“It is not adultery. We were living apart at the time,” says Cheater.

A cheater trying to avoid responsibility for violating their marriage vows might attempt to use the “geography excuse.”

This is the one where they excuse their behavior as “acceptable” since they were living apart from their spouse. The separation might have even been sold as a step for helping the marriage!

I take a very dim view on this lame “geography excuse.”

You are married until you are not (i.e. divorced). When you engage in sexual relationships with someone who is not your spouse, that is what we call adultery.

Geography matters not.

Plenty of marriages have endured through geographical separation without one spouse deciding to unilaterally disregard the fidelity aspect of their marriage vows. For example, many military spouses remain faithful through numerous deployments.

Cheating is not a geography issue; it is a character deficit issue.

This is what Cheaters often fail to grasp. They think they get to discard their vows whenever those vows are inconvenient for them. Then they make up lame excuses trying convince others of the lie that they may have bought themselves–i.e. it wasn’t cheating because we were living apart.

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*A version of this post ran previously.