How do you cheat on someone you love?
A big question after discovering my husband’s affair was, “How do you cheat on someone that you love”?
How do you cheat on them, lie continuously and deceive them, hurt them, break your vows, and even look them in the eyes while doing it?
In this post, I will review several reasons how people can cheat on someone they love.
Going through TONS of therapy with my husband helped us both discover WHY he did what he did. Understanding why your spouse cheated is the first step.
I never in a million years thought my husband would cheat on me. Early on in our relationship and even throughout, we always said we would never cheat on one another.
We couldn’t understand how you could do that to someone you loved. Just break up with that person if you want to cheat. Release yourself. Release your spouse from the destruction.
However, affairs aren’t black and white.
While affairs seem pretty straightforward, the motivations and circumstances surrounding them are anything but.
Cheating is little small steps of deceit. You are slowly pushing your boundaries. Very delicately even. You are continuing to make things okay. And the small things you make okay soon turn into big things you make okay.
Agreements that you make and doors that you open can not be taken back or closed.
My husband and I wish we were better equipped with the tools and knowledge to protect and guard our marriage from an affair.
Sometimes you think you know. But you don’t know what you don’t know until sometimes it’s too late. Life does that. We go through these tragic things. And healing takes place in the midst of all the heartache.
Suffering is what builds us and causes us to build better, stronger versions of ourselves. My husband was lacking in many areas and had to face a lot of his crap after the affair came out. Regrets do that. Bad choices do that.
Did all of his crap and mistakes and bad choices mean that he didn’t love me? No. He still loved me very much, in fact.
Sure, there were things in our marriage that needed work, but my husband, his character, the way he viewed life and sex and women, and many deep-rooted issues from the past and even his childhood led him to his choices.
Those choices were about him. Not me.
I want to remind you that having an affair is a choice, and none of these reasons excuse the cheater in any way.
So let’s dive into the reasons people cheat on someone they love:
1. Character Flaws:
Lack of integrity:
The dictionary defines integrity as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles and moral uprightness.
I have found that those lacking integrity fabricate stories to fit their needs. They’re dishonest, disloyal, secretive, and do everything they can to justify their actions.
Individuals who have affairs struggle to understand the impact of their choices on their spouses and loved ones. Cheating is all about lies and deception and doing things in secret. There is a profound lack of integrity in a person who cheats.
Emotional Immaturity:
Someone lacking emotional maturity and more of an adolescent mindset may seek validation and excitement outside the marriage.
Someone who cheats may struggle to navigate feelings and may lack self-awareness, again not thinking about how their actions affect those around them.
My husband and I got together at a young age (18/19). We were still children. His affair happened when he was 35. The woman was much younger.
Often, when getting together so young, you almost miss out on discovering who you are as an individual. You may find later an almost unfulfilled longing from your youth.
Again, this isn’t me excusing my husband’s behavior; I don’t think he fully understood himself or his needs or had the correct set of skills even to communicate them at the time. He was acting like a teenager would act and almost looking for what was lost in adolescence.
Or things he needed to discover for himself in early adulthood. Neither of us discovered this being together so young.
Even if you were not together from a young age, emotional immaturity can be present in the cheating spouse.
Low self-esteem:
Insecure people need validation from others constantly. One of the most common reasons for someone to cheat is due to the way they feel about themselves and their need for validation and attention from others.
They may even feel insecure or inadequate in their marriage, causing them to step out and cheat. Some need to escape feelings of inadequacy. People with low self-esteem also struggle with setting appropriate boundaries.
Impulsivity:
When someone is impulsive, they tend to act on sudden urges or desires without concern for consequences. Impulsive people also tend to think less about how their choices will impact themselves and others around them.
They act on immediate desires, have difficulty resisting temptation, have poor decision-making skills, cannot delay gratification, and display recklessness in their behavior.
2. Relationship Problems-
Problems in the marriage can create vulnerabilities that may lead to an affair. Again, I’m not making excuses, but let’s be honest. Our marriage wasn’t perfect. No one has a perfect relationship.
Once I healed more from my husband’s affair, I was able to look within and look more at myself, our marriage, and things that needed work. To name a few:
- Sexual/Intimacy issues
- Unmet needs
- Anger/Past issues not dealt with
- Resentment/bitterness
- Communication breakdown
3. Pornography Addiction:
I’m not saying that everyone who has a pornography addiction will cheat on their spouse.
But I would say it led to the destruction of my marriage and opened up the door for my husband to have an affair.
Sex addiction is a hard and challenging thing to navigate. Especially if you also realize the depth of your spouse’s addiction after the affair. It is like a double whammy.
A pornography addiction distorts a person’s view of relationships and sex and women especially. Expectations are clouded, and an inability to understand true intimacy in the confines of marriage is blurred.
My husband began his addiction at the young age of 15. He and many others may not have been equipped with the skills to understand the damage it does to loved ones and, more importantly, to yourself.
My husband’s affair wasn’t about me. He had years of images in his head of things he liked and desired. All of which I fell short of. It also weakened his commitment to me. It led to an extreme way of acting out in the form of an affair.
4. Temptation:
There are temptations all around us. Food, sex, money, drugs, gossip, alcohol, social media, lying, and cheating are all common examples.
When it comes to an affair, you have to set boundaries and know that you aren’t exempt from attraction to someone else simply because you are married.
The Bible tells us to flee from immorality and youthful lusts. I believe affairs begin as lust and the inability to flee or protect ourselves and our marriages. This is easier said than done, but temptation and opportunity can arise at any time.
My spouse still loved me but didn’t do what he needed to protect himself and me from temptation. Temptation causes you to be weak and vulnerable if you are not careful. It looks pretty and desirable. The grass seems greener. But there’s nothing but death and destruction waiting for you on the other side.
5. Childhood Trauma:
Someone who cheats often has unresolved issues from childhood. They may deal with unhealthy attachment styles or again self-esteem issues.
In the case of my husband, his mother was a true narcissist. Look up how narcissistic parents mess up their children, and there’s a lot of understanding for my spouse.
Again, this is not a reason to make excuses for my husband stepping out of our marriage and having an affair. His childhood helped me better understand him on a psychological level and why we tend to act out later in adulthood and struggle tremendously in our relationships.
Conclusion:
The answer to how do you cheat on someone you love is very complex. It is also completely subjective as to whether you believe love for your spouse and infidelity are compatible.
From my experience, I think it is possible for someone to love their partner while also having conflicting emotions that may lead them to an affair.
In moments of weakness or vulnerability, people act in ways inconsistent with their true feelings or values. I also think many cheaters struggle with certain character flaws.
Some even cheat impulsively, only to regret their actions later. Some have addictions; others are emotionally immature. And some don’t bring their authentic selves to the marriage.
There are also unmet needs and sexual intimacy issues. These things can lead to deep-rooted issues like resentment or bitterness.
All lead to the breakdown of a marriage and may lead to an affair.
I still don’t think any of these mean your spouse no longer loves you. Even though it can and will feel this way for some time.
In the end, if you and your spouse are both willing to come to the table and deal with your past, the cheater is willing to look within and gain self-awareness and understanding of their actions, and most importantly, show remorse, you can come to see the love your husband or wife still has for you.
It will take time.
Even five and a half years later, I do know all of these things, and yet there are still times when it is difficult to understand how my husband could do this to me. To someone he loves. It has caused so much pain on both sides. You can come out on the other side, but it will take a lot of work, empathy and for us God’s love and grace to see you through.