SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Once a cheater always a cheater is pretty much dead on....

What data is that based on, other than unverified stories you've read or heard and your own fears?

I can easily accept that a person who has violated a norm once is more likely to violate more norms, but 'more likely to violate' is not 'will violate'.

For some numbers, look for Peggy Vaughan's Help for Therapists (and Their Clients), available for no-cost download from her website.

My bet is that a WS who learns to validate themself (rather than expect external validation to satisfy them) is unlikely to cheat again. The internal work closes up vulnerabilities. Something may come up in the future that reveals other vulnerabilities, but that can happen to any of us, IMO.

Surveys are very unreliable around topics like these because most people don't want to admit they cheaters/liars/low character/disloyal etc., even anonymously.

So my guess is that whatever the numbers are, for one time cheaters or multiple-time cheaters, it is actually higher than what is reported by the survey.

***

Having said that, recidivism is a real thing, and as Bigger pointed out above, when one decides to "break the rules" to indulge in unlawful or risky behavior, they are more likely to do so again.

I would also like to add, that many people "outgrow" those behaviors, whether it be through repeated consequences, getting tired, it loses "the thrill" and what have you.

And others don't!

So in summation, in my opinion, if you enter or continue a relationship with a known cheater you are at a higher risk of being cheated on again.

***

I know some people feel different, and that's fine!

But I always wonder - if instead of cheating, it were say, someone's daughter who is contemplating dating or continuing a relationship with a man who has been known to punch his girlfriend or wife, or had already punched her... where would they fall when advising her about the calculus of "likelihood for him to do it again"?

I know if my accountant embezzles money from me, we're done. Forever.

Affairs of the heart are different of course. But I advise that you do your best to contemplate any risk you may be undertaking.

Bigger:

if she ever again insists this is a marriage issue and not an infidelity issue then tell her right there and then that if she insists on that being true you two might just as well start talking divorce.

That is a very bold statement and it is pretty much spot on with what I feel. We've argued before and she has said that she doesn't blame me for her adultery, but that the adultery is but one issue in an already troubled marriage. It isn't the star of the show. I have argued and said "You would feel very differently if it was me that cheated."

Unfortunately I believe that our (fired) MC may have enabled this mindset a bit by telling me in a couples session that "She could have divorced you, and you could divorce her, so you're in a place to move forward" or similar. This probably reinforced my WW attitude.

"she could have divorced you."

I would have preferred that if in fact we had divorce worthy issues.

Edit: I should restate, I would have preferred she told me whatever issues, and if I didn't respond file for divorce. Instead she deceived me. What I mean is, being slapped with D papers would have been superior to having dday.

Edit edit: what I mean is this statement is not reflective of reality and implies an A is a better coping mechanism than asking for a D. Most A's have nothing to do with wanting to leave or end an M. They want both! Cake eating and whatnot.

Edit edit edit: Most MCs suck.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 7:29 PM, April 28th (Wednesday)]

Thank you all for the wonderful insight.

I will agree that people can change. I have. I have identified my core fears (being weak and powerless), managed the controlling behaviors that comes from them, and learned how to better control my emotions.

It might not matter in my current marriage but it is better for me overall.

I don't know where I saw it but on another website the advice is that to stay married after cheating, you are basically accepting that they will cheat again. I think the logic is that if they don't, then so much the better. I don't know. I don't like that philosophy.

I have asked her about the circumstances that she might cheat again, maybe a wealthy guy, handsome, charmer, etc. She has only replied somewhat curt "I won't." I can tell she feels these discussions are condescending.

This0is0Fine:

Oh my gosh it would have been much better to file for D, or take the kids and leave, or to demand we go to counseling, or any of those things.

I said to her what if in all the hurt, pain, insecurity I feel, I was to go out and have a good rebound? Go to Tinder, spend some money, buy some drinks, have a ONS of my own? You would be so pissed and think "What the fuck? Why?!?!?!" and you would be right and THAT'S HOW I FEEL!!!

I believe that any person who feels an attraction to another, and acts on it intentionally in utmost secrecy, is cheating.

We are all adults. Imperfect. Do I believe my husband is cheating today: no. Do I believe my husband will cheat in the future: he could if he chose to do so. It is his decision to make not mine.

I have plans set up with my finances, my assets, and my life should our second chance run out because of another affair. We both know this. My plans give me peace of mind, and create a powerful boundary in my husband's mind.

Once a cheater, always a cheater? Only if the cheater wants to cheat again. Otherwise, no.

The rug sweeping narcissist who asked, ‘what’s the big deal’ and makes statements like ‘so what, everyone cheats’, ‘you made me do it. You pushed me to do it’. The remorseless.

Wife of 21 years feels neglected, abandoned, and abused.

Yet nothing you have reported you did or did not do actually matches this description. So then we are left with a WW rewriting the history of your marriage in a false light.

To answer your question about likelihood there is some evidence that people who cheat have broken through a physical brain barrier that can make it easier to repeat.

However, we are more than the sum of our physical brains. We have free will and neuroplasticity (our ability to use our own minds to change our brain structure) in which case one assumes that a person who becomes more self aware about the horror of infidelity would be unlikely to repeat it.

For that to occur, they would need to develop true empathy and remorse and metanoia (literally a changing of the mind). And they would need to stop being defensive, closed off, and dismissive.

Even if she stops cheating, obviously, she has the desire to cheat.

So, do you really want to be in a relationship with someone who refrains from cheating merely because of fear of the consequences?

The woman you describe has no empathy. Lack of empathy is the hallmark of a narcissist.

About 10 years ago I read an article in Psychology Today and the premises is that people who betray generally do so again as they have similar addictive properties of an alcoholic. Like H.O. stated, they are broken and need to fix the cycle of addiction. If they don't, they are high risk to repeat. So even though once a ______, always an ______, doesn't guarantee it happens again It's just that the propensity remains.

[This message edited by thatbpguy at 10:08 AM, April 29th (Thursday)]

Can’t say I have any special insight but it is certainly something I have put a great deal of thought into, as I am sure most others here have as well.

For me, you need real remorse first and foremost. That memory of how badly you hurt someone else and how badly it made you feel about yourself would likely have a lasting impact reducing the chance of it happening again. I also believe it is needed to kickstart the transition from cheater to healthy partner which further mitigates the risk of reoccurrence.

However, I seriously doubt that many WS start in the remorse camp. Generally, it seems like those that do transition start that process somewhere mid/late in the first year. How long it takes to move from mostly regret to mostly remorse depends on the WS. I also believe you can see the start of this transition when you begin to see them grow disgusted by what they did and who they were. Not just say they are disgusted, a lot of us hear that early on, but rather when you can legit see the disgust in their eyes and body language as they think/talk about it.

Second, the WS has to be willing to work on themselves. If they don’t, they are still vulnerable. Sure, they may not cheat again because of how badly it hurt you/them but without that next step I would personally not be entirely comfortable staying.

Those two things together seem they will give the best chance that it will not happen again but at the end of the day, it is still just a chance.

One last thing to consider. Early on I doubt many BS are in a state where they could even recognize these things. Between the shock, sadness, confusion, pain, etc. I can’t say I was in any state to be able to honestly know what the hell I was looking at in terms of my own actions/feelings let alone my WWs. It wasn’t until my head started to clear that I started to notice what seemed legit and what was just talk or posturing for my benefit.

I have asked her about the circumstances that she might cheat again, maybe a wealthy guy, handsome, charmer, etc. She has only replied somewhat curt "I won't." I can tell she feels these discussions are condescending.

I have spent many countless hours in conversations with my fWW about establishing boundaries to ensure there won't be a repeat. I need to feel safe, and she needs to not respond as though I'm personally attacking her. We eventually had that breakthrough, but it did take a year of defensiveness from her before I asked for a D, and only then did we start communicate on my negative feelings related to my mistrust of her and how she could best assuage those well founded fears.

I asked her specific questions about what if her AP talks to her again in a way that only vaguely crosses a boundary.

What if he sends you a message on linkedin?

What if he opens a new account and emails you just asking for parenting advice because they are having an "emergency"?

How will you react the next time you get a crush on someone and has work reasons to be alone with them? Will you tell me about the crushes? How will you deal with the fact that you know I won't like getting that news? Can you understand that temporary discomfort and anxiety will most be fixed by knowing you are being honest with me, so long as you are consistent?

Defensiveness and "I won't do it again" is just not enough.

Once a cheater always a cheater is pretty much dead on.

...

I can easily accept that a person who has violated a norm once is more likely to violate more norms, but 'more likely to violate' is not 'will violate'.

I think if someone cheats and really becomes remorseful - not just guilty or regretful or sorry they got caught - it's much less likely. There are many WS on this site that I think you would find they would lop off an arm before they went down that road again. Someone who is remorseful means they sat down and really thought about what they did to the other person, they have the capability of empathy.

Once I saw all the damage - to him, to our marriage, and to myself - and have had to climb a mountain due to some very thoughtless and callous actions, there would be no way I could or would do that again. None. I learned to "scratch the itch' that you are talking about by adopting better coping skills and learning what makes me happy and protecting that.

I also tend to think if the BS is willing to rugsweep that increases the chances exponentially. The WS needs to come to a full understanding of the damage and if the BS is willing to help conceal the damage there is a far less likely anything can be learned or gained.

My bet is that a WS who learns to validate themself (rather than expect external validation to satisfy them) is unlikely to cheat again. The internal work closes up vulnerabilities. Something may come up in the future that reveals other vulnerabilities, but that can happen to any of us, IMO.

Exactly. I would bet on many of the WS here.

Monogamy is not in our nature, society condones female infidelity, our (western) culture is predicated on creating it (we have a very promisicous, materialistic culture), and our law institutions (divorce court) in many ways rewards it.

This is laughable. Society condones female infidelity? As a female who cheated, I fully and widely disagree. There is an unstated slant for the opposite actually. In my personal life I have noticed when men cheat, others are almost expecting it. It's such a fabric of our society that men cheat and always have. I am not saying I subscribe to that, but I notice that there is a lot more "oh honey, he made a mistake", "he was thinking with his wrong brain, men can't control that sometimes", etc. It just simply has been more commonplace for a man to cheat much longer.

Women are catching up to that for sure now that they are more able to make enough to support themselves. They are in the workplace on top of that, and I have certainly noticed about 4 out of 5 new WW's who join this site are here because they cheated with a co-worker.

When women cheat, it's proven that the divorce rate is higher. The reason for that is two fold. One, women are more likely to have an exit affair rather than a cake-eating affair. Meaning we usually cheat when we have had it with that marriage. That doesn't mean the reason we had it is because of our BH's. Most often it goes hand and hand with our own conflict avoidance, attitudes that if you loved us you should know (yeah because we married mind readers! So dumb!) And one of the biggest groups of cheating women are ones between 38 and 48 - we get busy raising a family and being everything to everyone that as that family matures and needs us less we do not have a clue of who we are or what makes us happy. WW's tend to assume that because we aren't happy it must be our relationships or our marriages, but the reality is it's because we never learned to prioritize ourselves.

The second reason the divorce rate is higher is that men are far less likely to condone their wife's cheating. There are lots of reasons for that. One, they aren't conditioned to accept it from generation to generation as women have been. Second, they can generally support themselves fine. Usually you see men stay in the marriage when they have a SAHM who they don't feel right about putting in the streets or there are children still left to raise and the courts have not been favorable historically with custody and support. They can't keep up with financing two households. That is changing rapidly of course.

There is much more of a stigma surrounding women who cheat amongst men (generally, not all men and not even most men). And I would say also with other women because that woman broke our "sister code".

Just some food for thought around that. Cheating is cheating, it should be condoned by noone, and it's as wrong for men as it is for women and vice versa. But, if we are talking about society, we have been much more used to the male cheating concept for longer and the backlash is higher due to a gender double standard that is rooted in "good girls don't" mentality that we have used in raising girls. Many women will tell you that we are conditioned to believe our sexuality is dangerous, bad, shameful, and all of those things. So, I do think that today's society is definitely more in your face with women are sexual beings too than we used to be. Personally I do not find that a bad thing either. Just like I think men should have more rights and access to their children when they divorce, women should have more rights to behave sexually like men. Noone should have more rights to cheat.

End rant. Sorry.

Even if she stops cheating, obviously, she has the desire to cheat.

So, do you really want to be in a relationship with someone who refrains from cheating merely because of fear of the consequences?

The woman you describe has no empathy. Lack of empathy is the hallmark of a narcissist.

I agree and disagree.

All WS lack empathy. For some, this is a temporary thing - often someone gets consumed in their own crisis and inner world (I did this). I lacked empathy from before my affair clear until probably 8 or 9 months after my affair. My give a shit was busted. That's why I call mine an exit affair. I just stuck to things well enough that I recognized that my give a shit was busted by ME. Not by him or our marriage.

I am not a narcissist. I am generally speaking a very nurturing and empathetic person. Once I could recover, that naturally returned.

So, for the OP, was she always this unempathetic or is this new behavior?

ETA:

Also I don't think I ever held the desire to cheat. Meaning it wasn't a secret fantasy I was holding. If you read the book "Not just friends" I think it explains that pretty well.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:05 PM, April 29th (Thursday)]

Monogamy is not in our nature

There’s no scientific consensus on this, and plenty of evidence indicates we are geared toward monogamy (at least as much as that we are not) -- that said, a lot of things aren’t “in our nature.”

Monogamous pair bonding seems to be a constant in human relationships and not merely as a “social construct” in modern societies. Most hunter gatherer societies were and are monogamous.

It isn’t “in our nature” to be kind consistently or to defecate in a toilet - but we do it.

Monogamy as a “social construct” seems to mostly come from Enlightenment era philosophy and some of the half baked ideas of the Romantics, inventing notion of “free love” because it sounded like a swell idea at the time -- without any empirical foundation for these assertions.

As far as female infidelity, there does seem to be an unfortunate current media trend in Western society toward valorizing it as an uplifting and empowering experiment in “finding yoursefl” in bestselling books, movies and in major publications. Failing that there are also bizarre assertions for female infidelity being an act of “you go girl” revolutionary feminism.

These excesses aside, a media narrative doesn't mean people are necessarily brainwashed. For example, I doubt very many wayward wives view their infidelity as empowering in the wake of the toxic fallout.

I'm with Bigger... The WS MUST MUST MUST take full responsibility for their choice, even a ONS. And from what (albeit little) I've read about your story, that is not happening. Can that change? I believe it can, but it takes a ton of REALLY HARD effing work. And that work MUST include whatever it is you need to feel safe and able to find a modicum of trust.

And also this:

I also tend to think if the BS is willing to rugsweep that increases the chances exponentially. The WS needs to come to a full understanding of the damage and if the BS is willing to help conceal the damage there is a far less likely anything can be learned or gained.

I pretty much rugswept my WH's 1st PA, of the ONS variety. HUGE mistake. I should have never married him after that ONS. Things change as we are M for a long time, the opportunity cost fallacy, etc. come into play.

But it sure sounds to me that neither your WS's words nor her actions show any remorse, empathy, or anything that shows true accountability - like IN HER BONES accountability and remorse. White knuckling and faking it won't work.

Failing that there are also bizarre assertions for female infidelity being an act of “you go girl” revolutionary feminism.

There is a weird "YEAH! We're able to be as shitty as men now! WHOO" thing that I've seen on occasion, lol.

I mean, it's obviously more that we can actually have jobs and bank accounts and such now so an act of infidelity doesn't literally destroy your ability to buy food and eat instead of some wave of feminism making it cool to find yourself by cheating.

As far as female infidelity, there does seem to be an unfortunate current media trend in Western society toward valorizing it as an uplifting and empowering experiment in “finding yoursefl” in bestselling books, movies and in major publications. Failing that there are also bizarre assertions for female infidelity being an act of “you go girl” revolutionary feminism.

These excesses aside, a media narrative doesn't mean people are necessarily brainwashed. For example, I doubt very many wayward wives view their infidelity as empowering in the wake of the toxic fallout.

Agree wholeheartedly. I have learned a lot more about true feminism over the last year or so. A feminist would not cheer on cheating, they cheer for women having equal power and recognition for certain things. By cheating, I basically gave my power away in so many ways. I allowed myself to be used for his sexual gratification, I had a far lesser position in moving towards divorce, and I didn't use my crisis or where I was as a stepping stone to figure it out. I escaped instead.

And, I should acknowledge, Thumos was not pointing at feminism in his post, I just went there in my head.

I do know what Thumos is pointing at in media and whatnot, I can't say I was ever swayed to cheat in that regard but certainly there are many things that exist that would have supported my decision to cheat. I would even go as far as to say that I did look at some things AFTER choosing to cheat that would justify my actions. But, that is far less a feminist movement, and I do really wonder where it comes from instead.

Some cheating really comes from a combination of opportunity and vulnerability. The rest of it is seeking behavior with intentions to cheat. In either instance, the person lacks integrity and empathy. But my feeling is there is still some differences between those two things, and I *think* the camp that is in the seeking behavior it is generally not their first affair. They had an affair, they liked the feelings it provided, didn't get caught, and they look to replicate that experience again. The only "seeker" that might be outside of that is one that is probably addicted to porn, it moved to video cams, to escalating the behavior by hiring a professional.

In most affairs I have read about here, there almost always is a seeker and a follower. I don't think one is better than the other. However, I think a seeker has a bigger chance of having had more than one affair in the past. If you can figure out for sure which one your wife is that might be helpful. Cause if she was a seeker it would be a good clue to get a poly.

We got poly's after my h's affair. I was convinced it must not have been his first one because I had zero clue. No behavior changes. With mine, he knew something was wrong but didn't know what. Turns out he was just a bigger compartmentalizer than me. The AP was a seeker, and she had at least one other affair that the OBS knew about. The AP in my affair was a massive seeker, and had many, many affairs in the past.

Those are my theories and are probably fallible. No generalization is ever 100 percent true either.