationship. If you do divorce, the real reason will not be because he had lunch with a female friend.

Unless you've left out history that gives you a legit reason for behaving this way, I think you need to apologize. You might also want to talk to someone about how you can change your life perspective and behavior.

I don't like the posts that are saying 'no wonder he didn't tell you.... he must know you well enough to know you would react like this.... you are overreacting....'. These make you the bad guy, like you did something wrong. You have every right to feel upset about this, and you are entitled to your feelings. Don't ever apologize for that.

However, there needs to be some movement here. Perhaps he does feel like you overract to things and has just learned that it's easier to not tell you things. Totally possible, but not ok. This is still deceptive on his part and I wouldn't like it either.

I wouldn't even get hung up on the definition of cheating or not- the bottom line is he kept something important from you, and you are hurt by it and having a hard time moving forward.

I know that many men are fond of the saying 'it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission'. Lame and annoying, but this is what I hear. It sounds like your husband may have felt like this- at least at the time.

You need to find out why he kept it from you. If he says he knew you would freak, you need to let him know that this hurt you, but you'd like to get to the point where he doesn't feel the need to keep things from you because this is unacceptable to you. This may mean counseling to create healthier patterns between you two. But your communication certainly sounds like it needs to improve.

If he says he just didn't think about it and didn't figure it was a big enough deal to tell you about, I'd be more mad. While the other explanation is still wrong, it may at least make sense to you. This one sounds more made up and sketchy. Plus, he obviously told his sister and others, so why not you?

I guess what I'm saying is that you aren't to blame for him doing wrong, don't accept that from anyone. But, if he feels like he can't tell you things, you need to look at your contribution to that cycle and work on it together. But he owes you a big fat apology. Good luck to you, sorry you are going through this.

I think you had a right to be upset. At minimum he was insensitive to your feelings. Also, I do not like that he did not say anything compassionate to you when you found out. Once again, it seems insensitive to me. Something is up that there has been no resolution even though a year has passed. Maybe some outside intervention would help. This whole situation seems reflective of a bigger problem.

I don't think this sounds like cheating. However, lying is not okay. Lying is a cancer to a marriage. He lied, and that's a big problem. With that said, I have a suspicion he lied, because he knew you would freak out on him. I think you should get counseling, because what you are doing is incredibly unhealthy for you and your marriage. I don't actually think the problem is your husband, here.

Sounds like he knew you'd overreact, so it was a "sin of omission."
You need to make a conscious choice to let go of this.
You feel played. I get that. He knows you're not happy about, and ghats the point. But your overreaction is not going to make him be more truthful in the future, right? If you WANT transparency, you need to handle it maturely.
But do you really think his sister would know about it if he was trying to pull of something adulterous?

This happened more than a year ago and you are still fuming about it?? Maybe you should talk to a counselor about how to get past this and reestablish a trust with your husband. He may not have told you because you may over-react to a situation. Are there other issues in your marriage that keep bringing this up in your mind. Good luck. A year is way too long to be bothered by something like this that seems to have no depth.

I think you need to ask yourself what you would have done if he had told you that so and so had called, they had talked a few times and had set up to meet for lunch with his brother and nephew..................
How would you have reacted to the truth?
His actions of hiding information are NOT ok - but perhaps he felt that it was his only option????

I wouldn't call it cheating. BUT lying and withholding information is a no no. I feel like if you hide it, you know you're doing something wrong.

What he did was not cheating, just evasive, dishonest, secretive and cavalier with no remorse Not good. Sounds like he told others about it (so most likely not cheating, but how hurtful!) But it's not productive to hold a grudge when he doesn't care....you know what they say, being angry is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies....you don't want him dead but you do want him to "get" that he shouldn't make secret meetings with women he knows. There is a difference between an acceptable meeting with a female not worth mentioning-and a secretive one he intentionally hid for WHATEVER reason. He was wrong. Get some counseling though, because what can you do now if he hasn't done anything else but you can't get past it (not blaming you)? Get help.

Do you trust him? I mean really trust him?

Just from reading this I can tell he omitted mentioning anything, because you would have flipped out. It is better to trust him and let him know you trust him..

So that he will always be able to tell you what is going on..

Do you think after this gathering with the old friend and his family members, they slept together?

If yes, then ask him.. If not, then drop the freak out and instead speak very calmly like an adult and tell him what you are feeling and let him know if in the future he wants to do something like this, please tell you. Let him know you promise you will not get mad, will not pout .. and then do it..

I still think you need therapy and the 2 if you need marriage counseling.. You 2 need to learn how to communicate.

I wouldn't consider this cheating but it was deceitful. I think why you can't let it go is because he hasn't shown any remorse. How have things been in the past year? Has he given you reason to not trust him?

Honestly I don't think it would have been this epic situation if he would have told you upfront and had been open and honest. If you are still not open and honest with one another than maybe you ought to think about counseling to get back on the right path rather than throw away your marriage on (hopefully) one incident that has been magnified out of the proportion that it actually was.

There are two possible reasons you were not told. The first one the moms below already hit on, the other is he didn't feel it was a big enough deal to tell you. I mean really, who tells their spouse EVERYTHING. We leave things out everyday, not to be sneaky or because we're up to no good, it's just not relevant. It was likely just another meal to him. I imagine he didn't tell you about any of the other meals he took while he was away either.

My husband's done this, gone out, met up with friends and not mentioned it until much later. If something had happened during that meal that he thought I should know about he would have told me, but otherwise. Eh.

Cheating in my marriage is going against what we have agreed to. It's not playing by the rules (definition of cheating, right?). It includes lying and withholding information that I would consider important for me to know.

Based on who WE are, that would bother me a great deal, but I don't think that yours is a universal case of "cheating". It depends on your relationship.

Obviously, you're angry. Give him hell. Then, make up.

It wasn't cheating, but it is infedelity. If he knew it would upset you then he knew he shouldn't do it. After hiding it, I would doubt that he had his brother and nephew with them. Would they tell you the truth if you asked. I would let him know that you are hurt and that it has hurt your trust in him.
I would seek counciling and ask him to go too. If it is purely innocent and he had no "out of line" intentions, I would think that his concern for you would prompt him to go with you, especially after 25 years. If this is a problem that crops up or has happened in the past, I would go with my gut.
I know that your own insecurities can lead us to wrong conclusions, but after 25 years he knowingly and with premeditation did something he knew you would not be comfortable with. His lack of concern for your feelings is alarming to me.

I never thought to cheat on my husband when I talk to other men (I work in a male dominated field) and to old friends but I also know how jealous he is so I don't tell him about it either. Just because he doesn't tell you doesn't mean he's cheating.

He went out to lunch with a female friend and his brother and nephew. They exchanged several phone calls. Catching up on old times? Why not? My husband's ex girlfriend stopped by to chat with him and I was on my way out to work. I had nothing to be afraid of so I chatted a bit before taking off. I never had an inkling that he cheated on me all those years but it frustrated the heck out of me to have him constantly on me about who I was talking with (male or female) and basically telling me I should not need to have anyone else in my life. If I chatted with a guy, no, I would not tell my husband because there is nothing to tell. Why would I think for a moment I had something to confess? I did nothing wrong. So if your husband said he probably would not tell you then he probably didn't think anything of it and THAT is how he should think of it. That it was nothing, not even worth bringing up. On the other hand, if he knew how you'd take it the wrong way, he might've hid it from you on purpose. I dunno. I just know how I was. I didn't cheat but I hid it all the same because I KNEW the reaction I would get from my husband and eventually I hid myself from the world as well to escape any possibility of him saying I was cheating. Still didn't work.

Get counseling and work it out or just walk away. I wish I walked away a long time ago because all that I went through was complete bs. Don't put your husband through it either. Maybe your situation is different but this is my advice from my experience take it as it may or may not apply to you.

Would you have been this upset had it been a man?

Sounds like you have some issues with trust. So if it's been a year and he hasn't shown you in every way that he loves you and is trustworthy then you can't be married to him anymore. Get a divorce. He's done nothing wrong as far as I can see since he probably knew you'd have this sort of reaction and was seriously trying to just catch up with an old friend so I think you are just not capable of trusting him.

On the other hand if you come to realize that this is entirely your issue and decide to work through it then you might be able to save your marriage. BUT if he feels like he has to lie to you to avoid arguments and disagreements over simple dinner's with an old friend then I think it is much deeper.

I'm seeing your question late, R.. It has been a year and you're still torn up about this. Either this has taken on a life of its own in your head, or you don't trust your husband in a very general way.

If he took the woman out along with family members, then there is nothing for him to have really talked about with you. If he had hidden plans with her from you because he had thoughts of cheating, then he has already cheated in his heart. If he hid meeting her because he knew you'd be a shrew about it, then he's not cheating, but you could drive him to hiding things from you because of your lack of trust.

I would not read that book you've been recommended in the other post about the care and feeding of husbands. Just because some of it's good advice, it doesn't mean that women should have to put up with the kind of behavior Laura Schlessinger says is okay for men. In fact, she's full of you-know-what. Men and women need to take care of each other and we don't live in the 1950's anymore.

I do think that you are hurting yourself a lot by continuing to let this thing fester. Please go get some marital counseling by yourself until you can ask him to join you, but only after you've gotten past a lot of the feelings you have. Divorcing him isn't going to help you feel better. It's just going to hurt you more.

With all the loose women out there, your husband has lots to choose from. You have a choice of making your husband want to come home to you or fantasize about someone else. You can become the best wife your husband could ever dream of - the kind of wife that wouldn't even make him take a 2nd glance at another woman. It's your choice.

A good book on the subject is "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands." If you want the kind of marriage that your girlfriends will be envious of, do what the book says.

So, forget the past. Don't bring it up. Don't think about it. Just create a future that you, too, could only dream of.

I would feel the same way. Sounds like you need to go to marrage consinling. I would ask him myself why he thought that was ok and see what he says. Going to dinner with an old friend is ok and so is talking on the phone but if he was hiding it from you there was probably more than just friendship there. At least that's what I would think. But I would not jump right to divorce. But if he's not willing to get counciling then I would move in that direction. As he does not sound like he feels bad that he did that. My heart goes out to you!!!!

Maybe it's not cheating perse but it is and was a kind of deceit by omission of details and not having mentioned it.. It's not that you need to know everything, right.. this is just odd that one, he didn't mention the lunch and then didn't mention the calls.... If he had no problem with it, he could have told you .. yet he did not.. again, it's not cheating.. but it sure is fishy enough to make a person become curious as to what else he may have been up to or not... I do consider cheating anything that in some way turns the significant other away from his or her relationship.. by turning away, I mean... emotionally, physically or in a way that causes the person to not be completely upfront... I would also add that he even said if the sister hadn't said something about it, then you'd still never know.. my question is.. why, why not?? I mean if he hasn't done anything off the cuff.. then why should he have a problem if you knew about it.. .that to me would be bothersome. Of course, we don't have his side of the story, but based on what you wrote.. I definitely think you have some legitimate concerns here and they should be discussed with him..

He was out of town and met up with a friend. Were the brother and nephew actually present? If so, hard to be cheating. The contact beforehand was probably to set up the dinner. My husband does not need to tell me everyone that he calls on the phone. If this wasn't an old girlfriend, but just a friend, I doubt there's anything that you need to worry about. Was there a reason that he didn't share these plans with you? Is there a reason that you shouldn't have known about it? Do you and hubby have an agreement about whether you can each go out with friends of the opposite gender, old friends you've known a long time?

The issue for me would be that he not only kept it from me, but that he insisted he still would have kept it from me had his sister not said anything. What else has he lied about? What other secrets could he be keeping? To me, while I would not call dinner cheating, the lying and sneaking around put it close to that level. I would insist on counseling together so you can have a safe place to express all this and he can get some guidance on why what he did was so very hurtful.

All I can say is WOW. If they were only friends in the past, why does it matter? Frankly I don't need to know on a daily basis who, what, when, where my SO was with unless it interferes with existing plans or our family time. I hope you didn't outright accuse him of cheating and if you did - WOW.