Why Cheat?

[pepperbird]

16 hours ago, mark clemson said:

Respectfully disagree. What about police, firefighters, and soldiers who cheat? Perhaps you consider them cowards, but I don't. It seems to me they've made poor and/or unethical decisions, but aren't necessarily cowardly.  Although you certainly CAN leave a marriage, there's a lot of barriers. Costs, splitting your money, alimony, losing time with kids, etc, etc.

Now, all those things can certainly happen after one cheats, too. But I don't think most cheaters are thinking about that fully (certainly not as well as they should be).

 

That's weird, my understanding is everyone lies. Certainly you can hardly buy anything these days without being lied to in some way, from hidden fees to excess packaging etc.

Certainly all our political leaders seem to lie. And our presidents do it habitually. We vote for them anyhow. Clinton and Trump are both liars and most likely serial cheaters too. They made it to the highest office in the world anyhow.  Not sure how well these views align with reality.

MC,
the part about soldiers cheating is one I can freelly speak to. Both men and women int he military cheat, and do so quite commonly. It's actually part of the culture. On the one hand, there's the wife or husband at home and on the other there's a lot of pressure to cheat. If they don't have the personal strength of character, or are "broken" , they can make some really bad choices.

[2BGoodAgain]

12 hours ago, mark clemson said:

I think that's what WSs tend to figure out after their Dday and their life blowing up. No doubt when they're caught suddenly just owning up to their unhappiness and leaving seems like something they should have done instead. 20/20 hindsight and all...

Agreed, Mark... most, if not all, realize too late what they've done.. presuming they're at that stage where they can recognize the harm they have truly caused.

I thought i knew what i was doing... but honestly, i didn't... not at all... in the end, i'm grateful to learn this... it was a painful lesson but hopefully... facing it fully in the face.. the ugly me... will help me realize steps i can do, and behaviors i can change to click early warning signs of anything like it happening again... on top of that, a professional to help me recognize why i'm drawn to certain relationships... etc... 

we are all works in progress... i just wish we didn't hurt others in the process, as often, we do....

[Prudence V]

19 hours ago, mark clemson said:

a less selfish approach would be to stay in place (without cheating) and suffer "for the sake of the family".

You can’t pour from an empty cup. Eventually something’s got to give. The long-suffering spouse who “stayed for the kids” will eventually fall to the temptation of affection being offered them if they’re denied it- but still expected to give it - for too long. 

[Prudence V]

14 hours ago, mark clemson said:

I think that's what WSs tend to figure out after their Dday and their life blowing up. No doubt when they're caught suddenly just owning up to their unhappiness and leaving seems like something they should have done instead. 20/20 hindsight and all...

Yep. My H says now in retrospect he should simply never have allowed his xW back. He should have stuck to his guns, prioritised his own happiness, dragged the kids off to counselling against the xW’s wishes and helped them through the split. Sure, she may have acted on her threats of suicide if he didn’t take her back, but giving in to that just fed into a very unhealthy dynamic and he believes now that being firm, getting her sectioned if necessary and taking the advice of all of his family and friends not to take her back would have spared everyone so much grief. But at the time? He did what he thought best, or necessary, with the information and resources he had at the time. 

[DKT3]

11 hours ago, Hip Pocket said:

“Common cheater language”. When you label people (like your partner) that way instead of understanding human behavior you’re likely going to get burned. 

My educational background is human behavior,  I believe I have a pretty good grasp.

Its common for people who behave poorly to find justification for others that behave poorly. Human behavior is not as varied as people believe,  thus common excuses and reasoning for common behavior. 

That's not labeling people,  no more then saying redheads are normally fairer skinned then brunettes. Its factual. 

 

[Hip Pocket]

On 3/19/2020 at 12:43 PM, mark clemson said:

Respectfully disagree. What about police, firefighters, and soldiers who cheat? Perhaps you consider them cowards, but I don't. It seems to me they've made poor and/or unethical decisions, but aren't necessarily cowardly.  Although you certainly CAN leave a marriage, there's a lot of barriers. Costs, splitting your money, alimony, losing time with kids, etc, etc.

Now, all those things can certainly happen after one cheats, too. But I don't think most cheaters are thinking about that fully (certainly not as well as they should be).

 

That's weird, my understanding is everyone lies. Certainly you can hardly buy anything these days without being lied to in some way, from hidden fees to excess packaging etc.

Certainly all our political leaders seem to lie. And our presidents do it habitually. We vote for them anyhow. Clinton and Trump are both liars and most likely serial cheaters too. They made it to the highest office in the world anyhow.  Not sure how well these views align with reality.

My MM is not only in the heroic profession but also a lifer military man who’s seen two wars so zero coward factor on his part. He simply cares about the wellbeing of his spouse and feels bound to the promise he made to always be there for her, just not sexually. Cheating vs divorce was the lesser of two evils for him. 

[Hip Pocket]

4 hours ago, DKT3 said:

My educational background is human behavior,  I believe I have a pretty good grasp.

Its common for people who behave poorly to find justification for others that behave poorly. Human behavior is not as varied as people believe,  thus common excuses and reasoning for common behavior. 

That's not labeling people,  no more then saying redheads are normally fairer skinned then brunettes. Its factual. 

 

What a coincidence, I’m in the same field. But I would never use labels like that. 

[pepperbird]

27 minutes ago, Hip Pocket said:

What a coincidence, I’m in the same field. But I would never use labels like that. 

I forgot, the labels are the real problem, not the action. 😂

[DKT3]

1 hour ago, Hip Pocket said:

What a coincidence, I’m in the same field. But I would never use labels like that. 

Oh come on,  profilers are 95% labels. You analyze behavior and label it. Most human behavior share a strong commonality,  there are only so many ways one can respond to any given situation,  the only true variation is in the degree of that reaction. Such as how angry, how sad and so on.

Most mental health professionals will label behavior.  Your comments are confusing for someone in the field. 

Edited March 20, 2020 by DKT3

[mark clemson]

2 hours ago, Hip Pocket said:

Cheating vs divorce was the lesser of two evils for him. 

Yeah, that is how some cheaters see it I think. I do suspect many BSs might see it differently, though.

If he has a Dday and it blows up what he was trying to "protect", he may indeed regret it. Dunno. If he tried to tell his wife about you and she didn't take him seriously, well, sounds to me like denial on her part (but that's just a guess).

[Prudence V]

14 hours ago, mark clemson said:

If he tried to tell his wife about you and she didn't take him seriously, well, sounds to me like denial on her part

This happened in our case as well. It’s far more common than you’d know from these forums. 

[Prudence V]

On 3/20/2020 at 4:19 PM, DKT3 said:

Human behavior is not as varied as people believe

It’s actually much more varied than people believe. Context matters, as real social scientists understand. Crude behaviourists who think of humans as Skinner rats haven’t been taken seriously in the social sciences for decades - for good reason. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

On 3/20/2020 at 1:34 PM, Hip Pocket said:

My MM is not only in the heroic profession but also a lifer military man who’s seen two wars so zero coward factor on his part. He simply cares about the wellbeing of his spouse and feels bound to the promise he made to always be there for her, just not sexually. Cheating vs divorce was the lesser of two evils for him. 

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but wasn't promising not to cheat also in his vows?

[Prudence V]

On 4/14/2020 at 10:26 AM, DKT3 said:

It's a self serving narrative.  By making his wife out to be a monster it eases both her conscious and her choice in men. You know, she's horrible so no wonder he cheated on her, tag teaming that statement with he only cheated because she is horrible...meaning he won't cheat on me because I'm so much better. 

Sadly,  for many people affairs are simply transitional relationships, using the affair partner as a bridge from marriage to single life.

 

Nice try with the pile on, but also way off the mark. I had no interest in painting her as a monster, his relationship with her was none of my business, just as my relationship with him was none of hers. It would have made much more sense to me if she was sweetness and light; that he stayed because he loved her. Everyone (his family, his friends - he himself never said a word against her) told me she was a nasty piece of work, but it was only seeing it in action for myself that I realised they weren’t just taking his side. She really did treat others badly, in personal and professional contexts. 
 

I have no need to ease my conscience. My conscience is just fine. I don’t regard people as anyone’s property, I consider them individuals with agency and free choice. So his choice to engage in a relationship with me was his choice - and thus entirely on him. 
 

On 4/14/2020 at 4:41 PM, CaliforniaGirl said:

All right, just my opinion because I don't know this person's full story. But I feel like if it were me, and I married someone who had left his wife for me, deep down I'd logically be thinking: well, if he did it to her, why can't he do it to me? So I might create a narrative making the other person out to be awful and very different from me as my assurance. "No, this was an extreme case. Very different from our relationship." I'd also have to invent some great reason that I did something awful - being implicit in breaking an innocent person's heart and in breaking the children's hearts. Otherwise I'd probably never sleep at night. "She's absolutely nuts and a horrible person" might be the only way I could convince myself.

 

I didn’t do anything awful - she wasn’t an “innocent person” by any means, having her own history of infidelity in both her marriages, and nor were the children’s hearts broken. They were happier, and are now well-adjusted adults. 
 

Nor do I lose any sleep worrying that he may be unfaithful to me. If he does, so be it. It won’t change the wonderful relationship we’ve had. There are no guarantees in life, and anyone could do that in any relationship. I’ve learned to trust him - I’m not a naturally trusting person - and I choose to live my life trusting that we’ll continue to treat each other with love and respect, and enjoy being together, and that should that change, we’ll move on. I’m not losing sleep over hypotheticals - there are far more pressing things to be concerned about, like the planet frying or the economic impact of protracted shutdown or how my students are faring in lockdown. 
 

This thread was, “why cheat?”. Some of us took the trouble to actually respond to that, to explain why it was that people we know did “cheat” rather than take the option that everyone agrees is better, ie dump the outgrown partner and then take up with the new love. But explaining why someone took that issue automatically makes you an apologist, it seems; it automatically makes you some kind of evil person yourself, some saddo who needs to twist themselves into a pretzel to ease their conscience and still their own fears. Like, whatever. 🙄 If someone responds in  good faith to something someone else asks, and you feel the need to make yourself feel better by attacking them for offering a perspective that differs from your own, perhaps things are going as well in your own life as you’re believing. Content, healthy people don’t feel the need to attack unknown others on anonymous platforms just because they disagree. Just saying. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[understand50]

Why Cheat ? 

Because at that particular moment, they can.  They do not think they will get caught, and if you believe statistics most do not get caught, or the other party does not   care about them, or  they just wanted to.   All cheating is self centered.  They cheat because they want to.  Much the same as having sex when single.  It is something to do, something fun, they deserve it, and the feeling, well being of their spouse does not enter into the picture.

It is best,  if you are a BS,  you understand just what your spouse did and why.