Why would a good guy marry a bad girl?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Why would a good guy marry a bad girl?
26
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 7:07pm
If you are a good guy (virgin or very few sex partners) how can you avoid getting connected to a bad girl (lot of sex partners)? It is unlikely that she will tell the truth about what she has done in the past, and since the past is our best predictor of the future, how do you avoid women who are likely to stray?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 1:06pm
Hi green, this thread was a kind of a follow up on the "bad boys" thread and I agree that women looking for a good man have an equal challenge. I know men that cheated on good women, to their loss, and they are the worse for it. I don't agree it is the Hs fault when the W cheats (because he didn't meet all their needs). In your case you H cheated BACAUSE OF HIS PROBLEMS you did not cause him to cheat by not jumping through some hoop somewhere. I think some people just cheat and they are the same ones that can lie, and treat others unjustly in other ways without it bothering them. There are others in very bad situations that feel that they can't get out and do cheat to get what their H is not providing. Some others are just caught up in lust and have a very good H and really don't have a good reason other that they want a piece on this other guy. For others one man is just not enough (no matter how good he is).

I still think the secret to a good marrage for a good guy is marring a good woman and good women generally have values that prevent them from having sex with a lot of different people. Most of the people that I know that have been married a long time married women that the met, dated, and fell in love with in their late teens or early twenties. The two guys that I mentioned whose wives left them to party have also remarried to good women and seem to have very good marriages. I am not saying it only that way, because I know of a woman that was a prostitute for a number of years that married and seems to have a good marriage. I think percentage wise the odds of success are higher when a good guy connects with a good girl for marriage.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-30-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 2:18pm
Where you meet women, and this is visa versa as well, I feel is a large factor in what type of person you will meet. For example, you are more likely to meet a more virginal type of woman in church than you are at a strip club (you would think). I also think that the number of sexual partners a woman has had is no indication of her fidelity or her worth. You have to kiss a lot of frogs, so to speak!

There are no guarantees that any person will be completly faithful to another, so you are taking a chance with anyone you are in a relationship with. My advice is to go with your gut when it comes to choosing a mate and/or life partner. If you want to know what type of person you are getting involved with, there are tactful ways of learning more about their character. Ask them what they want out of life or where they seem themselves in five years.

Anne

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anonymous user
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 4:55pm
I didnt want to get into sex as a moral issue, but since it was already "kinda" brought up, Ill expand my thoughts. Someone posted that, in essence, they were saying you were more likely to find a person, who conducts themselves in a more accecptable manner, in a church than in a strip club. I would say that is probably more than 90% true. Whos to say what behavior is acceptable and what isnt? Society thats who. If you would ask the truely religious people if it were more acceptable for men to be promiscucs(because thats just the way men are) they would say no. Whores are both male and female. Some people just dont understand human behavior vs. what is socially acceptable(or unacceptable) behavior. Just because women now can go out and have sex with whomever they want, doesnt make it right. Over time people have kept their number of sexual partners limited for a good reason. It is better for the relationship(if they are in one) and it stayed off the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases that are now a result of promiscuity. This is my own personal opinion..not everone will agree with me . There will still be both men and women who see absolutely nothing wrong with having 50 sexual partners. MY OPINION.. those people have a problem, weather it be a self esteem problem or what ever, a problem none the less.

Aids may just have been a wake up call, wait till the next disease rears up that cant be cured ( and it will)

I do belive this..Anyone can truley reform.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 11:31pm
I'm curious (because just about all the married people I know IRL are faithful and believe in fidelity) - how many partners is 'a lot'?

I got married young and had children young and a few years ago, I got the urge to find out what I'd missed in my younger days - clubbing, going out, etc. But DH and I used that to our advantage and went out together. Suddenly we had more time - the boys no longer needed sitters, we had extra $$$ now and then and free time - and we went out. Not every night, but a few times a month. We still do.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Fri, 09-24-2004 - 2:09am
Tally I am certainly no expert on numbers that could be considered representative of a lot but I will give you my impression. There are people that at the age of 25 that have 0 to 5 sexual partners, and there are others that could have that many in one night. If the number of partners compaired to the person's age indicates a lot of casual sex then I would think that they were a risk for both STD's and questionable values. I know a lot of good people and I know a lot that are morally bankrupt and any idea of building a meaningful LTR with them would be pointless. They generally connect with someone of equal background and have something that passes for a relationship but it is not what most of us would aspire to.

I think that it is great that you and DH are going out together to have new experiences and spend quality time with each other. Best wishes to you both.

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anonymous user
Fri, 09-24-2004 - 3:33pm
tx.. good post...Most people of guestionable values or whom are morally bankrupt do not see themselves that way. Nor to they see others who are like them ,that way. If we point it out to them then we are just being judgmental.

Its kind of like those who are ignorant are ignorant of their ignorance.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-30-2004
Sat, 09-25-2004 - 12:31pm
I don't really see much of a connection between sex and morality. I don't buy into the idea that because sex has certain risks it is immoral. You never see people suggesting that it is immoral to eat rare hamburger, even the you could aquire a deadly infection from it. It might be stupid, like unsafe sex, but it is not immoral. Why do people run around angrily espousing views of sex-only-in-mariage but those same people think it is perfectly acceptable to eat all kinds of meat products that are less safe then a vegetarian diet. Why don't those people advocate vegetarian only education in schools or moan about E.coli being an indicator or society's declining morality. Its not for religous reasons, since the topic of morally acceptable food is convered at length in religous texts from many religions (hindus and beef, Christians and Jews and Muslims and pork, Jews and lobster and shrimp, Muslims and alcohol, etc). Actually I think that the whole idea of HIV as a sign of moral decline is pretty silly. When Columbus sailed to the Carribean, he maliciously sought to enslave the people he encountered, tortured them to reveal their sources of gold, and along with various colleagues directly caused their extinction. Ever wonder why most Carribeans are black? Its because the original people were COMPLETELY wiped out within a decade and replaced by slaves from Africa. Columbus' crew and others who followed him brought back an STD to plague mankind for centuries. This disease was nearly always fatal, killing people after covering their bodies in festering open sores and throwing them into madness from which death was the only release. It spread across Europe and Asia, killing hundreds of thousands. That disease was Syphilis, which was much more virrulent at the time, it has since evolved into a less virulent pathogen further tamed by the advent of antibiotics. Anyway the point is that HIV is not something that hasn't happened in a similar manner before and it does not testify to any change in the moral corruption of mankind, only to increased globalization and the supreme adaptibility of life.

I think there a lot better indicators of moral fibre then promiscuity. For example someone's job. I tend to think of people in, say marketing, as more likely to be immoral then someone who has had many sexual partners. I think many sexual partners can be an indicator of character or morality in certain ways. People with a lot of partners sometimes do that at the expense of others. For example guys that have a lot of partners often accomplish that by lying to potential partners and then treating them badly as the next step to aquiring a new partner. For either sex it can also indicate self esteem issues or a lack of value being placed on relationships. However, I still do not think that multiple partners in itself is immoral.

-phat

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2003
Sat, 09-25-2004 - 9:40pm
I agree, Phat!
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-16-2004
Sat, 09-25-2004 - 10:58pm
Hi life and Phat. I realise that there different points of view out there on sex. Am I to understand that you are from the school that sex is just like a "feel good handshake" and is really no big deal? The idea that having sex with 10 to 100 or more different people a year in no way reflects a persons moral character and viability as a committed marriage partner is difficult for me. I find the concept that a woman or man that could participate in casual sex, gang bangs, etc. and then turn around and be a committed spouse and good mother/father a little reaching. It is my observation that people with such a casual outlook on the significance of a sexual union don't see fidility in a marriage that significant either. I understand that if they hook up with like minded people in an "open marriage" or a "swinging couple" it may not be an issue but in the case of a couple with a large difference in sex partners I think it will be an issue.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2003
Sun, 09-26-2004 - 12:05am
I think it could be important to ask a person if they've ever been involved in a gang bang and other sex acts that YOU find to be a moral issue. For me, though, I said the numbers wouldn't matter because I don't think having sex has anything to do with who a person is and that alone doesn't affect character much(they may be promiscuous as a result of low self-esteem which being promiscuous didn't create). I would assume that all men I date have had many partners. I just do. He could have only have had six, I would still assume he had 100. However, I wouldn't assume that he participated in a gang bang.

There was a poster not too long ago who said that he never knew what sex with love was like until he had it. So for his first ten years of sex, it was just sex to him. He didn't KNOW any differently. How can you know what you're missing, until you've experienced it? And what if they had relationships, but also had lots of casual sex in between? What would that tell you about them; that they can experience both?

You might be able to tell something about the character of the person by the amount of partner's they've had, but that knowledge would surface regardless. Of course, this was all hypothetical based on the situation I presented(remember there is no existence of STDs). Once you bring STD's into it, you now have a new criteria to judge someone's character based on numbers alone? How much self-respect do they possess? How high do they regard the safety of their bodies? So asking the numbers of a potential partner today isn't such a bad idea because it can help you assess the character(lacks self-respect) of that person. So for me, the number of sexual partners(assuming there were no gang bangs and such)(and STD's weren't in existence), wouldn't be used to judge a person's character. Ok, I'd probably think "Likes sex."


Edited 9/26/2004 12:18 am ET ET by life_is_but_a_dream