You guys say you have your reasons. You’ve had a dead bedroom for years. Your spouse is not being affectionate. You’re tired of feeing taken for granted. You don’t feel loved by your spouse anymore. You need something new in your life. You’re missing that spark. You want to feel desired again. You want that feeling of being in love again. Maybe your spouse is being abusive to you. Maybe your spouse straight up despises you. Maybe they cheated on you first.
Then you find that there’s someone else out there who can give you want you want. You bite into the forbidden fruit. Then suddenly you’re happy again. You got that spark, that love for life again. You feel desired, and worthy. You can’t get enough of it. You need to be with the Affair Partner more. It’s what you live for. It feels so wonderful. You think, what the others don’t know won’t hurt them, right? You can hide your tracks…
The problem is, I tend to hear similar things from substance abusers.
Life is hard, dead bedroom, job sucks, spouse stressing you out, life feels dreary, bad things happened in the past, etc. Ok, here’s some heroin. Or meth. Or crack/cocaine. Or some good old alcohol. You get that high you were looking for. And now you can move on.
Until you need that next hit.
And of course, what the others won’t know won’t hurt them, right? You can cover your tracks…
I know that dealing with reality is something that is becoming harder and harder for more and more people to deal with, but you have to understand that no matter how hard you may try to escape it, THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS. No matter how much you may think you may be good at hiding your misdeeds, no matter how much you scheme with your friends, no matter how many tips you may read from fellow cheaters on seedy subreddits, you’re going to get caught. You are not that clever. You are not that special. Your number will come up.
To put this into perspective, think about how many US government conspiracies that have been exposed over the years. Iran/Contra. The Tuskegee Experiments. The planned terrorist attacks on Cuba. The LSD tests on citizens. We found out about this stuff… and these were things that were being hidden by high ranking government officials, people who had a vested interest in making sure the public didn’t find out. These were professionals. They were paid to do this. They had the backing of the US government behind them.
And they still got caught.
And here you are, thinking you’re clever because you can delete messages from your cell phone.
Also, you ARE hurting other people.
I know the self delusion is strong on this point, and you have other cheaters trying to reinforce that notion, since they also have a vested interest in believing it, just like other meth heads have a vested interest in reassuring other meth heads. But to think that you aren’t hurting others with adultery is just lying to yourself. It DOES hurt other people. The lack of respect you have for your spouse does leak through, and they DO notice, even if only subconsciously. They’ll sense the disconnect. Your kids will, too. The lack of agency you give your spouse by forcing them to live with someone they probably wouldn’t want to be with if they knew is reprehensible; they think you actually love and care about them, and would never do something like this to them. The fact that you think this is ok speaks volumes about how messed up your morality is. This isn’t even bringing up the possibility of STDs messing them up on top of that. Did they really deserve all that from you? Especially if they are actually a loving spouse?
You know that all this is wrong. I don’t even have to say “deep down, you know this is wrong.”; you know this consciously. BECAUSE NO ONE DOING SOMETHING THAT THEY FEEL IS INNOCENT WOULD DO WHATEVER THEY COULD TO NOT GET CAUGHT.
If you’re not happy, communicate. Talk to them about it. If you already did and they still aren’t listening, then be the adult.
LEAVE.
“But what if I can’t leave?!” That’s a retort I tend to see, and even heard from others I’ve talked to about this. “What if I don’t want to lose my house/kids/income etc?” “What if I can’t afford to?”
See the above. You are going to get caught. When that happens, you’re going to lose all of that anyway. You’ll be in an even worse position to negotiate separation terms than you would have if you had just be honest and started the break up process honestly… to say nothing of what would happen to your reputation.
You know what’s at stake for committing such an act of betrayal on your partner, just like the drug addict has been told the risks of grabbing the needle. The damage that will result is much worse than you simply confronting what is making you unhappy, and taking the responsible action for fixing that. People keep picking the irresponsible choice, sing about how great things are while they are living in their fantasy world, vilifying those calling out their behavior, and then bemoaning their fate when the other shoe drops.
I get it. It’s a human thing. People do this sort of crap all the time. But it doesn’t mean I have to excuse it. I expect better from people. And you should, too.
Especially from yourself.