Disloyalty

Disclaimer: Before reading this, I would just like to clarify that I do not condone adultry/cheating/disloyalty/sleepin around/whatever you wanna call it in ANY way, this is just a philosophical discussion on the aforementioned subject which my mind had with itself one night, about 19 days ago.

today I have discovered a conflict in thinking, it follows as such:

A man cheats on his wife, is caught, his wife kills herself, he feels
like shit.

A man cheats on his wife and is not caught. He does not feel bad.

A man cheats on his wife, is not caught and regardless, feels bad
about the occurrance.

The first instance indicates that when one is found out for cheating,
his wife is emotionally damaged, because her ego tells her that others
who find out about this will damage her social standing in these
regards:

1) she is uninformed and out of the loop with her own life
2) she is not good enough in bed if she can't deterr her husband from
cheating.
3) she is the fool for making a mistake in trusting him

Lets say he is caught, The woman tells her friends, they tell their
friends, word gets out. Her ego suffers at her own hands, it seems
although the general public might have found out in another way in the
future, and she would suffer from the first insecurity with social
standings mentioned above.

Now, the man feels bad because
Most people now think the man is a fuckhead for what he has done to
his wife. But the important question is...
WHAT EXACTLY HAS HE DONE?!? If he were to get away with it, who would
have been hurt by this? Nobody would have cared if they didn't know.
He would likely have enjoyed the sexual encounter, therefore, even
from a utilitarian stance this is completely ok. The negative hedons
*happiness units do not occur if the sex is good and no one finds out.
*Keep in mind when we speak of utility here we are ignoring the idea
of the girl he cheated with's mindset of the experience; this is
unimportant and her mindset does not concern this argument.

Now another man knows this man. He happens to have cheated on his wife
five years ago. Let's say before his friend, out initial unfaithful
man (Rick) cheated, our second undaithful man (Tommy) had never heard
of anyone getting caught and chastised for cheating.

After this instance, however, he will feel bad, because his ego is now
at risk. People might somehow findout, his wife might find out, he
will become a fuckhead to society and may never get laid again, or at
least not for a while. But initially, if no one were eve to have been
caught, to his knowledge, the action of cheating has no negative
conscience.

Therefore, to suggest that the act of cheating without being caught is
unethical is a circular argument. Although, at this point, unless
you're stupid, you have seen the negative cobsequinces of cheating in
the past, which invalidates any excuse to not feel bad about cheating.

To avoid being caught for cheating requires being extremely sneaky and
secrative.

To be unconscious of any thoughts of cheating being wrong requires
extremely excessive sheltering, stupidity , or some balanced amount of
both.

Let's face it, if you're sheltered you don't understand society, thus
you have no way of knowing what sneaky is in society.

If you're stupid you simply can't be sneaky because being stupid
implies you have little knowledge of anything, including sneakiness.
The only possibility of not getting caught is sheer luck.

Therefore, your chances of getting off guilt (ego damage) free for
cheating are slim.

Now given all that, is cheating really worth it?