12 ms·

On infidelity - to some extent people's personal business is not my business. But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in t

• WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. > If they're willing to break trust with the person closest to them in their life, what chance do I have as a mere business partner of not being screwed over at some point? That's a very American perspective. People position on extramarital affair is extremely culturaly dependant. It goes from deep public revulsion despite statitics showing people massively cheat in the extremely puritanical USA to silent acceptance in a "what I don't know don't hurt me" in part of Europe. People business life and private life are not the same things. I would avoid making too many black-and-white extreme judgments based on things you necessarily have a very narrow view.
  • rsj_hn 5y ago
    We could use a bit less wildly inaccurate stereotypes than "extremely puritanical USA". Please consider updating your views of our country from the 18th Century. Imagine if I went around ranting about "extremely Catholic France".
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • rich_sasha 5y ago
      In my experience, such attitudes leave a hefty footprint on the culture -- or if you prefer, take much longer to shake off than the regime that bred them, religious in this case. In Europe you can still very clearly see which countries have a protestant, "work hard or go to hell" attitude to life, and which have an, oddly, Catholic "let's enjoy life and see how it goes" approach. Religion participation rates have dwindled away in Western Europe for sure, since WWII if not before.
      • rsj_hn 5y ago
        Sure, but there is a difference between "being influenced by puritan culture along with many other historical forces" and "extremely puritan nation". I'm also not so sure about the accuracy of your Catholic stereotypes. The greatest German industry and wealth is in the Catholic south ("upper Germany"), for example, and not in the Protestant North or Northeast. Similarly there are huge differences between Northern and Southern Italy yet both are Catholic, so I don't think it's religion that is the difference maker when comparing, say, Germany and Italy's productivity and work habits.
        • rich_sasha 5y ago
          Well, for one, I'm not claiming that religious affiliation is a sole determinant of future success. Also, Prussia was subsequently steam-rolled by the USSR machine. But compare general attitudes in France, Italy, Spain vs. Netherlands and the Nordics. Or Austria vs. Germany. I think the overall point is quite valid. If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical, compared to a bunch of [formerly] Catholic places, even though the US is far more socially liberal than many (most?) Catholic countries. You can always argue about what words to use to quantify, is it "extremely" puritan or merely "strongly influenced", not sure this can lead anywhere.
          • rsj_hn 5y ago
            > If you look at a whole host of societal norms in the US, they will be quite puritanical Honestly, I don't see this and think it's both bad history and bad social commentary. Cities all across the country let people walk into a store and steal whatever they want without prosecution. Homeless people defecating in city squares. Higher levels of corruption and bribery than in Europe. Much more more crime and lawlessness than in Europe. Certainly doesn't seem puritanical to me. If you are seriously interested in the U.S. founding, I'd recommend reading Albion's Seed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed Yes, there were puritans in New England. But also tobacco farmers in Virginia, Cavaliers, and Scotch-Irish and border English in the South, and the Spanish Catholic settlers in California and Florida. Incidentally the first European settlement of the US was Spanish Catholics. And then of course waves of primarily Catholic immigrants from Europe in the 1920s and the current wave of primarily Catholic immigrants from Latin America. It might be interesting to note that historically the U.S. was viewed (by Europeans) as a corrupt, lawless country, made wealthy by enormous land/person ratios. It was only after WW1 that the U.S. began to flex its economic power but it still maintained a "gangster" reputation, and in fact was the home of many world famous gangsters and scoundrels, together with grifting machine politics in all the major urban cities from Boston's Irish machine that gave us the Kennedy dynasty to Huey Long's machine in the South and virtually everything in between. Puritan was simply not the first word that came to mind in any meaningful description of the U.S. dating from the 19th century onwards.
  • refurb 5y ago
    No, it’s not a uniquely American perspective. Generally humans (not all) value things like fairness and truth. Many will toss those to the side in the pursuit of things like money and power, but it’s pretty universal that screwing people over is viewed poorly.
    • simonh 5y ago
      The thing is in many cultures, or social groups, extra-marital affairs (usually for men) are normalised and accepted. It's simply not seen as a trust or fairness issue. And yes this can be mysogynistic and abusive, but these attitudes do exist.
      • refurb 5y ago
        I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. Nobody likes it but feel powerless to change it. But I wouldn’t say it’s viewed positively or even neutrally.
        • WastingMyTime89 5y ago
          > I live in one of those cultures today and I’d emphasize the “tolerated” part. Not that dissimilar to physically hitting your spouse. It has absolutely nothing in common with hitting your spouse. It is extremely frowned upon to openly display it but relatively accepted if it's discreet. It's very correlated to the relation a population has to sex. People in very religious countries where sex is seen as moraly dubious have very strong view against infidelity and people in countries with a more casual view of sex don't think it's such a big deal. France is a relatively extreme example. The last Pew Research Center study shows that only 47% of the French thinks that infidelity is moraly unacceptable and there is no large gap between women and men answers.
          • cm2012 5y ago
            If it's culturally acceptable, a wink wink nudge nudge that both partners understand, it's not cheating since no trust is really broken. It's just an open relationship, who cares.
• icu 5y ago
  I've come to see that people are far more complex than what you may think, and that complexity arises from a process of self discovery. To address your point, the cheating could have arisen from emotional issues that hadn't been consciously acknowledged and couldn't be addressed until after the cheating occurred. If that person goes through therapy and deals with their dysfunction I'd suggest it was a transformative process and you're not dealing with the same person who cheated. To what degree should you make someone pay for something they didn't do to you? Haven't you made mistakes and learnt from them and grown as a human? All I'm suggesting is to be very cautious about passing character judgement on others based on old data. You may be fine with the false positives but it's a lagging indicator at best.
• thelastgallon 5y ago
  How do you feel about immigrants? All nations indoctrinate their citizens for decades: you must be loyal, patriotic, etc. Yet we see immigrants. At what point is it ok to do business with an immigrant? After they get their citizenship (2 decades)? What about American citizens with dual citizenship? Is it ok to do business with them? People who start their job search before quitting their current job? Should they be considered at all for employment. People who convert from their religion at birth? Can they be trusted? Is it ok to be unfaithful before marriage (dating/cohabiting), before you met the person you are supposed to be with the rest of your life? Is it ok to be unfaithful after marriage has ended (dating/marriage)?
  • quietbritishjim 5y ago
    > All nations indoctrinate their citizens for decades What has this got to do with anything? Being told by your country you should feel a certain way is a one-sided arrangement. It's totally unrelated to voluntarily deciding to make a promise to someone, and arranging for all your friends and relatives (and god, if that makes sense to you) to be present while you make that promise.
  • Drakim 5y ago
    A relationship or marriage is something personally that you decide to commit to. You are making a promise to them, a commitment to that person, on the very deepest level. You are implying that the national indoctrination is the same, but it's obviously not. Lots of people have to listen to that indoctrination but doesn't agree with it. Loyalty cannot be broken when it was not given in the first place.
  • _zn02 5y ago
    Immigrants: you don't get to choose where you're born. Dual citizenship seems similar. I see no particular reason to consider "allegiance to the government" as a matter of trustworthiness, barring actual treason. Job search: this is a real topic of debate in the business world already, but seems pretty commonly accepted due to the deteriorating nature of employer-employee relationships. Religious conversions: the "you don't get to choose birth religion" argument from above combined with the inherently illogical nature of religion makes this one nearly impossible to judge on. Unfaithful before marriage: seems pretty easy to toss this into the same category as "unfaithful during marriage". Not trying to be flippant, but I genuinely do see basically all of the cases you listed as strictly less serious than being unfaithful during a committed relationship.
• op00to 5y ago
  This. I had a therapist who cheated on his wife and got divorced. He was a shitbag that in retrospect set back many parts of my mental health for years.
• bananamerica 5y ago
  People cheat for many reasons. Some of these reasons are only applicable to personal relationships. So yeah, a cheater can be a good business partner.
  • varjag 5y ago
    The probability of that however is a lot lower than otherwise.
    • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      well, since this is HN please show the studies and stats.
      • varjag 5y ago
        Do you consult arxiv every time you jaywalk?
        • brigandish 5y ago
          If you wanted to defend laws against jaywalking then perhaps it would best to back it up with something other than an appeal to emotion, and - on HN of all places - an appeal against using scientific research. That's a tough sell if you ask me.
          • varjag 5y ago
            I'm impressed how you jumped from me using a reasonable commonsense estimate (deceptive people tend to be less trustworthy) to conclusion that I must be anti-science. Reminds of the droning crowds who claimed in March 2020 that masks don't work "because there is no supporting research".
            • Jensson 5y ago
              Cheating on a spouse has nothing to do with deception, it only becomes deception if they don't tell their spouse about it afterwards. If a person did cheat on their spouse and told their spouse about it then that is a sign to me that I can trust what the person say. I wont be able to trust that they can control themselves in the moment, but at least I'll trust that they will tell me about important things.
• 88840-8855 5y ago
  i think that's a little naive. cheating is a highly emotional thing. business relationships are a rational thing. although some people are mixing both up, most of people i have worked with manage to separate. one of my moost loyal colleagues is cheating on his wife for years. and yet, he is loyal to the tasks and to the company. hence, i find your view a little naive and funny and perhaps would label it with some -ism if there was some -ism term for what you think. making conclusions on people based on a thing that is 100% private and not related to the professional life is an -ism.
  • tehlike 5y ago
    It's a filter. Not meant to be 100% accurate. As long as it filters false positives fine, false negatives are casualties. We all have some filters in similar ways. I wouldn't want to work with a guy that shows violence to their family. I just don't want it. Simple as that.
    • fastball 5y ago
      Sure it's a filter, but I think the point is that the sensitivity / specificity of said filter might be below 50% for all you know. I doubt anyone in this thread has performed thorough analysis to try to determine either of those numbers.
      • tehlike 5y ago
        I guess with the way ESGs are going, people seem to be paying attention to more than financials :) This is some sort of an ESG
  • teddyh 5y ago
    > one of my moost loyal colleagues is cheating on his wife for years. and yet, he is loyal to the tasks and to the company. His wife: “My husband is cheating at work and scamming his company, and yet he is the most loyal husband to me and our kid.”
  • lp0_on_fire 5y ago
• krisrm 5y ago
  Agreed. It certainly doesn't demonstrate honesty or integrity, qualities which I value. While I'm sure plenty of adulterous people have made fine business partners... I'll take mine without, thanks.
• romeros 5y ago
  It's only that black and white to you because of your naivety and a lack of understanding of how the world really works. The solution for this as for many other things is to switch off the computer and actually go out and experience the world and become more worldly. Otherwise, you will end up building a mental model of reality that quite doesn't exist.
  • mpol 5y ago
    So tell us, how does the real world work? I can understand it if someone ends up in a relationship that has no life in it anymore, but they are loyal to the children. Still, that still raises questions about trustworthiness.
    • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      How does remaining in a relationship for your children raise questions about trustworthiness?
      • mpol 5y ago
        There is not only loyalty in that situation. There is also lying to your partner and the children, and the example and values that you give to your children. Apparently the children are important to you, otherwise you would be gone from a bad relationship. It involves lying to people that are important to you, which does not speak well for trustworthiness. I can imagine the children are more important than someone outside the family, so at least I need to set some expectations right. That doesn't mean trust is a black and white thing.
        • kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
          What would be the alternative to lying?
          • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
            well the alternative to lying would be that both partners know they can't stand each other but are remaining together for the sake of the children, I figure once you are at that point of remaining together for the sake of the children and nothing else probably both parties know the score.
• holoduke 5y ago
  Everyone is able to fall in love with someone else if put into a certain position with the right attributes. That's how the world works and is in many cases not the end of the world. Setting someone up in a business deal is much worse. So these 2 things are completely different and not the same.
  • cm2012 5y ago
    It's one thing to be upfront. "I love someone new, let's divorce / some other arrangement." There will be hurt feelings but that's life. The honesty will help everyone in the long run. It's entirely another thing to sneak around - to do something you promised not to do, but in secret, so you don't get caught. It is my observation and experience that the kind of person who breaks trust in secret is not someone I want to rely on in other parts of life.
    • boredtofears 5y ago
      If you admit to loving someone new you've very likely already cheated at the emotional level if not the physical. Where do you draw the line?
      • Zababa 5y ago
        I've never heard of "cheated at the emotional level". I don't understand how this could be a thing, you don't control your emotions. You are however somewhat free to act on them or not.
        • throwaway211116 5y ago
          It as a "thing" for those that have an unhealthy attachment style. Those in such situations will tend to be controlling and suspicious of every minor thing in order to fend of the possibility someone else "infiltrating" the relationship. Is is the typical scenario where one partner tries to isolate the other from their social circles. Depending on the culture, the fear is that such "emotional cheating" will either eventually lead to "physical cheating" or even worse (probably feared more by men), lead to a dissolution of the relationship (without necessarily involving cheating) (probably feared more by women). Any kind of interaction of one partner with an outside party can become suspect of containing emotional content, which the other partner believes they are entitled to. In graver cases it may even imply a diversion of resources (time, mind space, wealth, etc.) towards the third party that the partner believes is entitled to. If homosexuality and bisexuality wasn't an even bigger taboo, all relationships and interactions would have the potential for "cheating emotionally".
• 99_00 5y ago
  I agree. If they are sloppy enough to get caught or brag about it to everyone they aren't going to be a good business partner
• rich_sasha 5y ago
  I don’t know. What if the partner is a bad, manipulative actor, but it is just too difficult to dissolve the marriage? For the sake of children, financial commitments, costs, unfair legacy laws and so on? It’s certainly not unheard of, so I’ll keep sweeping personality assessments based on cheating at bay. There’s clearly also other reasons, I’m not saying cheating partners are always poor martyrs of circumstance.
  • atoav 5y ago
    Technically everything can be used to establish a (operational) perception of a person — and everything can be wrong. Someone wears a Rolex? Maybe they are rich and want to show off, maybe they inherited it from a dying family member. If they however additionally drive a super car, wear designer clothes the likelyhood of alternative explainations goes down. If someone is a nice, cordial and all around good person and you hear they cheated on their wife you might give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment. If someone behaves like the person who would cheat you now have the smoking gun. Why do egoists cheat on people? Because they don't care. Why do good people cheat? Because their relationship didn't provide them with something they needed and they weren't able to either communicate their needs properly to their partners or end the relationship.
    • 3pt14159 5y ago
      The most enlightening bit I read online on this subject was that of a serial cheater who held no remorse for doing so. Her attitude was basically something like: > Hey, I love him and if he doesn't know it doesn't hurt him and if I ask for permission not only will it hurt him, but he won't give it to me anyway. So I'll just lie to him. Which kinda blew my mind. I understand cheating as a I-messed-up thing or as a my-partner-literally-and-believably-threatened-suicide-if-I-left-them thing but an ongoing, decades long deception? Man. That's wild.
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        > Hey, I love him and if he doesn't know it doesn't hurt him and if I ask for permission not only will it hurt him, but he won't give it to me anyway. So I'll just lie to him. I used to knew someone like this. "Love and sex are different, separate things." It taught me to be more guarded about who I associate with.
• lordnacho 5y ago
  > But if I hear that someone was unfaithful to their spouse, my business trust in them goes waaay down. Same here. I actually don't know why it doesn't seem to affect people's thoughts about politicians. People are absolutely willing to separate what they know about a person's personal life from what they think about that person's politics. For me it's a scarlet letter. I get maybe an hour of talk about each candidate when there's an election, and it's one-way. I don't get to ask them anything, I just get told some mix of what they say and what the news says. Why would I trust someone who has demonstrated untrustworthiness to the one person they've spent the most time with? I just don't get why people are so willing to create a business box-of-facts and a personal-box-of-facts when they discover something like this. Fact is business relationships are personal. You even do the same things when you're meeting business partners for heavens sake: One of you invites the other out and pays for it. You go for a meal or a drink. You go to gatherings together. Ghosting each other (LOL).
  • ookdatnog 5y ago
    I liked this scene from the Danish movie "Druk" https://youtu.be/iS4CHNHm9a0 https://youtu.be/iS4CHNHm9a0.
    • toyg 5y ago
      "Vegetarians Hate This One Trick" when I bring up that they share the habit with "candidate 3".
  • nindalf 5y ago
    Nothing to say about cheating or personal relationships but it helps to be able to compartmentalise in some cases. There’s a person on HN who comments frequently. Very level headed, measured, informative comments. Always tries to lower the temperature of discussions. Very refreshing to read their comments. I followed them on Twitter and found a very different approach. It felt like two different people. But honestly they were able to compartmentalise these two personas and it worked. I figured I should probably compartmentalise too. I wouldn’t invite the Twitter persona to a technical discussion but I would invite the HN persona. And as long as only the HN persona showed up, what does it matter to me what the Twitter persona does on the weekend?
• ThalesX 5y ago
  How would you know if it’s consensual or not? Perhaps they are in an open marriage. I think rushing to conclusions and acting on those is scarier in a business partner, than how they choose to live their personal life.
  • hunterb123 5y ago
    I think unfaithful was the keyword, if it is consensual and open then the partner wasn't unfaithful. I'd assume GP would only hold this judgement for someone cheating, not swinging. The main point was trust. Trust is earned. Whether you break a promise with your life partner or your business partner, you've destroyed a chunk of your reputation.
    • bartvk 5y ago
      But how do you know it was unfaithful? Lots of open relationships don’t broadcast this fact due to the stigma and taboo around it. Plus, OP said they’d go on hearsay.
      • hunterb123 5y ago
        So the cheating got around ears but the open relationship wouldn't? What a strange selectively gossipy community. I'd think people would normally cover up both as they are personal, but all shit can get out.
        • boredtofears 5y ago
          it's not very hard to imagine a scenario where the extramarital activities could leak without the knowledge of the open relationship (e.g., someone sees something they weren't meant to see).
• nvarsj 5y ago
  Your view seems so incredibly judgemental to me. I suppose that's your right, but in my own experience, plenty of people have personal struggles while being very successful at business. I think it is also a view that is uncomfortably similar to those who discriminate, justifying it on their own moral (usually religious based) code.