Let’s talk about cheating
I have had this concept bouncing around in my head for a long, long time. I think we think about cheating in relationships all kinds of wrong, and I want to dig into that a little bit. So here’s the hot take:
Cheating is not, in and of itself, the problem. Cheating is a symptom of the problem.
I’ll pause while everyone shouts at me.
Okay, now that you’re done, let me show you my working.
My credentials on the topic, to start with: I have, in various relationships, been cheated on, been cheated with and been the person doing the cheating. And I maintain to this day that in every single instance, in my life, the problem wasn’t actually that anyone was just an asshole. The problem was always something deeper, more complex and more nuanced than that.
I’m going to be real with you. Sometimes cheating is, in fact, a symptom that someone in the equation is a dick who doesn’t give a damn about other people’s feelings, and wants to do whatever they want without dealing with the consequences. This is true. But it is also true that this is not always the case, and, I think, is actually the least frequent root cause. Because even this probably has a deeper root cause which has something to do with why that person behaves that way, and what is going on with them that means that they can’t stay still in a relationship long enough to form the level of intimacy that makes you care about another person’s feelings. But I digress. Unless you are that person, or their therapist, their issues are not your problem, and you are not obligated to understand them.
Far more frequently, I think, cheating is an indication that there is something in the relationship that is missing for the cheater. And the healthy, responsible thing to do here, is to try and address that. How do you do that? Well, I suppose it depends on where in the equation you fall. Let’s look at all of them.
What if you are the person cheated on?
This is the person usually most hurt by the situation. The betrayed. The harmed party. The people around you will gather about to tell you that the cheater is a terrible monster, and you their innocent victim. Be careful of taking this role on too fully. If you step too firmly into the role that the world is trying to give you here, you may never be able to actually pull apart the standard narrative threads to get to the heart of the thing. This is perhaps especially true if this keeps happening to you.
I have known people who have been cheated on by every partner they have had, and their song is always something like, “why do these people keep choosing me?”. And I always say, “Why do you keep choosing them?” Here’s the hard truth. If a terrible thing happens to you, you may be a victim of circumstance. If the same terrible thing happens to you again, you may just be unlucky. But if it happens a third time, that’s a pattern, and you’re the common denominator, and it means that something in you needs attention. I shall pause again while people yell at me about victim-blaming.
Look. Just because you maybe need to address why the same terrible things keep happening to you does not mean you deserve them. It also doesn’t mean that the people doing the terrible things are not responsible for that. But it does mean you need to take a long hard look at yourself, your choices and your actions, maybe the way you see yourself, the things you seek out, to address why you keep ending up in this situation. That’s all I am saying. It is easy to sit back and wail about how terrible things keep happening to you. It’s easy because it’s not your fault; it’s out of your control. Taking control, owning it, working on yourself, that’s much, much harder, but ultimately, also much more empowering.
Okay. So step one is, don’t step into that role. Take a breath, deal with your feelings. Feel them. Feel the anger and the hurt and the betrayal. They’re real, and it’s okay to feel them. Then look at the person who cheated on you and make one important decision: are they worth work, or not? Only you can make this decision. Not your friends, not your family, not your children, if they exist, not the person in question. Only you. When you think about them, and what they bring to your life, and what they mean to you, are they worth to you the trouble it will take to dig deeper? Because it won’t be easy, and if you decide that the answer is yes, you have to decide that with the full awareness that they may not make the same decision, or that, even if they do, it may not work. Or that, even if you both decide on the work, what you find may be a level of incompatibility that cannot be overcome. Deciding to try does not mean it will work out. All it means is that you are willing to go into the valley with them and find out.
If the answer is no, then easy. Walk away. No matter what they say, or how much they apologise, or what anyone else says, you walk away, you sever ties, you grieve the relationship, you split up your CD collection, or figure out who gets the house, or work out how to coparent your kids, and you move on with your life.
If the answer is yes, buckle in. It’s going to be a rough ride. Because the next step is finding out if they want to work on it. They may say yes. They may say yes out of guilt, or because they love the children you have together, or because they don’t want to deal with splitting up your lives. They may say yes for a thousand wrong reasons, and if the reason is anything other than “let’s work out why this happened because I love you and I want to find a better way” the process will fail.
And then you do that work. Maybe, if you’re both able to be really self-aware and honest, you can do it with just the two of you. Maybe you need a therapist. Either way, you will have to give up your high-horse as the betrayed party, and they will have to set aside their guilt. Because guilt and blame will only taint the process. What happens next is a deep dive into what is missing. A deep dive into what that person was getting from the other person, or from the act of cheating, that they need. What need is not being met, and can it be met without them behaving in the same way?
I can’t tell you the answer to this. Sometimes it’s that they’re not actually monogamous. Sometimes it’s that there is something happening in their brain that leads to risk-taking behaviour. Risk-taking behaviour is exciting, and novel, and it makes the dopamine fizz. If they have a shortage of dopamine for any reason, this is a way to get it. Maybe they just need to take up sky-diving? Maybe they need to see a doctor or a psychiatrist and get medication that makes that unnecessary. That would be a nice easy solution, but… SPOILERS humans almost never actually need a nice easy solution. It is far more likely that there is a need that is not being met in the relationship. And the work, then, is to figure out what it is, and whether it can be met. I wish I could tell you that this is easy. That it’s a matter of one conversation. It isn’t. It is a long, arduous journey. They probably don’t even know what it is. You’re going to try, you’re going to fail, you’re going to fight. And if you’re both very, very genuine in your desire to find a way forward, you may solve it. Over time. With a lot of work between you. Or you may find that the thing they need is not something your relationship can give them. Or that giving it to them will hurt you. And then you will have to deal with that outcome.
What if you are the cheater?
So, you’ve cheated. Maybe you got drunk with an old friend and things got out of hand. Maybe you met someone who utterly blew your mind and changed your life, and now you’re in the awful position of loving your partner but also loving this other person, and what the hell do you do now? Maybe you just like the thrill of finding someone new and the secrecy and forbidden part of it is exciting and it makes everything heightened and that makes your brain chemistry fizz in awesome ways. Whatever it is, whether it’s a serial thing, or a single individual, you now have to make a decision: tell your partner, or wait until the truth comes out.
My darling, my sweet. The answer is always to tell them. Yes, I know it’s hard. Yes, I know you don’t want to have that conversation. But the truth has a way of bubbling up. Sooner or later, one way or another, they will find out. There is a good chance they already know, on some level. People often know more than they let themselves know, and most people are not as good at hiding these things as they think they are. Telling them will suck. It will be awful. Regardless of how you feel about them, it is going to be a horrible experience. And it will still be better than the inevitable experience of them discovering the truth by any other way.
You should probably go into that conversation knowing whether you want to try to save the relationship or not.
If you don’t, then it’s a breakup conversation. If it’s a break-up conversation then be honest, but try to avoid being cruel. There is no need, in this case, to lay out every deficiency they have shown that has led you to this point. There is no reason to bring up everything they have ever done wrong. Don’t go in defensive. They will be angry, and hurt, and probably say a lot of awful things. You have put them in this position, and you will have to wear that. Be firm, be as kind as you can without lying. Accept that you have had time to process it, and probably even grieve it, and they have not. Accept that you may have to accept the role as villain of the piece.
If you do want to save it, or, more likely, you’re not sure, then it’s a much harder conversation. Because then you have to tell the truth, face whatever their very valid feelings are about the truth, accept that they may not have any interest in saving the relationship, give them whatever time and space they need to actually work through their own reactions, and accept their decision, no matter what it is. You have done a thing, and you have to accept the consequences of that thing.
You may have already worked out your reasons, or begun that work, but this is not the time to justify yourself. This is the time to express sorrow and grief, if you feel it, to reiterate your love if it exists, and to own your mistakes. Because they are mistakes. Whatever your reasons for cheating, and they may be manifold and legitimate, you have still betrayed a trust. That doesn’t necessarily make you a terrible person. It makes you a flawed human being. But reasons are not excuses, and betrayal and lying to someone who trusts you is inexcusable, regardless of reasons. So accept the consequences. You may get an opportunity to fix them and address the reasons, but that isn’t up to you at this moment. Your responsibility is truth. Tell it. Answer questions if they’re asked. Resist the urge to meet anger with defensiveness. You will have to be brave and vulnerable, but how you act in this moment is going to have a huge impact on whether you get a second conversation. So stand in the storm.
When the storm passes, it is up to them whether they are willing and able to meet you where you are. It is up to them whether they are going to try and work with you to find and understand and address the reasons at the heart of what has happened.
Your part of that is to look really hard and honestly at yourself and your behaviour and try to understand what you were looking for. What is the thing you were trying to find? Or if it happened without you looking, what is the thing you found that was not present in your current relationship?
Honestly, the absolute toughest place to be is if the person you were cheating with matters to you too. Because you may actually love two people. You may actually be polyamorous. I genuinely think a lot more people are naturally inclined towards some kind of polyamorous love than we think, and one of the reasons cheating is so prevalent is that far too many people have bought into the idea that monogamy is the One True Way and that one person should be everything to you. If you’re very, very lucky, the person you’re with will have similar tendencies, and maybe, just maybe, you will be able to find a way forward. I’m going to be real with you though: this doesn’t happen often. Far more frequently, sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose.
If, however, you’re not in a situation where it’s a single shiny person, then your job is to work out what led you to the behaviour, especially if you went looking for it. Because if you can articulate that, if you can work that out, you’re going to have a much easier job talking it through. If they meet you there, if you’re able to sit down and actually work on the reasons, then the real work begins, and it is the same work as above.
The key thing, when you’re a couple working through one person cheating, is to set aside guilt and blame, and be a couple working the problem. If you are coming at each other oppositionally, you’re not going to succeed. You’ve got to be a team against the problem. It’s not a fight with each other. If it is, then there must be a winner and a loser, and in this case either everyone wins, or no one does. It’s difficult to set aside guilt and blame. Do it anyway.
Maybe you work it out. Maybe you don’t. But if you can’t find a way to communicate honestly with each other about your needs, about what you want and need from the relationship, and be really open and honest about whether whatever that is can be found between you in a way that doesn’t leave either one of you feeling hurt or deprived or betrayed, then it will not work. Then, sooner or later, you will slip back to it.
What if you’re the person being cheated with?
I’m very sorry, but none of this is up to you. If the cheater cares about you, if you care about them, then you have to decide every single day whether whatever the current status quo is is something you can accept. If they’re telling you they’re going to leave their partner for you, but they haven’t done it, you have to work under the assumption that they won’t.
I maintain that sooner or later the truth will come out, but you cannot control how the other two people in this situation will handle that. They have history, they may have children, or property, or any number of complicating factors. Maybe you are, in fact, this person’s shiny person. Maybe you really do mean a lot to them. But if they haven’t acted on that yet, you have to assume they won’t. And then the choice before you is: am I okay with this? Can I be okay with this? And tomorrow you will have to make the same choice.
Is it your fault? Well, in the sense that you know this person is betraying a trust, and that you are agreeing to be party to that, then yes. In the sense that you’re putting yourself in that position, that that is a choice you’re making, then yes. If you trust this person, but you see them break that trust with someone else, you need to ask yourself very seriously why you think you’re different. It may be you are. It may be that there is something between you that doesn’t exist between them that means that trust is more reasonable. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re something so irresistible to them that they’re willing to risk everything to be with you. This may be true. But you may also just be a symptom of something going on with them.
And you’re probably too close to the situation to be able to tell for sure.
So you decide: Is what I am getting out of this worth what I am paying for it? And you decide that every day.
——
Humans are complicated, and our relationships are complicated. It would be great if love was simple and straightforward, but it is usually messy as all hell. Part of that is because our expectations of how relationships and love is ‘supposed’ to work are usually born out of some kind of weird cultural osmosis of romance stories and familial and societal expectations, and unravelling what you actually want and need out of that mess is the work of a lifetime.
Regardless of where in this messy very common human equation you find yourself, the only way out is to be really honest with yourself and the people with whom you become entangled about what you’re doing and the reasons for why you do it. The only way is to be brave and vulnerable, and set aside the roles the world gives you and work out what you as individuals want and can accept to move forward.
And the first step is to put aside guilt and blame, and the idea that the cheater equation involves a ‘bad guy’, a ‘victim’ and a ‘side piece’, and understand that it actually involves a bunch of complicated human beings full of flaws and feelings and messy needs and wants, and a thousand nuances and shades of grey.
I wish you luck, and love, and healthy solutions.
——
Are you in this situation? Do you need to talk it out over tea with a non-judgy person who has some life experience in this realm?