Am I just at fault?

[chadachada123]

If the dude actually IS a massive douche, and it isn't just a) the girl lying about it to justify it for herself or mislead you, or b) YOU lying to yourself to make you feel better, then I say go for it, bro. Just know that the dude might punch you in the face for it. Few outsiders are really going to care, even if they themselves don't really think of it as that cool of a thing to do.

If either a) or b) apply, then pull out quick until they no longer apply.

If he's as bad as you claim, then he's earned it, but note that it could just as easily be her misleading you to make you THINK he's that bad in order to get cheap sex.

You've noted that it's free sex, and not a relationship, so comments like this:

And, as you so keenly noted, she is in the wrong for doing this. If you care about her at all, why are you helping her get into some potentially rather ugly trouble?

If she cheated on her boyfriend with you, whats to keep her from cheating on you with some other guy once she gets tried of you.

make no sense. Of course you don't care about her beyond just friends, or being exclusive. That's the POINT of friends-with-benefits.

 

[chadachada123]

And, as you so keenly noted, she is in the wrong for doing this. If you care about her at all, why are you helping her get into some potentially rather ugly trouble?

make no sense. Of course you don't care about her beyond just friends. That's the point of friends-with-benefits.

What? You dont have to be more than friends to care about helping them avoid an ugly situation...

She knows exactly what she's doing. If one of my closest friends said he was gonna need a ride home from a girl's house (that isn't his girlfriend), though I know he's a cheater, I'll still offer to drive him home later, and any problems he reaps is none of my concern. Yes, I am, in essence, helping him cheat, but, again, not my problem.

I'll call him a douche, and morally repugnant, and, if his actions continue, encourage him to break it off before it gets too far, but it won't change how I treat him. OP should, similarly, assuming he is friends with this girl in addition to fuck-buddies, tell her that she's a bit of an immoral ***** but otherwise keep doing his thing until it gets out of hand. It's a bit difficult to make a non-sexual analogy to this situation, but this is, I think, a pretty valid comparison.

I believe it's called "turning a blind eye" and "letting others take responsibility for their own obviously-immoral actions." Pressing the issue comes off as needy/controlling, and violates an implicit agreement to not push those kinds of subjects.

 

[Pebkio]

Yeah, if you didn't know, that would be one thing. But you do know, you know that you're sleeping with the girlfriend of a coworker without the coworker's blessing (or whatever). You don't know the details of their relationship because, frankly, you haven't bothered to ask. You even posted "I know she is in the wrong for doing it..." but you don't actually KNOW that, do you?

Since you don't know, your only basis for what's right and wrong is by comparing it from your perspectives. If you had a girlfriend who was sleeping around on you with a guy who knew she was with you, would you be angry at the other person? Basically, put yourself exactly into the shoes of your coworker while removing what you might think you know about this girl.

Also, c'mon, you know what's up and you don't even have the decency to be honest with this guy; hiding behind another person's ignorance to avoid confrontation? There's an adjective we use to describe people who do that... and it's not "brave". This is less of a "right vs wrong" gripe and more of a "maturity vs childishness" thing.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

You know she's in a relationship but have sex with her anyway? Not okay, dude. Not okay. I mean, let's be honest here: Everybody reading your question agrees that it's better not to do what you're doing. If he's a D-bag, then have her tell him instead of using it as an excuse to do something that, when push comes to shove, you have to agree isn't something that good people do.

tl;dr: You're helping her do something immoral. Not okay.

I think the guilt should be with her, not you. You want to park the beef bus in tuna town, she knows it, you know it. She's a grown woman and can make her own decisions. Unless you roofie her all the time, you have no blame. Don't reduce her to a helpless child by shifting blame on yourself. If you fucked a 100 married girls and each of their husbands found out, it's their decision.

I don't think I'm reducing her to a helpless child. I'm just saying that a good person wouldn't help somebody do something immoral. You say that "the guilt should be with her, not you," but I never said she's not guilty. She obviously is. But saying that he has no blame at all is silly. You might as well say that selling a gun to a school shooter who makes his intentions clear from the start isn't immoral, since you're not shooting the people, you're just making sure that the shooter's got a gun to kill innocents with.

EDIT: Okay, I think I've got a better example. Imagine that an Al-Qaida guy has managed to reach the Oval Office to shoot Barack Obama, but runs out of ammo killing his body guards. You're walking by, and he shouts "Please! Ammo! I need to shoot Obama!"
"Okay," you reply and throw him some ammo. He reloads and kills the president. Would you say that you'd done nothing wrong then? And if you would, then what's the difference? You didn't pull the trigger, after all.

The difference is your scenario has actual victims. The only victim in the OPs scenario is the boyfriend's feelings.

Adults are responsible for their feelings.

By your logic, you should be responsible for every aspect of the boyfriend's life. Is he sad because he can't get a job? Help him you immoral bastard!

You couldn't be more wrong. For one, how is the boyfriend not a victim? I see a clear victim right there, unless it was made clear that it's not a monogamous relationship beforehand - which is obviously not the case. Two, you greatly underestimate how many people this can affect. Not only would any children involved be completely fucked by this, the fact that this involves 2 co-workers can potentially affect other workers or even the company as a whole. At the very least, his job could be at stake over this.

Now I'm not much one for getting worked up over people's feelings, but this kind of crap has the potential to do some serious damage psychologically. I've seen firsthand just how much people can be impacted by this kind of thing (I've seen this happen to a married couple with kids before) and how long the scars / grudges from such a thing can last for absolutely everyone involved. Cheating on someone can be so very far from victimless, even if kids aren't involved.

 

[thePyro_13]

She's in the wrong. But that doesn't mean it's ok for you to keep it going, when it blows up, things are going to get really uncomfortable for you.

 

[thejackyl]

Speaking as someone who was the catalyst for a broken off marriage...

You are at fault. Not as much as the girl (Since I'm assuming she's the one that started the whole friends with benefits things.) But if you continued after you found out than yes, you are still a bit a fault.

Mine was a coworker who's fiance started cheating on her after me and her started hanging out. At this point I didn't know she was engaged(no ring to show). And she got me into this game of "If you could do anything you wanted to me, what would you do?" I kissed her, and long story short we ended up in bed together... And after the fun is when she told me about her fiance.

After that we had a similar relationship where we were friends with benefits, and me having a rather starved love life didn't stop it, so I didn't stop it from happening. Partially because "Hey, Sex!", and partially because I knew it wouldn't last; for anyone involved. They wouldn't get back together, and I believe "If she'll cheat with you, she'll cheat one you, so me and her getting together wasn't likely.

Luckily, or unluckily I didn't have to deal with any ugly breakup BS, because she just cut me out of her life completely, and I never tried to patch things up because I know exactly why she ignores my existence.

Yeah, I felt guilty when I heard that they broke it off, and I felt even worse when she cut me out of her life, but when I found out she had been cheating for longer than her and I knew each other, the guilt was assuaged. Mainly, because it went from being the guy who broke up a stable (future)marriage to simply shortening the fuse.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Putting everything else aside, the type of girl who will cheat on her boyfriend and lie to him on a daily basis for such an extended period of time (which is really more painful than the sex itself), is cruelly manipulative at best, and probably borderline sociopathic.

I knew a girl like that, who would say just about anything to anyone in order to get her way. I suspect she was a sex addict to boot, but not in a hot way: she seemed to be so insecure she thought the only way to get people to like her was to manipulate them with sex. Not realising the real reason nobody liked her was because of her ruthless disregard for other people's feelings or viewpoints. Her response to any sort of criticism was always a variation on "I don't care what other people think, I do what I want. Isn't that cool of me?"

 

[mrblakemiller]

Ask yourself this: How much would you hate it if someone did to you what you're doing to her boyfriend? That's how much of a jerk you're being.

 

[Risingblade]

If he's such a D-bag why doesn't she just leave him? Of course it's wrong for her to cheat but I don't see you saying no to her sooo you're all bad people mkay

 

[Yoshi4507]

Its been going on before they ever got together and before i worked there, it just never kind of stopped. If irs any consolation, hes cheated before on someone else.

 

[Vegosiux]

I guess if I'm on the escapist, eating buttered toast has the potential to damage everyone around me psychologically. I was answering the OPs question: Am I at fault?

That's a non sequitur if I ever saw one.

To which I replied: No, the woman, or the boyfriend is, but definitely not him. To try and live a life where you cant hurt anyone's feelings is just going to lead you to live a life on your own.

In order for a love triangle to blow up spectacularly, three people have to be doing things exactly wrong for a while. Often happens, what with humans being such irrational creatures when it comes to stuff like this.

And I'll say it right out, I'm not innocent in any regard here, I've made my bad decisions, but other people have made theirs.

Bottom line is, it takes three people to create a tangled mess of a love triangle.

 

[Vegosiux]

If irs any consolation, hes cheated before on someone else.

Consolation...for whom? None of us is affected by this, and it makes no difference to us...it's you who needs to make the decisions here. But when ("when", not "if") these things blow up, it's simply not pretty. Is it worth putting your job quality at risk for some snu-snu, that's the question only you can answer.

 

[SmegInThePants]

Why should she buy the cow when she can have the milk for free? She's not leaving him because she gets what she likes from him that you lack, and what she likes from you that he lacks - whatever that may be.

Whatever you do, don't have a real relationship w/her, even if she leaves this guy. Because she'll eventually do to you what she's currently doing to him. You'll always remember how you got her in the first place and never be able to trust her.

People (men and women) tend to repeat their mistakes in relationships, even when they are trying to do just the opposite, like the victim of a wife beater who swears never again, who keeps ending up w/guys that beat her - she might be genuinely trying to avoid that type of guy, but somehow subconsciously she keeps self-selecting them -> the only real cure is to fix what's wrong w/herself before starting a new relationship. You need to fix what's wrong w/you that makes you interested in such a lose-lose situation. There's what you tell yourself, then there is your sub-concsious reasoning, often quite different.

Something is wrong that you are so interested in her given the circumstances which has far more possible outcomes that are bad for you than not, look to yourself and figure out why you don't see this and move on. Is she hot and you are simply superficial so her being hot outweighs all other considerations? Did you dislike this guy and enjoy taking something from him, like its a victory over him if you can get her to like you more? Trying to take over his spot as the alpha male? Maybe you didn't even know she was in a relationship at first and now just find yourself in an unexpected quandary. Perhaps she was the aggressor and you are submissive and you'll just go out w/any reasonable seeming candidate that makes the first moves on you (so you'll always be w/aggressive women). Maybe you like her because you like the drama/angst of situations like this. Or you like the taboo nature of the tryst or the danger of getting caught. And its interesting that of all the questions you could have asked - that you didn't ask if you were right or not, but rather whether you were right or not compared to her, do you think if she's more wrong than you that it absolves you from your actions?

What is keeping you w/a woman that is so bad for you (guy could go nuts on you, she could string you along as the 'other man' causing you to miss real opportunities w/better candidates for a relationship, u could fall in love w/her yet she still won't leave him, she could get pregnant and you won't know who the father is, she could get pregnant - tell you you're the father - and you find out years later that he was, word could get out at work and everyone could end up siding w/her (which they probably will if she's hot) making you the leper of the workplace, she could be scared of this guy so when it gets out that you were with her - out of fear of him she could claim you forced her (you said she's scared of him after all), he could get a vd and pass it to her and she passes it to you - double the chance of vd, are relationships against the workplace policy - could get fired/disciplined, there will be bad blood w/either him or her eventually and one of them could be your boss eventually, etc... etc... etc...).

Most sane people would steer clear of this situation yet you embrace it and are only concerned w/whether or not you are more at fault than her. This is how people who end up on jerry springer start. Get yourself clear now, before you get the call to be on his show.

 

[Vegosiux]

It actually just takes two people to do that. And they do that by agreeing to enter a relationship. If each of them sleep with a hundred different people, it's still their own problem and their responsibility.

"Fuck buddies" is "a relationship". The moment you're involved with someone in a way that affects their "main" or "official" relationship, you're involved and have to own up to the responsibility. I mean, you might not be hurting anyone if you go tracking mud in people's houses if they left the door unlocked, but it's still kind of a dick move.

I'll just repeat my usual mantra for relationships...Communication is key, and we'd have so many less problems if we were all just honest with each other.

 

[game-lover]

Its been going on before they ever got together and before i worked there, it just never kind of stopped. If irs any consolation, hes cheated before on someone else.

Not really. I mean, you don't have to justify to US. Vegosiux is right about that. But, it doesn't really mean or change anything.

Okay, homeboy cheated on someone in the past. Now Karma came and is slowly but surely beating his ass.

You're still doing something wrong. In fact, it's sort of worse.

She got involved with this poor guy while still involved with you. Knowing she was still involved with you. And you let her. You had to know she was starting to get exclusive with someone else and you kept it going.

Hell, him being a douche has nothing to do with anything now since this began before they were even a couple. You can't even justify it anymore.

What you're basically saying is that your friend has been cheating on her boyfriend from the very beginning. The entire relationship is now based on one messed up lie. And you're her Other Man.

Both of you are so at fault it's not even funny. And with this new fact, you are both so much more wrong than douchebag boyfriend could ever be right now.

 

[Yoshi4507]

Well, ive come to the conclusion that I am just as much, only cuz now it looks like im hooking up with another coworker. And dont worry, shes single. Appearenty everyone here does. But now i wont let it bother me. More snu snu I guess