“Be careful who you cheat on” isn’t a famous, old adage, but it should be, because some scorned women go freaking crazy trying to get revenge on unfaithful spouses. Just last night, a 67-year-old woman in Queens, NY, woke up at 6 a.m., boiled a pot of water, and poured it on her husband’s private parts, leaving him with second- and third-degree burns from his knees to his abdomen. Oyinda Ojofeitimi told police she had recently learned her husband of 20 years had been unfaithful. “She was hurt and angry that after all this time married, he was stepping out on her,” a police source told the New York Daily News. “She wanted to shut down that possibility forever because he had treated her with such contempt.” Ojofeitimi then regretted what she had done and called 911, but that’s not really enough, is it? She has been arrested on assault charges. This isn’t the first time (and it certainly won’t be the last) that a woman has retaliated against her cheating husband. After the jump, a hall of fame for scorned women.

• Is “So In Style” Barbie on the right path towards a more “authentic” Black Barbie, with its fuller lips, noses and curly hair? [The Root]
• Michael Jackson’s kids reportedly want to live with neither their Grandmother, nor Debbie Rowe, but with their aunt Janet.[OK!]—She does have the fiercest dance moves.
• Politicians aren’t the only ones with infidelity problems, rumor has it that athletes are pretty horrible at monogamous relationships as well.[Lemondrop] – Pro-athletes cheat in 80-90% of relationships…so stay far, far away.

A columnist for the Examiner examined this week the meaning of infidelity. “The definition of infidelity in the dictionary,” she writes “is: ‘marital unfaithfulness or an instant of it.’”  While I think most of us would agree that a couple needn’t be married to be unfaithful, how exactly do we define unfaithfulness? Is it, as the columnist suggests, “a broken promise”? “If you promise to someone that you will not sleep with someone else and then do so anyway,” she writes, “I believe that constitutes as infidelity.” But what if the promise is never articulated? What if it’s just assumed? And is it only sleeping with someone else that constitutes infidelity? What about kissing? Or cyber-flirting? Or having an “emotional affair” that’s never physically consummated? How do you define cheating? And, most importantly, does your significant other share your definition? [via Examiner]

I don’t believe that once a cheater, always a cheater. That specific aphorism is a bitter, moralizing form of self-deception. We all are cheaters; none of us is invulnerable to temptation. What defines a person is not whether they are faithless. It is a simple, easy thing to impulsively take that which you want. No, what defines a person is whether they chose to stay faithful. That is difficult, and that active decision, that vigilance, is the steep price love demands.

Along with the rest of America, I’m rubbernecking at South Carolinian Gov. Mark Sanford’s affair with an Argentinian lass, Maria Belen Chapur (and I’m quietly cheering for Sanford’s wife, Jenny, for leaving him).

Cheating doesn’t speak well for a conservative Republican politician who preached “family values.” Sanford’s hypocrisy alone is gross.  But married politicians dropping their drawers for women who aren’t their wives isn’t as interesting to me as the fact that Gov. Sanford told everyone he would be hiking on the Appalachian Trail when he was actually south of the border with his mistress.

According to a new study cited in The New York Times, infidelity is on the rise. The study also concluded that young women are closing the gap on what has largely been thought of as bad behavior for men—apparently, nearly as many women are cheating on their partners and spouses. This did not surprise me in the slightest—a large number of women I know in my age group have cheated on boyfriends. So why do women cheat? What are the circumstances that led to their infidelity? And how did they feel about it in the aftermath? After the jump, 13 anonymous confessions from women who have cheated.

Much has been written in the media this week about men cheating on their wives. We have the tale of two Jo(h)ns: John Edwards, whose scorned wife, Elizabeth Edwards, appeared on “Oprah” yesterday to promote her new book, Resilence, in which she addresses her husband’s much publicized affair, and Jon Gosselin, costar of the hit TLC reality show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” whose rumored affair has become tabloid fodder. The former is a tale as old as journalism itself: a man in power cheats on a wife who, from the outside, seemed a supporting and loving spouse undeserving of her husband’s unfaithfulness. The latter is another familiar tale: a man under an enormous amount of pressure is regularly and publicly emasculated and treated like dirt by his wife and seemingly seeks solace with another woman. In both cases, the men are vilified—but is it possible that maybe, just maybe, at least one of the women had it coming?

By the time you hit your Saturn Return, the probability that you’ve been on the giving or receiving end of a romantic infidelity is about as high as your credit card debt. But what happens when you’re privy to the less than virtuous activities of a friend or acquaintance’s significant other? The moral conundrum of whether or not to out a cheater is fraught with shoot-the-messenger peril and weighted with Golden Rule considerations. And the potential outcome of ratting out a rat is just as complex and diverse. Should you risk life and limb to unveil the truth or keep your nose out of someone else’s business? Two ladies argue the costs. 

A 40-year-old Japanese man named Tatsuhiko Kawata has been sentenced to five years in jail for having cold feet and a cold, cold heart. Kawata, who had been married since 1994, started cheating on his wife three years ago with another woman whom he agreed to marry last October at the Risonare hotel. Still married to the first wife, Kawata tried to delay the wedding on the eve of the ceremony by dumping petrol in the hotel and setting it on fire!  Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the woman Kawata was set to merry dodged a bullet, too. The presiding judge who sentenced Kawata called him “egoistic and short-sighted.” Guess we need to add a #10 to our Signs He’s A Cheater post: He carries a can petrol around with him and sets a hotel on fire. [via Telegraph U.K.]

When my friend Stephanie was out to dinner the other night, she saw a young, twentysomething couple having dinner together at a table near hers. When the woman got up to go to the restroom, the woman’s boyfriend/husband, grabbed her phone and began searching through it, in an obviously suspicious way. Stephanie said she felt super guilty for not having said anything to the woman when she returned; that not letting her know that her man was spying on her and checking her call logs was a violation of girl code. I disagree. While I think women should look out for each other—hell, I think people should look out for each other—sometimes I think girl code treads too much into “none of your business” territory.

If you think it’s obvious why most men aren’t exactly lining up to date Rumer Willis, think again. According to a new study it may not be just because they find that big chin unattractive. Researchers say a prominent chin can be a “telltale sign that a woman will be unfaithful.” Hmm, can someone say Claire Danes? Perhaps, Hillary Swank? 

I’m not proud to say this, but I recently went out with a guy who well, had a girlfriend. Oops! I didn’t get that was his deal at first, but after I connected a few dots—okay, there was a tampon out on his kitchen table—I realized he already belonged to another woman.  While I’m glad this revelation saved me from a fate that involved that pig, I still feel bad for playing a part in his scheme, albeit unwittingly. I wish I could tell his real girlfriend what a philandering d-bag he is, I don’t know who she is. So instead, I will share with you the tell-tale signs that I pieced together afterwards that all pointed to the clear fact that he was nothin’ but a Cheatin’ Charlie!

A Long Island surgeon doesn’t want to fight his estranged wife for the million dollar pad they shared. Instead, he wants the kidney he donated to her. But he’ll settle for $1.5 million compensation.

About a year ago, rapper Riskay had a recommendation for all the ladies who think their man is cheating.  She suggested suspicious lovers should ask to “Smell Yo Dick.” While the song was an underground hit, a woman was just beaten for using that line on her cheating husband.  Just a straight shot south on the Florida Turnpike will get you from Riskay’s home in Bartow to the real scene of the “smell yo dick” crime in Port St. Lucie.  After the 37-year-old victim followed her man into the bathroom to get wind of the truth, he punched her in the face and kicked her to the ground.  The dude has been missing ever since, but his battered wife of three years refuses to press charges. Penis sniffing and prosecution dodging, ah, the things we do for love! [TCPalm]

We’ve all heard some variation on the maxim “once a cheater, always a cheater.” In my personal experience, the decision to heed or not to heed said aphorism seems directly related to just how sprung one is on the guy in question, but nine times out of ten, the truth will come out. And that truth generally involves a wandering wang. 

I’m not the only one who thinks so. Relationship expert Dr. Gilda Carle, who’s written a book on the matter, called “How to Win When Your Mate Cheats”, thinks that without the genuine desire to reform and a good therapist, a habitual cheater is doomed to repeat him- (or her-) self: “If they’re willing to put in the time and effort and acknowledge they have an issue, then there’s a chance they won’t cheat again. But if they think, ‘I can get away with this. My father was like this my uncle was like this all my buddies are this way,’ then you don’t have a shot in hell of reforming this guy. And no woman should try to reform a guy anyway because it’s a lost cause.” Of course, every relationship is different. Take a gander at two women who represent both sides of the debate, after the jump…

Memo to the ladies: Your boyfriend jerking off to Perfect 10 or the occasional American Apparel ad is not cheating. Masturbating to a hot message that he got from a new 17-year-old “friend” he met on Facebook is. See the difference there? We hear a lot of complaints, especially from women, about concerns regarding their partners’ insistent masturbation. “Would you consider this cheating?” some ask. While no question is a stupid question, such queries do give me pause. Catholic guilt aside, when did self-love become tantamount to infidelity?

I’m working from home today, so naturally I’m enjoying the background noise known as “The View.” Elisabeth Hasselbeck just said that she thinks that fantasizing about another person while you’re having sex with your partner is kinda, sorta a form of cheating. Mind you, I think she once said that masturbating is cheating too. So what do you think? Is thinking about someone else while you’re doin’ it a form of infidelity?

I tried marriage and I don’t understand the attraction. I hated it. It’s such hard work. I had to organize the maids, the chef, assistants, chauffeurs, gardeners. All that staff. Exhausting. What really did it for me was when my husband told me he wanted children. Can you imagine? Ruining your figure for babies; those smelly things that leak at both ends?

At the beginning of a marriage everyone is on their best behavior. Everyone is pretending to be something their not. He’s pretending to be terribly fascinated in everything you say, he brushes his teeth, acts like a super stud in the bedroom, and living room, and kitchen… And we women pretend that he’s our “super hero,” we wear high heels and naughty little teddies, we shave our legs everyday. But six months and he’s turned deaf and dumb, your legs are hairy, neither one of you has brushed your teeth, you pick your nose and he picks his butt. He farts, you burp. The teddies have been replaced with sweats; he sits in front of the TV with the “game” on, mumbling, a beer in hand. You barely speak to each other; you’re too tired to have sex. Marriage. What is the advantage?

I’ve been thinking a lot about cheating lately, and what constitutes cheating for men and women. Personally, I think anything physical starting with kissing is cheating, though of course it increases in severity the more clothes come off. Emotional cheating is very real in my opinion too—I would be dismayed to find out that my ex, I don’t know, was having, say, a developing emotional affair, possibly, with his younger female coworker, confiding in her and sending her notes about missing her. No physical boundary may have been crossed, but giving your heart to someone, when it belongs to someone else, is just as bad to me. But what about men? Do they have the same guidelines? And how much would they forgive?