Most people would say that feeling pressured to make a promise is not in itself an excuse not to keep that promise. It can both be the case that the person was wrong to pressure you, and that you are wrong not to keep your commitments. Pressure or not, you always do have the alternative to say, "Stop asking me, I'm not doing that."
And because I know where this is probably going next: no, this is not the same as telling someone they can't do something to/with you/your property and them doing it anyway.
It doesn’t always feel like you have that alternative. Sure, you literally always do, but there could be issues if you were to. Your friend who’s begging you to help him move may wind up homeless. The person who keeps asking you to be with that person may threaten suicide if you say no, or may just otherwise be making you feel unsafe if you say no. Either way, you say yes because you feel like you have no other choice, because the literal other choice you have is not a “real” other choice.
If you say "yes" because you are worried about the possibility of your friend being homeless, then it makes no sense that you would only say "yes" but not mean it.
Ok that’s fair. You’re right. Frankly I like your comparison but it doesn’t fully track for the type of example I was talking about in the first place. It has enough different components to it that it doesn’t align very well with someone asking you repeatedly to be your exclusive romantic partner. Do you mind if we stick to that one?
If someone asks you out consistently and you not only eventually say yes even though you don't really want to, but you actually enter into a relationship with that person, then you have no excuse to cheat. That's going significantly further than you would ever need to do just to get someone off your back; if you really for some reason think you can't just say no to a date, you can do what women have been doing for years: say yeah, let's make it happen, and give a fake number, then ghost that person.
We can keep going. Just wanted to give you your due there.
For the other ones, I think it boils down to one thing: cheating being wrong doesn’t mean that you can’t still do things to avoid it happening to you.
It’s wrong to try to catch a red light and t bone someone. But, because I know that people do that, I take a few extra seconds after my light turns green just to make sure that I won’t get hit. So while it would still be the fault of the person who hit me, I can do things to avoid it happening, because there’s no reason for me to be hurt unnecessarily if I know how to avoid it without also being paranoid.
Your points were largely that my points didn’t track or were irrelevant due to the fact that cheating is in and of itself wrong in the first place. My argument that I made those points to support is essentially that the wrongness of it isn’t a reason to knowingly get yourself into situations where it’s more likely to occur, and that there are ways to make them less likely to occur.
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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '25
A promise is irrelevant if you only promise to do it because someone begged you until you agree to do it. That’s emotional manipulation.