Relationships: Cheating

September 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment

“Why would my boyfriend cheat on me?”
“I’m pretty sure my wife is cheating on me. I want to know why.”
“I know that my husband has been cheating on me for years. I don’t get why he does this.”

Why do people cheat on their partners? Why do others have affairs that their partners know about?

Here are some of the reasons for cheating that I have encountered in my many years of counseling.

- Ed has been cheating on his wife for years. Ed is addicted to the thrill of conquest. It is not actually the sex he is after, but the sense of power he feels when he is able to get a woman in bed with him. Because Ed takes no responsibility for his own feelings and sense of worth, he uses women to fill him and define him. It has nothing to do with his wife - it is all about his lack of responsibility for his own neediness.

- Eloise cheats on her husband because she is seeking the attention from men that she refuses to give to herself. Eloise is constantly giving herself up to her husband and then blaming him for her unhappiness. Like Ed, Eloise takes no responsibility for her own feelings and needs. She seeks validation through sex and attention outside of her marriage because she refuses to learn to love herself. Eloise’s cheating has nothing to do with her husband.

- Max is terrified of intimacy. While he claims to love his girlfriend, he has a deep fear of being controlled by a woman. Instead of taking responsibility for his fears and developing a loving adult aspect of himself who is capable of setting limits against engulfment, his way of avoiding this fear is to have affairs. His cheating has nothing to do with his girlfriend.

Here are some reasons for having affairs that their partners know about, which cannot be called cheating since they are being honest about it:

- Gene and Gloria married after being long-time friends. They hoped that the passion would develop between them, but it never did. They care deeply about each other but they have no chemistry. While Gene is fine with this, Gloria isn’t and has a second relationship that meets her needs for passion and romance. Gene knows about this and accepts it.

- Roger has been with Edith for 30 years. While he loves her and doesn’t want to leave her and break up their family, they have little in common and little to say to each other. Roger has another relationship with Angie - a deeply connected emotionally and sexually intimate relationship. Edith knows about this, as Roger spends half his time with Angie. While Edith doesn’t like this, she has accepted it rather than end their marriage.

What I see is that there are basically two major reasons people have affairs, the first being far more prevalent than the second:

* They are addicted to getting filled up and getting their sense of worth through sex or conquest. They are needy people who emotionally abandon themselves and use sex or power to fill the inner black hole that comes from their self-abandonment. These people generally have multiple affairs.

* They are in a long-term marriage that they don’t want to leave, but the marriage is completely unfulfilling. These people do not have multiple affairs, but have a committed relationship with another person while staying married. Their partners generally know about it.

Most people who cheat are unwilling to do the inner work necessary to fill their own inner emptiness. Their cheating is addictive, and it is likely that they are also participating in other addictions to fill their emptiness - smoking, drinking, drugs, spending, gambling, food, work, TV, and so on. Until they decide to learn how to love themselves and take responsibility for their own feelings, it is unlikely that they will stop cheating.

Author Bio: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a best-selling author of 8 books and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding.

Posted by Brahem | Filed Under Cheating Spouses 

How To Save Your Relationship After Adultery

July 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

After adultery a relationship is the weakest it’s ever likely to be, but this can be a good thing. This sounds like it is hard to believe, but the truth is that the time after adultery is also the time that can make or break a relationship, which can be a huge opportunity.

Nobody likes to be cheated on. Nobody should be cheated on. But cheating isn’t the problem, it’s the symptom. There is always a bigger problem underlying the infidelity and if there’s anything good to come after adultery, it’s knowing that there is a problem that you need to address.

The time when a relationship is at its weakest is also the best time to do the work that will bring it to being its strongest. There’s an idea in the military that you need to tear a person down so that you can build them back up, strong than they ever were before, and this is true in relationships as well.

After adultery what your relationships needs is a complete overhaul. This isn’t optional, because if you try to just go back to the way things were, then what you’ll find is that history will just repeat itself. You need to start over and build things back up from the bottom. Tear it down to bring it back stronger than it was before.

The first thing you need to do is spend some time apart. This may seem counter intuitive since you’re dealing with an after adultery situation, when the urge might be to not let your partner out of your sight for a single second. But the time apart will allow you to see your relationship from a different angle, and this perspective will be important for the relationship repair process.

The next thing you need to do is to figure out exactly what the problem was, and the answer to this question is not ‘they were sleeping with someone else’. You need to find the deep down problem that was behind the infidelity, and you need to do something about the problem.

After you’ve done those two things, it’s time for you to start the relationship over. The key part is to do it from the beginning. Go on dates again. Start over just as if you were dating somebody else. You need to treat this as a new relationship because if you want to repair your relationship after adultery, then it has to be a new relationship.

Although you’re being building a new relationship after adultery, you do need to keep in mind the problems that made all this necessary. The idea here isn’t to have the same relationship you had before, the idea is to have a better one, and this means you need to avoid making the same mistakes.

Rebuilding a relationship after adultery will be hard, but it will also be one of the most worthwhile things you can. Remember, there is help available out there, and seeking it out one of the best things you can do for your relationship.

Posted by Brahem | Filed Under Cheating Spouses 

I Saw Her Husband Cheating - Should I Tell Her?

June 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment

It’s a happens more times than you would think! You’re out and about running an errand, minding your own business and you bump into a friends husband and he’s with someone he’s not suppose to be with. Initially he doesn’t see you, but you stand and you watch and you observe that the woman that he’s with is clearly more than a friend. Your friends husband is having an affair and you are left wondering what you should do next.

Your thoughts are, as you sit down with another friend later that evening with your own husband, you tell him this: “I saw her husband cheating, should I tell her?”

Your husband warns you against saying anything, but the reasons that he lists are valid, but still your dilemma prevails and you don’t know what to do for the best.

Here’s some of what your husband might have said to you:

“I Saw Her Husband Cheating” - Shooting the Messenger

Telling the unsuspecting wife means you could end up having both barrels blasted at you from a wife who is not ready to face what her spouse is up. She might have built herself a safe little emotional cubby hole where she goes and hides out from the reality of her life. Anyone who attempts to blast her out of that cubby hole, into the reality of what is actually going on, is going to get it!

Plus, ask yourself this, is she going to believe what you’re saying to her? Again denial is a powerful tool when you’re in a desperate place.

“I Saw Her Husband Cheating” - Are You Ready For the Mayhem?

If you do tell her and she confronts him with what she’s discover, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have your name thrown around in the ensuing mayhem.

Again, you could end up being the bad guy that the two of them unite against and turn their anger and range onto. So before you go jumping in doing ‘the right thing’ ask yourself if you’re ready to be the fall guy for their woes.

“I Saw Her Husband Cheating” - But it’s Not My Business

Many people faced with what to do after witnessing something they shouldn’t have, take the stance that it isn’t their business and they’re not getting involved. Which is completely understandable given what could happen if you tell the unsuspecting wife.

If you decide that you’d rather stay out of it don’t beat yourself up and feel guilty about your decision. You are not responsible for anyone else’s choices or decisions.

“I Saw Her Husband Cheating” - Should I Have a Quiet Word With Him?

For many this is the solution that a lot of people will opt for. Having a private word with the cheating husband to warn him that you know and that he better fix up and either end the affair or tell his wife, is not a bad strategy to opt for.

It removes you from the full on fire and wrath of the wife, but talking to the cheating husband also makes you feel that you have actually done something!

Whatever you decide to do in a dilemma such as this, make sure that you think really clearly, long and hard before you decide to do what you consider ‘the right thing!’ What you saw or think you saw, might suddenly not be so black and white!

Author Bio: I saw her husband cheating - discovering that a friend’s husband is cheating on her, might well be one of the big dilemmas that you are faced with. Should you tell her or should you keep what you saw to yourself? Click here for more help: Is Your Spouse Cheating On You?

Posted by Brahem | Filed Under Cheating Spouses 

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