Have your cake and eat it to

I used the phrase myself for years and I still do today. To me it means that a person is being to greedy for their own good and they want it all and then some more. Just like a playa, someone that has more than one partner but don't want to give one up, so he/she keeps both, having their cake and eating it too. I have a cousin whose married and has a girlfriend on the side. I keep telling him to give up the woman on the side, or divorce your wife if you want the other woman. I always tell him, "you can't have your cake and eat it too." But he does anyways.

i think the saying is not applicable nowadays.To gain one thing you have to sacrifice another.This proverb is easier to grasp if it is understood to mean “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.”

Hey missy! It is really simple when you break it down! It means that you can't always have everything completely your way. You can't have things exactly the way you want them to be. You may only be able to have part of what you want and you may have to give up the other part of what you want. So in other words you can't have your cake (you can't have everything) and eat it too(you have to give something up) in exchange for getting some of what you want. In other words, rather than not having your way at all you have to kind of compromise to get what you want.

I think the literal meaning is that if you eat your cake you wont have it anymore but the important metaphor concerns making an important decision in which you will have to loose something to gain something more important.Eating your cake is one such decision its a win/loose situation.You eat your cake and it fills your hunger while providing nutrients but then you wont have you cake anymore.