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The betrayed person should leave, but should try and make the marriage work if the cheater is remorseful. The betrayed spouse should stay and only leave if the cheater is (un)remorseful.

I think there was a typo there; if not, please let us know.

I meant the cheatee should only leave if the cheater is not remorseful.

The societal messages are confusing.

But relationships are confusing too. Because what works in one relationship doesn't work in another. What one person expects in a relationship another one doesnt. Even more confusing is that what we want in a relationship might not actually be healthy.

As for the idea of ignoring the shoulds - we all end uo doing what we want. I ignored everyone telling me that the ex wasn't a great idea. Did it anyway.

Intimate Partner Violence is horrible vecause you love and want to be with the peraon who is hurting you. Same with cheating.

The difference between the two is that woth IPV, there might be an internal battle aboit what to do, but the external message is clear. You need to leave.

For cheating, there is both the internal struggle and the various societal messages.

For violence, it is considered a rrlationship deal breaker. Cheating - for some it is a deal breaker and for others it is only a deal breaker if the perspn is not remorseful. It is a serious mindfuck

For God's sake the cheaters that try to convince their spouses that " it just happened" must think their spouses are incredibly dumb.

I can't speak for all WS's, but in my FWS case this was said as well. BUT, it was not true. As many have pointed out, it was actively planned. However, my FWS wanted to believe this "just happened" with a coalescence of random events that she had no control over, she herself was trying to buy into, and sell, this version.

Why? Because the alternative, the true version, which was "A guy I don't know hit on me, and offered me a beer, so I drank a couple with him, then met him in a parking lot for sex, and then when I'd arranged for you to be watching the kids so we could fuck at his workplace after it closed, yada, yada, yada...so that when we got caught it would destroy both our marriages, break up our homes, lead to both families being gutted, and the kids going through Hell, just like my parents marriage and my childhood was" was just to terrible to countenance in her mind.

Our MC disabused her of that thinking, starting with FOO issues, cheating in the FOO, exposing poor coping mechanisms, reliance on alcohol to deal with everyday stresses, and on, and on, and on, leading to a point where choices were made when someone hit on her, and her behaviors afterward, which led to the affair.

Do they ever just stop and think how one would have to be a moron to believe this load of shit?

Well, I'm pretty damn smart, but it turns out I believed a lot of shit, because when it comes to lying my FWS would have won a Pulitzer Prize if they gave them out for lying.

Depending on what that goal is, I don't see this as a problem. It's like deciding to never drink whiskey again because once you drank too much, threw up, and now the smell of whiskey turns your stomach. Do you feel as if your life would be better with whisky in it in that case? Of course if you want to, you could work through it but most people can live happy, fulfilled lives, healthier even, without whiskey. An alcoholic desperately wants to drink whiskey but it wouldn't mean they are stuck in their healing with regards to addiction if they decide the consequences of doing so are greater than the reward.

I think the original comment meant that staying stuck in victim mode is the opposite of doing this. The above drinker who stopped did not stay stuck in victim mode and took their power back. Whiskey lost, they won.

I tend to never think of myself as a victim of anything. I'm an oldest child, and if you believe in that stuff, oldest children are frequently the take charge type. We get stuff done, but we often don't know how to step back. I had to allow myself some compassion and let myself have an "I don't actually got this" moment. It's difficult for me to accept things being out of my control and messy. But it felt good to set my H's issues down and focus on cutting myself some slack for his poor choices. I mastered the art of the self hug; I deserved it.

But my H tends to always think of himself as the victim. He's a youngest child, again, if you think that has any bearing on your tendencies. He's all chill, all the time. "Things happen. Not my fault." If I had a dollar for every time my H has said something was not his fault, well, I'd have stacks and stacks of cash. His fall back is that something is "not gonna work, not his fault, or not a problem." He resists taking any responsibility for his actions because he did not grow up seeing himself in any kind of control. Everyone did everything for him, and if life didn't work out, it became an easy story to tell himself. "Not my fault!"

As an MC will often say (remembering that an MC wants to help fix your M, not heal infidelity or other blame games), "OIN, you need to let your H have a little control over the R by drawing more boundaries around what you will not tolerate rather than giving him a pass or doing everything yourself and being resentful. You need to be firm with your consequences when things are unacceptable. H, you need to actually step forward when she communicates her needs, step up and take charge. Or those consequences are going to sting."

This relates to infidelity in that if this is a problematic dynamic in the M, then it very likely continued during the cheating. The one partner (me) continues to step up. "I will not be a victim!" And tries to control the healing and the outcome. I went into fix it mode, even though I was the one abused! The other partner (H) resists seeing themselves as anything but the victim. "It was not my fault!" He took the victim role, even though he hurt me with his actions! Geeze, those are worn out roles at my house. Even after cheating.

Now, if it's necessary, I give myself permission to take my own side, the side of "I am more important than this R, his happiness, and what other people think." If I'm hurt, I put my consequences in place, and that is that. This means that I see myself as having been harmed, even victimized, so I take care of me and let other things go. I prioritize my needs--journal, sleep, do nothing, pamper myself, stay quiet, do not instigate deep conversations, do not fix, hang out alone--and allow my H to figure out how to step up. He is capable. If he wants to fix something he breaks, it's on him. I no longer worry about the outcome of our M.

If this is abuse (it is, in my mind) then what will you do? If you resist seeing yourself as a victim, you probably want to take charge and fix it. But you can't. You didn't break it. You'll most likely need to learn to step back and let yourself be sad, let yourself feel unlovable or whatever hurtful feelings you are trying to avoid with the fixing, correcting, and leading of your spouse. You need to learn to instead just watch your WS's reaction to your stepping back and nurture your own self. Then prepare your consequences if he/she does not do what it takes. That's all you have, your ability to pull back from an R as a consequence. You cannot make this right again by taking charge over it.

If you feel you deserve to think of yourself as a victim because you are, you probably feel powerless to change things and want validation and compassion. That may or may not come, and you can end up waiting a lifetime. Instead, you have to stop waiting for this recognition of the pain, stop waiting for someone to validate your feelings. You need to take your power back by validating your own worth and healing yourself. Your WS cannot take what you won't give away. You cannot make things right by waiting for others to make it right. It is only what you believe about your own self that matters, and you have the power.

When we struggle after this abuse, what is our struggle? 50% of posters seem to be like me, realizing we can't fix this, control this, or guide the R. It just doesn't work. We have to love ourselves and watch our WS. If they don't step up, we need to enact consequences that protect us. That's how we heal, by staying away from those who hurt us. And 50% here seem to be looking for the validation and healing from their WS that they will most likely never get. They instead need to learn to step up and love themselves in the way they deserve by embracing power over their own thoughts and feelings. Their WS may or may not heal, but these BS need to harness their own power to recover.

We all have our own journey after this abuse, but the opportunity for growth is always present. It's maybe even necessary.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 3:21 AM, October 5th (Monday)]

And KingRat, who doesn't understand being a BS in the first place and is commenting from the more fortunate and privileged side of not receiving this abuse:

The INTENT

IS

MALICIOUS

And furthermore that DOESN'T MATTER.

They didn't mean to hurt you??

So what? They didn't MEAN NOT TO!!!

Actually they DID MEAN TO HURT YOU.

Because they could have protected you from STDs and DIDN'T.

So they DID MEAN TO HURT YOU.

???? Not sure what you are talking about. I made a point to say I agree with Thumos's analysis. I was simply presenting a counterpoint. Since this thread was premised on a logical analysis, I presented a logical counterargument for the sake of engaging in interesting conversation.

Your ad homimen attacks and emotionally charged language are unbecoming and detract from having intelligent discourse. You don't know anything about me. It's rather privileged to pass wild, unfounded accusations off as fact. If I were you, I suggest you check it. FOH.

[This message edited by KingRat at 3:50 PM, October 5th (Monday)]

I hope this thread is helping people but also understand the issue brings out strong emotions. I understand being triggered and feeling angry for sure. And I know I myself can sometimes drift into allowing my emotions to take over, so this is a little bit of the pot calling the kettle. I just Hope everyone can continue to contribute while keeping it substantive. Thanks.

[This message edited by Thumos at 8:59 AM, October 6th (Tuesday)]

I find it helpful and upsetting at the same time.

See anyone who rapes or beats someone up is subject to laws that set obvious and strict penalties and consequences.

For the abuse of infidelity theres no such things

I get that the burden of proof is so much harder with infidelity but dammit I wish there had been a judicial and social consequence that WH and his APs got slapped with.

Unfortunately our laws and our society still dont view it as a true abuse.

Onebiglie, you have a pm

Infidelity is abuse. I felt as strongly as Onebiglie did but didn't say anything. I think those refusing to see it as abuse don't want to because it interferes with any positive views of their WS. Abusive people can change and become better if they put in the work, but it still doesn't change that what they did was abusive.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 10:49 AM, October 6th (Tuesday)]

I feel as strongly about it too, and there’s no doubt there’s a certain amount of whistling past the graveyard that takes place when people start using plain language to describe adultery.

I think the phenomenon is described well in Orwell’s “politics and the English language” which demonstrates how the sanitizing of language leads to muddled thinking.

I started reading a very interesting book called “cheating in a nutshell” which describes almost perfectly the impact of adultery on the betrayed. In a chapter called “adultery apologists” they specifically dissect the harmful impact of the therapeutic and pastoral community that have both failed to grapple with the true nature of infidelity.

I think those refusing to see it as abuse don't want to because it interferes with any positive views of their WS.

Oh really?

Maybe I have a different opinion based on 30 years of observation of my own and many, many other instances of infidelity, seen from both the BS side and the WS side, including anonymous people, casual acquaintances, close friends, and family. Not to mention 6 years of reading and randomly participating here.

Be careful reading motives into people's actions based on minimal information.

I think adultery should come with a prison sentence!

Scarlet A be damned!

Oh really?

Maybe I have a different opinion based on 30 years of observation of my own and many, many other instances of infidelity, seen from both the BS side and the WS side, including anonymous people, casual acquaintances, close friends, and family. Not to mention 6 years of reading and randomly participating here.

Be careful reading motives into people's actions based on minimal information.

And that is ok but infidelity is STILL abuse.

Edited to add: I also have over 30 years of observation. My own parents were married to others when they first met and I've been reading here for 8 years. Also want to include that my own RA was abusive to my STBX.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 3:41 PM, October 6th (Tuesday)]

Thanks, Thumos, for starting this thread. There have been so many very good contributions. I've read 3 or 4 pages out of the 9, so haven't had time to read all of it, but it's a rich discussion. Just a few points:

• I'm the person who posted the review of the book 'Cheating in a Nutshell: What Adultery Does to the Victim,' which I continue to recommend highly. Look in the Book Reviews conversation on SI.

• I've long thought that adultery is abuse, so I very much agree with Thumos's premise. Yet I do think that King Rat makes an important point about intent to harm. So I'm thinking about that. I wonder whether premeditated fraud as a comparison: yes, the fraudster is motivated primarily by greed rather than by intent to harm & thereby abuse the victim, but surely the fraudster knows he or she is harming & thereby abusing the victim. Similarly, the cheater is motivated primarily by attraction, infatuation & lust, but she/he is also fundamentally aware that she/he is about to harm & thereby abuse the spouse. So is there a real difference, or is it a distinction without a difference?

• Devastated Dee notes that the effects of the adultery she suffered have been worse than the effects of the rape she suffered, and that also matched someone else's experience, though others have disagreed from their own experience. Several years ago I read an article in a journal of family therapy in which the authors cited their research that found that psychological damage from adultery was, generally and on average, greater than the damage from rape, child abuse and incest. That was a startling finding. How were the researchers able to quantify the intensity of damage people suffered? I don't know, and I've tried since to locate that journal article, but without success. Obviously people will differ in such assessments of their own experience, but that research impressed me.

• One of the closing chapters of Esther Perel's 'The State of Affairs,' is titled 'The Mother of All Betrayals?' I think for most of us on SI, cheating is, yes, the mother of all betrayals. This is largely because the trauma is inflicted, as the authors of 'Cheating in a Nutshell' point out, by the person we have let into our inner sanctum. So the trauma is more intense than that caused by natural disasters or harm inflicted by strangers or colleagues. (Btw, I don't agree that Esther lets cheaters off the hook. I was afraid she would when I started that book, but was reassured. Also, from her podcast 'Where Shall We Begin?' it's pretty clear that she takes adultery very, very seriously.)

Unfortunately our laws and our society still dont view it as a true abuse.

"Still don't"? I'd change that to "no longer do". They used to. In my parents/grandparents time, what my W did, and the proof of it that I had would have been grounds for a completely one sided divorce. Get out, keep the shirt on your back and have a nice life. No, cheaters didn't go to jail (at least not in recent US history) but they were "punished" harshly by society and financially for their crime. It's only in the last 30-40 years that has changed and it's become something else.

What kinds of boggles the mind is that in the era of affirmative consent, trigger warnings, and a million other ways that we've added "controls" to sexuality, this one way, we've decided "cuffs off, go at it". I've lived through a sexual assault as a young man, and, at the time, it wasn't really seen as a crime (what happened to me anyway). Today, it would be a "lock'em up and throw away the key" crime and yet, having had those 2 negative experiences, clothes torn off/held down by a group of girls and sexually touched and my wife cheating on me; well, at least for me, there's NO comparison. One was a little embarrassing and moderately uncomfortable while it was happening. I had no flashbacks, no recurring trauma, no triggers for years after. I wished it didn't happen, and I was embarrassed, that's about as far as it went. My W's A, I think I have some version of PTSD years later. I've written/talked about it for 1000's of hours. I was so mentally unstable after it that I was basically unable to work for months. I still think about it every day, what she did, the TT, the endless lies and revisions. Still think about the OM and I alone on the street together and what I'd do.

So, I just can't see how what she did to me isn't "abuse" if what those girls did to me is "abuse" or "rape". The pain and consequences are so much worse from what she did, we're talking 100X more pain/suffering/effort to heal/etc compared to what was, given todays standards (not at the time) at best sexual assault, at wors, rape.

I agree. The molestation at age 11 was nowhere near as traumatic for me. Happened 3 times.

CSA survivor too. Age 5. Went on for several months. His cheating? Way way worse.

XWH left for the latest AP. I've been in therapy since D-Day, coming up on a year. NC the entire time. Trying really hard to heal. I don't know if I'll ever feel normal again. Grieving someone who is still alive...it's a hell I never imagined.

Trying to quantify pain is redundant.

Its not like I'd ever go back and tell my five year old self to suck up the molestation cause I'll be going through much worse later on in my life....

I think we pretty much agree that infidelity is abuse.

Still don't"? I'd change that to "no longer do". They used to. In my parents/grandparents time, what my W did, and the proof of it that I had would have been grounds for a completely one sided divorce.

The bolded part highlights the difference. Back then all that scarlet letter crap was mostly (I assume) directed at woman. Men have always cheated throughout history. I stand by what I said. In today's society adultery is viewed in a romantic must be true love filter in media and movies. Very rarely do you see anywhere its shown realistically for the damage it does.

Geez I'm watching the series Sons of Anarchy right now and while the guys might have an "old lady" theres always times the guys go outside of their marriage or LTR to screw around.

Thumos,

Again, by continuing to advocate for using the term 'adultery' you are using a term that does not encompass all As.

My understanding of my state's law seems to exclude my W's A from the definition of adultery. My religion definitely does not see her A as adultery, although that may be changing. So I ask: was I not betrayed?

Adultery in my religion is a capital crime. Conviction, IIRC - my info is almost 10 years old - requires 2 adult male witnesses who saw the couple enter a room together AND who counseled the couple not to commit adultery. So adultery was a capital crime, but my bet is that convictions were extremely rare, no matter what the law says.

In many ways, using the term 'adultery' muddies thinking.

*****

I think those refusing to see it as abuse don't want to because it interferes with any positive views of their WS.

I think you've misread the posts.

Some of us see black and white. Some of us see black, white, many shades of gray, and colors. With infidelity, one must - IMO - weigh years of love and support + the possibility of even more years - maybe decades - of love and support against the abuse of an A.

I think it's a big mistake to think those in R blind themselves to reality.

In fact, I have to ask: what's the purpose of believing that people in R blind themselves to important facts?

*****

Newbies read these threads. I don't want anyone to read this and say to themself, 'OMG! I've been abused! I'm stuck!'

We BSes have been abused by our WSes. So what? That's something one's WS has done. The BS gets to choose how to respond, and the BS has a lot of options for responding.

Feeling angry, sad, scared, and/or ashamed is healing.

Obsessing over being abused can separate a person from their feelings, and that blocks healing.

Discussing infidelity as abuse may have a place in a theoretical discussion. When it spills over into dealing with the A - and how can it not? - it can be harmful.

[This message edited by sisoon at 10:39 AM, October 7th (Wednesday)]

Discussing infidelity as abuse may have a place in a theoretical discussion. When it spills over into dealing with the A - and how can it not? - it can be harmful.

It's only harmful if you have a reconciliation at all costs mentality (which I know you don't). To have a genuine R, I'd think it's helpful for both the BS and the WS to really understand that what happened was abuse. Thumos already laid out why it was abuse, so no reason for me to repeat that. Honesty and reality have to be a part of this. Truth is painful and upsetting, but it still must be faced whether you reconcile or divorce. Softening the impact on the BS with different language serves no one.

My RA was basically a mental breakdown and it was still an act of abuse towards my XWH. Now I'm going to remove whatever's left of my halo and say that I don't really care that he felt abused given the enormity of what he put me through, but that doesn't negate the reality of it.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 10:54 AM, October 7th (Wednesday)]

I finished "Cheating in a Nutshell" last night and highly recommend all here read it. It's a quick read with concise and punchy prose. And it's a great antidote to the misguided advice that is rampant in books on infidelity.

There is an excellent logical flow to the book that is difficult to dispute. It is also well-researched with plenty of documented psychological studies to back up the conclusions and incisive overviews on ethics.

I'm typically a "book snob" and want my books published by "larger" publishers as a stamp of quality approval. This was published by a smaller press, but it's really well conceived.

In addition, if you read it, you will find startling confirmation for what has already been outlined in this thread:

-Confirmation of adultery as abuse and as a form of rape depriving the betrayed of autonomy and agency and wreaking physical, mental and emotional havoc.

-Confirmation of the punching analogy that started this thread.(In fact, the authors state that the therapeutic industry has taken to treating cases of infidelity with the attitude of "we can’t stop you from being punched so we will teach you how to take a punch"

-Confirmation that anger is a righteous, correct and healthy response to adultery -- and that trying to deny the normal emotional response to betrayal is like trying to override the software in brain (thus leading to massive cognitive dissonance for those who try).

-Confirmation of the truth about forgiveness and being careful to avoid conflating it with reconciliation. The authors go into quite a bit of detail on this point, concluding that forgiveness is for yourself to get rid of feelings of bitterness and resentment -- but that a "doormat" approach will only encourage a will to power ethic in our society. They state: “Trying to play Mother Teresa or Gandhi with a cheater will drive you nuts.”

-Confirmation of the dire need to keep your feelings of love for WS separate from discussions of R or D. One does not follow for the other.

-Confirmation of the need for justice and recompense

-Confirmation of appropriate and needful skepticism for most claims of a “stronger and better” marriage after adultery.

-Confirmation of the embezzlement analogy myself and others have often used (in other words, no sane business partner would "take back" an embezzling business partner, even if they forgave them).

-Confirmation of intentionality in hurting the betrayed spouse. Confirmation of intentionality in the dozens of active decisions made or hundreds or thousands of mental and physical acts taken consciously and freely by unfaithful spouses in the course of even a ONS or short-term affair.

-Confirmation of the oft-discussed "finding out who they are" revelatory phenomenon that most betrayed spouses experience. The epiphany that the unfaithful spouse has kept powerful toxic neuroses hidden and asking rightly, "is this really the man or woman I want to spend the rest of my life with?"

-Confirmation of the need for the process of completely processing what happened and getting your mind clear. The authors seem to recommend at the very least an obligatory cooling off period of separation of a minimum of 30 days, something I certainly wish I'd known at the time of D-DAY.

-Confirmation on how cheaters try to rush the pardon before a betrayed can mentally "catch up " and think clearly.

-Confirmation that if I were to go along with my WW’s obvious lies (even if I still love her and even if she has other positive qualities) I will be severely compromised in soul and body.

I apprehended this last before intuitively but have never understood it so clearly until I read this book.

-Confirmation that most of the cottage industry books on infidelity are misleading at best, and that far too many are harmful. The authors offer up an excellent critique of some of the bestsellers, including Peggy Vaughan, Esther Perel and Janice Spring as among those to avoid(I confess reading the opening chapters of Janice Spring's book right after D-Day and was horrified by the blameshifting tone, even when I couldn't put that term to it.)

There's a great chapter called "Why Peggy Cried."

As we continue to discuss this topic on this thread, I intend to take each of these confirmatory affirmations in turn and discuss them in more depth.

Here are some stand out quotes and observations from the book:

1. The series of emotional reactions that a betrayed partner has to the abuse of infidelity are a form of moral modal intuition that seem pre-programmed within our being. It is akin to the "law written on their hearts." Trying to fight this intuitive moral response only brings more confusion and pain.

2. Research suggests disgust and revulsion (which is a normal response of faithful spouses to the betrayal of adultery, aka mind movies) evolved over time to not only protect us from physical harm to a more general protective response to keep us safe from unsavory people and unsavory situations.

3. "Disgust once aroused is nearly impossible to eradicate" ... "a characteristic of disgust is that it does not respond well to willpower."

4. Aristotle posited in his Nichomachean Ethics that anger (as opposed to rage) is a built-in virtue and that "anger prevents us from accepting rationalizations for wrongdoing" and is a "point of excellence." This backs up more recent research suggesting anger is a primary rather than secondary emotion, and is NOT a cover for other emotions (a common false therapeutic claim).

5. I didn't realize it because I picked my username on SI randomly, but "Thumos" is actually a callback to Aristotle's thinking on this subject.

6. Aristotle compared adultery to abandoning a comrade in battle.

7. "Everyone deserves a second chance" is a flawed belief.

8. "Anger is meant to be acted on." ~Julia Cameron

9. "Distancing yourself from the offender can be effective, further involvement usually is not."

10. "People who talk about infidelity in terms of right and wrong are often accused of being 'moralistic.'" My observations here is that we shouldn't do the wide community of unfaithful spouses any favors by enabling their bad behavior by going along with this.

11. If adultery is normalized in society "then honesty could not exist and justice as a concept would not exist. Nobody could be trusted. The social order would be chaos." I was struck by how this aligns with my own assertions that adultery in the 21st Century West is destroying social capital in communities.

12. "How do you live with a danger signal constantly ringing in your mind and body?" by staying with a cheater.

13. "Traumatic memories are factually consistent over long periods of time. Their vividness and quality remain essentially unchanged" while positive memories tend to fade and get fuzzy. This has profound implications for reconciliation.

14. Cheating is among the most traumatic of experiences because it is a man-made disaster that is deliberate.

15. "If the source of the trauma is betrayal and the victim stays with the person who betrayed them, there is no period of safety. The Red Cross never arrives. The shell-shocked soldier is stuck in a trench at the front." And the authors remind us that a standard practice in treating other types of trauma is to remind the victim they ARE IN A DIFFERENT PLACE from where the trauma happened.

16. "Telling the victim to stay because of a piece of paper is like telling the shell-shocked solider he must go back to the front because of an enlistment contract."

17. "moral emotions [such as disgust and anger] drive moral reasoning just as surely as a dog wags its tail. Emotion provides the value and reason trudges behind."

18. "Because moral judgements are made instantaneously, it suggests that conscious reasoning is not the primary factor."

19. "That's a problem with the traditional model of getting past infidelity. It is built on the premise that we can use an overlay of thinking to overcome our embedded emotional structure."

20. Risks ramify. If you permit risk, bad outcomes often multiply. Add one risk to your life (such as reconciling) and many other risks will suddenly come into play. This is the notorious "downstream effects" of adultery that seems to ameliorated more by divorce.

21. The essence of a lie (such as gaslighting within the context of adultery) "it is done knowingly and causes genuine harm." This alone establishes the intentionality of adulterers that has been debated so vigorously in this thread. "A lie [not a white lie or flattery or they like] is an assault that attacks not only the dignity of the other person but also their physical and mental well-being."

22. Research indicates a real and apparently well-known "doormat effect" - the more forgiving the spouse, the more likely you are to experience psychological and physical aggression from your partner!

23. "We are not required to have positive feelings for the drunk driver who killed our parents or the man who raped our daughter."

24. "Closure and forgiveness are both, in a sense, manufactured ideals. LIfe is a lot messier, and our emotions are a complex mixture of grief, anger, sorrow, joy and more."

25. About 80 percent of relationships infected by infidelity END.

26. A therapist may act as if your body and mind are not doing as they should. WRONG. You are reacting precisely in the way evolution or God designed you to.

27. "The question a victim of cheating must face is whether they have suffered and incompensable loss and whether some leveling will ever be possible ... Their promise not to do it again is ... hot air. A promise not to do what they already promised not to is meaningless."

28. "In the beginning people trick themselves into thinking they can push the rock because they have just started pushing. But after months and years all they can think is "Why am I pushing this rock?""

29. St. Thomas Moore's "Utopia" consigned adulterers to slavery. If betrayed partners could not shake off their love they were allowed to accompany the offender into slavery. VERY INTERESTING!