Should You Cheat? Marital Infidelity Explained

Cheating or remaining faithful in your marriage is a conscious choice.  It's never an accident.  You can't just get drunk and accidentally fall into bed a la The Jerry Springer Show, and have sex with your wife's sister.  In order to have sex with someone other than your marital partner, you have to plan it.

Premeditated cheating is rarely, if ever, because your spouse is not meeting your needs.  You might tell yourself that your spouse is not meeting your needs and therefore you cheat.  But the truth is, this is a delusion.  

Your spouse is not meeting your needs.  But when you cheat, it's because you want to.  If you didn't want to, you would address the problem within your marriage.  The energy you are putting into your extramarital affair could instead be put into solving issues within your marriage.  

So by cheating, you're saying you're not interested in solving the problems in your marriage.  You'd rather go elsewhere. 

Part of cheating is the primary process problem, in that, like infants who are hungry, they want food NOW.

In the case of infidelity, a cheater wants gratification NOW.  This infantile way of thinking creates a vacuum where a primary relationship is concerned--there is a vacuum in the marriage, and it needs to be filled.  So instead of filling it with therapy and effort, the cheater turns his/her back on it and fills it with another relationship, or just sex.

Sometimes with cheaters, a vacuum in the relationship is caused by their own inability to have a close and trusting long-term relationship.  Whether due to childhood trauma or because happy marriages were never modeled for them in their childhoods or whatever the reason, such people have a very difficult, nearly impossible time being with a partner for a long period of time.

Cheaters come in all forms.  There are the cheaters who only hire prostitutes, or only do on-line porn.  There are those who find a 'friend' at work and have long term affairs, and those who just have a fling now and then.  There are also those who meet their future spouse during an affair, then get divorced and do it all over again with someone new.

And then, there are those who do it all...prostitutes, on-line porn, long term affairs, one night stands.  Whatever it takes to fill that emptiness.

Whatever form the cheating takes, it never solves the real problem, which is self esteem and a sense of being lost in your own life.  

Cheaters are mostly infants in grown up bodies, who have no real relationship skills and no tools with which to gain the relationship skills they need to make a marriage work.  

Therapy sometimes works with habitual cheaters if those people realize what their problem really is, and if they really want to fix it.  But therapy does not always work even if cheaters understand the issues.  

Habits are very difficult to change, and too often, infidelity is an addiction.  When infidelity is an addiction, it is almost impossible to treat.

The accessibility of call girls, on-line porn, and other impersonal methods of cheating is so constant, that as an addict, a cheater can't run from it.  It's everywhere.  A cheater is a kind of hunter.  A cheater is constantly looking for opportunities to cheat, even if he/she doesn't want to any more.  There's a kind of radar that is part of the psychological make-up of a cheater.

People who are addicted to cheating most frequently leave treatment programs early, or complete treatment programs only to relapse the instant they turn a corner.  

Whether addicted to cheating or not, a marital infidelity can devastate an entire family.  

If cheating is on a list of solutions to a marital problem, it's best to look at the other options.  Therapy, possibly prayer, a battle to learn how to be more open and honest emotionally and verbally, possibly an exploration of sexual options within the marriage, can all be put on the table as options for a couple in trouble.  

All marriages are ethical, emotional, and legal contracts.  All marriages run into problems and solving them is part of the deal.  Breaking such a deal is an invitation to breaking the contract, which is an expensive, messy, unpleasant, and very often tragic solution to a much easier to handle problem.

In most of the western world, people can cheat in their marriages and not be stoned for it, so people considering cheating will make up their own minds.  Just remember, it's a decision, not ever an accident.  And it affects more than just the cheater.