SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We watch the news nowadays with story after story of some sick individual taking a gun to a public place and murdering a bunch of people. Horrible, awful choices. We wonder to ourselves, "what would lead a person to do that?" We can't wrap our minds around it because there is no logic that justifies it.

Ff's comment about logic is like that.

Dragonfly123 nailed it:

These aren’t the ‘reasons’ people have affairs. They’re the top 8 EXCUSES.

All those reasons stated add up to: People break marital promises because they don't want to keep marital promises.

The real reason people cheat is because they don't have the emotional maturity/competence to handle their issues in an effective and respectful manner.

Gotta ask....if things are so bad in one's relationship and one is so unhappy, why not just say so and leave?

Cheating on someone is a thought out choice. There are other choices available, but they chose this one. Why is that?

The list provided in the article was the list I heard from my just-caught cheating H early on. He's since been able to look at things from a deeper level and sees that the reasons are within him, not with how the outside world made him feel. Any excuse will work when youre looking for one.

[This message edited by psychmom at 9:01 AM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

The big 4 reasons, not excuses, why people cheat, in my opinion:

1. They lack self control. They just can't help themselves because they never learned discipline. Emotions hit and before they know it, parts are inside of other parts and the deed is done. These people are weak.

2. They don't like you and frankly don't give a shit about you. What you thought you had is over. It's Cheater Time now, pal, so shut the hell up and get the hell out of the way of their happiness. These people are callous or vindictive.

3. They think the rules don't apply to them. Social norms are for "everyone else". They get to do what they want, and that includes pursuing strange without exiting their active marriage. These people are entitled.

4. They didn't love you anyway because they don't love anyone. They don't even love themselves. They're emotionless vampires who try to blend in with everyone else as a survival tactic. These people are sociopaths.

...these 4 reasons are not mutually exclusive and one person can exhibit multiple behaviors.

[This message edited by AbandonedGuy at 9:13 AM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

I was speaking in terms of a BS trying to understand how someone, who was suppose to value and protect them above all others, could do something like this. IMO, there really is no logical explanation for cheating. From my perspective, applying logic to this would mean that there was some sort of acceptable reason for the cheating. It would be akin to the WS saying, I cheated because you/I blah blah blah and the BS saying, well since you explained it that way, it all makes perfect sense.

IMO, there is no justifiable reason for cheating. While some of the alternatives may be harder, they're certainly better than betrayal.

This is very well put. I kinda hit on this with my IC last week - that to a certain degree, I just have to accept that I will likely never get any explanation that "makes sense" because I am not wired the way my WH is. I too have had opportunities/been hit on/had others show interest. While that is always flattering (cus I'm human too and who doesn't like being noticed?) it has never, and I mean NEVER, once entered my head to pursue anything with a different person because I am married. My WH gave a lot of the same bullshit excuses - "We weren't in a good place" "I didn't feel like you needed me anymore" "You weren't happy with me" blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit...

Yes we were in a funk. Yes things had staled in the bedroom. Yes to all that. But I was in the same damn marriage and didn't cheat. And never would because that is just not who I am.

They say love is blind, and boy do I know that first-hand now. The amount of crap I put up with and let slide during our 9 years together is mind-boggling. Which is okay - I am learning a valuable lesson here about how my own issues affected my ability to effectively communicate. But I still tried to communicate at least; my WH checked out a long time before I did and never really tried to check back in. I know that now. And I think that is at the crux of the cheating quandary: Why didn't you talk to me about it? Why didn't you just divorce me first? All of the many questions BS's ask, including the TT shit all boil down to that key element in a WS - a complete lack of communication, both with your spouse and with yourself. And the fact that my WH felt so "connected" and "open" to an 18 year old says quite a bit about his mental capacity for dealing with any of this IMHO.

I do think that there is some sort of thing with waywards (vow breakers, thieves, etc) that something in them is just wired differently. It doesn't excuse cheating (nothing does) but it is something I believe. I'm not sure if I believe the "once a cheater, always a cheater" but sadly it does seem to happen quite a bit. [Side note: I am by no means taking anything away from waywards that have done the hard work and have dug into their own psyches to sort things out - someone who has done that or is in the process of doing so, I commend you. Doing that kind of work on one's self is extremely difficult.] I think a lot of waywards, whether due to FOO issues, lack of personal constitution, or whatever are simply incapable of doing that work.

Just rambling I guess, but ultimately I do think whatever list of excuses/reasons there are, it all boils down to a major communication issue or lack thereof.

It occurred to me that maybe the real correlation is not between how a marriage "makes" the wayward feel so they HAVE to cheat, but rather it is characteristics of the wayward and how THEY act that actually makes the marriage less emotionally and sexually unsatisfying? Or perhaps many people who choose waywardness are just less happy tobegin with and take it out on their spouses?

IDK because like I have said before on here I am a BS who obviously got an "f" in relationships so am taking that seriously and working on myself, but...

Dishes in the sink made him cheat indeed? really?

Dishes in the sink made him cheat indeed? really?

SheHawk - I know right? Mine didn't like making the bed, so apparently falling d**k-first into a teenager cures that... SMDH and kinda giggling about it too.

I think it's of the utmost importance to improve yourself as an individual and as a partner after you get cheated on, at the very least to defend yourself against running into the situation again, but I don't think it matters whether you were a shit partner and so they cheated on you, or they the cheater acted in such a way that made you a shit partner and so they cheated on you, or you were a great partner and they cheated on you anyway. Cheating can happen in all of these cases and more.

The fact is, shit partner or not, you didn't deserve this. And I know I'm not alone in thinking that the worst part isn't even the act of cheating, but the realization that they played you for a fool, and also how they treat you like garbage in the aftermath of DDay. The fact is, they were unfulfilled and they chose a coward's way out. Period. A good person who cheats, a bad person who cheats, it doesn't matter. Tip-toeing behind your lover's back and betraying them is snake-like behavior.

The indicator, IMO, of whether the cheater is a "good person" (as good as any of us can be, I guess) who made a grave error or a "bad person" (a destructive entity, usually with a disorder) who is just falling into a pattern of behavior is how they comport themselves afterward. Adults should be held to a higher standard than children, i.e. I expect cheaters to realize their mistake and try to make amends, not immaturely hide behind bullshit rationalizations, avoidance, and other such childish crap.

The indicator of whether the BS can be a better partner? I don't know, I'm still working on that...

The cheater is a liar, a thief, dishonorable, disrespectful, a betrayer, one without the capacity to love and one who's vows are absolutely meaningless.

Infidelity is a major character flaw. In fact there way of life is fulfilled with flaws.

In ancient Rome a good sculptor was called sincere (without wax). Many of the dishonorable sculptors would fix the flaws in their work with was. If they were working on their sculptor and broke the nose of it, they would use wax mixed with the dust from the carving, to reattach the nose. They were called insincere (not without wax).

I see the one engaged in infidelity in the same light as the bad sculptor. Constantly passing their life off as something it's not.

There's a difference between a justification and an explanation. The former doesn't exist and the latter is a useful tool for self improvement. If I only cheated because I wanted to, then how can I make myself a safer partner? Do I tell my BH that all we can do is hope that I'll never want to cheat again? Or is it better to work on figuring out what is fucked up inside me that made me believe I had the right to cheat, and fix that?

THIS. If my husband had never dug deep to figure out his "Whys" and then work to understand and overcome them, R would not have been possible for me. This work, this understanding of himself and his way of thinking, allows me to feel like he can be a safe partner.

Interestingly enough BSR, my husband's list looks very similar to yours. Save the CSA, but add a perfectionistic/hypercritical father who rarely expressed approval. I wonder if that's why I identify with so many of your posts.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 6:39 PM, August 22nd, 2019 (Thursday)]

Ibonnie described me perfectly back on page 1.

I’m sorry I’m a day late for this. Butforthegrace is right. "I want to" is the only reason to cheat.

In cheating as in life, we make take several paths to get to our destination. All of the excuses and justifications are paths we take.

When we get to the point of making the final decision to walk through a door there is only one choice. "Do I want to go in?"

The cheater wants to cheat. They open the door and step through.

I've been married about 25 years. Reasonably good looking guy. Travel for work. Marriage, like most, has had its ebbs and flow. I've had situations where sex with a pretty woman was possible, offered, available. A hotel on the road. A party while away from family. Alcohol under the belt to reduce inhibitions. Yet each time that devil on my shoulder has tried to get my attention, the angel on the other one reminds me of the promise I made my wife.

In other words, I did not want to cheat. I could easily have cheated had I wanted to.

It’s eerie how much our stories align. Like really weird. Could this experience be this common? How many other guys in their mid 40s/early 50s who were chumps busting their humps and traveling for work and being loyal to their wives who got shafted and gutted about 25 years in? I’m wondering and starting to think it’s a lot. A silent plurality, a slow moving train wreck of shattered husbands ignored by the mass media? Perhaps.

Are we sure that we’re not the same person in some kind of Tyler Durden Fight Club scenario posting under two different pseudonyms? Maybe I’m the shadow side still so pissed off I can’t see straight? Food for thought.

By the way, a therapist did help me in one respect: He told me I have a particularly strong “observer ego” - the self that mediates and puts brakes on the other aspects of personality that might be thought of as “the devil on the shoulder.” While there’s no actual scientific proof for this, I thought it was a pretty decent mental model for making sense of some things. He said that — whatever you want to call it, angel, observer, conscience, etc. — people are obviously describing a phenomenon that is a real part of the human experience. And he said that while some people have a very well developed aspect for this, others have a diminished one or not at all.

My WW's reasons:

#1 My mother died and I was depressed.

#2 I was on Prozac and not thinking straight.

#3 You paid more attention to our baby than to me.

And my all-time favorite that's always guaranteed to seriously piss me off more than any other excuse:

#4 I made a mistake.

Butforthegrace and Thumos, my WW started her LTA in the 25th year of our marriage. We celebrated our 25th anniversary at church which is what she wanted to do. Then LTA with a COW.

I travelled for work, reasonably good looking, reasonably successful in my field. I think I could have easily cheated if I wanted to.

She travelled for work sometimes for 6 nights away. When travelling with him she screwed every night after talking to me on the phone with the customary "ILY". Most of the screwing was at his place on her way home after work, though. All of it nooners and quickies after work. Never spent more time together even when they could.

She wanted to, there was opportunity, she thought she would get away with it. Voila.

[This message edited by steadychevy at 1:53 PM, August 23rd (Friday)]

I was told it was because I was not the wife I should be, and it was the perfect storm (meeting the perfect woman at the time he was fed up and ready to leave the marriage and AP was miserable because her husband cheated on her, etc etc). He still insists that I would cheat if I were ever caught in the perfect storm.

My opinion is that people who cheat are emotionally immature and selfish.

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 10:26 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

In my WW's mind, she viewed being with the POSOM like Gollum viewed the ring. It became her, Precioussss.

Then she discovered that I, the faithful Frodo, was a hateful creature full of tricksies. Her inner dialogue,

Husband only hurts us. Husband doesn't love us. Husband works too long. Husband hates us. Husband doesn't understand us. Husband wants to take our precious. Husband can't be trusted. Husband is wicked. Husband...is...baad. We hates husband...don't we precious!

VM, is not really funny but I got such a visual from this!

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 10:31 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]