what to do when you're the one who cheats

For our latest session of our Sex Plus Symposium, we were joined once again by sex therapist expert Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. to discuss the topic of infidelity and infidelity recovery. You can learn more about Dr. Tammy on her blog.

Most people have been affected at some point in their lives by infidelity, and we explore that during this session. Statistically, you’ve had an affair or been cheated on, or someone in your life — perhaps your parents — has had an affair.

What is an Affair?

Any affair consists of three parts: a relationship, sex and lies.

Relationship

The outside relationship is a connection in some way with someone other than the partner — whether it’s online, paying a sex worker or a coworker.

Sex

This can include pre-sexual behavior such as flirting or micro-sexual behavior such as sexual advances that haven’t progressed to genital cheating. This could also include online, mutual masturbation.

Lies

The dishonesty could include the discovery or the disclosure of the dishonesty within a relationship. It could also include the gaslighting a cheater does to their partner so that they no longer trust their own reality.

Another way to define infidelity is if you’re participating in behavior you wouldn’t want your partner to know about or “catch” you doing. There is a high level of “second adolescence” affairs — or more commonly referred to as a “mid-life crisis” — which is looked at as a do-over of adolescence development consisting of separation, individuation and hyper sexuality.

In this instance, the cheating partner needs to be reminded that they’re not breaking away from their parents, but instead breaking away from their spouse and family.

There are many aspects to an affair and just like any relationship it is complex.

How Reactions to Cheating Have Changed Over Time

If you’re a woman and you cheat, there are a host of names you may be called. On a whole, the terms applied to women are pejorative. These include:

terrible wife
seductress
sinner
adulteress
flirt
slut
whore

For men, historically, they’ve been called names such as:

bad guy
womanizer
casanova
wife stealer
sinner
scoundrel
player
heartbreaker
adulterer

Some of the terms describing men can actually be considered flattering or as a compliment, and some men wear it as a badge of honor. There can also be more excuses used, like “He was young and didn’t really mean it.”

It’s not uncommon to shame women for their physical appearance, sexual desires or their profession. In order to stop “slut shaming” women who enjoy sex with multiple partners or own their sexuality, we have to take a look at all the factors involved.

At the root of any affair, we need to look at the “why” of why a partner cheats.

Why You Cheat

Why anyone might cheat varies from person to person and couple to couple. It could be caused by neurological issues like depression or trauma recovery, attachment issues, a sexless marriage, managing stress, self-esteem, over-focusing on children or finding your alter ego.

People aren’t necessarily looking for someone else. Instead, they look to be someone else. They’re looking to explore a part of themselves that, for whatever reason, they feel like they can’t be in their relationship. An affair can counteract a person’s negative self-talk through no fault of their partner.

Events leading up to the affair by no means excuse the cheating, but it can provide some context to why it happened and lead to a clearer path toward healing.

For many, cheating feels good. More specifically, the attention and devotion feels good and becomes addicting. There’s also a sense of release from shame or judgment you may feel you’ll receive from our spouse that perhaps you can’t be as open in bed or as sexual as you’d like to be.